Lincoln (76 page)

“As you have done in the past?” Jay Cooke took the proffered check. “Do you have a new banker?”

“No, no, Mr. Cooke. Our relationship continues. I shall bank with you, as always. I shall also rely on you, as always, to keep the ship of state afloat financially. But now propriety is all-important.”

Cooke nodded, gravely. “Shall I stop raising money for your campaign next year?”

“I had not realized that you had been so engaged,” said Chase, a bit uneasily. He had never actually discussed the details with Jay Cooke.

“Oh, we are at it all the time, a group of us. We want you elected, and that costs money nowadays.”

“Naturally, I will regard any sums raised toward that end as a public and not a private matter.”

“Good.” Cooke folded the check and put it in his pocket. “The money don’t belong to me. So I shall lay it aside for future consideration. Meanwhile, I assume your usual needs will be taken care of by Senator Sprague.”

Chase felt his cheeks grow warm. “My usual needs will be taken care of by me. I’ve just sold the last of my farms in Ohio. Since Senator Sprague is buying this house, I shall be relieved of paying rent, a considerable expense. But that is the limit of his kindness.”

“He is worth twenty-five millions,” said Jay Cooke, respectfully.

“Is he? The subject has not come up—at least, not so specifically. Let us join the guests.”

Hay was being questioned by a handsome young congressman from New York, who had not been reelected the previous November. “What is she really like?” was the burden of his questioning. But Hay could think of no interesting answer. “I think she is sad at the moment.” Both men looked at Kate, who was now presiding over a tea urn.

“I don’t think,” said Roscoe Conkling, “that I’d enjoy being married to a fool like Sprague. Do you know her well, Mr. Hay?”

Hay shook his head. “I have seen a good deal of her since we both came to Washington. But I still have no idea at all what she is really like.”

“She fascinates me,” said Conkling.

“You are too late, Congressman.”

“So it would appear. I don’t suppose it helped, my leading the fight in the House against her beloved father’s banking scheme.”

“He is certainly the beloved father.”

“With an elephant’s memory.” As Conkling moved away, Hay wondered whether or not the rumors were true that Conkling was a member of the secret congressional cabal whose aim had been, since Fredericksburg, to impeach and remove from office Lincoln. Only once had the Ancient mentioned this conspiracy to Hay; and in the most elliptical way. “They would have Hamlin for president for a year; and then what?” Nicolay thought that Simon Cameron, recently returned in disgust from Russia, was also involved. But, thus far, no overt move had been made; and the Thirty-eighth Congress had now adjourned until December, much to everyone’s relief. Currently, the ineffable Horace Greeley was telling everyone that only the presidency of General Rosecrans could save the country.

Hay went to Mr. Chase to say farewell. As relations between Chase and Lincoln deteriorated, all the greater was the appearance of warmth between statesman and youthful secretary. Chase was quarrelling with Thaddeus Stevens, who was leaning heavily on his cane. “Ah, Mr. Hay! Mr. Stevens here is tormenting me yet again about the currency.”

“Mr. Chase, there is nothing wrong with your currency. It is a good green color; and you, sir, are the handsomest man in public life as well as the most honest. In fact, whenever I see your incredibly youthful countenance staring at me from beneath the dollar sign, I feel secure. But then when I read the Treasury’s latest promise to the moneylenders, the National Banking Act which your friends in Congress passed over my broken body, that you will redeem in gold—in precious gold—the principal on your bonds, I shudder, for you have too much favored the unfortunate moneylenders who were clamorous lest the debtor should the more easily pay his debt. Say that I am right, Mr. Hay?”

“I always
say
that you are right, Mr. Stevens,” said Hay to what many suspected was the leader of the secret cabal.

“A wise youth. I may also say, Mr. Chase, that when it takes one hundred and seventy of your dollars to buy one hundred dollars of gold, I grow anxious; and tend to tear my hair.” Delicately, he touched the chestnut wig.

“Well, sir, the war must go on until the rebellion is shut down, so we’ll keep on putting out paper until it costs a thousand dollars for breakfast.”

“I agree about the rebellion.”

Hay said good-bye to Kate at the door. For an instant, they were alone. “Are you happy?” he asked, to his own surprise.

“I don’t think that I am supposed to be.” This was the surprising answer to his impertinence. But then she gave him, suddenly, the famed mischievous smile. “But Father is happy; and that is all I ever want.”

Hay was halfway down E Street when it occurred to him that it was not Kate who managed Chase, as everyone assumed, but Chase who managed Kate; and in his lust for the presidency he had thrust his daughter into a loveless marriage so that he might have Sprague’s money.

I
T WAS
one of Mary’s numerous economies to keep a cow on the front lawn of the White House. But in the summer of 1863, the cow, though seemingly in good health and appetite, ceased to give any milk, and Mary and Watt often visited the cow’s fenced-in corner of the lawn to discuss its condition.

One hot morning in June, as Company K drilled in the driveway and Mary and Watt and a dairyman were contemplating the cow, a carriage containing old Mr. and Mrs. Blair and their son Montgomery pulled into the driveway. When Mr. Blair saw Mrs. Lincoln, he ordered the carriage to stop. The Blairs greeted the First Lady; and Mrs. Blair, a vigorous white-haired lady, leapt from the carriage to announce dramatically, “We have fled from Silver Spring!”

“My God, what has happened?” asked Mary.

“The rebels are in the area,” said the Old Gentleman grimly. “Some say they are going to move on to Washington …”

“So we have fled!” Mrs. Blair seemed to be enjoying the image of herself in flight. “I wanted to ride my new hunter into town, but Mr. Blair said no. So some rebel may have himself the best hunter in all Maryland.”

“Is the President in the Mansion?” asked Montgomery Blair.

Mary nodded. “Go and tell him. I’ll be right in.”

Washburne had been with the President since breakfast; he was now on his way back to Illinois, with a number of messages from Lincoln to various political operatives. Washburne wondered if he would ever see the President again. In the last six months, his old friend had become spectral-thin. The face was sallow; and he had developed a tremor in one hand. The left eyelid was now almost always half shut in a curious wink. “I cannot sleep any more,” he said. “General Lee has murdered sleep for me.”

“Take laudanum. Take something.”

Lincoln shook his head. “Even when I do sleep and don’t dream, which is seldom, I wake up tired. There is a part of me that will never be rested again. How strange …” Lincoln stared at the portrait of Jackson. “You know me well. You know how most of my life I wanted to be here. I wanted to be the president. I think it was in my bones and blood from birth. I wanted to be here so that I could sort out a country already founded but in need of so much.”

“Henry Clay’s ‘internal improvements’?” Washburne had yet to find any politician who had had the slightest influence on Lincoln save Clay; and that was indeed slight.

“Harry of the West was blessed, finally, never to have got to this place, particularly at such a time as now. I am president of part of a country, with a fire in front of me, the war; and a fire behind me, the Congress and the Copperheads. It is a white elephant I have got on my hands.”

“Well, you wanted to ride it,” said Washburne, with less sympathy than he intended.

“Yes, I wanted to ride it; and so I shall, to the end.” Lincoln picked up a sheet of paper from his desk. “A petition to me. I am told I must let Mr. Vallandigham return; and that banishment is not American.”

The former congressman had been arrested by General Burnside, the commanding general of the Department of Ohio. He had been charged with preaching treason. Although Washburne had thought the whole business deeply embarrassing for the Republican Party, Lincoln had supported the arrest with the statement: “Must I shoot a simple-minded soldier boy who deserts, while I must not touch a hair of a wily agitator
who induces him to desert?” Lincoln had then ordered Vallandigham sent to the South.

“We shall hear a lot more from Mr. Vallandigham,” said Washburne.

“No doubt,” said Lincoln. “On the other hand, banishment, un-American as it is, is probably preferable to a firing squad, the usual resolution of such cases in wartime.”

Hay announced the presence of three Blairs in the family sitting room; and Lincoln and Washburne went to greet the refugees.

Washburne marvelled at Lincoln’s endless patience with the Old Gentleman. Lincoln deferred to him at all times; no doubt influenced by the fact that here was the last living friend and adviser of Andrew Jackson, ever ready to advise the great man’s successors.

“It is plain to me that General Lee means to attack the city at any moment,” said the old man. “What better time? Hooker is down at Manassas. Lee is in the valley …”

“That’s not quite the case, Mr. Blair,” said Lincoln. “If all goes well, Hooker is crossing the Potomac at Edward’s Ferry and headed for Frederick city. So the Army of the Potomac is between us and the rebels, who are now moving on to Chambersburg.”

“Chambersburg!” Mr. Blair was astonished. “That is in Pennsylvania.”

“So it is; and so it has always been.” Lincoln was impassive.

“This is a raid then, on our territory?”

Lincoln shook his head. “No, sir. This is an all-out invasion. From what we can tell, which is not as much as we would like, Lee’s goal is Harrisburg and then Philadelphia.”

“That will be the end, won’t it?” Mrs. Blair sat very straight in her chair.

“Oh, not the end. But it will mean that England and France will recognize the rebels. It means that the Copperheads will defeat us in next year’s election; and then they will make a peace with the South; and all our efforts will have been for nothing.”

“It does not seem possible,” said the Old Gentleman and, for once, he said no more.

At eight-thirty that evening, Stanton sent word to the President that he would like to see him at the War Department. As usual, Hay thought he saw assassins behind every tree; as usual, Lincoln paid no attention to anything save his own thoughts, which seldom, from what Hay could tell, dwelt on the matter of personal safety.

As Lincoln preceded Hay up the stairs of the dimly lit War Department, a young lieutenant, rushing down the stairs, crashed head-on into the President, who fell back against the railing, the wind knocked out of
him. When the lieutenant saw who it was, he cried, “Oh, God! A thousand pardons!”

“One is enough,” said Lincoln. “Now if only the rest of the army could charge like that.”

Stanton was alone in his office. As Lincoln and Hay entered, Stanton gave Lincoln a telegram. The Ancient looked at it; and gave it back to him. “Why?” he asked, “has General Hooker seen fit to resign now, of all times?”

“General Halleck, I suppose. Hooker wanted to withdraw the garrison from Harper’s Ferry because he thinks Lee outnumbers him. But Halleck said he was not to leave Harper’s Ferry unguarded.”

“So in the midst of an invasion our commanding general quits on us. There are times, Mars, when I would like to shoot every single general in the Union army.”

“It is a tempting prospect; and it would probably shorten the war. What shall be done?”

Lincoln was grim. “First, we shall surprise ‘Fighting Joe.’ I accept his resignation. Second, I am appointing General George Meade to take his place.”

“Yes, sir.” Stanton left the room. The President rocked in his chair. Hay wondered just what the political reaction would be to Meade, who was a Democrat and so anathema to the Jacobins in Congress, not to mention to Hooker’s mentor Chase. On the other hand, Meade was a competent general—if such a thing existed in the Army of the Potomac; he was also a Pennsylvanian, which might inspire him to fight well in his native state.

“I expect General Meade to fight well on his own dunghill,” said the President, inelegantly, at next day’s Cabinet. Seward admired the way that the very same president who had so eloquently asserted to the senatorial delegation that his Cabinet was in all things consulted, now flatly told them what he had already done with no discussion of any kind. Chase started to speak; but then thought better of it. Seward was now making it his particular task to keep track of Chase’s intrigues. On the day Seward had learned that a clear majority of Republican senators lacked confidence in him, he abandoned whatever lingering ambition he might have had to be himself a candidate in 1864. Since his own political career was now over, he contented himself with being an appendage of President Lincoln. Since he enjoyed his office if not his dependency, he had decided to do everything possible to reelect Lincoln. At the moment, this would not be an easy thing to do. The President had lost the confidence of the country,
while the so-called Peace Democrats were everywhere on the rise. Chase would also have huge financial resources, thanks to his prospective son-in-law and Jay Cooke. Chase also had an excellent organization in place. Almost every one of the thousands of Treasury agents in each of the states had been selected by Chase with an eye to next year’s elections.

Seward began, ever so delicately, to plot, while Stanton made the case for the conscription of more men. “We have our enrollers going from house to house. We know where the men are. We know—or will know—who is able and who is not. We know who can pay the three-hundred-dollar fee for a replacement and who cannot. I think we can now use the pretext of an all-out invasion as a means of raising a million troops.”

The President looked unhappy. Seward asked Stanton how many men the last call had brought to the colors. Stanton scowled. “We have had our problem with Governor Curtin. We want men who will serve for three years, or the duration of the war if that is less. The governor says he cannot guarantee to raise any troops on those terms. He wants, as of today, to call out fifty thousand militia for sixty days, to defend Pennsylvania. I have said no. That is not good enough.”