by John Jakes
Cannon on the Battery roared. Bands played. The crowd pushed back, crushing the revelers to permit the Ashley Guards to march by—one of many volunteer companies parading tonight.
A stout German blundered along, waving a placard,
HURRAH!
The Union
Is
DISSOLVED
“Wonderful, ja?” the placard bearer cried, blowing the odor of schnapps into Cooper’s face. “But too long in coming. Too long!”
Livid, Cooper ripped the placard out of the man’s hand. He broke the wooden slat to which it was tacked, then tore the card into pieces. Judith was pale.
Nearby spectators cursed Cooper. One or two began shoving. Orry moved beside his brother and shoved back. So did George, who jammed his face up to that of a man much taller.
“I’m a visitor to this city, but you’ll have cause to remember me if you don’t move along.”
Orry laughed. For an instant the years had sloughed away and he had been watching and listening to young Cadet Hazard of West Point. The shovers moved on, and so did the German.
The air stank of powder, perfume, tobacco, overheated bodies. The sky shone with blue- and lemon-colored lights. No tune could be heard above the cannon fire, just occasional drumbeats and raucous horn notes.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this angry,” Orry said to his older brother.
Cooper abruptly blocked the walk, confronting these four he loved; if any human beings would understand his piercing pain, they would.
“It’s because I hate the position they’ve forced me into with their damned proclamation. All at once I don’t know how I’m supposed to react. Where I’m supposed to place my loyalty. I hate feeling like a traitor to the state I’ve loved all my life. I hate being a traitor to the nation even more. The Union dissolved. For Christ’s sake—”
“Cooper, your language,” his wife whispered, unheard.
“—a Main bled to create the Union! If the rest of you don’t feel like you’re being torn apart—wait. These fucking madmen don’t know what they’ve done. To themselves, their sons, all of us. They don’t know!”
Ashen, he spun and pushed on, silhouetted against the firestreaked night. The others followed closely. Brett tried to console Judith, who didn’t shock easily but was speechless now. Orry was already experiencing some of the confusion Cooper had described.
George’s head hurt from the cannon fire. He seemed to hear only the thunderous reports, not the jubilant shouting and the laughter. He thought of Mexico. It was easy to half close his eyes, squint at the fire-washed buildings, and imagine that Charleston was a city already at war.
Faces floated past Orry, faces distorted by flame and by passion. The glaring eyes, the gaping mouths, grew less human every moment. Raw emotion distorted an ordinary countenance into that of a gargoyle, and the transformation was duplicated on almost every face he saw.
Brett pressed against Orry and clutched his arm, clearly afraid of the people buffeting them. Cooper and Judith walked close behind, followed by George, a wary rear guard. No one paid attention to them now.
Orry saw three young swaggerers of the town jabbing an old Negro with their canes. Then they doused him with the contents of big, bowlike beer glasses brought from the bar of a hotel behind them. He saw a respected member of the Methodist church with the neck of a bottle protruding from his side pocket; the man clung to a black iron hitching post, puking into the street. He saw the wife of a Meeting Street jeweler leaning back in a dark doorway while a stranger fondled her. Excess was everywhere.
So were the slogans, shouted in his ear or waved on placards or silk banners produced, seemingly, overnight. Three men with an unfurled banner swept down the sidewalk. Orry had to duck and urge the others to do the same as the banner’s message loomed: Southern Rights Shall Not Be Trampled!
The banner passed over them, and Orry straightened. Almost at once he saw Huntoon, who was hurrying in the wake of the banner carriers.
“Orry. Good evening.” Ashton’s husband tipped his hat, conspicuously adorned with a blue cockade, one of dozens Orry had seen tonight. Huntoon’s cravat was undone, the tail of his shirt hung from beneath his waistcoat—unusual for a fastidious man.
But this was an unusual night, and that showed in Huntoon’s uncharacteristically broad smile. “Is the celebration to your taste?”
The question was directed at all five of them and carried a malicious edge. Chiefly for Cooper’s benefit, Orry imagined. “Not really,” he answered. “I hate to see good South Carolinians making fools of themselves.”
Huntoon wouldn’t be baited. “I'd say revelry is quite in order and excess completely excusable. We’ve declared our freedom to the world.” His glance touched Brett. “Of course our new independence focuses attention on the Federal property in Charleston. The Customs House, the arsenal, the forts. We’re organizing a group of commissioners who will approach Buchanan on the matter. Surrender of the property to the sovereign state of South Carolina is now mandatory.”
George moved to Brett’s side. “What if Old Buck doesn’t see it that way?”
Huntoon smiled. “Then, sir, we shall resolve the question by other means.”
He tipped his hat a second time and moved on, blending into a crowd of a hundred or so that spilled through the street chanting, “Southern rights! Southern rights! Southern rights!”
Brett watched Huntoon until he disappeared. Orry felt her hand constrict on his arm. “He said that about the forts because of Billy, didn’t he?”
Cooper overheard. “I wouldn’t doubt it. The milk of human kindness flows sparingly, if at all, in Mr. Huntoon.”
They glimpsed him again on the other side of Meeting, fighting his way up the steps of the Mills House, then turning to survey the turbulent street from the top step. The lenses of his spectacles reflected flames leaping from a barrel on the curb. The eyes of a smiling demon, Orry thought. It was one more disturbing image on top of many.
He thought of Major Anderson out at Fort Moultrie. In Mexico he had known Anderson by sight and by reputation. A fine officer, conscientious and able. What must he be feeling? Where would his loyalty lie in the coming months? With the slaveholders of his native Kentucky or with the Army?
So many Americans—so many West Pointers—would be tested now; forced to decide where they stood. Orry could almost believe some malevolent power had taken charge of the world.
“As you suggested, Cooper, an historic moment,” he said. “Let’s go home.”
Demoralized and silent, they did.
On the Battery, surrounded and crushed by sweaty, screaming revelers, Ashton found herself unexpectedly stirred. It was as if the mob created currents of power that surged into the ground and then back up her legs, to the very center of her. The secret arousal left her light-headed and short of breath.
As always, it wasn’t the outpouring of patriotism that excited her but the larger significance, the main chance. The oaths, the howled threats and slogans, were the birth cries of a new nation. James predicted that other cotton states would follow South Carolina’s example, and that very soon a new government would be organized. He would play a preeminent role. In a matter of weeks, a long-held dream could become a reality. Power would be hers for the taking.
Another burst of fireworks splashed her face with scarlet light. Star shells whined skyward and exploded over Sullivan’s Island, briefly illuminating the ramparts of the fort. Her face wrenched.
Then, superimposed on an imaginary picture of Billy Hazard, she saw someone equally familiar, standing a few yards away.
“Forbes.” Clutching her secession bonnet, she fought toward him. “Forbes!”
“Mrs. Huntoon,” he said with that exaggerated courtesy he displayed when they met in public. He bowed. She smelled the bourbon on him, mingled with his male odor. It increased her excitement, but tonight wasn’t a suitable occasion for that kind of indulgence.
“Forbes, it’s urgent that we
speak,” she whispered. “Tomorrow—as soon as possible. Orry has cleared the way for Billy and my sister to be married. I can’t abide that. I won’t permit it.”
A moment earlier Forbes LaMotte had looked drunkenly genial. Now his mouth took on the appearance of a sword cut across his face. More skyrockets went off, bells and cannon created a din. He had to lean close to hear what she said next.
“South Carolina has taken action. I think it’s time we did, too.”
His relaxed, sleepy smile returned. “Indeed it is,” he murmured. “I am at your disposal.”
58
ON THE MORNING OF January 25, 1861, Captain Elkanah Bent arrived in New Orleans. He was hastening to the only real home he knew, Washington. He had arranged a transfer just in time. The situation in the country was critical and deteriorating more each day. He was sure the War Department was preparing promotion lists and reorganizing for impending conflict. Or they would be as soon as that doughface Buchanan vacated the White House.
Today Bent wore a new and expensive civilian outfit. He had purchased the clothes in Texas right after making his decision to stop over in New Orleans for twenty-four hours. He felt it wouldn’t be prudent to flaunt his Army uniform in such a pro-Southern city. By reliable report, Louisiana would soon secede, joining the five other cotton states that had already left the Union. People up North were referring to those states as the Gulf Squadron. It had a military sound, belligerent. That pleased him.
Strolling up Bienville, he savored the fragrance of bitter coffee from a café. Good coffee was just one of the city’s worldly delights he intended to sample during this brief visit.
He counted himself lucky to get out of Texas when he did. There, too, secession was inevitable, and those in charge of the Department of Texas were clearly sympathetic to the South. Old Davey Twiggs, department commander, and Bob Lee, who had returned from Virginia last year to resume command of the Second Cavalry, were just two potential traitors in a command riddled with them.
He had been fortunate to get out of Texas for other reasons. He had admittedly botched the attempt to eliminate Charles Main, and he was lucky to have escaped a court-martial. With war likely, there could be new opportunities to strike at the Mains and the Hazards. He’d see what the records in Washington revealed. The prospect took some of the sting out of his failure.
Bent had never satisfied himself about one question: Did Charles know the real reason for his enmity? By now it seemed very unlikely that he did not; Charles and that damnable Orry Main must have exchanged letters on the subject. Letters in which Bent’s relationship with Orry and George Hazard had been revealed. If by some remote chance there had been no such correspondence, the secret would certainly come out the moment Charles returned home on leave.
Once the Mains knew of Bent’s continuing appetite for revenge, the Hazards would undoubtedly learn of it, too. But he still saw one advantage for himself. The members of both families would surely assume that his desire would fade or vanish in the turbulence of war. That mistaken assumption would be their undoing.
As Bent read the national situation, hostilities couldn’t be avoided. Charleston was the flash point. The day after Christmas, Anderson’s little garrison had made secret preparations and, when night fell, had transferred by boat to Fort Sumter, spiking the guns left behind at Moultrie and burning the carriages. As a result, the palmetto flag was now flying over all the Federal property in and around Charleston, except for the fort Anderson was occupying in the center of the harbor.
Anderson’s garrison was still being permitted to buy fresh meat and vegetables from Charleston markets. But state militiamen were pouring into the city. They were being put to work realigning the guns at Moultrie, Castle Pinckney, and Fort Johnson.
In Washington during the past weeks Old Buck had purged his cabinet of Southern influence and adopted a harder line. He refused to meet with the South Carolina commissioners who came to the capital to argue for the surrender of Fort Sumter, and he sent their memoranda to the files unread.
On January 9 the opposing forces had reeled to the brink. Buchanan had dispatched a chartered side-wheeler, Star of the West, to Charleston. The relief vessel carried food, ammunition, and 250 soldiers. She had crossed the bar, and then the cadets from The Citadel who were manning the harbor guns had opened fire.
Anderson’s batteries did not return fire to defend the incoming ship. Hulled once, Star of the West immediately put out to sea again, and the incident was over—except in Washington, where wrangling continued between the government and yet another South Carolina delegation.
Just a few days ago, Davis and other senators from the Gulf Squadron had left the Capitol after delivering farewell speeches whose contrived sentimentality was designed to mask their treason. This very morning on the city dock Bent had heard that Davis and others would soon convene in Montgomery, Alabama, to form a new government.
How could that government fail to come to blows with Washington? Old Buck wouldn’t be President much longer, and the new man, that queer fellow Lincoln, though soft on slavery, was uncompromising about preservation of the Union. War was coming. The future looked splendid.
In this fine frame of mind, Bent ascended a beautiful black iron stair and knocked at the door of an establishment that had been recommended to him by a gentleman he had met while traveling. When the door opened, he used an assumed name to introduce himself.
Two hours later, half dressed, he was dragged to the rooms of the proprietress by a huge, ferocious-looking Negro who shoved him into a plush chair, then blocked the door, awaiting the settlement of the dispute.
“One hundred dollars is outrageous!” Bent declared as he tucked in his shirt and buttoned his sleeves. Here was one place where the authority of his uniform might have served him.
Seated behind her magnificent desk, Madam Conti appeared relaxed and comfortable in her indigo silk robe with its pattern of embroidered peacocks. She was a large, solid woman, about sixty. Her stunning white hair was exquisitely arranged. Near her beringed hand, incense smoldered inside a tiny brass temple; Oriental objects had been the rage ever since Perry’s squadron had sailed into Yedo Bay, Japan.
“Nevertheless, Monsieur Benton, one hundred dollars is what you must pay. A girl as young as Otille commands a premium price.” The woman consulted a scrap of paper. “You also requested several, ah, special services. I can enumerate them for you—if they have slipped your mind. Did she not inform you of the extra charge?”
“She most certainly did not.”
Madame Conti shrugged. “An oversight. It has no effect upon the price.”
“I refuse to pay, goddamn it. I absolutely refuse.”
Madame Conti greeted the outburst not with anger but with a tolerant smile. Looking past Bent, she said, “Whatever shall we do with him, Pomp?”
“Keep on treating him like a gentleman,” the black rumbled. “See if he might change his mind.”
Bent’s upper lip popped with sweat. He had heard the note of threat in the nigger’s remarks. He struggled to maintain a courageous front. Madame Conti’s smile didn’t waver.
“Pour our visitor a little champagne. That might help.”
“It will not,” Bent said. She laughed and called for a second glass for herself.
Bent withheld another retort, attempting to plan his next move. Obviously he couldn’t fight his way out of the bordello, nor did he intend to try. He let the situation drift a moment, accepting a glass of excellent French champagne from Pomp. He gulped it, then held the glass out to be refilled. Madame Conti gave the black man a nod of assent.
The champagne had a calming effect. Bent began to take notice of the elegant office. On walls of red-flocked wallpaper hung more than a dozen large paintings, all lit effectively by mantled gas jets. One huge canvas was a rollicking study of fur trappers on a river raft.
“That is my pride,” the woman declared. “A Westerner named Bingham painted it.”
Her pride was m
isplaced, Bent thought, downing more champagne. He eyed a portrait of a young woman hanging behind Madame Conti’s left shoulder. The features of the beautiful, dark-haired creature were familiar somehow. But he couldn’t place her.
Madame Conti noticed his interest. “Ah, you admire her? She worked here for a time many years ago. She was even more beautiful than my little Otille. And far more expensive.”
Bitch, he thought. Wouldn’t let him forget the bill, would she?
Then, abruptly, he knew where he had seen the exotic face in the painting. It was in one of Charles Main’s family daguerreotypes.
No, just a moment. This woman, smiling her seductive painted smile, wasn’t the same Creole beauty whose picture he had seen in Texas. The resemblance was strong but not exact. Sisters, perhaps?
“Who is she, Madame?”
Jeweled bracelets twinkled and clinked as the white-haired woman drank champagne. “I don’t suppose it hurts to tell you. She was a poor girl who rose very high before she died. She left my employ to become the eminently respectable and respected wife of a rich New Orleans factor.”
“The dusky cast of her skin is enchanting. The painter was inspired.”
“Only by what he saw.”
“You mean her skin was that way naturally?”
“Yes, Monsieur Benton.”
“I’m fascinated. She creates a lovely romantic image—” He leaned forward slightly; a master schemer, he could be subtle when necessary. “How did her story end—if you know and wish to confide, Madame?”
She turned her chair, regarding the painted face with affection. “My dear girl had a daughter by her adoring husband after they married, but, alas, the beautiful mother died. In time, before he too succumbed, the loving father had to send the child far away to make a match. She looked as white as you or I, but some in this town knew her mother’s background.”
