“That’s what I got to do to be free, that’s what I do,” Julia answered at once.
Lee saw he had made a mistake. “No, no, Julia, you misunderstand. I aim to free you, and will whether you say yes or no. But as you have no other situation, I wanted you to know you could continue to find employment in this house.”
“God bless you, Marse Robert.” The candle flame reflected from the tears in Julia’s eyes. Then, as the reality of what he’d promised sank in, she began to think aloud: “If I be free soon, maybe I learn to read. Who knows what I do, if I be free?”
Learning their letters was against the law for blacks in Virginia, as it was in most of the Confederate States. Lee forbore to mention that. For one thing, the law was observed less rigidly for free Negroes than for slaves. For another, Julia’s desire to learn bespoke the sort of drive she would need as a freedwoman. What he did say was a commonplace: “I gather my ladies are still in the dining room?”
“Yes, suh, Marse Robert. I go tell them you here.” Julia turned and fairly raced toward the back part of the house, her shoes clattering against the oak floorboards. Lee followed more slowly.
His wife and daughters were chatting around the dining room table when he came in. Julia had already hurried in and then out past him once more. Mischief in her voice, his youngest daughter Mildred said, “Good heavens, Father, what did you tell her: that you’d sell her South if she didn’t move quicker?” His daughter Mary and his wife smiled. Agnes did not, but then Agnes seldom smiled.
Normally, Lee would also have smiled; he had trouble imagining the enormity Julia would have to commit to make him even imagine selling her South. Good servants who worked for good masters—which, without false modesty, he knew himself to be—did not have to worry about such things. But that the joke could be made at all spoke volumes about the institution of slavery.
Now he answered seriously, “Precious life, I told her I intended to free her.”
Like her daughters, Mary Custis Lee stared at him. “Did you?” she said. Her voice was sharp, and with some reason. The money to buy Julia had been hers, income from the estates currently in such disarray. Before the war, that income had been vastly more than his own. Moreover, in her invalid state she required near constant care.
“Why on earth did you decide to do that, Father?” Mary Lee echoed her mother.
“What shall I do without her?” Mary Custis Lee added.
Lee chose to respond to his daughter’s question first: “Because, my dear, I have seen that, try as we may, we cannot escape the conclusion that the day for slavery is past. We fought our great war for independence just completed so that our states could govern themselves as they thought best. And we have won it, and so brook no interference in our institutions from the North or Washington City. Well enough. But the world beyond our borders has not ceased to be, nor to despise us, despite that independence.” He mentioned Lord Russell’s remark to James Mason.
His eldest daughter bristled. “If Washington has no business meddling in our affairs, still less does England.”
“That may be so. Yet when virtually all the world abhors one’s practices, one has to wonder at the propriety of those practices. And the bravery the Northern colored troops displayed made me wonder at the justice of continuing to hold their race in bondage. But the final straw for me is the struggle the former Yankee Negro regiments of Louisiana and the other states of the Mississippi valley continue to wage against General Forrest.”
“But Father, so many people think Forrest a hero for putting those black men down,” Agnes said.
“Let them think so who will. But the Negroes still under arms in Mississippi and Louisiana must surely know their cause is doomed: General Forrest is a most able commander and has behind him the full weight of the Confederacy. Yet the Negroes continue to fight—as would I, in their place. To show such spirit, they must be men like any others, from which it can only follow that enslaving whites were as proper as doing so to blacks.”
“No one would uphold that proposition,” Mary Lee said.
“This is all very pretty and all very logical, Robert, but who shall care for me if Julia is set at liberty?” Mary Custis Lee said.
“I expect she will, but for wages,” he answered. “Perry has served me so for years.”
His wife sniffed, but said, “If your mind is quite made up—”
“It is,” he said firmly. “I do not presume to judge others, but I find I cannot in good conscience continue to own human beings who, I am become convinced, are inferior to me by circumstance alone, rather than by birth.”
“Very well.” Mary Custis Lee surprised him with a smile. “My father would have approved.”
“I suppose he would.” Lee reflected that his father-in-law had enjoyed the services of a couple of hundred slaves while alive and emancipated them only in his will, when he could make use of them no more. It was magnanimity of a sort, but to Lee’s mind not enough.
He also thought of Jefferson Davis’s remark that he would have pursued Southern independence even if that meant going into the hills and fighting for years, and of his own reply that he was too old to make a bushwhacker. Plenty of desperate ex-Union Negroes were of a proper age to learn that trade, and plenty more blacks who might not themselves fight would quietly support those who did. Before the war, slave revolts in the South had been few and small and soon stamped out. Those days were gone. The Confederate States had won one civil war. No matter how fiercely Forrest fought, another was just beginning.
He laughed at himself. He had never imagined taking up arms against the United States of America. And now, having done so, he saw no better way to serve the new country he had helped create than to become an abolitionist.
Talks with the Federal commissioners dragged on. The smaller issues resolved themselves: in exchange for the Confederates’ abandoning claims to New Mexico, the United States yielded the Indian Territory. Judah Benjamin had predicted as much after the first meeting. Lee wondered why what seemed so obvious took so long to decide.
“You will never make a diplomat, General Lee, despite your many accomplishments and virtues,” Benjamin said; his constant smile widened slightly to show real amusement. “Had the United States quickly conceded the Indian Territory to us, we should have been emboldened to press harder on the issue of Missouri. By the same token, had we given up New Mexico without a struggle, the Federals might well have perceived that as weakness, and so been less inclined to see reason over the Indian Territory.”
Put that way, the negotiations reminded Lee of a campaign of attrition, the sort Grant seemed to have had in mind against him in the spring of 1864. Attrition was not his style. whether he faced an enemy in the field or a difficulty in his life, he always aimed to overcome it with one bold stroke.
Though it had failed Grant, attrition worked, at least to a point, for Seward, Stanton, and Butler. By making it clear that the United States were willing to fight over Maryland and West Virginia, they convinced Jefferson Davis to yield them. Lee concurred in that decision; having fought in both states, he’d seen that their people favored the Union.
Kentucky and Missouri were something else again. The United States were willing to fight to keep them, but the Confederacy was equally willing to fight to acquire them. Tempers on both sides ran high. Lee looked for the bold stroke that might cut through the knotty problem. At length, the idea for such a stroke came to him. He set it before President Davis. Davis generally preferred directness himself and, after some initial hesitation, gave his assent. Then Lee waited for the proper moment to let it loose.
That moment came in late September, after a series of fiery speeches by Fremont seemed to put Lincoln on the defensive, even among Republicans. All three of the Federal commissioners came to a negotiating session looking worn. Butler, who had begun the war as a Democrat, these days had one foot and a couple of toes of the other in Fremont’s camp. Stanton, a Lincoln loyalist, was gloomy to find so hard a road ahead
of his patron. And Seward, who had first sought the Presidency himself and then tried to dominate Lincoln while Secretary of State, had the appearance of a man who wondered yet again how fate could have allowed that gangling bumpkin to overcome him.
Seeing the men across the table from him in the Cabinet room thus distracted, Lee said, “My friends, I think I have found a way to simply settle our difficulties concerning the disputed states of Kentucky and Missouri. Surely you will agree that our two great republics ought to be able to resolve our problems in a spirit that accords with the principles we both espouse.”
“Which principles are those?” Stanton asked. “The ones which proclaim that one man ought to be able to buy and sell another? We do not espouse such principles, General Lee.”
Lee did not show the frown he felt. That he privately agreed with Stanton only made more difficult the public position he was required to maintain. He answered, “The principle that government is based upon the consent of the governed.”
“And so?” Ben Butler’s voice was filled with a lawyer’s professional scorn.” I presume the Negroes of your dominions have consented to your domination of them?”
“They have the same franchise among us as in most of the Northern states,” Judah P. Benjamin replied. He gave Lee a courteous nod. “Pray continue, sir.”
“Thank you, Mr. Secretary.” Lee looked across the table at the commissioners from the United States. “Gentlemen, here is what I propose: Let the citizens of the two states in question decide the matter for themselves in a fair vote, not to be influenced by force or the presence of troops of either the United or Confederate states. President Davis will pledge the Confederate States to abide by the result of such an election. It is his sincere hope that President Lincoln will also concur with what is, after all, the most equitable solution possible to the dilemma confronting us.”
“Equitable?” William H. Seward accomplished more with a slightly raised eyebrow than Butler had with ostentatious scorn. “How do you presume to speak of equity, sir, when you call for the withdrawal only of Federal forces and of none of your own?”
“How do you presume to speak of equity when, by holding down these states through force of arms, you prevent them from exercising their sovereign rights?” Lee returned.
Ben Butler sniffed,” Just another of the worthless schemes you Confederates keep inventing and advancing.”
“No, sir,” Judah Benjamin said. “My predecessor as Secretary of State, Mr. R. M. T. Hunter, set forth a similar proposal in letters of February 1862 to Messrs. Mason and Slidell in London and Paris respectively. We have been willing—indeed, eager—to put our faith in the will of the people most directly affected by the choice involved. The United States continually proclaim their adherence to democracy. Have they less affection for it when it might bring a result contrary to their desires?”
“Certainly we do,” Stanton said. “So do you, or you’d not have bolted the Union when the last election went against you.”
That shot had some truth to it. Vice President Stephens showed as much by ignoring it in his reply: “Gentlemen of the United States, in simple justice’s name, we request that you transmit to President Lincoln the proposal General Lee advanced, and at your earliest convenience return to us his response.”
“As you are aware, he has empowered us to act as his plenipotentiaries in this matter,” Seward said.
Lee sensed that the Federal Secretary of State was unwilling to do as Stephens had asked. Throughout the war, Lincoln had, despite his determination to return the South to the United States, occasionally shown flexibility as to how that return might come about. He had also continued to believe, against all evidence, that considerable pro-Union sentiment remained in the seceded states. If he also exaggerated the two border states’ affection for rule from Washington, Lee’s was a notion to which he might be inclined to listen. Lee had counted on that when he put it forward.
Prodding, he said, “Surely you gentlemen cannot fear your President would overrule you?”
That earned him a glare from Stanton, a basilisklike gaze from Butler, and Seward’s usual imperturbability. Seward said, “Since this appears to be a condition upon which you insist, we shall do as you require.” He got to his feet. “Accordingly, there seems little point in continuing today’s discussions. Would you be so kind as to prepare your formulation in writing, in order to eliminate the risk of misapprehension on our part of what you have in mind?”
Lee drew from an inside coat pocket a folded sheet of paper which he presented to Seward. “I have taken the liberty of doing so in advance of your gracious acceptance.”
“Er—yes. Of course.” Seeming faintly nonplused, Seward skimmed the paper to make sure it was what Lee had said it was, then nodded and leaned sideways to store it in the carpetbag that sat to the left of his chair.
As he did so, Alexander Stephens put in, “General Lee is too courteous a gentleman to ask you to consider whether you find this proposition of his preferable to the prospect of renewed conflict against repeating rifles, but I would have you remember that possibility and the, from your perspective, unfortunate results of the last such series of meetings.”
“Those results are seldom far from our thoughts, I assure you,” Seward said icily. Stanton ground his teeth. The sound was quite audible. Lee had heard of such a thing, but never before actually heard the thing itself: yet another surprise, if but a tiny one, in a year filled with marvels.
But Ben Butler said, “If you Southerners were so hot to return to the fray, Mr. Vice President, you would have dispensed with these polite conversations and fired your terms at us from the barrel of a gun. As you choose to do otherwise, I will thank you to follow the example of your courteous general and refrain from such threats henceforward.”
Butler was so distinctly homely as to be a caricaturist’s dream; so, in an utterly different way, was his master, Abraham Lincoln. Lee found him thoroughly repulsive. To say he was corrupt weakened the word, though somehow he’d kept anyone from proving he had sticky palms. He made a laughable soldier. But in a battle of wits, he was far from unarmed. And he visibly heartened his fellow commissioners as they took their leave of Benjamin, Stephens, and Lee.
“Now we wait,” Lee said. Having waited for the precise instant so often in the field, having waited for the right day on which to present his proposal, he remained prepared once more to quench his iron will in the tempering bath of patience.
Judah Benjamin said, “With the Federals all factions, Lincoln may find himself too distracted to give us a sensible reply any time soon. Last I heard, McClellan was calling for an invasion of the Canadas, presumably to acquire for the United States territory to recompense them for that which they lost on our achieving independence.”
“The invasion might well succeed, too, with any general save McClellan at its head,” Stephens said.
The three Confederate commissioners laughed, none too kindly. Benjamin said, “Better than any soldier since Quintus Fabius Maximus, he deserves the title Cunctator, but Fabius’ delaying tactics served his own state, while those of McClellan aided only us.”
Lee was by nature charitable. Here his charity stretched no farther than silence, for Benjamin spoke manifest truth. A vigorously conducted campaign up the Peninsula might well have resulted in the fall of Richmond two years before the Rivington men arrived with their AK-47s. For that matter, a vigorously conducted Union assault at Sharpsburg later in 1862 almost surely would have destroyed the Army of Northern Virginia. But in matters military, the words vigorous and McClellan did not belong in the same sentence.
“Curious how he’s still a hero to so many Northern soldiers,” Stephens remarked.
“Well, why not?” Benjamin said. “Their war failed to give them a true hero. We were more fortunate.” He was looking straight at Lee.
For his part, Lee looked down at the elaborate floral pattern of the carpet. He had always known respect from within the military community and in t
he late war had done his best to continue to earn that respect. He had never anticipated the wider admiration that had come his way, admiration which led Jefferson Davis to urge him to run for President, admiration which made a worldly sophisticate like Judah P. Benjamin call him hero without apparent irony. He still did not know what to make of such admiration. The mention of Fabius reminded him of the practice, during a Roman triumph, of having a man stand beside the officer being honored and whisper, “Remember, you are mortal.” The Romans had been a solidly practical people.
He needed no outside reminders of his own mortality. The pain in his chest that sometimes came when he exerted himself too strenuously told him all he needed to know. The white pills from the Rivington men helped keep him in the field, but against the years everyone campaigned in vain.
He rose, bade his colleagues farewell, went downstairs and out into the street. To his relief, the constant steambath heat of summer was beginning to ease. A colored attendant, seeing him emerge, dashed away to the nearby stables and soon returned with Traveller. “Here you is, Marse Robert.”
“Thank you, Lysander,” Lee said. The slave grinned widely at having his name recalled; he, of course, had no way to know such recall was but one of the thousand small tricks by which an officer won his men to him. It was, Lee had heard, also a politician’s trick. The thought vaguely disturbed him. He did not care to become a politician. Yet if that became his duty… Swinging up onto Traveller swept away such profitless musing. He rode west, toward the rented house in which he was living.
Traffic remained busy, but without its wartime urgency. Fewer soldiers, fewer rumbling supply wagons crowded the streets. Ladies had room to stroll without putting their hoop skirts in danger of being crumpled. Gentlemen had the leisure to stop and admire the ladies and to tip hats to them as they passed. Lee smiled, both at the byplay he watched and at the way of life a Confederate victory had preserved. Something precious would have gone out of the world had the South lost.
The Guns of the South Page 33
