On Secret Service

by John Jakes

  Horatio Seymour, an unimpressive man in his fifties, was serving his second term in Albany. He reiterated his opposition to the Enrollment and Conscription Act. It was unconstitutional, its quotas unfair. He denounced the Republicans and vowed to press the fight against the draft by sending a personal representative to plead with Mr. Stanton for its repeal. This touched off a final, four-minute ovation.

  Afterward, it took Margaret ten minutes to flag down a hansom. Several responded to her signal, but each time, a boorish New Yorker jumped in front of her and leaped inside. The last person who tried was a stout matron. Margaret poked the woman’s thigh with her parasol and captured the cab.

  Lower Broadway was a clangorous tangle of omnibuses, carriages, carts, livestock, and desperate pedestrians risking their lives to cross from one curb to the other. Walking to your destination was usually faster. In the cab she reread a long letter from Rose in Richmond. An unfamiliar man had brought it to the servant’s entrance just before she left for the parade.

  The letter was dated May 14, thus had been a long time in some illicit pipeline. Rose had found a London publisher and would soon leave for England to promote her memoir, as well as sympathy for the Confederate cause. Good for her.

  Presently the cab delivered Margaret to the green and pleasant enclave of Gramercy Park. As she paid the driver, she saw a slender man alighting from another cab on the park’s south side. It was Edwin Booth. Donal had squired her to a performance of Booth’s Hamlet last month, one of the rare occasions when he took her somewhere in the evening. Donal pleaded a continual press of business at the McKee, Withers offices on Fulton Street. She suspected he spent an equal amount of time in the taverns and music halls and, no doubt, a bordello or two.

  Margaret no longer felt guilty about such thoughts. The marriage was a shell, a mistake from which she longed to extricate herself. But on what grounds? She had no evidence of adultery, only suspicion that Donal betrayed her regularly and without remorse. If she did free herself, she’d carry the stigma of divorce forever. What would she gain, other than a soiled reputation and a different kind of loneliness?

  Penelope, one of the black maids, greeted her with a conspiratorial whisper. “Gentleman waiting for you in the library, Miz McKee.”

  “I’m not expecting visitors. Who is it?”

  “Said you’d know him. Said he wanted to surprise you.”

  Hot and perspiring after her long outing, Margaret wanted a bath. She was piqued at the stranger’s impertinence. She flung the library doors open and gasped at the sight of dusty black shoes resting on a fine marble table. “Cicero!”

  “Hello, sister dear.” He removed his feet from the table, laid aside a Tribune he’d been scanning, and rose to kiss her cheek. “You’re pink as a lobster.”

  “I’ve been out in the sun all day. I never expected to see you anywhere near New York. What are you doing here?”

  Cicero peered into the hall, closed the doors. “Hoping to have supper with you and Donal, if you’ll invite me.”

  “I doubt Donal will be home. He’s away most evenings.” Margaret kept her marital problems to herself.

  “Pity,” Cicero said. “Perhaps next week, then.”

  “He’s sailing for Nassau on Monday. How long do you plan to stay?”

  “I’m not certain. I’m visiting a few acquaintances to, shall we say, take the pulse of the city.”

  She sat beside him, arranged her skirts. “Isn’t that terribly risky?”

  “Less than you might think. I’ve visited Chicago, Baltimore, even Toronto, with no difficulty. I travel as a copperhead lawyer from Kentucky.”

  “Copperhead. I’ve heard that word a lot lately.”

  “Copperheads are men in sympathy with us, mostly in the Middle West, but there are some here as well. I understand they wear a copper penny as a badge.” He picked up the discarded Tribune. Its boldest headline announced THE ENEMY REPULSED AT ALL POINTS! “Does Donal read this rag?”

  “Yes, and several others that favor the Republicans. He says to be informed, we needn’t agree with the informant.”

  Cicero’s bald pate glistened in the heat, like Margaret’s cheeks. Beyond the tall windows, the green of the pocket park faded in the scorching light of late afternoon.

  “I passed by the Tribune building this morning,” he said. “By chance I saw Greeley himself arguing with someone at the entrance. The old poltroon was wearing that white coat you read about. He’s one Yankee I’d like to send to the gallows.”

  Cicero’s eyes had a peculiar blankness; almost reptilian, she thought. “You really must tell me why you’re here. This is enemy territory after all.”

  “Strictly speaking, of course it is. But you must be aware of the city’s fierce opposition to the war. Governor Seymour barely squeaked through the spring election, but he carried New York and Brooklyn by huge margins. Working folk are in turmoil, especially the Irish. They hate the rich, they hate the Republicans, and most of all they hate the niggers, whom they blame for the draft. It’s a volatile situation. It could be exploited.”

  “Exploited? How?”

  He limped to the window. With his back turned he said, “I’m sure I don’t know. I was only speculating.” His tone had changed; a wall had arisen.

  “Cicero.” He faced her. “Are you and these acquaintances, as you call them, planning to stir up trouble?” She was more fearful than disapproving. He laughed and pressed his palm to his scarlet waistcoat, feigning shock.

  “I? Your gentle brother? How could you think that?”

  “May I ask where you’re staying?”

  “You may, but I won’t tell you. Safer for both of us.”

  His reticence discouraged her from probing further. She diverted the talk to the subject of Lee’s desperate gamble to carry the war into the North. Evidently he’d been hurled back in two days of bloody fighting around the little town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

  They dined on an excellent light supper of potted chicken and spring vegetables, with a pale rosé wine. Queer and secretive as Cicero was, Margaret enjoyed his company after a long separation. At half-past seven he kissed her decorously, limped down the stone steps, and turned toward Lexington Avenue. His shadow stretched ahead of him, jerking from side to side as he limped out of sight.

  Phineas Farley, the houseman, met her in the foyer. “Would it be agreeable if I went home a bit early, ma’am? I don’t like to leave my Eileen by herself these nights.”

  “Certainly, Phineas. Is there trouble in your neighborhood?”

  “Gatherings in the street, ma’am. Lots of drinking and rough talk. It’s the draft. A gentleman of means will be able to buy a substitute for three hundred dollars, but not the poor. The boyos in the volunteer fire companies are particularly hot about the idea of fighting for the ni—for Africans. I fear worse trouble when the first numbers are drawn next month.”

  A volatile situation. It could be exploited…

  “You may be right. By all means, go home.”

  Upstairs, she undressed and bathed. Fireworks showered the night sky with red, white, and blue lights. The sticky air brought distant music of a brass band. She closed the shutters and settled in bed to struggle on with Victor Hugo. Donal returned sometime after midnight, when she was asleep.

  50

  July 1863

  On Monday after the Fourth, Baker called him in. “Read this.”

  A DECLARATION OF WAR AGAINST USURPATION AND TYRANNY! The crudely printed handbill damned the draft act and called for punishment of thieves, Pharisees and despots who defile the temple of our liberty.

  “Where did this come from, Colonel?”

  “New York. I have a man inside police headquarters there. The handbills appeared Friday, before the holiday. Enrollment clerks canvassing for names of able-bodied men have been threatened, even beaten and stoned. We suspect a man named John Andrews is fomenting mob action when the names are drawn. Others may be sent from Richmond either to direct him or assis
t him.”

  “Who is Andrews?”

  “A no-account lawyer from Virginia. He’s been in New York four years. I want you to take the train up there. Should violence occur, leave the mobs to the police and find those inciting them. Apprehend them or remove them. Think of it as killing enemy soldiers. You won’t be questioned or criticized.”

  Baker’s cold gray gaze, the calm way he authorized murder, shook Lon, not an easy thing to do anymore. “I understand. By the way, I wrote Mr. Pinkerton and received a reply. He sent half my back pay.”

  “I’m surprised you got that much.”

  “He said all the delays and disputes originated in this department.”

  Baker froze. “I know nothing of that. In New York, you can call on our informant on the force for guidance. However, don’t for a moment think of asking for police cooperation. Half the patrolmen are crooks, but they all have to obey rules. You do not.”

  A hog rooted in the alley behind Willard’s Hotel. Noise dinned through the closed kitchen door. Lon stood near the door, smoking. A black man in rags lurched toward them, his eyes glazed by sickness. He held out his hand.

  Zach said, “We can’t help you. Go to a hospital.” The man shambled on. “Got the smallpox, don’t he?”

  “He has the look. Too many people are sick and wandering like that.”

  Zach shied a stone at the hog, then wiped his hands on his apron. Lon explained the assignment. “Two pairs of eyes are better than one. You might be able to go places I can’t. It’s been a long time since you chased rebs.”

  “Not since the Peninsula. Going to be rebs in New York, you think?”

  “I have a feeling. They won’t be in uniform but they’ll be enemies all the same.”

  “Like to catch me one or two. ’Course, if I was white, I could fight proper.”

  “You’re a bitter man, Zachariah.”

  “You be bitter too if you lived in this country in a black skin.”

  “Would you be happier joining one of the new black regiments?”

  “Oh, I know how that works. Colored men don’t get the enlistment bounty they pay to white sojers. Get ten dollars less in every pay envelope too. Plus the black man’s got to buy his own uniforms and kit. No thanks. I’ll go with you. Headwaiter won’t like it. Short notice.”

  “If he objects too strongly, I can arrange for him to think it over in Old Capitol.”

  Zach shook his head. “Lord, Lord. Where’d you get so fierce all at once?”

  “Where do you think? Richmond.”

  They arrived by train early Thursday morning, July 9. Even in a city of eight hundred thousand it was hard to find a hotel that would rent a room to a colored man. Finally they were successful at a sailors’ rest on Water Street, a block from the South Street piers crowded with coasters and oceangoing steamships. Not far away, in a fine Greek Revival building on Fulton, Margaret’s husband had offices. Lon had established that by using a city directory in Washington.

  Baker’s paid informant, Detective Sean Ruddy, met them in an alley on Murray Street, just west of City Hall Park. Ruddy was an avuncular Irishman with curly white hair and a watermelon-sized belly. His first words to Lon were, “Who’s this?”

  “Zachariah Chisolm. He works with me.”

  “Jesus, what next?”

  Ruddy gave them a description of John Andrews: six feet tall, red beard, ruby ring on his right hand. Lon wrote the address of the lawyer’s office in a notebook.

  “Washington suspects other Confederate agents are in town.”

  “Superintendent Kennedy has the same feeling. We don’t know who they are, or where.”

  “Do the rebs have a hangout? A place where they congregate?”

  “I think I told you all I’m going to tell you. The money I’m getting ain’t grand. So long.”

  Lon grabbed Ruddy’s wrist, spun him, and twisted his arm at the small of his back. Ruddy’s jaw jammed against the brick wall.

  “Do you want to rethink that? The alternative is finding yourself on Mr. Stanton’s list. People on the list tend to disappear suddenly.”

  “Ow! Jesus Christ, let me go. I’ll tell you.” Lon stepped away. “Try the Roost, corner of Bond Street and the Bowery. They oughta call it rebels’ roost.” As Ruddy left, he shouted, “You let that dinge wander in an Irish neighborhood, you won’t see him again.”

  The second-floor office of John Andrews, on Elk Street a block above City Hall, was locked tight. Lon examined a layer of dust at the foot of the door. “No one’s been here in a while.”

  The rest of the day and all of Friday reminded him of the legend of Orpheus descending into hell, only they were searching for spies, not Eurydice. At Sportsmen’s Hall on Water Street, a screaming crowd surrounded a walled pit where four huge Norway rats fought a bulldog blind in one eye. They watched the bulldog die. No one knew Andrews.

  In nearby bordellos, whores invited them to partake of the wares, even Zach. Some of the ugliest wore the gaudiest clothes, including black net stockings and scarlet boots with little bells attached. One fat girl thought she’d been with a man resembling Andrews but remembered no details.

  They trudged on to the gambling dens of Park Row and Vesey Streets, where poor men who could ill afford it squandered their money away on faro and dice. No one knew Andrews.

  In the triangular plaza called Paradise Square, streets intersected to form the Five Points, the heart of the city’s most vicious slum. A dozen filthy children surrounded Lon and Zach, tugging at their hands, pleading for money. They reminded Lon of Fagin’s gang. He emptied his pockets of coins; the children fell on them like the rats on the bulldog. Lon didn’t bother to ask about Andrews.

  The run-down Bowery, once a fashionable street, was lined with pawnshops and gun shops and concert saloons. The Roost was a shabby workingman’s tavern. “White man’s place,” Zach said. “You go in by yourself.”

  A Union Jack and a lithographed portrait of George III hung on the stained wall of the tavern, along with a French tricolor and an engraving of Madame Defarge knitting by the guillotine, a Confederate battle flag, and a newspaper artist’s heroic rendering of Stonewall Jackson. Rebels’ roost indeed. Neither the barkeep nor the few patrons drinking whiskey at eleven in the morning knew John Andrews. Or so they said.

  At the Bull’s Head, a cattle drovers’ hotel on Forty-third Street near Lexington, Lon wanted to buy two buckets of lager beer. He was turned away at the taproom door because of Zach. Lon’s sunburned face reddened. Zach calmed him with a hand on his sleeve.

  Strolling around in back, near the crowded cattle pens, they saw a man unloading wooden crates from a wagon. He had a furtive air. The boxes held metal cans. Lon whispered, “We’ll come back.” An hour later, after being jeered by volunteer firemen in black shirts lounging outside a firehouse on West Forty-eighth—“Hey, nigger, sing us a coon song”—they returned to the Bull’s Head. Lon used a pick to open the padlocked door at the rear of a storage building. The drayman had delivered four of the wooden boxes. Lon pulled out an unmarked can, pried the lid off with his knife. He held the can out for Zach to sniff.

  “Turpentine?”

  “Turpentine,” Lon said. “Enough to set a hell of a lot of fires.”

  Rough men. Sweated shirts, overalls, hobnailed boots. A few women, foulmouthed as the men. Ugly stares at Zach. Under the blazing sun, Third Avenue steamed. Lon estimated the crowd at two hundred.

  Nine o’clock by his pocket watch. By standing on the wheel spoke of a dray, he could see into the draft office in a row of four-story brick-and-frame tenements on the east side of Third at Forty-sixth. It was the only draft office ready for business Saturday morning. Three nervous members of the Invalid Corps guarded the doorway. A couple of strong girls could overwhelm them.

  One of the provost marshal’s men stepped outside. “In accordance with the national conscription law enacted by the Congress, the draft for this Ninth Enrollment District, Twenty-first Ward, shall now commence.”<
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  The crowd muttered. A clerk turned the crank of a lottery drum. Another, blindfolded, reached into the drum for one of the folded slips. He handed it to the man at the door.

  “First draftee is William Jones, Twenty-second District, Forty-sixth Street, corner of Tenth. Is he present?”

  He wasn’t. The crowd responded with catcalls. The marshal retired. The drum revolved. More names were drawn but not announced. A northbound horsecar clanged its bell, unable to move until the spectators grudgingly moved.

  Lon was better dressed than most around him. He wore a tan linen suit, yellow bandanna knotted at his open collar, yellow straw hat with a striped silk band. He might have been a prosperous merchant or country doctor and would have gone largely unnoticed but for Zach. Clearly he’d made an error in recruiting his friend. At the appropriate moment he would suggest that Zach catch a train for Washington. He expected Zach would refuse.

  About ten o’clock, a slim young man Lon hadn’t noticed before started to harangue the crowd. “It’s the nigger-worshiping black Republicans brought us to this.” The young man wore dark trousers, a soiled white jacket, a smoking hat with an embroidered band. A small round pin with the glint of copper ornamented his lapel.

  “What do we do, you’re such a smart bastard?” said a toothless woman.

  “Organize a protest. Elect leaders. Formulate a plan.”

  “Form-you-what?” a man shouted. People laughed. The young man smiled to show he was with them.

  “Take action. You don’t need guns. I’ve seen pitchforks in stables, pieces of lumber at construction sites, broken paving stones right there in the gutter. Use those.” The young man noticed Lon watching him.

  Lon nudged a workman who must have bathed in his own sweat. “Who is he?”

  “Never seen him before, but ain’t he right?”

  Lon moved on. No one knew the young man in the smoking hat. Lon observed him for a half hour. Then a remark from Zach distracted him and when he looked again, the young man was gone. Lon had memorized his face.