A Passionate Girl
Page 53
“How can I thank you?”
“Do the same thing for someone else who needs help. If you go to work for a newspaper, you’ll see a lot of misery.”
An hour later I was on a New York Central train, heading for Chicago, where the Union Pacific would take me to San Francisco. The names of the cities and towns whispered in my soul as the miles slipped by. I was traveling into the immense heart of America with a precarious faith in the pursuit of happiness. Ireland and her sorrows were vanishing over the horizon. Would I find fresh sorrow in this new life? I only knew that there beat within my battered heart a strangely renewed hope.
Afterword
Bess Fitzmaurice worked for several newspapers in California. In her forties she married an editor on the San Francisco Chronicle. She wrote this book in the last years of her life and sent it to the Hamilton, New Jersey, Historical Society, where it was recently discovered and prepared for publication under a grant from the Principia Foundation, created by the twentieth century Stapletons to raise America’s historical awareness.
Jonathan Stapleton married Cynthia Legrand, his brother Charlie’s beautiful, Louisiana-born widow, and spent much of his life trying to heal the breach between the North and South. The rest of his story is told in The Spoils of War, which deals with the Stapleton family after the Civil War.
Rawdon Stapleton quarreled continually with his father and refused to participate in the family businesses. He became a newspaperman who mingled revolution with his passion for telling the truth about American society. He was killed covering the fight on San Juan Hill in the Spanish-American War.
Andrew Johnson lost his struggle with the Radical Republicans in Congress, narrowly averted impeachment, and did not seek renomination in 1868. He was reelected to the U.S. Senate in 1875 but died several months later.
Robert Johnson never conquered his alcoholism. He committed suicide in California in 1869.
William Seward never won his nomination for the presidency. In 1867, he bought Alaska from the Russians, hoping it would be the first step to his vision of a United States of North America. Instead, his enemies used the purchase to destroy him. They said the territory was a frozen wasteland and called it “Seward’s Folly.” He went into political oblivion and died in 1872.
Edwin Stanton became a key figure in the struggle between President Johnson and Congress. He refused to resign when Johnson finally dismissed him as secretary of war, which led to the impeachment crisis of 1868. Stanton was rewarded by the Republicans with an appointment to the Supreme Court in 1869, but he died before he could take office.
Fernando Wood was defeated in his attempt to recapture Tammany in 1867. He spent the rest of his life in Congress and died in 1881.
William Marcy Tweed died in jail in 1878 after conviction for massive frauds.
Richard Connolly fled to Egypt with six million dollars when the Tweed Ring was exposed in 1871. He never returned to the United States.
Peter B. Sweeny fled abroad with many millions. Eventually he gave back a few hundred thousand dollars and was allowed to return. He died in New York in obscurity.
John O’Neil eventually was deposed by the Fenian majority. He tried one more invasion of Canada with a handful of followers in 1870. It was a fiasco. He drank himself to death a few years later.
John O’Mahoney died obscure and forgotten in the 1870s. His body was shipped home to Ireland for a big funeral.
William Roberts quit Fenianism, made his peace with Tammany, and was named minister to Chile by President Grover Cleveland in 1884.
By Thomas Fleming from Tom Doherty Associates
Remember the Morning
The Wages of Fame
Hours of Gladness
Dreams of Glory
When This Cruel War Is Over
Conquerors of the Sky
A Passionate Girl
The Secret Trial of Robert E. Lee
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
A PASSIONATE GIRL
Copyright © 2004 by Thomas Fleming All rights reserved.
A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
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ISBN: 978-1-4668-2146-0