by John Jakes
The thought, wholly new, left Stanley dumbfounded.
“Close your mouth. You look like a cretin.”
He obeyed, then said, “My dear, you constantly astound me. I think you may be right.”
She drew him to a more private corner. “Let’s suppose I am. What sort of man is Stanton?”
“Another Ohioan. Brilliant lawyer. Strong abolitionist.” Stanley’s eyes darted here and there. He bent close. “Willful, they say. Devious, too. Very much to be feared.”
She seized his arm. “Their conversation’s over. You must speak to Wade. Try to find out where you stand.”
“Isabel, I can’t simply walk up to him and ask—”
“We will go greet him. Both of us. Now.”
There was no argument. Her hand clawed shut on his and she pulled. By the time they reached Ben Wade, Stanley feared his bladder might let go. Isabel smiled in her best imitation of a stage coquette. “How delightful to see you again, Senator. Where is your charming wife?”
“Here somewhere. Must find her.”
“I trust all’s going well with the new committee we hear so much about?”
Isabel’s question was an irresistible prompt. “Yes indeed. We’ll soon put the war effort on a more solid footing. A clearer course.”
The slap at Lincoln was obvious, so she said quickly: “A purpose I support, as does my husband.”
“Oh, yes.” Wade smiled; Stanley felt there was contempt in it, meant for him. “Your husband’s loyalty and—” the slightest pause to heighten effect “—devoted service are known to many of those on the committee. We trust your cooperative spirit will continue to prevail, Stanley.”
“Most definitely, Senator.”
“Good news. Good evening.”
As Wade strode off, Stanley almost fainted. He had survived the purge. His vision blurred. He saw the machines of Lashbrook’s cutting, sewing, spewing bootees that piled up in hills, then foothills, then mighty mountains washed with gold light.
He pulled himself from the delicious reverie, prideful as a boy who has hooked a big fish. “Isabel, I think I may get drunk tonight. With or without your permission.”
The inevitable meeting of the brothers and their wives took place a few minutes later, near the glittering glass punch bowls. Greetings were polite on both sides, but nothing more; George found it hard to put feeling into a wish that Stanley and Isabel would enjoy a fine Christmas.
“Met our young Napoleon yet?” Stanley slurred the question; he was consuming rum punch rapidly, George noticed.
“Haven’t spoken to him so far this evening, but I will. I know him from Mexico and West Point.”
“Oh, you do?” Isabel’s face briefly suggested she had lost a point in some game.
“What’s he like? Personally, I mean,” Stanley asked. “I gather he has a fine pedigree. But he’s a Democrat. Soft on slavery, they say. Odd choice for the President to make, don’t you think?”
“Why? Aren’t politics supposed to be set aside during a crisis?”
Isabel sniffed. “If you believe that, you’re naïve, George.”
He saw pink rising in his wife’s cheeks. He picked up her hand and curled her arm around his; gradually her hand unclenched. “To answer your question, then—McClellan’s extremely bright. Graduated second in our class. He was brevetted three times in Mexico for gallantry. Billy told me the troops love him. They cheer when he rides by. We needed a man the rank and file would trust, and I’d say we have one. Strikes me the President made an intelligent choice, not a political one.”
“The President couldn’t have said it better himself.”
Isabel looked ready to sink into the floor at the sight of the speaker behind George. Lincoln’s long arm lifted; his hand came to rest on George’s shoulder. “How are you, Major Hazard? Is this attractive lady your wife? You must introduce me.”
“With pleasure, Mr. President.” George presented Constance, then asked whether Lincoln knew his brother and Isabel. The tall man with the scarecrow look politely said yes, he believed they had met, but George got an impression that Lincoln had not found the meeting memorable in a positive way. Isabel caught that, too. It clearly irked her.
Constance was properly deferential to the Chief Executive but relaxed, not grimacing or fidgeting with her lace gloves as Isabel was. “My husband said he encountered you one evening at the arsenal, Mr. President.”
“That’s right. The major and I discussed firearms.”
George said, “I hope I’m not being disloyal to my department if I tell you I was pleased to hear of the purchase of some Spencers and Sharps repeaters.”
“Your chief wouldn’t buy them, and someone had to. But we mustn’t bore the ladies with sanguinary talk tonight.” He changed the subject to Christmas, which recalled an anecdote. Telling it with visible glee, he did different voices and dialects. The laughter at the end was genuine except for Isabel’s; she brayed so loudly, people stared.
“Tell me something about yourself, Mrs. Hazard,” the President said. She did; they chatted about Texas for a minute. Then a remark of hers prompted another anecdote. He had just started it when his pudgy, overdressed wife bore down and swept him away. That gave Isabel an opportunity to leave. Stanley followed without instruction.
“George, that was one of the most thrilling things I’ve ever experienced,” Constance said. “But I felt so humiliated—I’ve put on so much weight. It makes me ugly.”
He patted her hand. “The extra pound or two may be real, but the rest is in your head. Did you see how Lincoln heeded your every word? He has an eye for handsome women—which is why his wife swooped down that way. I’m told she hates for him to be alone with another female. Ah, there’s Thayer. Come meet him.”
Constance charmed the retired superintendent, too. The trio approached McClellan, temporarily without a crowd around him. “An old classmate of yours—” Thayer began.
“Stump Hazard! I saw you across the room a while ago—knew you instantly.” McClellan’s greeting was hearty, yet George thought he detected artificiality. On second thought, perhaps it existed mostly in his imagination. McClellan was now a national figure; George knew that changed the way people perceived and treated him. His own self-conscious reply demonstrated it.
“Good evening, General.”
“No, no—Mac, always. Tell me, what’s become of that fellow you were so tight with? Southerner, wasn’t he?”
“Yes. Orry Main. I don’t know what’s become of him. I last saw him in April.”
McClellan’s wife, Nell, joined them, and the four fell to talking about Washington and the war. McClellan grew grave. “The Union is in peril, and the President seems powerless to save it. The savior’s role has fallen to me. I shall perform it to the best of my ability.”
Not even a hint of lightness leavened the statement. George felt his wife’s hand tighten on his sleeve; was her reaction the same as his? In a moment the McClellans excused themselves to join General and Mrs. Meade. Constance waited till they were out of earshot.
“I have never heard anything so astonishing. There’s something wrong with à man who calls himself a savior.”
“Well, Mac isn’t your average fellow and never was. We shouldn’t be too quick to judge. God knows the task they handed him is formidable.”
“I still say there’s something wrong with him.”
George silently admitted McClellan had left the same impression with him.
He could no longer fool himself into thinking he was having a good time. As the currents of the party flowed and mingled, he and Constance found themselves in a circle with Thad Stevens, the Pennsylvania lawyer who would be the most powerful House member of Wade’s oversight committee. Stevens struck most everyone as peculiar, with his clubfoot and his head of thick hair cocked fifteen degrees off the vertical. A certain sinister air was only enhanced by his cold passion.
“I do not agree with the President on all subjects, but I agree on one. As he sa
ys, the Union is not some free-love arrangement which any state can dissolve at will. The rebels are not erring sisters, as Mr. Greeley so tenderly termed them, but enemies, vicious enemies, of the temple of freedom that is our country. There can be only one fate for vicious enemies. Punishment. We should free every slave, we should slaughter every traitor, we should burn every rebel mansion to the ground. If those in the executive lack the grit for the job, our committee does not.” The eye of the zealot swept the awed group. “I give you my solemn promise, ladies and gentlemen—the committee does not.” He limped away.
“Constance,” George said, “let’s go home.”
Madeline and Hettie, a house girl, were wiping out a mildewed trunk when feet pounded on the attic stair. “Miss Madeline? You better come quick.”
She dropped the damp rag and went instantly. “What is it, Aristotle?”
“Miss Clarissa. She went for her walk after breakfast, and they found her in the garden.”
Dread pierced her, sharp as the air of the winter morning. The sun had not risen high enough to burn the white rime from the lawn. They ran down to the garden, where Clarissa lay on her back between two azalea bushes. Clarissa stared at Madeline and the slave with glittering eyes.
Her left hand reached toward them, imploring. Her right lay unnaturally limp. Tears in her eyes, she tried to form words and produced nothing but thick glottal sounds.
“It’s a seizure,” Madeline said to the anxious black man. She wanted to cry; she wouldn’t get away before New Year’s after all. She couldn’t go until Clarissa recovered. “We must make a litter and move her inside.” Aristotle dashed for the house. When the litter was ready, lifting Clarissa revealed melted rime in the shape of her body—a shadow on a snowfield.
The doctor emerged from Clarissa’s bedroom at half past eleven. Outwardly calm, Madeline received the news that paralysis of the right side was nearly total, and recovery might take most of next year.
47
CHRISTMAS EVE FELL ON a Tuesday. George couldn’t shake the bad mood that had been with him since the McClellan reception. The war, the city, even the season depressed him for reasons he couldn’t completely explain.
A fragrant fire brightened the hearth of the parlor after supper. Patricia had resumed her music lessons with a local teacher, but a regular piano wasn’t practical in the crowded suite, so George had bought a small harmonium. Patricia opened a carol book, pumped the pedals, and played “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen.”
Constance came out of the bedroom with three large presents. She placed the packages near similar ones at the base of the fir tree decorated with cranberry strands, gilt-painted wood ornaments, and tiny candles. Buckets of water and sand waited behind the tree. All the gas had been shut off in the room; the light was mellow and pleasant—quite unlike George’s state of mind.
“Sing with me, Papa,” his daughter said between phrases. He shook his head, remaining in his chair. Constance went to the harmonium and added her voice to Patricia’s. The young girl resembled her mother in her prettiness and her bright hair.
Singing, Constance glanced occasionally at her husband. His despondency worried her. “Won’t you, George?” she asked finally, motioning.
“No.”
William wandered in and sang “Joy to the World” with them. Puberty put a crack in his voice; Patricia giggled so hard Constance had to speak to her. After the carol William said, “Pa, can’t each of us open one present tonight?”
“No. You’ve nagged me about that all evening, and I’m sick of it.”
“George, I beg your pardon,” Constance said. “He hasn’t nagged. He’s mentioned it only once.”
“Once or a hundred times, the answer’s no.” He addressed his son. “We shall attend our church in the morning, and your mother will go to mass, then we’ll have our gifts.”
“After church?” William cried. “Waiting that long isn’t fair. Why not after breakfast?”
“It’s your father’s decision,” Constance said-softly. George paid no attention to her slight frown.
William wouldn’t be persuaded. “It isn’t fair!”
“I’ll show you what’s fair, you impertinent—”
“George!” He was halfway to his son before Constance stepped between them. “Try to remember it’s Christmas Eve. We are your family, but you act as if we’re enemies. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing—I don’t know—Where are my cigars?” He leaned on the mantelpiece, his back to the others. His eye fell on the sprig of laurel he had brought from Lehigh Station and kept on the mantel. The sprig was withered and brown. He snatched it and flung it in the fire.
“I’m going to bed.”
The laurel smoked, curled, and vanished.
He slammed the bedroom door and splashed cold water on his face, then searched till he found a cigar. After raising the window, he crawled into bed with a stack of contracts he had brought home. The fine loops and flourishes of the copyists blurred before his eyes, meaningless. He felt guilty about his behavior, angry with everyone and everything. He dropped the contracts on the floor, stubbed out the cigar, extinguished the gas, and rolled up under the comforter.
He never knew when Constance came to bed. He was lost and far away, watching exquisitely slow shellbursts on the road to Churubusco, watching a great malevolent India-rubber head—Thad Stevens—loom steadily larger, the shouting mouth huge as a cave. Free every slave. Slaughter every traitor. Burn every mansion. In the ravening maw he saw Mont Royal afire.
He watched the road from Cub Run. The fallen horse. The young Zouave, crashing his musket down on the only target he could find for his fear and fury. The horse peeled its lips back from its teeth, demented by pain. The Zouave struck once more. The head opened like some exotic fruit, spilling its red pulp in pumping spurts that became a flow. Which was the animal? Which was the man? The guns changed everything.
The Zouave, the horse, the scene exploded as if struck by a shell. Deep in dreams, the dreamer retreated, whimpering with relief—only to see the Zouave approach the horse again, raise the musket again, bring the butt down again, the cycle restarting—
“Stop it.”
“George—”
“Stop it, stop it.” He flailed at soft things wrapped around his body. He kept screaming “Stop it.”
A young voice called out fearfully: “Pa? Mama, is he all right?”
“Yes, William.”
“Stop—” A great, long gasp from George, and realization. Faintly: “—it.”
“Go back to bed, William,” Constance called. “It’s just a nightmare.”
“Jesus Christ,” George whispered in the dark, shuddering.
“There.” Her arms were what he had attempted to fight off. “There.” She brushed hair from his wet forehead, kissing him. How warm she felt. He slid his hands around her and held her, ashamed of his weakness but thankful for the comfort. “What were you dreaming? It must have been horrible.”
“Mexico, Bull Run—it was. I’m sorry I was so rotten tonight. I’ll speak to the children first thing in the morning. We’ll open gifts. I want them to know I’m sorry.”
“They understand. They know you’re hurting badly. They just don’t know why. I’m not sure I do either.”
“God, they must hate me.”
“Never. They know you’re a good father. They love you and want you to be happy, especially at Christmas.”
“The war makes Christmas a mockery.” He pressed his face to hers; both cheeks were cold. The room was freezing; he had opened the window too far. The air smelled of old cigars and of his sweat.
“Is it the war that’s troubling you so badly?”
“I guess. What a little word, war, to bring so much misery. I can’t stand the dishonesty in this town. The greed behind the flag-waving rhetoric. Do you know something? At the rate Stanley is selling bootees to the infantry, he’ll have an enormous profit within a year. Practically a small fortune. And do you know that the shoes he’
s delivering will fall apart after a week of use on hard roads in Virginia or Missouri or wherever the damned disgraceful things are sent?”
“I’d rather not know things like that.”
“What bothers me most is something Thayer said at the dinner. You don’t build an effective army in ninety days. It takes two or three years.”
“You mean he thinks the war may last that long?”
“Yes. The springtime war—short, sanitary—that was a cruel delusion. War’s not like that. Never has been, never will be. Now everything’s changing. Other men are taking charge, men like Stevens, who want slaughter. Can Billy survive that? What about Orry and Charles? If I ever see Orry again, will he speak to me? Long wars make for long hatreds. A long war will change people, Constance. Wear them out. Destroy them with despair, if it doesn’t kill them outright. I finally faced that—and look what it’s done to me.”
She hugged him to her breast. Her silence said she understood his fears and shared them and had no answers for his questions. Presently he went to shut the window. Outside, it was snowing again.
48
CHARLES HAD FIRED HIS shotgun in anger just three times during the autumn. Each time he had led a scout detachment well past the rifle pits Hampton’s infantry had dug as part of the Confederate defense line; each time the targets were fleeing Yanks on horseback. He had wounded one but missed the rest.
That typified the months since Manassas: uneventful except for the spirit-lifting victory at Ball’s Bluff in late October. In the North the engagement had produced accusations of bungling, even treason, directed against the Union commander who had led the Potomac crossing, then seen his men shot or drowned as Confederate fire repelled them. Shanks Evans, a South Carolinian who had ridden against Charles in horse races in Texas, had distinguished himself at Ball’s Bluff, just as he had at Manassas. Promotion looked doubtful for him, though; he drank too much and had a violent temper.
The colonel’s elevation to brigadier, on the other hand, looked certain. He was in favor with Johnston, who had been given the whole Department of Virginia in the reorganization after Ball’s Bluff. Old Bory had lost out and was now relegated to command of the Potomac district, one of several in the department. As a practical matter, Hampton had been carrying the responsibilities of a brigadier since November, with three more regiments of foot, two from Georgia, one from North Carolina, placed under him. Calbraith Butler was commanding the cavalry, which did everything from probing Yankee positions to guarding paymaster wagon trains.
