Mary drew herself up and regarded her older sister evenly. “You know why.”
“I truly don’t.”
“Robert, of course,” Mary snapped, impatient. “I will never again allow him to come into my presence. You can tell him that.”
Frances’s heart plummeted. “Mary, you can’t mean that you would ever—he’s your son!”
Quickly Mary stepped around her, retrieved the pistol, and slipped it into the pocket of her heavy wool dress. “I will do nothing unless I am provoked. You can tell him that too.”
18
April 1861
Emilie
When Emilie read her eldest sisters’ and half-sisters’ accounts of their glorious adventure in Washington City—the powerful address that brother Abe had delivered from the east portico of the Capitol; the splendid inaugural ball held in the “White Muslin Palace of Aladdin,” an enormous temporary ballroom constructed on Judiciary Square; the thrill of staying at the White House and marveling at how wonderfully Mary’s childhood dream had come true—she wished with all her heart that she and Ben had accepted the Lincolns’ invitation to join them on the Inaugural Express to Washington City. Sadly, Ben had felt that it would be inappropriate to attend, for as much as he loved and respected Abe, he was a staunch Democrat and had campaigned for Mr. Douglas.
“Brother Abe doesn’t care about that,” Emilie had protested, crushed. “He and Mary wouldn’t have invited us if they did. Ninian is attending, and he’s a Democrat. Even Martha is going, and Alabama has seceded. We’re family, first and always. Can we not celebrate Abe’s great achievement for that reason alone and forget our differences?”
But her husband had insisted that it would have been ungracious to accept Abe’s hospitality when Ben had not supported him in the election, as other brothers-in-law had done, and so with great regret, he had declined. Afterward, when the newspapers described Mr. Douglas himself accepting a place of honor near Abe’s seat on the platform and holding Abe’s hat for him while he delivered his inaugural address, Ben had ruefully acknowledged that perhaps they could have accepted the invitation after all. By then it was too late, and Emilie had only her sisters’ enthralling descriptions of the glorious celebrations to console her.
Thus, in April, when brother Abe sent Ben a personal invitation to visit him at the White House, a thrill of anticipation swept through her. She knew that Mary longed for Emilie and Ben to visit even more than Abe did. By then, all of Mary’s friends and family except for Lizzie Grimsley had returned to their own homes, and even their good and noble cousin occasionally mentioned how much she missed her children back in Springfield. Reading between the lines of her cousin’s letters, Emilie surmised that Mary found herself increasingly lonely as the Washington elite continued to snub her. How strange it was to imagine her confident, generous, and vivacious elder sister feeling unsettled in her new surroundings and in the exalted role she had desired for so long! Yet never before had Mary lived among strangers who were thoroughly unimpressed with her family name, which had always carried great influence back in Lexington and Springfield. Brother Abe, preoccupied with the demands of his high office, had surrounded himself with colleagues who regarded his wife’s notes about policies and appointments as annoying and meddlesome. His aides obliged her to struggle with them for control of the very White House functions for which she was the hostess. Excluded from her husband’s inner circle, missing her departed sisters and nieces, disdained by the popular ladies of Washington, Mary had confided to Lizzie that, aside from Lizzie herself, her only true friend within a hundred miles was her dressmaker, Mrs. Keckly.
Deeply sympathetic, Emilie longed to visit Washington even more urgently than before, for helping to raise Mary’s spirits was far more important than attending balls and levees and enjoying royal treatment at the White House. To her delight, this time Ben agreed that they should go. “This is a personal invitation not only from my brother-in-law, but my president,” he said. “We both want to visit them, and to refuse would be to offend people we dearly love for no good reason.”
Thrilled, Emilie flung her arms around her husband and kissed his cheek. “I’ll write to Mary, and you write to Abe—right away, please, so I needn’t fear you’ll change your mind!”
She and Ben had only begun to make their travel arrangements when shocking news came from South Carolina. At first the reports were scattered and contradictory, but terrifying; in Lexington, men crowded the telegraph offices and hotels, demanding news and spreading rumors, but no one knew precisely what was happening, or what might have already happened. Waiting anxiously for Ben to bring home news from his well-placed sources, Emilie soon learned of the grim picture emerging of recent events at Fort Sumter.
Since December, when the crisis in Charleston Harbor had begun, Ben had opined on several occasions that if the president ordered the federal troops to abandon Fort Sumter and a second stronghold, Fort Pickens on Santa Rosa Island near Pensacola, the South could be reconciled to the Union peacefully. His father, a former governor of Kentucky, emphatically disagreed, insisting that appeasing the secessionists would only embolden them and provoke similar conflicts elsewhere. Emilie’s instinct was always to side with her husband, but listening to the father and son debate, she realized that the country faced a terrible impasse: surrendering the forts would embarrass Abe, undermining the authority of his administration and thereby his power to hold the Union together, while sending provisions to Major Anderson could provoke an attack that would lead to civil war.
In all the weeks since, citizens North and South had waited, fearful or eager, for one side or the other to act. On the day after Abe’s inauguration, the first item placed upon his desk had been a letter from Major Anderson, informing him that his soldiers’ provisions would be exhausted within a month, even though the men had already dropped to half rations. In early April, Abe had ordered supply ships sent to Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens, and although the news had not been released to the public, he had notified the governor of South Carolina through other channels. The governor had responded with an ultimatum: he demanded that all federal troops evacuate Fort Sumter immediately. Major Anderson had refused, resolutely holding his position. On the morning of April 12, Confederate cannons bombarded the fort from artillery batteries installed around the harbor. After exchanging fire with Confederate guns for thirty-four hours—surrounded, their supplies all but exhausted—Major Anderson had been forced to surrender.
To Emilie, Lexington seemed equally divided between those who were outraged by the attack and those who rejoiced over it. While secessionists cheered the start of war, Union households draped windows and balconies with red-white-and-blue bunting and flew the Stars and Stripes from every mast and flagpole. Southern sympathizers openly sought recruits for the Confederate Army, while loyal Union men rushed to join militias. On April 15, President Lincoln issued a call for seventy-five thousand troops to suppress the insurrection, with a certain quota required from each state. Emilie’s father-in-law agreed with the president that these troops, enlisted to serve for ninety days, would be sufficient to put down the rebellion, but Ben was not convinced. A graduate of West Point, class of 1851, he had served in the army until health issues had compelled him to resign. He had studied under or alongside many of the men now emerging as leaders on both sides of the conflict, and he knew that none of them would be easily intimidated or defeated.
While New York and other states throughout the Union promptly organized volunteer troops in response to the president’s call to arms, the governors of Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, and Virginia declared that they would furnish no regiments to go to war against their Southern brethren. Then, on April 17, two days after Abe issued his proclamation, Virginia seceded from the Union. This devastating blow to the North provoked great rejoicing throughout the secessionist South. Surely it was only a matter of time before the new independent commonwealth of Virginia added its military and economic might to the Confederacy.
>
Emilie and Ben knew they would be visiting the White House at a particularly fraught moment. Although Washington was the capital of the Union, it was essentially a Southern city, surrounded by Maryland to the north and east on the other side of Chesapeake Bay, and separated from Virginia to the west and south by only the Potomac River. Maryland had not seceded, but like Kentucky, it was a slave state, with regions of passionate sympathy for the South. Abe would doubtless be preoccupied with his duties, and Mary distracted with her husband’s needs, but neither Emilie nor Ben was inclined to cancel. They had promised to visit, Ben could not ignore a personal invitation from the president, Mary would need Emilie’s cheerful and supportive presence more than ever, and a more favorable occasion to visit seemed unlikely to appear anytime soon.
On the eve of their departure, when they took the children to Buena Vista to stay with Ma during their absence, Ma pleaded with Emilie to delay the journey, only for a few months, just until the rebellion subsided. “It says in the papers that Washington City is bracing for an invasion, that the Confederates want to make it the capital of the South,” she said, her expression tense and apprehensive. “The city is surrounded by enemies, and no one knows who will arrive first, trained militia companies from the North or invaders from the South.”
“I’m sorry, Ma, but I must go. Mary’s expecting me,” Emilie said gently, smiling an apology and kissing her mother on the cheek. “Please don’t worry. If Washington weren’t safe, brother Abe would have sent Mary and the boys north to New York.”
Her mother said no more, but her downturned mouth and teary eyes showed that she was not reassured.
The next morning, as arranged, a neighbor took Ben and Emilie and their trunks to the train station, from whence they traveled north to Cincinnati, then east across southeastern Ohio. They were obliged to change trains at a town on the Ohio River, so Emilie went out for a stroll to stretch her legs and take in the fresh air while Ben saw to the transfer of their luggage. The view of the broad river and the green hills of Virginia on the opposite side was enchantingly lovely, but she felt a wistful pang as she admired the scene. It did not seem real that she was gazing upon a foreign country and that, when they crossed the river, they would leave the United States. Abe would say that they had not, but Ben would counter that indeed they had.
A train whistle blew. Startled from her reverie, Emilie left the riverbank and made her way back to the station. She had almost reached the platform stairs when she glimpsed Ben hurrying toward her, so she held up her skirts slightly and quickened her pace. “Did I misjudge the time?” she asked when he offered her his arm and hastened her toward the train.
“No, it’s only that—” Ben glanced over his shoulder, assisted her aboard the train, and followed quickly after. “Don’t worry, but there are rumors flying around the station that there may be trouble ahead, in Baltimore.”
She paused to glance over her shoulder at her husband as she preceded him into the rail carriage. “What sort of trouble?”
“You’re aware, of course,” said Ben as they made their way down the corridor, his voice low so that no one would overhear, “that Union troops traveling by train to Washington from the Northern states have to pass through Baltimore, about forty miles northeast of the capital.”
Emilie nodded, although she had not actually given the route much thought until that moment.
“Why is that a concern?” she asked quietly, checking the numbers on the doors for their compartment. “Maryland is still in the Union. If we were going to run into trouble, I would expect it to be directly across the river, in Virginia.”
The steam whistle blew as they entered their compartment and shut the door behind them; slowly, but with increasing speed, the train chugged out of the station.
“As it happens,” Ben said, glancing out the small window, “our route passes through a region of Virginia that did not want to leave the Union. Even now some politicians are clamoring for their counties to secede from Virginia instead and form their own state, so that they may remain.”
Emilie shook her head, incredulous. What had become of their country? The unimaginable was unfolding before their very eyes, every day. “And while Maryland remains in the Union, much of Baltimore wishes that it had not.”
“Exactly so. Rumors abound that thousands of Marylanders with Southern sympathies are plotting to block the passage of Northern troops through the city, and since Baltimore does have a history of street-mob violence, the authorities must take the threat seriously.” Ben rubbed his bearded jaw, frowning, as he settled back against the leather seat. “Complicating matters is a quirk of Baltimore’s railway system.”
“A quirk?” echoed Emilie, eyebrows rising. “Like the quirk that threatened the Inaugural Express?”
Ben nodded. “In this case, trains bound for Washington arrive at President Street Station, but then they must be towed by teams of horses several blocks west through the city streets to Camden Station, from which they may resume their journey by rail. In times of peace, the system is merely inconvenient.”
Emilie felt a chill as she finished the thought on her own. In a time of war, it was potentially disastrous. “We’re aboard a passenger train, not a troop transport,” she said, forcing confidence into her voice. “Surely we’re in no danger.”
His riveting blue eyes held hers. “Dearest, if I thought you were in any danger, I never would have let you board this train.”
A warm rush of affection coursed through her. She snuggled closer to him on the leather seat, and when he lifted his arm, she tucked herself beneath it. From the first days of their marriage, she had resolved that wherever he went, she would follow, whether around the grueling county court circuit or into a city seething with political anger. She believed with all her heart that there was no safer place in the world for her than by his side.
The train sped through newly seceded Virginia and on to Maryland. Emilie and Ben passed the hours talking, reading, dozing, or gazing out the window at the passing scenery. Emilie’s thoughts shifted between pleasant daydreams of dancing, dining, and visiting with Mary at the White House and tremulous worry about the simmering unrest in Baltimore. They would have to pass through the city not only once, to reach Washington, but also on the return journey—unless, God willing, the conflict had subsided by then.
Emilie was dozing on Ben’s shoulder when the dawning awareness of a sudden, quiet stillness woke her. “Where are we?” she asked groggily, sitting up and covering a yawn with her hand.
“Sykesville, and we’ve been here a while.” Ben rose, bemused. “I’m going to ask the conductor why we haven’t moved on.”
Suddenly uneasy, Emilie nodded, and as soon as he left, she went quickly to the window to peer up and down the platform, which was surprisingly crowded. Men, couples, and a few families with children stood amid their piled luggage or sat wearily upon trunks, their expressions and gestures full of impatience, frustration, and, here and there, traces of fear. They appeared to want to board the eastbound train, but the conductors were discouraging them. As Emilie watched, a few passengers disembarked, took in the scene, and tried to get the attention of anyone in a railroad uniform, but they did not wander too far from the train, perhaps fearing that they would not be allowed back on board. Emilie searched the crowd for her husband but did not see him, and when a sudden stir of alarm swept through the crowd from one end of the platform to the other, like a wave moving upon a beach, her heart thudded anxiously. What news was upsetting them so?
She was just about to go find a conductor and ask when Ben opened the compartment door. “Trouble in Baltimore,” he said, confirming her fears. “We may be delayed a few hours.”
Earlier that morning, he told her, a Union regiment, the Sixth Massachusetts, had left Philadelphia on a train bound for Washington City. The soldiers had hoped to pass swiftly and unimpeded through Baltimore, but they had been warned that in the crossing between stations they should expect to be accosted with in
sults and abuse, and possibly even assaulted, all of which they had been ordered to ignore. Even if they were fired upon, they were not to return fire unless their officers gave the explicit command.
The train carrying the Sixth Massachusetts had arrived in Baltimore unannounced, and cars carrying seven of its companies had been towed through the city unhindered. But word of the soldiers’ presence had spread quickly, and soon a crowd had massed in the streets, shouting insults and threats. The mob had torn up the train tracks and blocked the way with heavy anchors hauled over from the Pratt Street piers, forcing the last four companies of the Sixth to abandon their railcars and march through the city. Almost immediately, several thousand men and boys had swarmed them, hurling bricks and paving stones, while dishes and bottles had rained down upon them from upstairs windows. As the mob’s rage had surged, a few citizens had broken into a gun shop, and soon thereafter the soldiers had heard pistol shots. The companies had pushed onward at quick time, but when the furious mob blocked the streets between them and the Camden Street station, the soldiers had opened fire. As the mob retreated, the soldiers had finally reached the depot, only to discover that the tracks had been sabotaged, preventing them from continuing on to Washington.
“A stationmaster a few stops ahead of us telegraphed that the soldiers are frantically trying to repair the tracks, but the protesters keep regrouping and harassing them,” said Ben. “The railroad won’t send any more trains into Baltimore until the unrest ceases.”
“How long will we be held here?” asked Emilie. “Hours? Days?”
It was impossible to say, he told her, and when she steeled herself and asked if Washington City was under attack, his reply made her shiver: the Sykesville stationmaster said he had not received any news from the capital since shortly after the riots had broken out.
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