Mrs. Lincoln's Dressmaker (31 page)

While the Lincolns welcomed the public and graciously accepted their congratulations, hiding their weariness and worry rather than spoil the occasion for their many well-wishers, Elizabeth attended a smaller but not less joyful gathering of Washington’s colored elite. With an effort, Elizabeth put aside her concerns for the dispirited Lincolns for the moment and joined her friends and acquaintances in celebrating Mr. Lincoln’s victory, certain that he would accomplish great things for the nation and its people of color in his second term. Mr. Frederick Douglass was in attendance, and as a longtime admirer Elizabeth was very pleased to have the chance to speak with him. He captivated all within earshot by relating an incident that had occurred at the White House scarcely two hours before. Many people of color had come to Washington for the inauguration, and dozens of them had desired to attend the levee, but they had not been permitted to enter. Mr. Douglass had stood on the edge of the crowd, already mentally composing a righteously indignant letter of protest, when a member of Congress spied him, remarked about the press of the immense crowd, and asked, “You are going in, of course?” When Mr. Douglass told him, regretfully, that
he would not, the congressman exclaimed, “Not going in to shake the president by the hand! Why, pray?”

“The best reason in the world,” Mr. Douglass had said, his tone dignified but ironic. “Strict orders have been issued not to admit people of color.”

Elizabeth could not imagine Mr. Lincoln issuing such a command on such a day, and she wondered which of the secretaries had been responsible for it, or if some misunderstanding had occurred between the crowd and the doormen. Just as she was about to suggest that Mr. Douglass return to the White House and try again, Mr. Douglass continued his tale, explaining that the congressman had been quite perturbed that he had been “placed under ban.” He had taken the famed orator inside, led him through the crowd to the president, and asked permission to introduce them. Mr. Lincoln readily agreed, and soon Mr. Douglass stood face-to-face with the president, who shook his hand and said, “Mr. Douglass, I am glad to meet you. I have long admired your course, and I value your opinions highly.”

Mr. Douglass was obviously proud of the manner in which the president had welcomed him, and all who heard him tell his story were proud too, and pleased that the president had treated one of their leaders with such respect and interest. Elizabeth was not at all surprised, not only because she had observed the president receiving guests often enough to know that he never failed to be courteous, but also because she herself had granted a friend’s request to arrange a meeting between the president and the former slave and abolitionist Sojourner Truth the previous October. She had not witnessed their conversation, but afterward she learned that Sojourner Truth had spoken well of the president and had been honored and pleased by his attention. Mr. Lincoln did not have a perfect record of dealing with the colored race, as Elizabeth would be among the first to admit, but he was learning, and she was confident that his abundant compassion for his fellow man would guide him to an even greater understanding of their unique concerns and hopes for the future.

Although she would never exaggerate her position by claiming the
title of adviser, Elizabeth liked to think that she too had played some small part in helping President Lincoln know the desires and worries of colored people better. She hoped she had used, and would always use, her acquaintance with the president and her time in the White House for the good of her race.

The crowds who had come to the capital to mark President Lincoln’s second inauguration departed soon after the ceremonies, but the city remained full of strangers, with more arriving every day. Confederate soldiers were abandoning General Lee’s army in droves, and while most simply went home, others crossed into Union lines and surrendered. Some straggled into Washington on foot, the tatters of their gray or butternut uniforms hanging from their emaciated frames, but most arrived around four o’clock every afternoon on the “deserters’ transport,” disembarking on railway platforms one or two hundred at a time. Once in the Union capital, they took the oath of allegiance and were assigned to work on farms, in factories, or upon the western frontier. Until they shipped out to their new posts, they were permitted to wander the city as they pleased, striking up conversations and sharing tobacco with Union soldiers who had been their mortal enemies not long before, their Confederate uniforms drawing curious, suspicious glances until they became commonplace. Indeed, the sight of the thin, ragged former rebels became so typical throughout Washington that at least one newspaper reporter worried that they might in fact represent a devious invasion by the enemy, massing their numbers and awaiting the order to strike at the heart of the Union from within. But the truth seemed to be far simpler. The Confederate soldiers were starving, and they had realized that an army that could not feed its soldiers could not withstand its opponents much longer. They were hungry and tired and sick of war, and many resented futilely persisting in what they called a “rich man’s war but a poor man’s fight.” So they had withdrawn, trusting that they would not be captured, and that if they were, they would not be shot for their
crime. Indeed, it seemed to Elizabeth that there could not be enough soldiers left in the rebel army to shoot all the deserters.

Later, Elizabeth would wonder if the Confederate government’s new measure to increase their army had compelled some of their soldiers to desert. Soon after the inauguration, Northern newspapers announced that the Confederate congress had voted to allow slaves to enlist in the rebel army, and thereby earn their freedom. Elizabeth and every other person of color she knew, from her friends in the boardinghouse to her fellow churchgoers at Union Bethel to the former slaves she assisted in the freedmen’s camps, wondered how anyone of their race could agree to fight to preserve the institution that had kept them and their families in bondage and degradation. They were shocked by reports that, a mere nine days after Jefferson Davis signed the measure into law, three companies of Confederate Negro soldiers were drilling in Richmond’s Capitol Square. Elizabeth felt the sharp sting of betrayal whenever she thought of colored men in rebel gray, but she felt profoundly sorry for them too. They surely did not understand what was happening in the wider country around them, or they never would have made such a bewildering choice or, as Virginia grimly called it, a deal with the devil.

The inauguration brought newcomers not only to Washington but also into the most intimate circles of the White House, for between the November election and the commencement of President Lincoln’s second term, several members of his cabinet resigned, and others were named to replace them. Iowa senator James F. Harlan assumed the post of secretary of the interior, a staffing change that seemed to please Robert Lincoln, who was—not as secretly as he seemed to believe—courting Mr. Harlan’s daughter, Mary. Elizabeth too was glad to see Mr. Harlan elevated to such an important post, because his wife, a kind, gracious woman, was one of her favorite patrons, and Elizabeth was very happy for her.

On April 3, a Monday, Mrs. Harlan had come to Elizabeth’s reception room at the boardinghouse with material for a new dress, a lovely green-and-white striped silk. “I’m not certain about the color,”
Mrs. Harlan mused as Elizabeth examined the fine fabric. “I fear it will make me appear sallow.”

“Oh, I don’t think it shall.” Elizabeth beckoned Mrs. Harlan to step closer to the window, where she draped the fabric over Mrs. Harlan’s shoulder and bosom and stepped back to study the effect. “I think it’s very becoming to your complexion and it suits your hair and eyes well.”

“Mr. Harlan likes me in green.” Mrs. Harlan had to raise her voice to be heard over a sudden clamor in the streets, a cacophony of passing artillery.

“All the more reason to wear it often,” Elizabeth replied, nearly shouting as whistles and cheers joined the din.

“What is going on out there?” Mrs. Harlan wondered aloud, peering out the window.

“They must be on their way to fire off a salute. We’ve become quite accustomed to the show around here.” Then, frowning thoughtfully, she added, “I admit this does seem more exuberant than usual.”

Mrs. Harlan’s eyebrows rose. “This must mean good news, then.”

“It surely must.”

A look of understanding passed between them, and together they hurried outside. “Excuse me, sir,” Elizabeth called to a man whistling cheerfully as he strode after the artillery. “What’s happened? What’s the news?”

“What’s the news, you ask?” The man whooped and threw his hat into the air. “Richmond’s fallen, that’s the news!”

As the man hurried off to retrieve his hat and rejoin the impromptu parade, Elizabeth gasped, Mrs. Harlan cried out, and then they joined hands and twirled about in a circle, laughing and cheering. “I must tell the girls,” Elizabeth exclaimed, and dropping Mrs. Harlan’s hands, she ran across the street to her workrooms. “Emma, girls,” she called out as she burst into the room where her assistant seamstresses sewed. “Richmond has fallen!”

“We heard! We know!” Elated, Emma threw her arms around her, and only then did Elizabeth notice her young assistants were laughing
and crying and embracing all around her. “Did you hear the best part? It was colored soldiers that took the city.
Our
soldiers!”

Elizabeth’s spirits soared. Speechless with happiness, she clasped her hands to her heart and laughed aloud.

“That’s not the best part,” another seamstress called out joyfully. “The best part is that you promised us a day off when Richmond fell.”

Everyone burst out laughing, and Elizabeth joined in, helpless to do otherwise, until, catching her breath, she shook her head and waved them to silence. “I can’t send you all home,” she protested. “Mrs. Harlan is waiting across the way with silk for a new dress.”

A chorus of dismay greeted her words. “Mrs. Harlan can’t want to stay and fit the lining for a dress now,” Emma protested. “Surely she wants to celebrate too.”

When the other seamstresses chimed in, urging her to at least go and ask, Elizabeth wavered. “Don’t leave yet,” she said, but her irrepressible smile undercut whatever sternness she might otherwise have mustered. She dashed back across the street, where she found Mrs. Harlan in her reception room, gathering up the silk they had let fall to the floor in their excitement.

“Mrs. Harlan,” Elizabeth exclaimed, hurrying to help. “I’m terribly sorry. I had to share the good news with my assistants, and as it happened they already knew, and they reminded me of a promise I had made them months ago, that when Richmond fell I would give them the day off, although I realize it’s terribly inconvenient—”

“Not at all,” Mrs. Harlan assured her, smiling. “For such good tidings, I would gladly wait another day or two for my dress. You must keep your promise. Give your girls a holiday and a treat, by all means.”

Elizabeth thanked her profusely and promised to begin fitting her lining the next day. Mrs. Harlan agreed, and as she departed for her home, Elizabeth put the green-and-white striped silk in a safe place, snatched up her bonnet, and hurried back to her workrooms. “More good news, girls,” she called out, but she didn’t need to say any more, because they had guessed that their long-promised holiday had come at last. They implored Elizabeth to join them, and this time she agreed.
Arm in arm, they joined the celebration already spilling over into the streets, their hearts overflowing with joy, their happiness reflected in the faces of the people they passed, clerks and shopkeepers and housemaids and waiters whose businesses had also declared a holiday. Residents draped patriotic banners and bunting from their windows, and bands quickly formed up on street corners and in parks to play spirited marches and merry jigs. Crowds gathered outside the homes and offices of various dignitaries and called for them to come out and address them, but of the many who complied, only the few loudest could be heard over the din. An eight-hundred-gun salute shook the city, three hundred booms for the fall of Petersburg, five hundred for Richmond. As the afternoon passed, Elizabeth observed many young men—and many more without the excuse of the foolishness of youth—celebrating by indulging in too much liquor, and she was alternately scandalized and amused to observe neighbors she knew to be sober, responsible folk tottering down the streets, singing and proclaiming the glory of President Lincoln, General Grant, and the Union Army in loud, slurring voices. Tomorrow they would regret their overindulgence, but for the moment, nothing could diminish their rejoicing, or Elizabeth’s.