How Few Remain (94 page)

Jackson sighed again, this time with deep regret. “I am afraid
we shall, Senator,” he said. Hampton stared at him. He went on, “The president has persuaded me that his policy is in the best interest of our country. If not for the intervention of Britain and France, we might well have failed in the War of Secession. If not for their intervention, we should have had a far more difficult time in this war. If we forfeit their support by maintaining an institution they despise, how shall we fare against the Yankees the next time we have to face them?”

“We’ll lick ’em, of course,” Wade Hampton III replied at once. “We always have. We always will.”

“I wish I shared your certainty,” Jackson said. “From the bottom of my heart, I wish I shared your certainty. But I do not. I cannot. Since I do not and cannot, and since I know the president purposes giving the Negro the name of freedom but not much of the thing itself, I am willing to suspend my disagreement with him on this matter and to believe him better acquainted with what will best serve us than I am myself.”

Hampton’s countenance darkened. “General, you are making a mistake if you choose to side with a man who would cast down our peculiar institution.”

“Senator, you are making a mistake if you seek to suborn me into treason against the duly elected head of my government,” Jackson answered evenly. “The Army
will
stand behind the president, sir; you may take that to be as much a given as one of Euclid’s axioms of geometry. This being so, have we anything further to say to each other?”

“I think not.” Senator Hampton headed for the door. “You need not accompany me, General; I can find my own way out.” He opened the door from the parlor to the front hall, then slammed it shut. Another window-rattling slam marked his departure from Jackson’s home.

“Good heavens!” his wife exclaimed when he returned to the table. “You sent the senator away unhappy, Tom.” She took a longer look at Jackson. “And you are unhappy, most unhappy, yourself. What happened between the two of you?”

“Nothing I much care to discuss,” Jackson answered. “Least said, soonest mended.” He hoped with all his heart that his flat rejection of Hampton’s overtures would persuade the senator any attempt at a
coup d’etat
was foredoomed to failure. If it didn’t, force of arms would persuade Hampton and whoever backed him of the same thing. “We had a disagreement, that’s all, and the
senator from South Carolina is and has always been a man of somewhat hasty temper.”

His son’s eyes glowed. “Hampton’s red-hot for holding the nigger down and putting a foot on his neck,” Jonathan said. “I’ll bet he was trying to talk Father into going against manumission.”

Jackson rolled his eyes up to the heavens. “Senator Hampton is a fool,” he growled. Jonathan grinned an enormous grin, convinced his father’s words meant he was right. So they did, though not quite for the reason he thought. Jackson himself paid as little attention to politics as he could. Hampton’s appeal had taken him by surprise. But if his purpose was so obvious that even a youth—a youth more politically alert than the Confederate general-in-chief—could see it, people of greater prominence than that youth also would see it.

And, sure enough, when Jackson went to the War Department the next morning to continue discussion with General Rosecrans and Minister Hay, he was not altogether astonished to have a young lieutenant take him aside and lead him down the hall to a small room where President Longstreet sat waiting. Without preamble, Longstreet said, “You had a visit from Wade Hampton last night.”

“Yes, Your Excellency, I did,” Jackson said.

“He asked you to help overthrow the government if I persist in moving us toward manumission.” Longstreet did not phrase it as a question.

“By his request, Mr. President, what passed between us last night is a private matter,” Jackson said.

“You need not tell me—I know Hampton’s mind,” Longstreet said. “I also know you sent him away with a flea in his ear.”

“How do you know—?” Jackson paused. “You are having him watched.” Spoken so baldly, it sounded like a transgression.

But Longstreet nodded, unembarrassed. “I most certainly am. If he were actor enough to simulate the fury he showed outside your home, he would do better before the footlights than in the Senate. I assure you, General, I do not intend our nation to be torn asunder in the hour of our greatest triumph.”

“Our greatest triumph.” Jackson sighed. “A great pity General Stuart cannot now enjoy it with us.”

“That it is,” Longstreet agreed. “Still, he fell in action, as he no doubt would have wished to do, and we have avenged and shall
avenge ourselves upon the Apaches manyfold for his assassination.” But nothing, not even the death of a friend of many years, could derail Longstreet’s train of thought for long. “Believe me, General, I am glad you share my views on the integrity of our nation.”

“I do indeed,” Jackson said. On the other hand, Abraham Lincoln had not intended the United States to be torn asunder, either.

But Longstreet, almost as if in response to Jackson’s thought, went on, “And I shall not allow Hampton and his fellows any opportunity to do us mischief, either. I shall steal their thunder. Easter has come and gone; the end of April approaches. Still Blaine delays and delays and delays. He shall delay no more. Is the army gathered by the Potomac in readiness?”

“You know it is, Your Excellency,” Jackson replied, as if he had been insulted.

“Of course I do,” the president said soothingly. “Still, the question had to be asked. At today’s session with the Yankees, you and Minister Benjamin are to tell them the war will resume in forty-eight hours unless we, the British Empire, and France have the full acquiescence of the United States to all demands made against them before that time shall have expired.”

“Yes, sir!” Jackson’s voice bubbled with enthusiasm. “We shall punish them as they deserve.” He thought for a moment. “And, in so doing, we make Hampton and his complaints into smaller matters than they would be otherwise.”

“Just so,” James Longstreet said. “I have told you before, I believe, that you are, or you can be, more astute in matters political than one might suppose.”

“You flatter me beyond my deserts, sir,” Jackson said. “Like you, my son had no trouble ciphering out the reason on account of which Senator Hampton paid me a call, though I did not realize what it was until he made himself unmistakably plain.”

“Jonathan’s a clever lad,” Longstreet said, smiling. “Remember, the United States are to have forty-eight hours from the moment you deliver the ultimatum. Make careful note of the time, that we may not unduly delay their punishment should its infliction prove necessary.”

“I shall carry out your orders in every particular, Mr. President,” Jackson said. “You may rest assured on that score.”

“I do, General, believe me.” Longstreet got to his feet. “And now Lieutenant Latham will take you to Mr. Benjamin. I leave to
the two of you the manner in which you present the ultimatum to the United States. I am confident that, between your ingenuity and his, you will devise a plan more likely to meet our needs than any my poor wits might conceive.”

“I am confident I know a man hiding his light under a bushel when I see one,” Jackson said. Ignoring Longstreet’s modest little wave, he went on, “I also have great faith in Mr. Benjamin’s ingenuity.” He rose and followed the young officer to the room where the Confederate minister to the USA waited.

“Ah, General Jackson!” Judah P. Benjamin exclaimed in delight, or an artful counterfeit thereof. “The president has told you of his intention?”

“He has.” Jackson knew how abrupt his nod was. Benjamin’s round, smiling, Semitic face, framed by hair and beard dyed a black that defied and denied his years, never failed to make the Confederate general-in-chief nervous. The statesman was too openly successful, too openly clever a Jew to suit Jackson’s stern Christianity.

“My view, General, is that you should be the one to deliver the ultimatum,” Benjamin said now. “Coming from your lips, it will possess an aura of authority I could never give it. Were I to present it to Hay and Rosecrans, they would the more readily assume it to be negotiable.”

“So they would,” Jackson agreed. Benjamin’s smile never wavered. Jackson did not think to wonder if he had insulted the Jew by assuming him to be flexible in all circumstances. Drawing out his pocket watch, he said, “The Yankees should be here in a few minutes.”

Another young Confederate lieutenant escorted the U.S. representatives into the room. After polite greetings, John Hay said, “I should like to bring to your attention a new proposal President Blaine has authorized me to—”

“No,” Jackson interrupted.

“I beg your pardon?” the U.S. minister to the Confederate States said.

“No,” Jackson repeated. “The time for proposals from President Blaine has passed. He is in no position to offer them. He has, in fact, but one choice left: peace on our terms or war.” He delivered Longstreet’s ultimatum in tones as fierce as he could muster. Having done so, he noted down the time on a scrap of paper: twenty-seven minutes past ten in the morning.

Hay and Rosecrans both stared at him, the one with something like horror on his handsome face, the other in a sort of weary resignation. Rosecrans found his tongue first: “And what happens if President Blaine makes no reply, saying neither yes nor no?”

“That is a well he has drunk dry: it will be construed as rejecting the ultimatum,” Jackson replied. “If we do not hear that he has accepted our terms within the space of forty-eight hours, now less”—he looked at the watch again—”two minutes, the war shall begin again, and where it shall end is known but to God.”

“General, this is a brutal and most unreasonable way of forcing your will upon us,” John Hay said.

“Yes, it is, isn’t it?” Jackson agreed placidly. He said no more than that, leaving the U.S. minister to the Confederate States nothing on which he could hang a further protest.

Judah P. Benjamin spoke for the first time: “Gentlemen, I would suggest that, in view of the present circumstances, you might be well advised to communicate this ultimatum to President Blaine as soon as is practicable, to give him the greatest possible amount of time in which he can decide.”

Under his breath, General Rosecrans muttered, “Blaine’s had months to decide. What the devil difference will two more days make?”

Jackson and Benjamin both started to speak at the same time. The Confederate minister to the USA caught Jackson’s eye. Benjamin’s own eyes, dark and all but fathomless, glinted. Jackson inclined his head, allowing his clever companion to say whatever he intended. Turning another of his woundingly bland smiles on the U.S. representatives, Benjamin remarked, “I believe it was Samuel Johnson, gentlemen, who observed, ‘When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.’ “

Hay winced. Rosecrans muttered again, this time unintelligibly. Gathering himself, Hay said, “I hope you will permit us an adjournment, then, to wire your demands to our president.”

Now Judah Benjamin nodded to Jackson. “I not only permit it,” the Confederate general-in-chief said, “I require it.”

Rosecrans’ comments to himself sounded sulfurous, even if Jackson could not make them out in detail. With a sigh, Hay asked, “May we have a written copy of the ultimatum, to be sure it is communicated accurately to President Blaine?”

Jackson shook his head. “No, for I have not got one. The terms
are of the simplest, however: either your government shall yield within forty-eight hours less … thirteen minutes now, or there will be renewed war.”

“War à
l’outrance,”
Benjamin added. Rosecrans, who plainly did not understand the French phrase, glared at him. Hay, who plainly did, also glared, in a different, more nearly desperate way. The two U.S. representatives rose, shook hands again with their Confederate counterparts, and took their leave.

“From now on, sir, these talks will be in your hands alone, I expect,” Jackson said to Benjamin. “I shall shortly travel north to the Potomac, to take charge of operations against the United States in that region.”

“In my opinion, General, you need not be overhasty,” the minister to the United States replied.

“I dare not take the chance of your being mistaken,” Jackson said.

“However you like.” Benjamin habitually looked amused. At the moment, he looked more amused than usual. “Whether we do go to war or not, though, the president has effectively spiked Senator Hampton’s guns, would you not agree?”

“You know about Senator Hampton?” Jackson blurted, and then felt extraordinarily foolish: whatever went on in the Confederate States without Judah P. Benjamin’s knowledge could not be worth knowing.

Benjamin’s laugh made his big belly shake. “Oh, yes, General, I know about Senator Hampton. A great many people know about Senator Hampton. That you did not until last night speaks well of your devotion to duty.”

The Jew was indeed a statesman, Jackson thought; he had never been called blind more politely. In musing tones, he asked, “Could he have raised a revolution with my help?”

“With your help, General, anything would be possible,” Judah Benjamin answered. “Without it, he is bound to fail.” Benjamin hesitated, then went on, “Had President Longstreet reckoned your help likely to be forthcoming, the distinguished senator from South Carolina would have found himself unfortunately unable to call on you yesterday.”

“Would he?” Jackson murmured. Benjamin gave him a solemn nod. He nodded back, unsurprised. After a moment’s consideration, he nodded again, this time in firm decision. “Good.”

* * *

Samuel Clemens woke with the bed shaking. He sat bolt upright, ready to run if it was an earthquake. By the way Alexandra smiled at him, it wasn’t. He could barely see her smile; the sun hadn’t risen yet. “What time is it?” he asked around a yawn.

“A little before five,” his wife answered. “You wanted me to get you up early, though—remember? Philadelphia sun time is more than three hours ahead of us here.”

Clemens grimaced and nodded. “Which means that, whatever Blaine aims to do, he’ll do it too early in the morning.” He got out of bed with a martyred sigh. “Light the lamp, will you, my dear?” Gas hissed. Alexandra struck a match. Yellow light filled the bedroom. Sam sighed again as he walked to the closet. “We’re finally back in a home of our own—in a bed of our own, by God—and Blaine routs me out of it on a Saturday morning. There is no justice in the world—and no clean trousers, either, by the look of things.”