As if in response to Pleasants’s words, a new gun opened up, north and east of the one they’d taken out. Bullets cut twigs, spaanged off stones. Caudell, once more flat on his belly, could see no flashes. Hearing the deep, endless roar was quite bad enough. “All right, Henry, I’m convinced. Let’s get out of here.”
Getting out was almost as sticky as getting in had been. The sun was low in the west by the time they rejoined Mollie Bean. Ruffin Biggs and Alsie Hopkins were already there; Biggs wore a filthy bandage stuffed into the front of his right shoe. “I got a couple of toes gone, I reckon,” he said matter-of-factly. “Here on out, you can call me Gimpy.”
“What the hell kind of gun was that you went up against, Nate?” Mollie asked, unconsciously echoing Henry Pleasants.
Caudell could hear the concern she did her best to conceal. It wanted him. He wanted to squeeze the breath out of her, to prove to himself, flesh on flesh, that he was still alive. He couldn’t, not now. He said, “Henry here talked me out of going up to see.” When he explained why, his companions nodded.
Alise Hopkins said, “That there gun looks to shoot ‘bout as far as a Napoleon.” He shook his head. “Didn’t much fancy gettin’ shot at when I couldn’t hardly shoot back.”
Ruffin Biggs nodded again, this time to Pleasants. “Reckon you was right, Yankee—Cap’n Lewis’ll need to know about a gun like that, and so will Hit-’em-Again.”
“Forrest, you mean?” Henry Pleasants let out a dry chuckle. “Ruffin, I suspect he already knows.”
Guards round the Capitol, guards posted on the grounds of the presidential residence, a guard with an AK-47 in his carriage… Lee felt a prisoner of guards. And guards most of all at the corner of Ninth and Franklin, infantry and artillery both, protecting the most important secrets of the Confederacy.
The battered building that had housed America Will Break had changed since Lee visited it just after his men finally succeeded in breaking into the AWB sanctum. The hole in the outer wall of that hidden chamber was bigger now. It needed to be, to let light into the room: the glowing tubes on the ceiling had failed when the thing that chugged in the wall fell silent. A new canvas awning shielded the opening from the elements.
The officer in charge of the guard detachment saluted as Lee’s carriage rolled up. “The congressional delegation arrived a few minutes ago, sir. Per your instructions, they are waiting in the outer office of that suite.”
“Thank you, Major.” Lee got down from the carriage. So did his bodyguard. He tossed his head. The only time he had to himself these days was in the privy or the bathtub—and had the tub been bigger, a guard likely would have joined him there. Assassins murdered freedom merely by existing.
The senators and congressmen turned as Lee came in through the entry to the AWB suite. So did Judah P. Benjamin, leaning heavily on two sticks. Luckily, the bullet that had gone through his calf missed the bone; the wound was healing. But the former Secretary of State still moved like an old man instead of with the imposing presence he had once enjoyed.
“Gentlemen, you have my sincerest gratitude for joining me today,” Lee said. “If you will be so kind as to come with me, I will show you why you were invited here.”
“It had better be good,” growled Senator Wigfall of Texas. “When I tried going into that room yonder, the one with the heavy door, the damned guards said they’d shoot me to stop me. I’m not accustomed to our own good Confederate soldiers turning into Hessians, and I don’t care for it, not one bit I don’t.”
“They were but obeying my explicit orders, sir. You will see the reason behind them, I assure you. The guards will admit you now, as you are in my company.”
And indeed, with Lee heading the group, the soldiers presented arms to Wigfall and the other senators and congressmen. The officials turned this way and that, staring at the unfamiliar office furnishings within the secret room. Wigfall pointed to the qwerty on one desk. “What the devil is that thing?”
“If you can tell me, Senator, I shall be in your debt,” Lee said.
Congressman Lucius Gartrell of Georgia, a Confederate rather than a Patriot in politics, looked toward a hole in the wall not far from the door. “What happened there, Mr. President?”
“The device which made those tubes overhead”—Lee pointed—”give light was housed there. After it ceased operation, we removed it in an effort to discover the principles by which it worked. Our best guess is that it ran out of fuel.”
“Can’t you just give it more wood or coal, then?” Gartrell said.
“It does not appear to burn either, but rather a combustible fluid of some sort,” Lee answered. That was what his military engineers had told him, based on the few drops of strong-smelling liquid left in the tank marked FUEL. Whatever the liquid ‘Was, it wasn’t whale oil: of so much the engineers seemed certain. Past that point, no certainty existed. Most of the savants working with the RONDA GENERATOR—for so it proclaimed itself to be—believed that what it generated was electricity, but what the stuff was good for once generated they hadn’t a clue. The Rivington men had known, though.
Duncan Kenner of Louisiana, another congressman of the Confederate persuasion, said, “This is all very interesting, I’m sure, Mr. President, but why are we here?”
Lee nodded to Judah Benjamin, whose usual small smile never wavered; Benjamin had primed Kenner to ask just that question. Lee said, “The answer, Congressman, reaches back more than four years and has until recently been a tightly held secret. Even now, before I continue, I must require your word of honor, and that of your colleagues, not to divulge what you learn here today without my prior permission.”
Most of the legislators agreed at once. Mulish Wigfall said, “Be damned if I’ll buy a pig in a poke.”
“Very well, Senator, you may go; I am sorry to have wasted your time,” Lee said politely. Wigfall glared but, seeing Lee prepared to be inflexible, added his promise to the rest. Lee nodded his thanks, then went on, “In early 1864, as you must all be aware, our Confederacy’s prospects in the war for independence were poor. We were outnumbered and outfactoried from the start, portions of our land had been overrun, and the North was beginning to find in Grant and Sherman and Sheridan officers who could bring its full strength to bear upon us.”
Even Wigfall had to nod; the staunchest Southern fire-eater remembered how bleak things had looked then. Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar of Mississippi, newly returned to Congress as a Patriot and as staunch a fire-eater as any ever born, said, “The coming at that moment of the Rivington men and their repeaters always seemed to me to be visible, even miraculous, proof of the favor which divine Providence showed the Confederate States of America,” Several other senators and congressmen solemnly nodded.
“I confess that I inclined toward a similar view for some time,” Lee said. “I have since been disabused of this notion. We were indeed shown favor, but of a sort neither divine’ nor miraculous. Hear me out, my friends; the story I am about to tell you may seem implausible, but I assure you it is the truth.”
He told the legislators what he knew of the Rivington men and their travel through time to come to the South’s aid. Part of what he said was gleaned from Andries Rhoodie, part from the volumes in the chamber where he now stood. As he spoke, he watched Louis Wigfall go paler and paler. That did not surprise him; the men of the AWB must have given Wigfall their own version of this tale. Lee finished,” And so you see, gentlemen, they helped us gain our freedom, not out of consideration for our virtues, but so we might serve as pawns in their game.”
Silence stretched when he was through. Finally Congressman Lamar said, “This is an—extraordinary web you spin, Mr. President, so extraordinary that I hope you will not be offended if I say it would be all the better for proof.”
“I can offer that, or at least corroboration,” Judah Benjamin said. “I heard much of this same tale from Andries Rhoodie’s lips, as did Jefferson Davis and, if I be not mistaken, Joe Johnston and Alexander Stephen
s as well.” Benjamin looked around the room. “And unless I am much mistaken, my friends, some few of you will have heard it as well. We are not so good at keeping secrets, even important secrets, as we might be.”
Since Lee kept secrets without difficulty, he had not thought of that, but by the expressions on several legislators’ faces, Benjamin had a point. Lee glanced toward Wigfall. Almost defiantly, the Texan said, “I’ve heard it, yes, but not through gossip and chit-chat. The Rivington men told it to me and General Forrest, though their interpretation of the events differed substantially from that ascribed to them by Mr. Lee.”
“‘By their fruits ye shall know them,’ or so the Bible says,” Lee answered. He waved to the book that lay open on every desk in the secret room. “To few folks is it given to learn how history would judge them. Thanks to the men of the AWB; we possess that opportunity. I have taken the liberty of marking certain passages in these books, passages I believe to be representative of the whole. By no means do I require you to take these as all-inclusive, however; feel free to browse as you would, to learn how the future thought of some of the issues our confederacy was in part founded to uphold.”
“You mean niggers, don’t you?” Wigfall said. “In the end, it always comes down to niggers.”
“There, Senator, I find I cannot disagree with you,” Lee said, thinking this was one of the few occasions on which he could truthfully say that.
He took a step back, indicating that the congressmen and senators might begin their examination. Instantly, he was reminded of a game of musical chairs, for legislators outnumbered chairs to hold them. His momentary amusement vanished as fast as it formed; just such a contretemps at his inauguration had led him to bring Mary up onto the platform with him and, shortly thereafter, to his becoming a widower.
Unlike the scene in Capitol Square, no unseemly brawl followed here. Some men claimed seats; others stood and peered over their shoulders. All the books had markers inserted at the pages that gave their publication dates. A few derisive snorts arose from skeptical lawmakers, but those soon faded. Many of the volumes were illustrated, and illustrated with photographs and lavish color impossible to match in the mundane world of 1868. And every work had the dizzying effect of being written with the hindsight of a hundred years and more. Within moments, the only sounds in the room were soft grunts of wonder.
Louis T. Wigfall heaved his bulk out of a chair, advanced on Lee. “I owe you an apology. Mr. President, and I am man enough to give it. I thought you’d put together some humbug here to befool us, but I see it is not so. You could not have manufactured so much, and in such detail.” Shaking his head like a bedeviled bear, he shambled back to the desk from which he had come and, without complaint, took a place behind Congressman Gartrell, who had occupied his chair.
Lee leaned against the hard, cold side of a closed file cabinet, let the lawmakers look as long as they would. This was the second such delegation he had led into the AWB sanctum; eventually, he planned to allow the entire Confederate Congress to see the books and papers assembled here.
As had happened with the first group of legislators, wonder began to give way to indignation as senators and congressmen moved from one volume to the next, compared one account of the, lost Civil War and its aftermath with another. “Every one of these things sounds as if a damnyankee wrote it,” Congressman Lamar exclaimed. Someone else—Lee did not notice who—added, “Not just a damnyankee, but a damned abolitionist Yankee.”
Where Lee had quoted Matthew, Judah P. Benjamin chose Bobbie Burns: “ ‘Oh wad some power the giftie gie us, To see oursels as others see us! It wad frae monie a blunder free us, An’ foolish notion.’” He did his best to turn his soft accent to broad, harsh Scots. A thoughtful silence descended when he was through.
Into it, Lee said, “Unique among men, my friends, we have been granted that, ah, giftie. We always remained faithful to our peculiar institution despite the censure of those outside our bounds, confident posterity would thank us for that fidelity. But here before us we have the verdict of posterity, which condemns us for maintaining the ownership of one man by another and is convinced that that system, if ever it were justifiable, had in our time long since outlived such justification.” This time he picked words from the Book of Daniel: “ ‘Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting.’ Only God knows His judgments, but we may see for ourselves the verdict which history has brought in against us.”
“Did you know of this when during your Presidential campaign you spoke of ending slavery?” Congressman Kenner asked.
“No, sir, I did not,” Lee said. “Indeed, the Rivington men painted for me quite a different picture of the future, a picture in which white and black remained forever at each other’s throats. The pages in this room serve to give the lie to that picture, as I, think you will agree, yet it was the one they ‘offered, as Mr. Benjamin and, I think, Senator Wigfall will attest.”
Judah Benjamin’s massive head moved up and down. Wigfall also nodded, though his expression was anything but sanguine; Lee wondered whether the fierce frown was aimed at himself for having forced the Texan to make that admission or at the AWB men for having misled him.
L. Q. C. Lamar said, “What of the Rivington men, then? If this love feast between Negroes and whites be the way of the future (and so it would seem, startling and, I must say, repugnant though I find it), how do the Rivington men fit into it?”
“Poorly, I suspect.” Lee held up a hand. “No, I do not intend to be flippant. By their own words, as rendered into English by Mr. Benjamin’s coreligionist Mr. Goldfarb, they show themselves to be zealots at strife with virtually the entire world of their time. Let me offer you an analogy which quite offended Andries Rhoodie: the Rivington men are as mad in their support of whites in their times as John Brown was in support of blacks in ours.”
The Confederate legislators looked at each other. One by one, they began to nod. The same thing had happened with the first delegation to see the evidence from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Few men were brazen enough to withstand their great-grandsons’ scorn.
Louis T. Wigfall came close. “Damn me to hell, sir, if I can stomach that stinking black Republican of an Abe Lincoln being made into some plaster saint. And damn me to hell if I want to live in a country where the man who blacks my boots and curries my horse is my equal.”
“A measure of equality before the law by no means creates of itself equality in society,” Lee said. “The United States make that abundantly clear. And let me ask you a different question, Senator, if I may: Having seen the means the AWB employs to reach its ends, do you yet find those ends deserving of your support?”
Wigfall’s glower grew black as his boots. But he had been in the middle of the Capitol Square massacre. At last he shook his heavy head.
“Nor do I.” Lee raised his voice, spoke to the entire congressional delegation: “Am I to construe from this, then, that you shall vote in the affirmative when a bill arranging for the gradual, compensated emancipation of Negro slaves, the terms to be along the lines of those I outlined before becoming President, is introduced into the Senate and House of Representatives?”
Again, the lawmakers looked at one another, some of them as if they hoped one of their number would have the nerve to say no. Lee watched them all, especially Wigfall and Lamar, whom he judged likeliest to oppose him, the one from stubbornness, the other out of principle.
Lamar cleared his throat. Several congressmen beamed. The representative from Mississippi said, “Retreating from a long-held position is apt to be as dangerous in politics as in war; in so doing, I fear I look down into the open grave of any future aspirations. Yet given the evidence you have presented to us today, I have no choice but to support such legislation as you suggest, and justify my vote to my constituents as well as I may thereafter.”
Lee’s nod was the next thing to a bow. “If not the immediate gratitude of the voters in your district, you will gain your country’s l
asting thanks.”
After the Mississippian declared himself in favor of Lee’s program, the rest of the lawmakers fell in line. Even Wigfall nodded gruffly, though Lee, knowing his volatility, did not take that as a firm promise. Judah Benjamin said, “You know, Mr. Lamar, what with the atrocities of March 4 and the insurrection currently being mounted in North Carolina, your vote in favor of emancipation may yet redound to your advantage, provided you make your district aware that in so voting, you reject everything the Rivington men support.”
Lamar’s features, usually on the brooding side, lit up. “It could be so, sir; with your well-known acuity of judgment in matters political, it likely is so.”
“You flatter me, sir,” Benjamin said, and he contrived to appear flattered, but flattery, Lee thought, was best defined as overfulsome praise, and, having seen Benjamin in action, he was more than willing to concede the former Secretary of State’s reputation was deserved.
Congressman Gartrell said, “How fare we against the rebels, sir?”
“Not so well as I would wish,” Lee answered. “The Rivington men are few in numbers, but possessed of the advantage of a century and a half of progress in the mechanic arts, progress we of course lack. The repeaters they furnished us for use against the United States are one example of such progress; unhappily, we have discovered that they are only one example. The Rivington men have on the whole succeeded in maintaining the positions they seized when fighting broke out after March 4. Were it not for the AK-47s in our arsenal, I fear they might have managed to do much more than merely hold those positions.”
He stopped, scowling almost as ferociously as had Senator Wigfall. The long-barreled, large-caliber endless repeaters the Rivington men used to defend strong points made AK-47s seem like Springfields by. comparison. Nor were the torpedoes they buried in the fields between those strong points any bargain, either; after watching the legs blown off two or three men, their comrades grew noticeably less eager to advance.
The Guns of the South Page 61
