NOTE TO THE READER

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

PROLOGUE

"When will they come?" The man who had taken the presidential oath six
weeks before heard himself repeating aloud: "When will they come?"
The capital was besieged and its connection with all the states cut off. The
continued existence of the Union depended on the appearance, and quickly,
of troops to hold off the expected Confederate assault. Lincoln peered out the
second-story window of the Mansion. He scanned the Potomac River for
signs of a ship supposed to be bearing the Eighth Massachusetts regiment
under Ben Butler, bolstered by the Seventh New York and perhaps the Rhode
Islanders that Governor Sprague had promised. Only with those reinforce-
ments could any sort of serious fight be waged to save the nation's capital.
"Sir, General Scott is downstairs," said an officer at the door. It was Colo-
nel Stone, in charge of the city's ragtag militia. Lincoln knew his force was
made up of thirty-three companies of part-time soldiers and a Home Guard
of elderly veterans of the War of 1812. The only company considered a fight-
ing force was a National Rifles company of Marylanders, but that was a
hotbed of disloyalty. In Georgetown, the Potomac Light Infantry had just
disbanded, prompting the derisive toast "invincible in peace, invisible in
war." But Colonel Stone was doing the best he could until troops from the
north arrived. "Shall I ask him to come up?"
Lincoln shook his head and followed the colonel downstairs to the front
portico. General Scott weighed three hundred pounds and was almost dis-
abled; climbing stairs would be painful for him.
"They are closing their coils around us, Mr. President," said the command-
ing general of the army that did not exist. Scott reviewed the three military
disasters that had befallen the government of the United States in the past
three days since the secession of Virginia: the burning of the Harpers Ferry
arsenal, the abandonment of the Norfolk Navy Yard with all its ships, and
worst, the destruction of the railroad bridges leading from the capital to the
north. The general then turned to Colonel Stone to ask how he planned to
defend the city of Washington if the rebels came across the Potomac.
"We will resist at three points," said Stone, "the Capitol, the Post Office,
and here at Executive Square."
"No," said Scott immediately. "You don't have the troops for three cen-
ters. Concentrate what forces you have on holding this area right here."
Lincoln nodded vigorously; it was essential to hold the Mansion until rein-
forcements came, if they ever did. He assumed that General Scott, hero of the
War of 1812, remembered the national ignominy when President Madison
had to flee this house and allow it to be burned by the British; if that were to
happen now, the war would be over before it began.
"Barricade every entrance to the Treasury," Scott ordered, pointing to the
building across the street. "That will be the citadel."
"We can build breastworks there with sandbags," the colonel agreed. "It
has a good supply of water and two thousand barrels of flour in the base-
ment."
Apparently flour was important in a siege; Lincoln had been told that flour
had doubled in price to fifteen dollars a barrel. At least they would have
bread to sustain them, if there was a bakery in the Treasury Building. He
would be sorry to see the presidential mansion surrendered, but the govern-
ment would not be so humiliated if it chose to make its stand in the more
fortlike Treasury.
Lincoln thought he heard the boom of cannon. Rebel artillery? Had the
assault commenced? Scott and Stone said they heard nothing. Lincoln left
them and hurried back upstairs, not knowing whether he had taken to hear-
ing things or his commanders were deaf. Outside his office was a delegation of
wounded soldiers, men of the Sixth Massachusetts who had been injured in
rioting in Baltimore.
"I don't believe there is any North," he told the handful of men who had
proved their loyalty. "The Seventh Regiment is a myth. Rhode Island is not
known in our geography any longer. You men here are the only Northern
realities."
Lincoln saw that his bitter words caused concern on the faces of the New
Englanders standing awkwardly in the presence of their commander in chief.
He realized it was unseemly for him to reveal his own doubts to loyal boys
who had come to the capital through a barrage of rocks. The President com-
posed himself and asked their leader how he and his men had been injured.
"We left Boston a week ago, right after you called for the militia," the
sergeant said. "Train came down through New York and Philadelphia fine,
but in Baltimore there was a terrible brawl. We had to shift cars, and the
crowd of plug-uglies hit us when our railroad cars were being drawn by
horses from one depot to the other on the far side of town."
Baltimore, the only rail link north, was steeped in secession sentiment. The
month before, on his own trip from Springfield to Washington to take the
Inaugural oath, Lincoln had been forced to sneak through the city of Balti-
more in disguise. That had angered him; no President of the United States
should be forced to undergo such indignity. He asked about casualties to the
Union soldiers.
"We heard a pistol shot and fired back at the mob. Killed about ten or so, I
thinkfour of our men were killed in the wild rush. Maybe thirty hurt, like
us here."
Lincoln could imagine the scene: an infuriated crowd, rocks thrown at the
frightened recruits, perhaps a shot fired in the air or at someone, and the
undisciplined soldiers responding in panic by blazing away into the mob.
Blood, fury, hatred, everyone at fault and nobody to blame. After that riot,
the Mayor of Baltimore and the Governor of Maryland had sealed off the
state from the further passage of troops. Theirs was a selfish and craven act.
Coming so soon after the secession of Virginia, the closing of the bridges
meant that the capital of the Union was isolated from the North.
Then the telegraph wires to the North had been cut. Washington was out of
all touch with its supporters, if indeed the national government had any
supporters. The last batch of New York newspapers to come through last
week had been filled with glorious expressions of war spirit and news of
enlistment parades. But where were those parading soldiers? Panic's conta-
gion did not find him immune; the sudden desertion of the city left Lincoln
shaken.
He had not expected it to be this way at all. The bold steps he had taken
to provision Fort Surnter, to call out the militia, to resist secession, to spend
great sums of unappropriated moneyseemed to lose all force or meaning as
the local citizens packed their belongings, nailed shut the doors to their
homes and commercial establishments, and ran. The black freedmen disap-
peared as well, presumably fearful of being newly enslaved. Those citizens
who stayed included the Southern sympathizers, of which Washington had so
many, waiting to welcome the conquering Confederates.
Lincoln sent the wounded men out with a few reassuring words and re-
sumed his vigil at the window, troubled to have to admit to himself that the
cannon sound he could have sworn he had heard had been only in his imagi-
nation. Reinforcements were not forty miles away. Why did they have to wait
to rebuild the rail track, or wait for a shipwhy couldn't they start walking?
Ward Hill Lamon, his trusted friend from Illinoisa Virginian of powerful
build and blind loyalty who had appointed himself presidential bodyguard
remained at the door, pistols at the ready, posing as a last line of defense in a
helpless city.
When would they come? If General Beauregard's Virginia troops moved
before the Union ship or train arrived, the secession would be successful.
England and France would promptly recognize the political force that had
captured the Union capital, overrun the Treasury redoubt, and seized the
President and his Cabinet. He was certain no Northerner would then come
forward to rally his countrymen to the cause of Union; on the contrary, the
pressure from nervous Republicans, not to mention fretful Democrats, to let
the Southern states depart the Union peacefully would be irresistible.
"One good thing about being surrounded and cut off," said young John
Hay, the second secretary, "is that you can throw a rock down the hall and
not hit an office seeker. First time it's been quiet in this place." Lincoln did
not feel up to responding to the attempt at cheer. "I was at Willard's last
night," Milton Hay's nephew continued, "and the hotel was deserted. No-
body at all in the dining room. Eerie feeling."
Lincoln hated to have to depend on General Ben Butler, of all politicians,
for the nation's deliverance. In the past election, the Massachusetts Democrat
had been a Breckinridge man, and the abolitionists in Boston were angry at
Butler for supporting the candidate the slavocrats preferred. Butler was a
maverick, said to be tempestuous, arrogant, with a reputation for acting be-
fore thinking. In this extremity, however, just that sort of action by a bluster-
ing politician in a general's uniform was what Lincoln needed.
He craned his neck forward; what was that activity on the river? "Hill, go
down to the Navy Yard and see what's happening." Butler might have landed
his men in Annapolis, against local orders and state laws, and marched his
men to Washington. Or he might have steamed around. Or this might be a
boatload of secessionists.
Hill Lamon passed the order to Hay: "John, you run down there. I'll stay
with the President." Lincoln did not object; Hay would probably be quicker
anyway.
The wait was agonizing. Lincoln assumed that if the vessel contained a
rebel regiment, General Scott would make a brief but symbolic stand at Trea-
sury, then begin negotiations for surrender. Perhaps the general would try to
slip the President and Cabinet out of the city on horseback to Annapolis or by
fast boat that night. If faced by that prospect, what should he do? Run for it,
of course. Perhaps he could rally the country from Philadelphia or New
York; each of the two cities had been the capital at one time.
What had he done wrong? Against the advice of his Cabinetall but the
strong-willed Montgomery Blair, a West PointerLincoln had decided to
wage war rather than permit the Southern malcontents to break up the gov-
ernment. Even now, he was absolutely certain that had been the right deci-
sion. The secession had presented one stark question: whether a democracy
could maintain its territorial integrity against its internal foes. The answer, in
his mind, could not be clearer: a government could not be so tender about the
rights of its citizens that it lost the power to maintain its existence.
No; the mistake he had made was military. He had counted, foolishly it
now seemed, on the existence of a Northof armed forces in beingpre-
pared to march and sail down to defend the capital. He had thought Mary-
land, a slave state, would be neutralized by the sight of thousands of Federal
troops passing through. To those rebellious souls who threatened him with
"peaceful dissolution or blood," he hoped to have the troops on hand to give
his answer: blood, or no dissolution.
He heard rapid footsteps. Hay appeared at the door with a breathless "It's
General Butler and the Eighth Massachusetts, sir, and the Seventh New
York, and Sprague and his men. They're forming up to march down Pennsyl-
vania Avenue."
Lincoln picked up his hat and went down to the front porch to see for
himself that there really was a North. General Scott wheezed his way from
the War Department across the street to join him. He could hear a drumbeat
in the distance.
"Mr. President, the Maryland legislature is meeting tomorrow to vote on
secession. General Butler asks permission to bag the whole nest of traitorous
Maryland legislators, and to bring them in triumph here," the old hero of the
Mexican War announced. "I told him that was a political decision for you to
make."
For the first time Lincoln realized he had the military power to prevent a
state from seceding. But did he have the legal authority? The arrest of whole
legislatures had never been contemplated by the men who had formed a union
of states. Lincoln was not bothered by punctilio: he had already summoned a
militia and imposed a blockade without permission of Congress, which was
being called despotism. Of course, Lincoln rejected such charges, but he had
decided weeks ago that he would do better without the Congress breathing
down his neck until the crisis was over. He had set the date for convening
Congress at July 4, more than two months from now. It would hardly help
the cause of Union to have the politicians from all over the country in town,
in session and in his hair. To get the war properly begun, he needed a breath-
ing spell, the freedom of action to put down the rebellion without the inter-
vention of the institution that reserved for itself so much of the power he
needed.
"I think it would not be justifiable," he replied to Scott about the arrest of
the Marylanders. "We cannot know in advance that their action will not be
lawful or peaceful."
"We could simply disperse them," offered the general. "No arrests."
"They'd immediately assemble someplace else." Residents were beginning
to appear along the streetsome cheering, others sullen, most just waiting for
the parade. "No, let's watch and wait. If they take up arms against us, you
can bombard their cities." At least for now, Lincoln would resist the tempta-
tion to arrest a state government.
"General Butler is a lawyer, sir, which I am not. He says he must have the
power to suspend habeas corpus."
He winced. There it was: the demand for military rule. The success of the
plug-uglies of Baltimore in choking off the capital's line of communication
and supply made necessary, at least according to Butler, the application of
unprecedented power. He hesitated. "I'll have to mull that over."
Down Pennsylvania Avenue from the Capitol, raising the dust from the
hard dirt of the wide boulevard, came the most welcome sight of his life: well-
formed ranks of soldiers of the Union, flags fluttering, the chirruping, boom-
ing sound of a splendid regimental band heralding their arrival.
"That's the Seventh New York," said Scott, squinting at the flags. Across
the street, the whole Blair family turned out on the porch of their house,
waving a large flag. The citizens of Washington came out of hiding and lined
the avenue in front of the President's house to cheer. Lincoln breathed easier,
feeling the spirit and power of liberty embodied by men in blue uniforms
surging into the capital of the nation.
The next day, as the Federal troops were bivouacked in the House of
Representatives, the President read and reread a draft of an order that would
take him into waters that the Constitution had only sketchily charted.
The pigeonholes of his rolltop desk contained the accumulation of his brief
time in the presidency. Some were already stuffed full, like the one marked
"Greeley," containing editorials from the New York Tribune, with covering
letters from the editor exhorting him to smash the rebels who had dared to
fire on Surnter; others held only a single item, like the slot for Thurlow Weed,
the Albany editor and notorious wirepuller, who had written asking for the
juiciest patronage plum in New York.
On the writing surface of the desk was a sheet of paper, the words on it
awaiting only a date and signature to take on the force of law. Lincoln picked
up the order to his commanding general, considered it, put it down again
unsigned. Succinct enough, limited to the area of greatest danger, surely
necessary.
He rose, placed the knuckles of his large hands on either side of the paper,
and read:
"To General Scott: You are engaged in suppressing an insurrection against
the laws of the United States. If at any point between the city of Philadelphia
and the city of Washington, you find resistance which renders it necessary to
suspend the writ of habeas corpus for the public safety, you personally, or the
officer in command at the point at which resistance occurs, are authorized to
suspend that writ."
If this were signed, any lieutenant serving under Ben Butler could arrest
any person he thought suspicious, clap him injail, and all but throw away the
key. The lawyer in Lincoln came in conflict with the commander in chief. Of
all the freedoms wrested over the centuries from kings and tyrants, the privi-
lege of the writ of habeas corpus was fundamental. "Produce the body" was
the Latin command, the demand of an independent judiciary that anyone
arrested by the government be brought before a court of law to see whether
his arrest was legal and proper. Under habeas corpus, both the rulers and the
ruled agreed to subject themselves to the rule of law; without habeas corpus,
the courts were powerless to determine whether a citizen was arrested for
cause. Where that writ did not run, no society could call itself freeany
soldier or policeman could break into any house, grab the occupant, throw
him into prison, and the person would have no recourse. The word for gov-
ernment without habeas corpus was tyrannymartial law, the age-old route
to absolute power by dictators. In this case temporary, of course, rooted in
necessity for survival, but that was the way most permanent tyrannies began.
William Seward entered the President's office as airily as if it were his own,
which he and many people thought it should have been. Lincoln always
admired the way the Secretary of State carried himself: all grace and nobility,
a commanding presence made piquant by trace of world-weariness. "Billy
Bowlegs" was the tallest short man Lincoln had ever met.
Seward glanced at the document on the table and said, "Yes, that's itsign
it.  What are you  squeamish about?  There's  a war on."  When  Lincoln ex-
plained that the suspension of habeas corpus was not a precedent to be lightly
set, Seward brushed aside his reservations about the abridgment of liberty.
"It's right there in the Constitution. Didn't your eminent Attorney General
explain it to you?"
Lincoln was quite familiar with Article I, section nine, paragraph two, and
recited it aloud: "The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be
suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may
require it."
"Well, there you have it. That means the writ may indeed be suspended
when, in case of rebellion, the public safety does require it. Which is now, so
sign." Seward tapped the top of the paper. "Put today's date up in the space
providedit's the twenty-seventh."
Lincoln reminded him that some lawyers were saying that the founders had
put the suspension in the section of the Constitution dealing with the powers
of Congress, and that the legislative branch alone, not the Executive, was
vested with that power.
"That reminds me of a story," said Seward, mimicking Lincoln's technique
of argument. "Your campaign manager in Chicago made a horrendous politi-
cal deal at the convention, promising that old thief Simon Cameron a Cabinet
post if Pennsylvania would desert me and support you. However, you sent a
telegram to your manager, saying with some sanctimony, 'Make no deals in
my name.' And your manager said loud and clear, 'We're here and he's not'
and the dirty deed was done. The point is, we are here and Congress is not."
Lincoln appreciated the story. "More rogues than honest men find shelter
under habeas corpus."
"If you want company on this, let the responsibility for the arrests be mine.
We cannot suppress an insurrection while observing all the constitutional
niceties."
Lincoln took up his pen. "Old Roger Taney isn't going to like this one bit."
"To blazes with the Chief Justice. It was his own damned decision in the
Dred Scott case that brought on the war."
If Seward had no compunctions, Lincoln asked himself, why should he be
afflicted with them? Chief Magistrates of great nations were supposed to be
the way William Henry Seward was at this moment: decisive, firm, single-
minded, purposeful.
Lincoln thought of the rowdies in Baltimore, how their criminal agitation
had caused the deaths of innocent civilians as well as sturdy young soldiers.
Would it not be wiser to arrest such men before their troublemaking led to
death, and before their terrorizing could cause the state to isolate the nation's
capital?
He wrote in "27" after "April," which already appeared across the top,
and signed his name. Seward snatched up the document and handed it to a
secretary to rush to the War Department. Lincoln was aware that he had just
clothed himself with more power than had ever been possessed by George
Washington or Andrew Jackson. Environed by treason, he did not feel un-
comfortable about it.
BOOK ONE
 
John Cabell
Breckinridge
CHAPTER I
JUDICIAL DEFIANCE
Getting up the steps to the bench was a problem. Irritated at his own infir-
mity, Roger Taney waved aside the bailiff's offer of help. The oaf had mispro-
nounced his name in calling the court to orderTaney should be said to
sound like "tawny"and the Chief Justice wanted no assistance up the stairs
from the likes of him.
The Chief Justice of the United States was one year older than the nation.
At eighty-four, after thirty-six years of service as John Marshall's successor at
the head of the Supreme Court, Roger Taney was aware that he had been
preparing for a lifetime to take the action likely to cause his arrest and impris-
onment. The old man had told his daughter as much that morning, in-
structing her what clothes and books to bring him at Fort McHenry's mili-
tary jail.
He pulled himself up the railing next to the steps, taking his seat behind the
bench with an angry grunt. The prospect of dying while incarcerated held no
terrors for him; that sort of martyrdom would help him make his point.
The point that Taney was determined to drive home to the nation on the
broiling day in late May in Baltimore was that the Constitution could not
rightly be defended by unconstitutional means. If the Union could not be
maintained lawfully, with a proper regard to the civil liberties of its citizens
during its greatest test, then it was the Chief Justice's opinion that a peaceful
separation of the slaveholding states should be permitted.
Not that he approved of secessionon the contrary, Taney believed that
the Southerners were mistaken in their intent to dismember the Union. But
he never let his personal views determine his decisions: his job, his mission in
life, was to stick to the law as written. No law, no word in the Constitution,
prohibited a state from withdrawing from the Union, and every power not
expressly given to the national government belonged to the states and the
people. The founders had established a federal system, not a national system,
and nothing that this arrogant new President said in his Inaugural about an
oath "to preserve the Union" could change that. Taney had to give Lincoln
credit for being a clever lawyer; interpreting the union of states as indissolu-
ble on the basis of his understanding of the oath of office was creative. But it
was not the law, nor was it for the President to decide what was the law.
Roger Taney and his Court would do that.
He ignored the gavel in front of him; a judge should be able to quiet a
courtroom by the force of his gaze, with no help from pounding wood on
wood. Not that this was much of a court, he observed; the old Masonic Hall
served as a district court because the citizens of the rowdy city of Baltimore
were too cheap to build a courthouse.
Each of the nine members of the Supreme Court was expected to ride
circuit, as he was today, sitting as an individual judge in a designated area.
Taney's assigned area included the state of Maryland, where the first casual-
ties of a civil war had taken place. He had seized the opportunity to come to
Baltimore and try the case that would hold the new President to the rule of
law.
The bailiff, although he could not pronounce a name properly, had been
properly instructed to cry out Taney's national titleChief Justice of the
United States of Americaand not judge of the federal circuit court, sitting
as a local jurist. Taney was determined to issue his order as Chief Justice of a
nation, just as Chief Justice Marshall had done in the time of Thomas Jeffer-
son, establishing the court's authority to decide what is constitutional and
what is not.
Not since he had issued his decision on the runaway slave, Dred Scott,
holding that a negro in this country had no rights which the white man was
bound to respect, had Taney felt as exhilarated. He looked around the court-
room for black faces; there were a few, and he could feel their hostility. Pity
about that. They would never understand he held no animosity toward the
blacks, had freed his own slaves fifty years ago, and had said in open court
that slavery was a blot on the national character. But it was not for a judge to
write law, merely to interpret it as its writers intended.
Robed and ready, comfortable in the law and secure in the rightness of his
cause, the Chief Justice surveyed the other faces in his courtroom. Word had
evidently spread, as he had hoped, that this would be a day of confrontation
between the national executive and the national judiciary, between the force
of arms and the rule of law. Taney's eyes, still sharp enough to read footnotes
in agate type in printed opinions, spotted some familiar faces at a table set
aside for members of the press. The correspondents of the Northern radical
press were there in full strength, poised to brand him "traitor" for daring to
uphold the authority of due process. The man from Horace Greeley's New
York Tribune, along with the man from Henry Raymond's New York Times,
were certain to support their radical Lincoln in any of his dictatorial acts
aimed at punishing the seceding Southerners. The other side was there, as
well: a reporter from the Louisville Courier was present, a man Taney had
spoken to several times, and from whom he expected a fair report on the
day's proceedings. Kentucky was as important as Maryland these days, and
both those internally divided border states were more important than New
York.
Looking at the seats beyond the table of reporters and defendants, the old
man could make out the strong features of the face of another Kentuckian:
Senator John Breckinridge. Taney nodded in his direction. Breckinridge, un-
til a few months ago, had served as Vice President of the United States in the
Buchanan administration, and many thought he was more responsible than
any other man for Lincoln's election. By running for President as a Peace
Democrat, Breckinridge had split the vote of War Democrat Stephen Doug-
las, helping Lincoln to win the presidency with fewer than four votes out of
ten cast. After the national election, the legislature of Kentucky had immedi-
ately sent the popular Breckinridge back to Washington as senator.
Why was Breckinridge in court here in Baltimore? Taney surmised that the
Kentuckian wanted to receive instruction on the limitation of the war powers
of the President. The Chief Justice would give him that, and more, all to be
used as ammunition in the Senate to curb a runaway Chief Executive.
Taney's eyes followed Breckinridge as the tall man changed his seat to put
himself next to Anna Ella Carroll, who had positioned herself in the first row
behind the reporters' table. Taney knew Miss Carroll, too, just as everyone of
any influence seemed to; he was friendly with her father, the former governor
of Maryland. In Maryland, the Carrolls were as influential as the Biairs,
though not as wealthy. This daughter had surprised everyone by turning out
to be a writer, a pamphleteer and publicist for the railroads. Taney considered
her an attractively vivacious, if somewhat assertive, young woman. Not so
young anymorehe estimated her to be fortyish nowand blessed with a
keen mind. Would likely have made a good lawyer, had she been born a man.
The large family that sat together at the defendants' table, looking more
indignant than worried, was the kin of John Merryman, the man seized by
Union troops after the outbreak of violence and the subject of the day's
hearing. Taney did not see Merryman himself in the courtroom. That meant
that the government was refusing to "produce the body" and was prepared to
show its contempt of the court. The Chief Justice called on Merryman's
lawyer to begin.
"Being at home, in his own domicile," the lawyer read from notes, "peti-
tioner John Merryman was aroused from his bed about two o'clock in the
morning of May 25, 1861, by an armed force and deprived of his liberty."
Taney nodded and prompted him. "The writ."
"He has been imprisoned without any process or color of law whatsoever.
The person now detaining him at Fort McHenry is General George Cadwal-
lader."
"The writ, the writ," Taney snapped, wishing the lawyer knew how to
present evidence in proper order.
"We promptly came before you in this court to pray that a writ of habeas
corpus be issued, directed to the said George Cadwallader commanding him
to produce your petitioner before you with the cause, if any, for his arrest and
detention."
"Upon my order, the writ was issued," Taney said. "Clerk will read it."
"The United States of America to General George Cadwallader, Greet-
ing," the clerk called out. Taney wondered if the characters in this drama
realized the constitutional import of their roles. "You are hereby commanded
to be and appear before the Honorable Roger B. Taney, Chief Justice of the
United States, in the U.S. Courtroom in the Masonic Hall and that you have
with you the body of John Merryman"
Taney cut him short and pointed at the U.S. Marshal, a portly fellow
standing alongside a man in uniform. "Did the court's marshal serve the
writ?"
"I served the writ on the general, Your Honor," the marshal's voice
boomed, "who sends this court his aide, Colonel Lee, in reply. So answers
Washington Bonifant, U.S. Marshal for the District of Maryland."
Taney glared down at the military aide; for the general to send a flunky
added insult to constitutional injury. "What is the general's response to the
lawful writ issued by this court?"
"The prisoner is charged with various acts of treason," replied the colonel
coolly, "and with avowing his purpose of armed hostility against the govern-
ment."
"That is no answer to the writ."
"General Cadwallader has further to inform you," the officer went on,
unperturbed, "that he is duly authorized by the President of the United
States, in such cases, to suspend the writ of habeas corpus for the public
safety." He began to offer a legal argument. "In times of civil strife, errors, if
any, should be on the side of the safety of the country, and"
Taney would have none of that, from a person with no standing before this
court. He wanted to keep the issue clear. "Have you brought with you the
body of John Merryman?"
"No."
"The General has acted in disobedience to the writ," Taney declared, "and
it is ordered that an attachment forthwith issue against him for a contempt,
returnable before me here at two P.M. today. Marshal, do your duty."
The Chief Justice took lunch alone in what passed for his chambers, a
dingy room upstairs where he spooned down an obligatory bowl of Maryland
she-crab soup. He wondered if it would be his last meal as a free man, and
whether it was possible to bring on a heart attack through willpower. He
could also refuse to eat. The death of a Chief Justice in jail would surely
create a furor, setting a precedent that might protect other judges in a time
that presidents liked to call "necessity."
He pondered the power of precedent. When his predecessor, John Mar-
shall, in Marbury vs. Madison, affirmed the right of the Supreme Court to
decide whether laws passed by the Congress were constitutional, neither the
Congress nor President Jefferson took issue with him. That lack of challenge
set the precedent that gave the Court its power as an equal branch. Now here
was Lincoln, seizing a war power reserved to the Congress. If nobody chal-
lenged him, the precedent would be set, and the presidency would assume a
power that could not be taken back. The worst part of that dark prospect was
that this war powerarbitrary arrest, the ability to set aside the due process
of lawwas at the core of what had caused the American colonies to rebel
against the English king.
Did Lincoln realize this? Taney was of the opinion that the new President
was not the country bumpkin, the rail-splitter, the baboon soon to be taken
into camp by his betters in the Cabinet, that his detractors were saying he
was. The Chief Justice thought Lincoln knew precisely what he was doing.
First, he had begun the war without the necessary declaration by the Con-
gress, which was not in session. Then he had usurped the power of the absent
Congress to raise armies and pay them. Finally, today, he was snatching from
the legislative branch the power to suspend the writ of habeas corpus, which
was the citizen's basic protection against dictatorship. The President's motive
was obscure, but the pattern could not be more clear.
Taney asked himself, as he finished the lumpy soup, what he would do next
if he were in Lincoln's shoes and wanted to make permanent this seizure of
power. He didn't know Lincoln, but he had known Andy Jacksonindeed,
had written President Jackson's farewell address, warning of North-South
divisionsand prided himself on reading the minds of strong-willed presi-
dents. Jackson would confront the opposition, as he did the banks, spoiling
for a public brawl. What about Lincoln? His style seemed different, decep-
tively self-deprecating, as he made huge incursions into the power of the
Congress. Perhaps he would not accept the invitation of the judiciary branch
to have it out right here and now. Perhaps he would be cagey enough to avoid
the trap Taney was setting. But Taney did not see a way out for Lincoln:
either he would have to back down, setting the precedent that would forbid
any future President from assuming the power to suspend the writ, or he
would have to arrest the Chief Justice for treason.
Court convened promptly at two. Taney called for the marshal's report.
"I proceeded to Fort McHenry for the purpose of serving the writ," in-
toned the marshal, half facing the judge, half the press table. "I sent in my
name at the outer gate. The messenger returned with the reply that there was
no answer to my card."
Taney leaned forward. "Were those the exact words?"
"No answer to my card. I was not permitted to enter the gate. Therefore, I
could not serve the writ. So answers Washington Bonifant, U.S. Marshal."
So that was Lincoln's tactic: neither specific refusal nor permission to
enter. Taney nodded in grim understanding: Lincoln had decided neither to
flout the law nor to obey the law. He would simply try to ignore the law by
refusing to confront the judge.
"You have the legal power to summon out a posse comitatus, " Taney told
the marshal, "to seize and bring into court the party named in the contempt
attachment." A look of horror crossed the marshal's face at the prospect of
leading a posse into the military camp. "But it is apparent you would be
resisted in the discharge of that duty by a force notoriously superior to the
posse." He could hear Washington Bonifant let out his breath.
"Under these circumstances," Taney continued, frustrated by the Lincoln
refusal to engage or disengage, "I can only call on the President of the United
States to carry out his constitutional duty to enforce the law; in other words,
to enforce the process of this court."
The old man could feel his heart racing as he laid the legal base for the
impeachment of the President. Taney forced himself to slow down and to let
his gaze roam over the people in his courtroom: the so-answering marshal,
the angry family of the arrested man, Breckinridge whispering to Miss Car-
roll, the excited reporters, a few of the plug-uglies who had chased the first
contingent of Union troops out of Baltimore.
History, Taney assumed, would either judge the President to be a usurper
or the Chief Justice to be a traitor. Perhaps the Almighty had preserved him
to this age and brought him to the place and moment to draw the issue. He
took his weapon in handa written opinion, prepared as the case ripened in
anticipation of this constitutional impassetitled Ex Parte Merryman.
"The opinion which I shall read," he began, looking at Breckinridge, "is
that of the Chief Justice of the United States." As the leader of the judiciary
branch, he would use every shred of his legal authority and intellectual skill
to stop the encroachment of military despotism. He was certain that the
greatest threat his countrymen faced was not, as Lincoln thought, separation
into two nations, but the loss of freedom in the name of protecting freedom.
CHAPTER 2
PRESERVED FOR THIS OCCASION
"Brave old man," said John Breckinridge.
"Damned traitor," the woman next to him whispered back.
The senator from Kentucky looked at Anna Carroll first in disapproval,
then back again in wonderment. Did she mean that, or did she enjoy being
outrageous?
"The President not only claims the right," Justice Taney was saying from
the bench, "to suspend the writ of habeas corpus himself, at his discretion,
but to delegate it to a military officer. No official notice has been given to the
courts of justice or to the public that the President claimed this power."
"Now they know," Anna Carroll said under her breath, for Breckinridge to
hear. "No proclamation was needed. Taney wants Lincoln to submit to the
court's jurisdiction on this, so the court can deny him his war power. But
Lincoln's no fool."
"I certainly listened to this claim with some surprise," Taney read his
opinion, "for I had supposed it to be one of those points of constitutional law
upon which there was no difference of opinionthat the privilege of the writ
could not be suspended except by Act of Congress."
Breckinridge looked to the small, intense woman at his side for her re-
sponse. "Congress isn't in session," she murmured with less assurance than
before, "it had to be done immediately."
The Kentucky senator shook his head at that. She might be ahead of him
on the war powers of the President versus the Congress as expressed in the
Constitution, but he was squarely in the middle of the tug-of-war that was
going on in Washington today. He knew that Lincoln could easily have called
Congress into session back in April, when the crisis over Fort Surnter arose.
"Wrong," he told his companion. "Lincoln doesn't want us there in session in
Washington, not until he has his war under way."
She shrugged that off, which niggled him. He had known Anna Carroll for
ten years, since he first came to Washington from Lexington to represent
Kentucky. She had been a close friend of his Uncle Bob's, the preacher
Breckinridge, who headed the society that bought up slaves, set them free,
and shipped them off to the new state of Liberia in Africa. The Reverend
Robert Breckinridge had taken a profound interest in being the spiritual
guide of the young woman, and had commended her to his nephew, a
stranger in an unfriendly city, as an intellectual companion and source of new
political friendships. That Anna had surely been to the young senator, and for
the first few years, no more than that; but she was an attractive lady, demand-
ing as well as giving, and one thing had led to another. Their need for each
other in Washington made it awkward for both to see much of Uncle Bob,
and that relationship with the avuncular guide ended for both: the preacher
Breckinridge would not have approved a love affair between the young
woman who looked to him for moral teaching and his nephew, whose wife
was raising three sons for him back in Kentucky. John Breckinridge did not
approve of it either, but the months away from family on official business
were long, and it was impossible for him to separate his need for the stimulus
of this particular woman's unique mind from their mutual need for more. So
they had what they had, and he decided it helped them without hurting
anybody, and tomorrow would take care of itself.
Taney, meticulously building his case against Lincoln, cited the precedent
of President Jefferson's restraint in the matter of rebellious Aaron Burr; in
that instance, the President had deferred to Congress on a suspension of the
writ of habeas corpus. Breckinridge was familiar with that case; his grandfa-
ther had been Jefferson's Attorney General, which instilled a familial interest
in the precedent Taney was citing. Nodding in agreement, he listened to the
aged jurist's analysis of the passage in the Constitution that permitted the
suspension of the writ in case of rebellion: the clause appeared in the enumer-
ation of the powers of Congress, and did not appear in a separate article
listing the powers of the President. He looked at Anna, who did not turn her
head; she had no answer to that.
Taney then plunged into the history of the great writ in English common
law. He showed why it was a legislative rather than an executive prerogative:
the Parliament, suspicious of the power of a king to arrest arbitrarily one of
his subjects, made certain that any temporary suspension of the most elemen-
tal political freedom required a legislative action.
"I can see no ground whatever," said the judge in his piping voice, "for
supposing that the President, in any emergency, can arrest a citizen except in
aid of the judicial power. He certainly does not"here Taney looked up and
laid stress on the next few words"faithfully execute the laws," and looked
down, continuing, "if he takes upon himself legislative power by suspending
the writ of habeas corpus, and if he takes upon himself the judicial power also
by arresting and imprisoning a person without due process of law."
"That lays the basis for an impeachment," Breckinridge whispered to
Anna Carroll.
"No chance," she replied. "The votes for that walked out of the Congress a
month ago."
He had to admit she was right. Six weeks from now, on July 4, Congress
would convene, but the representatives from the Southern states would not be
there. The secession, which Lincoln did not recognize as valid, would remove
most congressional constraints from Lincoln. When the Southern representa-
tives walked out, the man elected by a minority of the people would have a
majority of the votes in the Congress.
Breckinridge realized he would be one of a handful of senators, from the
border states, left to hold out for peace amid a flock of warhawks. In the
current atmosphere, peace did not have many defenders, North or South, but
he believed that some time remained for reasonable men to avert a bloody
war. Fort Surnter was a mere skirmish; no real battles had yet been fought.
Despite the firebrand oratory of the Rhetts and Yanceys in the South, and the
Bakers and Wades in the North, and despite the symbolic action at Fort
Surnter, the war fever was not yet a disease. It could be cooled; military men
knew that war had not yet begun.
Taney applied what, to the lawyer in Breckinridge, seemed to be the crush-
ing argument about who held the constitutional power, in case of invasion or
rebellion, to permit arbitrary arrest. "Chief Justice Marshall," said the judge
who succeeded to his position, "used this decisive language: If at any time,
the public safety should require the suspension of the powers vested by this
act in the courts, it is for the legislature to say so. That question depends on
political considerations, on which the legislature is to decide; until the legisla-
tive will be expressed, this court can only see its duty, and must obey the
laws.' I can add nothing," Taney said triumphantly, "to these clear and
emphatic words of my great predecessor."
Anna Carroll was ready for that. "Marshall's opinion was an obiter dic-
tum," she said quickly, "only his personal opinion, made in passing on an
unrelated matter."
"You've researched that closely," Breckinridge noticed.
"Marshall's obiter dictum was not part of the Court's decision, and doesn't
count as precedent," she insisted. "That troublemaker on the bench knows
it."
He knew, and was aware that Anna knew, that John Marshall's opinion on
whether a President had the right to suspend habeas corpus would count
heavily with anyone concerned with the rule of law. That was why she was so
quick to try to minimize its importance. Breckinridge wondered why she was
so well informed, and repeated his question more directly. "You've been
working on one of your pamphlets?"
She nodded. He could see she was torn between protecting a confidence
and boasting of her assignment. He knew his friend well enough to wait until
her craving for recognition did its work. "I'm helping the Attorney General a
little. Old Bates doesn't have much of a staff."
"Just a little research in the library, then."
That assumption of insignificance nettled her. "Actually, I'm drafting the
Attorney General's memorial to the President on war powers. If Lincoln
agrees with my argument, then I'll put the memorial in a pamphlet form, in
language that people can understand."
Breckinridge knew what that meant: a fiery broadside, certain to be re-
printed by newspapers across the North, demolishing in the most fervid terms
the legal argument being set forth in musty detail by Taney. Anna was superb
at persuasive writing, and had taught Breckinridge a thing or two about
rhetoric in his own speeches. But the trouble with her writing, in his view,
was in the way that she could persuade herself to adopt, without reservation,
positions that served the interests of her client. Lawyers found means to serve
clients' ends all the time, he acknowledged, but she did not have a lawyer's
credentials.
"You really believe," he asked, "that Lincoln has the legal authority to
wage war, to raise and pay troops, and to arrest anybody for no reasonall
by himself?"
She glared at him, then patted his hand and smiled. "This is a war to stop
treason. Get used to it. Don't stand on ceremony."
Her ready acquiescence to what struck him as a clear case of constitutional
outrage troubled him. Here was a woman of intellect, with a solid back-
ground in business and politics, and with the Tidewater good sense that had
kept him out of trouble many times. If Taney's arguments about the limits of
the war power could not persuade Anna Carroll, what chance did peacemak-
ers have against less intelligent Northerners spoiling for a fight? Turning it
the other way, what chance did peace-seeking unionists have against seces-
sionists spoiling for separation and independence?
"Great and fundamental laws have been disregarded," Taney was saying.
"If judicial authority may thus be usurped by the military power, the people
of the United States are no longer living under a government of laws." The
Kentucky senator felt the frustration and sorrow in the Chief Justice's words.
The old man's voice weakened in his conclusion. "I have exercised all the
power which the Constitution confers upon me, but that power has been
resisted by a force too strong for me to overcome."
Except for the buzzing of the flies, the Masonic Hall was silent for the
judge's order about the writ he could not serve. "I shall, therefore, direct the
clerk to transmit a copy of my order, under seal, to the President of the
United States. It will then remain for that high officer, in fulfillment of his
constitutional obligation, 'to take care that the laws be faithfully executed.' "
"That's a personal slap," Anna Carroll said. "It was Taney who swore
Lincoln in two months ago, and he's reminding him of the words of the
oath."
"Good words to remember."
"Lincoln was also sworn to defend the Union."
"No," Breckinridge said carefully, remembering the oaths he had taken as
senator and Vice President, "he swore only to preserve, protect, and defend
the Constitution. Not the Union. The Constitution remains the same when
new states come in or old states go out." She shrugged that off; he suspected
the next time he brought it up, she would have a well-researched answer.
Taney was not a gavel-banger; court was adjourned when he rose and the
bailiff called out for all to rise. Breckinridge saw Taney's grandson come
forward to help the old man down the stairs.
"I want to see him, Anna, and tell him he's a brave man. Will you come
with me?"
She shook her head. "I don't want to have to testify in a conspiracy trial."
He looked down at her, more amused than disturbed. "You really think it
could come to that? That Lincoln would arrest the Chief Justice for high
treason? Or send his soldiers to arrest the duly elected senator from Ken-
tucky?"
"You just be careful what you say to him. I'll wait for you here; I need
some help getting home."
Breckinridge strode to the stairs behind the bench to shake the judge's
hand, and of course the old man recognized him. The last time they had
talked was at the 1856 inaugural ceremony at the Capitol, when Buchanan
and Breckinridge were sworn to the nation's highest offices. He recalled that
Taney had said something tart at the time about Breckinridge being the
youngest Vice President in the nation's history.
"Ah, Breckinridge," Taney said warmly, "I am an old man, a very old
man, but perhaps I was preserved for this occasion."
"The nation is fortunate that you were."
The Chief Justice waved his grandson away, took the senator's arm and
motioned ahead toward the room serving as his chambers. "It's like a delir-
ium, this passion the country is in. I grieve to say that hate sweeps everything
before it. Too violent to last long, I hope. You will stay in the Senate?"
"For as long as I can," Breckinridge assured him, certain that the majority
in pro-slavery Kentucky opposed secession, "to speak both against secession
and against war."
Taney stopped to catch his breath. "It may be hard to remain adamant
against both. A peaceful separation, with free institutions in each section
that would be better than the union of the present states under a military
government and a reign of terror."
"I always thought that secession would be a mistake."
"A peaceful separation," repeated Taney, evidently preferring that phrase
to "secession," "would be better than a civil war that will prove as ruinous to
the victor as the vanquished."
The old man, Breckinridge judged, was not dealing with political reality. In
the 1860 election, Breckinridge had run for President in the moderate posture
of a man opposing abolitionism forthrightly and secession quietly; as a result,
he had won most of his votes in the South. It was true that his campaign was
taken over by the firebrands eager for secession, but secession had never been
his platform. "Secession means war," he told Taney. "The radicals up North
like Greeley, and out West like Ben Wade, will never let Lincoln agree to
peaceful separation. They want to subjugate the South."
"Don't be so sure," Taney argued. "Lincoln may sound like a radical, but
he may not behe didn't put a Blair in his Cabinet for nothing. Lincoln and
Blair may be personally unsympathetic to slavery, as am I, but they are surely
not for abolition. The new President may turn out to be more reasonable than
he seems."
Breckinridge was surprised. "How can you say that, after the opinion you
just read?"
The judge squinted up at the senator and observed, "I'm not under arrest,
am I?"
"The country would never stand for that."
"For a politician, Breckinridge, you don't know much about the popular
will. If Abe Lincoln were to clap me in jail this minute, the whole North
would applaud, except for a few constitutionalists and they don't count." He
began walking forward. "I wish with all my heart that Lincoln would react to
my order with an arrest. Then I would die on him and drive my message
home. But he's too damn shrewd for that."
"You're a brave man, judge."
"Get to eighty-four and you see how easy it is to be brave. Remember Chief
Justice Coke, the high judge of England? The king asked Coke what he would
do if a case came to him involving the royal prerogative, and Coke told him,
'When the case happens, I shall do that which shall be fit for a judge to do.' If
you're not ready to do what's fit, you shouldn't be a judge. Or a senator."
The Kentuckian thought about that. If and when the time came to decide
between secession and war, what would be fit for him to do? Should he follow
his Kentucky constituency, which was split but leaned toward union? Or
follow his conscience, which was sending him confused signals? He could in
all good conscience oppose secession in principle, but in practice, could he
support a war that would force the South to remain in a union its people
despised? How fine Taney's term, "peaceful separation," sounded, with its
application of a cool intellect to a time of great passion. But Lincoln would
permit no separation without war. The choice, which had been union or
peaceful disunion, had been changed; Lincoln had forced the choice of union
or war.
"What happens to Merryman?" he asked Taney.
"Who?"
"The fellow in the stockade. Lincoln won't hand him over to you. Can the
President get some other court to try him for treason?"
"Ah, Lincoln and Bates probably think they can. They'll try to bring this
fellow Merryman before a district judge here and make an example out of
him. The man did burn the railroad bridge to the North in wartime; that's a
fairly treasonous act."
"And the courts cannot stop the President. What's becoming of this coun-
try?"
"Cool down," said the old man. "Lincoln cannot get any court here to try
Merryman for treason and hang him legally."
"Why not?"
Taney's wizened face took on its cagiest look. "I'll tell the district judge
that all capital cases must be referred to me for trial. And I'll be too sick and
infirm for the next year or so to come to Baltimore, so no treason case will be
tried here for as long as I live." The Chief Justice dug his birdlike fingers into
Breckinridge's arm. "I may be powerless to free that man, but I can damn
well make certain that Lincoln will never have the legal power to hang him."
CHAPTER 3
THE PLUG-UGLIES

Anna Carroll watched the old man take Breckinridge's arm and walk off with
him alone. Their private get-together did not trouble her; with no witnesses to
their conversation, no damaging testimony was likely to be taken if Lincoln
decided to round up Taney and all the other anti-Union judges.
She engaged some of the reporters in conversation, as Attorney General
Bates had urged her to do, and as befitted the only woman whose name was
well known in the area as a political pamphleteer. Anna provided some of the
journalists, who knew so little about the great issues they were covering, with
arguments exposing some of the weaknesses in the Chief Justice's decision.
She had read Madison's journals of the constitutional convention, and
doubted that the men who wrote the Constitution had ever debated where to
place the right to suspend habeas corpus; it had been merely the decision of
the committee on style to put that power to make arbitrary arrests among the
legislative powers rather than under the President's powers. Who were John
Marshall and Roger Taney to invest that minor decision with such far-reach-
ing significance?
The man from the New York Tribune, Horace Greeley's abolitionist paper,
noted her point and showed her the lead sentence of his story: "The Chief
Justice today took sides with traitors, throwing about them the sheltering
protection of the ermine." She admired that and told him so.
She took issue with Washington's National Intelligencer story. The writer
for that anti-abolition dailywhich Mr. Lincoln was known to read every
daydefended Taney's decision as "able and lucid." At Anna's urging, the
reporter added that "Lincoln's action resulted from what he believes such an
impervious public necessity as is held to justify him in transcending the letter
of the Constitution." She especially liked the use of "transcending" rather
than "transgressing"; as she saw it, the President was reaching over and
beyond the Constitution, stretching its reach but not challenging its author-
ity.
Even as she dealt with these men as her writing equals, Anna hated to
admit that she felt the need for the physical protection of a man for the next
few hours. She was afraid of the plug-uglies. In a moment of panic, Mary-
land's wavering governoran old friend of the Carroll family, and her fa-
ther's successorhad destroyed all the railroad bridges between Baltimore
and Washington. That was supposed to keep Maryland out of the way of
belligerents, but it effectively isolated the nation's capital while making travel
in Maryland unsafe for anyone. The plug-uglies roamed the streets of Balti-
more and the roads to Washington, waylaying travelers who would ordinarily
choose safe rail travel. Their name came from their plug hats as well as from
the spikes studded in the front of their boots, worn by the hoodlums to do
greater injury with a kick.
Anna had come to the courtroom from Washington's Ebbitt House in the
company of a troop of returning Maryland militiamen, and had a note from
General Winfield Scott that would requisition a military escort for her return.
But she wanted to stop at her father's plantation on the way back for a
personal mission that meant a great deal to her, and the presence of a troop of
soldiers would be awkward. The less her family knew of her political activi-
ties, the better; she wanted no lectures about a woman's place from those who
her activities were supporting. That meant she needed a man, strong and
armed, to accompany her; otherwise, she was certain she would be attacked,
beaten, humiliated, raped, robbed, and murdered. She had frequently imag-
ined that sequence in detail.
Breckinridge returned from his talk with Taney and, to her relief, offered
her a ride in his carriage to Washington.
"Are you armed?"
"Of course not, Anna. I'm a politician. Haven't carried a musket since the
Mexican War."
"We'll stop at my father's farm and pick up a shotgun," she said with
finality. "It's on the way, and I have something to do there." She knew he
would not object; his way was to give in on all the little things. On the great
issues, she knew, he worked out his own way, not always taking good advice.
She was determined to keep him from making more of a pariah out of himself
in the Senate.
In the carriage, they said little at first. The road to Annapolis was deeply
rutted and Breck let the horse pick his way. As the Kentuckian stared
straight ahead, concentrating on the horse and road, she looked at his profile:
pugnacious yet aristocratic, an odd combination, making him not so much
handsome as magnetic. Perhaps that was the secret of his attraction as an
orator, on the stump or on the Senate floor; he was a big man who seemed
unconscious of his size, slow to decide but hard to budge after having made
his decision, not especially talkative in an armchair but eloquent on his feet.
The defeated candidate for President left Anna the clear impression that he
was in quiet command of himself even when he was unsure of his position.
Breck was at his most persuasive, she had found, when he seemed to be
working things out for himself, aloud, and carried his audience to his own
conclusion.
That was not her way at all; she knew what she thought, or at least what
she was supposed to think, and she said it or wrote it without the usual
coyness expected of a lady. That was true in almost all things, but when it
came to this man, her sustaining certainty slipped away. She never knew quite
how to feel about him.
The men in her life had always been men to admire. Her governor-father,
her political mentors, the railroaders who directed lobby-agent business her
way, the Reverend Bob Breckinridge, even that two-timing hypocrite Presi-
dent Fillmore and the gentle bachelor President Buchananall were men of
substance and stability, secure enough in their success not to resent her inde-
pendence. Like them, Breck moved confidently in the most exalted company;
he had almost reached the very pinnacle of power while a youth, and was in
her mind the most presidential non-President in the country today, but her
attraction to him was a mystery to her. She loved him and could use him,
both of which were important, but he was the only man she looked up to that
she worried about.
John Breckinridge struck her as a strong man who lacked the inclination to
protect himself; he showed too little interest in striking back at his detractors.
That curious deficiency drew strange impulses from a woman who rejected
the usual motherly or wifely traits. Because he did not weigh the personal
consequences of his political stands, he was especially vulnerable. She had
often vowed to straighten him out on that. If he was to be President one day,
as she hoped and suspected he would, he would have to learn to protect his
back.
She was glad he was happily married. Anna had never wanted to be held
down by marriage and motherhood, and felt only contempt for men who
found it necessary to be unhappy with their wives to be her friend. Friendship
was what counted, on rare occasions a complete and sexually satisfying
friendship, building those lifelong loyalties best achieved with a man whose
family life was secure and whose family was far away. She took the interest of
a maiden aunt in Breck's sons, especially the rebellious eldest, Cabell, and
delighted in dispensing the sound advice on upbringing that only an objective
non-parent could give.
Maiden aunt. Did Breck ever think of her that way? Anna Carroll, at forty-
one, saw herself as a vivacious redhead with a magnificent complexion and a
fine if petite figure, and had never looked or felt better in her life. The drive
and sparkle that had attracted two presidents and a handful of the most
powerful men in America were undiminished, and the fierce loyalty and tal-
ent that had resulted in lifetime friendships with families as politically diverse
as the Wades and the Biairs were increasing in her maturity. She could help a
man like Breck, and not just in arranging Know-Nothing support for his
campaigns, as she had in the past. She was convinced that she could help him
count mightily in the future of the country, if she could prevent him from
making a terrible mistake about secession and the war.
"Forget about that shotgun, Anna," he said out of nowhere. "I can talk our
way out of any trouble."
"If you won't carry it, I will. I'm not worried about getting raped," she
added, enjoying the way he winced whenever she used a taboo word, "I just
don't want you getting robbed."
She trusted him, and knew just how much he trusted her: ever since the
first stirrings of secession, nearly a decade ago, he had given her for safekeep-
ing the correspondence between many of the Southern leaders. She knew it
was then all a lot of fire-eater talkabsurd plans for a Southern nation that
would absorb Cuba and Mexico, extending clear down through tropical
Americabut fascinating to any student of politics. Someday, after the cur-
rent trouble was over, she would write about these early roots of rebellion.
But not now; Jefferson Davis, for example, might be a traitor, but he had been
Anna's loyal supporter in business and politics. She had worked on assign-
ments from him to promote the Memphis-to-Charleston railway that linked
South to West.
Thank God for all those railroaders. To a man, they needed political infor-
mation: whom to support, who could win, who could be reached on rights-of-
way. They hungered for access to power, introductions to landowners and
financiers. Those connections could best be provided by someone with social
standing and a hearty sense of politics, saucy and sensible, and Anna felt
comfortable in that role. She spoke their language and took their money and
felt good about both.
She needed those earnings. Her father, the former governor who had
spurned the legislature's offer of a Senate seat, could never come to grips with
the economic operation of a large plantation. Her fees as a pamphleteer and
purveyor of entree to men of influence supported him, four of her six sisters
who were not yet married, and herself. Anna did not treat this as a great
burden; she had been given a good education and a curious gift.
The carriage wheel hit a rock and nearly pitched her out. She grabbed for
Breck, then poked him in the arm and told him to be more careful, and did
not release her grip on his arm. The curious gift, uncommon among women
in her set or any set, was her talent in expressing outrage on paper. She
considered herself as persuasive a pamphleteer as the Revolution's Tom
Paine, nearly as powerful in her prose as the mutton-fisted Englishman Wil-
liam Cobbett. Writing with zeal and toughness was her special knack; so was
spinning out a long, scholarly argument on paper. The only time she wished
she had been born a man was when she thought of how much more money
she could have made.
The road was deserted after they left Baltimore's outskirts. It was still light
in the summer evening, but Anna wished they had that shotgun. On the other
hand, Breck might be right; if accosted, perhaps it would be safest to hand
over some money and go their way.
"You still in touch with your old political friends?" he asked. He meant the
Know-Nothings, a group that Anna had allied herself with a decade ago,
after the Whig Party broke up and before the Republicans got organized.
They styled themselves the Native American Party, and called themselves the
"Sams," after Uncle Sam; the anti-foreigner feeling was easy to exploit, and
the support of the frankly bigoted Sams was quietly sought by many a politi-
cian too queasy to make the blatant anti-immigrant appeals directly. She had
steered Breck some Know-Nothing help in his campaign; her old friends were
not proper political company for right-thinking people, but they had their
uses.
Anna smiled and gave the silent signal: one finger up, then touching the
side of the nose, then an "o" with the thumb and forefinger. "I Nose Noth-
ing." The secretive party had provided the margin of victory in many elec-
tions; she was proud, in a way, to have been one of the founders when she was
a young woman. But then the Native American Party was taken over by the
pro-slavery gang, and she left it for the Republicans.
"You didn't mean it, did you," he asked, "when you called Justice Taney a
traitor?"
She was not going to give him any reassurance. "That evil old man knows
exactly what he's doing. He's trying to make it impossible for Lincoln to
crack down on treason, which is all around us, and that puts him in league
with the traitors."
"Those are hanging words, Anna. You throw them around too easily."
"That mob in Baltimore killed four Union soldiers," she told him, "and the
soldiers killed a dozen of the rioters, the friends of that thug Merryman.
That's not just debates in the Senate, Breck, that's blood being spilled."
"Is it better to have more bloodshedto try to hold together two parts of
the country that want to go their separate ways?"
He was just baiting her, she figured; Breck was no disunionist, never had
been, even though the Southerners dominated his presidential campaign.
"There are some things important enough to spill blood over," she replied.
"What if the violence goes beyond a few people killed in riots," he asked,
"beyond a few hundred casualties in skirmishes. What if this war becomes a
real warhundreds of thousands dead, orphans, hunger, cities on fire
would holding those states in the Union be worth it then?"
That was not a question to be answered when everyone knew the insurrec-
tion would be put down before the winter. "Just say what you want to say."
"I don't know, Anna, I haven't decided. Sometimes a good thing is too
costly. Nobody is thinking about the price, in lives and in misery, of forcing
the South back into the Union."
She felt a constriction in her chest. "You can preach peaceful separation in
the Senate all you like, that's your right as Kentucky senator. But nobody's
going to listen." She thought a moment. "You're not going to try to take
Kentucky out, are you?"
"That would be treason, wouldn't it?"
She wondered if he could actually be entertaining the thought. Why? He
hated war, that was fine, so did she, so did everybody, but the war had
become a fact. At that point, even the pacifists had to think about their
futures. "Yes, that would be treason. Don't let them use you again, Breck."
"Again?"
"The secessionists used you in the last election to split the Democratic vote
for Douglas and to elect Lincoln. You know the secesh wanted Lincoln to win
so they could walk out on him. You know you were used. Don't let them use
you again."
He shook his head, guiding the horses out of a rut. "No, I won't try to take
Kentucky out. Kentucky will cling to the Union while a shard of it remains.
Bluegrass people will stay loyal as long as the abolitionists don't take over in
Washington."
"Lincoln is no abolitionist."
"I wish I could be sure. I get the feeling, sometimes, that he means to reach
into the South and free every slave there."
"That's scare talk, and you know it! Lincoln is against the extension of
slavery out West, and so am Ibut there is nothing abolitionist in being a
Free-Soiler."
"That's what Lincoln says now, and repeated in the Inauguralhe would
not strike at slavery where it exists," Breckinridge said. "But let's see what he
does when your friend Wade gets after him."
Ohio senator Ben Wade, a leader of the radical Republicans, made no bones
about his abolitionist intent. "Ben is my friend," Anna said carefully, "and
Carolyn Wade is my best friend. But even they know they're a tiny minority
in the country, and it would be foolish, even unconstitutional, to strike at
slavery where it exists."
"Abolition is what this fight is really about, Anna."
"Wrong!" She saw through his strategy: he would pretend the fight was not
about the preservation of the Union, nor even about the extension of slavery
into the territories; instead, he would change the issue to the one that ap-
pealed to the extreme men on both sidesslavery itself. "Lincoln is not
threatening to take away anybody's slaves, you know that. Abolition is a
scare, that's all, and you're using it to make secession look right."
"I can understand," Breck said in a reasonable tone, "an abolitionist fight-
ing to 'save the Union,' because he's passionate about his causeto establish
a Union that does away with the slave property of the South. But you, Anna
you and Lincoln and all the conservative Republicans willing to abide
slavery where it existswhy do you insist on a bloody war? Just to hold some
territory intact?"
"You swore an oath when you became Vice President," she reminded him,
"to preserve the United States. You would break that oath?"
"I swore to preserve the Constitution, and it doesn't matter whether that
sacred document covers thirteen states or thirty." She frowned at that; the
oath was one of Lincoln's favorite arguments, binding the most upright to his
side. "If the sections cannot live together in peace," he went on, "it may be
better that they live apart. There is no excuse in American history or geogra-
phy for brother killing brother in war."
She took off her hat, put it in her lap, and let the wind whip her hair. She
quoted to him, in derision, the slogan of the peace crowd: "Erring sisters,
depart in peace."
Breck smiled. "Horace Greeley wrote that in his Tribune, but Lincoln's
friends turned him around in a hurry. The Tribune changed its tune. Now it's
'On to Richmond!' "
Anna was aware that Lincoln and Seward, recognizing Greeley's impor-
tance in keeping up pro-union spirit, had sent Thurlow Weed to the New
York editor to straighten him out about the erring sisters. There was to be no
easy secession; the sister states would not be allowed to depart without war.
"How many slaves do you own, Anna?"
"Twenty."
"You inherited them, of course."
"I bought them with my own money," she said abruptly. "Four hundred
dollars a head."
He grunted surprise and said no more. Quietly, she began to seethe. What
did this ill-used border state politician know about the ownership of slaves in
a Southern state economy? She was especially glad he was with her on this
visit to her home. He would learn something about Southerners and slavery.
Within an hour, Breck's carriage drew up in front of Castle Haven, the
Carroll farm. The house and scrubby land were a far cry from Kingston Hall,
the family estate where she had been raised; that had been lost long ago under
the auctioneer's gavel, and the small farm was all that was left. Anna, who
had not been home in six months, winced at the way the farmhouse and
grounds had continued to run down. She had been promised they would paint
this year, and cut away some of the rampant creeper. Too cavernous to be
modest, the house looked hugely disreputable. She confronted her dismay and
turned it around: with her companion in mind, she was glad her home looked
that way. Part of his lesson.
Thomas Carroll, a political man when in his prime, had turned reclusive in
his old age; he saw them from the porch and went inside to his room. Two of
her sisters came running to greet them.
"We won't be staying for dinner," Anna told them after an embrace, "Sen-
ator Breckinridge has to be in Washington. But I have to see the girls, every
one of them, in the parlor right now."
The senator looked puzzled. He accepted a tall glass of mint tea offered by
an elderly slave, and when he was alone again in the parlor with Anna, asked,
"What 'girls'?"
"You think I'm a hypocrite, buying slaves myself while I side with the
North." She cut off his courteous protest. "You've been a soldier and a politi-
cian, and you may have practiced law for a few months, but you've never
been in the business world. Let me show you something about the slave
business."
She took out a ledger and laid it on the desk. "We have sixty acres of land
here. Corn, potatoes, a peach orchard. We have one hundred and fifty slaves."
She waited for his question.
"Isn't that a lot of slaves for a farm this size?"
"About a hundred more than we need. Now if we were smart business
people, we'd sell off our surplus slaves. At eighteen hundred dollars a head
for a strong field hand, about half that for a house slave, that would give us
capital to work with. We could buy some decent livestock, a few strong horses
for plowing, maybe build a barn to replace the one that burned."
"Bring down your expenses, too," he added helpfully.
She nodded at his quick grasp of the economics. "Absolutely. Our operat-
ing expenses would come down if we had only fifty mouths to feed. We could
even show a profit, take good care of Papa." She perched on the edge of the
desk and crossed her arms. "The problem is, we cannot sell a slave. Papa
doesn't believe in splitting up families."
"You could sell a whole family," he offered.
"Into what? The negroes on this farm grew up with us, and they're accus-
tomed to decent treatment. When you put a family on the block, that may be
fine for your conscience, but the next slave trader will break up that family on
a strictly business basis. You know what some of those plantations are like
downriver, and how they drive their slaves. Could you sell a family, knowing
they'd be split up, and used like animals?"
"No."
"Neither could we. So our slaves kept breeding like damn rabbits, and
growing up and needing more food, while we had to sell off our land until we
were broke." She slammed the ledger shut and tossed it on the desk. "I know
how the reporter for your Louisville Courier says how the 'peculiar institu-
tion' is essential to the Southern way of life, but to people like us, slavery is a
burden. It's ruined my father and disinherited my sisters. We're stuck with
our slaves, and it's made no more than slaves out of us."
When he said nothing, she went on: "Now you should ask why we didn't
simply free our slaves, the ones we couldn't use to work the farm."
"I'm aware of the laws of Maryland," the senator said. "No slave can be
set loose here. Anybody who frees a slave must ship him to Liberia."
"That was the law up till last month," she snapped, irritated that he
stepped on her point. "And I wouldn't send my worst enemy back to Africa.
Your Uncle Bob is a sweet and kind man, but that colonization society of his
is a disaster. Liberia is a hellhole."
"There were ways to get around that law."
"Sure, sell them to New Yorkers who would free them up there," she said
quickly. "And that would mean that they would starve and freeze. Who
would take in a freed slave? White workers hate 'em, they undercut their
wages, and they hound them out. The abolitionists are all for freeing slaves in
the South, so long as they don't come up North."
"It was a dilemma, I know."
He did not begin to know, but she would educate him. Some of her girls
began to slip into the parlor, tentatively, each worried about being part of
some formal occasion, which could be harsh news. Mostly house blacks, their
ages ranged between sixteen and thirty. Almost all were tall, many were
unusually attractive.
"The debtors began to close in on this farm about seven years ago," she
told him. "There's a glut of field hands around the Eastern shore, but the
slave traders have a ready market for prostitutes, and they had their eyes on
these girls. Look at them, Breck." He was looking, all right. "They're beauti-
ful, nubile, highly desirable as prostitutes or for some rich man's private
stock. Every time we went four hundred dollars deeper into debt, the slavers
had the legal right to claim one of these girls."
The room was filled with the slaves, who were eyeing their owner and her
friend with curiosity. The girls were well behaved, but not unusually shy or in
any way beaten down. Anna knew each one well and was proud of the lot.
"So I went to one of my railroad men and took out a mortgage loan on the
lot of twenty slaves. I used that mortgage money to buy the slaves from Papa.
At that point, the farm's creditors couldn't touch a one of them, because they
were my personal propertyas long as I could come up with four hundred
dollars a month to service my mortgage debt."
She was tempted to recount the wheedling she had to employ on visits to
New York and Philadelphia, scratching up writing assignments from rail-
roaders, supplemented by loans from abolitionists sympathetic with the cause
of keeping a score of black girls from the life the slavers had in store. She had
pleaded, dramatized, persuaded, wept on cue; the one period in her life that
she really abased herself, setting all pride aside, was to find that four hundred
dollars a month above her own needs. She held back from telling him all that;
such pleading was out of the independent character she wanted to be in his
eyes. Suffice it for Breck to know that she had good reason to put a high fee
on her writing skill and her politico-social services to railroaders.
"Thanks to you," she said instead, "the Douglas vote was split, Lincoln
was elected, and the slavers walked out of the Congress. That made it possible
to free slaves in Maryland today without condemning them to shipment to
Africa or starvation up North. And that's what I'm going to do right now."
Flushed with excitement at the consummation of her work in front of the
border-stater most respected by the South, Anna addressed her property for
the last time.
"I don't want anyone to be frightened at this, because it is good news," she
began. "You're free. All of you. Free. I have a letter of manumission for each
of you, with each of your names on it. Come up here as I call your name and
take it. You're nobody's property anymore."
Anna called out the names one by one, handed out the letters, shaking each
former slave's hand. Breckinridge, standing alongside, extended his congratu-
lations to each with a handshake of his own, because it seemed the appropri-
ate thing for a visiting politician to do. He whispered to Anna, "How do your
mortgage holders feel about your giving away their collateral?"
"They know I'm good for the money." She had no idea where she would
get the eight thousand dollars to pay off the chattel mortgage. She would
manage; it was enough that the girls were out of reach of the slavers.
"Miss Carroll," one wanted to know, "where we gonna go? What if we
don't want to leave?"
"You have to go," she said firmly. "You're free. If you want to marry one
of the hands, fine, Papa will free him and you can go away together. But you
have to go." Anna did not want to face the paradox of the cruelty involved in
the manumission. She bugged one of the girls who had been especially close
to her, wrote out addresses in Frederick and Annapolis where some might
find work, and ran upstairs to say good-bye to Papa and find the shotgun for
the journey.
In the carriage, riding southwest after sunset, when she could trust herself
to speak, she said, "What a goddamned relief."
Breck looked at her as if he had never heard a woman of any social stand-
ing use profanity before. Anna assumed he had not and it would be good for
his soul.
"They're free, but you're not," he said, jiggling the reins loosely as the
horse made his way along the darkening road. "You still have the debt service
on your slave-purchase mortgage."
"I can handle four hundred a month," she said almost merrily, glad he
understood the extent of her sacrifice, "and someday I'll raise the whole eight
thousand."
Breckinridge shook his head. "A senator makes three thousand dollars a
year. Sounds like a lot of money to me."
Anna knew how much of a mountain it would be to climb, and how small
the likelihood of climbing it before her old age, but she had no regrets.
"Twenty virtuous women saved from a fate worse than death," she said
lightly; "I'd do it again."
"Emancipation is wonderful," he replied, "so long as somebody pays for
the property and the seller is willing."
"I had dinner the other night with Rose Greenhow," she changed the
subject, "in that marvelous home of hers. Rose and I never see eye to eye on
politics, but she's well informed"
"Stay away from Rose Greenhow."
She glared at him. Who was he to tell her to stay away from anybody? "I'll
see whoever I like."
"Just stay away from Rose. I like her, too, and I can think of a half-dozen
senators who are crazy about her, but she's trouble."
She thought that over. Rose O'Neal Greenhow, a widow of Anna's age and
social standing, was outspokenly pro-Southem but had never been in political
trouble. Her brick home on Lafayette Square, a short walk from the Presi-
dent's house, had become a salon for many of the most interesting leaders and
soldiers in the capital. If there was any woman Anna envied, it was the "Wild
Rose"; she wished she had her height, her striking facial features, and her
rich dead husband's home for dinner parties of wild pigeon and old Madeira.
"What sort of trouble?" she wondered aloud, she hoped idly.
"Wouldn't be good for your business." He was vague about it; she sus-
pected he might be having an affair with Rose and was worrying about the
two women comparing notes about him. Anna smiled at that as they rode in
silence for a couple of miles.
On the high road to Washington, not far from the Silver Spring estate of
the Blair family, the carriage lurched and splashed thin mud. Breck reined in
the horse and then relaxed the reins, letting the horse pick his way through a
series of what Anna presumed to be puddles in the road.
A lantern flashed in the blackness ahead. Two horsemen appeared, block-
ing the roadway. The horse and carriage stopped. Anna heard a voice to the
side, in the darkness behind a bush, say, "Where you nice folks coming
from?"
"All of us are coming from Baltimore," Breck said, his voice steady. "I
guess we're a couple minutes ahead of the others."
Another voice behind them said, "Nobody's following them. 'Cept me."
"Get out of the carriage and hand over your money," one of the men in
front said. The voice was low and authoritative; Anna, in her terror, assumed
that was the leader.
"Whatever you say," Breckinridge said. Anna was slightly relieved. They
were surrounded; this was no time for heroics. It could be all they wanted
was money and the horse and carriage. She started to rise and felt her com-
panion's hand firmly on her arm, pushing her back down. With the same
deliberate movement, he reached behind him for the shotgun. She wanted to
tell him to leave it alone, she didn't mind walking, it made no sense getting
killed, but the words stuck in her throat.
"Get out and lie down by the side of the road," said the voice up front.
"There's four guns aimed right at your heads."
"I have only one gun aimed at you," Breckinridge said in the direction of
the voice. "But it's a shotgun. At this range, it won't miss you. And the
second barrel should take care of the man next to you before you kill us."
The damn fool was going to start a bloodbath, Anna thought. She said
nothing, holding her breath.
"He's bluffin', Alvin," said the man behind them.
"Hold the lantern up high, Alvin," said Breckinridge. His voice, she noted,
had assumed his stump-speaking tone, resonant and commanding. "You'll see
the barrel pointed at you. Your friend back there can afford to be brave, he'll
get your share afterward."
"Don't move that damn light," Alvin hissed at the man at his side, "he
wants a target."
"I'll take two of you with me," Breckinridge said, his voice more menacing
than the highwayman's. "The boy here with me may or may not be armed;
you can't know until the shooting starts."
"All we want is your money," the voice at the side said, negotiating. "You
can keep the carriage. Just throw down the money in your pocket."
"If you don't get out of the way, Alvin," Breckinridge replied, making the
most of his knowledge of the plug-ugly's name, "I'll blow your head off. I'm a
soldier and I shoot straight and I'm prepared to die. Are you?"
The leader of the group was silent. The man at the side said, "Who you
soldiering for? Federals?"
"We're headed South," Anna croaked in as low a voice as she could mus-
ter, hoping to give the plug-uglies an excuse to withdraw without appearing
to be cowards.
"Say hello to General Beauregard," said the man who answered to the
name of Alvin, and the pack turned and rode away.
Anna, her stomach in spasm, bent forward and moaned. She felt the car-
riage begin to move ahead in the mud's softness. She did not trust herself to
speak.
When the knot in her stomach began to relax and her hands stopped
shaking, she ventured a comment. "All they wanted was money."
"To tell the truth," he said cheerfully, pleased with his reaction to the
emergency, "I never was faced with a challenge of that kind. Always won-
dered what I'd do. Strange, no fear at all."
"You could have gotten yourself killed. For nothing." That did not seem to
trouble him. "You could have gotten me killed."
"I knew that if I laid my life on the line, the gang leader would back off."
He was not thinking of the danger to her at all. "I had to do what was fit for a
man to do."
"Oh for God's sake," she exploded, "did you swallow all that pap from
Judge Taney? He quotes Coke and the King of England at every dinner party
he goes to, and to every pompous ass who'll listen." She straightened up.
"Listen, Senator Breckinridge, you can take your life in your hands all you
like, but when you take my life too, I want to have a say in it."
"I never thought of it that way, but of course you're right. Didn't think
you'd look at it that way." He was still analyzing his own foolhardiness,
which he surely took for bravery. "You know, Anna, there's no telling what
those men would have done."
"They'd have robbed us and let us go. If they started tearing my clothes off
and raping me, then you could have grabbed a gun and been a hero. But not
over a few dollars."
"He really quotes Lord Coke to everybody?" He was missing her point.
She had a right to participate in a life-or-death decision.
"What are you, Senator, one of those fire-eaters? Do you live for violence?"
Now that the danger was past, she was getting her natural voice back. She
could hear herself prattling in the darkness, clenched fist jabbing into his leg,
at once proud of his quickness of mind and cool nerves and determined not to
act the damsel saved from distress. He had leveled that shotgun with great
authority; she could not comprehend his fatalism in lazily assuring the thieves
that death, while not a friend, held no terror for him. As her confidence
returned, and the gaslights of Washington's streets brought at least the illu-
sion of safety, she stopped hectoring and took his muscled arm in her two
hands. She thought of Fillmore, the weakling, and of Buchanan, the vacilla-
tor, and of Lincoln, about whom she knew little. This man in her hands, even
if all too pleased with himself at the moment, possessed a character and
intelligence probably superior to all of theirs. If he did not throw his future
away on some mistaken notion of peace-above-all, he could one day grace the
highest office.
She was being offered a drink of corn whiskey from his flask. She shook her
head. He tilted his head back and started gurgling; after a while, she said,
"Leave a little for me." He stopped, swallowed hard, and handed the flask to
her. She finished the remainder.
"You said we were going South," he observed.
"I lied. One of us needed to show some sense. You're not going South, nor
is Kentucky." She swore to bend every effort to keep her Maryland loyal and
hold her favorite reckless Kentuckian in the Union as well.
CHAPTER 4
JOHN HAY'S DIARY
JUNE 29, 1861
Hallelujah, the long faces of May and June are lifting. (If sad faces are long,
why are happy faces not described as short?) The Tycoon is in a fine whack,
no longer pacing the Mansion as if he wanted to kick the cat. When A.
Lincoln wants to look miserable, nobody alive can out-melancholy him, but
he has reason to be perkier these days.
Not only is he well served by his two secretariesGeorge Nicolay of the
furrowed brow, and mustachioed me, John Hay of the short facebut the
Prsdt has good news in the public prints.
Old Roger Taney got his comeuppance. Henry Raymond of the New York
Timesa good egg, friend of the Tycoon'sdenounced the jurist who sup-
ported the plug-ugly Merryman as "the man destined to go through history
as the Judge who draggled his official robes in the pollutions of treason."
("Draggled"? Does the editor of the Times mean "dragged" or an active form
of "bedraggled"? As a putative poet, I have the obligation to ask these ques-
tions.)
From Illinois, the land to which I shall one day return, burdened with
honors, after my years of faithful service to the greatest American since
Henry Clay, came this blast: "When Judge Taney delivered the Dred Scott
decision he was already in his dotage," wrote the Chicago Tribune, which
always supports us, "and the Merryman decision was evidence that in the
intervening years his faculties have brightened none whatsoever." Horace
Greeley, in the New York Tribune, who blows hot and cold, blew hot on this
issue: "When Treason stalks abroad in arms, let decrepit judges give place to
men capable of detecting and crushing it."
My employerto whom I shall refer in the pages of this most secret diary
as The Tycoon (after the potentate of Japan) or the Ancient of Days (display-
ing my affection for the poet Blake)went over these cuttings with delight. I
did not bother to show him the Louisville Courier, which would have lowered
his spirits. Mr. Seward wants to shut the rag down, and we have to do that
soon, as its editors are poisoning the minds of the too-neutral Kentuckians.
Hill Lamon, my cousin from Illinois who has appointed himself the Prsdt's
bodyguard, has been walking around for the past month with what some say
is permission in his pocket to arrest the Chief Justice. I would love to see the
old recreant sitting in a military prison cell, issuing meaningless writs of
habeas corpus for himself, but no such drastic remedy as arrest seems neces-
sary. Nobody much cares about Taney's Merryman opinion, and so the Prsdt
has decided to ignore it. It must be lying around here somewhere, but Nico
has conveniently lost it. That's what democratic government is about: if the
courts don't have public sentiment behind them, then the President rules the
roost. Why should Lincoln make a martyr out of Taney by jailing the old
man? Since there has been no uproar, we'll just file and forget his opinion and
replace him with a more amenable judge when he finally gives up the ghost.
Then there is the good news about Maryland. With all the Union troops
pouring down from Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, the riotous city of
Baltimore is calm again. Whiff of the grape was what those plug-uglies
needed. Now the capital in Washington is no longer surrounded and we can
get the newspapers again. There is a North!
The other morning I went in to give the Prsdt a selection of the correspon-
dence that has come in urging that we enlist slaves in our army. General Ben
Butler, he of the large paunch and crossed eye, has the notion that he should
retain such fugitive slaves as come within his lines, arm them, and aim them
at their former masters.
The Prsdt was looking downriver through his telescope. He tilts his chair
back, rests his stocking feet on the windowsill, and perches his telescope on
his toes. Butler is down there somewhere, at Fort Monroe, all hot for arming
slaves and abolishing slavery like most of his fellow politicians from Massa-
chusetts.
"Some of our Northerners seem bewildered and dazzled by the excitement
of the hour," the Tycoon observed. "They seem inclined to think that this war
is to result in the entire abolition of slavery."
That, of course, is not the case. Although brother Butler has come up with
the legally creative idea of declaring runaway slaves "contraband of war,"
seizing them as enemy property, we have told him to merely hire them and
keep a record of their services.
"The central idea pervading this struggle," he told me, still looking
through the spyglass, "is the necessity of proving that popular government is
not an absurdity."
That struck me as rather an important item to record. I snatched the quill
up, dipped it quickly in the well on the Prsdt's desk, and jotted it down; the
Tycoon likes it when I do that. I read it over and asked him what he was
getting at.
"We must settle this question now," he replied, bringing his feet down and
turning toward his desk, "whether in a free government the minority have the
right to break up the government whenever they choose."
"And if we fail?" I asked, Maebeth-like.
"It will go far to prove the incapability of the people to govern them-
selves."
Frankly, the idea of majority rule seems rather an academic notion to fight
a war about, and I hope he can whip up some excitement in the message to
Congress he's been working on. Congress will convene in about a month, and
will be asked to ratify all the war moves we've made so far. It had better;
we've been playing a bit fast and loose with the Constitution. Taney may be
wrong about disloyalty, but we've been spending money for the army that the
Congress never appropriated, and a blockade is an act of war that Congress is
supposed to declare.
The Tycoon thinks the war might drag on until the end of the year, but
that seems unduly pessimistic. I fail to see why it should continue past the
fall. General-in-Chief Scott is whipping the army into shape, and the Army of
the Potomac should make its big push in June, before Congress convenes.
The war that worries me more is the war in the Lincoln Cabinet. The
Ancient may have thought it a good idea at the time to appoint all his chief
rivals for the presidency to his Cabinet, but the result is the fiercest kind of
backbiting. Seward at Stateold "Billy Bowlegs"has been brought to heel,
and realizes finally that Lincoln was the one elected, but that eminence grise
of his, Thurlow Weed, gives me the willies. Pure politician, perhaps sticky
fingers. Seward and Weed, in their turn, get their creeps from our Mr. Money-
bags, Salmon Chase at the Treasury. I do not trust Mr. Chase. The Ancient of
Days says he needs him, and Chase may be eminently qualified to help fi-
nance the war, but unlike Seward, he has not given up his designs on the
presidency. I hear his daughter Kate is worth a look.
The only thing Seward at State and Chase at Treasury have in common is
their distrust of the Biairs. I rather admire our Postmaster General, Mont-
gomery Blair, and the Tycoon certainly respects his father, Old Man Blair.
That cagey old Jacksonian surely helped deliver Maryland, saving this capital
from isolation and evacuation. Now that I think of it, Seward and Chase and
the Biairs have something else in common: belief in the profound corruption
of Simon Cameron, our Secretary of War. The Lincoln Cabinet is not a happy
family.
Even so, today it managed to hold a real council of war. The President
summoned General-in-Chief Winfield Scott to present his plan. Wheezing,
ponderous, and enormously fat, that old hero they call "Old Fuss and Feath-
ers" thinks our troops are too raw for battle and suggests an expedition down
the Mississippi to try to cut off the South and starve it into submission. Not
well received. General McDowell presented his plan for attacking the rebels
under Beauregard at Manassas, a stone's throw across the Potomac from
Washington. That was more like it. The Prsdt said that further delay might
cool Northern ardor, and the public wanted action. So beware, Beauregard
and all you rebels: Manassas will be the site of the battle that wins the war.
Juicy gossip abounds in this hotbed of intrigue. A word from the Wise tells
me that the English Ambassador's valet has just caused Mrs. Emory's maid
to become enceinte, and that Miss Carroll of Baltimore was raped by a negro
last month on her way back from that rowdy town. Wise's only question was
"How did she appear to like it?" Cannot vouch for authenticity; small inci-
dents often get exaggerated, but it's all very titillating.
Enough; I have in my hand a product of the calligrapher's art, in the form
of a formal invitation to a reception a few weeks hence at the Biairs' house
across the street. I am told that their home is not so elegant as the house in
Arlington we snatched from the disloyal Colonel Lee, but reportedly better
furnished than this old, slightly dilapidated presidential mansion. Why is a
lowly secretary like me invited to rub elbows with the likes of the Biairs? Not
because of my intellect or good looks, I fear, but because I am that delicious
oddity: a single man. Unattached men of twenty-one, university graduates,
are coveted by hostesses in this city. Perhaps Kate Chase will be there. She is
reputed to be a redhead.
CHAPTER 5
Family Man


The old man arose before any of his family. He shuddered; the morning was
surprisingly cool for the Fourth of July in Washington, Francis P. Blair
dressed hurriedly in his usual black outfitsilently, to avoid awakening his
wifewrapped a black sash around his neck in lieu of a tie, and trotted down
the narrow stairs to the sitting room. He ordered a black manservant to light
the parlor fireplace.
"Use the New York Tribune," he told the servant, pointing to a stack of
newspapers, "not the Globe." The Globe was his paper, a specialized sheet
that reported the official proceedings in both houses of Congress. Old Man
Blair knew how to get his hands on an institution of supreme importance to
Washington's politicians. The Globe was only one of his publications; the
others were in Maryland and Missouri, the states in which he had a political
interest.
The servant had forgotten to open the flue and the fire belched black smoke
into the room. Blair muttered a low curse, pushed the man aside, and reached
up into the chimney to snatch at the lever that controlled the opening. The
day was not starting well for him. He reminded himself that he was in the
Pennsylvania Avenue home he had given to his son Montgomery, and not out
at his own estate in Silver Spring. The old man drew a deep breath and
briskly apologized to the servant, reminded him to expect a visitor before
7 A.M., and called for a large pot of tea in the formal silver service. Waiting,
he exposed his back to the heat of the fire, coughing angrily at the smell of
smoke remaining in the room. When the tray came, he blew on his cup of tea
and brooded over the state of the nation and his family until the fluid and the
fire warmed his bones.
Francis Preston Blair, at seventy, considered himself the last remaining link
of the government in Washington to the days of Andrew Jackson, with the
possible exception of Roger Taney. He had a right to that claim: nobody else
was alive and active on the scene in the capital who had been a member of
President Jackson's "kitchen Cabinet," the tight circle of advisers who
shaped the direction of the country while lesser men ran the departments.
The rambunctious Andy Jackson, the general from common people's Western
stock who had snatched the presidency from the aristocrats of the Adams
dynasty in Massachusetts, had burned into Blair an idea that was heldthen
and nowby only a minority of Americans: that the Union was more than
the sum of the states. The Jackson men, Blair among the fiercest of them, had
refused to go along with the prevailing Jeffersonian notion that the nation was
like a gentlemen's club, some unbound association of sovereignties that states
could be resigned from at will. That looseness of confederation guaranteed
only weakness, invited disunity, and was the reason the founders had
scrapped the Articles of Confederation for a tightly binding Constitution. No;
Blair was certain that once you were in, you were in. No second thoughts
allowed.
That was why Blair felt that he and his sons could claim a good share of
the credit for the unrelenting refusal to bow to the disunionism that had
brought on this war. Without the urgent persuasion and political support of
the Blair family, Lincoln would never have defended Fort Surnter.
The Old Man sipped his tea loudly and nodded agreement with his conclu-
sion. Only the Biairs had counseled armed resistance to secession. Seward,
that double-dealing sneak, had sent word South that the seizure of the Fed-
eral fort would not be a casus belli, and that secession would be met with
acquiescence; the Secretary of State had been airily certain that the Southern
states would come back after the ardor for independence had cooled. Same
with General Winfield Scott, who had offered the President his judgment that
the forts were not defendable, and urged him to permit peaceable secession.
Same with all the Cabinet, including the slippery Chase, who managed to
come down on both sides of that choice. Only Montgomery Blair, after a
family council of war, had risen to urge Lincoln to hold and possess all
Federal property. Lincoln had listened, and Old Man Blair had taken him
aside afterward to tell him what Jackson would have done. No secession
without war. And the war had come, if war is what you could call the silly
horn-tooting and fist-shaking that was going on this summer.
Come the first substantial spilling of blood, and the sudden realization that
the war might drag on for months, perhaps even a year, would the war spirit
of Northern workingmen remain in support of some vague political theory
called "union"? Not in the border states, where it counted, Blair concluded.
Not in Maryland, his home state, whose politics he sometimes dominated.
Not out in Missouri, where he had emplanted a son and bought a newspaper.
Not in Kentucky, the pivotal state, the native state of Abraham Lincoln and
Jefferson Davis; it was Biair's view that if Kentucky went South, the war
would be over before it was fairly started, with the Union sundered.
Kentucky made him think of the Breckinridges, especially cousin John.
The Biairs and Breckinridges were not close kin, but a distant blood connec-
tion was strengthened by the ties of family affection. Eliza Blair, still sleeping
upstairs, had assumed the job of nursing John Breckinridge's father in the last
week of his life when he was afRicted by the fever ravaging Washington. John
was only two years old at the time, and Biair's daughter Lizzie, only a few
years older, had taken charge of the child; that affection lasted to this day. All
the Breckinridge men seemed to die young, Blair recalled, thinking of John's
father and his grandfather, Jefferson's Attorney General. Great careers cut off
in their thirties. Not one of them had the robust health or political potential
of the young man coming to breakfast on his way to the opening of the
Senate. The old man had his heart set on the presidency for Frank, his
younger son, but if that boisterous Blair was forced to bide his time, then the
Old Man's second choice was cousin John.
"Merry Christmas, Father Blair." The tall form of Breckinridge filled the
doorway to the small sitting room, his eyes looking quizzically at the fire.
The damned fire that morning was not one of his best ideas, the Old Man
conceded to himself, but he would brazen it out. "Had to burn some papers,"
he said mysteriously, "and besides, it was a little chilly before sunup."
His visitor shrugged amiably and took a seat on the far side of the room. "I
had breakfast already, across the street with my cousin Mary, but these muf-
fins look good." Breckinridge plunged into a plate of them, washing the cakes
down with a glass of milk he poured from the silver pitcher. "Cousin Mary,"
Blair knew, was Mary Todd Lincoln, across the street in the Mansion; all
these Kentucky people were related, it seemed. It was good, however, that
Senator Breckinridge was spending some time with the Lincolns. The new
President, Blair had learned, could be persuasive and was almost Jacksonian
when he made up his mind.
"John Cabell Breckinridge," he called out ominously, "do you trust me?"
"Father Blair," said the former Vice President without hesitation, "I trust
you almost as much as I trust your wife, whom every Breckinridge knows to
be a saint." Good political answer, the old man noted; it said nothing. Any
protestation of complete trust would have been a lie. Nobody wholly trusted a
Blair except another Blair.
"Why did you let Jeff Davis talk you into running for President last year?"
Blair asked, testing the young man further. "You must have known it would
split the Democrats, make it impossible for Judge Douglas to beat Lincoln."
The senator nodded, pointing to his cheek full of muffin as an excuse for
saying nothing.
"You knew that you were guaranteeing the election of the Republican,"
Blair went on. "And you knew, as we all did, that the election of Lincoln
would be the excuse for the fire-eaters in the South to secede. Yet you ran and
split the party and got Lincoln elected. Why?"
The senator swallowed and said, "I made one speech in that campaign and
it was for the Union. Against secession."
"Yet the effect of your candidacy was anti-Union," Blair pressed, knowing
the answer. "You received 900,000 Democratic votes, Douglas 1,200,000
Democratic votes, and Lincoln about 1,900,000 Republicans. Your candidacy
practically guaranteed the election of the man you knew would bring about
disunion. Why?"
"I have never answered that," Breckinridge said, "because it would cast
doubt on the honor of men I respect."
Blair was not having any of that evasion. "Tell me what happened when
Jeff Davis and Robert Toombscame to you before the Baltimore convention
with a certain proposal," Blair said, tipping his hand a little. Surely the young
man wanted t@ tell someone the real story; it would help if Breck knew that
the Biairs suspected the truth that made him look like less of an unpatriotic
ass.
"They told me I was the only one who could unite the Northern and
Southern factions of the Democratic Party," he said, as if glad to spill what
had been dammed inside. "Douglas was unacceptable to the Southerners. I
was against secession, and acceptable to Northern Democrats, but not against
slavery's extension west, and therefore acceptable to the Southerners. Espe-
cially the pro-Union South, the Southern people without slaves. There are a
lot of them, you know. They voted for me."
"What did Davis and Toombs offer you?"
"They said if I accepted the nomination of their faction, they would go to
Senator Douglas and use that to get him to withdraw. With me in the race,
Douglas would know he could not win. Then I, too, would withdraw and we
would pick a compromise candidate that would hold the Democratic Party
together."
Blair could picture Davis and Toombs, the two high-minded Southerners,
probably filled with a desire to establish an independent state, dangling this
proposal before the young Vice President. They had persuaded him that only
with his public acceptance, with the fait accompli of a Breckinridge candi-
dacy, could they force Douglas to withdraw and bring about a party reconcil-
iation.
"But the 'Little Giant' wouldn't go for that, would he?" Blair asked. Of
course not; it had all been a ruse to split the party.
Breckinridge shook his head. "Jeff Davis came back to tell me that the
man's ambition was greater than his patriotism. Douglas was determined to
run, with or without the Southern Democrats. It was Douglas who split the
party, with his unreasonable refusal to compromise. That's what they re-
ported to me."
Blair shook his head in grudging admiration of the political skill with
which Jeff Davis had entrapped the innocent Breckinridge. "And when
Douglas refused to compromise, why did you hang in to the bitter end? Why
didn't you face reality and graciously withdraw?"
"You know the answer to that, Father Blair," the senator said, misery in
his eyes. "I had publicly announced. I was a formal candidate, the choice of
the states that had been unfairly driven out of the regular Democratic con-
vention. I would have looked the fool to knuckle under to the ambition of
Stephen Douglas. It would have been the end of me, which is not so impor-
tant, but it would have let down all those who had nominated me." The
moment was evidently painful for him. "Men are sometimes placed in a
position," he said finally, "where they are reluctant to act and expose them-
selves to censure they do not merit."
Blair waited a moment for the young man to listen to the echo of his
defensive words. "You understand, of course, that you were ill-used. You
were tricked by a cabal that wanted only to see elected the man who was
anathema to their region, and then divide the Union."
Breckinridge looked into the fire, apparently still unwilling to accept as fact
his own suspicions of the motives of the men who had induced him to declare
as a candidate. "It could be that they were sincere, and thought truly that my
candidacy would drive Douglas out. I want to believe that. I have no good
cause to believe otherwise, except"
"Except that the internal logic of the situation suggests that you were
cruelly manipulated," Blair snapped, "and tricked into doing a terrible disser-
vice to your country. The trouble with you, my dear young distant kinsman,
is that you're so goddamned honorable yourself that you fail to see dishonor
and deceit in others."
"Maybe you're right," Breckinridge said, suddenly brightening at the ap-
pearance of Lizzie Blair, the Old Man's daughter, in the sitting room. "And
maybe not. Lizzie, do you think I have been cruelly manipulated?"
"If Father says you have been, you have been," she affirmed, "because he
knows more about that than anybody."
The Old Man glared a warning at her; this was no time for her to hint at
his objection to her marrying that swashbuckling sailor. At least her hus-
band's seafaring ways made it possible for her to live at home with the Biairs.
Because Lizzie and Breckinridge had always been close, the elder Blair had
arranged for her to drop in at the end of the breakfast to lend her support to
his plea. She was more of an independent-minded woman than he had
planned, howeverhad less judgment than her brother Monty, far more
good sense than her younger brother Frank. He hoped she remembered she
had been invited to breakfast for a reason. In hammering home the lesson of
last year's candidacy, with all its troublesome consequences, Blair was telling
Breckinridge not to let his concern for constitutional rights get in the way of
the overriding need to hold the country together. But the young man was
obstinate; Blair had to be subtle. He hoped he had not been too subtle, which
was where his daughter could help.
"The Congress convenes this morning," she said dutifully. "John, whose
side are you going to be on?"
"The Constitution's."
"I knew there was going to be trouble," the old man growled. Anna Ella
Carroll, a Maryland ally, had told him of the Kentuckian's fervent belief in
the rightness of Judge Taney's ridiculous defense of the plug-uglies in Balti-
more. "What Lizzie means isare you going to make a lot of unnecessary
enemies in this session of the Senate, or are you going to think about your
future?"
"What Lizzie means," interrupted Lizzie, "is that we expect that you'll do
whatever your conscience tells you to do. It's just that you're inclined to be a
man of moderation, John, and these days there isn't too much sentiment for
moderation."
"I commend to you Henry the Fifth," the elder Blair added. " In peace
there's nothing so becomes a man as modest stillness and humility, but when
the blast of war blows in our ears' "
"There is no war. Just a lot of parading around, getting ready." Breckin-
ridge was respectful, still affectionate, but unyielding. "There need be no
war."
"Now we're to the point of why I asked you to stop by," Blair said. "You
have to realize that secession means war. Jackson said it, Lincoln is saying it,
and that's the way it is, no matter how silent the Constitution may be. If you
stay on the right side of that, you can criticize the government all you like for
arbitrary arrests. But just cross over, try to argue that the South can secede
without war, and you'll throw away your future. Worse, even."
Breckinridge nodded his understanding and rose to go. Did he really grasp
the import of opposing the prevailing sentiment? Blair wondered if he knew
how easy it would be for men who felt strongly about the secession to impute
treason to oppositionno matter how principled or right-minded or loyal
that oppositionthat abetted treason.
Lizzie embraced him, saying, "What Father means is that whatever you do,
you can count on the Biairs to stick up for you, right up to the point where it
begins to hurt Frank's chances. Then we don't know you. Nobody will know
you, except the same people who trapped you before. Don't let it come to
that, John."
After he left, she turned to her father and said, "How are you going to
persuade anybody to do the sensible thing when you light the fireplace on the
Fourth of July? That smell of smoke will be with us all summer."
Blair didn't care. He thought he made his point, and his politically sage
daughter had helped him make it. She was a Blair, all right, as practical as
she was loyal. "You manipulated your cousin cruelly," he said, pleased with
her and himself, almost certain the young man would take the right path.
Blair picked up a poker and jabbed at the fire, breaking up the logs so the
damn thing would flame up and burn itself out before his wife came down-
stairs.
"I worry about that man," Lizzie said, and revealed more about her cousin
than her father had known. "Last year's campaign tore him aparthe wasn't
running for office, he was enduring an ordeal, and for the first time in his life
he knows what it is like to be hated. He lives here in the capital and his wife
and sons live down in Lexington. He's seeing too much of Anna Carroll, I
think, and they say he sees Rose Greenhow too." She sighed profoundly.
"And they say he's drinking."
Blair thought of Andrew Jackson and how all the scandals never banned
him politically. He allowed himself to wonder what Rose O'Neal Greenhow,
the "Wild Rose," would be like in bed. "Breck shouldn't drink," was all he
said to his daughter.
CHAPTER 6
I RISE IN OPPOSITION
The best policy for Kentucky, Breckinridge decided, was armed neutrality.
The state would not join the secession, nor join those Union fire-eaters like
the Biairs who pushed Lincoln into warring on the separated states. Ken-
tucky would sit this war out, letting the ardor on both sides burn until it
became obvious that neither side could impose its will.
Mediation at this early stage seemed hopeless, though he would continue to
search for a suitable compromise before the fighting became serious. If some
major battlefield bloodletting did take place, then no mediation could proceed
as the popular demand for vengeance rose, but in time neutral Kentucky, as
the only state that could treat with both powers evenhandedly, might provide
the bridge to bring the parties together. And John Cabell Breckinridge, the
apostle of moderation in the moderate state, would be the most trusted peace-
maker.
Like most other senators, he had defied his coat on the sweltering July day.
In the cloakroom, the Washington humidity was especially oppressive. The
usual lobby agents were not present, since the Senate was considering a mo-
tion to make legal all the unconstitutional acts Lincoln had committed before
calling Congress back into session. That sort of legislation provided benefits
to none and was certain of passage.
John Fomey, sometime newsman, now clerk of the Senate, had called him
out to talk to Anna Carroll before his speech.
"Miss Carroll here thinks you are liable to make a damn fool of yourself
this afternoon," Forney drawled as he brought them together, "and she'd like
to save you from yourself. Like everybody does, even Wade and Baker. Never
saw so many people so worried about one senator's stand."
"He's right," Breckinridge said to the woman he was so glad to see. "I am
quite aware that nothing I can utter here will have the slightest effect."
"Not true," she said, dismissing Forney with a nod and a quick smile. "You
could do great harm to the cause of the Union, Breck, and I know you don't
want to do that."
Two nights before, in her rooms at the Ebbitt House, they had stayed up
through the dawn arguing the details of the President's war power. She had
been prepared for the discussion far better than he; the senator suspected she
had helped the Attorney General help Lincoln prepare his long July 4 mes-
sage to the convening Congress, asking for blanket approval of waging his
undeclared war. They must have gone at the argument for nine or ten hours,
never bothering to eat and stopping only once to make love. She had not
permitted him to bring a bottle of whiskey.
Anna had attempted to persuade him to accept the argument of necessity.
In war, much must be sacrificed to necessity, and he had granted that not all
the legal niceties could be observed near the front, but in this case there was
no necessity for war. A political union, much like the marriage of a man and
woman, had to be based on comity and shared beliefs; a union with one
section forced to belong was tyranny. The terrible acts required to enforce
control of one section by another, he had argued, would infect the rest of the
government and end all hope of democracy. Anna Carroll had refused to see
that an unconstitutional war would corrupt the North and ruin what union
remained. Obstinate woman, irritating in her tenacity, but adorable even
when not adoring, and helpful in putting him through the arguments he
would face on the Senate floor.
"That was not my purpose," she said grimly in the Senate cloakroom,
when he thanked her for preparing him for his speech this day. "I am trying
to save your life in politics."
"There comes a time" he began, squaring his shoulders, but stopped
when she reached up and banged her fist on his upper arm.
"There comes a time in life when a man should learn to shut up," she said.
"This is such a time. If you don't agree on the war powers, abstain. Go have
tea with Lizzie Blair, who loves you more than that silly sailor of hers, or go
pay a secret visit to the Wild Rose, I don't care. Just don't make an ass of
yourself in the Senate on the burning issue of the day."
An auburn tendril had spilled over her forehead; he pushed it back auto-
matically. Men who denied themselves the friendship of older women, it
occurred to him, were missing much in life. He remembered her from ten
years ago, when she was Uncle Bob's wide-eyed spiritual ward, and she had
never been in such full bloom as a publicist or a woman. Lizzie, too, was
more attractive to him now, but he had never had a love affair with Old Man
Biair's daughter; just friends, always the unresolved tensions. It was better to
make love and have that a part of it all, not a distraction because of its
presence or absence. The Wild Rose was a different story; she brought pas-
sions out of men they never knew they possessed, but Rose was a hater, not a
thinker, too relentlessly stimulating to be anybody's companion.
Did all that make him a libertine and a hypocrite? He thought not, al-
though he had to allow for the moral possibility. Mary Cyrene Breckinridge
had never wanted to share the part of his life that centered on the District of
Columbia, preferring to raise the children and be a good companion to him at
home in Lexington. An upright, loyal wifecome to think of it, he could not
recall Mary's opinion about peaceful separation of the states, although she
made no secret she despised slaverydeserving of a loyal, respectful hus-
band, which he was whenever they were together.
Breckinridge knew that his vice, as far as the public was concerned, was
supposed to be a fondness for corn whiskey; he did not think that much of a
vice, especially for a politician from the state that produced the product, and
in an odd way it protected him in a way from talk about womanizing that
might have worried Mary. She did not worry about his drinking because she
knew he could put it aside whenever he had to. She did not worry about other
women because he gave her no reason to worry. His only problem at home
was his son, Cabell, who was sixteen and looked older and liked to talk of
war. Breckinridge did not know where the boy got that from. Mary looked
young to have a boy that age, and was much more innocent in the ways of the
world than the woman who was punching his shoulder again.
"You're not listening. Here is a memorial of the points I made, with cita-
tions from Justice Marshall, and a precis of the nullification debate. It shows
how President Jackson was right and Senator Calhoun didn't understand the
Constitution."
He took the paper and nodded his thanks, assuming she had been told of
the nullification precedent by Old Man Blair, whose hatred of Calhoun never
abated. Her writing, as always, was a hurried scrawl, evidence of her vigor
and haste. It would be a useful checklist, if any senator wanted to argue the
law after his speech. He hoped there would be no debate today. His purpose
was to plant the seed of doubt in some minds already set on war, and angry
ripostes would not advance that aim.
"Senator Baker isn't here today," she told him, "so you won't be provoked.
Ben Wade is, but I've talked to him and told him the best way to handle you
is to ignore you."
Breckinridge frowned at her mothering, the main drawback of older
women. Senator Edward Baker of Oregon, the Eddie Baker from Illinois who
used to be his good friend in the House years ago, was the closest to Lincoln
of any man now in the Senate. Lincoln's first son, who died in infancy, had
been named Edward Baker Lincoln. Now Baker was a colonel in the Union
Army, dividing his time between the Virginia front and the Senate floor. The
Kentuckian knew there had to be a clash in the Senate with Baker, who was
foolishly spoiling for war and was all too ready to vote Lincoln the powers of
a dictator. And Ben Wade, who wanted a war to wipe out slavery, was a man
Breckinridge looked forward to debating one day. But not today, not yet; he
fought down his irritation and was glad that she had arranged for that tempo-
rary protection.
"Wade expects me to make a Confederate speech, doesn't he?"
"You'd damn well better not," she snapped. When he glared back, she
softened: "A great many important people are hoping I'm right about you.
I've told them that you'll suffer in silence, and not let your love of the form of
the Constitution undermine the union cause."
He knew that, all right; she had surely told Ben Wade, probably told the
Biairs, and possibly even Lincoln that she could take him into the pro-union,
pro-war camp. Or at the least, get him to be quiet, enabling the pro-union
Kentuckians to carry the day. By speaking out, he would also damage her
career, he supposed; he regretted that.
They shook hands solemnly. He strode to his desk on the Democratic side
of the aisle. She climbed to the gallery to watch.
Vice President Hannibal Hamlin, presiding, recognized the junior senator
from Kentucky.
"I rise in opposition," Breckinridge said to a full chamber, "to the Republi-
can resolution to grant approval to all the extraordinary acts taken by the
President since his inauguration,"
That caught everyone's attention. Briskly, and without the full-throated
oratorical flourishes he was noted for, the Kentuckian mentioned the raising
of armies without sanction of the legislature, the imposition of a blockade of
Southern ports as an act of war without proper declaration by the Congress,
unlawful searches and seizures, and, most important, Lincoln's usurpation of
Congress's power to suspend the privilege of habeas corpus.
"The fact that the Republicans are eager to pass this resolution," he de-
duced, "is a bald admission that President Lincoln has been operating in
gross violation of the Constitution and the laws he is sworn to execute."
"Fudge," came a loud growl from Benjamin Wade of Ohio. As a mere
ejaculation, without recognition from the Chair, the Wade remark could be
ignored. Breckinridge was not seeking a confrontation; he did not demand
that Wade's word be "taken down" and the offender forced to remain quiet
for the rest of the day. Breckinridge sailed on, unperturbed.
"Moreover, we of the Congress cannot indemnify the illegal actions of
another branch. If we could do that, then we could set aside the Constitution
at will. If we could alter the Constitution by mere passage of a resolution,
then that document is meaningless. As all here know, the power to amend the
Constitution is reserved to the States."
The law was on his side, he knew. It was vital that he stick to the law, in a
quietly judicious tone, to persuade any of his fellow senators to open their
minds to the possibility of temporary, peaceful separation. A little doubt at a
time was all he could sow; not too much in one speech; and always in a spirit
of loyal Democratic opposition, conscious that he was lighting his candles in
a room filled with the spirit of war, where almost all the men were waiting for
him to say something bordering on treason.
"In raising an army and navy, in blockading ports, in imprisoning loyal
Americans who dared only to disagree publicly with his policies," the Ken-
tuckian argued, "Mr. Lincoln has drawn to himself not only his own execu-
tive powers, but those of the Congress and the Supreme Court. The President
decides who is to be arrested and who is to be jailed. In every age of the
world, this has been the very definition of despotism."
Should he have used the word "despotism"? He was testing the outer
perimeter of loyalty, but nobody else in this chamber was saying what had to
be said. The tension after the word "despotism" was palpable. With the
Senate expecting him to defend the Confederacy, it was time to back away a
little.
"I do not deny the authority of this body, together with the Executive, to
wage war to preserve the Union under the Constitution. But let us be certain
that we do so in a strictly constitutional manner, as we have waged other
wars. Let us take care not to use this war as an occasion to change the nature
of our government."
He thought of Edward Baker's pernicious suggestion to wipe out all state
divisions entirely, replacing the identity of Pennsylvanians and Virginians
with a new national consciousness as Americans. He thought, too, of Baker's
proposal to subjugate the Southern states and treat them later as territories.
Not now; the time was not ripe to take that on. Not with Baker in the field,
in uniform; the time would come to debate these extreme notions after they
had been shown to be the logical extension of today's rubber-stamp resolu-
tion.
He moved to safer ground. "Another resolution before the Senate is 'a bill
to suppress the slaveholder's rebellion.' I submit to you that this bill is in
effect a scheme to emancipate all slaves in those states in rebellion." He
looked toward Wade and the other Republican radicals, a distinct minority
within their own party in favor of outright abolition. "This resolution even
implies that we should employ these freed slaves in our army, a suggestion
that will repel many of our Northern countrymen. It is an open invitation to
servile rebellion, to rapine and murder throughout the South. Its passage
would foment hatred here at home for the next century, and would be seen as
a monstrous act before the world."
He had the black Republicans there; only a handful of senators were
bloody-minded enough to follow Wade, Chandler, Baker, and Sumner into
the morass of inciting a slave rebellion. "If Congress could legislate this
unconstitutional seizure, and if Congress could make legal the murder of
masters by slaves, then Congress would have the absolute power to overthrow
all our rights, personal and political."
By linking the two resolutions, he made the point that a vote to ratify
Lincoln's illegal acts on such as habeas corpus would surely lead all the way
to abolition of all slave property everywhere, including that in loyal states.
The majority of Republicans could, with Lincoln, reasonably oppose the ex-
tension of slavery into the West, but only a few firebrands insisted on seizing
slave property and turning the freed slaves on their masters.
The speech, as he had hoped, left the Senate distinctly uncomfortable.
Conservative Lincoln Republicans called for recognition to make clear that
the resolution to make legal the President's emergency acts, which had wide
support, was in no way associated with the emancipation resolution, which
was not supported by the President.
The vote on the resolution to ratify the President's war actions passed
overwhelmingly, as Breckinridge fully expected. He had registered his protest
in a rational manner; he had troubled a few consciences. When the moment
came for mediation and moderation, Breckinridge would be available.
He looked up to the gallery. Anna Carroll, looking intense and angry, was
walking out. Nobody came around to talk to him after the speech. On the
way out, John Forney came up to him, shaking his head. "Sophistry, John.
Your friends down South fired on Surnter and started a war. The Congress
could not abandon the President in fighting back."
Breckinridge shrugged. "You think anyone will pay attention to my dis-
sent?"
"Sure. Miss Carroll did, made notes like crazy, and will probably start
writing to all the newspapers. She was sore as a bear. I told her you were
making your point of principle, and now you had it out of your system, you
could sit tight. Was I right?"
Breckinridge shrugged, feeling bad about Anna, who now had to hurry to
protect her own interests. Forney's mention of the press reminded him of an
important item about his speech. "Did the Associated Press send a copy to all
the newspapers that asked for it? Especially in Kentucky and Maryland?"
"The reporter undoubtedly intended to," Fomey replied ruefully. "But the
War Department refuses to send your speech over the telegraph wires."
"But that was a speech by a duly elected senator, on the Senate floor.
Nobody could impute disloyalty to that dissent. Where does the Secretary of
War get the right to decide what the people can read about?"
It was Forney's turn to shrug. "War power, I guess. Don't get the idea you
can talk over the Administration's head to the people, Senator. You're lucky
to be able to talk to the men in that room,"
CHAPTER 7
SUNDAY IS NOT THE BEST TIME
"I had to throw John Breckinridge off the Military Affairs Committee to-
day."
Rose Greenhow steadily poured the tea into the cup held out by Senator
Henry Wilson. The cup shook slightly; the senator was nervous. Rose knew
just what was bothering him and offered no assistance.
"After that speech he made about Lincoln being a despot," the senator
added, "I had to. Frankly, we were prepared to arrest Breck if he said any-
thing outright treasonable, but he held back just short of that. Enough tea,
Rose. You know I hate the stuff."
Rose had been told of the plan to arrest Breckinridge, if he went too far, by
several of the abolitionists. She had warned her Kentucky friend of his peril,
and he said he would reword his speech with that in mind; evidently he had,
and the Republican radicals were foiled. "I thought that Breck was one of the
few senators with military experience," she allowed, deliberately filling the
cup to the brim, "as a major leading the Kentuckians in the Mexican War."
"Can't take a chance," said Wilson. "He's a risk to go South. He could
reveal all our plans."
"I'm glad we have plans, Henry." She plopped a lump of sugar into his
teacup, causing the liquid to spill into the saucer. She knew that in his agi-
tated state, he would put up with anything. "I was beginning to think this war
is all pronouncements and parades."
He slurped at the tea to stop it from spilling as his hand shook. "Our
troops under McDowell will be on the move one of these days. They'll smash
the rebel army in Virginia."
That vague "one-of-these-days" was not good enough. She raised her hand
with what she felt was the appropriate languor. "Please, no military secrets,
Henry. You tell me what everybody in our set in Washington knows already,
and you act as if you were confiding the most sensitive information in the
Republic. Spare me."
"Rose, do you suppose we can go upstairs now?"
The poor fellow was in a state; Rose concealed her contempt, shaking her
head as if sorry not to be able to accommodate his passion. "You are begin-
ning to treat me as your plaything, Senator. I am nobody's plaything. I am
more of a lady than anyone you know."
She let him assure her of his abiding respect, and confess to her his terrible
weakness. This was their routine; he liked to be treated shabbily, and she was
experienced in taking a man much farther down that demeaning road.
As the wife of a State Department librarian, Rose had been denied the
social distinction she craved. Defeated, the Greenhows moved to San Fran-
cisco where Rose had an incredible run of luck: when her husband was killed
by a fall into an open sewer, she sued the city and was awarded a large sum
from an amorous judge. She had been able to return to Washington on her
own terms: a woman of wealth and independence, with still enough good
looks and charm to establish a salon of the powerful.
Mrs. Greenhow now traveled in the incestuous circle of political privilege,
more sought-after than seeking. Political figures, men of wealth, and now
high military officers came to her fine brick home for social or political con-
nection. She knew that she retained much of her beauty, and knew how to use
all that was left of it; more than that, she understood how certain men in
positions of power needed to be dominated by a woman. For nearly twenty
years, she had savored the underlife of this Southern city, and now that she
had been recruited by the Confederacy as a spy, she felt fulfilled as never
before. Her breeding, her inclinations and her hatreds came together in this
time of war to give her life purpose. The woman once known merely as the
Wild Rose gloried in having a mission at last: to conspire against and to crush
the men and women she had come to despise.
Rose nodded coldly at Henry Wilson's long apology, calculating the possi-
bility of getting one useful fact out of him. Despite his tendency to turn into
sexual jelly, the man was no fool and was reluctant to pass along what he
knew. She used him mainly for confirmation of what she gleaned elsewhere.
Rose had established a sexual liaison with a clerk on the Military Affairs
Committee who probably knew more of the detail of the strength of
McDowell's forces than the committee chairman knew. She had already ar-
ranged with a colonel on Confederate general Beauregard's staff a simple
code and method of delivering messages across the lines. The general had
been informed, by a message wrapped in the tresses of a young woman who
worked for Rose, that the likely direction of the Federal attack would be from
Arlington Heights to Centreville and on to Manassas. She was certain, from
her infatuated clerk and two other sources, that McDowell had thirty-five
thousand men in his command, almost double the Beauregard strength.
One fact she had not yet been able to send through to Confederate head-
quarters: the timing of the Yankee attack. Her contact on Beauregard's staff,
an attractive young colonel who went by the name of Jordan, had pleaded for
this specific information: it was vital because a Confederate force of twelve
thousand under Joe Johnston was protecting the entrance to the Shenandoah
Valley, a possible Yankee route to Richmond. If the South could find out
what day the Federal movement was to begin toward Bull Run Creek, John-
ston's force could quietly disengage and slip through the Manassas Gap,
without concern about leaving the valley undefended, and consolidate with
Beauregard in time to meet the Union advance into Virginia.
When would McDowell move? Johnston's Army of the Shenandoah could
not pull out of position defending the valley until the Federals committed
themselves to an assault toward Manassas. If McDowell had the benefit of
surprise in his timing, the Confederates could not unite forces in time for the
battle and could be beaten in detail.
"When, Rose?" That startled her; the word "when" had been in her mind.
"When can we go upstairs? It's been a week."
She breathed deeply and let her stern face appear to soften. "I'm still in
mourning, you know." Her older daughter had died months ago; she was
alone in the world with her eight-year-old now. Rose wore black, and draped
a few of the windows suitably, but did not ache for her long-sickly elder
daughter; she had been like her late husband. The eight-year-old, Little Rose,
was more her mother's daughter.
Henry Wilson's expression was a cross between sympathy and frustration,
an odd mixture of passion and compassion that did not suit him. Rose did not
have much time for subtlety in questioning; the courier was in the basement
and had to leave before nightfall to get across the Long Bridge. Perhaps she
could find out in the unguarded moments after sex.
She relieved the senator of the teacup and took his hand. They would
dispense with the elaborate preliminaries.
Rose led the way downstairs, disappointed and irritated. She had probed
indirectly at first, using his opening about keeping information from the likes
of Breckinridge; nothing there. At one point, both staring at ceiling, she
wondered directly about when the city would be stripped of its defenders. His
only reply had been deep, satisfied breathing. She had rolled him out of bed
and handed him his pants, saying something about expecting visitors.
"Who's coming over now?" he wanted to know, following her down the
staircase.
"My other friendships are no business of yours, Henry," she snapped,
adding, "actually, it's just my cook. I'm planning a reception here Sunday."
"In competition with the one at the Biairs'?"
She had forgotten about the Biairs. "It's just a whim of mine, to have an
intimate party on a moment's notice. Not everybody will want to get in that
crush at Monty Biair's. Perhaps General McDowell will prefer a visit here."
The senator hesitated and she said nothing. At the door, he took his hat
and kissed her cheek, telling her he adored her.
"You're invited," she said. "I'll have Addie Douglas over. She's sick of
being in mourning, and so am 1."
"Look, Rose, I can't say why, but this Sunday is not the best time for a
party. As of tomorrow morning, McDowell will be gone. And on Sunday,
some of us are planning a carriage ride over the bridge to watch the end of the
war." A worried look crossed his face. "I only hope the Lord does not chas-
tise us for fighting on the Sabbath."
"It wouldn't be much of a reception without the general," she said, trying
to look stupid.
"He'll have his hands full cutting the Manassas Gap railroad," the senator
blurted, halfway out the door. "Postpone it a week and make it a victory
celebration. Your Southern friends will be upset, but they'll need you to
intercede on their behalf with a lot of angry Lincoln men."
"That's a good idea," she said, waving. "I'll wait a week."
She slowly closed the front door, then rushed down to the courier in the
basement. They coded a message: "Order issued for McDowell to move on to
Manassas tonight. Intend to cut Manassas Gap railroad to prevent Johnston
joining Beauregard. R.O.G."
The man slipped out the back. Rose went to the upstairs bedroom window,
looking west into the sunset across the Potomac, her heart pounding. All the
Yankees who had used her and insulted her through the years would pay. She
told herself that the surge of emotion she felt was neither hatred nor ven-
geance but only the purest patriotism.
CHAPTER 8
FAMILY COUNCIL OF WAR
The clan had been busy on several fronts; time for the first wartime Blair
council of war.
Lizzie no longer had to demand to be included in the political sessions
during these ingatherings at Silver Spring. With her husband, Phillips Lee, at
sea most of the time, she had become her father's confidential secretary,
drafting his most important correspondence and keeping track of the family's
far-flung financial commitments.
When the businessman-son, James, died a decade ago, Father Blair had
prevailed on his widow to raise the grandchildren in a house on the Silver
Spring compound. Lizzie had felt that parental pressure, too, and had resisted
at first, using part of her ten-thousand-dollar stake from her father to build a
house flush up against the Blair house in town on Pennsylvania Avenue. Then
Father gave his original house, so convenient to the Executive Mansion across
the street, to Montgomery, the oldest surviving son, and the parents pro-
ceeded to make Lizzie's house their in-town home.
Lizzie liked that arrangement. The Blair-Lee houses were almost a single
unit, kept from complete amalgamation only by the sniffiness of Montgom-
ery's second wife, and nobody with an interest in the nation's affairs could be
lonely there. It was a lively place; in the front parlor of the Blair house, only a
couple of months ago, Father and General Scott had offered the field com-
mand of the Union Army to Colonel Robert Lee, who turned them down and
went South.
In this council of the clan, around the dining-room table of the great three-
story house, Lizzie sat on the firm wooden arm of the chair of Frank, the
family's favorite. He was a black-mustachioed man, enthusiastic and impetu-
ous and not oppressively intelligent, who had adopted Western ways when he
took charge of family newspapers and businesses in Missouri. Frank was the
politician-son, the most immediately likable of all the Biairs; he was already a
factor in Congress, and was destined by the clan's common consent to be
President one day. Lizzie was pleased that Montgomery, just turned fifty,
who now sat as Postmaster General in Lincoln's Cabinet, never showed the
slightest jealousy at the family's choice of his brother, ten years his junior, to
be the family candidate for Chief Executive. Montgomery, a fine lawyer
whom Lincoln liked to call "the judge," had the intellect, but Frank had the
ability to lead, if he could keep from tripping over his big feet.
To Lizzie's left, in a straight-backed chair directly across the circle from
her husband, sat the woman Washington society called the Lioness. Mother
spoke up, defended her brood against all comers, and counted for much at
family decision time. She had been like a daughter to Henry Clay, co-edited
the Jackson-supporting Globe, and through her extensive family, the Gists,
extended the Blair family influence throughout the South and West. She had
more than doubled her husband's reach; the clan had blood connections
throughout the nation.
"You could have had your head shot off at that arsenal, Frank," Mother
said.
A month before, with nobody's authority, Frank had enlisted a detachment
of troops in St. Louis, appointed himself their leader, and seized the city
arsenal in the name of the Union. This daring act prevented the secession-
minded governor from turning over a great store of arms to the South.
"We had to shoot into the mob," Frank reported proudly, "killed about
twenty, lost only a handful of my men." Lizzie ostentatiously patted him on
the back on behalf of the clan. "That's what the Federal commander should
have done in Baltimore when the mob took over."
"The Baltimore riots called for different handling," Montgomery, whose
base was the state of Maryland, countered. "We had the votes in the state
legislature to defeat secession, so we just kept moving the legislature around,
out to Frederick, so the mob couldn't influence the members. Not as dra-
matic, but it worked."
Frank shrugged. "You're the Cabinet member. I'm not even Speaker of the
House."
"Don't complain," Father said to the younger son. "The speakership had
to go to Pennsylvania. It was part of my deal to make Monty Postmaster
General."
Frank pretended to look put out, then grinned up at Lizzie. "Always glad
to lay down my career for my brother. Which reminds me, Monty, I'm
broke."
"You're worse than that," Montgomery replied, "you're bankrupt. I had to
send an accountant out West to bail you out. How do you lose so much
money on a newspaper?"
"In a good cause," Father interceded. "I don't mind losing money on the
papers for a while, if they promote our cause. Remember those two reporters
Frank hired last year out of Lincoln's law office in Springfield? Nicolay, the
serious one, and the young lady-killer fresh out of the college in Rhode
Island? They're the President's secretaries now, and they owe their start to
the Biairs."
"The word is around Washington, Father," said Frank, "that you're the
one who has Lincoln's ear. True? Were you really the only one to see the
Inaugural Address before he delivered it?"
"Seward and I," his father nodded. "Men who have the destiny of great
nations in their hands never hear the truth; I am trying in this instance to
make Lincoln an exception. I told him he had to put in the part about not
abolishing slavery where it exists. Seward added that folderol at the end about
the better angels of our nature."
"If the Biairs are in so close, Preston," said Mother, "how come Billy
Bowlegs carries so much weight? He's hated all the Biairs from the start."
"That's the way Lincoln operates," the oldest Blair explained. "He bal-
ances forces, keeping us all at each other's throats, so that no faction gets the
upper hand. But don't say that Seward hates us, Eliza. He offered Frank the
vice presidency last year."
Frank looked up sharply, as did Monty. "Seward offered me what?"
Lizzie, alone of the children, knew the secret, and was glad it was out. The
old man relished telling the story.
"You will recall at the Republican convention last year, Seward of New
York was the strongest candidate. Bates of Missouri was second, Lincoln of
Illinois third. The rest was split between Chase of Ohio and Cameron of
Pennysivania."
"And we supported Bates," said Frank impatiently. "We even got Horace
Greeley to desert Seward and swing his support to Bates. We controlled the
Bates support at the convention. I forget why we were so high on Bates."
"Because," Lizzie put in, "only a border-stater like Edward Bates, who was
no abolitionist, could keep the South from seceding. Father was right about
that. When Simon Cameron double-crossed everyone and threw Pennsylvania
to Lincoln, old Abe got the nomination and we've got a war."
"What has that got to do with me and the vice presidency?" Frank, though
not the shrewdest of them, had his eye on the main chance.
"Thurlow Weed came to me on behalf of his longtime partner, William
Seward," said the elder Blair. "As you know, Mr. Weed and I detest each
other, but business is business. In his desperation, after Pennsylvania had
defected to Lincoln, Thurlow Weed offered the vice presidency to you, Frank,
on a Seward ticketif I would deliver the Bates support to Seward on the
next ballot."
"And you turned him down?" asked the youngest son weakly.
"I turned him down, and as a result, Lincoln won the Republican nomina-
tion. With Breckinridge splitting the Democrats, it meant that our decision
put Lincoln where he is today."
"Our decision? This is the first I heard of it." Frank was genuinely put out.
"It would have been unfair of me to put the offer to you at the time. You
would have jumped at it, and Seward would have taken the nomination and
the presidency, with you as his vice president." The elder Blair paused before
making his point: "And William Seward, that damnable weakling and cow-
ard, would have let the Southern states secede." He shot a look at Montgom-
ery. "Am I right about that, Monty?"
"Seward was not prepared to fight to keep the Southern states in the
Union," his older son confirmed. "All his talk years ago of an 'irreconcilable
conflict' was just so much talk. I'll never forget that Cabinet meetingif
Seward had been President when they fired on Surnter, we would be two
nations now."
"I suppose, Father," Frank said gloomily, "we got something at the con-
vention in return for standing fast for Bates and blocking Seward."
"Yes, of course. I traded our refusal to help Seward for a post in the
Lincoln Cabinet for Monty. And for the Blair family's influence in this ad-
ministration."
Monty spoke up. "I really think, Father, that a choice as far-reaching as
that should have been made by all of us. Or at least with the consultation of
the two of us most directly affected. We've been grown men for some time
now, and nobody's puppets, not even yours."
"You're wrong." The Lioness spoke for the first time. "In a clash of your
futures, it's better if your Father decides. That way, the two of you remain
allies."
"Come on, Mother," Lizzie said, "tell them the real reason. Good politics
comes before family sentiment."
Her mother looked at her with surprise, then smiled. "Another reason is
that Frank is the Blair destined to be President. Everything we do, all of us, is
toward that end."
"Then what was wrong with the vice presidency?" Frank asked. "It seems
like a step in the right direction."
"The vice presidency leads nowhere," said the Old Man. "Look at your
cousin John Breckinridgethe vice presidency saddled him with all the mis-
takes of the fool Buchanan. Only Martin Van Buren made it, and that was
despite the vice presidency."
"Sometimes vice presidents succeed to the office," Monty put in mildly.
"Twice in sixteen times," Lizzie said. She remembered when her father had
asked her to look it up; Seward's offer had not been rejected out of hand.
"I don't like those odds," said Francis Preston Blair. "And waiting for
somebody to die is no way for an honorable man to aim for the top. More
important, I wanted to have nothing to do with a deal that would result in the
dismemberment of the Union."
After a silence, Mother said, "I think it might be nice if the boys were to
ratify their father's decision."
Frank broke into a smile. "Fathertell Thurlow Weed to go to hell! I
would rather labor in the vineyards of the Lord, than"
"You'll labor in the United States Army," snapped the Old Man, who,
Lizzie could see, felt better. "We're in a war, such as it is, and the President
after Lincoln is going to be a war hero. A general. That's what you're going
to be, Frank."
The clan chewed that over. After a moment, Frank put forward a problem:
"Fremont. He's a Missourian, a famous soldier, the first candidate of the
Republican Party for President, in fifty-six. They're sure to make him the
commanding general in St. Louis, and you know John Fremonthe thinks
he's God. Where does that leave me?"
"That leaves you in Congress for the time being," his father said, "until the
world can see Fremont making an idiot of himself, like he always does."
"But the war will be over soon."
The Old Man shook his head. "That's what everybody thinks. It's what
Lincoln thinks, he's told me as much, and he's counting on a big victory this
weekend. He thinks the war is about the preservation of the Union, that's all
he talks about. But Lincoln is wrong. The schemers who are taking over his
partyWade, Stevens, Baker, Greeley, the lot of themwill make slavery the
issue. That would push the border states, which are slave states, into South-
ern hands. And all the South will fight to the death against abolition, which
means a long war, maybe two or three years. General Scott agrees with me."
"I disagree." The family's eyes swung to Monty. "I don't think Jeff Davis
speaks for the masses of people in the South. I think a group of conspirators
have got control down there, and as soon as we get into that territory, the
peoplemost of them don't own slaves, you knowthe Southerners will
come over to us. Scott's plan to blockade the South, to seize the Mississippi
and starve them out, is crazy. All it will take is one sharp blow to put down
Davis's band of plunderers."
Father Blair waved at that theory in disgust, causing his wife to say, "He's
the only one here who went to West Point, Preston. Maybe he learned some-
thing there you don't know."
"Wait," Frank said, trying to figure out his plans. "In case Father is right,
and there is a long war, who would win?"
"If the radicals get Lincoln to fight this war over the abolition of slavery,
the South will win." The Old Man had thought it through. "The North will
just get tired and tell the South to take their slavery and go away. But if we
Republicans with enough sense to see that abolition will lose us the warif
we can hold Lincoln to his promise not to interfere with slavery where it
exists, and just to oppose its extension to the Westthen the North will win
and the Union will be saved. The Southerners will get tired of fighting for
slavery out in Kansas so long as they can keep their damn institution at
home."
When this was digested, Frank asked the traditional question: "So what's
the family plan?"
"We've got to beat the radicals in our party so Lincoln can win the war.
You, Frank, will have to undercut Thaddeus Stevens in the House. That mean
old bastardyou know, he lives with a black womanwill be the power
behind the Speaker, and he lives for abolition. I'll make it my job to work on
the Senate, I have Orville Browning there to counter Ben Wade. Maybe I'll
have Breckinridge, too, if Kentucky stays in the Unionwhich it better, or
there's hell to pay."
Lizzie saw Montgomery being quiet, so she said, "The big fight is inside the
Cabinet."
Her brother nodded, eyes closed, as if going around the Cabinet table.
"Attorney General Bates is with us, a border-state man, a Whig, no abolition-
ist. Seward, I don't know"
"Seward will give the appearance of siding with the radicals," said his
father, "to hold his New York constituency and to keep Horace Greeley
quiet. But in a pinch, Billy Bowlegs will be as conservative as any of us."
"Simon Cameron?" Lizzie asked Monty.
"The Secretary of War will go whichever way the wind blows. He seems to
be influenced most by Chase."
"Salmon Portland Chase," said Frank, rolling the name around on his
tongue. "I'll never figure out why a senator from Ohio, with the best chance
of anybody of becoming the next Republican candidate for President, took
the thankless job of Secretary of the Treasury. He's a pompous coot, I know,
but'
"Great dignity," the elder Blair cut him off. "Never underestimate him.
Serious man, wants to be President, thinks he should be President right now,
finds it hard to conceal his contempt for Lincoln. Ohio is shot through with
abolitionism, and Chase will be working with Wade in the Senate to push
every damn radical idea."
"Wade and Chase despise each other personally," Mother explained to
Frank, "like Seward and us. You learn to swallow your dislikes in this world.
What counts is what side you're on."
"I'll keep my eye on Chase," Monty promised. "My Post Office Depart-
ment, by the way, is more than just a good source of the patronage. It's
helpful in keeping track of all sorts of information, holding up certain news-
paper deliveries."
"Not as good as the War Department," said Father. "That controls the
telegraph service. Remember, boys, never send a telegram, even in code, that
you don't want Cameron or Chase to read."
Frank shook his head in wonderment. "We have more enemies on our side
than on the other side."
"Another idea," said the Old Man, rising slowly as the clan council came
to an end. "Anna Carroll will be helpful in learning what Chase is doing. You
remember, she did a lot of writing work for Bates, who can't put a sentence
together. She and Chase are good friends, but she shares an interest with us."
Lizzie presumed that cryptic reference meant that Father had Anna Car-
roll on his payroll somewhere. Lizzie liked Miss Carroll; there was talk about
her having a romantic liaison with Millard Fillmore some years ago, after she
had arranged Know-Nothing support for his attempted comeback, but the
former President had treated her shabbily. Man's world, politics.
"I'll ask her to the Sunday reception, Father."
"You still think we ought to have a big party," Frank cautioned, "with a
battle coming on?"
"The Secretary of War thinks it will be a great way to celebrate the vic-
tory," Monty replied. "Cameron ought to know."
CHAPTER 9

JOHN HAY'S DIARY
JULY 18, 1861

The Hellcat's Southern kin are causing no end of snide comment. A sister of
Mrs. L. from Alabama imposed on the Lincoln hospitality long enough to
supply the rebel forces with a load of desperately needed quinine, slipping it
through the lines with a pass from the President and then crowing loudly
about how she had outwitted "brother Lincoln."
The Tycoon, however, seems not to take notice of the sly digs and instead
insists that his wife's Southern affiliations might actually do some good in
cementing border-state affections. He has said he would like to have God on
his side, but he must have Kentucky.
Frankly, I find it hard to see how a state can be both pro-slavery and anti-
secession, as persnickety Kentucky seems to be, but the Ancient is willing to
take the most egregious abuse from the abolitionist Jacobins among the
Republicans rather than offend the peace Democrats who still profess to be
loyal.
Fortunately, "Mrs. President"1 hate it when she makes people call her
thathas one of her Western kin, rather than her Southern kin, living at the
President's house. Her favorite cousin, Elizabeth Todd Grirnsley of the
sainted state of Illinois, is her constant companion even as our forces are
massing in Virginia to crush General Beauregard at Manassas. Mrs. Grirnsley
is about as deep-rooted a family guest as can be found: she was a bridesmaid
at the Lincoln-Todd wedding lo these almost twenty years ago, both as a
cousin of the bride and a good friend of the groom. The Tycoon likes her
not only for her common sense, but because she is very talland this kins-
woman from Springfield is one of the only women in the world that he can
talk to at a levee without his wife seething with jealousy.
Mrs. Grirnsley has a relative, maybe through marriage to her Kentucky
husband, named John C. Breckinridge. That wavering senator is also a dis-
tant cousin of the Hellcat, or so they call each other; Kentucky stock all runs
together, it seems. He came to tea today. That cousinly gathering struck me
as highly nervy of all of them, since the senator earlier this week had been
denouncing the Prsdt as a despot for being beastly to the traitors in our midst.
The Tycoon took it, however, not as nervy but as a good opportunity to
win over the most influential man in the most worrisome state. When I
mentioned to the Tycoon that the ladies were entertaining Breckinridge down
the hall he suddenly developed a yearning for tea and cookies. We loafed into
the upstairs dining room (the entire downstairs is taken up with hordes of
office-seekers and contract-grubbers) and the Hellcat immediately exploded
with "This poor man, my own flesh and blood, has been under attack all day
by that boor from Ohio, Ben Wade."
"Wade has been after me, too," the Prsdt said to Breckinridge, while deliv-
ering a peck on the cheek to Grirnsley, to whom he must be grateful because
she takes up so much of the Hellcat's time. "Says I don't have the proper
abolitionist zeal."
"People in the South respect 'Bluff Ben' Wade," the senator responded, to
general surprise. "He says what he thinks. There was that time a couple years
ago, after Sumner was beaten with a club in his Senate seat"
"Dastardly act," Mrs. L. put in, "Charles was crippled in that bully's
attack." She likes the vain Sumner, who butters her up outrageously.
"Wade invited one of the Southerners who applauded the attack to chal-
lenge him to a duel," Breckinridge recounted. "When Bob Toombs of Geor-
gia made the mistake of taking him up on it, that meant Wade got to name
the weapons. Ben chose squirrel rifles at twenty paces, each man to wear a
white target patch over his heart, and if they missed on the first shot, they
were to advance a couple paces closer and shoot again until one or the other
was dead. That scared hell out of Senator Toombs, who only wanted to shoot
off a popgun in the meadow from a mile apart for honor's sake. He came over
to Wade's desk and asked, 'What's the use of two grown men making damned
fools of themselves?' They're friends now."
Lincoln had a good laugh out of that, and the Tycoon laughing is some-
thing to see. He leans over in his chair, grabs his knobby knees, rocking back
and forth, his high voice hollering, "Hee, hee, hee!" This embarrasses Mrs.
L whose expression of merriment is a short snort.
"I like the time," said the Prsdt, who never lets a funny story go un-
swapped, "when they were arguing the Kansas-Nebraska bill that denied
slavery in that territory. Some old Southern senator asked, 'You mean when I
go to settle in Nebraska, I can't take my old black mammy with me?' And
Ben Wade shot back at him: 'No objection to taking your old black mammy
to Nebraska, Senator, what we object to is your selling her when you get her
there!"
More general rocking-back-and-forth by the men, a laugh from Mrs.
Grirnsley and a snort from the Hellcat. After recovery, at a nod from the
Prsdt, Mrs. L. rose and said to her visiting kinswoman, "I must show you the
new chandelier in the dining room downstairs. I bought it in New York."
When they hustled off, the Prsdt said to me, "Did the bill come in on that
yet?"
I had it my pocket. "One hundred sixty-six dollars."
He winced and asked Breckinridge what his senatorial salary amounted to
each week. The senator told him sixty dollars and Lincoln allowed as how
about three weeks' work was now hanging over the dining room table. Then
they got down to business.
"Is there a plot afoot, John, to take Kentucky out of the Union?"
"Probably. But Kentucky will stay in, if you let us stay neutral. If you
invade, or try to raise troops to fight in your war, you'll push Kentucky into
secession."
"No state has a right to secede," said the Prsdt, and the fat was in the fire.
"Every state has always been a sovereign entity," the Kentuckian dis-
agreed. "They came together voluntarily. The individual states granted the
federal government certain powers, and reserved all other powers not specifi-
cally enumerated to themselves. Nowhere in the Constitution does it say that
the bond is permanent, or that the national government can force a state to
remain when it decides it has just cause to secede."
"That is sophistry," Lincoln said flatly, "sugar-coating rebellion. Southern
leaders have been drugging the public mind of their section with that for
more than thirty years."
"So says a President elected by 40 percent of the people," Breckinridge
replied, forcefully but not disagreeably. "Your saying so, and Andy Jackson
having said so, does not change the Constitution. The Framers were dealing
with sovereign states, doling out a small portion of their sovereignty to a
central government."
"The word 'sovereignty' is not in the national Constitution," Lincoln ar-
gued, moving from name-calling to lawyering, "nor in any of the state consti-
tutions. Except for Texas, which gave up its independent character when it
chose to come into the Union, no state has ever been a state out of the
Union."
Breckinridge started to challenge that, but Lincoln had his facts straight.
"The original states passed into the Union before they cast off their British
colonial dependence. Having never been states, either in substance or in
name, outside of the Union, whence this magical omnipotence of 'state
rights,' asserting a claim of power to destroy the Union itself?"
"You and Jackson are the only presidents to make such an attack on the
rights of the states that considered themselves sovereign when they formed
the Union." Breckinridge leaned forward, pushing the tea plates and cookies
out of the way. "Read the accounts of the debates of 1776: they called them-
selves 'states' before they unitednot colonies, not lands, not territories
and they put that sovereign word in the union they formed, United States.
Words meant something to the Founders, if not to you." Breckinridge shook
his head, as if overwhelmed by the absurdity of Lincoln's attack on Jefferso-
nian beliefs. "Your reach for national power is not bottomed on constitutional
law. You must have been talking to my cousins, the Biairs."
Lincoln did not deny that. "If the Founders had meant to make the Union
a temporary arrangement, subject to a walkout by a minority, they would
have provided such means of dissolution in the document. Besides, be practi-
cal," said the Prsdt. "If one state may secede, so may another; and when all
have seceded, none is left to pay the national debt. Is that fair to creditors?"
"You would seriously use such a penny-pinching argument to launch a
bloody fratricidal war? The colonies did not concern themselves with En-
gland's national debt when they declared their independence and named
themselves 'united.' " He added, "And if all you are worried about is the debt
left behind by the seceding states, I will volunteer to lead a delegation to
negotiate ajust settlement of obligations left behind." (I fear he got the best of
that point, and Lincoln did not raise it again.)
"I did not launch this war," Lincoln responded, never letting that accusa-
tion go unanswered. "By the affair at Surnter, the rebels forced upon the
country the distinct issue: 'immediate dissolution, or blood.' "
"You created that incident to lay the blame on them," Breckinridge came
right back, "and it worked in igniting the war spirit of the North. But you are
obscuring reality: The seceding states want to leave in peace. They are not
making war on the North. Only you insist on war. Right at this moment, it's
no secret, senators are renting carriages to ride out to Manassas Sunday to see
the great victory. Your troops are invading Virginia. Virginia is not invading
you."
This fellow is a better debater than we thought. The Prsdt, I think, decided
about then to stop trying to make points and to start trying to persuade a
member of a jury. He did, after all, want to win this man over.
"Our popular government is an experiment, John. Two points in it, our
people have already settledthe successful establishing, and the successful
administering of it. One point still remains: its successful maintenance against
a formidable effort to overthrow it."
Breckinridge started to object that nobody was out to overthrow the gov-
ernment in Washington, but Lincoln held up his hand and continued his line
of reasoning. "It is now for us to demonstrate to the world that those who can
fairly carry an election can also suppress a rebellion. We must demonstrate
that when ballots have fairly, and constitutionally, decided, there can be no
successful appeal back to bulletsthat there can be no successful appeal
except to ballots themselves at succeeding elections. If we fail to demonstrate
that the majority rules, then the great experiment in democracy that is this
republic will have failed." He let that terrible prospect sink in, rubbing his
hands slowly on his knees, adding, "Such will be a great lesson of peace. It
will teach men that what they cannot take by an election, neither can they
take by war."
"I understand and respect that, Mr. President. I believe in this experiment
in personal freedom as fervently as my grandfather did, serving in Jefferson's
Cabinet." (That's where he gets his fear of a strong central government, I
guess.) "But no majority can long rule over a beaten minority and remain a
democracy. The sections are in a state of profound disagreement, and the
hotheads are in the saddle, North and South. But we are not yet really at war.
There has been no vast bloodletting in battle, no terrible hatred generated yet.
There is still time for compromise."
"Compromises are often proper," said the master of them, "but no popular
government can long survive a marked precedent, that those that carry an
election can only save the government from immediate destruction by giving
up the main point of the election. Only the people, and not their servants, can
reverse their own deliberate decisions."
A look of pain crossed the Kentuckian's face; I believe the man was actu-
ally suffering, in his inability to sway the resolute President. He is surely not
one of those arrogant fire-eaters that usually do the arguing for the secesh
more of a Hamlet, this one is, which is why the Tycoon is spending the time
to save his soul from political perdition. "Do not recognize the Confederacy,"
Breckinridge suggested, "recognize only the need for a period to cool off.
During a period of peaceful separation, the natural bonds that you spoke of so
eloquently in your Inaugural will have a chance to rebind."
When Lincoln did not immediately rebut, the Kentuckian went on: "Noth-
ing will separate us more permanently than war. And it will be a long war,
Lincolndon't believe what the Biairs tell you about the unionist Southern
masses rising against the few conspirators. I know the South better than
Father Blair, or Monty or Frank. If you attack and try to conquer those
states, you will force the people of the South to rally together, to fight you
and to hate you."
"Follow your peaceful secession argument to its conclusion," Lincoln
countered. "The Southern states secede. Then there is further disagreement
and Georgia secedes from the Confederacy, and then a section of Georgia
secedes from that state. That way is anarchy, not democracy. If the experi-
ment that is our nation is to succeed, the dissatisfied elements must submit to
the will of the majority."
"By carrying any idea to an extreme, you make it absurd," Breckinridge
answered. "It is true that the people of the North and South are brethren. I
know that in my own family, and you in yours. But the South has become
distinct. It is not so much a section of the whole as it is a world of its own,
with a way of life different from the cities of the North, with different com-
mercial interests and crops and social patternsslavery, for example. To
most Southerners, Yankees are more foreign than Englishmen." He drew a
deep breath. "And when a people become distinct from their brethren, they
deserve a distinct national identity as well."
He was quoting Benjamin Franklin on that, which the Prsdt must have
known. "When it comes to slavery," Lincoln promised, as he always has, "I
have no purpose, direct or indirect, to interfere with the institution of slavery
where it exists. I have no lawful right to do so and I have no inclination to do
so." It was Lincoln's turn to sigh, because I suspect he feared he was losing
his case. He added only, "You have become a disunionist, then."
"I have resisted every pressure to support secession, you know that. For the
past year, I have opposed disunion. Now, on the very eve of battle, I want to
avoid the permanent disunion that comes from war. If you insist on war,
Lincoln, you will sow the seeds of hatred that will divide this continent for a
century. But if you permit peaceful separation now, the people, in time, will
come back together, as their commercial and social intercourse increases."
Lincoln slowly shook his head. "I have no moral right to shrink from my
duty to preserve this Union. And you, John, have no right to pursue a policy
of 'armed neutrality' for Kentucky. You would be building an impassable wall
along the line of separation, and this would be disunion completed."
"If the people of a state choose not to fight," the Kentucky senator replied,
"no national power can force them to fight. By our example of remaining at
peace, of offering men of goodwill an honest broker, perhaps we can save you
from yourselves."
"No. That would take all the trouble off the hands of secession. Your
notion of neutrality recognizes no fidelity to the Constitution, no obligation to
maintain the Union." Lincoln paused, sat straight, and looked directly at his
man. "While many who favor it are, doubtless, loyal citizens like yourself, it
is, in effect, treason."
That word lay between them like a grenade. To ameliorate it, the Tycoon
added, "My wife calls you 'Cousin John,' and I wouldn't be surprised if you
and I were Kentucky kin as well. In a larger sense, we are all the same family,
and if you could use your great influence with the border-state men to win the
war before it gets worse, you would do your kin and mine a service that our
common native state would never forget." The Tycoon always likes to remind
Kentuckians he was born in their state.
The ladies returned, Miss Grirnsley nattering about the beautiful chande-
lier, which caused the Ancient to roll his eyes heavenward, or chandelier-
ward.
"I hope you will come back again soon, Cousin John," the Prsdt said
warmly. "Cousin Lizzie here is to be our guest for at least six months, clear
through to Christmas."
"Cousin Lizzie, I would not like you to be disappointed in your expected
stay at the White House," said the gallant Kentuckian, adding a shocker: "So
I will now invite you to remain here as a guest if the Confederacy takes
possession."
"We will be only too glad to entertain her until that time, Senator," said the
Hellcat, obviously troubled at the touch of bitterness that underlay the Breck-
inridge charm. But when the possibility of treason is raised, even in the nicest
way, I suppose it tends to make a person think of ropes.
"Perhaps when next we see each other," the senator said in shaking hands
with the President, "we can discuss the suspension of the writ of habeas
corpus."
"I'll be around," said Lincoln, not giving an inch on principle, but not
giving up on Kentucky or its favorite son.
CHAPTER 10
PICTURE OF WAR

"Pack a picnic lunch," Mathew Brady told his assistants, Alex and Tim,
quickly amending his directive to "pack enough food for two of us for two
days. Nothing that will spoil."
"Who are you taking with?" Alexander Gardner asked.
"Tim." Brady had decided that the day before. He judged Alex to be more
adept at developing and printing, always difficult in the field, but considered
Tim O'Sullivan to have the edge in preparing the wet plates quickly. Besides,
Tim was physically stronger than Alex, which would be important on a
battlefield, handling the mules drawing the photographic wagon-darkroom
and lugging the heavy glass plates in and out of the wagon. "You're my
second-in-command, Alex, your job is here in the gallery. The customers
know you." What he meant was that Gardner had a sharp Scotsman's eye for
money, a talent that neither Brady nor O'Sullivan shared; it was for the
studio manager to remain behind.
"We are going on an historic mission," Brady felt called upon to say to his
men. He was not one inclined toward dramatic statements, nor did he permit
his photographic subjects to assume flamboyant or romantic poses, but surely
the mission he had planned was historic.
"How many plates?" Gardner asked dryly.
"This will be the first time that a photograph will be taken of a battle in
progress," Brady continued, gripped by a sense of the occasion.
"Twenty plates," Gardner decided. "The subjects are likely to move, and
you could spoil half the plates right there." Brady nodded agreement. "You
want to take both cameras?"
"We'll just take the big one," Brady replied, putting his hand on the An-
thony & Company camera. One camera would do, even for making history;
the stereoscope was too expensive to risk out of doors, and taking it would
strip the studio naked of cameras. The stereoscopic slides were all the rage in
Washington and New York, surpassing in sales even the cartes de visite, his
illustrated calling cards.
"If anything happens to the big camera," O'Sullivan put in, "there goes the
history. We may never get another battle in this war, at least not near here."
"Timmy's right, Mr. Brady," said Gardner. "Everybody's saying, 'On to
Richmond!' which is where the next fight is likely to be. That's a long way in
a bouncy wagon for the glass plates."
Brady tugged his goatee in thought and then acceded to their wishes. The
risk was not so much to the cameras, it was to the history of his infant
profession if one camera failed and the battle went unrecorded on colloidal
plate. He did not try to conceal his excitement from his operators on this
Sunday morning; the light was excellent, the tension of battle was in the air,
the city was alive with spectators preparing to rush to the front to witness the
decisive blow for the Union.
"You're sure they won't stop you at the battlefield?" Gardner worried.
Brady, looking closely in the long mirror to see if his top hat was on
properly and his doeskin pants were neatly pressed, smiled as he took a letter
from his jacket pocket. Three days before, as soon as he heard that the Union
troops were on the move toward Manassas, he had obtained a pass signed by
General McDowell from the only officer who was his superior. Gardner read
it quicklylucky fellow, he did not have to squint through thick spectacles to
make out the words, as Brady didand wondered how his employer had
managed it.
Brady smiled. "The naked general remembered his friend." Only a week
before, the aging, ponderous General Winfield Scott"Old Fuss and Feath-
ers"had been in the Brady studio. A sculptor had been commissioned to
produce a statue of the General-in-Chief to be placed in Scott Square, and the
artist needed a photograph of his subject stripped to the waist. While Scott
was posing with his shirt off, an English actress entered for her photographic
appointment and Brady had quickly stepped in front of the general, saving
the day by preserving his modesty. When Brady called on him to present his
photograph, at no cost, the general could not turn down his request to photo-
graph the battlefield.
"Winfield Scott is a grand old man," Brady pronounced, although the hero
of the Mexican War was hardly the man for these times. That marvelously
wrinkled old face would probably be replaced soon by lrvin McDowell, after
the victory, or if the victor at Manassas suffered too many casualties, by
George McClellan, who had gained recognition after several skirmishes in the
West. Brady made a mental note to be sure to approach both generals for a
sitting; a tidy profit was to be made out of selling pictures of heroes. "Mc-
Dowell had said he did not want photographers and spectators cluttering up
his field," Brady told his assistants, "but Scott told him that photography
might become useful for military topography."
The provisioning of the wagon was complete in an hour. The assistants
carried the 16x20 Anthony camera out of the studio and into the mobile
laboratory, with Brady carrying the 4 X 4 stereo camera. Gardner remem-
bered the oats for Guerro, the mule, which Brady had forgotten.
"I feel like Euphorion," the photographer remarked as he climbed onto the
front of the wagon, letting O'Sullivan take the reins. "Destiny guides my
feet."
"Who's going to pay for these pictures?" Gardner was moved to ask, Brady
thought with typical lack of imagination.
"Destiny," Brady replied, nudging O'Sullivan to start. Guerroa name
Brady had chosen this week as appropriate to the first combat photographer's
mulelurched forward and the adventure was begun.
In the end, Brady mused as they rolled down rutted Pennsylvania Avenue,
Posterity would pay. The War Department would need official records of the
battle that smashed the slavocracy, and there was good reason to suggest that
photographs could be part of the official record. Brady would have to induce
Simon Cameron, Secretary of War, to visit the gallery; it was said that he was
a man always ready to do business. A series of portraits of Cameron and his
family might do the trick.
The wagon left the two-story house on the corner of Seventh Street and
Pennsylvania Avenue, passed the fashionable National Hotel, where the pho-
tographer was staying while he debated whether to make his personal head-
quarters in New York or Washington. The gallery here was in good hands
with Gardner, and the emporium in New York did not have a capable man-
ager he could trust: good business sense suggested that Brady keep his eye on
the store in New York. Yet Washington, despite the stench from the sewer in
the summer, was sure to be the center of the war, the place where most of the
history was to be made, or at least observed from. The art and science of
photography could best be advanced from here for the next few months at
least.
Traffic on the avenue this Sunday morning reminded him more of the
congestion of New York's narrow streets than the usual freedom of the
capital's wide boulevards. Carriages containing just about every Congressman,
reporter, and social butterfly jammed the streets, crawling toward the bridge
leading to the battlefield. A troop of cavalry, single file, pranced past the
carriages and men on mules and horses. As his wagon passed the President's
house, Brady saw for the first time a platoon of rebel prisoners, looking
properly dispirited, coming back from the Virginia front. No time to stop for
a picture; after the main battle, there would be plenty of time for shots of
captured rebels.
Nearing Long Bridge, O'Sullivan and Brady were forced to wait in a half-
mile line behind what seemed to be every hack, gig, and wagon available in
Washington. In one elegant carriage directly in front of them, its fine horse
ridden by a negro boy, was a passenger Brady recognized as William Howard
Russell of the London Times. The famous reporter, whose writings were
notably hostile to the North, as suited British officialdom, was dressed for
India.
"Brady!" he called over his shoulder. "Are you going to get the two armies
to hold still for a picture?"
Brady, who secretly wished that such a moment could be arranged, merely
shrugged. As an Irishman and a staunch Union man, he instinctively disliked
the British Southern sympathizer. It made the photographer feel good to be
on the way to record the end of the insurrection.
"Tell me, Brady, they've been skirmishing for two daysdo you know if
they've chosen the spot for the grand battle?"
"Follow the traffic to Manassas," Brady told him, feeling it no breach of
trust to repeat the directions Scott had given him, since the crowd seemed to
know the way, "about two hours' drive. Look for the signs to Centreville, it
overlooks Bull Run." He could hear the rumble of artillery in the distance,
across the Potomac. "And follow the sound of the guns." He felt like an old
soldier giving advice to a recruit.
Twenty miles into Virginia, the cannon thunder lost its rolling character
and became sharper and, to Brady, more menacing. Yet the festive air pre-
vailed on the roadway, the Congressmen and other civilians hailing each other
on the way to catch a safe whiff of war. A military man rode up behind with
whiskers Brady found familiar. Colonel Ambrose Burnside's beard ran down
his cheeks but instead of continuing to the chin swept up into his mustache,
which was a variation on the fashion in facial hair. He had been in for a
photograph a few days before. Brady hailed him, and the colonel slowed his
black horse to a walk beside the wagon.
"You'll have a problem with the smoke," Bumside advised, "if you try to
take pictures out there. I was at Bull Run yesterday, when the artillery
opened fire, and by afternoon it gets hard to see the movement of troops."
"Are we winning?" O'Sullivan inquired. Brady wished his assistant would
not ask stupid questions about the battle but would direct his concern to the
problems of light and position.
"Of course," Bumside replied. "McDowell has only sixteen hundred regu-
lar army troops to season all his recruits, but Beauregard's men are green,
too, and he can't have half as many." The colonel looked northwestward,
striking what seemed to Brady a most impressive pose. "Another rebel force,
under Joe Johnston, is about a day's march away in Winchester, but they
can't make it to the battle because we have them tied down defending the
valley."
That was fortunate, Brady thought; by outnumbering the rebels two to one,
the Union Army should have little trouble scoring a decisive victory. He
wondered aloud at the appearance of a column of Union soldiers, dark blue
uniforms relatively clean and muskets slung casually across their backs, com-
ing back from the front.
"That's a sight to make any patriot furious," said Bumside. "Damned
ninety-day men."
The sergeant on a mule alongside the column pulled up to throw a desul-
tory salute at Bumside. The colonel scorned the mockery of discipline and
asked, "Couldn't stand the noise?"
The sergeant shrugged. "These men signed up for ninety days. Enlistment
ran out yesterday, and we're going back to Pennsylvania. We enlisted early
about half the army has another week to go."
"You mean," asked Brady, "you're going to miss the victory? What will
you tell people when you get home?"
"We'll tell 'em we stood on our rights. If you like being a sorefoot soldier,
mister, you join the army."
"If you can remember back to your military life," Burnside said acidly,
"what did the battle look like in the position you left just now?"
"Couple of our divisions crossed Bull Run Creek, flanked the rebs," the
retiring sergeant reported. "Planning to make a charge at Colonel Jackson's
Virginians at the stone house. We seem disorganized as hell, though."
"Why so?"
"Been a long march out here, most of the men ate their rations early. When
our boys hear the damn cannon, they forget how to load their muskets. And
that secesh cavalry scares hell out of our gunners."
"You recognize the danger, and in the face of the enemy, you and your men
are going home," said Burnside. "No shame at all?"
"You're talking to a civilian, soldier-boy," said the former sergeant. "Now
why don't you get your fat ass up to the front and fight like we hire you to
do!"
Burnside cursed and spurred his horse, kicking up dust as he passed the
column of smiling men. The photographer assumed they would go back and
call themselves veterans of the campaign that won the war and saved the
Union.
"I suppose that was the main reason Lincoln pushed his generals into
fighting this soon," Brady observed to O'Sullivan; "most of the army will fade
away in a few weeks as the enlistments run out."
"Should we get them to pose along the roadside?" his assistant asked.
"Let's get on to the battle," Brady decided, "before the war's over."
The photographer's wagon reached Centreville in a half hour. It squeezed
through the bottleneck of Cub Run Bridge, past the carriages of spectators,
wagons loaded with food and ammunition, stray soldiers on foot and a few on
mounts.
"Make for the high ground," Brady ordered, uncertain of their position in
relation to the battle line. The smoke was worse than Burnside had predicted,
stinging Brady's weak eyes and irritating his throat. He worried that the
smoke would befog the lenses. The noise of the crowds on the roads mingled
with the cannonading and Brady felt a frisson of fear. He stole a look at
Timmy O'Sullivan, who had his hands full with the frightened mule. Brady
pointed to a side road and O'Sullivan headed the mule in that direction up a
hill, through a stand of trees.
That was when Brady saw his first dead body. The crumpled form of what
had been a human in gray uniform lay face up alongside the narrow path. No
time to stopthe photographer wanted to find a place that would give him a
panoramic view of the battlefieldbut he made a mental note to come back
for a picture of that body if possible.
Guerro picked his way up the hill, through the brambles that grew across
the path, and out of the woods onto a rising slope. The mule stopped and
refused to move ahead. O'Sullivan scrambled down to get him a bucket of
water.
They were in the open. Below, the wooded countryside was dotted with
cleared fields and patches of green. A line of purple ridges led up the far hills
into what he assumed were the Blue Ridge Mountains. The battle smoke
swept in on them in great black clouds and Brady succumbed to a fit of
coughing. He heard the shouts of soldiers, the pops of musketry amid the
booming cannon. He put his handkerchief over his nose and mouth and
stopped coughing. The voices shouting sounded unlike the cadences of men
from New York. He squinted to see the soldiers in gray uniforms racing
across the hilltop, setting up a battery of artillery.
He was seized with the terrible realization that he was on the wrong side of
the battlefield. The men nearest him were fighting for the Confederacy, deter-
mined to kill as many bluecoats as they could. His dismay at being behind
enemy lines grew when he remembered that the great Union attack would
soon be aimed at these men in this position, which meant at him and his
assistant and his mule and his cameras and darkroom-wagon. The thought
entered his mind for the first time that it was entirely possible to be killed in
this engagement. He would be remembered in history only as the first man to
be shot dead while trying to photograph a war. It would be not only a
personal disaster, but also a setback for the science.
"Turn around and get out of here," he told O'Sullivan.
"You want to take a picture first?"
If his young assistant was going to make a test of bravery out of it, Brady
would not be found lacking in courage. The thought occurred also that it
might be less dangerous to get busy, and look busy, than to appear to the
soldiers in gray all around to be running away, perhaps as Union spies. The
photographer climbed out of the wagon and ordered O'Sullivan to tie up the
mule to a tree stump and set up the large camera.
A Confederate officer on horseback, in the gray and blue uniform that
Brady took to mark him as a general, waved his sword to rally his men, not
thirty yards away. The men were wandering about, or running back and
forth, in a most unmilitary way and to no seeming purpose. The ofiicer
shouted at the men to reform their lines and charged at a group of laggards.
All this was moving too fast for a picture, and Brady could not very well ask
them to stop and hold still for a minute under these circumstances. The rebels
milled about, looking for some place to form a line.
The mounted officer wheeled his horse toward Brady's wagon, shot a puz-
zled look in the photographer's direction at the two men working on their
contraption in front of the mule, then wheeled again toward his men.
"Alabamans!" he called out, pointing to a ridge that seemed to offer a shelter
from the intense firing. "There stands Jackson like a stone wallrally round
the Virginians!"
Their patch of open land was soon deserted as the Alabama regiment ran
to the high ridge.
Brady pointed the camera toward the field of battle. He did not much care
if the brave Southerner was complaining about a man named Jackson for not
moving forward in support or was praising him for holding his own position.
He ducked his head down under the shadowing fabric and tried to look
through the lens.
Nothing. He could not see clear objects well under good conditions, and in
all the smoke, he could see nothing at all. No massed armies, as he had long
envisioned, in grand array, bayonets at the ready, with generals at the head of
the columns, swords raised, standing still; instead, blurs and smoke and con-
fusion. Maybe his eyes had completely failed; he told O'Sullivan to take a
look. The assistant did, and came up saying he would not waste a plate on
that.
The sound of the cannon from the ridge where Jackson was standing like a
stone wall was giving him a headache, especially now that it was mixed with
the screams of soldiers in blue coming under the withering fire from that hill.
He could make out the general in the distance, pressing his stragglers forward
to the new position on the ridge, and saw him lurch forward suddenly and
slide off his horse.
"We need a better position," he told O'Sullivan, who was ready to leave
also, and carried the camera back to the wagon instantly. They guided
Guerro down the hill into the woods, past the familiar dead bodyno time
for a pictureall the way back to the Centreville Road.
Only an hour before, the traffic had all been one-way toward the bat-
tiefront; now it was two-way. As O'Sullivan maneuvered the wagon into a left
turn, toward the front but this time behind the Union lines, frightened men
came past them, suggesting to Brady that all was not well up ahead. The
returning ambulances were to be expected, sure sign of battle, but too many
soldiers were coming back without muskets, leaderless; others trudged back
with their coats hung over their firelocks, with a look of men who had some-
thing important to do elsewhere. The road was littered with evidence of
lightened packs: canteens, knapsacks, cartridge boxes, and blankets lay in the
dirt.
Russell of the Times drew up, on his way to the rear. "Have you seen what
it's like, Brady? Can you believe the ineptitude?"
"We've been lost," O'Sullivan started to say and Brady shot an elbow to his
arm.
"We've been at the center of the battle," Brady said, "saw Jackson standing
like a stone wall, as they said. What news have you?"
"It's a disaster for the Union," the Englishman called out, not in appropri-
ate distress, "the Federal army isn't an army at all, rather a mass of men
milling aimlessly, not knowing how to fight or where to go. McDowell must
be an idiot, going into battle so unprepared."
"You're leaving? Is the battle over?"
"I can tell which way it's going," the portly correspondent snapped, as if
Brady had questioned his courage, which in a way he had. "Your artillery
batteries were moved forward without infantry cover, and the Confederates
captured them. Fear of the cavalry is rampantI've heard prodigious non-
sense, describing batteries tier over tier, and ambuscades, and blood running
knee-deep. This road will be under fire in a very short time. Move aside!"
O'Sullivan let the man from the Times pass. Russell was quickly followed
by a group of picnickers in three carriages who had lost their taste for the
afternoon outing. The road was becoming more congested than at any place
since Long Bridge. An ammunition cart came past them, loaded with explo-
sives. It occurred to Brady that a full load should be headed in the opposite
direction. A red-faced officer on the cart, with an empty scabbard dangling
from his side, said, "Turn back! We are whipped."
"I don't like this," O'Sullivan said. "You can smell the panic."
"Think about capturing it on a wet plate," Brady replied. Even if this
turned out to be a standoff, or at worst a defeat, the War Department would
want pictures. He had not been able to find a photographable scene.
By midaftemoon of a day with hot sun burning through the haze of smoke
and choking 'dust, no observer, military or amateur, could doubt that a rout
was under way. Men in blue uniforms were running down the main road to
Centreville, throwing their muskets by the roadside, desperate to get away
from the sound of the guns. Occasionally a lone officer would shout at them
to stop, and Brady saw a senator he knew, Ben Wade, a pistol in each hand,
threatening to shoot deserters but being ignored in the general exodus from a
scene of confusion and destruction. As far as the photographer could learn,
no order of retreat had been given by General McDowell. His army had
simply decided to go home.
They unloaded the camera at a vantage point below the smoke, close
enough to a stream for washing, facing up a hill looking toward a stone
house. Brady could hardly believe his dim eyes: there must have been four
hundred dead bodies lying up the long slope. With the sound of bullets whin-
ing and smacking nearby, O'Sullivan began the process of sensitizing the
plates. In this heat, the coating, exposing, and developing would have to be
completed within ten minutes.
Brady looked nervously up the hill as his assistant washed the plate in the
collodion solution, a mixture of guncotton and sulfuric ether and alcohol.
When the plate flowed with collodion, O'Sullivan laid on the chemical exci-
tantsbromide and iodide of potassiumand, when that turned properly
tacky, lifted it into a tub containing nitrate of silver and iodized water. It
remained in the darkness inside the wagon for four minutes. Sullivan then
lifted it out, drained the plate, placed it in the lightproof holder, and carried
it, dripping, to the camera.
Brady ducked his head under and looked; he could make out forms on the
ground, little else. He walked forward to make certain they were rebel dead;
at least the body in the foreground was, and the others could be called that as
well. The Northern public, he was sure, was not ready for pictures of Union
dead.
O'Sullivan had the camera loaded. He focused it, as the nearsighted Brady
could not, moved it slightly to get the form in the foreground in focus, and
grunted. Brady lifted the lens cap, counted to thirty, and ended the exposure.
O'Sullivan pulled out the holder, raced back into the wagon and began the
delicate business of dipping it into the developer of acids and soda. In two
minutes, he ran out to the stream and held the plate under water. Brady
prayed there would be no mud to stick to the still-gummy surface.
An image appeared. The dead rebel in the foreground would be frozen in
history as he was frozen in death. Brady could feel his heart pounding as the
science so few now appreciated passed a milestone. "Photograph by Brady"
of a nation at war. He told O'Sullivan to take the plate inside the wagon
quickly and to bring out the stereo camera. The assistant hefted the plate
gleefully, saw his employer's warning frown, and carried his developed image
inside. Brady was glad he had chosen O'Sullivan, who followed orders and
never so much as breathed on the sensitive plates.
The young Irishman was taking the next Brady photograph of the dead
bodies when he suddenly let out a cry and dropped the little camera. Brady
rushed over and picked up the instrument, which fortunately had landed on a
cast-off blanket; aside from the smearing of blood over one of the lenses, it
appeared to be unbroken.
O'Sullivan was staring at his left hand, which was dripping blood. Both of
them were apparently in the line of enemy musket fire. They ran into the
wagon, which offered little cover, and Brady took the reins while O'Sullivan
fashioned a makeshift tourniquet out of a lenscloth. In moments, Guerro had
them on the road back toward Centreville.
Almost all the traffic was headed away from the front by this time, but one
rider that Brady recognized was making his way forward. It was Breckin-
ridge, the Kentucky senator who had steadily ignored Brady's letters of invi-
tation to be photographed.
"Great day for Southern sympathizers," the photographer said coldly.
The rider shook his head in what struck Brady as genuine sadness. "A
terrible day for all of us." He seemed the only calm presence in the spreading
panic.
"McDowell's fault?" Brady wanted to get home in a hurry, and did not
want O'Sullivan fainting from loss of blood, but he remembered that Breckin-
ridge had once been a military man and probably had some idea of what was
going on. Brady was amazed that he could be at the very vortex of a battle
and not have the foggiest notion about the movement of the troops, although
anybody could tell that the side that was running away was losing.
"Lincoln's fault," the senator answered, "but the general will get the
blame. Lincoln wanted this fight, here and now, before his ninety-day men
had the chance to go home. McDowell had thousands of soldiers, but no
army. Look over there."
Brady looked over his shoulder and shuddered at the sight of a force of
rebel cavalry sweeping down a far hill, hacking at running blue infantry. All
too fast in motion, no chance for a picture.
"Those are Joe Johnston's men," the Kentuckian explained, moving his
horse out of the way of an ambulance wagon. "They must have come down
from Winchester on the Manassas Gap railway and joined Beauregard's
army. That's what the Federals thought could never happen." He spotted a
fellow senator, whose name slipped Brady's mind, who was urging his car-
riage away from the firing. "Ah, Henry, what does it look like?"
His Senate colleague struggled by in his gig, not speaking. Wilson of Mas-
sachusetts, Brady remembered, the Military Committee. Good that he was
getting a firsthand look, because some great changes would have to be made
immediately.
They left the Kentuckian surveying the road and the field. Although the
Centreville Road had become a slow river of vehicles and stumbling men and
crying women sightseers, it was the only way back. And as Russell of the
Times had warned, the jammed road was coming under fire from Confederate
artillery.
Nearing the stone bridge at Cub Run, Brady saw his first big explosion: a
shell hit the bridge ahead of them; he could hear the whoosh of fire, then the
blast, and the bridge had disappeared. A score of people crammed on the
bridge were obliterated. Amid the screaming and whinnying, with the line
that had been waiting to get on the bridge now spreading out along the
stream preparing to swim, wade, or float across, Brady felt a wave of resigna-
tion come over him.
"We will stop here," he told O'Sullivan, "and take a photograph of the
place where the bridge used to be. Are you up to it?"
O'Sullivan held up his bandaged fist and grinned. Brady turned the wagon
off the road and stopped. He unloaded the big camera and watched O'Sul-
livan, one-handed, apply the colloidal wash and prepare the plate. He helped
his assistant carry the heavy plateholder to the camera and told him to aim at
the scene of the devastated bridge. He took off the lens cap, waited, put it
back. O'Sullivan went through the developing process, washing the plate in
the creek that they had just photographed.
"That should come out," Brady announced. "Good light, not much smoke.
Not exactly two armies clashing in vast array, but at least we can prove we
were here."
He took the two exposed and developed glass plates in his arms. O'Sullivan
picked up both cameras and carried them high on his back. Together, they
kicked and shouted at Guerro, who finally got the idea he was to drag the
emptied wagon though the water. The two men, and the mule with the
wagon, made it across the stream, with the water never higher than Brady's
knees.
The thumping of the cannons sounded louder as they neared the Union
long-range artillery hurling shells at the pursuing rebels. Then the sound was
pierced by a bloodcurdling scream that Brady knew he would remember in
his nightmaresthe rebel yell, the battle cry of the cavalry swooping down
on batteries and fleeing bystanders. The yell achieved the desired effect, send-
ing terror through the routed ranks, with the gunners abandoning their field-
pieces, every man for himself.
Brady knew he could not leave his equipment behind without leaving his
whole life's meaning with it. At the same time, he was aware that he was
profoundly afraid. He tried to speak several times and finally was able to
choke out instructions to Timmy O'Sullivan to be calm. The young man was
loading the cameras on the wagon and reached down for the plates in Brady's
arms. The photographer gave up his burden, adjusted his top hat, and
climbed up.
A man whose gray uniform was bloodstained across the neck and shoulder
called up to him. He was propped against a tree by the side of the road, face
white, unable to move. Here was the victor, the photographer thought grimly,
Johnny Reb on his day of triumph over an overconfident Union Army. He
considered whether to tell O'Sullivan to set up the equipment again to take a
picture or just to take the wounded man along.
Timmy must have read his thoughts because the young man jumped off the
wagon and lifted the wounded rebel, carrying him into the rear of the wagon.
Brady did not argue. The man was more of a sorry object than a good subject,
but might do them some good if the rebel army in pursuit caught up with
them. He hoped that would not happen. He hoped their generals would not
learn of the extent of the rout until too late and would not carry their triumph
at Manassas into an undefended Washington.
CHAPTER II
THE WAKE OF BULL RUN
Montgomery Blair decided to go ahead with the reception. Although casu-
alties could be expected in the Virginia campaign, and enemies of the Blair
family were ready to criticize any party-giving in the midst of war, he thought
it important to show confidence in the country and unconcern about criti-
cism.
By six o'clock on that sun-drenched, humid Sunday afternoon, he was
delighted that he had gone ahead with the gathering: all the reports from
those returning early from Manassas had hailed the Union victory. Across
the street, at the telegraph office of the War Department, the dispatches from
the front had been more than encouraging. The Postmaster General's home
was no farther from that communications center than was Lincoln's office, on
the opposite side of Pennsylvania Avenue, and Monty Blair had checked an
hour before. McDowell, attacking, was confident of success against Beaure-
gard's smaller force; the other Confederate army in the area was well out of
the action, tied down in Winchester. Here in the District of Columbia, Gen-
eral-in-Chief Scott had gone to take his afternoon nap.
Standing on the porch, Blair could see President Lincoln, unmistakable in
his stovepipe hat, long legs hanging down the horse's sides, going out for his
late-afternoon ride. Blair waved; the horseman returned the salute. If Lincoln
was relaxed enough about the word from the front to take his customary
outing, Blair was not about to worry about the outcome of the battle or the
mood at his party.
Lincoln looked odd on a horse, Blair observed. The President rode well,
and must have had plenty of equestrian experience as a lawyer riding circuit,
but he did not sit a horse well. A man of the President's height and angularity
would find it difficult to appear graceful in any position. The Postmaster
General caught himself thinking of Lincoln as the President, and was amused
by that subtle acceptance of the new man in the post. It had been so hard to
push him into acting like a President, into overruling Seward and the others
on Surnter, into drawing the line that separation had to mean war. Father had
worked on Lincoln in private, using the Jackson precedents, and Monty had
himself worked on Lincoln in Cabinet, stressing his duty never to give up
federal authority anywhere, an idea to which the new Chief Executive, hap-
pily for the Union, seemed almost mystically attached.
The Blair house, then, deserved to be the scene of the victory celebration
because this battle was largely the Biairs' doing. General Scott had waffled
and wavered, claiming the army was unready; Seward had been fearful, as
usual, seeking some settlement. Only Lincoln had understood the political
necessity of a sharp, early, decisive blow. Delay was purely military advice;
what the President had needed was political advice urging him to marshal the
war spirit on which military strength depended.
His sister Lizzie came over from the adjoining house to help him greet the
guests. A political enemy, Thurlow Weed, was the first to arrive: Seward's
alter ego, editor of the Albany Union, and a notorious wirepuller known in
New York as "the wizard of the lobby." The white-maned politician was
alone, his usually serene face flushed and worried-looking. "Any news from
Manassas?"
"The signs are good," his host reported. "The President was just out rid-
ing."
Weed shook his head. "I was standing on the corner in front of Willard's
and Colonel Burnside came riding by. You know him, fellow with mutton-
chop whiskers that kind of run under his nose and up his cheeks?"
Blair nodded; Ambrose Burnside was a born failure, an inventor of a
breech-loading rifle whose company went bankrupt a year ago. George Mc-
Clellan, a born winner in military and commercial affairs, had given him a job
at the Illinois Central, ~hen Lincoln called for troops, McClellan was given
command of the DepartSient of the Ohio and his unsuccessful friend found a
regiment of Rhode Island Volunteers to lead.
"Burnside was too mad to talk," Weed said. "Ran inside and had a drink at
the bar, seemed all riled up to me."
As other guests arrived after seven o'clock, the signs grew more ominous.
The guests who had loaded their buggies with champagne and box lunches
and departed for a festive occasion came directly to Biair's house looking
shaken, talking of retreat, some even talking of a rout. Outside, silent crowds
had gathered in front of the Executive Mansion, the War and Treasury de-
partments. Pennsylvania Avenue was becoming a thoroughfare of retreat, as
returning spectators in carriages, officers on horseback, foot soldiers, and
wagons of wounded jostled each other to leave the confusion in Virginia far
behind.
"I think we'd better send our guests home," said Lizzie, soon after sunset.
Brother Frank agreed.
"Go across the street, Frank," Monty told him. "See what news is coming
into the telegraph office. Let's not lose our headsthe first to come back from
a battle are never the fighting troops."
"What if Lincoln's there?"
"Say, 'Hello, Mr. President,' and tell him that most of his Cabinet will be
right here if he needs us." The younger Blair bolted out.
With the exception of Secretary of State Seward, all Cabinet members and
their wives were in the Blair house, nibbling nervously at the Maryland crab
claws, worrying aloud with the assembled editors, Congressmen, and finan-
ciers. A messenger came from the War Department, asking to see Secretary
Cameron alone; Lizzie took the messenger and the Secretary upstairs, and
came down with the sad report that Cameron's brother, a colonel, had been
killed in the action. Monty Blair noticed that nobody from the White House
had yet arrived; he knew how eager the young Hay had been to come, and his
absence was troubling.
"Calamity!" From the hallway leading to the main parlor, Blair heard that
word hissed from the small sitting room near the front door. He stood still
and listened. "This is what comes of Lincoln's running the machine for five
months. Right this moment, Lincoln and Scott are disputing who's to
blame."
"You despair for the Republic, then, Mr. Stanton." Blair recognized the
voice of Adams Hill, the New York Tribune man in Washington.
"No, if our people can bear with this Cabinet, they will prove able to
support a great many disasters."
Stanton was a Democrat, a holdover from Buchanan's administration. Si-
mon Cameron had given him an important job in the War Department, as
general counsel, on the strange-for-Cameron reason that organizational merit
should count over political affiliation. Blair made a mental note to warn
Cameron about Stanton's evident duplicity, but not tonight, in the War Secre-
tary's bereavement.
Kate Chase, on the arm of Lord Lyons, the English ambassador, inter-
rupted his eavesdropping. She was both radiant and intense, and Blair felt his
gloom begin to lift as she brought the two men together.
"The ambassador has heard that the Confederacy has gained a crushing
victory," she said, "and I don't believe him."
Blair asked Lord Lyons the source of his report.
"William Russell of the Times, " was the reply. "He borrowed my carriage
to go to the front, and that's the last I shall see of that buggy. He returned
just now, on a horse I presume he purchased after my carriage was destroyed
in the mad rush. He's off writing his dispatch, but I take it the capital is in
danger of capture by Beauregard. And your General Scott is distraught."
Father Blair joined their circle with the heavily bearded Gideon Welles, the
Navy Secretary. "None of this is Scott's fault," said Welles. "He cautioned us
against putting our green troops in the field, against a possibly superior
force."
"Nonsense." Only the elder Blair could speak to a Cabinet member that
way. "We outnumbered the rebels two to one. Our defeat, if that is what it
was, is inexcusable. Scott may not be up to this war."
"No recriminations," rumbled the Navy Secretary that Lincoln liked to
call "Neptune." Monty Blair caught his father's wry look; that remark meant
that recriminations for the surprise defeat would come thick and fast, and the
Biairswho had pressed for this battlewould be on the receiving end.
"If the rebels are coming tomorrow," asked Kate Chase, Blair thought
quite sensibly, "shouldn't we all be preparing to defend the city? Barricades,
and that sort of thing?"
Thurlow Weed thought not. "It could be that the rebels are as tired and
disorganized as we are. And have you looked out the window in the past few
minutes? It's pouring rain. I doubt whether either army will be ready to fight
again tomorrow."
The front door opened and Senator Ben Wade burst into the room, drip-
ping wet, a black look across his normally ferocious face, followed by a
subdued Senator Henry Wilson. "Goddamn incompetence!" Wade an-
nounced, pulling off his hat and shaking the water on the floor. "Ooddamn
cowardice! I was out there at Long Bridge and I damn near shot the deserters
as they ran across. Should have, treason everywhere, not one general officer
who knows what the hell he's doing. Any telegraph news from Centreville?"
Frank had not returned with fresh news; Monty hoped he was with Lin-
coln. He sensed an opening in what Wade had just said to deflect some of the
blame from the Biairs. "You believe our generalship fell short?"
"Nobody could even find McDowell at the front," Wade growled. "And
Scott can't get up off his duff. We need a real general, and right away."
"You may be right, Ben," said the elder Blair. "If it's a defeat. We don't
know yet, it may just look bad from here."
Frank Blair returned, holding an umbrella for William Seward. The hawk-
faced Secretary of State looked haggard. "The battle is lost," he said quietly, a
telegram in his hand. He looked at some of the newspapermen who closed in
around the Cabinet members. "I speak in total confidence, of course. The
telegraph from McDowell says that he is in full retreatflight, I suppose is
the more accurate wordand he calls on General Scott to rally the troops
here to save the capital."
"What does the telegraph message say?" The voice was Salmon Chase's;
Blair knew that a defeat would make it infinitely harder for the Secretary of
the Treasury to raise the money to finance a war.
" 'The day is lost,' he says. 'The routed troops will not re-form. Save Wash-
ington and the remnants of this army.' I take that message to be definitive,"
Seward said wearily. "The President wishes the Cabinet to meet with him
tonight, immediately, in General Scott's office."
As they drew on coats and shawls, Adams Hill of the Tribune said, "I
thought this was supposed to be a thirty-day war."
"That could still be," replied Thurlow Weed, "but with a different result
than we thought. I can hear your employer, Horace Greeley, changing 'On to
Richmond' to 'Erring sisters, depart in peace.' "
Seward shook his head, put his hand on his friend Weed's arm, and said to
Hill, "We will all have to prevail on Horace to be stalwart."
"That son-of-a-bitch Breckinridge will be crowing in the Senate tomor-
row," muttered Wade. "We ought to clap him in the Old Capitol Prison in the
morning."
The deflated partygoers quickly dispersed into the rain. On the porch, the
three Blair men huddled.
"We were not wrong to press for an early victory," said the father, laying
down the family line. "Scott, the old fool, moved too slowly, and McDowell
was incompetent. Maybe George McClellan is our man. If Seward says
I-told-you-so in the Cabinet tonight, Monty, or if Scott tries to blame us for
pushing himhit them hard for cowardice and incompetence."
Monty Blair nodded agreement. He did not know how Lincoln would react
to this setback, and assumed the President would need strong supporters to
stiffen his backbone. He ran to catch up to Seward, who was wading across
the sea of mud with Cameron and Bates.
The Cabinet members had to stop in the pelting rain to wait for a strange
procession to pass in front of them: Senator Breckinridge on a horse, looking
not in the least triumphant or anything but wet and miserable, followed by a
mule dragging a wagon driven by Mathew Brady, the photographer. The top
and one side of the wagon was knocked out, and three wounded soldiers lay
exposed to the rain, two in blue uniforms, one in gray.
CHAPTER 12
WHAT DRIVES THE MAN?
Breckinridge brought the Confederate soldier with the musket ball in his
thigh to the Old Capitol Prison. About two hundred other captured South-
erners were cramped into the receiving room there, a third of them in need of
medical attention. The Federal military hospital had turned those wounded
away; because too many Union soldiers were forced to go without beds, no
hospital chief was inclined to put rebels in hospital beds or even in cots that
crowded the hallways.
At the Old Capitol, however, a medical team made up of Southern sympa-
thizers had been organized. Nobody stopped them from bringing scarce ban-
dages and supplies to attend the Confederate injured; Breckinridge assumed
this was as much because of the impending invasion by the victorious South-
ern troops as for any humanitarian concern.
"He's from Kentucky," Senator Breckinridge, Democrat of Kentucky, said
to the doctor taking the man off his hands, loud enough for the Federal
guards to hear. The wounded man was originally from the Bluegrass state but
had moved to Virginia, where he joined up with Jackson's brigade. The sena-
tor wanted it clearly understood that the wounded man was his constituent;
Breckinridge would face censure on the Senate floor for visiting the Southern
soldiers after the battle, and needed an excuse. Taking care of a wounded
constituent was an action no other senator could easily condemn.
"You're the only member of the Yankee Congress who had the courage to
come."
Rose Greenhow's husky voice was a pleasure for the senator to hear in that
hostility-filled old building. She had brought her personal physician and two
of the girls who worked for her to the prison and set up a medical unit in one
of the larger cells. Breckinridge admired the Wild Rose: her commanding
presence, eyes that could be fierce or mocking, expressive mouth, the sense of
abandon in the way she moved. He had always enjoyed her hospitality,
though rarely taking advantage of her available favors; in Washington, Anna
Carroll's companionship was more than enough for him.
"If my Kentucky friend were a Union casualty," Breckinridge said, still in
that stentorian voice he used on the Senate floor, "I would be with him in a
Federal hospital." Unlike Rose, he did not take unnecessary chances; she took
entirely too many, which suggested to him that she relished danger.
She took his arm, steered him out into the prison corridor, past the jam of
cots and benches containing the wounded or the sullen, to a supply closet
room where they could speak alone. "We've won, John!" She put her hands
on his shoulders and shook him. "We beat the Yankees at Manassas, and I
had a big hand in it."
"You're telling me something I don't want to know about," he cautioned.
He long suspectedin truth, he had to admit he knewthat Rose was a
Confederate spy. The spacious brick house on Sixteenth Street, so convenient
to James Buchanan when that bachelor had occupied the White House, was
more than ever the place where politicians and generals gathered. The reck-
less Rose sometimes modified but never concealed her contempt for the aboli-
tionists. That was still socially and politically acceptablein fact, most of the
Republican radicals were considered a dangerous minoritybut Rose probed
the outer limits of sympathy for the rebellion. It would be natural for her to
share what she learned in the Union capital with her friends in the Confeder-
ate capital, and she would be automatically suspect in a city where the word
"treason" was being bandied about. Why, in that circumstance, was she not
much more circumspect? Calculated recklessness, he supposed; dangerous
flirtations attracted her.
"I'll tell you what I please, Breck, because I trust you," she said, her strong
grip moving down from his shoulders, along his arms, to his hands. "Do you
know how Beauregard knew when the Yankees moved out? From me. You
know how we knew the whole plan of attack, with Joe Johnston supposed to
be held down in Winchester by that old idiot Patterson, so he couldn't rein-
force Beauregard? From me, from a message I braided into Bettie Duval's
beautiful long hair."
He looked over her shoulder into the crowded hallway for the appearance
of Federal guards. "That's your secret, Rose. I won't be a party to espionage,
not while I sit in the Senate."
"The entire battle plan," she persevered, "the map with the red dotted lines
on it showing the Yankee troop movementscan you imagine the advantage
that gave us?"
So that was why the Union suffered such unexpected disaster at Bull Run;
she had given Johnston the signal to slip away from the force supposedly
tying him down. That was no mean feat of spying. Against his better judg-
ment, he asked, "Where did you get the information, Rose?"
"The chairman of the Military Affairs Committee of the Senate, who ban-
ished you from the committee because you were a risk to the security of the
Union." A look of pure malice mixed with the delight and triumph in her
eyes.
"I can't believe that about Henry." He meant that; Senator Wilson was a
patriot, and no fool. He suspected that Rose might be spreading rumors about
her Senate lover to mislead the world about her true source.
"Your dear friend Henry Wilson is a slave to sex. I have given him a new
sexual life beyond his wildest dreams."
Breckinridge winced at that. "You sure say what you mean."
"I am a patriot first and a lady second. I am prepared to put everything
that God has endowed me with in the service of the Cause." In case that did
not make her point, she added, "I would prostitute myself for my country."
He shook his head at her certitude about the Cause, whatever it was, and at
her blunt language. "Henry Wilson handed you that map in bed?"
"Senator Wilson has some strange desires," she said. "One is to set the
slaves free. Another is to be a slave himself. I do what I can to accommodate
him. The Wild Rose can get fairly wild, if you really want to know."
"As I said, I don't really want to know."
"I want to talk to you about Anna Ella Carroll," she said, veering to
business. "I've seen the two of you together in my house, trying to act as if
you met there by accident. Doesn't fool anybody. We could use her. She
knows everybody, even Lincoln, especially Bates"
"Forget her," he advised. "Pro-Union all the way." That was more than
true; he did not add that he had spent the previous evening in her room,
listening to her read to him the text of the speech made in Lexington, Ken-
tucky by the Reverend Robert Breckinridge on the moral wrong of secession,
complete with gestures and inflections taken from the lecture-hall style of
Uncle Bob. Secession was immoral, in his thesis, because it invalidated the
grandest contribution of modern times to the progress of civilization, the
Constitution, which had given validity to the natural right of men to change
or abolish their government by voting.
No pledge of his to read the Union pamphlet with great care would stop
her; she had to stand there, on the footstool in her bare feet, reading the tract
for an hour and a half. When her visitor was drawn into making a point in
rebuttalthat the Constitution would remain in effect for those states that
subscribed to itshe had launched into a long recitation of a paper she was
drafting called A Reply to John C. Breckinridge. They wound up with three
hours' sleep, and he was off to watch the battle the next morning.
Rose did not accept his head-shaking about Anna Carroll. "She's from
Southern stock, with slaves of her own. And she may not be so pro-Union
after today. Lots of people are going to go with the winners, and Anna was a
power in the Know-Nothingsshe's not above buttering her bread on both
sides."
"You're mistaken about her, Roseforget it."
He must have spoken too sharply, because she flared: "She loves you, you
damn fool, and you can take advantage of it for the Cause. She gets around.
She's attractive, if you like 'em small, but she uses her head more than her
body to get things out of men."
He did not like that and set his jaw to say nothing; she saw the facial
gesture and softened. "We could use her, Breck. You may not realize it, but
she would do anything for you, no matter what she says now." She looked
over her shoulder, a touch too dramatically. "The Yankees may be on to me
before long."
To change the subject, he picked that up: "You ought to be more careful,
Rose, especially the way you talk at your parties. This prison is no place for a
woman, as a prisoner. Or her daughter." He knew Rose's surviving daughter
was too young to be separated from her mother, and would probably accom-
pany her to prison. Rose had to be worried about that, love of danger or not.
"Who would suspect that I would speak up for the South and spy for the
South? Most spies try to hide their true beliefs."
"Don't outsmart yourself. Pinkerton is just dumb enough to suspect some-
body who's suspicious."
"And you're protecting Anna Carroll. It's your duty to recruit her."
"It's my duty to try to end this war before it gets any bloodier, right here
where I can be most useful, in the United States Senate."
"You see your duty wrong. You're wasting your time here in Washington.
It's a cryin' shame seeing you haggling with these Yankees like a damn lawyer
when you should be serving your country in Richmond."
That troubled him; were they saying in Richmond that his lonely vigil for
civil liberty in the Senate made him untrustworthy? A guard passed the closet
and looked in; Rose took a length of bandage off a shelf, rolled it up, and
handed it out to the man, who shrugged and took it away. Breckinridge asked
her the politician's question: "What are they saying about me?"
"You know Mary Chesnut in Richmond, Breckshe likes you."
He nodded. Vivacious, politically keen, his age, well-connected, the former
Mary Boykin reminded him of Anna.
"She tells my friends that you could have been Vice President, or Secretary
of War, or general-in-chief, if you had come down in the early summer, when
the Confederacy was getting organized. Mary says every day you spend up
here is a day that your political future gets worse."
He nodded again; Mary Chesnut's assessment was probably right, and
every day spent in the middle of the opposing forces eroded his opportunity
for leadership on either side. "I don't care about that, Rose. All I want to do
is stop this horrible fratricidal contest."
"Idiot!" she hissed, hammering her fist on his shoulder. "Whose side are
you on? Don't you see we need this war?"
"To teach the Yankees a lesson?"
"To make the Confederacy a nation, the way the Revolution did a hundred
years ago, and to show the Westerners that they should join us. For God's
sake, Breck, we can't just creep out of the Union in peacewe have to show
the world who's master on this continent."
His head was shaking no, as she spoke, and he told her when she finished
that no reponsible Southern leader wanted anything but to depart in peace.
"That's what they say, but that's not what everybody thinks. No wonder
you're stuck halfway and can't see your duty clear, Senator, you believe what
politicians say. Wake up! All those talks with that baboon in the White House
have put you to sleep."
"He's no baboon," he said. Just as Rose underestimated Lincoln in her
mixture of hatred and patriotism, it was possible that Lincoln did not prop-
erly gauge the degree of determination in the secession spirit. "He's a very
stubborn man, a little on the arrogant side, who thought he could hold the
Union together at not too great a cost. It doesn't help to call him a baboon,
Rose. He's shrewd, and knows how to argue, but he has this blind spot."
She turned her head as if to indicate she would not listen, then said in a low
voice: "I hate him because he represents all the grubby foreigners in those
factories up there who think they can grind us down to their way of life.
They're ugly, and he's ugly, and that's why he's a baboon."
"He is not ugly, and there is no reason to fear him, or them."
"What does he want from us, then? What drives the man?"
"It's just that blind spot of his, Rose. Lincoln doesn't want to compromise,
he wants to win. In that way, and in no other, he's like you."
She appeared not to hear, and leaned close to impart some intelligence. "I
hear that Jeff Davis is coming up from Richmond to hold a council of war
with Beauregard and Johnston tonight." She did not say how she knew, nor
did he ask, but he assumed her information was accurate. "I hope to hell they
march on Washington tomorrow, because this city has no defense at all. If we
come across the Long Bridge in the morning, your baboon friend will be
spending the night in this prison."
Breck thought he would almost welcome that, if only to put an end to the
war before the lust for vengeance caused the North to mobilize hundreds of
thousands of men and appoint some real generals. But the Confederates at
Bull Run seemed to him almost as disorganized and amateurish as the
Union's civilians in uniform, and they might fail to press their advantage. In
that case, how would Lincoln react to a battlefield humiliation? Breckinridge
guessed he would shift the blame to his generals and grow more obstinate
than ever, settling in for a long war. Such a war could last until both sides
quit from exhaustion, bled white, and all for nothingfor Lincoln's strange
need for national dominion and the Southern leaders' imagined need to pro-
tect slavery.
To Rose Greenhow, he said only, "Don't get too confident. And don't
worry about my career in the Confederacy because I may never get there. It
may be Kentucky's destiny to be neutral, the peacemaker."
"You're a fool. The Yankees will arrest you in the middle of one of your
mealymouthed speeches in the Senate and hang you for treason." Her predic-
tion, he knew, was not so farfetched, though he did not foresee hanging.
Dishonor, prisonperhaps this very prison, or Fort Lafayetteand, worst of
all, enforced silence in the midst of despotism. But Rose's solution, to take up
arms in the South against the government he had served and the Constitution
he revered, held no appeal for the grandson of Jefferson's lawyer.
"The next Senate speech I make will not be mealymouthed," he said. "It
should offend everyone. You're invited to the gallery."
"I'll bring something I can throw," she said, suddenly putting her hand
behind his head, drawing him forward to kiss him flush on the mouth. He
offered no resistance because he did not want her to think he feared being
observed by the guards. "Beats having to bend down to kiss a woman, doesn't
it?" she teased, then became serious. "Recruit her for us, and leave her.
Anna's accustomed to being left by men. Make your damn speech and go
South, where you belong."
CHAPTER 13
OLD FUSS AND FEATHERS
Winfield Scott, feeling every bit of his seventy-five years and nearly three
hundred pounds, managed to rise when the President entered, then sat back
heavily in his leather armchair. He motioned for his aide-de-camp to take
Lincoln's wet cape and hat.
The general-in-chief's office was filled with memorabilia of the man who
liked to say that, like Roger Taney, he was "one year older than the Constitu-
tion"captured flags and surrendered swords from the Mexican War, the
fading colors of regiments he had commanded in the War of 1812, when the
British sacked Washingtonand mounted on the wall was his pride and joy,
a leather bag containing a dozen bullets.
Under Scott's direction, the U.S. Army in 1849 had adopted the muzzle-
loading gun capable of firing the Mini6 bulletpopularly known as a "minnie
ball"named after French Army captain Claude Etienne Minie. The lead
projectile was shaped quite differently from the old musket ball: this was
cylindrical, conical in front and hollow at the back. When its sides were
forced by the explosive charge against the rifling on the inside of the gun
barrel, the bullet was sent spinning out of the barrel with a degree of accuracy
and a range that greatly improved small-arms fire and, the general had long
been certain, would revolutionize infantry tactics. The new weapon and its
ammunition gave entrenched defenders an advantage over any attacking
force, whether infantry or cavalry. In Scott's opinion, it effectively ended the
Napoleonic era of massed assaults.
"General, it appears we are undone," the President was saying, as he thrust
a handful of the latest dispatches from the War Department telegraph office
into Scott's hands.
In a few moments, Secretary Seward led the Cabinet into the office. Gen-
eral Scott surveyed the group. The Secretary of War was the picture of per-
sonal despair. Half of themAttorney General Bates, Cameron of War, and
Seward of Statewere obviously in their sixties. Welles, Montgomery Blair,
Chase of Treasury, and Caleb Smith of Interior were in their late- or mid-
fifties, and Lincoln, whom Scott knew to be fifty-two, was the youngest of the
lot.
Curious that he should surround himself with older men; a good sign, Scott
thought. Perhaps the older heads, his own included, could restrain Lincoln
from his less judicious inclinations. The general recalled clearlybut would
not mention, of coursethat when Scott was in his fifties, carrying the flag
down to the Rio Grande, then-Congressman Lincoln had been privately as-
sailing "Polk's war." As President himself, Lincoln better understood what
internal resistance had to be overcome to wage a warespecially one to carry
out his belief that the Union could not be dissolved.
Scott read the later reports from the front in silence, and in immediate
understanding of the source of the disaster. What had changed the nature of
the battle was the presence of General Johnston's rebel force at Manassas,
which should have been engaged at Winchester by General Patterson. That
old Irishman had served with Scott in 1812 and in Mexico; he had always
followed orders. Patterson had assured him that he would tie Johnston down.
He had failed, and as a result McDowell faced combined rebel armies that
had the advantage of a defensive position. When the green Union troops met
resistance, they broke and ran.
"General Scott," Attorney General Bates asked, "does this mean that the
capital is in danger?"
Lincoln sharpened the question. "To what degree is Washington in danger
of capture?"
Scott did not want to contribute to their dismay, and pointed out that the
reports did not show close pursuit by the rebels. "It may be that they are not
fully aware we have abandoned the field."
"Can't you do something about rounding up the troops wandering through
the streets," asked Montgomery Blair, "to mount some sort of defense? Can't
we close the bridges and force our men coming back to stand and fight in
Arlington? The ineptitude we have seen this afternoon seems to be continu-
ing."
The general glared at the man whose bad advice had pushed them into this
mess and allowed as how he would order a general roundup of stragglers
immediately. He looked around the group, expecting someone to remind the
Postmaster General that the impetus for this ill-fated engagement came not
from the old soldier who commanded the army, but from the young politician
who ran the country.
Seward handled it obliquely. "The strategy the general preferred is well
known to us, Montgomery. We all agreed that the political need of a sharp
and decisive blow right away outweighed his purely military advice of cau-
tion."
But Blair pressed the point. "I, for one, would never have been in favor of
any bold military advance if we had known that our army was no army at all,
but a mob in fancy uniforms."
That triggered Scott's fury. He heaved forward in his chair to do rhetorical
battle. Neither Blair nor Lincoln were going to make him, or his raw recruits,
the goat of this disaster. The Scott recommendation after the secession was no
secret: to let the seceding states go in peace, since an attack on interior lines in
an age of defense was impractical. When that advice was spurned, Scott had
made his military recommendation to win the war: to seize the forts along the
Mississippi down to Memphis and then to New Orleans, to blockade the
Atlantic ports, and thus to starve the South into submission.
This sound strategy had been ridiculed in the press as his "anaconda plan,"
after the snake that squeezed its victims to death, and was dismissed by
impatient politicians as overly timid, but it was not his job to satisfy the "On
to Richmond!" zealots. The task of the General-in-Chief, once the civilian
authority had made its decision to fight, was to recommend the best way to
win. When his judgment was set aside by the President, he had gone along
with his superior officer's decisionand now was being accused of being the
cause of the defeat.
"I must be the greatest coward in America," he said, startling them all.
"Do you want to know why, Mr. Blair? Because I permitted this battle to be
fought against my better judgment."
"Your bravery has never been at issue," Blair began to backtrack, but Scott
plunged ahead, his patience at an end. Blair was his ostensible target, but
what he had to say was intended for Lincoln.
"The President ought to remove me today for moral cowardice. As God is
my judge, after my superiors had deemed it necessary to fight this battle, I did
all in my power to carry out their orders. I deserve to be cashiered because I
failed to stand up for what I believed to be true. I did not rise up and protest,
when my army was obviously in no condition to fight, and resist the political
pressure to the last."
He stared Blair down, then looked over to the man who had ordered the
engagement on the grounds that the country needed the news of a victory to
stir up its war spirit. Lincoln had a look of pain on his sallow face approach-
ing desperation.
"You seem to imply, General Scott," the President was moved to say, "that
I forced you to fight this battle."
The sight of the stricken visage of the President gave the general pause.
The harried and uncertain Lincoln did not need to be pushed into accepting
responsibility at this point; rather, the man was in terrible need of support.
That placed Winfield Scott in a dilemma: he would have to choose between
his public reputation and his self-respect. In order to exonerate himself, he
would have to embarrass his commander in chief. At this moment, with the
nation stunned and its capital in danger of falling, any further humiliation of
the President would weaken the government and could well affect the out-
come of the war.
Scott enjoyed his longtime hero's reputation. He was proud to be the only
American other than George Washington to hold the rank of lieutenant gen-
eral. His only defeat in life was political, when he ran for President as a Whig
in 1852 as that party was nearing its final stage of disintegration. He had
posed willingly, even eagerly, for that picture in Brady's studio, to be used as
the model for the statue in Scott Square that would stand for centuries. He
did not want anyone to hang a sign beneath that statue that read "Perpetrator
of the Rout at Bull Run."
But he was first and last a soldier, and would go into retirement soon as a
good soldier. "I have never served a president, Mr. Lincoln, who has been
kinder to me than you have been." He hoped that would be enough to be
taken as an assertion that he meant no imputation of blame to his com-
mander. More would be an outright lie, since Scott had persuaded himself
that he had indeed been forced to fight this battle.
"If there is a good possibility that the city will fall," said Chase, changing
the subject to a more practical one, "I think we ought to concentrate on that.
We have to get the gold out of here. We should think about evacuation."
Lincoln, the blame-laying past, was making notes on a pad. "General, what
must be done now to defend the city?"
Scott focused on the immediate problem and knew exactly what had to be
done. "Round up all available troops here in the city and send them to
McDowell's support. Close the bridges across the Potomac, blow them up if
necessaryno more retreat, the men can stay in the encampments they used
in Virginia last week. Put Baltimore on the alert in case we have to fall back.
Telegraph the recruiting stations of the nearest states to send all organized
regiments to Washington."
Lincoln, nodding approval, made notes with his pencil. Scott reluctantly
added a thought that he knew would have command consequences. The only
Union general with any recent success was George McClellan, whose well-
organized operations in the West, while not all that significant militarily, had
made him the darling of the press and had helped Northern morale. "And
order McClellan to come down to the Shenandoah Valley," Scott said, "with
such troops as can be spared from western Virginia."
"I hear he's very good," said Chase. "They call him the young Napoleon."
That's the trouble with McClellan, Scott recalled. At thirty-five, he was
young for major command; it occurred to Scott that he had been given de-
partmental command at age twenty-eight, but that was in an era when the
nation itself was new and experienced hands were few. In Mexico, George's
troops always liked him, usually a good sign, but there was evidence of an
unwillingness to take casualties. Had an unfortunate habit of appointing cro-
nies to key positions; Burnside, a hack, found a place on his staff in civilian
life. Scott forced himself to admit his chief concern about the man: McClellan
was a born commander, and that type often tended to challenge the authority
of any soldier above him.
Recognizing his own bias, Scott considered the qualities of the officer who
would, in these circumstances, be hailed as the man of the hour and be
subjected to the heady wine of national adulation. Second in his class at the
Point. Good combat experience in Mexico. Creative mind for an engineer,
invented a comfortable saddle the horsemen swore by and even the horses
seemed to prefer. Good family man, having taken that girl away from Powell
Hill in a long romantic struggle that was the talk of the officer corps. Most
important, McClellan exuded success: bored by the peacetime army, he made
a career in railroading, and was said to earn ten thousand dollars a year
running the Illinois Central. Scott assumed McClellan had met Lincoln, too,
who had been a lawyer for the railroad.
"What about McClellan, General?" asked Blair.
"Good organizer."
"Let's get him here, then," Blair said to Lincoln. "Put him in charge of
organizing the defense of Washington. Tonight."
"Wait a second," Welles of the Navy, who seldom spoke, put in. "Is he the
best?"
Seward cautioned, "He's a Democrat."
"But he's a Douglas Democrat," said Attorney General Bates. Scott prided
himself on being above politics, at least ever since that unfortunate trouncing
at the hands of Frank Pierce in the campaign of '52. But he knew the differ-
ence between a follower of the late Stephen Douglas, a Democrat who sup-
ported the war, and a follower of John Breckinridge, the Democrat who
opposed it. Republicans in Congress were furious at the military commands
going to Douglas war Democratsthree to one over Republicans, it was
chargedbut nothing infuriated them like the advancement of Breckinridge
Democrats. Scott had approved John Dix, of Buchanan's Cabinet, to be the
general in Baltimore, and Benjamin Butler of Massachusetts, another Breck-
inridge Democrat, to take charge of the vital post in Fortress Monroe. At
least George McClellan had a history of being a Douglas Democrat.
"And he's too comfortable with pop sov," added Lincoln, who had cam-
paigned against Douglas's popular-sovereignty argument on the extension of
slavery into the territories, "but I need an organizer. Someone to stop the
panic."
"Pity the best West Pointers went South," Blair observed. "Can't blame
Robert Lee, I guess, he's a Virginian."
"I'm a Virginian too," General Scott said icily, remembering how he had
offered the command of Union troops to Lee in Biair's parlor. "Lee could
have done his duty to his country. That's why his country sent him to West
Point."
Lincoln took a watch out of his pocket and flipped open the lid. "Let's
meet again in a half hour over in the Mansion," he told the Cabinet members.
"I'll be along directly." He remained with Scott after the others left. Alone,
the President said to the general: "I appreciate that. What you said about my
not forcing you into battle. You are a patriot."
"I have never evaded responsibility, sir."
"Well, I have and you just saw me. You and McDowell are going to have to
stand a lot of gaff for a while, because I cannot afford to."
"I did not want to say this in front of the others, Mr. President, but I
suspect that the rebels had our plans. Someone in a position of trust, perhaps
even in the Cabinet, may have betrayed that trust."
Lincoln shook his head; that was evidently too hard to take, on top of
unexpected defeat and the prospect of the loss of the capital. He walked to
Scott's window and watched the group crossing the street. "Seward thinks he
should be President. And yet if he had been, the Union would have been
dissolved."
Scott frowned, and decided to be totally honest with the President young
enough to be his son. "I, too, have favored peaceful separation. Neither the
North nor the South has the power to conquer the other quickly, and the
section defending its own territory has an enormous advantage. Your only
hope is what they call the anaconda, slow strangulation by blockade, but I
doubt that the North has the patience for that. It would take years."
Lincoln continued to watch the men walking off in the rain and Scott did
not know if he had listened to the essence of his strategy. No time like now, in
the shock of defeat, to make a major reassessment. But the President's
thoughts seemed to be elsewhere: "Chase is despairing. Thinks he should be
President, too, but he doesn't see the central idea. He's with the radicals,
wants to strike at slavery where it exists."
"That is how to lose the war promptly," said Scott without doubt. On that
point, political and military tactics intersected. If abolitionist rabble-rousing
drove the slave states on the border into secession, the North would soon
have to sue for peace.
Lincoln pointed to the receding back of the man Scott had warned him
would be another way to lose the war. "What a mistake," he said about
Simon Cameron. "Utterly ignorant, and obnoxious to the country. Incapable
either of organizing details or conceiving and executing general plans. Is the
Secretary of War a great trouble to you?"
"The military contracts go to his friends." General Scott did not want to
learn much more about that subject, or to pass on what he did know to the
President, who might be safer not knowing about low-level corruption. The
general said only, "Cameron may be more trouble for your administration
than for the army." Scott had taken to going to Chase at Treasury for many
of the decisions about raising troops and financing the army that would ordi-
narily be in the purview of the Secretary of War.
"Bates is a fair lawyer," Lincoln said, needing to confide, which was not
like him. "Caleb Smith is a cipher at Interior, I'm afraid, but Welles turned
out to be surprisingly good at Navy."
"That leaves Montgomery Blair." Scott thought the Biairs were a danger-
ous family with all too much influence on the President.
"I like the judge. Admire his father, tootrust his political judgment more
than anybody's. Father Blair goes clear back to Jackson, like you do." He
veered off the subject. "Hasn't been a two-term President since Andy Jack-
son." He veered back. "The Biairs know how much I need Maryland and
Missouri, and Kentucky. We lose Kentucky and the bottom is out of the tub."
Because the President had been sharing his most intimate judgments with
him, Scott felt called upon to blurt out the truth: "What I said about being a
coward, sir, was true. I should never have allowed you to go into this battle. I
should have threatened to resign. That would have stopped you."
"I wish you had, General, but that's behind us." Lincoln dug his fingers in
his hair and almost cried out the question, "What will the people say?" In a
moment, he gave a kind of answer: "Sinners will call the righteous to repen-
tance."
The President came back from the window and sat at Scott's desk, his
pencil notes set before him. "Here is what I think we have to do. See what
you think."
Scott thought that the young President's willingness to come back and
confront his new difficulties offered some hope for his success. A leader had
to be capable of rallying his own mental forces in the midst of confusion and
despair.
"Let the forces late before Manassas," Lincoln said of the routed troops,
"be reorganized as rapidly as possible in their camps here and about Arling-
ton."
"Except the three-month men," Scott amended, "they're a bad influence on
the others. If they won't sign for the duration, discharge them."
Lincoln nodded, making the change in his notes. "Let the force under
Patterson" He stopped, uncertain.
Scott finished the thoughtfor him: "Patterson, or whoever we replace him
with, maybe Banks, be strengthened and made secure in its position. We'll
need Harpers Ferry."
The President nodded. "Let the volunteer forces at Fortress Monroe, under
General Butler, be brought"
Scott shook his head. "I don't know about Butler, he's one of your politi-
cian generals, and his men aren't ready to fight."
"Let them be constantly drilled, disciplined, and instructed," noted Lin-
coln, amending his order immediately. "Let Baltimore be held as now. Let
the forces in western Virginia" He looked up.
"Tell McClellan to tell them what to do, he'll be coming from there." Scott
knew McClellan's recall to Washington was inevitable, because there was
nobody else with his energy or experience or support in the press. McDowell
was finished, at least for a while, and Scott could not ride a horse; Lincoln
needed a man who could take charge in the field. The young man would want
to take charge at headquarters as well, but that was tomorrow's worry.
"What else?" said Lincoln. "Blockade," he answered himself, jotting that
down at the bottom.
"Let the plan for making the blockade effective be pushed forward with all
possible dispatch," Scott dictated, adding, "Make that the first item."
Lincoln wrote that down, circled it, and drew an arrow to the top of the
page. To show he understood the anaconda plannow even Scott thought of
his strategy in that termthe President added its Mississippi dimension: "Let
General Fr6mont push forward in the West, giving rather special attention to
Missouri. This done, a joint movement from Cairo down to Memphis, and
from Cincinnati on East Tennessee."
Scott nodded; the President had finally adopted his strategy. Lincoln then
pushed the general's inkwell and quill toward him. "Write out the order
bringing McClellan here right away. I'll take it down to the telegraph office."
The general looked sternly at him: the President as messenger did not sit
well. "Don't take on too many details," he advised, "they'll eat you up."
"The details are what count," Lincoln said grimly. "From now on, I want
to know everything." That did not sit well with the general, either. Scott saw
a President distrustful of his Cabinet colleagues, putting together a command
structure with one man's strategy and another man as executor, trying to
decide everything himself without being certain of himself.
As the one man who had carried the burden of military leadership from the
years following the Revolution to this civil war, Scott felt he had much cause
to worry about the man who would now have to shoulder that burden as well
as the political weight. He knew that he could not remain in command of a
long war, as this would have to behis infirmities made that impossiblebut
the general did not know if Lincoln would be strong enough in execution of
the vital details to sustain the strength of what he kept calling the "central
idea." The only thing Lincoln was certain about was the absolute necessity of
preserving the Union as it was, and Scott disagreed with his judgment on
that.
Not good. The general hoped Lincoln would learn to delegate authority
later, if the Northern public and the Southern forces gave him the time, and if
men capable of handling the details appeared. At least the President would no
longer be overconfident; give the shock of Bull Run credit for that. The
President was a shaken man and was not through this crisis yet, but at least
he gave signs of being shaken in the direction of becoming realistic, not of
giving up.
In a strong hand, Scott wrote out the order commanding the "young Napo-
leon" to come to Washington immediately to undertake the defense of the
capital. He handed it to the President, who thrust it inside his coat, grabbed
his cape, and hurried out the door to what would surely be the longest night
of his life.
CHAPTER 14
JOHN HAY'S DIARY
JULY 21 AND 22, 1861
July 21,2 A.M.
Hasn't been a night like this in the President's house since the British put
the place to the torch in 1812.
Anybody who takes the trouble to drop in tonight, any Sunday picnicker
on the way back from the obliteration of our army, gets to see a President of
the United States lying on the couch in his office. He won't let me close the
door and the stream of irate visitors and told-you-soers is likely to last all
night.
The parade began after the Cabinet left. That was a sad mess, with Blair
and Chase at each other's throats, everybody looking for a scapegoat. After
they went scuttling home in the rain, everybody and his brother came troop-
ing in. Lincoln just lies there, stretched out, sick at heart, ready to see every-
body who has a report of the battle, and that includes plain soldiers, bitter
generals, the sightseers who took a picnic lunch to Bull Run, and the Con-
gressmen. Wade and Chandler were the worst.
"McDowell is useless," Wade snarled, "and that old windbag Winfield
Scott is still fighting the Mexican Waryou ought to sack him tonight."
"Who will lead the troops?" came the weary voice from the couch. I wish
he would get up, or let me close the door.
"Anybody!"
"That'll do for you, but not for me. I must have somebody."
"McClellan, then," Chandler offered, in that slurred speech that comes
either from liquor or a Michigan dialect, it's hard for me to tell which.
"Young and vigorous. He's won some fights."
"You think he'll do?" he asked Wade, seemingly uncertain. That struck me
as encouraging; we had already sent for McClellan, and Lincoln knew that
Wade's radicals were distrustful of McClellan's Democratic connections and
wishy-washy position on slavery. Even in his supine state, he was trying to get
Wade committed to participation in the selection of the commanding general.
That would make it harder for the senator to criticize for at least a week.
But Bluff Ben Wade would not take the bait. He stood there, looking down
at Lincoln with something approaching contempt, the natural lines of his
mouth making him look like a dog ready to go for the jugular.
Zachariah Chandler finally said what was on my mind. "You better snap
out of it, Lincoln. You ought to go to that desk and write out an order to the
states to enroll half a million men right now, at once."
Wade nodded his agreement and the President slowly rolled to a sitting
position. "You have to show the country and the rebels that the government
is not discouraged," Wade said.
"That you're just beginning to get mad," Chandler added.
General Scott arrived at that point, wheezing mightily from the walk up-
stairs, and asked to see the President in private. The senators left. Credit them
with getting Lincoln off his couch.
4 A.M., same night.
Dramatic episode involving the Hellcat. Mrs. Lincoln's stubbornness turns
out to be of some value. General Scott walked Lincoln over to the oak Cabi-
net table and sat him at the head, then put the latest cables from the War
office in front of him. I stood with my back to the door, keeping it closed and
the nocturnal visitors out.
"No organized army stands between the capital and the rebels," old Scott
said. He said it calmly, seeming to gain dignity in defeat. "I want you to know
you need to know thisthat this house is in danger of being taken by the
enemy tomorrow."
Lincoln nodded, saying nothing.
"That would mean internment," the general went on, "assuming, as I do,
that the Union would pursue the war from a new capital in Philadelphia or
New York. Internment of the President would be a fresh defeat, and could
affect the outcome of the war. You could consider"
"I'm staying here," said Lincoln. If he were captured and interned, it
would be possible for an infuriated North to fight on; but if the Prsdt were to
leave the capital and it did not fall, he would be the laughingstock of the
nation.
He had already been made to look the fool when he first came to Washing-
ton from Illinois to take the oath of ofiice. Pinkerton, the detective for the
railroad, claimed to have discovered an assassination plot. They slipped Lin-
coln into the nation's capital wearing a felt hat with the brim over his eyes
and his coat collar turned up. The entire episode was ludicrous, and a stu-
pidly coded telegram from Pinkerton made it worse. Lincoln likes to be con-
sidered an informal man, plain of speech and dress, but he is fierce about
presidential dignity. I knew there would be no running out of town, not
unless the rebels were banging on the front door of the Mansion, and maybe
not then.
"I recommend, sir," Scott said formally, accepting his previous decision
without question, "that you let me evacuate Mrs. Lincoln and your sons."
Lincoln thought about that. Neither Scott nor I said anything. I knew that
Mrs. L., with her chronic headaches and her sometimes really unsettled
mind, would not take military confinement well. Robert, the oldest boy, on
the remote side, would be all right; Tad was sickly; Willie, the apple of the
Prsdt's eye, would make life in prison more bearable for the family. Hard
choice.
"The decision is Mrs. Lincoln's to make," the Prsdt said finally. "Fetch
her, will you, John?"
Luckily, Lizzie Keckley, the negro modiste who works for the Hellcat, was
sitting there in the hallway in case she could be useful on this terrible night.
She's a good egg, and not a sneak about information or a petty thief like some
of the staff that madam has befriended. Lizzie is a handsome, statuesque
freedwoman, curiously self-assured, who made the ballgowns for half the
famous ladies in Washington. She can handle the President's wife even in her
worst rages, or when she is weirdly afflicted by the specter of ultimate pov-
erty. I sent Lizzie to fetch Mrs. Lincoln.
Who, to my amazement, turned in a finer moment than anybody who knew
her would have expected. The lady is not my favorite person, and to my mind
that marriage is the worst personal mistake the Tycoon ever made. My Uncle
Milton in Springfield, who has known them both well for years, says he is "an
old poke-easy" who has been relentlessly "henpecked." Her jealousy of other
women, totally unwarranted so far as I can see, and her testiness are a great
burden to her already burdened husband; her Southern relationships are a
source of attack from his critics who claim she's a secret rebel sympathizer.
On this night, however, as she stood in her nightdress and robe in the door-
way, I could find no fault with her conduct.
"Mother," the President said, (why must he always call her that?) "Gen-
eral Scott here thinks you and the boys would be safer for the next few weeks
out of the capital."
"Long Branch, in New Jersey," I suggested, to take the sting out of the
evacuation. That is the fashionable watering placeracing, gambling, the
bathssurpassing Newport and Saratoga in the gossip of Washingtonians,
and I knew the Hellcat wanted to visit it. Frankly, so do I, and will as soon as
the current unpleasantness passes.
"The family should stay together at a time like this," she said without a
second thought. She looked more serene and supporting, in her plain face and
robe and slippers, than she usually did in her rouge and powders and insistent
decolletage.
"If the President is imprisoned," Scott said, putting it straight, "he might
have more peace of mind knowing that his family is safe and free."
"You do not know my husband, General. His family is a source of strength
to him, as he is to us."
The Tycoon smiled for the first time this awful night. "That's your answer,
General Scott. Good night, Mother. Look in on Willie if you can; all the noise
may be keeping him up."
"You're not coming to sleep?"
"I'll see." He guided her to the door, passed her on to me, and I passed her
on to Lizzie Keckley. The night's only good moment had come and gone;
after Scott left, the stream of angry and puzzled visitors went on and on.
6 A.M.
I am exhausted and fear we have lost the war. The Prsdt has not slept and
is  standing  at  the  window  looking  out  at  Pennsylvania Avenue  and  the
Parade.
A rain-soaked mob is staggering down the street, eastward, away from the
rebels, half in uniform and half not. That is our army, salvation of the Union,
home from Manassas and not an army anymore. The avenue is a slow river of
mud, and from where we look, the soldiers in the early light seem like
wooden figures in a logjam. Lincoln is sighing deeply and often, as if he
cannot get enough air in his lungs. Now the day begins that may end in the
surrender of this house for the second time in our history.
July 22,6:30 P.M.
Wrong about the last night's final entry. Mustn't let myself get so glum.
The rebels are still just over the river, but they have not moved against us to
follow up their victory. Scott says they're just as green as our men, and
General Beauregard cannot be certain that we are defenseless. God knows,
there are plenty of Union soldiers around Washington, mainly in the bars or
sitting in the streets getting drunk. General McClellan is on the scene at last,
and I must say looks like a general, commanding presence and all, riding
about with his twenty-man escort, shouting orders and putting up a good
front.
Horace Greeley, he of the "On to Richmond!" headlines, sent a letter to
the Tycoon after the Bull Run disaster. Lincoln opened it before I could, then
tucked it away in his Greeley cubbyhole, but I saw it anyhow.
"If the Union is irrevocably gone," writes the intrepid Uncle Horace, "an
armistice ought at once to be proposed. I do not consider myself at present a
judge of anything but the public sentiment. That seems to be everywhere
deepening against further prosecution of the war."
Can you imagine? That pusillanimous outpouring comes from the guiding
spirit of the radical cause, the beacon of the Jacobins hooraying for abolition.
In one quick battle, he has gone from On-to-Richmond to On-to-surrender.
The Ancient knows what power Greeley of the Tribune holds in the forma-
tion of Northern public sentiment and he is sick at heart about that lily-
livered letter. He is well off the couch and out of his yesterday's daze, how-
ever, and has asked for books on military strategy. General Scott sent over
the book by General Henry Halleck: "Old Fuss and Feathers" evidently likes
the work of "Old Brains." (Why are so many generals bedecked with sobri-
quets beginning with "Old"? At least McClellan is the "Young" Napoleon.)
Lincoln had a curious reaction to Horace Greeley's spinelessness. After his
loss of faith in his field generals as well as in his own political-military judg-
ment, that craven abandonment by the editor who was abolition's chief pro-
ponent seemed to be the last straw. Instead of collapsing into despair, as I was
fully prepared to do, the Ancient perked up and counted his blessings.
The rebel army had not advanced into the capital, as it so easily could have
done, which meant that the other side had its lapses of judgment too. And the
defeat at Bull Run decisively awakened the North with more of a stinging
slap than a stunning blow. Not everyone fell apart like Greeley and read the
public mood as panic-stricken. Many of the Republicans got mad, just as
Wade and Chandler did, and they led the call for 400,000 "duration" troops.
That was more than the "three hundred thousand more" that Lincoln had
asked for in story and song, so he cheered up.
"Cheered" is not quite the right word. He is not a cheerful person. He is a
congenitally melancholy person who looks for reasons to smile occasionally. I
am the one who has cheered up.
The Tycoon is determined to see the war through, even if it takes to the end
of the year. I am with him all the way, even when the duty is onerous, as
when I missed the chance to meet Kate Chase at the Blair party, or more
accurately the Blair wake, last night after Bull Run. My chance will come.
CHAPTER 15
THE PRESIDENT'S BEST FRIEND
She even slept independently. Most women, in his experience, slept in con-
stant contact with him, no matter what size the bed. They would wriggle their
behinds into his midsection or, if his back was turned, would make a chair
with their knees and fit themselves against him. He did not mind that, unless
the night was oppressively hot, which this night was not; in fact, Breckinridge
rather liked having the need for his physical presence shown by his partner in
the bed.
Anna Carroll, however, most often slept face up, arms at her sides, as if at
attention on the hard mattress. When she was sleeping deeply, her face
seemed to shed twenty years. He liked to study her in that horizontal profile:
perfect nose, long eyelashes, sensuous lower lip, the long red hair covering her
naked shoulders. When she went to bed worried, he had noted, the supine-
attention stance was abandoned. Then she lay on her stomach, fighting the
pillow until it found a niche between her substantial breasts and the tip of her
chin. Her head hung forward over the pillow, a frown on her face, an occa-
sional blurred word barked in her sleep.
At no time in either position did the unconscious Anna seek physical con-
tact; unlike most of the women he had known, she was no snuggler. In fact, in
the first year he knew her, she would instinctively draw away when he
touched her. That had changed this year; he could touch her anywhere in
sleep now, and she would sleepily return the pressure. If that did not lead to
intercoursewhich it usually did, and at greater length and intensity than
with any woman he had ever knownshe would return to her deep-sleep
posture of horizontal attention or worried pillow-wrestling. She had become
accessible, in body and mind, welcoming without searching. He had never
told her how much he appreciated that, assuming she would prefer not to be
watched in her sleep.
He slid the sheet down to look at her in the pulsing light of the gas lamp
outside and just below her corner rooms at Ebbitt House. Nose and toes
straight up, ankles together, breasts spilling toward her arms, hands at her
sides, skin luminescent; for a woman who relied on animation and wit for her
attractiveness, she was more beautiful in repose than she knew. Breck had not
realized before how necessary it was for him to have her close, hands meshing
and minds lightly touching, at such a critical moment in his life. For the past
month, he had been standing almost alone for the preservation of the rights in
the Constitution against men who claimed to stand for the preservation of a
sundered Union. The next day, in the Senate, one grim week after the first
awakening bloodshed, he would probe further into the cause of the war. He
would frame the issue of what lay behind what seemed to him Lincoln's
implacable belligerence.
It would have been hard to face this night-before alone. Colonel Ned Ba-
ker's troops at Bladensburg, earlier that evening, had jeered at him cruelly; he
had managed to turn that around with a politician's trick, but found it trou-
bling that the booing came from good men, patriotic Americans, whose deep
resentment of his flirtation with reason probably presaged the response from
the Senate gallery tomorrow.
Cool air stirred the thin window drapery and Anna pulled the sheet back to
cover her legs. He eased his long body out of beda hard bed, because she
had come to the uncomfortable belief that resilient mattreses were bad for the
backand sat on the arm of the armchair near the window facing west. The
Executive Mansion's white walls struck him as splendid in the half-moon's
light. Not a year ago, as part of "Buck and Breck," he had been a breath
away from residence in that house. He had taken pride in the presidential
palace then, and looked proudly on it nownot three blocks from Anna's
windowwondering if Lincoln was having trouble sleeping that night. He
judged, from his brief visit only six hours before, that the President of a
nation at war had finally found some means of repose.
He had never seen Lincoln more relaxed. Breckinridge had to smile at the
picture etched in his memory that afternoon of Ned Baker, flat on his back,
head cushioned by his rolled-up uniform jacket, with his feet up against the
trunk of the great magnolia tree on the long lawn northeast of the President's
house. Lincoln had been sitting on the grass with his back against the same
tree, in a shirt with the tie untied and the collar open, jacket folded neatly
next to him, shoes unlaced. With his huge feet drawn back, Lincoln's knees
were at his eye level; he balanced his tall hat on his knees as he passed the
time of day with a good friend. His son Willie, born long after the child
christened Edward Baker Lincoln had died, was kicking a ball nearby. A
pleasant and peaceful sight on a late afternoon in midsummer, only a week
after the capital had come so close to capture and the United States to mili-
tary humiliation.
The Kentuckian had handed his horse's reins to the stolid Marshal Lamon,
who was minding the mounts about fifty yards from the tree, and walked to
the two men. Half in jest, Breck asked if they were plotting a dictatorship.
Lincoln scowled at that but Baker smiled.
"Dictator is what the country needs," Baker said, rearranging his feet on
the tree trunk, "with men like you in the Senate. You know what this big
galunk did last week, Lincoln? He blocked Senate approval of your right to
suspend habeas corpus."
"They approved everything else," Breckinridge remembered having re-
plied, "blockade, calling up the troops, waging war, all the illegal spending."
The Senate would have gone along with Lincoln's seizure of its power to
make wartime arbitrary arrests, but the senators paused when Breckinridge
reminded them that it was their own constitutionally given power they would
be handing over forever. Protecting the institutional powers of the Senate had
more of an appeal as an argument than any appeal to individual liberty, so the
use of habeas corpus was left out of the resolution of approval of all Lincoln's
warring acts. No outright disapproval, of course, and the President could
continue to use his despotic power, but the argument about who held the
power was postponed until the emergency was over. A small victory, but
enough to give Breckinridge some hope that his continued presence in the
Senate would do the Republic some good.
"Lucky they did," Baker yawned, picking up and pulling a long piece of
leather near Lincoln's coat to change the subject. "This a new whip crack?"
"Cost a quarter at the harness maker's," Lincoln said. "Take it if you need
one, Ned."
"I will." Baker pulled his feet back, rolled, grunted as he rose. He smacked
the whip against his boot, satisfied with the sound. "I invited Breck to see my
regiment in Bladensburg, have-dinner out there tonight. Want some tips on
training from an old Mexican War veteran."
"I was an army lawyer in Mexico," Breckinridge confessed. "You were the
'hero ofCerro Gordo.' " The Kentuckian remembered that episode as a fool-
ish and potentially costly assault uphill against a fort, but carried by Colonel
Baker with help of a couple of junior officers, a Captain Lee and Lieutenant
Grant. A famous victory, but in retrospect it was clear that Baker and his
inexperienced commanders took too great a chance of major defeat.
"Least you weren't in Congress, Breck, giving the President a hard time
about fighting a war of conquest on some false pretext." Baker smiled. Lin-
coln merely winced. Breck knew that few others could make the painful
reference to Congressman Lincoln's opposition to President Polk's war with-
out drawing the ire of the present warring President. Evidently Baker was
supremely secure in his friendship with Lincoln; Breck hoped Lincoln was
not wholly influenced by the passion of his friend to conquer and punish the
South. "Subjugate" was the word Baker took a perverse delight in using.
They bade farewell to the President, who did not rise from his post at the
tree trunk, and left him massaging his aching feet in the shade. On the road to
the Maryland town where the California and Oregon troops were billeted,
Baker made no effort to argue his guest out of strongly held views. Breck
liked that about the combined senator and colonel. Baker had one of those
departmented minds that had a place for political argument, which was the
floor of the Senate, and a place for personal talk, which was at the base of a
tree or a ride out to his regiment.
Ned Baker was Lincoln's age, a decade older than Breckinridge. Thinning
gray hair brought him the sobriquet of the "Gray Eagle," but Baker exuded
an ingratiating optimism that seemed to the Kentuckian to belong to a much
younger man. Perhaps that inclination of Baker's to see life in primary colors,
rejecting the grays of moral issues, had to do with his decision in middle life
to become a Far Westerner, moving from Illinois to represent the Oregon
pioneers, ultimately opening a law practice in San Francisco. If any man
could be said to "run" most of the west coast of the continent, that man was
Senator Edward Baker. Certainly his influence and vigorous campaigning had
much to do with swinging Oregon away from Breckinridge to Lincoln in the
1860 campaign.
Breck saw some of his own proudest characteristics in Baker: informal to
all, convivial with a few, and, above all, loyal to those who had shown loyalty
to him. As Breck was faithful to the Constitution, Baker's fidelity ran to the
Union and to his friends, especially his friend Lincoln. Breck assumed Baker
would do anything for Lincoln, and grant him any power he needed, because
he trusted the President he knew so well to use even the wrong means to
pursue the right ends. The Kentuckian could understand that sense of loyalty
in a friend, but had often tried to make Baker see that a President was more
than a manhe was one of a line of men that could one day include a tyrant.
Evil means, used with good intent, had an insidious way of corrupting the
best of ends.
"I should tell you I'm making a long speech in the Senate tomorrow, Ned,"
he called to the horseman on his left.
"Despotism again? That dog won't hunt. Lincoln doesn't want to be dicta-
tor, he wants to get re-elected."
"Purposes of the war. Need to stop it now. And your goal of 'subjuga-
tion.' " And much more; Breck suspected that the loss at Bull Run had made
Lincoln a captive of Wade and Chase, the outraged radical wing of his party,
who were now pushing him into a war for abolitionism, against all his prom-
ises. If this suspicion was well founded, then Lincoln, under the rubric of
Union, was secretly plotting abolition, which to Breck meant not only perma-
nent disunion, but two hostile powers on the same continent.
"I'll be there this time," his companion had said. "Just try me on subjuga-
tion of the rebels." Baker, Breck knew, blamed himself for not being present
when the Senate was talked out of approving Lincoln's use of arbitrary arrest.
Breck wanted him there this time. Ned Baker was widely known to be Lin-
coln's man in the Senate; moreover, the fiercely honest Far Westerner would
hold nothing back in arguing Lincoln's side. Perhaps he would modify or
even change Break's views on some points; that was a point of pride in the
Kentuckian, that he could make concessions in debate when the other debater
had a better argument. Breckinridge dearly wanted reasons to stay in the
Senate, to believe that his presence saved that body from the excesses of war
fever. The thought of renouncing the Constitution, as Jefferson Davis and the
others did, was more repugnant to Breckinridge than any sacrilege. Let the
radical Republicans say he was heading South; Breckinridge planned to stand
rooted in his place in the United States Senate as long as a majority of
Kentuckians, or at least enough Kentuckians, went along with his view of a
need for a third force in the divided nation.
"I'll be there," Baker repeated, "but don't get on your feet too early. I have
to inspect and drill the troops in the morning."
"McClellan makes a big point of that, I hear."
"He's just a boy, like you, likes parades." They rode a bit, and Baker
added, "Beware a general who's crazy in love with his wife, it makes him
cautious. About tomorrowas soon as I get to the Senate, Breck, I'll rip your
speech to shreds. Then I'll give you a few minutes for rebuttal, because I feel
sorry for a loner."
They reached camp in Bladensburg in time for the retreat ceremony. With
the sixteen hundred men of his regiment drawn up in front of the flagpole,
Colonel Baker announced with some pride "a distinguished visitor, our for-
mer Vice President and now the senator from Kentucky, John Cabell Breck-
inridge."
A loud groan went up from the ranks, followed by booing and catcalls. The
men had read the newspapers, and knew John Breckinridge to be the one who
led the Senate opposition to the war. Breck, stung, showed no emotion, mur-
muring only "Not many votes in this crowd" to Baker, who was red-faced at
the rude reception.
"Captain," Colonel Baker ordered in a ringing voice, "you will apologize
on behalf of the officers of the California regiment for this insulting behavior
to a guest."
A captain rode up, snapped a salute, and expressed his regret. Baker called
for the sergeant major, who did a better job: "Senator Breckinridge, on behalf
of the noncommissioned officers, I want to apologize for this breach of disci-
pline, and assure you the regiment will be punished for this discourtesy to a
guest of the colonel."
Breck turned to Baker and used a bit of tradition that always made a hit
with the cadets at West Point. "Do you offer guests the privilege of amnesty?"
Baker, suppressing a smile, nodded.
"Then I request that the infraction be forgiven forthwith," said the visitor
solemnly, "and that soldiers under restriction for other minor offenses be
relieved of such restriction."
"Granted," snapped Baker loudly, adding under his breath, "You should
have been in politics."
The sergeant major led three cheers for the visiting senator, and ranks were
broken for dinner. After sunset, Baker broke out the best Tennessee corn
whiskey and the two men told stories of Lincoln's days in Congress opposing
Polk's Mexican War. Breck counseled his host to choose soon between the
army and the Senate, because a straddle would diminish his capacity to fight
and someBreckinridge among themwould object to a military uniform
on the floor of the Senate. Baker confided that a concern for that problem led
him to turn down a general's commission; as an officer of lesser rank, he
thought, he could remain in the Senate to support Lincoln during this crucial
session. After it ended, he would stop straddling. He had made the decision to
resign from the Senate to fight the war, and Lincoln would soon make him a
major general of volunteers. He would be the President's trusted man in the
army; if the war lasted until the next year, as Breck expected, and if McClel-
lan fell short of expectations or proved to be politically unsound, Baker would
be a good bet for a high command.
Breck rode back from Bladensburg to Washington alone, wondering how
such a good politician and soldier, with such a keen lawyer's mind, could be
so monumentally wrong about the burning issue of his time.
How could he seriously believe that one half of a country could conquer
and subjugate the other half, and still maintain the pretence of being a democ-
racy? Wasn't it all predicated on the consent of the governed? Even if con-
quest were possible, what sort of country would emerge, half oppressive occu-
pier and half embittered occupied? Didn't Baker see the quagmire ahead, and
the certain failure even if his most bloody-minded hopes of crushing conquest
were realized? When Baker talked of subjugation, he reminded Breck of Rose
Greenhow: both partizans refused to see that the survival of democracy in
such a nation would be impossible.
Breck pushed the question further: did Baker speak for Lincoln? Where the
President was cagey, Baker was forthright; where Lincoln kept his counsel
and balanced his support, Baker made no bones about the object of the war.
The Kentuckian suspected that the two best friends saw eye to eye, which
offered the bleakest of prospects.
Breck's horse delivered him to his dark home near the Capitol, but he
could not make himself go inside. Instead, he had directed the animal toward
Ebbitt House and Anna.
The possibility that she might not be alone had not occurred to him until
he was halfway up the stairs. He stopped, considered the chances that she had
another guest, thought of the embarrassment and awkwardness of such a
moment, and then continued his climb. There was no way of sending a note
ahead. He would take for granted that she slept alone when he was otherwise
engaged, though she had never made any such commitment to him. If an-
other man was there, the politician in Breckinridge would think of something
to say; he would be walking more of a tightrope in the Senate the next day,
and he needed to be with the only person who knew fully what was going on
in his mind. As he approached her hallway door, he found himself biting
down on the toothache in his mind of her possible infidelity, if it could be
called that. The married Breckinridge reminded himself that it could not.
She had been working on a pamphlet and the delight on her face at his
surprise visit had warmed him. Nowseated on the arm of the chair at the
window, looking past the Mansion toward the Potomac and the battle lines
he savored the recollection of the way she gulped down the news of his
moment with Lincoln and evening with Baker.
A Reply to Breckinridge was the title of the pamphlet she had been working
on, which struck him as a little presumptuous, playing as it did on Daniel
Webster's immortal Reply to Hayne, when those giants of Massachusetts and
South Carolina had addressed today's issue in their own time. However, as
the only pamphleteer who fully understood the import of his attack on the
war power of the President, and as the only woman he knew with a grasp of
the ideas embodied in the Constitution, Anna was entitled to some degree of
presumption.
Before the lovemaking, as she turned down the light she had warned him
against getting hot under the collar in debate the next day, because every
word he said was being taken down and could be used in expulsion proceed-
ings against him. Debates, especially vigorous sallies against men whose opin-
ion you respect, did suck a speaker into saying more than he planned. He was
determined that that would not be the case with him tomorrow. He hoped
Ned Baker would commit some degree of excess, giving him the opening he
needed to expose the iron fist of conquest in Lincoln's velvet glove. At the
same time, he hoped Ned's passion would not take him to the point of per-
sonal political threats. That would be a source of trouble. Not everybody
realized that personal friendship could survive political enmity, or that mu-
tual respect in debate could make civilized discourse possible even in the most
barbaric of times. Baker had the power, as no other senator did, to fan into a
blaze the resentments that smoldered around Breckinridge; the Kentuckian
hoped his opponent would not assume that his colleagues would be as filled
with the spirit of comity after intellectual combat as Baker was himself.
The east wall of the Mansion was picking up the first light. It had been
James Madison's notion to paint the dull sandstone of the Mansion a brilliant
white, in the reconstruction of the President's house after the British had
burned it in the War of 1812. Breck put that down as a good idea: the white
house seemed to awaken the neighborhood in the dawn. White suggested
purity and honor, he mused, as well as cold and death; the Roman senators
wore white togas, and the Roman legions laid white lilies on soldiers' graves.
He allowed his mind to dwell on such morbid thoughts for a time, then broke
off abruptly as Anna stirred beneath her sheet. He thought then of the moral
compromises he had so readily made to open the way to this unique love, and
of the political compromises he was finding it so difficult to make to become
again a contender for the white Mansion across the way. His conscience was
becoming dangerously selective. It occurred to him, as the sun's rays struck
the President's house and the city sounds rose, that a little less fervor and a
little more caution would be the best course in debating the President's best
friend on the subject of constitutional compromises needed to put down an
armed rebellion.
CHAPTER 16
I HAVE READ WITH PAIN
Anna loosened her hold on the pillow underneath her and reached out for
Breck. He wasn't there. She could have sworn that he had come to her late in
the night. It was not like her to have those dreams of a phantom presence in
an empty bed; she had long ago come to terms with the single life. A woman
had to stand in her own shoes and not be dependent on a man's help in life or
his form next to her through the night.
She arched her back and twisted her head around. Breck was seated by the
window, in the bathrobe she had given him to leave in her rooms, reading in
the morning light the draft of her latest pamphlet, the one Attorney General
Bates had asked her to write, A Reply to Breckinridge.
This was the first time in all the nights they had spent togetherat least
twice a week for nearly a year, excepting his visits to Kentuckythat he had
risen first. She returned to the pillow and lay still, turning that thought over.
Sex in the morning enervated her, ruining the morning for work, and the
morning was when she did her best writing; that was why she always rose
first, meeting his outstretched hand with a mug of coffee and giving him a
smiling face that did not betray too many of the wrinkles of a woman on the
far side of forty. Except when he was drinking, Breck was always ready when
it came to sexalways respectful, but always ready, night and morningand
she liked to complain that he needed a younger woman. They both knew he
already had a younger woman, his wife at home in Lexington, and Anna
suspected that he had the worship and perhaps companionship of Lizzie
Blair, also in her mid-thirties. She also wondered about Breck and Rose
Greenhow, who was her age, but would never ask him about other women,
because she had made the point to Breck that neither had any claim on the
other. Still, he had shown up unannounced last night, as if he assumed she
would be sleeping alone. That was true, and she was glad he made that
assumption, although it would be a mistake to compromise her independence
by confirming it verbally.
Why his sudden visit, and why the early awakening this morning? He must
have been lonely and worried. Anna slipped out of bed, jammed her feet into
slippers, hunched into her robe and, without saying good morning, hurried
down the hall. First to the water closet, then the washroom, then the hotel
kitchen for a tray of cakes and coffee. She took a small pot and enough cake
for one, because she did not want talk among the kitchen help; her reputation
as a stern and virtuous maiden lady was important to her.
" 1 have read with pain,' " he read aloud when she returned, " 'the speech
of the Honorable John C. Breckinridge, and now I see him descending from
his high position as a senator and come to Maryland for the purpose of
stimulating and strengthening the Confederate rebellion.' "
"I'm surprised you can read my handwriting," she said, ashamed of her
masculine scrawl, pleased that he was studying her work.
"You write like you make love," he said, and did not elaborate. She would
be damned if she would ask what he meant by that. That she wrote and made
love at great length, or oblivious to any distraction, or with great satisfaction,
blazing climaxes, and no pecuniary benefit? All true, but that subject was not
for light banter; to Anna, lovemaking was something to do with a full heart
and the gaslight on, and near a large mirror if the man was so inclined, but
never to talk about; it was one thing to be free, quite another to be brazen.
"Did you get to the Jefferson citation? That was hard to find, Breck, but it
was meant for you."
He nodded, poked through the pages on the table, and read aloud: " 'To
lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to written law would be to lose
the law itself . . . thus absurdly sacrificing the end to the means.' Good
quote, but I'd have to see the context. And it doesn't answer my argument,
Anna. I'm not a stickler for the letter of the law. I want Lincoln to adhere to
the spirit of the Constitution. George Washington conducted the Revolution
of the thirteen colonies without martial law."
"You don't know what you're talking about," she told the senator from
Kentucky. "He ordered the Tory prisoners held in New York, including the
mayor, removed to Connecticutno trial, no hearing. There was nothing but
martial law all during the Revolution."
He shook his head. "Never like this. Never closing down newspapers who
dare to criticize. Never ignoring the courts, seizing property nowhere near a
war zone. All this is what we conducted the Revolution against."
She felt the bile of hot argument rise in her throat and fought it down.
There was a time to argue with this man and a time to find out what was
troubling him. He did not come to her last night, as he had on other nights, to
use her mind for a sharpening stone and her body for release. He needed
something else, something that he had never sought from her before. She was
eager to give him what he needed, as he had so often given her, if she could
figure out what it was.
She stabbed in the dark: "Everything all right at home?"
He took several deep breaths and said, "My son Cabell, the sixteen-year-
old. He's run away. Mary thinks he went South and joined the rebel army."
Anna could think of nothing to say. She had met young Cabell on the day
the electoral votes were counted and his father, as president of the Senate,
had officially declared Lincoln the victor. Despite the divisive campaign and
the dividing Union, the executive power had passed in dignity, with no ran-
cor. Uncle Bob had introduced her to his grandnephew in the gallery and the
boy had impressed her as the sort of son she would have liked to have: sturdy,
thoughtful, potentially rebellious. She had pressed his hand and hurried on,
not wanting to meet the rest of the Breckinridge family.
Breck shook his head, as if to get out of his mind the picture of his son in
uniform, carrying a musket. "I've been against the war in principle," he said,
"but there's something about having your child in the line of fire that lends a
certain urgency to the position."
"Will they use that against you in the Senate, evidence of rebel sympathy?"
He did not seem to care. "I had dinner with Ned Baker last night. We're
going to have at each other today in the Senate."
That was why he had come. Anna knew Senator Edward Baker to be one
of the best debaters in that body, a passionate and sometimes savage orator,
faster on his feet in debate and far more eloquent than Ben Wade or any of the
other radical Republicans. Baker was master of the art of the cutting ques-
tion, and would stack his questions, shortening them as he went on, until the
audience could not bear the tension. She admired that technique, and knew
that his reputation as a fighting officer added to his stature as a political
speaker. The "Gray Eagle" knew how to soar and when to swoop. Anna
suspected that Breck was troubled by the prospect of doing rhetorical battle
with him and would not admit it to himself.
"You know, Breck, opposing the war is like beating a dead horse. Peace is
that dead horse, and there's nothing you can say to bring it to life. It only
makes you sound" She avoided words like "traitorous" or "treasonable"
and chose "unpatriotic."
"One man could stop this war overnight," he replied. "Lincoln tries to
make us believe it wasn't his decision to bring on the war. In your hands, my
dissatisfied fellow citizens,' " he mimicked, " 'and not in mine, is the decision
of peace or war.' What a lie. He knows the South wants only to depart in
peace. Lincoln's advisers all told him that peaceful separation was preferable
to a war that will create hatred on this continent for a century. Isn't that true,
Anna? You know them. That's a fact, isn't it?"
She nodded. Only Blair, of all the Cabinet, had backed Lincoln's decision
for war. She did not add that Tom Scott in the War Department had told her
that Winfield Scott himself had made it clear to Lincoln that an invasion of
the South would not be successful. On that point, Breck was right: had it not
been for one man, the stubborn A. Lincoln, the war would not have come.
Two nations would exist, one slave, one free.
"That's no longer the question," she replied obliquely. "The war is here.
Bull Run has been fought, the South won, and the capital in Washington did
not fall. Now you have to choose sides." She said that gently, she hoped, not
argumentatively.
"Peace is still a side," he replied, shaking his head, "and that is the side I
am on. Lincoln once said the nation could not exist half slave and half free,
and he believes that, no matter what he says now about not striking at slavery
where it exists. I believe that no nation can exist half victor and half van-
quished."
That sort of talk, at this stage, was going to get him in trouble. After the
loss at Bull Run, the senators would not take kindly to any position that
smacked of cowardice or disloyalty. She wanted him to restrain himself, to
stop well short of giving his political opponents the ammunition to disgrace
or arrest him.
"That's a powerful line for a debate, Breck, and I know there's principle in
your position, but you're going to be President of these United States one day.
Probably three years from now, when the war is just a memory. There is no
doubt in your mind who is going to win the war, is there?"
"The Union outnumbers the Confederacy two to one," he said without
hesitation, "and has all the industrial resources. If the people don't get weary
of bloodshed, the North should win. But Annasuch a United States will be
a hate-filled nation, without liberty in the North, and denying liberty to the
South it subjugates."
"You're making that speech again," she said evenly.
"I said something like that in the Senate," he admitted. "Baker is vulnera-
ble on 'subjugation.' It's a word he's used often, and it goes too far."
She decided he needed a shock. "Breck, are you thinking of going over to
the rebels? Joining your son?"
"Of course not. I'm going to keep Kentucky neutral."
"People are saying that your plan is to go South. They say you're staying in
the Senate as long as you can obstruct the war, and then you'll take a place in
Jeff Davis's Cabinet."
"They say that because they can't stand to listen to the truth. They want
blood, and they want to believe that anybody who doesn't want blood is a
traitor."
"Breck, you know I love you, and I have your best interests at heart." She
had never mentioned to him or to herself that she loved him, which she
realized was true, and she just threw it out in passing. "You're a politician,
and you have to be practical. Let's examine the possibilities." She ticked them
off. "If you do go South1 know, but let's just assume that you talk yourself
into itand the state of Kentucky doesn't follow you, then your career is
finished no matter who wins the war."
He nodded agreement, adding, "The senators in the seceded states would
at least be honored at home, if the South loses. I would be a pariah at home
and a traitor in the North." He obviously had done some thinking along
those lines.
"Will Kentucky go South?" she asked, knowing the answer was no.
"Kentuckians will split, like the Breckinridge family. Brother against
brother, son against father. The state won't leave the Union unless Lincoln
tries to free the slaves."
"Which I have heard him say a dozen times he would not do," she added.
"So Kentucky stays in. Let's assume you stay in with your state, and you lay
low in the Senate. You can be the conscience at times, and do your duty as
you see it on habeas corpus, but by and large show your loyalty to the
Constitution, and smite the radicals like my friend Ben Wade when they try
to turn this into a war for abolition."
"That is what all my friends in the Senate suggest, Anna. John Forney has
told me that a hundred times. What then? What about the rivers of blood that
nobody raised a hand to stop?"
She knew Forney, a Pennsylvania newspaperman who badgered Simon
Cameron into getting him the juicy plum of Secretary of the Senate. Sharp
mind, good soul, excellent connections, but a drunkard. He was not a good
influence on Breck, who could hold his whiskey with any man, but no ordi-
nary hard drinker could hold his own with an experienced drunk.
"Here is what then," she said. "No war lasts forever. This war may drag on
for a year, and neither side will be the winner. The South will be exhausted,
no shoes for the soldiers. In the North, nobody, especially not Lincoln, is
going to hold together the Douglas Democrats, the Breckinridge Democrats,
the radical Republicans, and the conservative Republicans. I mean, it just
cannot happen. That's the moment for a peacemaker."
"You think the nation must lay me down and bleed awhile.' "
"Lincoln was born in Kentucky," she said. "Jeff Davis was born in Ken-
tucky. More than any part of the country, more than my Maryland even, that
state is half North and half South, half slave and half free. When the moment
comes for peacemaking, you're from the state that understands, the home of
Henry Clay, the great conciliator. And the man who makes the peace will be
the next President."
She drew herself to her full height, certain she was right. She would never
have this man as husband, but she would have him in more important ways:
political partner, conspirator, sharer of power. She could help him in ways
that suited her experience. She had helped Millard Fillmore by enlisting the
legions of Know-Nothings in his cause, only to be disappointed by that pusil-
lanimous ingrate. She had provided political support to "Buck" Buchanan,
until that confirmed bachelor withdrew behind the palisades of power. Breck
was more secure as a man and as a politician than either of those presidents,
and indeed had attacked her Know-Nothing crowd at its zenith, when even
Lincoln was being cautious about offending the powerful "Sams." Anna
wanted to be there when he made it to the top, and she was certain that this
time, this once, she would not be disappointed. She was so tired of dealing
with men in power's place who changed radically from the same men on
power's path.
"I have a lot to think about," Breck said, riffling the pages of her pamphlet,
not committing himself to discretion. "I see you kept all the family secrets to
yourself."
Anna nodded solemnly. He referred to the notes and letters in her posses-
sion of many of the Southern leaders, who had been plotting secession for
more than a dozen years. As a power in the Native American Party, she was
privy to many of the secession movement secrets, but had taken care to keep a
certain distance, never to expose herself as a member of any conspiracy. She
could write some stunning revelations of a decade of treasonable conspiracy if
she chose to, but this was not the time, and she did not want to embitter her
Reply to Breckinridge with suggestions of treason. With proper bounds, their
disagreement would serve them both well, and certainly remove any suspicion
about their relationship.
"You're going to walk to the Hill, so you can think about ways to stop the
sedition bill without coming out for secession?" she suggested. She wanted his
horse.
"Good idea. You can take my horse, it's in the back. I assume you're
coming."
"I'll be in the gallery. Wouldn't miss Ned Baker in debate with anybody.
Don't, for God's sake, let him bait you into saying anything good about
secession."
CHAPTER 17
POLISHED TREASON

The dome of the Capitol was not yet half finished. It seemed to John Fomey,
Secretary of the Senate, that the home of the national legislature stood out on
the Hill like a tooth that had been drilled but not yet filleda great, empty
molar with raw nerve exposed.
Fomey took up the bill referred by the Judiciary Committee to the Senate
acting as a Committee of the Whole, to be considered that morning: S. 33, "A
bill to suppress Insurrection and Sedition."
Henry Anthony, senator from Rhode Island and owner of its Providence
Journal, was the presiding officer that morning. At a nod from the senator,
Fomey rose, cleared his throat, and took a sip of water. Most of the senators
thought he was sipping gin, which he sometimes did on a dull day with
nothing to read but interminable amendments, but he never linked arms with
John Barleycorn on historic occasions.
Which this session surely would be. The bill under consideration was noth-
ing short of nationwide martial law. Stung by the defeat at Bull Run, the
Republican war hawks proposed to empower military commanders to seize
and hold as prisoners any civilians "aiding or abetting" the rebellion, to
ignore the civil courts and to try them by court-martial. The military com-
mander could execute those found guilty.
The legislation superseding the authority of civil courts, which also re-
quired loyalty oaths of all suspects, struck Forney as kind of sweeping, but
the Senate had already approved a great many stunning actions undertaken
by the President. What made this morning's session interesting, potentially
dramatic, was the rumor that there was to be a clash between the two most
articulate, and most diametrically opposed, men in the Senate: Breckinridge
and Baker.
That packed the galleries. As Forney droned his way through the ten sec-
tions of the bill, he glanced up at the press section, which was jammed.
Forney nodded to Adams Hill, of the New York Tribune, and his correspon-
dent, George Smalley, in whose arms Forney had gratefully passed out after a
tenth round of drinks the night before. The section reserved for important
visitors was packed as well: guests included the entire Blair family, it seemed,
from the old man to his daughter Lizzie; Addie Douglas, the senator's
widow, was sitting with her cousin Rose Greenhow, presenting what Forney
knew to be the most socially prominent pair of unattached women in Wash-
ington. One of the President's secretaries, Hay, whom Forney had found to be
a bit of a snob with his college-boy airs and graces, was accompanying a
woman related to the President's wife who was living at the Mansion. Next to
them, Anna Ella Carroll, the Maryland political lady Forney knew to be
Lincoln's agent in keeping Maryland's Governor Hicks in line for the Union.
At the last moment, Kate Chase had made her entrance with Lord Lyons.
Breckinridge had asked the president pro tern for a delay to allow Baker to
arrive, and another piece of legislation, to authorize a national loan, had been
taken up first. Still no Ned Baker. It was assumed his military duties in the
field had taken priority, and the insurrection-sedition bill was brought up.
Senator Lyman Trumbull of Illinois, a Lincoln ally and the bill's author, then
spoke in its favor. "Let me tell you, senators," he assured his colleagues, "it is
no new feature for courts-martial in times of rebellion, insurrection, and civil
war to bring men before them, sentence them, and shoot them, without the
intervention of any kind of grand or petit jurors."
The Chair recognized Breckinridge of Kentucky. Forney wondered why
this man kept coming back every day to ram his head against the wall of
resentment. The giants of the South had left the Senate and were creating
their own government in Richmond. With no deep-Southern votes in the
United States Senate to restrain them, the remaining senators could not only
pass legislation the South had blocked for generations, but take up measures
to crush the rebellion and punish the rebels.
Only Breckinridge remained behind, a voice from the Senate's divided past,
seeking vainly to obstruct the near-united will of the people of the North. The
traditions of the Senate gave him full hearing, and with Anthony in the Chair
this morning he would have no difficulty gaining recognition, but rumblings
had been heard that more than a limit to patience was involved: the Ken-
tuckian inveighing against war was seen to be speaking for the South, and in
wartime such advocacy smacked of a high crime.
The word "treason" was muttered but never spoken on the Senate floor.
Breckinridge, even when accusing Wade and Chandler of plotting to precipi-
tate the war in order to abolish slavery, took care not to step beyond the
limits of toleration. The week before, the sentiment whipped up by Breckin-
ridge in Kentucky had caused his fellow senator from Kentucky, the vener-
able and strongly pro-Union Crittenden, to propose a resolution limiting the
purpose of the war: "Resolved, that this war is not waged for any purpose of
overthrowing or interfering with the rights or established institutions of any
states, but to preserve the Union with all the dignity, equality, and rights of
the several states unimpaired." Crittenden's anti-abolition compromise had
passed, thirty to five, to the outrage of radical Ben Wade and his water-
carrier, Henry Wilson, who called it "a complete surrender to the demands of
slave propagandism." The passage of such a resolution, mollifying the loyal
slave owners of the border states, proved that the presence of Breckinridge
still had an effect.
The presiding officer recognized the junior senator from Kentucky. "This
bill, sir," said Breckinridge in a mild tone of voice, "provides for the destruc-
tion of political and personal rights everywhere, and would operate as harshly
on nonseceded as seceded states. I wish it were published in every newspaper
in the United States. I believe if that were done, it would meet the universal
condemnation of the people."
Orville Browning, the junior senator from Illinois and a man Forney knew
to be nearly as intimate a friend of the Lincolns as Baker, asked if the speaker
would yield for a moment, which Breckinridge did.
"The senator from Kentucky has assailed the conduct of the Chief Execu-
tive in the chamber for the past week with a vehemence that borders on
malignity," said Browning. "I would caution him to speak with respect of our
commander in chief at such a perilous moment in our nation's history."
Breckinridge would not accept that. "I have criticized, with the freedom
that belongs to the representive of a sovereign state and the people, the con-
duct of the Executive. Towards that distinguished officer, I cherish no per-
sonal animosity. I deem him to be personally an honest man, and I believe
that he is trampling on the Constitution every day, with probable good mo-
tives."
"Your sarcasm does you no honor, Senator."
Breckinridge bridled. "I am quite aware that all I say is received with a
sneer of incredulity in this body. But let the future determine who was right
and who was wrong. We are making our record here; I, my humble one, amid
the aversion of nearly all who surround me. I have forgotten what an approv-
ing voice sounds like, and am surrounded by scowls."
Forney heard a sound in the rear and looked toward the eastern entrance to
the chamber. Senator Edward Baker, in the blue uniform and fatigue cap of a
United States Army colonel, dust-covered from hard riding, entered and
walked down the aisle to his seat. He laid his officer's sword on his desk and
sat down, the clanking heard by everyone in the room. Forney was ambiva-
lent about the appearance of Baker: glad to have a champion of the President
who could take on Breckinridge in debate, uncomfortable about his appear-
ance on the Senate floor in uniform. The soldier-senator made martial law, an
abstract term, seem vividly martial.
"What is this bill," Breckinridge continued, warming to his task, "but
vesting first in the discretion of the President, to be by him detailed to a
subaltern military commander, the authority to enter the commonwealth of
Kentucky, to abolish the state, to abolish the judiciary, and to substitute just
such rules as that military commander may choose. This bill contains provi-
sions conferring authority which never was exercised in the worst days of
Rome, by the worst of her dictators."
"That son of a bitch is asking for it," Forney heard Ben Wade mutter.
"I have wondered why this bill was introduced," said Breckinridge. "Possi-
bly to prevent the expression of that reaction which is now evidently going on
in the public mind against these procedures so fatal to constitutional liberty.
The army may be used, perhaps, to collect the enormous direct taxes to come
to finance the war."
Forney held his breath; he wished he had gin in the water glass. The
Kentuckian was sticking this bill down Northern throats.
"Mr. President," Breckinridge told the Chair, "gentlemen here talk about
the Union as if it was an end instead of a means. Take care that in pursuing
one idea you do not destroy not only the Constitution of your country, but
sever what remains of the federal union."
"A question," said Senator Baker.
"I prefer no interruptions," said the Kentuckian; "the senator from Cali-
fornia will have the floor later."
"Oregon," said Baker.
"The senator seems to have charge of the whole Pacific coast," the Ken-
tuckian said with a small smile, withdrawing his deliberate mistake, which
Forney presumed was intended to cause some dissension in Western ranks.
"Oregon, then." He became deadly serious again. "I desire the country to
know this fact: that it is openly avowed upon this floor that the Constitution
is put aside in a struggle like this. You are acting just as if there were two
nations upon this continent, one arrayed against the other; some twenty mil-
lion on one side, and some twelve million on the other as to whom the
Constitution is naught, and the rules of war alone apply.
"The 'war power,' whatever that means, applies to external enemies only. I
do not believe it applies to any of our political communities bound by the
Constitution in this association. Nor do I believe that the founders ever con-
templated the preservation of the Union of these states by one half the states
warring on the other half.
"Mr. President, we are on the wrong tack; we have been from the begin-
ning. The people begin to see it. Here we have been hurling gallant fellows on
to death, and the blood of Americans has been shedfor what? To carry out
principles that three fourths of them abhor; for the principles of despotism
contained in this bill before us."
Senator Baker rose in his seat and remained standing, ostentatiously but
patiently waiting his turn to speak.
"Nothing but ruin, utter ruin, to the North and South, to the East and
West, will follow the prosecution of this contest," the Kentuckian continued,
his outdoor stump-speaker voice growing in volume, resonating throughout
the room like the doom he was prophesying. "You may look foward to innu-
merable armies. You may look forward to raising and borrowing vast trea-
sures for the purpose of ravaging and desolating this continent. At the end,
we will be just where we are now. Or if you are gloriously victorious, and
succeed in ravaging the South, what will you do with it? Can you not see
what is so plain to the world, that what you insist on seeing as a mere faction
is a whole people, wanting to go its own way?
"To accomplish your purpose, it will be necessary to subjugate, to conquer,
ay, to exterminatenearly ten million people! Does anybody here not know
that? Does anyone here hope vainly for conquest without carnage?"
His voice ceased its cannonade and dropped to a tone of reason. "Let us
pause while there is still time for men of good will to draw back from hatred
and bloodshed. Let the Congress of the United States respond here and now
to the feeling, rising all over this land, in favor of peace."
He took his seat. Every eye in the chamber swung to Senator Baker.
"A few words as to the senator's predictions," Ned Baker began, as quietly
and conversationally as his opponent had begun. "The senator from Ken-
tucky stands up here in a manly way, in opposition to what he sees as the
overwhelming sentiment of the Senate, and utters reproof, malediction, and
prediction combined. Well, sir, it is not every prediction that is prophecy.
"What would have been thought," he went on, still conversationally, "if in
another capitol, in another republic, in a yet more martial age, a senator as
grave, not more eloquent or dignified than the senator from Kentucky, yet
with the Roman purple flowing over his shoulders, had risen in his place,
surrounded by all the illustrations of Roman glory, and declared that advanc-
ing Hannibal was just, and that Carthage ought to be dealt with in terms of
peace?
"What would have been thought," Baker's voice rose, "if, after the battle of
Cannae, a senator there had risen in his place and denounced every levy of
the Roman people, every expenditure of its treasures, and every appeal to the
old glories?"
Baker's rhetorical question was answered by a senator near himFes-
senden of Maine, Forney thoughtequally versed in classical history. "He
would have been buried from the Tarpeian Rock!"
"Yes, a colleague more learned than I says that the speaker of such words
would have been hurled from the Tarpeian Rock. It is a grand commentary
on the American Constitution that we permit such words as spoken by the
senator from Kentucky to be uttered here and now.
"But I ask the senator, what, save to send aid and comfort to the enemy, do
these predictions of his amount to? Every word thus uttered falls as a note of
inspiration upon every Confederate ear. Every sound thus spoken is a word
and from his lips a mighty wordof kindling and triumph to a foe that
determines to advance.
"For me, amid temporary defeat, disaster, disgrace, it seems that my duty
calls me to utter another word, and that word is, war! Bold, sudden, forward,
determined war, according to the laws of war, by armies and by military
commanders clothed with full power, advancing with all the past glories of
the Republic urging them on to conquest.
"I do not stop to consider whether it is 'subjugation' or not. The senator
animadverts to my use of 'subjugation.' Why play on words? We propose to
subjugate rebellion into loyalty; we propose to subjugate insurrection into
peace; we propose to subjugate Confederate anarchy into constitutional
Union liberty.
"And when we subjugate South Carolina, what will we do? We shall com-
pel its obedience to the Constitution of the United States; that is all. The
senator knows that we propose no more. I yield for his reply."
Breckinridge had been angered, Forney knew, by that Tarpeian Rock busi-
ness; although its significance eluded the Pennsylvania newsman, evidently it
meant a great deal to senators who thought of themselves as linear descen-
dants of the Roman lawgivers.
"By whose indulgence am I speaking?" The Kentuckian's voice was shak-
ing as he sought to control his rage. "Not by any man's indulgence. I am
speaking by the guarantees of that Constitution which seems to be here now
so little respected.
"When the senator asked what would have been done with a Roman sena-
tor who had uttered such words as mine, a certain senator on this floor
whose courage has much risen of late"the contempt in that last phrase was
aimed at Charles Sumner, who, Breckinridge evidently thought, was his in-
sulter"replied in audible tones, 'He would have been hurled from the Tar-
peian Rock.' Sir, if ever we find an American Tarpeian Rock, and a suitable
victim is to be selected, the people will turn, not to me, but to that senator
who has been the chief author of the public misfortunes.
"Let him remember, too, that while in ancient Rome the defenders of the
public liberty were sometimes torn to pieces by the people, yet their memories
were cherished in grateful remembrance; while to be buried from the Tarpe-
ian Rock was ever the fate of usurpers and tyrants."
Forney nodded understanding; so that was the obscure reference that got
Breck's dander up; it was amazing what got under the skin of some of these
senators.
"I reply with just indignation," Breckinridge said, leveling a finger at Sum-
ner, "at such an insult offered on the floor of the Senate Chamber to a senator
who is speaking in his place."
Forney wished he could send him a note that it was Fessenden, not Sum-
ner, who had so learnedly insulted him, but that would not have made much
difference; Sumner of Massachusetts was the radical Republican Breckinridge
believed to be the instigator of Lincoln's punitive actions.
"War is separation," Breckinridge was saying, which Forney remembered
was a favorite phrase of John Calhoun's. "War is disunion, eternal and final
disunion. We have separation now; it is only made worse by war, and war will
extinguish all those sentiments of common interest and feeling which might
lead to a political reunion founded upon consent and upon a conviction of its
advantages.
"Let this war go on, however, you will see further separation. Let this war
go on, and the people of the West see the beautiful features of the old Confed-
eracy beaten out of shape by the brutalizing hand of war, and they will turn
aside in disgust from the sickening spectacle and become a separate nation."
That was too much for Baker, who did represent most of the west coast.
"The Pacific states," he thundered back, clattering as he rose, "will be true to
the Union to the last of her blood and her treasure.
"I confess, Mr. President, that I would not have predicted three weeks ago
the disasters which have overtaken our arms. But I ask the senator from
Kentucky, will he tell me it is our duty to stay here, within fifteen miles of the
enemy seeking to advance upon us every hour, and talk about nice questions
of constitutional construction? Are we to stop and talk about rising sentiment
against the war in the North? Are we to predict evil and flinch from what we
predict? Is it not the manly part to go on as we have begun, to raise money, to
levy armies, to prepare to advance?"
Forney looked around the room at the rapt attention shown to the senator
in uniform; the Senate wanted him to speak for all of them in crushing the
fear and guilt raised by the Kentuckian.
"To talk to us about stopping is idle; we will never stop. Will the senator
yield to rebellion? Will he shrink from armed insurrection? Will his state
justify it? Shall we send a flag of truce? What would he have us do? Or would
he conduct the war so feebly, that the whole world would smile at us in
derision?
"What would he have us do?" Baker hammered home his series of ques-
tions like nails in the lid of a pine coffin. "Those speeches of his, sown broad-
cast over the land, what clear distinct meaning have they? Are they not meant
for disorganization in our very midst? Are they not intended to dull our
weapons? Are they not intended to destroy our zeal? Are they not intended to
animate our enemies? Sirare they not words of brilliant, polished treason?"
The senators and the crowd in the gallery let out a roar. The dread word
had been said: Breckinridge, the secret spokesman for the rebellion in the
heart of the Union, had been branded a traitor to his face by the senator who
stood closest to Abraham Lincoln.
After much gavel-pounding by Senator Anthony, the chamber quieted. The
Chair recognized Breckinridge, whose response was delivered in a muted
voice.
"The senator asks me, 'What would you have us do?' I have already indi-
cated what I would have us do. I would have us stop the war.
"We can do it. There is none of that inexorable necessity to continue this
war which the senator seems to suppose. I do not hold that constitutional
liberty on this continent is bound up in this fratricidal, devastating, horrible
contest. Upon the contrary, I fear it will find its grave in it."
Everyone heard, nobody listened. He continued in the same resigned, al-
most despairing tone. "The senator is mistaken in supposing that we can
reunite these states by war. He is mistaken in supposing that if twenty million
on one side subjugate twelve million on the other side, that you can restore
constitutional government as our fathers made it."
Deep breath. "Sir, I would prefer to see these states all reunited upon true
constitutional principles to any other object that could be offered me in life.
But I infinitely prefer to see a peaceful separation of these states, than to see
endless, aimless, devastating war, at the end of which I see the grave of public
liberty and personal freedom."
Forney winced at the terrible admission: Breckinridge had finally come out
for "peaceful separation"for secession. That did it; he was on the record as
being on the other side.
Baker rose again, a whip crack in his hand, that he lightly tapped against
his boot. "The senator is right about the devastation ahead. There will be
privation; there will be loss of luxury; there will be graves reeking with blood,
watered with tears. When that is said, all is said. If we have the country, the
whole country, the Union, the Constitution, free governmentwith these
there will return all the blessings of a well-ordered civilization. The path of
the whole country will be one of greatness and peace such as would have been
ours today, if it had not been for the treason for which the senator from
Kentucky too often seeks to apologize." Ned Baker was finished speaking; he
laid the whip crack next to the sword lying across his desk and took his seat.
"You say that the opinions I express," replied Breckinridge, "are but bril-
liant treason. Mr. President, if I am speaking treason, I am not aware of it. I
am speaking what I believe to be for the good of my country. If I am speaking
treason, I am speaking it in my place in the Senate."
Forney caught Breck's legal points: first, he had no intent of committing
the capital offense, and second, he spoke from his elected post of privilege,
and could not be prosecuted for what he said from that place.
The senator stood in silence for a moment, considering what he was about
to say with care. "If my opinions do not reflect the judgment of the people I
represent," Breckinridge concluded, "I am not a man to cling to the emolu-
ments of public life. If the commonwealth of Kentucky, instead of attempting
to mediate as a neutral in this struggle, shall throw her energies into the strife
on the side of what I believe to be a war of subjugation and annihilation, then
she shall take her course. I am her son and will share her destiny, but she will
be represented by some other man on the floor of this Senate."
CHAPTER 18
PEACE IS NOT THE GOAL
To demonstrate that the Senate firmly backed Lincoln's Ned Baker in that
day's debate and stood foursquare against the "polished treason" of his oppo-
nent, an overwhelming majority of senators voted down a motion by a seces-
sion sympathizer to postpone consideration of Trumbull's bill.
Having voted officially not to postpone the anti-sedition bill, the senators
then postponed it. At the quiet suggestion of Sumner of Massachusetts, the
Senate proceeded to take up other business, leaving the "Bill to Suppress
Insurrection and Sedition" for another day. Since the Senate was nearing the
end of its special session, that meant the bill would not be taken up until
December. Trumbull, supported only by the ever-vindictive Wade, was left
sputtering and furious; Sumner, who read the mood of the senators after what
was generally held to be a courageous stand by the lonely voice from Ken-
tucky, wanted to avoid a vote on what Breckinridge had shown to be a
seriously flawed piece of legislation.
"You really ought to apologize to Sumner," Breckinridge heard Fomey
saying to him, walking out of the chamber after the gavel fell. "He wasn't the
one who brought up that rock that seems to bother you fellows, it was Fes-
senden. Sumner actually scuttled the bill. You ought to thank him."
Breckinridge shook his head; he wasn't apologizing to anybody who
wanted to make war on sovereign states just to promote the immediate aboli-
tion of slavery, as Sumner had been doing for years. The vain senator from
Massachusetts had been flattering and fussing over the friendless Mrs. Lin-
coln, thinking he could use her to influence her husband, a technique of
advocacy that Breckinridge thought beneath contempt. If he had been wrong
about the source of the insult on the Senate floor, so be it; Charles Sumner
had escaped blame for many divisive things he did, and this minor injustice to
him helped even the score.
At the posts behind the new Senate chamber, the tall Kentuckian craned
his neck to see over others' heads, trying to spot Anna Carroll with his horse
and an Ebbitt House carriage. He had to get home, pack, and get on the road
to Kentucky that day. None of the other senators waiting for carriages spoke
to him; he did not enjoy being a pariah, but understood their need for public
distance. John Forney, his longtime drinking companion, remained beside
him, looking gloomy.
Breckinridge knew that Forney owed his Senate job to Cameron and Lin-
coln, as a payoff for the enthusiastic editorials of his Philadelphia Press. Lin-
coln needed the support of War Democrats, the Douglas Dems who fought
with the peace-seeking Breckinridge Democrats, and Forney helped the Re-
publican administration reach them in Pennsylvania. But Forney was not the
sort to burn his bridges to his fellow Democrats who did not support the war,
and had done what he could to make life more comfortable for the tortured
Kentuckians in the Senate.
"I'll see you in December, John," Breckinridge said to cheer up the politi-
cian-newsman.
Fomey sadly disagreed. "This is farewell. You'll never again take your seat
in the Senate of the United States, Breck."
Breckinridge looked at him sharply; had he shown weakness in that de-
bate? "When I said I'd resign my seat if Kentucky didn't agree with me, I
meant itbut that's why I'm going back now. I know I can get across the
need for neutrality in Kentucky, John. I've run for the House, the Senate, and
the Vice President there, and I've never lost. I won't lose Kentucky now." He
had not carried Kentucky in his presidential race, but did not feel the need to
point that out.
"My dear sir," Fomey said formally, "you will follow your doctrine into
the Confederate Army."
Breck resisted the impulse to shudder. "My doctrine leads to neither army.
If I go over the lines, it will be to bring my son home."
They had heard no direct word about Cabell; a family friend said he
thought the boy was in Tennessee with the rebels. Mary had written him that
two of Uncle Bob's sons had gone South, which infuriated the preacher
Breckinridge, while the other two signed up with the Federals. A niece, a frail
favorite of his named Margaret Elizabeth, was trying to become a nurse in the
Union's Sanitary Commission. He was saddened by the thought of his own
family becoming a model for the dividing nation, but what he could not abide
at all was the idea of the far-flung but close-knit Breckinridge clanrelatives
who loved each other, helped each other, and were constantly going to each
other's weddings and funeralsactually warring on each other.
He told Forney that this was the time for cool heads, especially in the one
state where neutrality was possible and peacemaking could find fertile
ground. Fomey's assumption, which was probably that of most of the sena-
tors, was almost surely mistaken; Breckinridge intended to be back in Decem-
ber, to take his place speaking for the majority opinion he would help shape
in Kentucky, providing the necessary neutral corridor to mediation of the
dispute.
"If it's any consolation for giving up a great career," the Secretary of the
Senate said in his Parthian shot, "I thought you won that debate with Ned
Baker. He had the audience, you had the argument. All you lost was the
presidency."
"We'll meet again, if we live, in the winter," Breckinridge called out, in a
voice that carried past Forney to the others waiting. He often used that good-
luck qualifier, "if we live," in his farewells; now, in what threatened to be
wartime, the innocuous phrase sounded ominous, and he resolved not to use
it again. "I hear you'll be starting a newspaper here in the capital."
Forney nodded yes.
"Lincoln money?"
The politician-newsman nodded again, looking guilty. "Some friends of the
Administration," Forney admitted, "but some Democrats too." Because the
leading newspaper in Washington, the National Intelligencer, was not suffi-
ciently pro-Lincoln, the radical Republicans thought that a competing news-
paper should be launched; Cameron and the War Department lawyer, Edwin
Stanton, would see to it that government advertising would be available for
its support. Breckinridge knew that Forney was being labeled "Lincoln's
Dog" by many Democrats, especially newsmen, and thought that was need-
lessly cruel. "Politics is politics," Forney murmured, and the Kentuckian
squeezed his arm in farewell.
Anna Carroll came up with the carriage and Breckinridge climbed in,
expecting to drive her home. To his surprise, she handed over the reins with-
out looking at him, turned away, and stepped down to the street. She almost
ran toward Constitution Avenue, which led down the long hill toward her
rooms.
His first thought was that she was being discreet, and he approved of that.
Certainly no loyal Unionist eager to prove fervor for the anti-secession cause,
as Anna surely was, would want to be seen with the likes of the senator who
had been publicly tarred as the apologist for treason and the abettor of the
conspiracy to dismember the Union. But there had been no secret signal in
her movements, no whisper to reassure him or set a time to meet later.
He drove down from Capitol Hill along Independence Avenue, directing
the horse's head toward the half spike jutting into the air that was intended to
be a monument to George Washington. Great slabs of marble were stacked
alongside the strange construction, with workmen who might be expected to
be occupied building the city's defenses busy instead building the strange
obelisk that would salute the nation's founder. Breckinridge wondered what
Washington, were he alive now, would think of this great phallus aimed at the
sky. He assumed the first President would be disappointed that his monument
was not a heroic statue, but a huge stake poking at the sky; and that the rights
of states like his native Virginia were being trampled on by one of his succes-
sors.
Breckinridge guided his horse around a mud puddle to turn right at Six-
teenth Street, brooding about the roar of approval that greeted Baker's cry of
"polished treason." His heart began to pound belatedly; with no more need
for public self-control, he began to feel the strain of the long, tense debate.
Phrases occurred to him that he should have used, points crowded in that had
gone unmade. Of all the things he had said on the floor, however, the only
remark he would have taken back was about public opinion in Kentucky. He
should be showing confidence in his ability to lead opinion there and not
suggesting he would meekly submit to the prevailing mood. Aside from that,
he was satisfied with his presentation; he had said more than he had planned
to say, but it was just as well that his support for peaceful separation was out
in the open. Sooner or later, it would have had to be said, and the inflam-
matory words of peace were best uttered from his legally privileged place in
the Senate.
Anna was probably disappointed. All her coaching on the war powers had
gone for naughtindeed, had been used to ready him for strong rebuttal
and her pleas had been ignored, but he thought of her as a political profes-
sional; the fact of their public disagreement lent a certain piquancy to their
private affair. He was certain she would forgive him for so vigorously espous-
ing his minority view of how the Constitution should be read. Instead of
drawing back slightly, as they had planned, he had plunged ahead to outright
tolerance of secession. That might cause her to fret about the effect of his
stand on his career, which did not worry him; in fact, the deep concern of a
loving political ally about his future gave him a warm feeling. He was not
totally surrounded by scowls.
His mind skipped to the likely reaction of other women in his life. At home
in Lexington, Mary would probably be pleased at the Southern reports of the
debate, if she took the time to read the newspaper in her sick-with-worry state
about Cabell. Rose Greenhow? He was surprised she had not come to watch
the debate from the gallery, as it seemed half the population of Washington's
grand levees did, but perhaps the Wild Rose was otherwise occupied. He did
not recall seeing Henry Wilson on the Senate floor that afternoon.
The spire of St. John's Church was ahead; he realized he was approaching
the Greenhow house on Sixteenth Street. Rose was impatient with him for
not racing South to lead the Confederate forces to glory, and she was still
irritated that he would not try to enlist Anna Carroll in her intelligence
network. He suspected that Rose also might be put out with him for not
availing himself of the opportunity she offered of observing firsthand the
charms that were the talk of the most powerful men in the town. The risk of
entering a liaison with Rose, a woman with an undeniably arousing set of
movements, was considerable, but a similar risk had not stopped him with
Anna. It was just that Rose demanded so much at a time when his hands and
heart were full. He did not think of himself as a greedy man; perhaps their
friendship would take a physical turn in December, if she did not go South, or
get herself caught here as a spy.
A large man trying to look small could be seen behind a tree on the corner.
Breckinridge smiled at that, and stopped smiling when he saw a woman
seated on a bench across the street closely eyeing him and every other pas-
serby in the neighborhood of Rose Greenhow's house. He looked up at the
second-story window of the house on Sixteenth Street. The blind was drawn
down three quarters of the way, Rose's private signal to friends to stay away.
Either that meant that she was occupied with a visitor, or it was a warning to
messengers that the house was being watched by Union detectives. Breck
drove his carriage right on by, looking straight ahead.
He was glad that Anna was not involved in any way with Rose. He could
not leave for Kentucky for what might be months without saying good-bye to
Anna, and the abrupt way they had just parted left him unsatisfied and
troubled. He had a mission to perform at home, and its outlines were begin-
ning to take shape in his mind. Peace meetings, small rallies held throughout
the state to discuss and debate neutrality's many advantages might be fol-
lowed by a peace convention drawn from all over the country. Louisville was
a hotbed of unionism despite the Courier; would Lexington be the best site?
On second thought, a conference at the capital at Frankfort would have the
greatest effect on the Union-leaning legislators. If, as he hoped, a latent revul-
sion against war existed in many Northerners, a national peace movement
was waiting to be mobilized. What it needed was a focal point, some event to
plan for, talk about, hold, and then have friendly newspapers and pam-
phleteers hail as evidence of support for opposition to civil war throughout
the nation.
At Ebbitt House, he turned in the rented carriage and arranged for the
feeding of his horse. He sent up a boy with a note to Anna. The boy returned
with a note in her angry scrawl: "Miss Carroll is indisposed." Frowning but
not really worried, Breckinridge trotted up the three flights of stairs and
rapped on her door.
She opened the door, eyes looking down and away to hide their redness,
and let him in.
"You're angry at me, Anna?"
"Disappointed."
He told her he had to come because he was riding home that evening, and
began to describe his ideas for a peace convention. She nodded dully, which
was most unlike her; it was her custom to agree enthusiastically, to disagree
forcefully, or to change the subject. She went to the closet and took out a
small satchel and set it on the bed. Then she found and handed over his
bathrobe, and, one by one, every item that he had left in her rooms.
"Why can't I leave these here? I'll be back before you know."
"You'll never be back. And if you do come back, please don't come back
here."
He had evidently underestimated her displeasure. Slowly, giving himself
time to adjust, he placed all the items she had handed him on the table in the
middle of the room, atop her scattered papers. The Limoges shaving mug she
had given him, which had belonged to her grandfather, he put alongside her
inkpot. This gave him a moment to try to sort out what his reaction should be
to her unexpected behavior. He began by confessing he did not understand
why she was so upset.
"First," she said without passion, "you're a traitor to your country."
He controlled the surge of anger and said, "If enough of the Senate agrees,
I'll be hanged from a gallows set up on the Capitol steps and that will be the
end of it. But you say that's only the first thing. What else?"
"You've betrayed your friends, everybody who believed in you."
"Be honest with me, Anna. By 'friends,' you mean yourself. And by 'every-
body,' you mean everybody you told that you would bring me around to Mr.
Lincoln's view."
"Oh, go away," she said, sitting down at the window. "I don't want to
argue. We've argued enough."
It struck him hard that she really did not want to engage. He drew up a
stool and sat close to her. Her face was set in an expression of bleakness that
rarely appeared there; the face he was accustomed to was heated in discus-
sion's animation or cooled in sleep's repose. Anna had always been either
onstage or offstage, never standing in the wings looking on in pain,
"It's possible for friends to disagree about the great issues and still remain
friends," he said, he hoped gently. "The whole Breckinridge family is split-
ting North and South, and we're angry with each other, but we still love each
other, we're still family."
"Don't you think I know that? It's never been what you think that at-
tracted me, but how you think." She swallowed, balling her handkerchief
between her palms. He waited for her unburdening.
"I didn't mind when you attacked my Know-Nothings, that you stood up
for the immigrants who were ruining the country. People on both sides of
that can still be close. But on the Union and the rebellionthat's not politics,
that's life. When you decide where you stand on secession, you choose your
whole future. And forgive me, I thought we would have sort of a future
togethernot publicly, not as man and wifebut as part of each other's
lives, like we've been. Even more, as two friends on the way to doing great
things, doing them together, neither one lonely anymore." She went back to
rolling the handkerchief; he had never seen her close to tears, her voice
choking its way through her throat.
"We agree about the Union and the Constitution," he argued, feeling awk-
ward in using Senate-floor concepts in a situation so intimate, "but I don't
believe war is a way to hold the Union together, and you do. I grant you that
is a big disagreement, Annabut it doesn't make me a traitor and you a
patriot. Be reasonable. I don't want to lose you."
"You're thinking selfishly," she said, more in control of her voice now.
"You're thinking like a child." He thought it best not to respond. "You're
thinking only of today, this week, not of the future. A mature person thinks
of consequences, to the country, to himself, to the people he loves."
Her point invited debate, but he had done enough debating that day.
"One of the things that holds us together," she continued, "and being
together with you is important to me, is our careers. We are doing great
things in historic times, and getting ready to do so much more. But in the
Senate today, you threw your career away. You indulged your ego, you glo-
ried in being the martyr in the arena full of lions, you gave no thought to the
consequences, not to yourself, certainly not to us."
"I cannot believe that if I stand for my principles, even if it costs me my
political future, you will think any the less of me."
"Well, guess what1 do, because your principle is stupid. The South
knows there can be no secession without war. And thanks to Mr. Lincoln, the
North knows that the only way to keep the Union, any Union at all, is to be
willing to fight for it. Only you, only John C. Breckinridge, thinks everybody
else is going to forget what they stand for and listen to what he thinks is sweet
reason. You're a fool, and I'm a worse fool for thinking you would be the
greatest man of our time."
Shaking her head bitterly, mortified at her weakness at not being able to
force back tears, she looked away and wept.
He did not know how to deal with that. He had learned in life that the way
to respond to most women's tears was with soothing sounds and tender hold-
ings, and rocking back and forth, but he suspected that if he tried that ap-
proach to Anna Carroll's anguish, it would be like throwing oil on a fire.
After a time, when he felt she was ready to speak again, he offered a firm
position: "Your judgment could be wrong, you know. There could be a
stronger desire for peace than you realize. And even if I don't succeed in
stopping the war from beginning in earnest, perhaps I can shorten it."
"The way you could end this war is to raise a Union army in Kentucky,
smash down into Tennessee, and take the railheads at Nashville and Mur-
freesboro," she said with great certitude. "That would save lives in the long
run, and you could accept the presidency of a grateful nation."
"It would go against everything I believe in."
"God save us from men convinced of their noble motives, because they
deepen the rivers of blood." A chill went through his body at her words, cried
as if from some Old Testament prophet. "Breck, get it through your head.
Peace is not the goal. Peace will have to wait. Democracy is the goal. The
success of representative government is the goal. Lincoln sees that and he
doesn't flinch."
"He is a despot and a hypocrite," he shot back. "Lincoln talks about
freedom, and he rips away our most precious freedoms in the North. He talks
about freedom, and he denies nine million of his fellow men in the South the
freedom to start their own nation."
"He is stubborn and he is mean," she seemed to agree, "and all the non-
sense about 'Honest Abe' is a terrible deceit. He will play one man against
another, manipulate one interest to lacerate the next, and throw good men
away when they have served their purpose. I've talked to Old Man Blair, who
knows him, and held the head of his young secretary when he was in his
cups."
"Then how can you"
"Because Lincoln will do anything, go through anything, put us all
through any horror, to reach his goal."
"And the goal is a Union with one half conqueror, the other half con-
quered. You think that a worthy goal?"
"His goal is majority rule. Breck, I know that sounds theoretical, and it
won't rally most people round the flag, but that's what he is grimly deter-
mined to prove, once and for all. And he's like a man possessed about it.
Nothing you do is going to stop him."
The notion that one man's obsession about a political theory should put a
continent of brothers through a bath of bloodand that this normally intelli-
gent woman should be resigned to follow him without questionwas too
much for Breck to tolerate. She had been wrong about her damned Know-
Nothings, wrong about trusting Fillmore and Buchanan, wrong in her esti-
mation of John C. Breckinridge, and he hoped to hell she was wrong about
the brutal, bulldog tenacity of Abraham Lincoln.
"The great good sense of the American people will stop him. This country
may go crazy for a while, but not for long. Anna, I'm leaving now, and I'm
sorry it has to be this way. I miss you already."
"Go South," she said. "You belong there."
"I'm going to border-state Kentucky, where I belong, and I'll keep it neu-
tral."
"I wish you well." She took a deep breath and let it out. "What I really
wish is, I wish I had never met you."
He supposed that was a perverse expression of tenderness, coming from a
woman who had given her love to few men, but he held his tongue. If peace-
making was to be his mission, he could not go to war with Anna Carroll.
"And I, on the contrary, will always be grateful I met you." He was
human, and could not resist one bitter note: "I hope you enjoy your war and
your war powers. Just don't confuse them with freedom."
She rose and lashed out at him. "Go South, with the other traitors, and see
what kind of freedom you find. See what war does to your beloved states'
rights, see what men are willing to do to the laws when they have to fight for
survival. Goddammit, Breckinridge, war means fighting, and the men who
fuss about the rules get pushed aside."
He put his belongings into the satchel. "I think there is something to be
said for the law."
"How's your Latin, lawyerinter arma, silent leges. " In time of war, the
law falls silent. He did not correct her quotation of Cicero.
"I have always benefited from your instruction," was all he said, angry
now, but more at Lincoln and the spirit of the times than at this misguided
woman who meant more to him than any he had known. He did not want to
hurt her, but he had by taking away her chance at participating in a great
career. The career did not seem so important to him; she did.
Standing in the doorway, he took a last look at her. She faced the window,
the bleakness across her face as if she had been abandoned again, but as Rose
had told him about her, Anna had grown accustomed to being left by men.
He closed the door behind him softly. The nation could not stay in this crazed
state for long; the war fever, by its nature, would burn itself out. He could not
be confident about his plans but tended to believe he would return to Wash-
ington, perhaps even to Anna, in December.
CHAPTER 19
SECOND-STORY MAN

"Plums arrived with Nuts this morning." That coded message was Allan
Pinkerton's single most significant mistakea trifle, he told himself often
but it had made him look the fool. No man who was persuaded that his
destiny was to found a United States Secret Service could afford to let himself
be thought a fool.
He sat under his round hat, behind his dead cigar, outside the War Depart-
ment office of George Brinton McClellan. The general had been appointed a
month before to defend the nation's capital from the expected attack by
Beauregard, victor of Bull Run.
McClellan was making him wait. Pinkerton accepted the delay without
question because he'd held the "Young Napoleon" in profound respect ever
since he had first worked for him at the Illinois Central Railroad. McClellan
had been the line's brisk and efficient treasurer and general manager, Pinker-
ton his chief of railroad detectives. The senior executive fairly exuded success:
Pinkerton knew he had been offered, and turned down, ten thousand dollars a
year to run a competing railroad. The detective did not consider his former
boss a perfect executive, however. Mistakenly, out of friendship's sake, Mc-
Clellan had hired and kept on as his company treasurer Ambrose Bumside, a
dependent comrade who tinkered with inventions and paid little attention to
the railroad's finances.
"Railroading is the best place for a military man in peacetime," Pinkerton
remembered the civilian McClellan saying. The detective nodded vigorously
at the recollection of the commanding voice of his longtime boss, now the
leader of the army defending the capital. McClellan was only thirty-five, but
age was no bar to high commandNapoleon himself won his greatest battles
in his twenties. The detective was proud of McClellan's record: his renowned
horsemanship, his business success, his proven concern for the welfare of his
troopsall combined with a command presence that made him a born leader
of troops. Railroading had been the perfect interim career. Logistics was at its
core, communications was its key, and the training and organization of troops
of workers was McClellan's favorite way of biding his time until the right war
would call for his military talents.
"Plums arrived with Nuts this morning." Pinkerton reached behind his
head and tipped his bowler farther down over his forehead. What had pos-
sessed him to come up with that code? The detective credited himself with a
brilliant performance on his first assignment for the government, just six
months ago. That feat of intelligence and protection not only impressed Mc-
Clellan, but called the detective's good judgment to the attention of Abraham
Lincolnwhose life Pinkerton was convinced he had savedand to Thomas
Scott, another former railroad man, whom Lincoln had appointed Undersec-
retary of War to manage the department while the Secretary, Simon Cam-
eron, pulled political wires.
Pinkerton had been hired to ensure the safety of the trip of the President-
elect from Springfield to Philadelphia to Baltimore to Washington. The detec-
tive's operatives in Baltimore had unearthed a plot by secessionists to assassi-
nate Lincoln before the newly elected President could take the oath of office.
Despite Lincoln's complaint that he did not want to appear to be "sneaking
into the capital like a thief in the night," Pinkerton had prevailed upon Scott
to  reroute  the  train.  After  changing  the  President-elect's  schedule
clandestinely, Pinkerton had cut the telegraph wires from Harrisburg to
Washington so that the plotters could not be informed of the change.
When the President-to-be arrived safely and silently in Washington, Pin-
kerton had wired the Lincoln supporters in Illinois and Pennsylvania a coded
reassurance. Unfortunately, the detective brooded, waiting outside McClel-
lan's door, when the message came to the attention of some sensationalist
newspaper reporters, "Plums arrived with Nuts this morning" was taken to
mean that Pinkerton had code-named Lincoln "Nuts"he had given no
thought to a double meaningand this minor slip was the cause of much
gleeful press derision.
The President-elect, a fellow Pinkerton had learned put great store by
presidential dignity, had not been amused, since he was so abashed at having
to slip into Washington in disguise anyway. A fine piece of undercover work
and bodyguarding was thus spoiled by a mere oversight in nomenclature.
Pinkerton glumly shifted his cigar and silently cursed the unpatriotic press.
McClellan greeted him from behind the desk with the words the detective
wanted urgently to hear: "Pinkerton, I need you."
"I prefer you to use my code name, sirE. J. Alien." He preferred any
code name; "Pinkerton" always sounded effeminate to him, which was why
he liked to substitute his first name for his last, with the spelling slightly
changed to throw off suspicion. "My men and I are at your disposal. Women
operatives too," he added.
"How do you feel about slavery, Pinkerton?"
That was a tricky question, the detective thought; what did slavery have to
do with military intelligence? More to the point, what answer did McClellan
want to hear? He knew the general had been a Douglas Democrat in the last
election, so the detective stuck to popular sovereignty: "That's for local peo-
ple to decide, sir."
"You're not an abolitionist, then."
"No, sir." Pinkerton sensed that was not enough. "I'm for the Union as it
was, the Constitution as it is." That slogan, familiar to the followers of Ste-
phen Douglas, came out foursquare against change, and it seemed to please
the general. Pinkerton hoped the general did not know and would not learn of
certain activities the detective had participated in a few years before in behalf
of his good friend John Brown, before that abolitionist was hanged.
McClellan rose. The general was built stockily, giving the impression of
being short without being small. "This war is not being fought about slavery,
Pinkerton. On the contrary, it will be fought to keep the Union as it is, with
each section free to make its own decisions. Abolitionism is no part of what
we are fighting for. Are we quite clear about that?"
"Absolutely, sir. Union as it is. Be better if you called me 'Alien,' Gen-
eral."
"That would sound as if I were using your first name," said McClellan,
obviously not a first-name man. "Might as well give you a code rank as well.
How about colonel?"
"That sounds too important. Captain?"
"Nobody pays attention to captains," McClellan observed. "Make it major,
then. Look at this, Major Alien." He pointed to a map on his desk of the
fortifications around Washington. "Forty strong points, twenty of them oper-
ational right now. There were nonenot oneonly two weeks ago, when the
remnants of McDowell's force were wandering drunkenly around this city.
You will note how the most likely routes of attack can be swept by our cross
fire. The remainder of the fortification will be accomplished in five days."
Pinkerton made the appropriate marveling noises, then frowned: "Who
else has this map, sir?"
"President Lincoln has one; he knows nothing about warfare, but he keeps
poking around with questions and having this map seemed to make him feel
more secure. General Scott has another, because I am obliged to keep the old
gentleman informed"
"for the time being." Pinkerton knew that although Winfield Scott had
acquiesced in the choice of McClellan for the defense of Washington, the old
soldier had been recommending another generalHenry Halleck, the mili-
tary theoretician and writer called "Old Brains"as a potential replacement
of himself as General-in-Chief. That, in Pinkerton's estimation, would not do;
the top job, when the wheezing Scott finally stepped down, should go to
McClellan.
Certainly "Little Mac" had been earning it: in less than a month, the
energetic and forceful McClellan had rejuvenated the Union army in Wash-
ington, turning the scared stragglers into cohesive regiments, organizing work
parties to build battlements. Pinkerton knew that McClellan had also made it
his business to seek out and cultivate some of the leading Republican radicals,
especially Wade in the Senate and Chase in the Lincoln administration. The
detective assumed that the general had withheld from them his private
thoughts against abolition.
"Wonderful old man," McClellan was saying about Winfield Scott. "I
served under him in Mexico, where he eclipsed the exploits of Cortes. But this
is not his war. And the only other copy of this mapother than the one you
see hereis in the hands of the Senate Military Committee. It's important to
cultivate them, Pinkerton, that's how we'll raise the necessary troops."
"Major Alien, sir." The correction was automatic: Pinkerton was more
concerned about the map in the hands of the Senate. He had been told of the
Confederate knowledge of Union movements at Bull Run. Two of his men,
along with one woman operative, were watching Rose O'Neal Greenhow's
house at that moment. Some dramatic spy-catching coup would make his job
easier: by reflecting well on McClellan's intelligence choice, it would please
Lincoln and erase the memory of that unfortunate code message. More funds
for operatives would follow, then the creation of a secret service worthy of the
name, not only to find out troop strength facing McClellanthe most imme-
diate purpose of military intelligencebut to send spies into Richmond to
discover the secret plans of the rebel leaders.
"What's your assessment of Lincoln, Major Alien?" That seemed to Pin-
kerton a legitimate question for a military commander to his intelligence
chief. The commander in the field had to know what sort of support he would
get from the head man in the capital.
"I've only spent a few hours with him, sir, on that trip to Washington
where we saved his life."
"I remember. 'Plums, Nuts'"
"And my impression," the detective hurried on, "is that he's a bit weak. I
happen to know that Edwin Stanton, the former Attorney General who did
some legal business with him years ago, calls him an imbecile, though that
strikes me as unduly harsh."
"An abolitionist, you think? That ever come up in conversation?"
Pinkerton thought that over, replying slowly. "Deep down, I think not. He
keeps worrying about Kentucky and Missouri, losing them because of the
radicals."
McClellan nodded, his head at an angle, not wholly satisfied. "But he
appointed General Fremont in Missouri. Dangerous man. Fanatic abolition-
ist, and a sort who thinks he's the Messiah. Beware of politicians who think
that pinning stars on their epaulets turn them into real generals, Major Al-
ien."
"But not the other way around." The detective thought it was not im-
proper to hint at all the talk about appointing a dictator if the military situa-
tion worsened.
McClellan caught his allusion. "I have no such aspiration," the general
said seriously. "Mind you, a dictatorship would solve a lot of problems, but it
is not what I have in mind. With Lincoln's help, I can do the job this way. Do
you know what the men in my army call me?"
Pinkerton had heard everything from "Little Mac" to "McNapoleon," but
did not know which the general preferred. He decided to treat the question as
rhetorical and said nothing.
" 'Our George,' " McClellan answered himself with pride. "I am going to
take good care of these men, for I believe they love me from the bottom of
their hearts. I can see it in their faces when I pass among them." The general
fingered his mustache. "I find myself in a new and strange position here:
President, Cabinet, General Scott, and all deferring to me." A boyish wonder-
ment entered his voice: "By some strange operation of magic, I seem to have
become the power of the land."
Pinkerton felt the conspiratorial thrill that made his chosen calling as un-
dercover man so right for him. General McClellan was a leader, perhaps the
ultimate leader that the country needed at this hour. Pinkerton was proud to
be in his confidence.
When McClellan nodded dismissal, the detective took his leave without
even working out the financial details of his employment. That was no cause
for concern; the general had been a generous boss at the railroad, and Under-
secretary Tom Scott would be the man to see about money.
He put on his hat and hurried out of the War Department, cutting across
the lawn of the President's house across the street, making a mental note to
suggest a fence around the grounds. He took his bearings on the steeple of St.
John's and walked quickly toward the corner of Sixteenth and I streets. The
gray sky was darkening. He did not want to get caught in the rain, which
tended to come down in torrents in Washington on late afternoons in August.
Two of his men stood talking directly across from Rose Greenhow's ele-
gant brick mansion, which was precisely the wrong place for them to be.
"Told you fellows to stay apart," Pinkerton gruffed, "and to stay out of
sight." It was hard to find conscientious operatives; his best were in Virginia,
trying to glean information on Confederate troop strength. Pinkerton had
been confident that McClellan would want a secret service.
"Nobody's gone in all day," one of the men said.
"I wouldn't go in either, if I was a rebel spy and saw you two big goons
loitering outside."
"Man came by in a carriage," reported one operative, "then speeded up
after he looked up at the second-story window."
Pinkerton studied the house, a two-story edifice with basement, and a cen-
tral stairs leading to a porch and entrance. On the second story, in the corner,
was the window from which Rose probably flashed the all-clear signal; he
noted that the blind was down at the moment, he assumed to discourage
callers. Would Senator Breckinridge, who passed by the other day, have gone
in if the blind had been up? He knew Breckinridge to be a Southern sympa-
thizerthat was apparent from his public speechesbut doubted the senator
was a spy, since he was no longer entrusted with military information. Still,
the Kentuckian might be worth making the target of a "shadow man."
In the dusk, its darkness hurried by the heavy clouds, the Greenhow house
showed no lights. Pinkerton, who had been keeping this place under close
observation for nine long days and nights, determined to get a look at the
layout inside. To the side of the front steps, some large boxwood bushes
shadowed an area; above that was a window that looked in at the parlor on
the first floor. He looked up and down Thirteenth Street. No pedestrians were
in sight; only the woman on the bench, knitting, who worked for him. He
motioned his two men to follow, ducked across the street, positioned them in
the boxwood, and made ready to stand on their shoulders to get a look inside
the house.
Large, plopping raindrops signaled an impending downpour. Pinkerton
hesitated, the first drops bouncing off his hat. He hated getting wet in general,
and he hated getting his derby hat soaked in particular; it was his favorite hat
and was already on the tight side. The detective sighed and squared himself to
the task: he removed his damp shoes and hoisted himself up on the shoulders
of his operatives.
The wooden shutter was closed; Pinkerton twisted the slats to see inside,
but before he could look, he could feel his foot being pulled in alarm. He
scrambled down and the three men hid under the porch until a group of
people ran past in the rain. The downpour, in its usual August force, filled his
empty shoes with water, annoying him, but he was satisfied that the rain
provided a distraction that prevented them from being observed.
He climbed back up, his stockinged feet slipping on the shoulders of his
men, and looked through the shutters again. He saw a large parlor, expen-
sively appointed, with a light in one corner where two people were seated on
adjacent sides of a lace-covered table. Rose Greenhow, in a black dress, was
one; the other was a man, sturdily built, well dressed, with a face that Pinker-
ton thought should be familiar to him. He could not quite place the man, but
Rose's visitor was obviously a person of authority. He was leaning on the
table, one knee on a chair, going over a large sheet of paper, talking animat-
ediy to his hostess.
A shoulder supporting Pinkerton's foot suddenly shifted and the detective
slipped, arms flailing, hands groping wildly for support, but too latehe
landed in the mud. His men picked him up, tried to wipe him off, backed
away at his hissed imprecations, and after letting some other passersby run
past, hoisted him aloft again. By this time, the bulky visitor"He's a Con-
gressman," Pinkerton muttered to himselfwas folding the large paper, ap-
parently a map. Rose received it from him when the folding was finished,
took his hand, and led him to the central hall of the house. They passed
beyond the detective's line of vision and were possibly headed toward the
front door.
"He's coming out," Pinkerton told the men below. "Run for it." They
raced across the street and around the corner. His chest heaving, the detective
cursed his haste: he had left his shoes under the boxwood. They watched the
house from a distance, waiting for the Congressman to emerge.
He did not. Upstairs, a light came on in Rose's bedroom. The detective did
not hesitate; his job was to learn what was going on up there.
"Need a ladder," said Pinkerton. He dispatched his men, on horses, to the
construction site of the Washington Monument up Fourteenth Street, to steal
a ladder high enough to get him a look inside that bedroom. Little danger of
discovery while looking in, as long as the pelting rain continued.
In twenty minutes, Pinkerton, clenching his sodden cigar in his teeth and
using his hat to keep the water out of his eyes, was able to look into the
second-story window of Rose's house. This was far from his first Peeping-
Tom activity, but the scene that came before his eyes made his jaw drop and
he lost the cigar.
Rose Greenhow was naked, except for high-heeled shoes, black stockings,
and a lace-trimmed garter belt. Her back was to the window, long black hair
falling to her waist, her buttocks deliciously muscled. In her right hand was a
riding crop. The Congressman was totally unclothed, on his hands and knees
in front of her, trembling like an animal in fear.
Pinkerton had read about such perversions in some novels published in
England. He knew that flagellation was practiced in the expensive brothels
across the Potomac in Great Falls but had never seen any such illicit activity
in the flesh. He hung on to the ladder and stared, oblivious to the rain and no
longer fearful of falling. No wonder she was known as the most exciting
woman in Washington: her legs were long and perfectly shaped, her ass firm,
her way of carrying herself at once imperious and sensuous. Pinkerton could
not yet see her breasts, but assumed her front to be as lush as her rear.
The detective winced as the riding crop sliced through the air and caught
the Congressman on the side of his leg. Crawling forward, the man in thrall
embraced her legs and buried his face between them. After a moment, Rose
smacked him again, ordered him onto the bed on his back, and straddled him.
Her breasts came into view, fuller than Pinkerton had imagined, the nipples
erect and small and dark. He concluded those were the most impressive
woman's breasts he had ever seen. The look on her face was a mixture of
eagerness and contempt; the detective could not tell how much was sexual
and how much political.
As Rose twisted her body in the direction of the window, Pinkerton
ducked. He had seen enough and did not want to risk discovery. The aware-
ness of the rain and the slippery ladder returned, and he climbed down with
care. He estimated that it would take at least ten minutes for Rose to com-
plete her fornication, and five minutes more to dress; that would leave him
time for a daring counterespionage maneuver. If it worked, nobody in the
Lincoln administration could doubt the need for a secret service.
"You sure look like you got an eyeful," said one of his operatives.
"She's occupied," Pinkerton snapped, "and she left the map downstairs on
the desk."
He knew exactly what he had to do. Making an arrest would be a mistake.
The immediate thing was to prevent the map from being sent from Rose to
the rebels. Next was to shadow the Congressman. Then the house could be
used as a magnet for other Confederate spies, letting them be drawn in,
arresting them as they came out.
"Force this window," he told his men. When the first-floor parlor window
was sprung, he boosted himself on their shoulders again, and climbed into the
parlor, dripping on the carpet but unconcerned about his wet footprints. He
wiped his hands dry on the antimacassar covering the sofa and picked up the
map and several documents on the desk. A copy of the National Intelligencer
was nearby; he wrapped his gatherings in that newspaper to keep the incrimi-
nating documents dry, stuffed the package in his breast, and climbed back out
the window.
"I'll shadow the traitor when he comes out," Pinkerton told them, grimac-
ing as the water hit his hat. "You two let anybody in, but arrest them when
they come out. We want as much of the ring as we can catch."
The downpour abated into a steady rain. Pinkerton and his two operatives
waited, soaking. When the Congressman emerged from the front door, Pin-
kerton trailed him for one block to the church nearby. There the Congressman
waited about twenty minutes. The rain stopped; it was dark but not yet night.
Two other men, one a clubfoot, joined the man who came out of the
Greenhow house and the three walked down Sixteenth Street toward the
Executive Mansion. To the detective's dismay, the unidentified Congressman
went directly into the President's house with the others. Pinkerton could not
go init would hardly do to make a scene trying to apprehend a suspected
spy in the diplomatic reception room of the Mansionbut he had to find a
way to identify his man.
He snapped his fingers, which, still moist, failed to make a satisfactory
snapping sound. "Brady," he said aloud.
Every politician in Washington had a photographic calling card to hand to
constituents. Somewhere in the files of Mathew Brady's gallery would be the
carte de visite with a picture of his man. First, Pinkerton stopped by the War
Department on Seventeenth Street to organize a raiding party of a half dozen
of his men to pull in the spies who left Rose Oreenhow's house, and to deposit
the incriminating documents, which he worried might be getting soggy, in his
safe. Without stopping to change clothesno time for that, and it was a
warm night, he would not catch a coldthe detective hurried to the photog-
rapher's studio.
CHAPTER 20
JOHN HAY'S DIARY
AUGUST 22, 1861
A long hiatus. The nights have been too busy for jottings. Then I was flat on
my back with bilious fever for a week, and had a gay old delirium the other
day, but am some better now.
Today a couple of Breckinridge's agents from Kentucky, claiming to be all
for the Union but not to the extent of fighting for it, called on the Prsdt
begging for permission of Kentucky's neutrality.
"Professed Unionists give me more trouble than rebels," he told them. He
sees through their plot. Breck and the pro-secesh Kentucky governor want to
put the responsibility of the first blow upon the gov't in Washington. If we
"invade" a neutral Kentucky, it will be easier for Breck & Co. to rally the
undecideds and take the state South. (That is substantially what we did in
provisioning Fort Surnter, challenging the South to fire the first shot, which
they foolishly did, helping us whip up the war spirit here. We know that
trick.)
The Prsdt played what he likes to call "shut-pan" with them, telling them
nothing. After I led them out, he told me why: "I cannot consent to what
they ask, for Kentucky's neutrality won't last long. We want to go through
that state."
He then looked out the window, peered more closely at a group approach-
ing the Mansion, and proceeded to utter the last few words of a joke.
I could tell it was the ending of a story by his tone of voice. When Lincoln
is speaking normally, his voice is slightly louder than that of most of us,
perhaps from the needs of the courtroom, perhaps to make up for the un-
happy fact that he is not blessed with a deep and resonant voice. When he is
on the stump, that high-pitched voice of his carries well, almost rings out
those debates with Douglas lasted for six, seven hours each, and the Lincoln
words could be heard all day by the folks in the far reaches of the crowd.
When he is telling a story, however, the Tycoon's voice develops a kind of
soft Western twang. When I hear that twang, I have no need for him to say
"reminds me of a story," which he must do with strangers. Instead, I recog-
nize the seemingly irrelevant remark as a joke's point, and if I do not ask him
what the story is, he is a disappointed man.
"There comes them same damn three fellers again," was what he said,
looking at the bustling trio of men.
Dutifully, I asked, "What same damn three fellers?"
"In a Kentucky school I attended as a boy," Lincoln said, in his rehearsed,
storytelling twang, "we used to line up and read from the Bible, each in turn.
One day we came to the passage about how the Israelites escaped the fiery
furnace through divine intervention. The boy whose turn it was had to read
the three difficult names, and he stumbled on Shadrach, floundered on Me-
shach, and went all to pieces on Abednego.
"The schoolmaster, kind of a mean man, cuffed the little boy and left him
blubbering. Then we all took our turn reading. When it came his turn again,
the boy looked at the part he had to read and let out a banshee wail: 'Lookie
there, marsterthere comes them same damn three fellers again!' "
I laughed out loud, not so much because it was a good storythough at
least this was one I could relate at the Earneses' in mixed companybut
because the Tycoon was chuckling away and needed company.
Besides, it lifts the heart to see what happens to his face when he laughs.
From its natural, lugubrious, bloodhound-mournful look, it swings to high
glee, especially when somebody joins in and bounces the laughter back and
forth, at which point he winds up wiping his eyes and snuffling like somebody
who has forced himself into a sneezing fit to snap out of a sadness spell.
I went to the window to see who I would be ushering in or blocking out.
Sure enough, the same damn three fellers who show up whenever there is a
whisper abroad of a lack of resolution in smiting the SouthBen Wade,
Henry Wilson, and Tad Stevens, two senators and the smoldering power of
the House. Senator Wade on the left, pounding along like he owned the earth,
jaw jutting out, hands clenched into fists, ready to stop any retreating army
that came his way. Senator Wilson in the middle, rotund, waddling and
puffing, a Massachusetts abolitionist who was given the Military Affairs Com-
mittee when Jeff Davis headed South.
The third man I've never liked. He has the look of a dark cloud unable to
rain. Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvaniaclubfoot, the defender of fugitive
slaves, the leading reb-hater and slavocracy-denouncer of all. In revolution-
ary France, he would have been among the bloodiest of the Jacobins, perhaps
Robespierre himself. Unlike the pugnacious Wade, he does not have the sav-
ing grace of a sense of humor.
The radicalsthat's what they proudly call themselves, and I must not let
them catch me calling them Jacobinshad been enraged earlier this month
by the Crittenden resolution. That was a much-needed expression by a loyal
old Kentuckian in the House to disavow any intention of freeing the slaves,
thereby stealing some of Breck's thunder among slave owners in that border
state. Its ready passage showed how far the mood of the country is from
abolition, though the radical minority swings some weight in the Republican
Party.
To offset the Crittenden resolution, and to lean against the President's
inaugural theme of not striking at slavery where it exists, the same-damn-
three-fellers managed to pass the Confiscation Act. That strips rebels of their
property, including slaves, when used in rebellion against the United States.
They slipped it through as a get-even-with-the-rebels bill rather than an aboli-
tion bill, and the Tycoon reluctantly signed it to keep them on board his ship.
"Mr. President, you're murdering your country by inches," said brother
Wade, in his usual subtle way, as soon as the trio barged in, "by the want of a
distinct policy in regard to slavery. The South has got to pay for bringing on
this war, and the payment is going to be giving up their 'peculiar institu-
tion.' "
Lincoln shook his head, no. "Wherever I go and whatever way I turn, you
gentlemen are on my trail, and still in my heart, I have the deep conviction
that the hour has not yet come."
His hint that the hour would one day comea hint that he vouchsafed
only to ultrasdid not mollify Congressman Stevens. "Nothing approaching
your present policy will subdue the rebels," the clubfoot growled. "You must
gain the moral courage to treat this as a radical revolution. It will involve the
desolation of the South as well as emancipation, and a repeopling of half the
continent. I know this startles you, Lincoln."
It did. "You would upset our applecart altogether if you had your way,"
the Prsdt countered. "We'll fetch 'em; just give us a little time." That, of
course, was not what Lincoln was telling our border-state friends or the War
Democrats, but in politics everyone must be given some reason to hope his
dream will come true, or so I am coming to understand.
Not fast enough for Wade. "I don't think you could be inspired to take
action with a galvanic battery, Lincoln."
"We didn't go to war to put down slavery, but to put the flag back," the
Tycoon replied evenly. "To act differently at this moment would not only
weaken our cause, but smack of bad faith." He had been promising he would
not strike at slavery at all, but the terrible trio refused to consider such
pledges to the majority of the people of the North to be any kind of promise
at all.
"Perhaps we could strengthen the Confiscation Act next session," Henry
Wilson offered. He seemed more ill at ease than the others, but was at least
being reasonable.
The Prsdt, who could not afford to associate himself with such abolition
talk, also could not afford to shut the door on the radical wing of his party.
"That thunderbolt will keep."
"Your damnable silk-glove treatment of the South will not work," Stevens
pressed. "Unless you commit yourself to arming the free blacks, and freeing
the slaves of the South to rise and rampage, I believe you are on the road to
ignominious surrender."
"A president has not only to mean well," Wade instructed, "he must have
force of character. You are surrounded by old fogies, more than half of whom
are downright traitors and the other half sympathize with the South."
"Not so," said Lincoln. How can he put up with this? And yet he does. He
cannot kick out the Congress.
"You must enlist slaves in the army, as a first step," Stevens insisted,
glowering more darkly than ever. The man strikes me as almost a bit de-
ranged on the subject. "You have to show some grasp of the revolution in
store."
"You are inclined to think that this war is to result in the entire abolition of
slavery," Lincoln said.
Wade exploded. "Inclined! My God, man, that's exactly what we do think,
and that's what this war is about!"
"For my own part," the Prsdt went on doggedly, not mollifying anymore,
"I consider the central idea pervading this struggle is the necessity to prove
that popular government is not an absurdity." He made that same point in his
talks with Breckinridge; he has this central idea quite clear in his mind. "We
must settle this question now, whether in a free government, the minority
have the right to break up the government whenever they choose. If we fail, it
will go far to prove the incapability of the people to govern themselves."
Wade looked at his associates as if they were faced with a crazy theoreti-
cian in an ivory tower rather than a commander in chief in the Executive
Mansion. I have to admit, our central idea lacks fire, and would not by itself
rally many to the Union flag. Perhaps the Tycoon will find other ways to put
it, or disguise it, or overlay his somewhat bookish notion with a more popular
cause. Certainly the avoidance of absurdity did nothing for the same-damn-
three.
"And while we're here," said Stevens, apparently too disgusted to pursue
the President's central idea, "there's the matter of your Secretary of War." It
is common knowledge that Thaddeus Stevens and Simon Cameron, both
Pennsylvanians, despise each other.
"What about him?"
"He's a thief."
Lincoln glared hard at Stevens. "If you have proof of that charge, present
it. If you do not, retract it." We have all heard rumors about Cameron and
the contractors, but not a shred of evidence of wrongdoing had been pre-
sented. Honesty, personal financial honesty, is a very big thing with the Ty-
coon, and unfounded charges about it infuriate him.
"Perhaps Senator Wilson's Military Committee should exercise its power,"
Wade interjected, "to look into charges of corruption in the conduct of the
war."
"Just send along whatever evidence you have," Lincoln came right back,
"and we'll look into it right here."
Stevens spun around and, limping, started out. Lincoln evidently had sec-
ond thoughts about offending them by being so abrupt, and called after Ste-
vens, "You don't mean to say you think Cameron would actually steal?"
Stevens paused long enough to say dryly, "No, I don't think he would steal
a red-hot stove." Wade roared with laughter and pounded Stevens on the
arm. Lincoln thought that was pretty good, especially from Stevens.
I showed them out past the anteroom and found the bowler-halted Mr.
Pinkerton, the detective who works for General McClellan, sitting there pa-
tiently. On second look, I could see he was wet, soaked clear through, and a
small puddle had formed on the floor under his chair. Only the cigar lodged
permanently in the middle of his mouth was dry.
When I told the little detective the President was occupied with affairs of
state, he refused to leave until he saw what he called "higher authority" than
me. I could only pry out of him that he wanted to talk about a confidential
matter concerning the loyalty and discretion of a member of Congress.
I carried his message to the Tycoon, suggesting that Plums let Nuts bolt, or
whatever the silly detective code was. The Prsdt, looking out the window,
said he was worried about that last remark of Wade's: could be this visit was a
trap. Could be the Jacobins wanted a device to interfere with his conduct of
the war.
What about spending some time with friend Pinkerton? The Ancient was
inclined at first to see him, but on second thought decided it might be unwise
to get directly involved on a matter about the discretion of a Congressman,
especially if it turned out to be a supporter.
"Send him to Seward," he said, and I started out. He stopped me. "No,
Seward is on the severe side, send him to Judge Blair." He stopped me again.
"Might be a good idea to keep it unofficial. Send him to Old Man Blair." That
choice seemed apt: Francis Preston Blair, the keeper of the secrets of the wild
and woolly Andrew Jackson private life, would know how to use the sort of
embarrassing information a Pinkerton would unearth.
CHAPTER 21
TAKE IT TO BLA'AR

He could hear the frontier twang of Old Hickory saying. "Take it to Bla'ar."
Not merely questions of patronage had been directed to Francis P. Blair by
Andrew Jackson; the secrets of scandal were deposited in his hands by men in
power, because Blairthen in his thirties, fresh from Kentuckyhad learned
at an early age how ambition could drive good men like John Quincy Adams
and Henry Clay into corrupt bargains to deny the will of the majority of the
electorate. Blair had learned, too, how indiscretions that the world considered
sins could be used corruptly to emasculate the ability of good men like Andy
Jackson to act as nationalists.
That reminded him of Jackson's wife, Rachel, a lifelong victim of the
gleeful calumniators. Old Man Blair was ruminating about the stones cast by
hypocrites at that good woman when Senator Henry Wilson, sent by Lincoln,
entered the small sitting room in the house Blair provided for his daughter
across from the Mansion.
The old man, still gripped in recollection, heard his daughter Lizzie's voice
at the door introducing a visitor. He waved a worried-looking pudgy man to a
chair.
Memory's train of thought was slow in leaving the stations of the past;
Rachel had claimed to be divorced and free when she married Jackson, but
that turned out not to be true. Her first husband, a miserable cur of a man,
had then sued for dissolution of their marriage on grounds of desertion. After
the divorce was granted, Jackson and the woman he had been living with
went through a second marriage ceremony to make their union legal. All
through his military and political life, that scandal of having been falsely
married haunted Jackson and tormented his wife. As President, he came to
despise gossips with a passion matched only by his hatred of bankers, and the
young Blair of "King Andrew's kitchen Cabinet" had often been called upon
to trade political favors to quash rumors, or to use his newspapers to attack
the gossips.
And then, Blair recalled with a rush of nostalgia, there was the affair of
Peggy O'Neale. There was a month-watering woman, much maligned, and to
some extent deservedly so. Brought down the whole damn Cabinet and
caused a switch in the succession to the presidency that changed the course of
American history.
"You seem pensive, Mr. Blair."
The Old Man nodded slowly; ordinarily he proceeded to the business at
hand with great crispness and celerity, lest a momentary lack of attention
appear to be evidence of woolgathering in old age. But that concern did not
apply in the case of Senator Henry Wilson's lapse in judgment, as described
to Blair in delicious detail by that bottom-dwelling slug, the detective Pinker-
ton.
No, it was Biair's judgment that this sensitive interview with Wilson called
for an ease of entry to the subject, leading to a slow but certain unraveling of
his visitor's reserve, followed by a display of understanding possible only in
an elder who has seen everything, and concluded by an implicit agreement of
political control. Blair supposed that the only other political veteran who
could handle this sort of assignment delicately but firmlysqueezing the
political juice from the fruit of forgiveness without making the extraction
seem like blackmailwas Thurlow Weed, the Albany wirepuller. But
Seward's man Weed was a viper, not above twisting arms to advance his
principal's ambition or his own greed, while Blair had always performed
these delicate personal tasks for the benefit of his country.
"Do you know what Thurlow Weed had to say about me recently?" the
Old Man asked, savoring both the possession of inside intelligence and the
chance to indulge in irrelevancy. "He said that if I had lived in the days of
Adam and Eve, the presence of a serpent would have been superfluous."
"An insult that well phrased is as good as a compliment," Wilson observed.
Biair's respect for his visitor rose a notch; that was a perceptive thing to say.
The senator had correctly noted one reason that the Old Man enjoyed giving
currency to Weed's remark; another reason was Biair's desire to show to an
abolitionist Republican like Wilson that the Biairs were no friends of radicals'
most hated adversaries, Seward and Weed. The Blair family, which opposed
the extension of slavery, was far from abolitionist; indeed, the Biairs saw
abolition as harming the cause of the Union. But the Old Man knew that
bridges were necessary between warily allied factions, and one bridge between
the Biairs and the radicals was a shared revulsion toward the unprincipled
Seward and his hatchet man, Weed.
"The President's secretary sent word," Wilson added, "that you wanted to
talk to me unofficially, but he wouldn't say what about."
Blair nodded noncommittally; too soon for that. "What news about Fre-
mont, in the West?"
"We may have made a terrible mistake about Fremont," said the Chairman
of the Senate Military Committee. "And I say 'we' advisedly, Mr. Blair. Your
son in the Cabinet joined Wade and me in urging the President to appoint
Fr6mont to head our forces in St. Louis."
Blair acknowledged the point. Explorer John FrCmont, the "Pathfinder,"
was a man afflicted with an inflated sense of his own importance, but he was a
political ally of the Biairs in Missouri. In return for Blair support in this
appointment, the pompous old hero had agreed to take on Congressman
Frank Blair as second-in-command. A military reputation would help young
Frank gain the nomination for the next President.
"Back in fifty-six, when a few of us organized the Republican Party,"
Wilson went on, "I was all for John Fr6mont as our first presidential candi-
date. And politically, he's still one hundred percentthe slogan 'Free Soil,
Free Men, Fremont' still holds. But as a general, he spends most of his time
parading around making pronouncements, rather than fighting."
"My son Frank will provide the action when he gets out there," said Blair.
"But you fellows have to be sure that Fremont doesn't get it into his head to
start freeing slaves. That is not what this war is about."
"With all respect, we disagree about that, Mr. Blair. My friends and I think
that slavery is at the root of our troubles, and that the Union cannot exist, as
Lincoln once said, half slave and half free."
"Unlike Fremont, Lincoln stands for compromise," Blair explained to Wil-
son, whose expression was courteous and not yet troubled. "The split in the
Union is not between slavery and no-slavery, as your tiny minority would
have it, and as some of the Southern firebrands would have it. The argument
is about extension of slavery into the West. Most Democrats want popular
sovereigntythe decision to be made locally by the new statesand that's
not a crazy or unconstitutional position."
He held up his hand to prevent Wilson from interrupting before he made
his point: "The Biairs happen to disagree with pop sov, because we're nation-
alists like Andy Jackson. We think the federal government ought to decide
here in Washington whether slavery is extended West. Because we think slav-
ery should not be extended West, and are willing to let slavery exist in the
South, that makes us compromisersin other words, Lincoln Republicans."
"You completely ignore the moral element," said Wilson. "Human slavery
is wrong. The cruelty is immense."
"Yes, yes, my son Monty went into that when he defended the runaway
Dred Scott." Biair's purpose in arguing with Wilson was not to persuade this
fairly intelligent Massachusetts politician to abandon the opinion of most of
his constituents, but to lay the groundwork for his toleration of opposing
views later. "Morality," he sighed, "what sins are committed in thy name. I
remember what the Calhoun crowd tried to do to poor Peggy O'Neale."
"Who?" The name "O'Neale" sat Wilson up. Blair knew it was pure coin-
cidencePeggy O'Neale Baton was probably not related to Rose O'Neal
Greenhowbut it would bring him around to th'e subject.
"Peggy O'Neale was probably the prettiest barmaid who ever worked here
in the city of Washington," said the old man, crossing his legs and steepling
his fingers. "A sweet girl, tall, dark curls, and a first-rate mind toohad a
great many admirers, from sailors to senators." He stopped, lost in reverie;
Peggy had once given him a big hug, just being friendly, and he never forgot
it.
"And the barmaid?"
"She married a sailor, but he was away for long stretches. The gossip was
that he killed himself when he returned, after a year, to find her preparing for
a premature accouchement. I never believed that. Peggy was lonely, and she
found companionship with Senator Baton, but there was never a shred of
evidence presented to substantiate the charge that she was whoring around.
Poor girl was socially ostracized by the ladies of Washington society after she
married Baton."
"Baton was in the Jackson Cabinet, wasn't he?" Like most politicians,
Wilson was only vaguely aware of the scandal that had rocked the capital a
generation before. Blair always felt like an institutional memory in a city of
newcomers.
"Secretary of War. The Vice President at the time was John Calhoun, and
his wife could not abide the thought of sharing a social evening with a woman
she considered to be, if not a prostitute, a social inferior. Most of the wives in
Jackson's Cabinet followed Mrs. Calhoun's lead, and it got to the point where
Cabinet members were threatening to shoot each other. Made it hard to hold
meetings."
"And the President?"
"Old Hickory, of course, supported Peggy Baton all the way. He hated
Washington society for what it did to his wife Rachel, with that false divorce.
So he fired the whole damn Cabinet and let it be known that Calhoun was no
longer his chosen successor. Some of us felt that Secretary of State Martin
Van Buren got the vice presidency in the second term, and later became
President, because he was the only member of the Jackson administration to
befriend Peggy Baton in her hour of need. John Calhoun was left to plot
nullification and preach secession from the Senate."
After a moment, Henry Wilson said, "Somehow, I think you were re-
minded of that episode for a reason, Mr. Blair."
"The reason is that human weakness, which some bluenoses treat as terri-
ble scandal, can have an effect, sometimes a considerable effect, on history."
Wilson nodded, waiting.
"Perhaps you would find it comforting, Senator, to confide in someonean
old man like me, who has reposed many a secret in his bosomabout a
relationship that may be worrying you."
Wilson biinked and shook his head.
Blair pushed further. "Tell me about Rose Greenhow."
"My 'relationship,' as you call it," the senator replied coolly, "is the same
as that of dozens of senators, generals, and the like. I've been to her home for
dinner parties, teas, receptions. So have you. We all know she's a Southern
sympathizer, of course, she makes no bones about it, but she doesn't do any
harm."
"Senator, the Bxecutive Mansion"Blair used the name of the President's
House rather than the President himself, to keep Lincoln completely clear of
all this"has been given some information about her activities, and your
visits."
"Gossips have always abounded in this town," Wilson started to huff, but
Blair cut him off.
"This has nothing to do with gossip. This has to do with espionage, and the
needless death of Union soldiers."
Wilson's mouth worked and nothing came out. He rose, walked to the
window, looked up and down Pennsylvania Avenue, returned to the chair and
said, "I can't believe it. I mean, yes, I know Rose well, very well, but what
I've done has nothing to do with spying. My God, that's treason. Are you
accusing me of treason, is that the information you've been given?"
"Senator, I am not an officer of the law. I am not interrogating you. It may
be that I can be helpful to you, but you will have to tell me everything."
Wilson began to rock back and forth in his chair. He tried to talk, failed,
breathed heavily, and started to come apart before Biair's eyes. The round
form pitched forward in the chair, gulping for air.
In a few moments, he gained control of himself and asked Blair, "How
much do you know?"
Blair, who knew nothing beyond the detective Pinkerton's lurid report and
attendant suspicions, said only, "You've been followed." He let that sink in,
hoping a guilty conscience would do the rest. "Your friends in the Adminis-
tration have asked me to discuss this with you before any action is taken. If
you want to unburden yourself, here I am."
"I love the woman. NoMr. Blair, I am enslaved by the woman. I don't
know how to say this, it's been a nightmare, I've lost all dignity, all my self-
respect."
In a torrent, Wilson confessed to sexual sinfulness, recounting in what
seemed to Blair unnecessary but delicious detail all the interludes of passion
and mornings of remorse. However, the senator said nothing about the pass-
ing of military information.
"Senator, what about the plans for Bull Run?"
Wilson looked up, red-eyed, and said, "What about them?"
"Rose Greenhow is a rebel spy."
"Yes. Yes, now I know."
Interesting. "How do you know?"
"Rose has the plans for the fortification of Washington, Mr. Blair. She
showed them to me yesterday. They were identical to the plans submitted to
the committee."
"Senator Wilson, are you saying that you did not give those plans to her?"
"Of course I didn't. My God, that would be treason."
Blair believed the man's disbelief at the enormity of the charge. "Then
why, may I ask, were you going over the plans for the fortification of Wash-
ington with a rebel spy?"
"She wanted to verify them. She didn't know if the map that some army
captain had given her was the real thing."
"And what did you tell her?"
"I lied. I said I couldn't be sure. I was shocked that she had them. I should
have turned her in, but I couldn't. I wouldn't help her, but I couldn't betray
her. I was trapped, I was tearing myself apart."
Blair let him weep silently for a while. If what he said was true, Wilson was
a weak man but no traitor. That was fortunate. Blair had hoped to find a
legitimate basis for forgiveness.
Wilson made an effort to compose himself. "Failing to report what she
showed me yesterday," he breathed, "was, I suppose, a form of traitorous
behavior. I should have gone to Secretary Cameron, or the committee, or
McClellan, or somebody. But as God is my witness, Mr. Blair, I was not the
one who gave her those plans. Nor was I the one who told her about Bull
Run."
Blair had been willing to believe Pinkerton's charge that Wilson had been
the source of the rebel knowledge of the plans for Bull Run; he was willing,
too, to give credence to the eyewitness evidence that Wilson had gone over
the map of Washington's fortifications with a spy. But now he could find a
reasonable doubt in Allan Pinkerton's quick conclusions. Certainly Henry
Wilson, in the grip of sexual obsession, was worthy of contempt for failure to
report what he had learned about Rose's espionage, but Blair was inclined to
believe the senator was more dupe than participant. His story was coherent;
his manner of telling it revealed the self-revelation usually attendant to the
truth, or at least what the teller believed to be the truth. Blair, who had dined
in Rose's home frequently, had to assume the rebel spy with the wide-ranging
salon had more than one Union source to tap; Pinkerton should be sent on
the trail of the captain Wilson referred to.
"I wish I could tell you, Mr. Blair, how she drove me crazy. I did things I
could never"
"You were observed by a detective through the ground-floor window, going
over the plans," Blair told him, because the man had the right to know. "And
later, upstairs, through a second-story window by that same very determined
fellow on a ladder."
The senator slumped back in his chair, defeated and profoundly ashamed.
"Then you know the depths of my depravity."
"You sure popped that detective's eyes," Blair said cheerfully, calling up in
his mind the description of Rose in high heels and with whip. Rose O'Neal
Greenhow certainly outdid anything charged to Peggy O'Neale Baton.
But it was no longer necessary to put Wilson through self-tortureal-
though, Blair had to recall, flagellation was evidently an activity he enjoyed
nor would it serve the Republic to drag his name through the mud. Acting as
judge and jury, Blair decided to forgive Wilson and to send Pinkerton off
after the army officer, the real culprit; also to give the detective whatever he
wanted for his secret service from the War Department. That would make it
possible to turn to advantage what would otherwise be a scandal damaging to
all Republicans, including the President.
"Rose Greenhow will be in the Old Capitol Prison very soon," said Blair,
"and it may be necessary for you to visit her there, to keep her quiet about
her relationships with loyal unionists. But I believe you to be a man who
acted like a damn fool, and not like a traitor." He thought of a possible
problem: "Will a search of her house turn up any letters from you?"
"I wrote letters," Wilson said numbly, "but I never signed my name."
"I'll recover them. The fewer specimens of your handwriting around town,
Henry, the better." By using his first name, Blair hoped he got across a
message of personal warmth; the man really had acted foolishly, dangerously
so, but in the context of his whole life, he merited consideration, especially
when his gratitude could be so useful. "You have a good record as a man and
as a patriot," Blair assured him. "You started as a pauper, you succeeded in
life, you founded the party, you've been a solid unionist. Consider this sordid
business over. Devote your energies now to preserving the Union."
"You can depend on that, Mr. Blair," Wilson said, the beginning of hope in
his face. "Please tell the President"
"He knows nothing of this."
"Good. I would have difficulty looking him in the face if I thought he
knew."
Blair now went to work. "Preserving the Union, Senator, is our common
goal. Not abolition. Not conquest of the South, as some of your colleagues
among the radicals seem to think."
When Wilson did not respond, the old man pressed: "Some of them
Wade, Chandler, Stevensare privately scornful of the President, and con-
sider him a man of no principle. There is talk of a cabal within the Republi-
can Party which would like not only to determine the party policy, but wants
to grab hold of the entire conduct of the war."
"The President is commander in chief," said Wilson. He was trying not to
offend, but Blair noted he did not deny the existence of the cabal.
"I will be blunt, Henry, because I trust you." Blair uncrossed his legs,
leaned forward in his chair, and glared straight at the senatorial specimen on
the end of his pin. "You and your bunch are not politicians at all. You think
of yourselves as men of principle, believers in the one true road, and what you
seek is not settlement but victory. However, the majority of this country, and
Mr. Lincoln, seek settlement of this conflict on terms that preserve the Union
before we all kill each other."
Wilson nodded understanding, though not agreement. Blair felt not the
slightest twinge of guilt in pressing a man not in a position to argue.
"Before the last election, you abolitionists lived in a state of perfect purity
and bitterness. Pure because you were moral and everybody else was im-
moral; bitter because you had no chance whatever of amending the Constitu-
tion to end slavery." Blair saw the politics of this with what seemed to him
perfect clarity: "You were a permanent minority, destined to nibble forever at
the edge of power, able to indulge your moral superiority for generations
until those idiots in the South seceded. That changed the game. You're still a
minority, but your slice of the pie stayed the same while the Union pie got
smaller, making you much more important."
Wilson gave a small smile. "That's a colorful way of putting it, sir, but I
wouldn't"
"Bear with me. In the South's rebellion, you see the chance of a genuine
revolutionyour revolution, changing this nation to fit your high moral
precepts. How do you get control? You'll never get the Democrats, but
they're a minority in the Norththe target of your revolution is the Republi-
can Party, still in the grip of conservatives like Lincoln and the Biairs and the
likes of Seward. Lincoln is your big obstacle. Overcome him, and you can
change the purpose of the war from his 'Preserve the Union' to your 'Abolish
slavery.' "
"It is felt, Mr. Blair, that if Mr. Lincoln can be persuaded to follow his own
best instincts about human freedom, this war can turn out to be a blessing for
the country."
Blair slashed his hand through the air to cut through that nonsense. "Try
that at the next election. Meanwhile, we're counting on you, Henry Wilson,
to support the President who was elected to conduct this war in the way he
sees fit." Wilson started to squirm, but Blair did not relent. "You are chair-
man of the Military Committee. Your advice and counsel will be welcome.
Stay in charge of that committee. Don't let any other senators elbow you
aside, or water down your authority. Above all, do not let Ben Wade seize
control of jurisdiction over the War Department. That's yours."
"I have heard some talk about a joint committee"
"Squelch it." Blair noticed the set of the senator's face harden at his order,
and backed off a bit. "At any rate, do what you can to assert your commit-
tee's traditional prerogatives. The President can work with you. I don't know
if anybody can work with the likes of Wade and that vindictive clubfoot in the
House."
"I see what you mean, Mr. Blair, and I'll do all I can." He rose to go. "And
I agree that the preservation of the Union should be our first concern."
Wilson might not be able to deliver on blocking Wade from grabbing Sen-
ate control of the war, the old man judged, but at least the shaken Lothario
would be a voice of restraint in the radical camp.
"One other thing," Wilson said with some pain. "The detective at the
window"
"Pinkerton is going to work for McClellan, and will do what we say. He
wants an appropriation for a secret service to send spies into the South, too
might be a good idea to accommodate him."
Wilson nodded vigorously. Blair walked him to the porch and put in a
personal word for John Breckinridge, who Wilson had not known was a Blair
kinsman. Blair considered that request to be a small fee of his own for doing
the Administration's dirty work.
Watching the carriage pull away, Blair felt his arm taken by his daughter
Lizzie. "Nice man," she said. "I like him better than the other senator from
Massachusetts, Sumner. What brought him here?"
"Oh, he needed some lessons from the Jackson days."
"Did you tell him that Lincoln opposed the Jackson Democrats, and sup-
ported the Whig who ran against Van Buren?" His daughter always re-
sponded that way when he declined to confide in her.
"Lincoln is learning now that Old Hickory and he had a lot in common,"
was all he would say. Blair could see the face of John Calhoun before him
now, furious at being replaced by Van Buren as Vice President and heir
apparent; it served that South Carolina aristocrat right, with his pernicious
notion of "concurrent majorities" and states' rights undermining the simple
rule of the majority of the nation's people. "Did I ever tell you about Peggy
O'Neale?"
"Mother did. Said that when the notorious Mrs. Eaton came into a room,
you could never take your eyes off her."
Blair biinked; he had not known that his secret desire for that woman had
been noticed. It never ceased to amaze him how the human element, espe-
cially in its sexual dimension, could stir politicians and affect the makeup of
cabinets, the presidential successionperhaps the fate of armies and the con-
trol of the conduct of wars.
"Remarkable woman, Mrs. Eaton. She even served a purpose today."
CHAPTER 22
GENERAL JESSIE"

His father had never quite prepared him for Jessie Fr6mont. Frank Blair
knew that John Fremont had delusions of omnipotence, but how does anyone
deal with a highborn, power-bred lady who considers herself the partner,
protector, and promoter of the greatest man on earth?
He faced Mrs. Fremont in one of the many sitting rooms of the palatial
Grant house in St. Louis that the Fremonts had rented from a cousin at a cost
of six thousand dollars to the government, giving rise to criticism of both
lavish living and graft. Frank Blair, a colonel of the militiathe irregular
command enabled him to keep his seat in Congress, which a regular army
commission would notwas determined to reason with "General Jessie," as
the wife of John Fremont was called. Frank, whose strong-willed mother
ruled a powerful roost, was no stranger to outspoken and tough-minded
women, but he had never come up against the combination of iron will and
brassy voice that was Jessie Fremont.
A large gold ring flashed on the finger she leveled at him. "You're a mean,
disloyal backstabber, young fellow, and if your father wasn't one of my life-
long friends, I'd have you in military prison for the rest of the war!"
Frank knew that she never thought of herself merely as Mrs. John Charles
Fremont, wife of the first senator from California, wife of the first Republican
candidate for President in 1856, now wife of the commander of the Army of
the West. She was, on the contrary, Jessie Benton Fremont, raised by her
father, Missouri Senator Thomas Benton, to be a woman of the world. Her
husband, whom she revered, was her equal partner. His reports from Califor-
nia, where his trailblazing created a territory for the nation and a personal
fortune in gold for himself, were written by her. When Lincoln needed a
radical Republican to satisfy Greeley and the anti-slavery North, he naturally
turned to the team of "Pathfinder" John and "General" Jessie Fr6mont. They
had both earned their sobriquets.
"You don't break the South by building fortifications, Mrs. Fremont," said
the grim young congressman-named-general who had been placed under
FrCmont's Missouri command two weeks before. "I am not responsible for
the stories in the newspaper that charge him with corruption"
"Just because he wouldn't hire your corrupt political cronies!"
Frank bristled and could not resist adding "and I'm not the source of the
stories about his living like a potentate, in isolation and splendor, guarded by
a bunch of Hungarian officers in European uniforms."
"Those lies get into print," said Jessie Fr6mont icily, "because the Blair
family has an interest in spreading them. Why don't you admit it, Frank? You
want my husband's job. You think you can organize an army overnight and
win a great victory in the morning and next day run for President of the
United States. That's your plan, isn't it?"
She had sent that shaft home; he fell silent, seething.
"As God is my witness," the young man gritted through teeth and black,
flowing mustache, "I urged the President to appoint John Fremont as com-
mander of the West, just as I urged him to appoint McClellan in the East. The
Biairs were your biggest supporters."
"Not only that," said Jessie, smiling sweetly, "your father engineered my
husband's nomination in fifty-six. You used to be our best friends. Now
you've turned into our vilest enemies. Why?"
"Why? You're asking me why?" Southern sentiment was rampant in Mis-
souri; if Fremont did not get his men out of camp and into the field, the rebels
would soon take over. Just as bad, if no action took place in the West soon,
the war would be won by McClellan in the East and the Biairs would have
nothing to show in the way of heroism and triumph in the next election. But
he could not say that; what could he say? He felt his face getting flushed.
"Try to get command of yourself, Frank. This isn't the floor of the Con-
gress, where all the ladies in the galleries applaud every time you strike a
pose."
That was too much for him. "I'm leaving," he said, "Get word to your
husband, if you can get through the Imperial Court, that some of us are
trying to fight and kill the rebel guerrillas in the areas he can't be bothered
with, while he draws up his crackbrained plans for a Grand Flotation down
the Mississippi."
"Tell him yourself. Why do you get so tongue-tied in the presence of John
Fr~mont?"
"Because, my dear lady" He was at a loss for words, a rarity for any
Blair. Frank took a deep breath and started again. "Your husband refuses to
listen to political reason. He keeps making statements about abolition, and
that harms our cause here. Please tell him to stop."
"Nonsense. Slavery is what the war is about."
"Missouri is a slave state, Mrs. Fr6mont. So is Kentucky. Missouri and
Kentucky refused Lincoln's levy for troops. I was born and raised in Ken-
tucky, I live here in Missouri and ran for Congress here five times. I know
these states, and I know how important they are to President Lincoln. Believe
me, it doesn't help put down the rebellion in Kentucky and Missouri when
the commander, from California, goes around threatening to snatch people's
property away from them."
Jessie Benton Fr6mont glared him down. She offered no good-bye as the
youngest and most vulnerable of the political Biairs buttoned his uniform
jacket and walked out of the house, probably headed to his headquarters in
what she presumed to be some ostentatiously ascetic tent.
She thought about his parting remark with bitterness. That had always
been the trouble with the Biairs: they lacked conviction. Her father, the
senator, had always warned her about that weakness in the elder Blair, which
he had discovered when they served together in the Andy Jackson days. Blair
and his entire clan were all too practical, too political, bereft of the fire of
idealism.
That night, before going to bed, she kissed her husband at his desk in the
library and warned him again about the Biairs. She reported her conversation
with Frank of the bristling mustache, and the lie that he was spreading that
John Fremont was avoiding decisive battles.
"War consists not only in battles," replied John Charles Fremont, "but in
well-considered movements which bring the same results." He spoke that
way, in aphorisms that could be recorded and remembered, and she remem-
bered them. "Don't wait up for me, Jessie, I am working on something of
historic importance."
She retired. At dawn, when he had not yet come to bed, she went to look
for him. John Fremont was still at his desk, the glow of inspiration about his
fine head, the desktop littered with paper covered by his commanding scrawl.
He looked up and smiled at her; it was the beatific smile she remembered
from the time, twelve years before, he had preferred to accept a court-martial
rather than to compromise his principles.
"I face enemies in the field," he began, continuing his remarks of hours
before as if made a moment ago, "treason in the ranks, andas you point out
to me in your invaluable wayinsubordination or worse among my com-
manders. The moment requires a bold stroke, to confound opposition every-
where."
"You must punish the rebels and their sympathizers," she said.
"I must make treason costly," the Pathfinder agreed. Triumphantly, he
took up the sheets he had written. "Here is my proclamation: 'Circumstances,
in my opinion of sufficient urgency, render it necessary that the commanding
general of this department should assume the administrative powers of the
state.' "
She listened reverently as he read aloud. His proclamation declared martial
law throughout Missouri, with all residents in certain areas to be court-
martialed and shot if caught bearing arms. Beyond that, the property of all
rebels was to be confiscated, "and their slaves, if any they have, are hereby
declared freemen."
"A proclamation of emancipation," she breathed. "At last. John, this is a
moment every free man in the world has been waiting for."
"And their slaves, if any they have," he repeated, intoning the words, "are
hereby declared free men."
The declaration of freedom would surely be a flash of inspiration and
illumination across the land. Her husband would be remembered in history
not only as an explorer of the continent, but as the great emancipator of an
oppressed race.
"What will the President say?"
"Lincoln can truthfully tell his timorous supporters that he had nothing to
do with it. He can disclaim all responsibility and say it was a military decision
made by a commander in the field."
"If he then asks you to rescind your proclamation?"
"I will refuse, of course. And there is nothing he can do about it, short of
relieving me of my command."
"He could do that"
"He could, but he would not. Lincoln is a follower, not a leader. He needs
the example of a leader."
"What about the effect of this in Kentucky?" Her distasteful interview with
Frank Blair had instructed her that Lincoln was most sensitive about his
native state's pro-slavery majority. The Biairs and all the conservative Repub-
licans and their ilk would have fits.
"The moment the Confederates in Tennessee make a move to send troops
north into Kentucky, I have a general in Cairo, Illinois, with standing orders
to cross the river into Kentucky and secure Paducah."
Jessie instantly grasped the military shrewdness in her husband's move,
which she was certain had escaped Lincoln's narrow conception of strategy.
If this historic emancipation provoked the South to violate Kentucky's neu-
trality, the Northern troops could move right in and save the state from a
rebel invasion, real or anticipated.
"Who's your man for that position?" Her husband liked General John
Pope, a daring and dashing officer in the Fr6mont mold.
"Sam Grant." When she said she never heard of him, he added, "Not a
great general, but not a man given to self-elation, either. Persistent. He obeys
orders without question or hesitation,"
Nor would such a soldier be one to take credit away from his commander.
"You're not worried your emancipation order will incite a slave revolt?" That
was the frequent scare-tactic of pro-slavery forcesto warn of a servile rebel-
lion, with black slaves raping and murdering white masters and mistresses,
inciting primitive passions into unspeakable atrocities.
"The slavers wanted a revolution; let them feel the Terror."
"Hallelujah," she whispered. "History will never forget you for this, John.
You're more than the Pathfinder. You're the Emancipator."
CHAPTER 23
JOHN HAY'S DIARY
SEPTEMBER II, 1861
I have been reading the Southern mail with a new surprise and astonishment
at the depth of degradation of which the human mind is capable. Nothing but
the vilest folly and feculence, that might have simmered glimmeringly in the
narrow brain of a chimpanzee, flows from the pens of our epistolary Southern
brethren. I have seen rough company in the West and North, but never in the
kennels of great cities or the wild license of flatboating on the Mississippi did
I ever hear words that were not purity compared with the disgusting filtra-
tions of the chivalric Southern mind.
The history of the world is leprous with thick scattered instances of na-
tional folly and crime, but it was reserved for the Southern states to exhibit an
infamy to which other crimes show white as mother's milk, and a madness to
which an actor's phrensy is sane.
Why do I thusly dip my private pen in vitriol? I have never seen the
Tycoon so angry in the three years I have served by his side. That pompous
ass Fr6mont, who thinks God is his junior partner, has gone and issued a
proclamation of emancipation, completely befouling the works and harming
the Union cause more than if he lost a dozen battles.
How do you suppose A. Lincoln, Prsdt of the U.S., the man whose War
Secretary has an iron grip on the telegraph service and whose Postmaster
General is in full control of the mails, found out that the slaves had been freed
in the West? From his morning newspaper!
William Slade, the negro steward, was off that day. William usually opens
the front door of the Mansion and takes the paper from the newsboy before
breakfast, and brings it in to me or Nico, whoever is in the office first. That
way, we can call the Tycoon's attention to anything we did not already know
from reading the correspondents' dispatches in the telegraph office. But on
this fine first of September, William Johnson, the boy who shaves the Prsdt,
took the National Intelligencer directly in to him.
In a few moments came a holier from the Ancient of Days such as I have
never heard before. "Did you see thisi Does he know what he's done?"
When I had been apprised of the situationI'll never again let anyone give
him the morning paper without first showing it to me1 ran across the street
to the telegraph office to see if Frbmont had sent a draft to Washington that
we had lost. Nothing. He just did it, with nary a word to a soul, except
perhaps General Jessie.
"The Biairs were right," the Prsdt said, smacking his fist in his palm again
and again. "They were right when they said Fremont would be the most
popular choice, especially with the Germans in St. Louis, and they were right
when they said they had made a terrible mistake."
He sat and stewed for a while, and then walked up and down, his carpet
slippers flapping, talking to himself, muttering about politicians who think
they are generals and generals who think they are politicians. He was less
worried about Missouri than about the effect of the order on Kentuckians.
Always Kentucky. "It will ruin our chances there."
Montgomery Blair came in, his father in tow, and commiserated with him.
"With the set of scoundrels who have control ofFremont," said the Postmas-
ter General, "this proclamation setting up the higher law is like a painted
woman quoting Scripture."
The saying around town is "When the Biairs go in for a fight, they go in for
a funeral," and, sure enough, they tried to get the Tycoon to fire Fr6mont
forthwith. He resisted, though, figuring that would start a ruckus up North
and bring the same damn three fellers back at his throat.
He tried to explain the problem to Fr6mont in a gentle letter, private and
confidential. "I think there is great danger that liberating slaves of traitorous
owners will alarm our Southern Union friends, and turn them against us
perhaps ruin our rather fair prospect for Kentucky." The Prsdt then, with
great respect, asked Fremont to modify his proclamation to conform to the
Confiscation Act of Congress, which Lincoln did not like but at least has
signed. He closed with a mollifying "This letter is written in a spirit of cau-
tion and not of censure."
I have never seen the Tycoon, after being so angry, turn so obsequious.
Why? The huge popularity of Fremont with the big German population in the
West, which is largely abolitionist? Is he afraid of the talk about Fr~montt
setting himself up as dictator out West, like a modern Aaron Burr? I can
understand that a cool answer turneth away wrath, but this seems to me as
too much self-abasement by the Chief Executive.
I was right. For the next week, the most horrendous cries came from our
Union men in Kentucky. John Breckinridge, at his damn "picnics," has been
using Fremont's proclamation as proof that Lincoln means to free the slaves,
and is making great headway toward whipping up sentiment for neutrality.
That's what we hear from the "good" Breckinridge, Robert the theologian,
who is slumping the state against his nephew.
At that delicate moment, our friend Fr6mont deigns to send a reply that
refuses to take the graceful way out. "Respecting the liberation of slaves," he
writes to his commander in chief, "I have to ask that you will openly direct
me to make the correction." The bloody cheek! If Lincoln wants to de-eman-
cipate, then he has to be the one to do it personally, thereby bringing on his
head all the abuse of the Jacobins.
But that was not the half of it. Fremont also sent General Jessie, in person,
holding aloft another letter containing his grandiose military plans.
That was a bad night for everybody. Lincoln had been through one of his
more strenuous days: he had gone with Cameron and McClellan to review the
Pennsylvania troops in the morning, and then crossed Chain Bridge into
Virginia to review the New York troops and listen to interminable speeches,
arriving back to the White House after dark, where I gave him the insuffer-
able, you-do-it-not-rne letter from Fremont. He jammed his fingers through
his coarse hair after reading it, and was thoroughly out of whack about the
assault on his authority. The Ancient will put up with plenty, but I have
noticed how ornery he gets when anybody tries to take any power from him.
Jessie got off the train from St. Louis about nine that evening and sent
word from Willard's requesting an appointment with the President. Before
she could wash her face or change her clothesafter two nights, probably
sleepless, on the train, it might have been a courtesy to let her pull herself
togetherback went a peremptory note from the Tycoon: "Now, at once. A.
Lincoln."
That was a summons from a hopping-mad President. I could tell a good
fight was shaping up, so I stayed in the anteroom outside the Blue Room
where he received the imperious emissary from the Western emancipator.
He didn't offer the tired lady a seat. All he said was, "Well?"
"The general wanted to be sure this letter reached you, so he sent me to
deliver it. That's how important we think it is."
He waved that away, and got right to the point: "This was a war for a great
national ideathe Union. General Fr6mont should never have dragged the
negro into it."
"I am shocked, Mr. Lincoln, that you should say such a thing."
"He never would have dragged the negro into it," he snapped, "if he had
consulted with Frank Blair. I sent Frank there to advise him."
"And now you've sent Montgomery Blair to St. Louis as wellwhy, to
advise him? Or to further undermine his authority?"
As the wife of the man who was trying to usurp the President's prerogative,
Jessie Fremont had some nerve to cry usurpation. "I assure you, my dear
lady," Lincoln told her, "that the Biairs have never been your enemies."
"You're mistaken." Give her credit, General Jessie gave as good as she got;
Lincoln had never been so hard on a woman in my memory, and she was just
as hard right back. "Do you have any idea, Lincoln, what effect this emanci-
pation proclamation will have in the West? For the first time, rebels realize
what the cost of rebellion is. The general has placed fear in their traitors'
hearts."
"He has no right to seize private property!" Lincoln fairly shouted, adding,
"that's the action of a dictator." Ironic, hearing the Prsdt worrying about
dictatorial powerthat's what John Breckinridge is saying right now about
Lincoln. Thanks to Fremont's untimely action, Breckinridge is killing us in
Kentucky, slumping the state with this as proof of Lincoln's designs on ev-
eryone's slave property.
"You don't seem to understand, Lincoln, what effect this has already had in
England and France." She stood there, feet planted about a foot apart, look-
ing up at him and slugging it out. "The South is getting closer and closer to
establishing diplomatic recognition. If they get that, and the trade begins
between those nations and the South, and we sink a British ship running a
blockadethey're in the war on the side of the South. If that happens, the
South will win."
"You're quite a female politician." This said by Lincoln with much scorn.
"Female politician I may be," she snapped back, "but I know that our
abolition of slavery will be met with great cheers among the working people
of England. Lord Russell will never be able to support the South if the issue is
slavery, not just Union."
"Political matters, madam, are for the President to decide. Not for field
commanders."
"General Fremont has a political following, make no mistake about that,"
she warned. "If he decides to try conclusions with you, he could set up for
himself."
That was insubordination of the highest order; a threat to take the West out
of the Union. Then came Lincoln's stark calling of their bluff: "I'll just have
to run that risk."
She held out the letter she carried, the second that Lincoln had received
from General FrCmont that day. Without a word he took it from her, walked
to a spot under the chandelier and read it.
Weary, and without being asked, she sat down and waited for his response.
He shook his head. "I've already answered this."
She drew herself to her feet. "The general feels he is at the great disadvan-
tage of being opposed by people in whom you have every confidence."
"What do you mean? Can I not talk with persons holding different views
from John Fremont?"
"I am given to believe, sir, that you have been sent a scurrilous letter from
Frank Blair slandering my husband. I would like to see that letter now."
"I do not feel authorized to furnish you with copies of letters in my posses-
sion without the consent of the writers." He had received such a letter from
Frank Blair; "scurrilous" was putting it mildly, but he had no intention of
sharing its contents with her.
"You will discover, Mr. President," she said with all the hauteur she could
muster, lashing at him where she knew it would hurt most, "that you cannot
conquer by arms alone. You can only conquer with arms and an ideal."
That did it; the elected leader of the Union was not about to submit to a
lecture on idealism from the scoundrels whose lust for popularity among the
Jacobins had caused him so much practical grief. Her words apparently
stung, however; Lincoln was too infuriated to let himself respond.
"Good night, Mrs. Fremont." Thus coldly and curtly dismissed, she turned
and stalked out. Nobody shook hands. A bad night all around.
Next daytoday, the eleventhhe wrote a public letter to the general,
pretending "no general objection" to his proclamation, but noting that only
the particular slavery clausethe heart of the whole mischievous thing
"appeared to me to be objectionable," adding tartly, "your letter, just re-
ceived, expresses the preference on your part that I should make an open
order for the modification, which I very cheerfully do." He preferred to use
the word "modify" rather than the harsher "rescind," but rescind it was
exactly what he did, and not in the least cheerfully.
That should help in Kentucky, and may even turn the tables on John
Breckinridge, giving Robertthe good Breckinridgethe shield to ward off
his nephew's attacks. Perhaps this evidence of the Prsdt's resolve will turn
public sentiment back toward the Union and squelch the pernicious move-
ment toward neutrality.
Gain at the border, lose in the North: Fremont's troublesome proclamation
renewed the old explorer's heroic credentials with the radicals. Even that old
fraud at the War Department, Simon Cameron, was going around praising
Fr6mont's damnable action until I passed the word from on high to shut up.
And Lincoln, as the villain who reenslaved the emancipated blacks, caught
very hell from the furious Jacobins.
Horace Greeley excoriated the Tycoon in the Tribune. I have a stack of
cuttings: James Russell Lowell, a pretty fair poet, asked, "How many times
are we to save Kentucky and lose our self-respect?" Ben Wade blazed away
with "Lincoln has done more injury to the cause of the Union by receding
from the ground taken by Fr6mont than McDowell did by retreating from
Bull Run." That Wade comment troubled the Tycoon; "Bluff Ben" dealt in
real power, not in newspaper talk, and we suspect him capable of using this
sort of presidential action to bite into the presidential war power. Lincoln
sent for him, not so much to soothe his feelings as to feel out his intentions.
When the leader of the radicals came into the office this morning, Lincoln
tried to finesse him by pretending he had merely been upholding the will of
the Congress: "You astonish me, Wade. I was adhering to your confiscation
law."
That was hogwash, not intended to be taken seriously, and the red-faced
Ohioan gave the lame excuse short shrift: "FrCmont's proclamation was en-
tirely within the range of military necessity."
"No," argued Lincoln. "If a general finds the need to seize the farm of a
private owner for a fortification, this is within military necessity. But to say
the farm shall no longer belong to the owner, or his heirs, foreverthat's
purely political."
"We're talking about human beings in leg-irons, Lincoln, not 'property.' "
"If a general needs to make use of the labor of slaves, he can seize them and
use thembut it is not for him to fix their permanent future. That must be
settled by laws and not by military proclamations."
Wade waggled his wattles no. "A proclamation is all you need. With a
stroke of the pen, you could set millions free."
"The proclamation by Fremont," said Lincoln, being the lawyer, "is simply
'dictatorship.' It assumes the general may do anything he pleases."
"For God's sake, man, wake up!" Wade exploded. "It is the only means of
saving the government."
"On the contrary, it is itself the surrender of the government." Lincoln was
quite controlled and precise. "Can it be pretended that it is any longer the
government of the United Statesany government of constitution and laws
wherein a general or a president may make permanent rules of property by
proclamation?"
"That's very high-minded, Lincoln. I didn't notice that fine attention to
constitutional principle when you snatched the power to suspend habeus
corpus from the Congress. Our mutual friend, Miss Carroll, cooled me off on
that with her pamphlet, but I'm keeping score." Miss Carroll is Mrs. Wade's
closest friend; that channel is worth remembering.
"This proclamation was reckless," Lincoln said, "it would have surren-
dered the government."
"Come on, Lincoln, be practical," Wade said in his most ingratiatingly
confrontational manner. "Wouldn't this have given a new impetus to the
North? Are you so blinded by expediency that you cannot recognize the real
purpose of the war?"                           r
Lincoln slid back in his chair, his favorite position when getting practical.
He did not seem to resent the lecture, coming from 'Wade, who had earned his
position with the legislature of Ohio and his colleagues in the Senateno
female politician, he. The Tycoon must find refreshing Wade's total lack of
deviousness; when the man comes at you, he swings a huge ax at the center of
your skull. In that, he is wholly different from his fellow Ohioan and fellow
radical Republican, Secretary Chase; perhaps that is why those two pur-
ported political allies detest each other.
The heels of Lincoln's huge boots unlaced to give his corns some ease, went
plunk, plunk on the desk, as he mildly observed: "No doubt the emancipation
thing was popular in some quarters. But when the news came out, a whole
company of our volunteers in Camp Robinson threw down their new arms
and disbanded. The very arms we just furnished Kentuckyand I had prom-
ised not to send any arms into that statemight be turned against us."
"You are making too damn much of Kentucky."
Down came the Lincoln feet, in one big clomp. "To lose Kentucky is nearly
the same as to lose the whole game. Kentucky gone, we cannot hold Mis-
souri, nor, as I think, Maryland. These all against us, the job on our hands is
too large for us. We might as well consent to separation at once, including the
surrender of this capital."
"You're an alarmist," Wade snorted, "and you're beginning to believe
you're a military genius. Disabuse yourself of that, Lincoln. If you can't act to
defeat the insurrection, maybe we need a military dictator who can. Certainly
we need a military committee in the Senate that will rally the nation."
"You already have a military committee."
"Henry Wilson has lost his zeal. With your latest provocation, snatching
away emancipation, we'll need another way to light a fire under you."
He stormed out. That's the way Wade always leaves. Afterward, I asked
Lincoln about the talk of the need for a dictatortemporary, as in Rome
during its wars. That brought him back to his old self.
"Fremont a dictator?" The notion of that noble mind afflicted with the
trials of real government tickled him. "Makes me think of the man whose
horse kicked up and stuck his hoof through the stirrup. Man said to the
horse, If you are going to get on, I will get off.' "
CHAPTER 24
TO SAVE THE CLAN

"Let me tell you a story of tyranny," the preacher heard his nephew cry to
the torchlit throng. The crowd of ten thousand, massed on a hillside that
formed a natural amphitheater, hushed in anticipation of the oratory of the
best speaker Kentucky had yet produced. The speaker's uncle, Robert Jeffer-
son Breckinridge, stood unnoticed with his companion and former ward at
the fringe of the crowd. His bent-iron preacher's body was pitched forward,
as if to help him listen intently.
"George Hubbell was a newsboy," John Breckinridge was saying, his pow-
erful voice carrying a seemingly conversational tone in the sultry evening air.
"He is a cripple, with a spinal deformity, but he hawks the New York Daily
News on the streets and in the railroad stations because he is the sole support
of his poor mother."
The orator held the crowd, largely Southern sympathizers, in rapt atten-
tion; everyone, the uncle realized, loved a story of human interest rather than
some harangue about constitutional wrongdoing. John had that knack of
using a story to get across an abstraction, which was why his nephew had
beaten him at the polls when they ran against each other years ago for the
legislature. Despite that embarrassment, the Reverend Robert Breckinridge
had taken pride in his brother's son's amazing political career. He had mar-
veled at the younger Breckinridge's God-given magnetism even as he took
umbrage at just about everything the young man ever said. Despite the differ-
ences on policy, he had supported his nephew's presidential candidacy last
year, assuming his kinsman would be pro-Union in the end; his nephew had
been grateful for that support, though distancing himself from his uncle's
anti-slavery views. The preacher, uncomfortable in this night's crowd of po-
tential rebels, suspected that God had punished him for allowing family pride
to come before moral principle. The gap had widened between the two Ken-
tuckians since, and now the two Breckinridges represented neutrality vs. loyal
Unionism in their divided native state.
"A United States marshal in Connecticut," the speaker for Kentucky's
neutrality boomed out, "had ordered the selling of the Daily News stopped in
railroads leading to his state, but the crippled newsboy did not heed the
marshal's request. And so the marshal, clothed in all the self-righteousness
that despotism uses to justify its rule, went to Simon Cameron, Lincoln's
Secretary of War."
Sympathetic boos punctuated the oration at the scornful mention of Cam-
eron. Widely accused of corruption, desperate for fresh political support, the
War Secretary had lately been courting the anti-slavery radicals in the North.
"And what was Simon Cameron's answer? He said, 'Arrest himsend the
boy to Fort Lafayette!' I ask you, my friends, is there no depth to which the
zealots of loyalty will not descend? Even Horace Greeley"more boos and
catcalls for the editor of the abolition-agitating New York Tribune"even
Greeley, who has cravenly approved the arrest of editors who oppose the war,
was moved to say this: 'When you descend to arresting newsboys, can the
game be worth the ammunition?' "
The preacher did not expect his nephew to tell the end of that storyhow
Secretary Seward, nudged by a President sensitive to public sentiment, coun-
termanded the Secretary of War's stupid order and released the newsboy.
"Only a little over a month ago, on August 8," the Kentucky senator went
on, "Abraham Lincoln signed into law the loyalty-oath statute. Do you know
what that does? It requires that every person who works for the central
government sign a pledgea sworn oathof loyalty to the United States, the
national government, and renouncing any contrary state resolution or statute.
My friends, that changes the very nature of our government. No longer are
we a free association of sovereign states, as our founders agreedno, we are
now a polity where states are mere districts, powerless fingers at the end of
the central government's all-powerful arm."
"Here comes Jefferson," whispered the preacher's companion, squeezing
his arm. "He never leaves that out, Reverend Bob."
The speaker's uncle nodded grimly. Jefferson was his own middle name,
and the Breckinridge orators never failed to make the connection to the first
John Cabell Breckinridge, who introduced the anti-Federalist Kentucky Res-
olutions defying the national government's infamous Sedition Act. Thomas
Jefferson, fearful of being accused of sedition himself, had guided the hand of
their forebear, and rewarded him in his own presidency with the post of
Attorney General. That Breckinridge-Jefferson alliance had produced the
first victory for what came to be known as states' rights, resisting a central
tyranny.
The speaker surprised them by veering away from political theory and
family history to concentrate on a national scandal reflected in a current local
grievance. "One brave Kentuckian, a writer for the Louisville Courier, de-
scribed that sort of assumption of power over Kentucky by the Lincoln re-
gime as 'a usurpation which no citizen of Kentucky is bound to obey.' And
you know what happened to himhe was dragged out of his bed in the dead
of night by a Federal marshal, and, in defiance of a writ of habeas corpus, was
shipped off to Fort Lafayette. Only God knows if we will ever see that brave
man again. His great newspaper is in danger, at this very moment, of being
silenced forever."
The orator used that incident to foster resentment at what he considered
the termination of free speech that had taken place after the crackdown on
press freedom throughout the North. In New York, the editor of the Journal
of Commerce had rightly said, "There is now no Opposition press," as his
outspoken daily was denied the use of the mails. In Brooklyn, the second
largest city in America, the newspaper with the greatest circulation, the Ea-
gle, was nearly driven out of business by Seward, who relented only after the
editors agreed to stop publishing anti-war opinion. The only anti-Lincoln
voice left in that state was the German-language National Zeitung, untouched
only because Lincoln did not want to offend the largely pro-Union German
community.
The litany of these encroachments on freedom had an effect on the crowd,
which the preacher felt wanted help in justifying disloyalty. Reverend Breck-
inridge understood and despised the way his nephew was providing the crowd
with a moral rationale for opposing the crusade against slavery, making it
seem that it was cowardly to defend the Union against attack and courageous
to refuse to become involved in the evil of war. Underneath these convoluted,
high-sounding arguments of the intellect, the preacher Breckinridge believed,
his nephew was appealing to the crowd's unspoken anger at abolition and fear
of death.
"Damned sophistry," he muttered too loudly, and could immediately feel
hostile eyes in the crowd turn toward him. His companion shushed him and
pulled him farther back up the hill; this was neither the time nor the audience
for a public debate between the Breckinridge men. He recognized that his
nephew would have this crowd overwhelmingly on his side, and that the pro-
rebel Courier account of any confrontation would make it appear that neu-
trality had carried the day, as it did only the other night at the opening of the
Frankfort Peace Convention. Still, it rankled him to hear anyone turn truth
on its head, as his nephew was doing with such effect.
The younger Breckinridge had for more than a week been exploiting the
surge of anti-abolition sentiment in Kentucky caused by Fremont's untimely
emancipation action; the preacher, who had split the Presbyterian Church by
storming out when its synod would not endorse emancipation, thought the
Pathmarker's blow to slavery was morally justified, but the timing could not
have been worse for Kentucky Unionists. Lincoln's quickness in proving he
was not in the radicals' pocket had turned that surge in the other direction; in
speeches throughout the state, the elder, loyal Breckinridge had made the
most of the President's reaffirmation of property rights and rejection of dicta-
torial powers. It was the preacher's assessment that the swift and decisive
Lincoln reaction to Fremont's maneuver left the Union cause in Kentucky
stronger than before.
"Hard upon us all, in Washington and here in Kentucky," his nephew was
saying, "is crowding grim war, with death and devastation in train, with ruin
for every interest, tragedy for many a hearthstone." He had been holding
forth for nearly three hoursabout the expected length for a major oration
and his uncle knew that the theme of the horrors of war would surely be his
conclusion. Reverend Bob did not want to wait for the ending; he wanted to
make a personal, familial, face-to-face appeal to his nephew at his hotel. As
the speaker touched on what some were calling "the holocaust of lives" in
store, Robert Breckinridge pressed Anna Carroll's hand on his arm and
edged back up the hill and out of the fringe of the crowd.
The great, mellow voice followed them into the night. The preacher, his
own speaking style now cramped by asthma, felt it inexplicably unfair that
the Lord had denied him the gift of such an instrument of persuasion.
"Let other sections who call for war learn the horrors of war," the sena-
tor's voice could still be heard to say. "Let Kentucky stand for peace, peace at
any price, and by our example show our sister states. North and South, that
we need not destroy each other!"
His uncle walked forlomly down the other side of the hill toward the town
of Lexington, Anna's grip a support. Twenty years before, she had been his
spiritual ward, and he had lovingly shaped and guided her moral course,
sternly protecting both her and himself from the natural attraction that had
steadily grown until he had found it unbearable. After his return to the West,
they had pursued their careers separately, but in curious unison: like him, she
had fixed her thunder against the dangers of Popery and unbridled immigra-
tion, and led the Know-Nothing movement in Maryland as he had led it in
Kentucky. Foreigners, Catholics, and slaveholders had been their common
foe.
He was thankful that after all these years a concern for his disloyal kins-
man had driven Anna to reestablish contact. Was there more to it than con-
cern? The preacher refused to allow himself to speculate about the nature of
the friendship between his nephew and his former wardhe knew the temp-
tation that must be present, and prayed that no sin attachedand he did not
intend to pry. It was enough that Anna had asked him to join forces to save
his nephew from the gravest consequences of his political folly. All she had
asked was that their joint plea be presented as his idea, a white lie apparently
rooted in feminine modesty. He felt no compunctions about that, and indeed
was pleased that Anna retained a certain personal shyness despite her career
as crusading public pamphleteer.
Robert Breckinridge was even more pleased that his detailed argument
against state sovereignty had been taken up by Lincoln in his most recent
message to Congress (no state save Texas had ever been sovereign) and was
flattered by the talk of his possible nomination, if he kept Kentucky in the
Union, to replace the corrupt Cameron. A more profound motive existed,
however, for his willingness to take the lead in petitioning his nephew and
political rival at this crucial moment: his family was tearing itself apart. His
nephew's young son, Cabell, had run away to fight for the South; his niece,
Mary Elizabeth, had joined the Union nurses; closer to home, of his four sons
of military age, two were leaning North, two actually thinking of fighting
with the South. He could never forgive his boys if they turned traitor, and
would cast them out forever; but they would be far less likely to rend his
family and blight his old age if John C. could be persuaded to remain loyal.
"Neutrality," he told Anna Carroll, walking through the outskirts of town
toward the Phoenix Hotel, "that's the key. It's John's idea, and that's how we
can hold him."
"No possibility exists of any state remaining neutral," she said glumly.
"Of course not," he agreed. "But if John bases his decision on which side
violates Kentucky neutrality, we may have him. President Lincoln has as-
sured me that he will not send in his forces first." General Anderson, the
Kentuckian who had been the hero of Fort Surnter, was under strict orders to
sit tight with his men in Porkopolis, as Cincinnati was nicknamed, and Sam
Grant was to make no move across the river from Cairo, Illinois.
"That's just not so, Reverend Bob. Lincoln has been quietly reinforcing
Camp Robinson for the past month, and sending in arms."
He waved that off; she had not lost her unfortunate habit of being too
literal and too ready to contradict. "Those are Kentuckians training in their
own state. Neutrality would be violated only if an outstate army moves across
the Kentucky frontier."
He knew that public opinion would be swayed by which side moved on
Kentucky first. He prayed, for the sake of his state as well as of his immediate
family, that the rebels would be the first to be drawn across the line.
To the loyal Breckinridge, Kentucky's choice was not between war and
neutrality, as his benighted nephew held, but between North and South, de-
mocracy and anarchy, right and wrong. His full, iron-gray beard quivered
with righteousness: with the help of God, Lincoln, and this woman beside
himand counting on the stupidity and impatience of Leonidas Polk, the
Episcopal bishop who was the general of the rebel troops to the southhe
would bring his kinsman back from the brink of folly, treason, and eternal
damnation.
CHAPTHR 25
EVERY REBEL You KILL . . .
He swallowed a couple of times as he walked up the stairs, testing his throat
after the oration, pleased that it felt in no way strained; after his three hours
on the platform, only his feet hurt. On his speaking tours, Breck always
traveled with a sack of salts in his valise, and looked forward now to lying
down crosswise on his bed with his lower legs and feet dangling over into a
bucket of hot foot-soak. After a Senate speech the previous year, Anna had
surprised him by massaging his aching feet, an uncharacteristic gesture that
introduced him to the notion that each toe was a separate, living thing, de-
serving individual attention. It had been a month since she had handed him
his traveling bag, and he missed her.
As he put the large hotel key into the lock, Breck frowned at the light
coming from under the door. He had left the Phoenix Hotel suite during the
daytime.
He wished he had followed John Hunt Morgan's advice and armed himself.
Morgan was a hothead whose arming of the sharpshooters called the Lexing-
ton Rifles would be seen as a warlike provocation, and Breck had spoken to
him sharply about that, but the young horseman's suggestion about carrying
a gun was probably sensible: a moderate form of self-protection might have
been prudent for the man who was the object of Unionist hatred. Yet someone
had to set the example for the principle of neutrality, and for the courage
needed by peacemakers; besides, if some Yankee zealot was set on killing "the
traitor Breckinridge," no weapon in his pocket would save him. If the rumors
about plans to arrest neutralists were true and a Federal marshal awaited
him, he would not shoot it out, even if armed; he had thought that through,
and would attempt an escape on the way to Fort Lafayette. Under no circum-
stances would he spend the war as a prisoner, considered a fool in the South
and a traitor in the North, and unable to be heard in behalf of any cause. He
turned the key and pushed open the door.
An Old Testament prophet faced him from his armchair with a stern angel
standing behind. Breck took a deep breath and stared, first at Anna Carroll,
with whom he had shared a most unsatisfactory farewell, and then at his
Uncle Robert, gnarled hands gripping the arms of the chair, cold eyes looking
over the spectacles at the end of his bulbous nose, his half-gray, half-white
beard flowing down to the middle of his chest.
"We told the man at the desk we were family," she explained, "and he let
us in to wait for you."
He smiled, mock-angry. "You were here in Lexington and you missed my
speech? I talked for three hours, settled everything."
"I know all your arguments," she said. Anna knew them as well as he did
himself; in some cases, such as President Jefferson's latter-day switch to cen-
tral supremacy, better.
"And they're all wrong," added his uncle. "Did you read her Reply to
Breckinridge pamphlet? Destroys every one of your positions; Lincoln himself
said so."
"The President sent word to me through Bates," she said chattilyshe
always spoke quickly and most self-assuredly when she was evading a show of
emotion"that they want ten thousand printed. I want to print fifty thou-
sand, but I can't find the money."
"You'll find it," Breck said, drinking her in. He wished his uncle was not
there. "Do you have a free copy for the actor in the title role?" She smiled
tentatively, took a copy out of the bag in her hand and gave it to him. She
seemed to want no evidence of warmth in front of his uncle, so he took it with
a small bow of thanks.
"I asked Anna to join me in this visit," said the older man, "to verify in
your own mind two most important facts that bear on your future, as well as
that of our family and our country."
Breck had hoped the idea to come all the way from Washington to Ken-
tucky to visit him was Anna's, but no matter; he was prepared to accept that
whatever information the two of them conveyed was true. He offered them
some of Jesse Wood's fine Old Crow bourbon whiskey, which Anna accepted
and his uncle declined.
"I have this message from my friends in the War Department," said Anna.
"They commend to you the example of your good friend, John McClernand.
They seemed certain you would catch the significance of that."
Breck nodded. John McClernand had been born in Breckinridge County,
Kentucky, and the families were friendly; he had moved to Springfield, Illi-
nois, and become the Democratic representative from that district, serving in
the Congress in a seat close to Breck's. The short, dapper Democrat was a
political ally and drinking companion of Breck, but by choosing to remain
loyal to the Union, he had reaped the political benefits: he was now a general
in the Federal Army and was said to be a favorite of the President's, likely to
lead the movement down the Mississippi denied to Fr6mont. High military
command, influence at the top in Washington, receiving all the favor a Re-
publican administration could bestow without losing the position of member
of the loyal opposition, ultimately another clear opportunity at the presidency
it was all there for Breck to take, even after his sometimes strident criticism
of the Lincoln administration. He was not surprised; he and Lincoln had
argued strenuously, but had come to respect each other, and Breck had some-
thing important to offer at a crucial moment: a much more united Kentucky
on the Union side.
"Together, you and I could make a difference in this war," said his uncle.
"Opposed, the Breckinridges would be like paired senators, canceling each
other out. Togetherhigh field command for you, high civilian command for
mewe can set an example for our children. Your son, my sonsthey would
follow the united family."
That filial consideration could not be ignored; his uncle had evoked a
powerful argument. Breck was heartsick at the absence of Cabell, and knew
that his uncle feared that his four boys might be forced into fighting each
othernot merely serving on opposing sides, but actually shooting at each
other in battle on Kentucky soil. That prospect of family unity, as well as the
veiled offer of a high commandnot to mention the resumption of his double
life in Washington with Annaweighed heavily in the scales.
"I'm not making a choice between North and South," he reminded them.
"I'm choosing neutrality, with Kentucky the corridor through which peace
can be made. At least one state has to keep its head amid all this craziness. I
just spoke to ten thousand Kentuckians who agree."
"My audiences just as fervently disagree," said his uncle.
"How about a series of debates throughout the state?" Breck suggested,
eager to get at those crowds reluctant to hear him now.
"No, my voice is physically no match for yours." Perhaps that was an
excuse, but Breck knew the older man was not to be drawn into conflict on
his nephew's terms. "John, neutrality is not an alternative. Neutrality is a
position that only an independent nation can take in a foreign war, and
Kentucky has never been an independent nation. It takes sovereignty to pro-
claim neutrality"
"and for any state to declare neutrality," Anna finished for him, "is just
as much an assertion of sovereignty as it would be for that state to secede. An
insurrection is going on, a civil war, and no part of the Union has the right to
stand aside."
"A state proclamation of neutrality is an anti-Union act," the older Breck-
inridge added, "and you, John, have always spoken up for Unionism. That's
why I could support you in last year's campaign, despite our disagreement
about emancipation."
Breck believed such sovereignty to refuse war existed in each state, and
that Kentucky's continued neutrality would ultimately contribute to a
stronger freedom in a smaller Union, but saw no advantage to debating in
private what his uncle was unwilling to debate before the citizens. As he
listened, he leafed through Anna's pamphlet A Reply to Breckinridge, recall-
ing the morning that he had first read a drafttheir last time together, in her
rooms at the Ebbitt Housewhen a name in it leaped off the page at him.
"You talk about General Quitman in here, Anna." He glanced further,
surprised and alarmed. "My God, you have the Quitman papers, all the
letters."
Breck had met John Anthony Quitman, Calhoun's nullification lawyer, in
the Mexican War; in the early fifties, Calhoun, Quitmanthen governor of
Mississippiand others plotted secession, to be sparked by forcing the fed-
eral government to reinforce a Southern fort to ignite a conflict, just as hap-
pened at Surnter in Charleston Harbor. The youthful Breckinridge had been
on the fringes of that group, disagreeing with the plotters but never exposing
them. But here, in Anna's pamphlet, was the damning story, with quotations
from correspondence exchanged over a decade, demonstrating that the rebel-
lion was far from a spontaneous reaction to Lincoln's election or a response
to Northern provocation. Breck's heart sank. In cold print, the documents
made what he considered merely correspondence among disgruntled but not
disloyal Southerners appear to be a long-term plot to dismember the Union.
In the context of A Reply to Breckinridge, the revelation of the secret history
of the secession movement made him seem to be one of the central plotters.
"I didn't know you meant to destroy me," he said, stunned, "I thought you
were writing a reply to my arguments." He turned a page, and winced at a
letter urging the takeover of Cuba, Mexico, and all of tropical America. That
was the sort of wholly impractical imagining that Calhoun's friends had
tossed about, mainly to show to believers in a strong nation how a Southern
Confederacy could grow to be more powerful than the current Union.
"The Quitman 'plot' was just a lot of talk," he added, "never meant any-
thing. But this seems to give substance to all the nonsense you hear now
about the Knights of the Golden Circle." That was the conspiracy scare that
Lincoln men were currently using to stifle dissent and to whip up bitterness at
men like him.
"When I go to war, I use all the ammunition I have," she said. Anna had
been a repository of much of the correspondence, perhaps from her friend
and railroad client Jefferson Davis, perhaps through her Know-Nothing ac-
tivity. The plotters had been as much friends of hers as of Breck's, a fact not
alluded to in her pamphlet. "When you left after that Senate speech, I was
very angry."
And she was the wrong person to anger. The publication of this inflam-
matory material would be useful to thosenot Ned Baker, but perhaps sena-
tors like Sumner and Wadewho were not content with calling him a traitor
but were urging his arrest. Other elected advocates of peace like Representa-
tive Clem Vallandigham were being heavily criticized but were not considered
such threats as to warrant the arrest of a duly elected public official; Breckin-
ridge, in Kentucky at the knife's edge, was a threat that many felt had to be
stopped.
"Have you heard of any plans to put me in Fort Lafayette?" he asked his
uncle bluntly.
The older man sighed, looked up and back at Anna, and replied, "That is
another reason for our being here. Just as there are those willing to make
certain concessions to attract you to the cause, there are others, um . . ."
"Who want to hang you," she finished. "Seward is one. At the War Depart-
ment, Cameron's lawyer, Stanton, says that as soon as the Kentucky legisla-
ture rejects neutrality, the Federal commander at Camp Robinson here would
have the authority to arrest you without warrant or writ."
Breck nodded ruefully; that power was in a law he had fought against in
the Senate. Although the Kentucky governor was foursquare for neutrality,
the majority of Kentucky legislators favored joining the war on the side of the
Union. Despite the Peace Convention and the picnics throughout the state,
the legislature was likely to make its declaration any moment. Public opinion
in Kentucky, he judged, went one third secession (like his son), one third
loyal (like his uncle), and the controlling third neutral, like himself; if either
North or South invaded, the neutral third would largely turn against which-
ever side was the invader. That is what Breck would be inclined to do, and he
assumed that most others like-minded would be inclined the same way.
The only hope for neutrality was to keep the pro-Union legislature from
acting, to keep pro-secession firebrands like Morgan from raiding arsenals,
and to keep both North and South from invading; that way he could stay free
and keep the state neutral. Breck was aware that his chances for success were
slim, getting slimmer every day.
"I do not see," he said, fishing for more information, "in the light of the
feeling against me in the Senate and the War Department, how there could be
any serious bridges back."
His uncle hastened to assure him: "Anna here, who was remorseful after
the publication of her pamphlet gave comfort to your detractors, made cer-
tain that your course of loyalty would be well received at the highest quar-
ters."
This visit to Lexington had been Anna's idea, then; that made more sense,
and made him feel better, too, about Anna's attachment to him. On that last
day in the Senate, he had infuriated hernot only for speaking in favor of
peaceful separation, but for jeopardizing his careerbut he found it more
acceptable, even satisfying, to have her angry and later forgiving than merely
disgusted, as she had seemed at the time. He realized that Anna had reestab-
lished contact with his unclewhose influence she had broken away from
years ago at an emotional costin order to reconciliate with his nephew.
That displayed more contrition about her rejection of him, and regret for her
bitterness in her pamphlet about him, than she could ever put into words.
"The old gentleman is on your side," she said, referring to Francis Blair,
"and Mrs. Lincoln is not without influence."
Shouts from the crowd in the street below brought his uncle to his feet. He
drew aside the drape, opened the window, and leaned out. Breck took that
opportunity to tell Anna that he was grateful for her friendship and glad that
his uncle had prevailed on her to come. Anna seemed relieved that he did not
carry on about the Quitman exposure.
"Not all your partisans, back from the speech," Robert Breckinridge said,
pulling back into the room. "Mixed crowd, could get ugly. I shall make
arrangements, Anna, for us to take rooms here in the Phoenix for the night."
She nodded and looked at Breck. His hopes rose of being alone with Anna
later. "What worries me most," she said, "is the possibility of the Federals
violating Kentucky neutrality. We could lose you on that."
She knew him well. "It would be foolish, but it's tempting," he said. "You
have Generals Anderson and Grant just across the Ohio River, in Cincinnati,
and a brigade of McClernand's backing them up in Cairo. They must be
dying to come across and grab Paducah."
"What is so signficant about Paducah?" his uncle asked.
"The Tennessee River is the key to the war. If the North takes Paducah,"
he explained, more for Anna's benefit, "and gets past Fort Henry, the Union
forces would have a clear run down the Tennessee River to Pittsburg Land-
ing, near the Alabama line." He knew it was not actually "down" river, since
the Tennessee was one of the few waterways that quirkily flowed the other
way, but it was in a southward direction and appeared "down" on a map, and
most people who had not traveled the river said that. As a boy, he had taken
a raft from Paducah, at the junction of the Ohio and Tennessee, south to
Pittsburg  Landing,  pitching  a tent  alongside the  old  log Methodist
meetinghouse that the parishioners had given the biblical name Shiloh
Chapel.
Robert's Presbyterian preacher's bewhiskered face still wore a blank look;
military strategy required some understanding of logistics, the science of sup-
ply lines, which Breck had picked up in the Mexican War. Anna Carroll, with
her background in railroad promotion, quickly finished the obvious strategy:
"If the Union took Pittsburg Landing, as far south as Alabama, we could
supply the Federal army by water down the Tennessee River. Then the North
would be able to turn right and pick off the great Mississippi River ports from
the rearMemphis, Port Hudson, Vicksburg."
"Couldn't take the Mississippi any other way," Breck said, distracted now
by the noise from the street, "and who controls Big Muddy wins the war.
'Old Fuss and Feathers' is right about that." In addition, a fast river-thrust
that far south would enable the North to sever the main east-west rail line
that was the backbone of the Confederacy, but it occurred to him that some
military strategy was better not vouchsafed to his pro-war uncle.
At a rapping on the door, Breck motioned to Anna to move to the side of
the room, out of the line of any potential fire. He asked loudly who was there.
"My name is Haldeman," said a voice in the hallway. "I own the Courier. I
have some news for you."
Breck opened the door briskly, extended his hand, and drew in the short,
unarmed publisher. He recognized his staunchest supporter in the press. Wal-
ter Haldeman's Courier had beat the drum for Breckinridge in the presiden-
tial campaign, while the Louisville Journal had gone for Stephen Douglas,
and the third paper, the Democrat, had taken up for John Bell, who carried
the state. In recent weeks the pro-slavery Courier had supported Senator
Breckinridge's neutrality crusade, on the theory that such a position would
better help the South.
Breck told the publisher he could speak in front of his visitors, and Halde-
man said in a flat voice: "General Leonidas Polk in Tennessee, anticipating a
move by the Yankees on Paducah, has sent a Confederate force across our
border." When the doom of neutrality had sunk in, he reported further: "He
has occupied Columbus, Kentucky."
"Hallelujah," breathed Robert Breckinridge. "Serves the rebels right for
trusting an Episcopal bishop at the head of an army. That idiot is delivering
Kentucky into the bosom of the Union."
"You may be right, Reverend Breckinridge," the publisher said sourly,
"The army that Lincoln outfitted outside Louisville, despite all those prom-
ises of neutrality, suppressed my newspaper this afternoon. Just marched in
and arrested the editor and shut the paper down."
"Undoubtedly a wise decision," the preacher snapped. Breck could not
blame him for that thoughtless reaction, because he knew how the Courier
had savagely denounced his uncle's stand and reviled his emancipation activi-
ties. "War has come to Kentucky, and your damned treasonous rag has been
aiding and abetting the enemy."
"You never gave a damn who got killed in this state," Haldeman retorted.
"I remember when you and your Know-Nothings egged on the rabble to
butcher the people of Louisville unfortunate enough to be immigrants."
Anna, no stranger to the Know-Nothing campaign against the foreign-
born, changed the subject to a more immediate and personal one: "Breck, this
means the rebels have violated Kentucky's neutrality. Your course should be
clear now. You tried to keep the peace here, but the Confederate General
Polk broke the peace with an invasion."
True. Breck, if he chose, could now go North with honor, although he
knew that was far from Haldeman's purpose in bringing him the news. If that
was to be his course, how to get word to Cabell? Perhaps he could get Mary
Elizabeth, Uncle Bob's grandniece, to get in touch with a counterpart in the
rebel ranks to bring the boy backat his age, nothing he had done could be
considered treason.
The publisher of the Louisville Courier, clearly uncomfortable about speak-
ing in front of a political arch-enemy, broke into his thoughts with a request:
"Senator, I have to see you alone. Right away, preferably downstairs." When
Breck hesitated, Haldeman added, "There's more for you to know. It is
private, secret, andbelieve meurgent."
Breck asked Anna and his uncle to wait in the room; it would not be good
for either of them to be seen with him at that moment, particularly if Breck
did not decide to go North, though the loyalist tug was unmistakable. He
followed the publisher down the back stairs to a small room off the noisy
hotel lobby.
"The other news is from the capital in Frankfort."
"The Peace Convention?" It had been meeting that day; he was scheduled
to address it the next night.
"The Kentucky legislature has declared an end to neutrality and taken the
side of the Union."
Bad news, but not as bad as the Confederacy's decision to invade Ken-
tucky. "That's understandable," he said, "given Bishop Folk's move across
our border."
"You don't understand, Breckinridge. It means that the Union troops right
here at Camp Robinsonthe same ones that closed down my paper this
afternooncan now make immediate arrests. And one of your uncle's flunk-
ies in Frankfort, the Speaker of the House, put your name at the top of the
arrest list."
He began to get a cornered feeling. "I can go to Frankfort and protest"
"You seem to think you still have some kind of political choice," Haldeman
said urgently. "The fact is that a detachment of troops left Camp Robinson a
couple of hours ago for the sole purpose of taking you and me into custody.
They should be here within an hour, maybe less. Whatever protesting you do,
you'll do from inside a cell at Fort Lafayette."
All choice had been snatched from him. Circumstance had shut down what
he imagined to be his alternative, like troops shutting down a printing press.
Perhaps all thought of making a choice had always been a chimera, and his
course opposing Lincoln, and before that in opposing Douglas, had been
leading him inexorably into rebellion. The thought of self-entrapment pained
him. He might have gone South on a matter of pride or principle, but now he
would have to go as a matter of necessity. Fomey had been right: John
Breckinridge was not destined to return to the United States Senate.
Pain at his failure to control events, even to control his own personal
decision, was followed by a kind of relief: If the choice had been made for
him, at least he could make the most of it. He was not the only one sucked
into the maelstrom of civil war, and already he could feel his resentment
rising against the forces seeking to hunt him down and silence his voice.
"Mr. Haldeman, I want you to know how saddened, how outraged, I am
about the suppression of your newspaper. It was the most courageous voice
for peace in our state."
"Not dead yet," said Haldeman. "I'm headed out to Bowling Green. The
western part of Kentucky will be impossible for the Federals to control,
especially with a man like Sidney Johnston in command of all Confederate
forces in the West. I'll publish there and smuggle copies up here. Ah, there's
Morgan at last."
John Hunt Morgan, rifle slung and a pistol in his belt, eyes bright with
excitement, led a crowd of his Lexington riflemen into the lobby. The noise
died; arguments between the several hundred Kentuckians ceased in the pres-
ence of the hard-looking young men bearing arms.
"We raided the armory, Breck, and took some of those 'Lincoln guns,' "
Morgan said. "We have horses for both of youterrible old nags, but they'll
have to do. I'd say we're a good half hour ahead of the regiment sent to get
you. You want to say good-bye to this crowd for all of us?"
Breck did not know how to say no to a request for a speech. He stood on a
chair and addressed the lobby crowd of his fellow Kentuckians, whom he
judged to be evenly split between pro-Union and secesh. Should he send the
publisher up to his room to fetch his uncle and Anna? It would be better,
when the Federal troops came for him, that his friends and relatives be hon-
estly surprised at his defection. He ached to have Anna hear his farewell, as
she had heard so many of his speeches from her seat in the Senate gallery
especially, came the rueful afterthought, since this would necessarily be brief
and pointed, the sort of oratorical style she kept encouraging him to adopt.
But to bring her downstairs to the lobby to have her listen to him, in these
times of hysteria, would be risking her pro-Union reputation, perhaps even
her neck.
"My friends," he filled the room with his voice, "I have tried to stand for
this state's wishes in Washington. I have opposed Lincoln's war policy at
every step."
The crowd, as always in Kentucky since the time of Henry Clay, was made
up of partisans of all stripes, interspersed this time with mountain men ready
to go to war. The roomful of bluegrass citizens, abuzz with rumors of the
impending arrests, quickly quieted to give him what he knew would be his
last Kentucky hearing for a long time.
"I deny that I have committed any crimes, and I reject all charges that I
have misrepresented my fellow Kentuckians.
"I resign my office for the most compelling of reasons," he told them with
unfeigned sadness. "I resign because there is no place left where a Southern
senator may sit in council with the senators of the North. In truth, within the
meaning and spirit of the Constitution, there is no longer a Senate of the
United States."
No boos or applause met his remarks; the crowd's members were either
tearfully respectful or silently angry. "I am fleeing now, frankly, to avoid
arrest. If I had any assurance that a trial by jury was possible, I would
welcome arrest and would happily subject myself to the workings of a free
judicial system. But that is not the sort of arrest in store for me, or for anyone
who has dared to speak out against the usurpation of our rights as individual
Americans, or our rights as citizens of sovereign states.
"Will Kentucky consent to these usurpations of Mr. Lincoln, to suffer her
children to be imprisoned and exiled? Nevernever, while thousands of her
gallant sons like these men here have the will and the nerve to make the state
sing to the music of their rifles."
That drew a cheer from a portion of the crowd, but he did not want to
leave on a note of ordinary defiance. "I wanted peace and now have war. I
wanted Union and now see a land permanently divided, because it would be
wrong for either section to conquer and rule over the other. With my eyes
open, I cast my lot with those who have been denied the protections and
freedoms that are their birthright."
Morgan's raiders, he knew, were itching to run for the horses, but the
departing senator was not quite finished talking to his constituents. Breck
decided to be brutally honest about his choice, or lack of choice, in the
decision to "go South."
"I have been forced to choose between arrest, exile, and resistance. I intend
to resist. Therefore I now exchange, with proud satisfaction, a term of six
years in the Senate of the United States for the musket of a soldier."
Later that night, after a regiment of Federal troops arrived to arrest the
men who had fled not forty minutes before, Anna Carroll stood in a corner of
the Phoenix lobby listening to Reverend Robert Breckinridge address the pro-
Northern Kentuckians and the Union troops.
"How shall we deal with our traitorous brethren?" the preacher cried.
"How can we pull the trigger, you will ask, at Kentuckians we know and
have grown up with and love? Let me tell you how.
"When Simon de Montfort was slaughtering the Protestants in the South
of France, he was appealed to by certain persons, declaring that his men were
mistaken, that they were killing many who were good Catholics. To which he
replied: 'Kill them all; God knows his own. ' And this is the way we should deal
with our treasonous Kentucky brethren, even those whose hearts we think
may not be in rebellion; treat them all alike, and if there are any among them
who are not rebels at heart God will take care of them and save them at last.
"By every blow you strike," Robert Jefferson Breckinridge thundered at
the armed men in front of him, "by every rebel you kill, by every battle you
windreadful as it is to do ityou are adding, it may be a year, it may be a
century, it may be ten centuries, to the life of your government and the
freedom of your children."
The bloody-minded words made her shudder. Most of those present knew
that among "every rebel you kill" might be the enraged preacher's nephew,
and son-in-law, and two of his four sons.