The Lincoln Letter

by William Martin

  Evangeline raised her phone and took a photo. She could not tell if Kathi saw her or not.

  * * *

  Henry had settled into the front seat of his SUV. Volpicelli and Peter were in the back, behind the dark glass.

  Peter said, “How many letters did you buy?”

  “Two dozen. Eight from the brother killed at Shiloh, the rest from Joseph, consoling his brother’s widow, sending her money, promising her that if she could just survive the war, there’d be better days ahead, that there was still a man to love her and provide for her kids.”

  “Hard-lookin’ little dude in love with his brother’ wife,” said Henry.

  Volpicelli opened a folder of letters and picked one up: “April 10, 1865. He tells her to calm her fears, because the war has ended, and he has a line on something, ‘that I’ve known about since ’62. It’s a daybook that belongs to an important man. An associate considered selling it right after the Emancipation Proclamation, and she insisted on selling it before the ’64 election, but I told her to wait. I told her it’s a weapon to use once. Now’s the time. It could bring a big price.’”

  Peter said, “A daybook could just have addresses and appointments in it.”

  “And ‘important’ could mean anybody,” said Henry. “Stanton? Seward? Grant? Hell, some folks thought Frederick Douglass was the importantest of them all.”

  “It’s Lincoln,” said Volpicelli. “Look at when they thought about selling it, always at important political moments. But McNealy doesn’t want to waste it. He tells her in an earlier letter, ‘the Democrats have waited too long to nominate McClellan, and Sherman has taken Atlanta, so Lincoln will win, no matter what.’ But on April 10, 1865, the war is over. Lincoln’s thinking about Reconstruction.”

  “Which he didn’t live to see,” said Peter.

  “And a few of my grandaddies didn’t live through,” said Henry. “Now, these letters are nice, but unless this jive-ass starts tellin’ us about followin’ the money—”

  Volpicelli raised a finger for quiet, as if he was getting used to Henry’s bluster.

  Peter laughed, because he knew that Henry’s bluster could be plenty real, but that finger stopped Henry, and he just looked at it, quivering in midair.

  Volpicelli said, “You attended the Smithsonian event last night?”

  “Very nice,” said Peter.

  “And you met Professor Conlon. Did he give you the speech?”

  “Which one?”

  “About all these documents being part of America’s heritage, about this daybook belonging to the nation rather than to the merchants of greed—”

  “He sees an entrepreneur like me as the Prince of Darkness,” said Peter.

  “No,” said Volpicelli. “He sees David Bruce as the Prince of Darkness. You’re just one of his minions. Conlon wants to bring you back from the dark side, because he’s a classic liberal supporting another classic liberal.”

  Henry drummed his fingers on the wheel. “Follow the money, baby.”

  “Professor Conlon has received huge NEH grants over the years, thanks to Milbury. The National Endowment for the Humanities is the fountain of life for a lot of academics,” said Volpicelli.

  “Keep talkin’.”

  “And the man who fills the fountain controls those who drink. The more he pours, the more power he has, which is why he waters the culture-makers, the elite liberal college professors who tell The New York Times that they back his crazy ideas like a Federal National Treasure Law, or—”

  “—affirmative action?” said Henry. “Or food stamps? Or Social fucking Security?”

  “Or,” said Volpicelli, ignoring Henry, “a value added tax.”

  “A VAT?” said Peter.

  “Milbury is planning to introduce a national VAT. It will be in lieu of state taxes. It will be applied to every purchase in America, from insurance policies to shoe lacings.”

  “Now, that,” said Henry, “is some motherfuckin’ money.”

  “No,” said Volpicelli. “That is a revolution, the biggest grab at federal control since the Civil War. It’s the reason that David Bruce will do anything to destroy Milbury. Why do you think Milbury came to Washington last night, when he should have stayed at home to campaign?”

  “Because the Congressional session starts on Monday,” said Peter.

  “Because the American Retail Sales Association underwrote that event at the Smithsonian, and they support Milbury with big bucks every election.”

  Peter laughed. “A VAT will never pass.”

  “ARSA is paying an army of lobbyists to push it in every corridor on Capitol Hill. They talk about saving Main Street and the mom-and-pop retailers, but some of them are bigger than all the online retailers combined.”

  “You have your lobbysists, too,” said Peter. “Like Kathi Morganti.”

  “Bruce is paying Hamill and Associates to fight the VAT like it was a Russian invasion.” Volpicelli paused. “It may not be Russian, but it stinks of socialism.”

  “What’s this VAT supposed to do?” asked Henry.

  “Level the playing field,” said Peter.

  Volpicelli said, “Right now, online outfits don’t have to pay state taxes in states where they’re not physically located, so they can pocket the profit or undercut the brick-and-mortar retailers. Bruce’s operation does fifty billion in sales every year. This VAT will be a five percent national sales tax. That’s two point five billion out of Bruce’s pocket.”

  “We followin’ the money now, baby.”

  Peter said, “A national VAT would be hard for online retailers to fight. When it comes to sales taxes, it’s the nuclear option.”

  “The federal government collects the VAT and redistributes it to the states,” said Volpicelli. “More federal control, more federal mandates, more chances for the people who inhabit all those buildings on the other side of the river to justify their existence.”

  “And that’s why you want to refight the Civil War?” said Henry.

  “We want to reignite the argument over states’ rights,” said Volpicelli. “Not to memorialize slavery but to make Americans understand that too much federal power is a dangerous thing. It’s what the South fought against.”

  “Tell that to my ancestors in the slave huts,” said Henry, “saltin’ their whip-stripes and cryin’ for their lost babies.”

  “We’ll have a new kind of slavery if we keep giving in to things like a national VAT, so—” Volpicelli put the folder of letters into Peter’s hand. “—go ahead. Take them.”

  Peter looked at Volpicelli. “You’d give me your research?”

  “I want to see this diary or daybook, no matter who finds it. I want to see what Lincoln really thought about extending federal power with his illegal proclamations.”

  “I may give you an argument on the illegal part,” said Peter.

  “May?” said Henry. “I may shoot this son of a bitch.”

  “Shoot me or argue with me,” said Volpicelli, “but agree that a Lincoln diary will offer an interesting analogue to our modern difficulties, and it will be amazing scholarship.”

  “So, win or lose the tax fight, you can write a book about it, and the world will no longer think of you as David Bruce’s Libertarian butt-boy?” said Peter.

  “Libertarian butt-boy,” said Henry. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

  Volpicelli ignored Henry and said to Peter, “I work with Bruce because I believe in his vision. What’s your excuse?”

  Fair question, thought Peter. But he still hadn’t signed the check.

  * * *

  You could draw a line in any westerly direction from Washington, D.C., and somewhere between fifty and a hundred miles out, it would pass through a place where a mighty battle had been fought. In two hours or less, you could drive to Petersburg, Cold Harbor, Spotsylvania, Chancellorsville, Fredericksburg, Manassas, Harper’s Ferry, Ball’s Bluff, the Monocacy, Antietam, or Gettysburg.

  Some of these places had shrunk
from massive battlefields to a few monuments and a few famous features in the midst of suburban sprawl. But a few remained as enormous stage sets, grand outdoor theaters where it felt as if the matinee had just ended and the actors had gone out for dinner.

  Antietam was one of the grandest, just seventy miles northwest of Washington.

  Peter and Henry made it in an hour and a half, about an hour behind the film crew. They stopped first on the road into town, at a place called the Pry House because Douglas Bryant had sent Peter a text, telling him to pay a visit.

  I have some info. But can’t talk. Soldiers with cell phones are FARBS!

  Farmer Pry had built a handsome brick house and a big barn on the bank of the Antietam, so well sited that the day before the battle, McClellan’s staff commandeered the property, brought the family furniture out onto the side yard, and set the general up with a telescope and a fine view of the land rising gently toward the Sharpsburg Ridge.

  The National Museum of Civil War Medicine ran the property, which had been restored with white picket fences, long graveled drive, and gorgeous lawns. On the Sunday of Battle Anniversary Week, the parking lot was packed. A string band was playing. Scores of visitors were climbing the stairs to the house. Kids were scampering on the grassy ridge where Lincoln’s careful general had made some of his most timid decisions. And a huge canvas pavilion in front of the barn had become a demonstration field hospital where “doctors” were helping “wounded” while the tourists watched.

  A big box wagon sat at the edge of the grass, and woman in Civil War dress was talking to a lot of parents and kids. “I’m Clara Barton.”

  Peter led Henry over to the edge of the group.

  The woman had a round face and friendly smile, like the real Clara Barton. She was saying, “After the fighting ended around the Cornfield and the West Woods, I went out to help and … look at this.” She held up her sleeve. “A bullet hole. I was reaching toward a poor fellow, and the bullet passed through my sleeve and right into him.”

  “Wow,” said a kid. “Is that the real dress?”

  “It’s a real style from the period.” The woman stood and showed them her apron and added, “If I was doing something other than kneeling on the battlefield, I would have worn a hoop in my skirt. Hoops were the fashion but very difficult to kneel in.”

  Another kid pointed to the line of stretchers. “Are all these men gonna die?”

  “No,” said Clara Barton. “The ambulances arrive from the battlefield a few miles away, a doctor examines each man and decides if he’s mortally wounded, needs surgery, or just a bandage.”

  She pointed at Douglas Bryant, who lay on stretcher, moaning in pain. “He’s been shot in the stomach. That’s usually a mortal wound in 1862, so they may give him something for his pain and get him out of the hot sun. Those who need a little patching up will be cared for out here. And those who need surgery, which means mostly amputations, will be going into the barn for chloroform and—”

  “Gettin’ their legs cut off,” said a wide-eyed boy.

  “Maybe … and you know, kids, there’s a display of an amputation. It starts in five minutes in the barn. You might want to go in. All but the little ones.”

  The kids were already rushing off, moms and dads hurrying after them.

  Doug Bryant raised his head from the stretcher and said, “Are they gone?”

  “Nice moaning,” said Peter.

  Henry said, “A fine Sunday afternoon you got goin’ on here.”

  “What can be bad?” Doug Bryant got up. “Sunshine, rolling countryside, teaching kids about history.”

  “I thought you’d be playing a rebel,” said Peter.

  “Clara Barton served the Yankee soldiers,” said Mrs. Bryant.

  “And if my wife wants to play the Yankee angel,” said Bryant, “I’m happy to be the Yankee wounded.”

  “Like two kids playin’ doctor,” said Henry.

  His wife said, “Later we’ll have him play a dead man. He does a great bloater.”

  “Bloater?” said Henry.

  “That’s when you puff up with gas after you’ve been dead on the field for a few days.” Bryant blew up his cheeks and bulged out his eyes and his belly.

  “That is gross,” said Henry. “Man, get outta here with that.”

  “Pretty good, hunh?” Bryant grinned.

  Henry said to Peter, “Can we find out what we come for and git on?”

  Bryant gave them a jerk of his head and led them over to a quiet spot near a tree. “I got a phone call this morning, from one of the vendors at the market. He said he’d moved into Dawkins’s spot for the day. It’s prime real estate, with the shade and the nice corner near the gate. And about ten o’clock, four guys came over. They looked like a club of some kind. They all had blue T-shirts on. And ball caps with the white star on the blue patch.”

  Peter looked at Henry. “Keeler and his pals.”

  “They asked for Dawkins. The guy said, ‘Gone to Sharpsburg for the festival.’ I tried callin’ Dawkins. But like I say, he’s a mysterious old African American.”

  “Ain’t we all,” said Henry.

  “I just figured you ought to know if they’re lookin’ for him.” Bryant gave a nervous laugh. “Every time I hear a Harley roarin’ along the road out there, I jump.”

  Peter asked, “Do you still have that Adams pistol?”

  Bryant pulled it out of the pocket in his uniform. “It’s not loaded or permitted. If anybody asks, I’m tellin’ them it’s a repro. But I’ll point it if I have to.”

  “Hang on to it.” Peter gave Henry a jerk of the head and they started to leave.

  Bryant called after them. “Fellers. This is a hobby. It’s supposed to be fun. It hasn’t been fun since you come around.”

  “Don’t you worry,” said Henry. “It all be over soon.”

  * * *

  In another two miles, Route 34, the Boonsboro Pike, led them up through the Antietam National Cemetery and down into the town itself. They grabbed the first parking spot they saw, because Main Street was closed for the Battle Anniversary Festival.

  The center of Sharpsburg was no more than a clock, the library, and Nutter’s Ice Cream Parlor. Main Street was barely wide enough for two cars. But it seemed a friendly place. Most of the houses had front porches that came right to the sidewalk, festooned in American flags and bunting. Some were joined façades. Some stood free. A few looked as if they had been there when Lee and Lincoln traveled back and forth on that road.

  A string band in Union garb had set up at the corner of Mechanic Street, on the little bit of lawn in front of the library. Hundreds of people packed the street in cut-offs and tank tops, flip-flops and sandals, ball caps and eyeshades, and period dress, too. There were soldiers from both sides mixing and chatting, ladies in hoop skirts, kids in loose shirts and knee breeches. And the curbs were lined with stalls, selling … selling … selling … kettle popcorn, candles, handcrafts, quilts, hot dogs, local honey and jellies, antiques, tube rides on the Potomac, Civil War books, uniforms, figurines. Sometimes Peter thought that the Civil War had started more cottage industries than the Industrial Revolution ended.

  Over the sound of the band, Henry said, “Your boy shouldn’t be too hard to recognize. Ain’t too many black folks here, even if we celebratin’ the day that white boys died for the Emancipation Proclamation.”

  Donald Dawkins was sitting at his table, under a beach umbrella, with his wares displayed, including a pile of Diana Wilmington’s books and a little sign, AUTOGRAPHED BY THE AUTHOR. He had his nose buried in a book, but his head snapped up when Peter cast a shadow across his table.

  Peter sensed his discomfort right away. “Good morning.”

  Dawkins said, “What’s good about it?”

  Henry said, “Way to bring the happy, there, bro.”

  Dawkins said to Peter, “You got more black friends than I do, Black Irish.”

  “Speaking of which,” said Peter. “Where’s Diana? I t
hought she came up here to sign books with you.”

  “She’s with that TV chick. They went to the battlefield to shoot some scenes.”

  “How’s business?” asked Henry.

  “Folks buyin’ lots of popcorn, not many books. And that band only knows three songs. One of ’em is ‘Dixie.’”

  “That’s a shame,” said Henry, “but it’s a catchy tune.”

  Dawkins looked down at his book, as if he was giving them the same treatment he had dished out the day before at the flea market.

  “Diana told me you had some things we might want,” said Peter.

  “I got nothin’.”

  “I’ve brought foldin’ money,” said Peter, “a thousand in cash, so if Diana hasn’t paid you yet, I’ll buy those pictures of Jesus and Frederick Douglass, along with the collection of letters you offered Bryant.”

  “I told you, man, I got nothin’,” said Dawkins angrily.

  Henry folded his hands behind his back and started whistling “Dixie.”

  Peter gave him a look.

  Henry said, “What? This old boy’s just whistlin’ ‘Dixie’ on us. So I’ll whistle right along.”

  Peter turned to Dawkins. “He said that, not me.”

  Dawkins eyes shifted. “I got nothin’ ’cause I already sold it.”

  “To Diana?”

  “To the fellers watchin’ us right now.”

  “Who’s watchin’ us?” Henry looked around.

  “Same fellers who come round last week lookin’ for the engraving, the one Sorrel bought. They figured out I come up here today. So they come to buy everything left from that lot that Sorrel picked over. Offered me five G’s and said if I didn’t take it, they’d be trouble. So, I promised Diana, but I sold to them … the engravings of Jesus and Frederick Douglass, some letters, and—say, did you really pay five hundred for that Fort Lafayette?”

  Just then, a black woman came up the street from Nutter’s and put an ice cream soda in front of Dawkins. She was about fifty, with a little extra weight in the hips but an air of youth about her still. She gave Peter and Henry a big smile and sat at the table, right behind the bobblehead Lincolns, and opened her own ice cream soda.