The Empire of Yearning

by Oakland Ross

  Whoever “himself” was.

  CHAPTER 28

  FIVE DAYS LATER, Diego departed the capital, bound for Veracruz. Despite the abysmal condition of the roads, the journey to the coast passed without incident. At Veracruz, he boarded a mail packet that ploughed away through the pale silver waters of the Gulf of Mexico, bound for Havana. From that Cuban city, he travelled north by steam vessel, foregoing the usual landings at Miami, Jacksonville, and Savannah, for those cities were located in states of the Confederacy and would provide no harbour for a Washington-bound ship. But the steam packet was able to make landfall at Wilmington. A Union army had lately wrested the city from the Confederacy, and Wilmington now swelled with northern soldiers, patrolling the rubble-strewn streets of a sullen and ravaged town.

  Diego ventured ashore, where he found it an easy matter to engage several Unionists in conversation, in exchange for a bottle of good Cuban rum and some Cuban cigars. These were enjoyed at leisure in the dust-laden bar of a half-cratered hotel. Diego’s English was inferior to his French, but he could convey an air of easygoing camaraderie when the occasion demanded. He learned that a large army of seasoned volunteers under General William Tecumseh Sherman was even now marching to the south and must soon capture Atlanta. Before long, he was told, Savannah would also fall to the Unionists. These worn-out men were resting at Wilmington before proceeding south themselves, and they painted Sherman’s march to the sea as a project of terrible but necessary destruction. The Unionist general meant to ruin the economy of the south, laying waste to whatever he found along the way—farms, warehouses, factories, bridges. He would sap from his enemies not just their lives but also their will.

  Diego reboarded the packet that evening. The following morning, the vessel steamed north, bound for Cape Hatteras, en route to Virginia Beach. There, he sent a cable to William H. Seward, the American secretary of state. He requested a meeting.

  Diego understood that the government of Abraham Lincoln in Washington had so far followed a policy of strict neutrality regarding the conflict in Mexico, and it did not require exceptional intelligence to understand why. The Unionists undoubtedly feared a large French army stationed to the south and saw no reason to offend Napoleon III unnecessarily. This was where matters stood in the early months of 1865, but Diego wondered if the north’s neutrality would long continue should Washington win its civil war. Such a victory, he was told, seemed likelier by the day.

  “Look,” said the vessel’s captain, an avuncular and gregarious sailor from Santiago de Cuba. He spoke in the rapid-fire manner of his people and pointed off to the southwest, toward the mouth of the Appomattox River and the shores of Chesapeake Bay, forested in chestnut trees and elms. He said the supreme commander of the Unionist forces, General Ulysses S. Grant, was camped with his army not far upriver at a place called City Point. Grant was biding his time, waiting for Sherman to complete his march of devastation through the south. When the Confederate forces were surrounded, the Unionists would march on Richmond, the southern capital. The end would come quickly.

  That night, the packet steamed north through Chesapeake Bay and Pocomoke Sound, bound for Annapolis. Diego paced the deck, smoking the last of his Havana cigars.

  Four weeks after departing Mexico City, he checked into a room at a small hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C. The following morning, he received confirmation that his request for a meeting with the secretary of state had been granted but could not be scheduled until ten days hence. These were cold, grey days in Washington. A drizzle pelted from the low tombstone sky, and Diego passed his time in long damp walks, interspersed with even longer interludes in the city’s hotel lounges and bars, where he medicated his boredom with spirits while studying the American newspapers. As regarded Mexico, the journals in Washington were remarkably up-to-date, providing details of the conflict in his country that were unknown even to him, all reflecting miserably on the fortunes of the republican side. From a Washington paper called the Daily Evening Star, he learned that Benito Juárez had abandoned Monterrey and was in the process of installing himself at El Paso del Norte, a fly-blown speck of land on Mexico’s border with Texas. From there, he would have no escape.

  As a liberal, Diego regarded this as deeply discouraging news. As a member of the imperial court, he must take the opposite view. He lit an American cigarette, ordered another brandy, and vacillated between these two opinions, marvelling at the rapid progress of the news in this, the modern world.

  The day for his meeting with Seward arrived at last. Diego found the American secretary of state to be a gruff individual, evidently intelligent but little given to divulging more information than necessary. The American briefly outlined the conventional Unionist view of Mexico—an outlook of strictest neutrality. This was undoubtedly the policy at present, but Diego believed it was likely to change once the war pitting the American states was concluded. In fact, given northern fortunes in that conflict, he suspected it must already be changing. He gave Seward every opportunity to say so, but the man stuck to the official line. Washington was neutral as regarded developments in Mexico.

  Diego let the matter drop for the time being and waited in silence for the American to speak.

  Seward ran a hand beneath his chin and cleared his throat and then, somewhat stagily, straightened his tie. “Whom exactly do you represent?” he said. “Hapsburg or Juárez? I can tell you have ties to them both. That can’t have been easy to arrange.”

  “The politics of my country are a complicated affair.”

  “Contradictory, you mean.”

  “That too.”

  Seward said he was interested in any news his visitor might possess concerning recent events in Mexico. How went the war?

  “Quite well for the French,” said Diego. Without bothering to mention his source, he said the liberal president, Benito Juárez, had been obliged to retreat ever further north and must soon reach the border with Texas. Slowly and steadily, it seemed, the French were consolidating their military control of the country.

  “And the emperor? Maximilian—how is he making out?”

  Diego shifted his weight, easing forward. “For the moment, the emperor seems reasonably secure.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “It’s easily explained. If your government were to alter its stance toward Mexico, the situation would become very different. Everything in my country would change in an instant.”

  “But I’ve already told you. Our policy is good as gold. We are not concerned with anything the Frogs might do, as long as they stay south of the Rio Grande. You can take that to the bank, my friend.”

  Diego frowned. If a man says something once, it is not out of the question for you to believe him. But if he says it twice, you must leave some room for doubt. And if he says it a third time, then you must seek another opinion, which was exactly what Diego decided to do. He remembered his conversation on Chesapeake Bay with the captain of the Cuban packet, who had told him that General Ulysses S. Grant was encamped with his army not far inland, in Virginia. Was this still the case?

  Seward said it was.

  “I am told this General Grant once fought against my country.” Diego meant the American intervention in Mexico, when the United States captured roughly half of Mexico’s territory. For a time, the gringos had even occupied Mexico City. He had heard somewhere that Grant later regretted his participation in that war. He told Seward he would like to meet this man if it were possible.

  “Why wouldn’t it be possible? We have nothing to hide. Mi casa es su casa. Isn’t that what you people say? Leave it to me. I will arrange a letter of introduction.”

  The document was delivered to Diego’s hotel that afternoon, and he set out the next morning in a hired coach that carried him south through the rolling farmland of Virginia to the confluence of the James River with the Appomattox. He found the Unionist commander at his headquarters, a tent pitched on the front lawn of a gabled and dormered house belonging to a
certain Dr. Richard Epps. The building overlooked a view of shimmering aspens and silver waters, where the merging currents of the two rivers swirled and eddied in the winter sunlight.

  It surprised him to see that Grant’s accommodation was not much different from any of the countless other tents arrayed about the estate, housing many thousands of troops. This arrangement was very unlike the practice in Mexico, where generals surrounded themselves with luxuries and comforts, while their men went about in threadbare uniforms and makeshift sandals and slept under the stars. Diego observed that American military practice seemed to differ from Mexico’s in another respect, too. In Mexico, armies were followed by columns of women on foot—the wives of soldiers, who did the cooking and cleaning and bore much of the cargo, and often shared in the fighting as well. As a result, a Mexican army was a slow-moving beast. But he saw no evidence of soldiers’ wives at City Point, with the solitary exception of Grant’s wife, who had a tent of her own that stood not far from her husband’s, suggesting that American officers indulged themselves in some perquisites after all.

  CHAPTER 29

  GENERAL GRANT WAS DRINKING coffee at a trestle table set up on the lawn in front of Dr. Epps’s house. He had evidently been alerted to the arrival of a Mexican emissary. When Diego appeared, the general was already on his feet. He invited his guest to join him for coffee, unless he preferred something stronger.

  “Coffee would do well,” said Diego.

  Grant smiled amiably and got up. He was broad of face, with prominent, almost rock-like features, and he wore a full beard and moustache. He removed the pot from its place by the fire, filling two tin mugs. He returned to the table. “I have many fond memories of your land and your people,” he said. Nonetheless, he wished he had never participated in the Mexican war, as unjust a contest as had ever been waged by one country against another. But it was done now, and its outcome would not be altered by any act of man.

  “No,” said Diego. “Unfortunately for us.”

  “Most unfortunately for you.”

  For a time, they continued to discuss the many injustices and sorry consequences of that long-ago war, until Grant shrugged and nodded toward Diego’s mug. “Will you have more coffee?”

  “No, thank you. But I believe you mentioned something stronger?”

  “Then bourbon is the answer.” Grant waved at an orderly, who promptly attended to the serving of drinks. The general raised his glass. “You would think this war would have blocked the supply of two commodities before all others—tobacco and bourbon. And yet it is not so.” He raised his glass, settled into his chair, and took a first swallow. He glanced at Diego’s left arm. “I take it you have known something of soldiering yourself.”

  Diego nodded and spoke without thinking. “But all that is in the past now.”

  “Is it? I have always found that the past has a disagreeable tendency to overstay its welcome. We would fight many fewer wars if it were not so.”

  “I stand corrected. What you say is true, in my country more than most. In Mexico, the past endures forever.”

  “So I have heard. But I do not think that you have come to speak of philosophy.”

  “No.” Diego swallowed a mouthful of bourbon. “No, I have not. I have come to speak of the future.”

  “I thought as much.” The American general thrust out his legs and crossed his arms behind his head. He told the orderly to leave the bottle of bourbon. It was in safe hands. “Very well,” he said. “Speak to me of the future.”

  Diego spent the night in a tent set up for his use. When he left in the morning, he possessed a fair understanding of what might be expected from the United States once its terrible war was concluded. He understood as well that the conflict’s end was closer than he had imagined, and its outcome was as plain as the lines upon the palm of his hand.

  In their long conversation on the subject, Grant had left no doubt that the U.S. government would take an extremely dim view of the presence of French troops in Mexico. In time of war, he explained, a government does not like to antagonize another power unnecessarily, and so Washington had been reluctant to court the displeasure of Paris. But, once his country’s own internal conflict was ended, he believed that President Lincoln would declare its firm support for Benito Juárez, the rightful president of the Mexican republic.

  But no, he said—anticipating Diego’s next question—this policy would not extend to authorizing the provision of arms or other military equipment to the republican side. He paused, and his expression changed, if only for an instant, into what might have been a smile.

  “I refer to policy,” he said. On the other hand, there is practice.”

  “I believe I understand you,” said Diego. “It is to discuss the practical aspects that I have come to your country.”

  “And sought me out,” said Grant, “as a friend of Mexico.”

  “Yes. As a friend of Mexico.”

  It was now that the two men began to converse in serious terms. Diego learned, for example, that there was a most talented, resourceful, and innovative young man to be found in a Texas town called Franklin. His name was J.S. Bartlett, and he was the correspondent in that region for the Boston Journal, a reputable publication.

  “‘A reputable publication,’” said Diego. “In my country, many would call that a contradiction in terms.”

  “Yes, well …” said Grant. He laughed. “In this country, the press is invariably above reproach of any kind. But regarding Bartlett, I believe his sympathies correspond closely to those of President Lincoln, at least as regards Mexico. Moreover, he is employed as the United States customs agent in that region, which makes him a useful man to know. I would urge you, if you should ever find yourself in Franklin, Texas, to look the man up.”

  Grant continued speaking, and so Diego found himself becoming increasingly familiar with a variety of American weaponry called the Spencer carbine, a breech-loading rifle that had been introduced into service in 1863 and had proved itself in battle, especially when augmented by the Blakeslee quick-loading cartridge box. Some ninety-five thousand of these rifles had so far been purchased by the U.S. government for its troops, and it was more than likely that some portion of these firearms would become supernumerary once hostilities had ceased. It was difficult to say how many weapons would fall into this category but, in round numbers, one could certainly speak in terms of tens of thousands.

  “I see,” said Diego.

  “You must speak with Mr. Bartlett,” said Grant as the two men shook hands before parting. “If you are ever in the fine town of Franklin, Texas, Mr. Bartlett is certainly the man to see.”

  On his return to Washington, D.C., Diego conducted meetings with diverse individuals, all of whom had been recommended to him by Ulysses S. Grant. Later, he travelled by train to New York City, where he retained the services of a local portraitist, a man named Hoskins who was adept in the reproduction of images according to a process known as ambrotype. Hoskins accompanied him in a hired coach that transported them both to New Rochelle, a rather dismal suburb of the city, where Diego sought out a Mexican woman by the name of Margarita Maza de Juárez, a gracious matriarch who was living there with her three daughters and three sons. She was the wife of the Mexican president, and she had been dispatched to New York City some months earlier for her safety and that of her family. Baldemar Peralta had given him the woman’s address during their last conversation. Diego’s meeting with the woman lasted an hour or so. During its course, the man named Hoskins prepared two ambrotype images of the entire family, whose members included an infant son just a few months old. The portraitist said the image needed only to be mounted under glass upon a dark background—a bolt of black velvet, for example—to be complete.

  Diego thanked him. He believed this modest acquisition, a likeness of Benito Juárez’s exiled family, might stand him in good stead at some future time. Baldemar had assured him that it would. He left the second image with the woman.

  Once these
missions were completed, Diego returned to his hotel in Manhattan. At the services desk, he booked passage aboard a mail packet that was bound for Havana three days hence. That done, he rode the elevator to the sixth floor, watched the cage door slide open, and trudged alone to his room, where a bottle of contraband bourbon waited. With any luck, he would be back in Mexico City within a matter of weeks.

  CHAPTER 30

  “I MAY BE THE EMPRESS.” Carlota adjusted the folds of her dress against the red brocade surface of her chair. “But I am not the general of an army.”

  She nodded at a servant, who hurried over to replenish her tea.

  “You possess an army,” said Diego.

  “You think so?”

  Diego counted them off—thirty thousand French troops, a like number of Mexicans, plus an assortment of Austrian and Belgian volunteers, and a quantity of African and diverse European mercenaries. Taken all together, they amounted to a considerable force.