Mexico to Sumter

by Bob Mayer

  “There’s no need,” Longstreet. “I’ve long since forgotten it.”

  “It’s a debt of honor,” Grant said. “You loaned me the money when I needed it.”

  “Truly, Sam,” Longstreet said. “No need.”

  “You must take it,” Grant insisted. “I cannot live with anything in my possession which is not mine.”

  Face flushed, Longstreet took the coin and awkwardly shoved it into his pocket.

  “Do you have the hour?” Grant asked, as if the debt had already disappeared in the current of time now that it was resolved.

  “Where’s your watch?” Longstreet asked without thinking.

  “Pawned it two years past to make Christmas happen for the children,” Grant said, as always honest to a fault. “It was a bad year,” he added, as if selling firewood on the street corner was a sign of a much better one. “The hour, if you don’t mind, Pete?”

  “Half past one.”

  “Ah!” Grant grabbed his basket. “I have an appointment I must make. Would you like to accompany me?”

  “Certainly,” Longstreet said.

  Grant set off with a purposeful stride, Longstreet at his side.

  “I tried farming,” Grant said. “West Pointers make poor farmers, I’m afraid. Hardscrabble I called it after some town in the Colorado Territory that Elijah Cord told me about. You remember Elijah, don’t you?”

  “Certainly.”

  “He’s still out west. A mountain man or some such,” Grant said. “A noble occupation, but one that does not seem suited to having a family. Now, while farming would seem to favor family life, it didn’t for me. Each time it seemed as if things would work, that the crop would come in, I’m afraid nature saw it differently. A flood. A late frost in the spring. An early frost in the fall. Mother Nature is most unforgiving.”

  They turned a corner and the courthouse loomed ahead. Longstreet eyed it nervously. “An appointment with the law?”

  Grant laughed. “Yes, but don’t worry, Pete. I’ve broken no laws. A matter I need to resolve.”

  They took the steps and entered. Grant wove his way through the crowded hallways and entered a room where a harried clerk was shuffling papers.

  “Sir, I am Ulysses Grant. We have an appointment.”

  The clerk flipped through one of the many stacks on his desk. “Yes, yes. I’ve got it right here.” He looked Grant up and down, not impressed, but then saw Longstreet. “Is this your witness?”

  “He is,” Grant said.

  “What am I witnessing?” A bemused Longstreet asked.

  “I have a slave.”

  “Just one?” Longstreet asked. “My relations, the Dents, certainly have many more than one and must have bestowed more than one on Julia.”

  “They did to Julia, but they bestowed one on me,” Grant said.

  “Did he run away?” Longstreet asked.

  “Gentlemen?” The clerk interrupted. “Can we get this done?” He shoved the piece of paper across his desk and pointed at the pen resting next to the ink well.

  Grant took the pin, dipped it, then signed. Then he offered the pen to Longstreet. The officer leaned over the desk, pen in hand, but paused when he saw the wording. “You’re freeing your slave?”

  “Certainly,” Grant said.

  “But . . .” Longstreet grasped for words. “Sam, an able-bodied slave can fetch over a thousand dollars on the St. Louis market.”

  “I’m aware of the market,” Grant said. “It’s my decision.” He said the latter with such finality, that Longstreet remembered Mexico and West Point and knew the matter was no longer to be discussed. He signed.

  The clerk took the paper, shook it to dry the ink, then stamped the document. “Your property is now a freedman.”

  Grant turned to Longstreet. “Thank you, Pete.”

  Longstreet took the hand. “I’ve got to get back to Jefferson Barracks, but perhaps you could come out and visit?”

  Grant smiled sadly. “Not for a while. But I’m sure we’ll meet again.”

  “Mister, do you want to fight?”

  Grant paused in the doorway and faced his opponent. “I’m by nature a man of peace, but I will not be heckled by a person of your size.”

  Nine-year old Frederick Grant charged his father, wrapping his arms around Grant’s legs. The two collapsed into the room in a tumble. Grant put up a token defense, but as always, Frederick ended up the victor and Grant had to ‘yield’ to his son.

  Seated across the room, Julia Dent, despite her anger, could not help but smile at the Friday evening ritual that occurred upon her husband’s return from St. Louis. As Grant stood up and shook off dust from the long walk, she could hold it in no longer.

  “Did you do it?”

  “The strangest thing happened in St. Louis today,” Grant said.

  “You came to your senses?” Julia asked.

  “I saw Old Pete Longstreet.

  “How is my cousin?”

  “Still in the army, seemingly well.”

  “”But you did it?”

  “Yes, my wife, I did.”

  Julie shook her head, frustrated. “We need the help or we need the money. You choose the worst possible course of action.”

  “A man is a man,” Grant said.

  “Negroes are not men,” Julia said.

  Grant picked up the newspaper and settled into a worn chair. “We may agree to disagree on this matter.” He said it calmly, but in that tone that Julia recognized. Rarely used, but always final.

  Grant shook the paper, perusing the headlines, preparing to read to her as she knitted, their nightly ritual. “Ah, this Lincoln fellow. They’re still talking about his speech.” He read from the paper to his wife, another ritual. “‘A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently, half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved, I do not expect the house to fall, but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other.’

  “’Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become alike lawful in all the states, old as well as new, North as well as South.’”

  Grant lowered the paper. Julia was watching him carefully. He looked at the fireplace. “It was strange seeing Old Pete today.” His eyes were glistening. “I truly fear when I might see him again.”

  George King

  October 1860, Harpers Ferry, Virginia

  “John Brown’s men are armed with Sharps carbines,” King warned.

  Lieutenant Colonel Robert E. Lee on leave from his duty station in Texas and being close to the capitol at Arlington, and First Lieutenant J.E.B. Stuart, on leave from his post in Kansas, who’d happened to be in the war department when the bad news broke, paused in their discussion and looked over at the Marine officer who’d been standing silently by.

  “How do you know, Captain—“ Lee waited for the blank to be filled in.

  “Captain King.”

  Lee frowned, as if the name reminded him of something, but immediately shifted back to the problem at hand: a group of abolitionists had seized the Federal Arsenal at Harpers Ferry. A baggage handler on a train passing through the town had been killed, the irony that the man was a free black, also of little interest to the officers. “The Sharps, Captain King?”

  “I did a reconnaissance of the perimeter of the arsenal,” King replied. “I saw several empty weapon’s cases, labeled ‘bibles’.”

  “Beecher’s Bibles,” Stuart said with contempt. “I saw plenty of those in action in Kansas when I was stationed there.” He was referring to Sharp’s rifles bought by abolitionist supporters and shipped to those willing to use the weapons. The name came from the rich abolitionist Beecher family, the most prominent being Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

  “They have hos
tages,” Lee said. “We can’t burn them out.”

  “The bayonet,” King said. “Let me command my Marines and we’ll handle this.”

  The closest Federal forces Lee had been able to muster after being summoned from his house at Arlington, had been 88 Marines. King’s Marines, stationed just outside Washington DC. They’d ridden hard to Harper’s Ferry where there were over 100,000 muskets stored at the armory, besides other ordnance.

  Lee didn’t hesitate. “Lieutenant Stuart. You will go to the engine house and try to parlay them into surrendering. When-“

  “They won’t surrender, sir,” King interrupted. “Remember, their leader is John Brown.”

  “Brown!” Stuart exclaimed. “I saw the results of his work in Kansas. Unarmed men hacked to death.”

  “We must make a good show of it then,” Lee said. “We use the parlay to divert their attention. Lieutenant Stuart, you go to the door, offer Brown whatever will keep him occupied, and while he’s talking to you, I want Captain King to break the door down, use the bayonet, and end this. I would prefer Mister Brown not be taken alive. A trial would just give him another pulpit from which to spread his nonsense and cause further turmoil that the country can ill afford.” Lee looked around the room. “Am I clear gentlemen?”

  Under a flag of truce, J.E.B. Stuart approached the double doors to the engine house where John Brown was holed up with his small army and the captives. King led a handpicked squad of marines armed with muskets tipped with bayonets and a pair of sledgehammers as close as he could get to the building without being seen.

  The negotiations didn’t take long, because Brown would not barter. Two of his sons were already dead, shot in exchanges with the militia that had first responded to the assault. Another man had tried to flee and been shot trying to swim the Potomac. The militia, many of them intoxicated, firing repeatedly into his body, even after it was apparent he was dead. The fire was burning and it could not be controlled.

  Finally, Stuart raised his right hand, as if to wipe his brow and King jumped to his feet. “Follow me!”

  They sprinted to the front door and the two marines with the hammers pounded away.

  To no avail.

  The thick wooden door refused to yield.

  As shots rang out from the windows, King spotted a ladder lying in the engine yard. “Use that,” he yelled and the squad grabbed it. As they did so, King drew the boarding axe from the sheath on his back and slammed it home, splintering wood

  The squad used the ladder as an improvised battering ram, everyone putting their muscle into each swing. On the fourth attempt, the twin doors splintered open and King led the charge through, wielding his boarding axe

  He spotted Brown, armed with a Sharps just inside. As the old man brought the gun to bear, King jumped to the side and slammed the axe, flat-sided, into Brown’s head. Brown fired a split second before he dropped unconscious to the floor. The second marine through the door, right behind King, took the round in his belly, doubling over and screaming in pain.

  Several more shots rang out as the survivors defended themselves. The marines were deadly efficient with the bayonet, spreading throughout the engine house, rapidly overwhelming any resistance.

  King saw a one-armed man in a corner, reloading his Sharps with great difficulty. King charged, axe at the ready. Preacher Cord closed the breech on the Sharps and readied it, aiming. Before he could fire, King swung the boarding axe, the pike end ripping into Preacher’s stomach.

  Preacher Cord dropped the Sharps, grabbed the axe with his single hand and fell backward. He ended up in an awkward sitting position, pike still in his stomach.

  “You cannot silence us,” Preacher said.

  King jerked the pike up, into Preacher’s heart.

  “If the arsenal had been this well guarded,” Robert E. Lee muttered, “we wouldn’t be going through this.”

  The corn-field, long since harvested, was surrounded by soldiers, over a thousand of them, mostly Virginia Militia, dressed in a wide assortment of uniforms, from red to gray to blue to various combinations of them all. A scaffold waited in the center of the field, quickly and efficiently built even before the verdict had been handed down condemning John Brown.

  King said nothing in response to Lee’s remark. Since the raid six weeks ago, the trial of John Brown had captivated the country, just as Lee had direly predicted. King’s failure to kill the man had been written off to the heat of battle, not cold calculation. The identity of the one-armed man he had killed, had jolted King.

  Disgusted with the unfolding spectacle, Lee turned his horse and rode away, heading toward a nearby hilltop to watch from a distance. King stayed in the shadow of the scaffold.

  It was a cold December day, the sun chilled and distant in the clear sky overhead. A wagon came slowly down a dirt road carrying John Brown, dressed all in black, except for red slippers, sitting on a coffin. His gaze was over the field, toward the Blue Ridge Mountains, adorned with leafless trees.

  A drumbeat began to King’s left. A contingent of cadets from the Virginia Military Institute were lined up immediately around the scaffold, the drummer a young boy in their midst. They wore red shirts, grey trousers and crossed white belts. Their officer in charge came over to King right after Lee rode away.

  “What’s wrong with the Colonel?”

  “Nothing,” King said. “He sees no need to be close by.”

  “You were in the assault?” the VMI instructor asked.

  “I was,” King said.

  “Thomas Jackson,” the officer introduced himself.

  “George King.”

  “This is God’s vengeance,” Jackson said as the wagon came to a halt next to the steps to the scaffold.

  “It is indeed,” King agreed as the tailgate to the wagon was let down. John Brown got off his coffin and quickly leapt off the wagon as if eager for his fate. The sheriff escorted him up the stairs to the platform, where he was positioned over the trap door. His ankles were tied by deputies while others slid the coffin out of the wagon and put it just below the door.

  “He bears his faith well, though,” Jackson commented.

  “But on the wrong path,” King said.

  “That will be for a higher power than us to decide soon,” Jackson said.

  Jackson turned toward his cadets and signaled. He barked out an order and they snapped to attention as the drumbeat ceased. A heavy silence descended on the thousands of soldiers and civilians bearing witness.

  A hood was place over Brown’s head and then the rope was cinched around his neck.

  “Do you want to know when the trap opens?” the sheriff asked Brown, his voice carrying over the silent crowd.

  Brown’s response was slightly muffled by the cloth, but audible. “No. Just be quick about it.”

  Which, of course, they were not. Like MacKenzie on the Somers, the officials on the scaffold now seemed uncertain as to who was in charge of the fatal moment. Minutes passed and Brown stood still as hushed conversations went on around him.

  The crowd began to grow uneasy as more minutes had passed. King looked off in the distance and he saw Lee, on his magnificent stallion, watching from a hilltop a mile away.

  Finally the sheriff stepped forward, axe in hand. Without warning, he swung and cut the rope holding the trap door.

  John Brown fell and jerked to a halt with a resounding crack.

  Not a sound came from the crowd.

  The dangling body slowly twisted and turned.

  The Last Written Words of John Brown, 2 December 1859

  I, John Brown am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away, but with blood. I had, as I now think, vainly flattered myself that without very much bloodshed it might be done.

  WAR: 1861-1862

  Chapter Ten

  11 April 1861, Boulder, Colorado

  Elijah Cord peered along the long barrel of the Lancaster, closing off the surrounding world. His focus was the sights, his
breathing, and his heartbeat. The late spring snow on the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains reflected the midnight moonlight, doubling the brightness.

  Cord had been moving east from California for two years, taking wide sweeps north to Canada and south to Mexico. Last fall he’d crossed the Rockies further north in Wyoming and swung down into Colorado. He had no plan, just the growing pressure in his chest to move east. He missed the beauty and warmth of California, but ever since gold had been discovered eleven years ago, the place had taken on the air of an asylum for the insane. Hordes of easterners had descended on the Free Bear territory and Cord had been glad to leave it behind.

  This winter, Cord had linked up with Kit Carson at Fort Bent in southern Colorado. They’d meandered north from there, finally arriving at a small encampment called Denver, twenty miles to the southeast. They’d been hunting ever since, supplying the new gold rush towns of Denver, Boulder and others scattered along the Front Range with meat and hides. Carson was moving slowly, an accident with a horse the previous year causing him great discomfort and Cord was glad to help his friend earn some money and for the company.

  Tonight was another foray to continue that job. They’d decided to hunt at night when the moon was right, to keep the tenderfoot gold rush fools from scaring off the game. As Carson put it, even Colorado was getting crowded. The mountain man sat cross-legged to Carson’s left, silent, waiting for his partner to take the shot.

  Cord mentally recited the Paiute hunting prayer that he had been taught, wishing blessings upon the spirit of the animal whose life he was about to take. Not quite praying to Preacher’s God, but it was a form of God Cord could kind of understand in a familiar ‘I aint expecting too much from you, but I’ll pay due respect’ sort of way. His finger caressed the thin metal sliver as he slowed both his breathing and time-sense. The space between heartbeats lengthened. At the golden pause between beat and breath, when the blood in his veins and the air in his lungs were both still, he began to pull back.