Mrs. Lincoln's Dressmaker

by Jennifer Chiaverini

  White Washingtonians, even some of those who had supported emancipation, had become increasingly alarmed by the rising tide of impoverished refugees. They were not alone in their worries. Some among the colored elite and middle class, whose loftier status within the city social hierarchy seemed tenuous even at its best, were determined to distinguish themselves from their uneducated, destitute, darker-skinned brethren. In Washington’s colored community, rank was determined according to one’s wealth, distance from slavery, and lightness of skin tone. Thus freeborn Negros of means were at the pinnacle, with light-skinned former slaves a rung below, darker-skinned freedmen beneath them, and slaves lowest of all, with barely a toehold on the ladder. It was an order not unlike what Elizabeth had known as a slave, wherein light-skinned house slaves—often the children, grandchildren, or siblings of their masters—held themselves above the darker field hands. The unspoken rules were strictly observed even within the White House, and even the president was powerless to enforce equality. Mrs. Lincoln had told Elizabeth regretfully of William Johnson, Mr. Lincoln’s dark-skinned personal valet, who had come with them to Washington from Springfield but had left soon thereafter, before Elizabeth came into her service. The lighter-skinned White House servants had snubbed William and subjected him to such adamant scorn that after enduring two days of it, he resigned and asked the president to help him find employment elsewhere.

  Thankfully, most middle-class colored Washingtonians overcame these class prejudices to assist the contraband. They acted out of compassion, and they acted out of self-interest, understanding well that many white people saw no difference between the prosperous colored merchant whose wife and daughters dressed in silk and the shoeless, whip-scarred contraband who had been a slave only weeks before. As the lowest among them fared, so everyone of their race would be perceived, and thus for their own sakes it was essential to forgo snobbery and raise up all colored people. Elizabeth wished no one needed to be reminded that it was also simply the right thing to do, to be charitable to those in need.

  The following Sunday, with encouragement from Virginia, Walker, and Emma, Elizabeth received permission from her minister to address the congregation after his sermon. She was not accustomed to speaking before so great a crowd, but she summoned up her courage, stepped up to the pulpit, and reminded herself that the need was too great to allow nerves to get the better of her.

  “We have all observed the great migration of newly freed slaves to Washington,” she began. “They come with great hope in their hearts and all their worldly goods on their backs. Fresh from the bonds of slavery, from the benighted regions of the plantation, they come to the capital looking for liberty, but many of them don’t know it when they find it. Many good friends have reached out to them in the spirit of charity and compassion, but for each kind word spoken, two harsh ones have been uttered.”

  A few women nodded as they fanned themselves, their hats bobbing emphatically.

  “The newly liberated have not been welcomed, but repelled,” said Elizabeth, “and their bright, joyous dreams of freedom are fading in the presence of that stern, practical mistress, reality.”

  Murmurs of agreement went up from the pews.

  “Instead of flowery paths, days of perpetual sunshine, and bowers hanging with golden fruit, the road has been rugged and the garden full of thorns,” Elizabeth continued. “Appeals for help too often are answered by cold neglect. Poor children of slavery, men and women of our race—the transition from slavery to freedom has been too sudden for them! They are not prepared for the new life that has opened before them, and now the great masses of the North look upon their helplessness with indifference. Our white neighbors, observing those who have come to us as refugees, have learned to speak of our entire race as idle and dependent.”

  A more emphatic response followed these words—grim nods of assent, a scattering of amens, and encouraging calls for her to speak on.

  “It is our sacred duty to help our own,” said Elizabeth, “and these poor unfortunates are indeed our own. Our Lord Jesus Christ instructed us to love our neighbor. He told us that whatever we do unto the least of His brethren, that we have also done unto Him. Brothers and sisters, I ask you to look toward the contraband camps and see your neighbors, and to join me in creating a society of colored people to work for the benefit of the suffering freedmen.”

  A loud crash of applause greeted her proposal, and as Elizabeth nodded her thanks and returned to her pew, the minister took the pulpit and invited anyone who would be interested in founding a relief association to stay after services for its inaugural meeting.

  Two weeks later, the Contraband Relief Association officially commenced, with forty women members and Elizabeth as its elected president. They planned benefit concerts and festivals, and they organized volunteers to work in the contraband camps. Their most prominent members solicited donations from well-to-do Northerners, white and colored alike. With the funds they raised, they purchased essential supplies for the camps—shoes, clothing, bedding, food, tools—and helped the contraband settle into permanent homes.

  Elizabeth often visited the camps to teach sewing, reading, and simple housekeeping to the colored women struggling to care for their families in the squalid conditions. Because of her dignified, well-spoken manner and status as the president of a relief organization, officials often asked her to escort visiting dignitaries who came to inspect the camps. On one such occasion, she guided a Miss Harriet Jacobs, a former runaway slave from North Carolina a few years older than herself and a prominent, influential abolitionist. Miss Jacobs’s knowing, compassionate gaze took in every detail as Elizabeth showed her around and described the contrabands’ plight. “They’re willing and ready to work, but they’ve never worked for wages,” Elizabeth noted as they passed a group of young men listening intently to a well-dressed colored man in spectacles who addressed them from atop an overturned crate. Suddenly one of the young men folded his arms over his chest, lifted his chin, and frowned thoughtfully up at the speaker in a manner so reminiscent of her lost son, George, that Elizabeth had to look away, pained. “We have to teach them how to seek work for pay, how to settle on fair wages, and how to leave an employer who treats them unfairly.”

  Miss Jacobs nodded, studying the young men as she followed Elizabeth past. “And is there work to be found?”

  “Oh, indeed, yes. The war has created ample quantities of that.” Elizabeth guided Miss Jacobs around a tent where a soldier was distributing loaves of bread to a cluster of gaunt, silently determined women, some of whom clutched young children dressed in tatters. “Do you know about President Lincoln’s new law, the one that allows him to employ ‘persons of African descent’ to help put down the rebellion?” Miss Jacobs nodded. “Then perhaps you already know that soon after the law was passed, the government set about registering contrabands and distributing rations, clothing, and wages in exchange for their labor in support of the Union. The men of the camps cut firewood, haul water, dig ditches, police hospital grounds, construct roads, build whatever needs to be built, and repair whatever needs fixing.”

  “And the women?”

  “They work as laundresses and cooks, and they take turns watching one another’s children. For wages, men receive ten dollars a month. Single women hire at four dollars a month, while a woman with one child earns two and a half, perhaps three.” Suddenly Elizabeth halted and placed a hand on Miss Jacobs’s arm, bringing her to a stop. “Make no mistake, the most unpleasant tasks always fall to the contraband, the work no one else wants to do—cleaning privies, burying dead horses and mules, removing the human refuse of the hospital wards. It’s important, necessary work, but it’s also hard, exhausting toil, and not what they had expected of freedom.”

  “Their dreams have failed to live up to their expectations,” Miss Jacobs remarked as she resumed walking.

  “That’s true,” said Elizabeth, hurrying to catch up with her, “but until I spent more time among them, I did not reali
ze how extravagant their dreams had once been—and how thoroughly demoralized the dreamers have become.”

  Something, some embarrassment or uncertainty, restrained Elizabeth from confiding that whenever she visited the camps, refugees would crowd around her, lamenting in their distress and pleading for relief. For some, the bitterness of their disappointment cast their memories of slavery in a false, rosy glow, so that they pined for their old lives. Elizabeth had been dismayed the first time she had heard one old woman declare that she would prefer to return to slavery in the South, where everything was familiar and her master had provided for her, rather than suffer the miserable freedom of the North. Elizabeth told herself that the old woman and others who felt as she did were not to blame for their despair, and she did not hold their words against them. After a lifetime of dependence, they knew nothing else, and the worries and cares of poverty had given them a harsh introduction to freedom.

  “Are all the camps in such a state?” Miss Jacobs asked. “Everything seems to be in short supply except for disease, misery, hunger—and the will to triumph over them, which is heartening to see.”

  “The need for the simple necessities of life and comfort is great everywhere,” Elizabeth said, “but I have heard that conditions are somewhat better across the river.”

  “Across the river, in Virginia?”

  “Oh, yes. Part of General Lee’s estate at Arlington has been transformed into a settlement called Freedman’s Village. I haven’t visited it myself, but you certainly should, to make your report complete. I’ve heard that all of the men and most of the women are gainfully employed. They also have the benefit of plenty of exercise in the open air, something that is denied the people here.”

  Miss Jacobs nodded thoughtfully. “I’d certainly like to see that for myself.”

  When the tour was over, Elizabeth accompanied Miss Jacobs to the street where her carriage waited. She waved farewell as the driver assisted Miss Jacobs inside, but she paused, bewildered, when the driver addressed her as Miss Brent, and she answered to the name.

  “You mean you didn’t know?” one of her fellow volunteers exclaimed later, when Elizabeth told her about the curious exchange. “Miss Harriet Ann Jacobs is also known as Miss Linda Brent.”

  “You don’t mean the author?”

  “Is there any other Miss Linda Brent? When she writes, she uses a nom de plume for her own protection, but I assure you they are one and the same.”

  Elizabeth was so astonished she had to laugh. She had read Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl soon after its publication, and she had been greatly moved by the author’s courageous escape to freedom in the North and her tireless efforts to see her two children freed as well. So many anecdotes from Miss Brent’s—Miss Jacobs’s—life were painfully familiar to Elizabeth, and the story had lingered in her thoughts long after she finished the book. She had even been inspired to compose a few memory sketches of her own, describing her childhood as a slave and the harrowing years of her young womanhood, when she had been preyed upon by Alexander Kirkland and a cruel mistress to whom she had been “lent” had tried to break her spirit with regular beatings. She had thought one day to share her writings with her son, but after his death, her interest in the project had waned.

  Perhaps she should take pen in hand again someday. Even if she never published a memoir, as Miss Jacobs had done, she might share her story with her closest friends.

  In the weeks that followed, she heard that Miss Jacobs had indeed visited Freedman’s Village in Alexandria, and that she had been so moved by their plight and impressed by their progress that she had decided to stay and work. For her part, Elizabeth continued her efforts in the camps in the capital, teaching necessary skills and offering guidance. It was heartening to see that while some disillusioned freedmen and women yearned for a past that had never really existed, others set themselves to the work of rising above their humble beginnings. They built sturdy cabins for their families and cultivated gardens. They saved their earnings and bought chickens and pigs. They joined churches and sent their children to the camp schools, where their teachers marveled at their swift and steady advancement. Clear-eyed, proud, and determined, they planned carefully for the future and strove forward to meet it. As the months passed, the more hesitant and anxious among them started to follow the others’ example, and Elizabeth and her fellow volunteers rejoiced as their labors began to bear fruit.

  The work of the Contraband Relief Association was worthwhile, never-ending—and expensive. Elizabeth contributed all that she could afford from her own earnings, but she knew the organization needed to find other sources of funds if it were to thrive.

  Although Elizabeth had gone to the White House only rarely that summer since Mrs. Lincoln spent most of her time at the Soldiers’ Home or traveling with Robert and Tad, she had seen enough of the inner workings of President Lincoln’s administration to know that he was surely embattled and struggling. The war was going badly. General Stonewall Jackson’s outnumbered Confederate forces had stymied the Union Army in the Shenandoah Valley, forcing it to draw back to the Potomac. In the Seven Days’ Battles in Virginia, General McClellan had again retreated despite defeating the Confederates on three consecutive days. A Union attack on Vicksburg failed, thwarting their attempt to gain control of the Mississippi River. In Richmond, Kentucky, Confederate troops soundly defeated a smaller band of Union soldiers, taking most of them prisoner. And at a second battle at the stream called Bull Run, General John Pope suffered a disastrous loss, with more than fifteen thousand troops reported killed, wounded, missing, or captured and the rest of his army driven back across the river toward Washington by General Robert E. Lee.

  Elizabeth’s heart went out to the president, knowing full well that each defeat would weigh heavily upon him, but she was less sympathetic and utterly bewildered by another battle he fought. In July, President Lincoln had tried valiantly to persuade congressmen from the border states to enact a plan for gradual, compensated emancipation, and although the effort failed, it had assured Elizabeth that his heart was in the right place. Within weeks, however, he made statements in the press that forced her to question whether she truly understood anything about his position on abolition. On August 14, the president received a delegation of Negro leaders at the White House and made his case for the colonization of freed slaves in Africa or Central America. The presence of the colored race on the American continent had caused the war, the president asserted, and enmity between races was certain to persist after the conflict was resolved. Even when they ceased to be slaves, the colored race would never be equal to the white, and thus it would be better for both if they were separated.

  The delegation left the White House unconvinced and angry, and they immediately shared the disappointing outcome of their historic meeting with sympathetic members of the press. A few days later, in a New York Tribune editorial titled “The Prayer of Twenty Millions,” Horace Greeley furiously censured the president for failing to execute the laws of the land by not demanding that his generals immediately obey the emancipating provisions of the new Confiscation Act. He accused the president of “being unduly influenced by the counsels, the representations, the menaces, of certain fossil politicians hailing from the Border Slave States,” appeasing them to the detriment of the nation. No champion of the Union cause on earth believed that the rebellion could be put down unless slavery, its cause, was ended as well, Mr. Greeley insisted, warning that “every hour of deference to Slavery is an hour of added and deepened peril to the Union.”

  Three days later, President Lincoln responded to the editorial with a terse letter, which Mr. Greeley published on August 25 along with his own lengthy rebuttal. Excusing Mr. Greeley’s “impatient and dictatorial tone” out of deference to their friendship, the president emphatically stated that his goal was to save the Union, and nothing else. “My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union,” he wrote, “and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could s
ave the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.”

  Everyone in Washington either read the heated exchange in the papers or heard about it from friends and neighbors. Unionists ambivalent about emancipation were satisfied by the president’s stated priorities, but Elizabeth knew of no one else who was. Outraged abolitionists insisted that the president seemed incapable of understanding that the surest and swiftest way to win the war and save the Union was to emancipate all slaves everywhere and to allow them to don Union blue and take up arms in service to the nation. As for Elizabeth, she certainly wanted slavery abolished everywhere. She wanted colored men to be allowed to enlist as her son, George, had done. But she also wanted the contraband to be healthy, well fed, educated, employed, and prosperous, and she knew that no amount of wishing could make it so—only hard work and careful planning. She wanted to believe that the president too had to work hard and plan carefully to bring about what he desired, and that there were good reasons for his delay, and that that was why he did not yet free the suffering slaves, although he could with a few strokes of a pen.

  She wanted to have faith in him, but she hoped he would not delay much longer.

  In mid-September, in a costly battle along Antietam Creek in Maryland, General McClellan managed to repulse General Lee’s advance into the North. Although the president was displeased that General McClellan had allowed the battered Confederate army to withdraw to Virginia without pursuit, the stalemate was victory enough to hearten him.