And John was right about how much Ellen had hated California, too. She’d never wanted to leave Ohio. In fact, she’d returned to Ohio without him for seven months in the middle of his four years in San Francisco. And her parents had insisted that their daughter Lizzie remain with them in Ohio the entire time.
Even from distant California, then, Thomas Ewing’s shadow had loomed over his life, and Ellen had never understood—never sympathized, at least—with his need to prove he was more than Thomas’s charity ward. His admiration and love for Thomas had been boundless, yet Ellen had never understood how his sense of indebtedness had always colored them both. Never grasped what drove him to prove that he could provide his own family with the financial security of which his father’s early death had deprived him as a child. To prove he could do that—could succeed where his own father, through no fault of his own, had failed him—without depending on anyone else’s largess, however willingly that largess was offered. It was why he’d left the Army in the first place, because an Army officer’s peacetime salary was too low to provide that security. It was why he’d gone into banking, despite the fact that he’d never truly had the head—or the heart—for it.
And then the bubble had burst in California. He’d closed the bank there, returned east to run another branch in New York City…only to see that go under, along with its parent bank in St. Louis, in the panic of ‘57. At thirty-seven, he’d found himself the unemployed father of three, with no prospects in banking in the current climate, and Ellen had been not so secretly pleased. Not that she’d gloated at his misfortune. She would never have done that. Indeed, the true problem was that she’d never seen it as misfortune. For her, it had been fate pushing them back to Lancaster and the family she loved, and she’d never truly comprehended how much he hated his dependence on her family and its wealth. She came from that world, she knew he’d been raised in it by her own father, and in her eyes it ought to have been the natural order of things for him as it was for her.
But it hadn’t been. And so even as Ellen had rejoiced at the thought of returning to Lancaster, Sherman had sought a different route. Perhaps he couldn’t avoid relying upon his foster father’s connections, but at least he could try to do it on his own terms. So he’d gone to Kansas, joined the real estate and law firm of his brothers-in-law, Thomas and Hugh. It was still a “family business,” but he and Tommy, especially, had always been close…and Leavenworth was over six hundred miles from Lancaster.
But that hadn’t worked out, either. The firm had never prospered—in no small part because Tommy had preferred to concentrate on abolitionist politics instead of business in “Bleeding Kansas”—and as it slowly sank into failure, his old, debilitating friend melancholy had visited him again.
He’d grown increasingly desperate. So desperate that he’d even tried to get back into the Army, but there’d been no openings two years ago. So desperate that, despite his pride, he’d been forced back to Lancaster, forced to accept a position managing the Ewing family’s coal and saltworks in nearby Chauncey. Only temporarily, of course. Only until Thomas could find something more suitable for him.
Like the position with the London bank.
Ellen had been excited about that. San Francisco was a rude, crude, raw-boned place, unable to challenge Lancaster in her eyes, but London was civilized. The largest city in the entire world. With over three million inhabitants, it was twenty times the size of Cincinnati, Ohio’s largest city, and four times the size of even New York. A place with culture and wealth, the beating heart of the largest and most powerful empire in the history of the world.
And one more “new beginning” provided by her family in an occupation he’d come to loathe.
There’d been no escape. However little the opportunity excited him, it had seemed the only one available…until he’d received the letter from Louisiana, at least.
It had come to him from George Graham, a man he’d never met, and it had invited him to consider the post as the first superintendent of the newly organized Louisiana State Seminary of Learning and Military Academy. He’d never heard of the Seminary at that point, either, but he’d jumped at the chance and taken the train to Baton Rouge for a personal interview.
He’d spoken not just with Graham, but also with Paul Hébert, his old classmate from West Point and the past Governor of Louisiana, during whose governorship the Seminary had been established three years before. Graham, the Seminary’s board chairman, had spent those three years acquiring funds, finding a campus, and commissioning the first buildings. Now he needed a superintendent, and since he envisioned the Seminary as following in the footsteps of the Virginia Military Institute, he’d clearly needed a military man for the post, so he’d consulted Colonel Don Carlos Buell, under whom he had served in the Mexican-American war, for possible candidates. Buell had written a glowing letter extolling Sherman’s qualifications for the position, and Hébert had enthusiastically endorsed Buell’s suggestion.
He and Graham had taken to one another immediately. The salary had been less than he would have been paid in London, and Rapides Parish had scarcely been a cultural mecca, but it was also a hundred and fifty miles farther from Lancaster than even Leavenworth had been. Perhaps even more importantly, the glowing terms in which Buell and Hébert had recommended him had come at a time when the black tide of his all-too-frequent bouts of depression had rolled cold and deep. They had reminded him that he was a capable man, a man others valued for his own achievements and ability, and the Seminary would inevitably grow. He could place his stamp upon it, build something that was the product of his hands and his heart that, in time, might deserve the respect he craved from Thomas Ewing. Besides, he’d liked Louisiana. There were things he didn’t care for about Southerners, but that was true of Northerners, as well. He’d liked and respected the Louisianans, they’d respected him, and he’d accepted the offer on the spot.
Ellen had not been pleased when he telegraphed her that he had. She’d had her heart set on London. Besides, like the rest of her family, she had powerful Abolitionist beliefs. She despised slaveowners, and she’d refused even to visit Louisiana.
Despite that, he’d dug into his new duties, and the truth was that however disappointed Ellen might have been, he had never been happier, never more aware that he was building something out of his own skill and effort and determination. And his time in Louisiana had brought him back into contact with old comrades from the Army and West Point, not least Hébert, who, along with Graham, had been delighted to give him entrée into the first circles of the state. He’d spent many weekends at the Hébert sugar plantation in Iberville, and renewed his friendship with Hébert’s family.
Obviously, that happiness had revealed itself in his letters to Ohio, and almost exactly a year ago today, Ellen had decided to visit Louisiana after all. Officially, she’d come to bring the children to visit him and to see with her own eyes what he was building. Actually, he had known she’d hoped to convince him to give up Louisiana and “come home,” but he’d hoped he might be able to convince her to stay in Louisiana, instead.
She had stayed. But not the way he’d hoped.
He opened his eyes again, gazing bleakly down at the busy street.
Typhoid fever.
God knew there were outbreaks enough of it in Ohio, but, of course, none of the Ewings cared about that. Ellen had come to Louisiana to contract it, and that meant Louisiana had killed her. It meant Sherman’s “stubborn” refusal to “come home” to Ohio had killed her.
It meant he had killed her.
Perhaps he had. He sometimes thought that, in the stillness of his own heart. And he knew her death, alone, would have driven a wedge between him and his family and his in-laws. But he hadn’t left it there, had he? Oh, no.
They hadn’t been there, he thought. Hadn’t seen Ellen in that mosquito-netted bed in Iberville, while the Hébert family fought to save her. Like Ellen, the Héberts were devout Roman Catholics. Their parish priest had vi
sited daily, and Hébert’s sister Marie had nursed her through every stage of her illness. Been there every single day. Slept on a cot in the same bedroom at night. Ellen’s parents hadn’t seen their daughter in the grip of delirium, clinging to Marie Hébert’s hand as if to life itself while Marie sat with her, read to her…prayed with her. Hadn’t seen Marie fighting every inch of the way, spending her own strength like fire, risking infection daily, daring the typhoid to take her as well. She’d poured her life into the fight, refused to give up.
And in the end, she’d had to watch as Ellen slipped away from them, into the shadows.
Her parents hadn’t seen any of that…just as they hadn’t heard Marie promise Ellen, promise her through her own tears as the light faded in Ellen’s eyes and that emaciated body failed her at last, that she would take care of Ellen’s children as if they were her own.
For six weeks, Marie had fought that fight at Ellen’s side. She’d nursed her, read to her, sat setting embroidery stitches while Ellen napped fitfully. She’d become closer to her than her own sisters in those six horrible weeks…and she’d sat on the other side of Ellen’s bed when it had been his turn to hold her hand, promise her he was there. Promise her he loved her.
And it was Marie who had embraced him through her own tears as Ellen lost her final fight at last. Marie who had—
Another door opened, and his nostrils flared as he turned from the window.
“I’m so sorry, Billy,” she said softly.
Ellen, like everyone else in his family, had always called him “Cump.” Marie never had. Now she crossed the hotel room to lay a hand on his forearm and stand looking up at him. She wasn’t a tall woman, smaller and more fine-boned than Ellen had been, and he saw the tears in her eyes.
“I should have said no,” she told him in that same soft, Southern voice. “It was too soon. Of course your family—Ellen’s family—sees it that way.”
“No.” His headshake was firm. “It was what she wanted, too.”
“That doesn’t mean it was the right thing to do, Billy. And it’s not as if Mrs. Ewing couldn’t have raised the children without me. In fact, I’m sure that’s what Ellen would have wanted, if her mind had only been clear.”
She was a stubborn woman, Marie, Sherman thought. And she’d always defended the Ewings.
It was a pity none of them had ever so much as spoken to her.
“You may be right,” he said now, “but I didn’t ask for your hand only because of the children.” He took that hand from his arm, raised it to his lips, and kissed it. “I asked for it because I saw you in that sickroom. Because I saw how you fought for her, exposed yourself to the same disease. Because I realized who you are and because I realized I loved that person. I wish, with all my heart, that Ellen were still alive, but that was in God’s hands, not ours. You know that as well as I do. And I know you understand I truly loved her, and that there’s a part of me that feels unspeakably guilty when I admit I love you, too. But I do, Marie. God help me, but I do.”
And so do the children, he thought silently. The children she refused to let call her “mother,” because she would never, ever, “steal” that title from Ellen. They love you because you and your family were always there for them while their mother lay dying and I was too lost, too desperately worried about Ellen to be strong for them, too. They don’t just love you—they adore you…and that’s one more reason for Ellen’s family to hate you.
“But it’s made such a mess.” The tears hovered in her voice, as well, now. “What will you do now, Billy? What will become of us?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I don’t know.”
He gathered her in his arms, and she laid her head upon his chest as he stood holding her and stared into the frightening void of the future. And not simply of his own future.
It seemed impossible, as they stood in this hotel room in the heart of the seventh largest city in the entire nation, yet even here, with the sounds of Cincinnati’s busy streets coming to them through the closed window, the stink of distant blood was in his nostrils. He could feel it coming, and not all of Cincinnati’s industry, all of its optimistic future, could change that.
In three weeks, Abraham Lincoln would take the oath of office as the sixteenth President of the United States, and God only knew what would happen then. But if the Peace Conference in Washington failed—and Sherman saw no way it could succeed—disaster waited for them all. South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and now Texas had already declared their secession from the Union, and other states hovered on the brink. Volunteers were rushing to form regiments, both North and South; arms were being stockpiled; and the first wrong move on the new Lincoln Administration’s part would send some, at least, of those other hovering states into secession, as well.
For decades, the Republic had sown the wind. Now harvest time had come, and all across the country men faced the bitter decision. Did their swords belong to their nation…or to their states? Neither the doctrine of secession nor the battle cry of “states’ rights” had originated in the South, but the South had embraced both of them ferociously, fanatically, taken them to the deadly height of their logical end, and Lincoln’s election had ignited a fuse Sherman feared could lead to only one outcome.
Despite the Abolitionist stance of the Ewings and most of his own siblings—especially John—Sherman found much to admire in the South. And whatever the rights or wrongs of slavery, he fully understood why Southern Whites feared the Blacks who had been held in bondage for so long. The wrongs of the “peculiar institution” might be endless, yet even had the South been prepared to admit them all, it could not have magically erased that fear, and in the present, heated atmosphere—
Thirty years might have passed since Nat Turner’s rebellion in Virginia, but the lunatic Brown’s attempt to initiate another slave insurrection at Harpers Ferry lay barely sixteen months in the past. Its impact had loomed large on the 1860 elections, and Brown’s transformation into a martyr after he’d been hanged had contributed to both Lincoln’s election in the North and to the South’s fury.
William Tecumseh Sherman had lived in Kansas. He knew the bloody-handed sorts of men who had flocked to both sides of the struggle there. Knew the fanatic stripe of both the pro-abolition and pro-slavery extremists, and Brown—John Brown of Potawatomie—had come from that same frothing cauldron of arson, terror tactics, and murder. If he’d been better than some, he’d been worse than many, and Sherman understood why the South saw him as the terrorist and insurrectionist he’d set out to be at Harpers Ferry. In their eyes, the abolitionists who had transformed him into a martyr and messiah had simply shown their own true colors, proclaimed precisely what they wanted to happen throughout the South, and that had become one more faggot to fuel the nation’s blazing sectional fury.
Sherman himself believed secession was illegal, but he also doubted that it mattered very much. The American colonies’ rebellion against George III had clearly been “illegal”…until it succeeded. As Sir John Harrington had said almost three centuries before, treason “never prospered,” because if it did, if it succeeded, then it was no longer treason, and so successful session would become legal after the fact. He knew too much history to think it could be any other way.
But as a soldier, William Tecumseh Sherman had sworn an oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic,” and as a pragmatist, he feared secession’s inevitable consequences. The United States of America spanned a continent. He suspected that few in Europe realized what that meant, realized how enormous the United States actually was. Certainly few of the Europeans he’d met had seemed to truly grasp that it was twice as far from New York to San Francisco as from Paris to Saint Petersburg, or that New Orleans lay farther from Chicago than Berlin from Rome. The notion of a single nation—a republic—that size was simply something for which the history of the world offered no basis for comparison.
Unless…
If secession “prospered,” that enormous union would crumble. It would splinter into at least two nations, and quite probably more, because once secession was validated by success, who could stop the process the next time “irreconcilable differences” flared? From one vast, growing nation, it would disintegrate into a patchwork of potentially warring states, like Europe, fighting like snarling dogs over what should have been their common birthright. But how was that to be avoided?
Sherman blamed President Buchanan, in large part, for allowing inflamed passions to drive policy to its present pitch. If he had said, bluntly, that the Federal government would use force to compel obedience to the Constitution and heeded Winfield Scott’s advice to increase the strength of the Army and to garrison the Federal posts throughout the South, then at least a line would have been drawn, the grim reality of the options would have been in the open. But instead, Buchanan had allowed partisan interests to block fresh recruitment and done nothing to deploy Federal troops. Only eighteen companies—just eighteen, all of them Artillery, out of an Army that numbered a bare 18,000 men—were stationed anywhere east of the Mississippi, and he’d done nothing to change that.
His inert response was understandable, perhaps, given his personal sympathy for the South. True, he’d used his final message to Congress, less than two months ago, to deny the legal right of states to secede. But he’d denied it only after enumerating all of the reasons that justified Southern anger…and then gone on to say that “the injured States, after having first used all peaceful and constitutional means to obtain redress,” would be justified in “revolutionary resistance”—extralegal resistance—to the Government of the Union if that redress was not found.
Trouble in the Wind Page 18
