On Secret Service

by John Jakes

  Davis folded his pale hands on the table. The rain drummed the windows. Seddon muttered that they ought to light the gas. Davis said, “Shortly. Let us conclude our business first.” Secretary Benjamin stroked his beard.

  “Major Norris, the floor is yours.”

  “Thank you, Mr. President. Gentlemen.” Norris rose, smiling slightly as if to acknowledge their common gentility. The major was in his forties, an elegant martial figure in gray and gold braid. Cicero scratched his scarred hand.

  “I trust you all know Mr. Miller. He is one of my best civilian operatives, as well as one of the bravest. You have received reports of his accomplishments in New York last summer—gallant service unfortunately cut short by an enemy agent’s brutality.” Cicero had spun an elaborate story of fighting with Lon Price in a burning building. It had little relation to the truth. After Price had caught him in the Roost, Cicero had simply run, blind with terror. Confrontation had never been Cicero’s style, except when all the strength was on his side.

  He’d been so crazy with fear, he’d rushed into the tenement unthinkingly. He’d smelled the smoke, seen it curling from the broken windows, but his blood was up and his brain too dizzy for the meaning to penetrate. The same hysteria made him run upstairs to get away from Price. Fire engulfed the building, Price fell through the floor, and Cicero too.

  His suit had caught fire on the left side. He managed to leap out a window. Rolling over and over, he might have been all right even then if pieces of the burning tenement wall hadn’t fallen on him. Trailing flames from his clothes, he ran.

  He blundered into someone’s rain barrel filled by the recent storm. He plunged his head and shoulders in the water, then tipped the barrel to soak his lower body. His whole left side consisted of smoking rags. The real pain began then, made more sickening by the reek of his burned flesh.

  He staggered on. Perhaps fear of death drove him. Somehow he reached the small lodging house in lower Manhattan run by a couple with known Confederate sympathies. Sobbing and raving, he lay in his bed until a doctor arrived to dope him with laudanum and end his agony. Until he woke again.

  He screamed for a mirror and saw his bandages. They came off four weeks later but he already knew he was disfigured—crippled a second time.

  Major Norris said, “Mr. Miller approached me with his idea three weeks ago. I will let him present it.”

  Norris took his seat. Cicero bowed and gave them a quick, perfunctory smile. He wanted to murder Lon Price. He wanted to bring a Confederate victory single-handed. He knew he could.

  “Gentlemen, the kernel of my idea is not original with me. We have seen it propounded and discussed in the papers frequently. I refer to a negotiated peace, one which will let our Confederacy survive unhindered, as a separate nation.”

  Seddon frowned at the rain. Davis studied his pale hands. Secretary Benjamin, however, no longer stroked his beard.

  “We also have another, more immediate problem. I refer to Grant’s order last month halting prisoner exchanges, which is nothing short of an unprincipled attempt to reduce our manpower. We must force Grant to relent. At the same time we must strive to reach the larger objective, peace on our terms. We cannot achieve either goal by conventional negotiation. We must have a bargaining chip. A trump card higher than anything the enemy holds.”

  “And what would that be, sir?” Benjamin asked.

  “Abraham Lincoln, sir. Kidnaped and secured in our hands here in Richmond.”

  Softly but pointedly Mr. Benjamin said, “Lincoln has guards, military or civilian, depending on the circumstances.”

  “Not that many, Mr. Secretary, and not that often. He constantly upsets his staff by driving about town in his carriage without an escort, or stealing into a playhouse alone.” Cicero paused for effect. “I have recently been in Washington to make sure.”

  That made them sit up. Norris smiled to himself. But Seddon scowled, a signal of trouble.

  “Major Norris has acquainted me with the essentials of this plan, Mr. President. I oppose it on a number of grounds, not the least of which is the element of personal risk. Who in his right mind would attempt such a thing?”

  Who in his right mind? Cicero wanted to leap on Seddon, batter his smug, sickly face until there was so much blood and gore no one would recognize—

  They were staring at him. He’d blanked out for a moment. He fixed the sycophantic smile in place.

  “I will, sir. As I stated, I have already worked secretly in Washington City.”

  “How in God’s name did you get there?” Seddon’s complaining tone said he knew he was losing.

  “There is a great deal of illegal traffic back and forth across the Potomac. For twenty dollars gold, the local boatmen will risk the gunboats on patrol and the bluecoats on the Maryland shore.”

  Norris said, “As you know, Mr. Secretary, the Signal Service is more than flags and balloons and coded messages. We have resources in unusual areas. For example, documentation of a fictitious identity.”

  Cicero bowed to introduce his new persona. “Hiram Seth, publisher of a small newspaper in rural Maryland, at your service. Mr. Seth’s visits were completely ignored by the authorities. As a result, I already have my eye on a couple of men capable of helping organize and carry out our plan. I’m sure I’ll find more. The Yankee capital teems with people sick to death of the excesses of the Lincoln government. Further, we can supplement our manpower by calling on our partisan guerillas who operate along the Potomac.”

  He waited. The rain hammered windows and streamed down. The cabinet room had grown so gloomy, they might have been meeting in the lightless inner room of Castle Thunder. Mr. Benjamin thoughtfully delivered himself of an opinion:

  “Your plan is enterprising. Your courage is unquestioned, particularly in view of the terrible personal injury you suffered last July. I will endorse the plan on two conditions. One, this administration will disassociate itself so it cannot be held accountable if the plan fails. My other condition is obvious. The final decision rests with the President.”

  Davis bowed his head, obviously troubled. “I was never taught to campaign this way. I do realize the hour is late and our situation fraught with danger. Major Norris, I authorize you to draft a memorandum of the plan for my review. If I approve it, you will put the plan in motion, understanding that, as Mr. Benjamin said, should failure occur before we have the, ah, captive in our hands, everything will be denied.”

  Norris couldn’t help a boisterous enthusiasm. “Sir, thank you. Be assured, we won’t disappoint you.”

  Davis turned his milky eye to Cicero. “You have it within your grasp to become a great hero of the Confederacy, Mr. Miller.”

  And something more important, Cicero thought. Much more important. His sober mien concealed his elation. He was no Bible-spouter like Cridge, but he knew an appropriate verse. Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord.

  57

  June 1864

  The partisan battalion now had two additional companies, B and C, with plans for more. New men arrived regularly, drawn by Mosby’s name and celebrity.

  A few months earlier, repeal of the Partisan Ranger Act by the Confederate Congress had nearly wiped out all independent commands. Brigadier Thomas Rosser had complained to Lee about the partisans, branding them “bands of thieves” and arguing that they put an evil stamp on the whole Army. Mosby galloped to Richmond, pleaded with Lee, and won exemption from the repeal. While Grant maneuvered and hammered unsuccessfully at Lee’s Army at Spotsylvania and Cold Harbor during the spring and early summer, the partisans remained a presence in Loudoun and Fauquier counties—“Mosby’s Confederacy,” the press and populace called it.

  Captain William Smith, a confidant of Mosby’s, led B Company. Familiar with Fred’s background, he requested him and promoted him to sergeant. “Despite your reputation as a man overly fond of the corn,” Smith said with humorless candor.

  Jeb Stuart’s death at Yellow Tavern hit Fred hard. He coul
d hardly thank the flamboyant cavalryman for banishing him to Mosby’s unit, or ordering Hanna Siegel to some filthy Richmond prison. Yet neither could he dismiss Stuart’s military genius and his importance to the Army. Stuart’s death began a turnaround in Fred’s life that was at first wholly unsuspected. An incident of low comedy brought it to the fore.

  Mosby sent Fred with ten men on what was called corn patrol: the extraction of tribute from farmers suspected of Union sympathies. These were mostly Quakers; gentle people. It sickened Fred to ride into their farmyards and strip them of their remaining grain and livestock.

  One man in Fred’s detail aroused loathing of a kind he’d seldom felt in military service. The new recruit, tall and black-haired, hailed from Alabama. Fred guessed him to be anywhere from eighteen to twenty-one. He had the body of a Hercules and the brain of a rabbit. Having lost two brothers at Murfreesboro, he was poisoned with hate for the Yankees. He said he’d never wounded an enemy soldier. “When I shoot, I miss ’em or kill ’em.” He made the boast often, with moronic glee.

  The young man’s proudest moment, which he described tediously to any who would listen, was meeting John Wilkes Booth during one of the actor’s Southern tours. “Mighty fine show he gave. Went backstage afterwards. Mr. Booth shook my hand and poured me a whiskey in his dressing room. We talked about how we hated the son-of-a-bitching black Republicans. Booth said he’d like to murder a few. I said I would too. We shook hands on it.”

  No one knew where Lewis Powell had come from last winter. Desertion from some other unit seemed probable; he was experienced. He also seemed fearless, a quality Fred always equated with stupidity. Powell sensed Fred’s dislike and made his own dislike evident with side glances and snickers, though he never disobeyed orders.

  Another duty of corn patrols was destruction of stills discovered in remote areas. Mosby insisted that alcohol not only harmed a soldier, but robbed precious grain needed for food and fodder. Near the hamlet of Bluemont, within sight of the Blue Ridge, Fred’s detail swooped down on a still operated by a toothless grandpa of eighty or more. They tore the coils apart and shot holes in the kettles. With Fred’s permission, they helped themselves to some of the product.

  Fred joined in, imbibing too generously. When the late-afternoon sun was spilling red light on the mountains, he ordered the detail back to the horses. He put his foot in Baron’s stirrup and mounted so energetically, he fell off the other side. With all his men watching.

  Most tried to choke back laughter, but not Lewis Powell. He whooped and pointed at Fred sitting dazed and drunk beside the black gelding.

  At another time Fred might have shrugged it off; even joked about it. In his depressed state he didn’t find it funny. Sitting there on a smelly horse apple on which he’d landed, he had a sudden and painful sense of what he’d become.

  The detail’s return to camp coincided with a visit from one of the itinerant colporteurs who roamed the countryside supplying the troops with Bibles and religious literature. Christian revivals swept the Army periodically. During the latest, General Leonidas Polk, an Episcopal bishop before the war, had baptized Generals Hood, Hardee, and Johnston in widely publicized ceremonies.

  The colporteur handed out tracts. To be courteous, Fred took one, intending to throw it away later. He stuck the the four-page leaflet in his pocket and forgot it until evening, when he discovered it again. He examined it by lantern light.

  Its title was “Demon Drink.” He remembered the shame of sitting in a horse turd, drunk and dizzy, and opened it. The tract’s little homily posed a question. What was the point of a man fighting to throw off the yoke the Union wanted to place on the South if at the same time he willingly enslaved himself to spirits? The anonymous writer sprinkled his text with inspirational quotes. Lord Cornwallis: “A drunken night makes a cloudy morning.” Saint Paul’s letter to the Romans: “Let us walk honestly, as in the day, not in rioting and drunkenness.” Words of the philosopher Seneca affected Fred like a dousing of icy water: “Drunkenness is nothing but voluntary madness.”

  He read the tract a second time. No radiant light descended on him from heaven. No choir of angels sang. Yet it was an epiphany, as profound and complete as it was quiet and personal. In the farmer’s barn where he slept, Fred held his canteen in his hands a long time, staring at it while he contemplated the ruin he’d made of his life the past couple of years. He walked outside, uncorked the canteen, and poured the whiskey in the dirt. Bathed in the pure white brilliance of a full moon, he filled his canteen from water in the well.

  Late in June, Captain Smith sent Fred to Lieutenant Colonel Mosby. The commander was living in a bedroom of a farmhouse and using its dining room for headquarters. Fred saluted. “Please have a chair, Sergeant. I’ll be ready to talk momentarily.” Fred was surprised by Mosby’s cordiality. What was coming? A reprimand for the spectacle he had made falling off Baron? But that had happened weeks ago.

  Mosby pushed his reading glasses higher on his nose and finished signing a series of orders. He laid the pen aside and fixed his pale eyes on Fred. “Captain Smith reports a remarkable change in your demeanor, Sergeant Dasher. Do you have anything to say about that?”

  Fred cleared his throat. “Nothing special, sir. I’ve made mistakes in the past. I’m trying to correct them.”

  A male cardinal landed on the sill of the open window, tipping its head as if to look in. Finding nothing of interest, it flew away. Mosby said, “You reflect favorably on yourself with that admission. It was drinking, wasn’t it?”

  Fred grew almost as red as the vanished bird. “Yes, sir. Drinking. Too much drinking.”

  “You’re sober now?”

  “I haven’t touched a drop for over a month.”

  “Is that a burden?”

  About to deny it, Fred reconsidered. “Sir, it is. I’ve never gotten over something that happened on the Peninsula.”

  “The killing of the young girl. General Stuart described what happened. That would be a terrible burden for any man.”

  “Yes, sir. It’s always with me. The whiskey makes—that is, it made it easier to forget. I finally saw what it was doing to me.”

  “Admirable,” Mosby said. “In light of this change, I thought of you when Richmond asked us for a volunteer. We’ll be cooperating with the Signal Service on a dangerous mission. The full details haven’t been revealed to me as yet, but I know the mission involves putting a volunteer in considerable jeopardy, to gather information.”

  “Spy work, sir?”

  “You could call it spy work. The Signal Service wants a man in Washington for a few weeks. General Stuart told me you’d spent time there, so you must know the city.” Fred said yes, he did. “Then if you’re willing to hazard yourself, I’ll write the order.”

  Fred’s mind raced. Was Hanna still in the capital? Could he find her? Mosby cleared his throat.

  “Yes, sir, I’m more than willing. Will I go directly to Washington?”

  “No, to Richmond first. There you’ll become a Union war prisoner awaiting exchange. You’ll have another name, another identity, provided by the Signal Service. Gather your gear. My orderly will deliver the papers to Captain Smith. You can leave before dark. That’s all.”

  Fred leaped out of the chair so violently, Mosby’s thin mouth twitched in a smile, something not customary for him. He astonished Fred by offering a handshake. “I’m proud that one of my men is willing to undertake this duty. I wish you the best of luck. I would ask that our past differences be forgotten if you can find that in your heart.”

  “I can, sir. Absolutely.”

  Though there was little room in his heart at the moment for anything but thoughts of Hanna Siegel.

  58

  June–July 1864

  Margaret couldn’t stay a hermit forever. In spite of emotional wreckage left by Donal and by Lon, her disposition compelled her to move back into the world, even the divided world of Washington. Twice a week she worked in the wards of the sprawling Armo
ry Square Hospital near the Smithsonian. A newspaper appeal for volunteers drew her to it. She justified it on grounds that a percentage of the wounded were Confederate boys; war prisoners.

  At the hospital she mingled with Yankees of every sort: pompous Army surgeons wearing green sashes; prim and efficient nurses, required to be spinsters by the first nursing superintendent, Dorothea Dix; male nurses with oddly gentle dispositions; quiet Negro orderlies; teamsters who delivered the wounded like so many pieces of cordwood, then just as indifferently hauled away the cheap pine boxes holding those the hospital couldn’t save.

  To her surprise, Margaret took the work in stride. The pus and blood, amputations and noxious smells, didn’t bother her. When a young soldier begged for a dipper of water or a hand to hold, his allegiance no longer mattered. Blue or gray, he was simply an injured human being; another item on what the papers called the butcher’s bill.

  A letter arrived from Sparks & Spiderwell, Donal’s New York attorneys. In prose both stilted and arcane, Mr. Spiderwell, Esq., stated what Margaret already suspected. She had no legal claim on any of Donal’s property. He intended to divorce her, using the only available grounds, adultery. Since he didn’t know about Lon, he’d have to invent evidence and buy witnesses, a common practice. She hoped the man who played her adulterous lover would be reasonably presentable.

  Summer came on. Tulip trees and redbuds lost their blooms. Shad roe vanished from hotel menus. In Baltimore, Abraham Lincoln won renomination on a National Union ticket. The convention replaced his Vice President, Hamlin, with the military governor of Tennessee, Andrew Johnson, a man Margaret knew nothing about. Washington celebrated the nominations with a torchlight parade and illuminations at the Patent and Post Offices. The most radical Republicans, it was said, weren’t eager to see Lincoln returned to office because he spoke of reunion with South, not punishment.