The Impeachment of Abraham Lincoln (64 page)

The grin faded. She shook hands all around, and went out.

And Jonathan’s youth ended.

II

That night was dinner with Meg and her aunt Clara, along with half a dozen of the great of Washington City. There might have been more, but many had declined their invitations, reasoning that, as Lincoln’s sun was setting, the reflected light from his lawyers, once their glory, was growing that much dimmer: indeed, given the now obvious ascendancy of the Radicals, the ambitious might reasonably have worried that the rays, though fading, would actually prove harmful.

The conversation focused on trifles, although Jonathan could feel all eyes inching his way. His distraction was obvious, but few of the guests made a serious effort to draw him. Everyone knew the trial was going poorly. Everyone assumed that, once Lincoln had been removed from office and Benjamin Wade sworn in, Jonathan would marry Margaret and return to New England.

“You seem tired,” said Meg, when Jonathan failed to crack the slightest smile at a series of ribald stories from a storied city wit. She was seated beside him: not precisely what protocol demanded, but Margaret had faced down her aunt’s stony disapproval. “You seem dispirited.”

Jonathan found a smile somewhere. “Work has been difficult.”

“I know, my darling. I am so very sorry.” She dabbed at her mouth with a napkin. “Father says Mr. Lincoln is going to be convicted.”

“The matter is not yet settled.”

“Father says that it is.”

Jonathan took a bite of the overcooked fish. “There are witnesses yet to be heard,” he said. “There are arguments yet to be presented.” Ears as well as eyes began to turn. Jonathan found himself repeating what Dan Sickles had said a few days ago. “It is a mistake to assume midway in a trial that you know what the result will be.”

One guest, who had imbibed more than the others, had a bright idea. “You fellows have some surprise waiting, don’t you?” A near-giggle. “My question is, a
legal
surprise or some other kind?”

Aunt Clara told him to shush. “We should all be proud,” she said, “of young Mr. Hilliman’s commitment to his client.” She raised a glass.

So did the others, not wanting to offend their hostess. Talk turned to other matters. But the impeachment trial remained, inevitably, the ghost at the feast, and the conversation was desultory.

After the guests had departed, Jonathan and Margaret sat together in the parlor. The maid had laid fresh logs on the fire before retiring.

“Spring is in the air,” said Margaret, gaily. She squeezed his hand. “Can’t you feel it?”

“I suppose.” He forced a smile. “I’m sorry. Of course. Yes.”

“You should be cheery. Soon this will all be over.” She touched his cheek. “I know you had to speak bravely at table, but you and I both know that there is no serious possibility that Mr. Lincoln can prevail.” A nod of acknowledgment of the tragic truth of matters. “He will be convicted, Jonathan. You must accept that.”

“I told you—”

“That matters are not settled. I know. But they are. Father says so. And Father knows people.” Her tone was one of affectionate correction. Flames leaped and crackled in the grate. “Father understands these things”—implying that her young man did not. Jonathan experienced a sudden vision of married life with this wonderful woman he had adored since they were young.
Yes, Jonathan, but Father says … No, Jonathan, because Father says … That’s a bad idea, because Father says … We cannot move house, because Father says …
And always delivered with warm sincerity, a loving desire to make her beloved happy, because she knew, and would always know, that perfect happiness was identical to hewing to the wisdom of the Lion of Louisiana.

Before he could consider a reply, she kissed him, softly, then kissed him again. Her warm openness surprised him. “You are a good man,” she said, holding his face, watching his eyes. “I love you very much, Jonathan.”

“I love you, too,” he said, after the barest hesitation.

Margaret seemed to consider. She stroked his hair. “Aunt Clara will be in bed soon,” she murmured. Another kiss, and now he felt the desperation. “This time, I do not wish to hear of an urgent meeting.”

“But—”

She stood, and took his hand. Her eyes were bright, full of joy and wonder, fixed on a magnificent future. “If we are to be husband and wife,” she said, “we should practice our conjugal duties to one another.”

III

As for Abigail, after leaving the office in the afternoon, she wandered vaguely eastward through an unexpected April snow, until the smoky rumble of a train on the Baltimore and Potomac tracks woke her from her reverie. Startled, she realized how near she was to the Chase mansion at Sixth and E. Embarrassed that habit had almost led her to fresh humiliation, she quickly boarded the horsecars of the Metropolitan Line and rode due south, alighting on the Island, less than a mile from her home. Marching through the city, Abigail was for once comforted rather than offended by the fetid breeze off the canal. She felt lightheaded, yet her mind quested onward.

She was almost there. She could feel it. After last night’s events, she was so close to the answer. Were the pain of her circumstance not clouding her judgment, she told herself angrily, she would have it. But it is difficult to think clearly through tears.

At home, she was railed at by Nanny Pork, who never let pass an opportunity to point out the horribles, as she called them, that happened whenever her advice was ignored. Nanny took pains to list all the many ways in which Abigail had ignored her guidance, not only in this matter of pursuing her foolish dream of becoming a lawyer, but all the way back to her childhood, including several incidents that Abigail did not remember, and in whose occurrence she entirely disbelieved. Yet she did not fight back. Not against Nanny Pork. All through the cruel years after Abigail’s parents died, and then again in the crueler years
after she returned from Oberlin to find her fiancé vanished, her great-aunt’s unquestioning if disapproving love had been the only constant in her life.

Now, as Abigail sat sipping tea, and Nanny Pork limped around the kitchen listing her niece’s deficiencies, the evening’s mood began subtly to shift. Abigail found her thoughts drawn away from the mystery of the secret code, and even from the seemingly hopeless impeachment trial, and more and more toward the delicate matter of her own circumstances. Aaron. The collapse of her career, and of her hopes. And all at once she found herself telling Nanny what had really happened. Not Michael’s arrest, a matter they had already discussed, and which Nanny had already dismissed; what had nearly happened to Abigail herself in the offices of Dennard & McShane in the late hours of the past night. Giving voice at last to her terror, Abigail was suddenly weeping, and in Nanny’s strong arms, which, if the truth was told, was where she had longed to be ever since she walked into the office last night and confronted the two white men who, but for Michael, would certainly have raped her. Nanny said nothing, but tightened her embrace. Abigail was crying for all she was worth, crying hard for the first time since she learned two years ago that Aaron’s regiment had returned from the war without him, crying because she had run out of reasons not to. And eventually, wrapped in those familiar arms, comforted by the massive chest, like the child every adult sometimes still is, Abigail cried herself to sleep.

Nanny Pork sat awake, stroking the child’s curly hair, marveling that the good Lord allowed so much pain in this sinful world. She wondered why white folks, who had everything, spent so much time fighting over who got how much, while black folks, who had nothing, just sat around feeling sorry for they selves. And she wondered, too, whether it was God’s work or Satan’s that had caused her precious niece to fall so deeply and hopelessly in love.

IV

The light burned in the parlor window for another hour. When it finally was extinguished, the watcher across the street nodded in satisfaction. Soon, he told himself. Soon.

I

GENERAL WILLIAM TECUMSEH
Sherman strode down the aisle. The Senators stirred, and many, although seated, very nearly came to attention. General Grant might have had charge of the Union armies and accepted Lee’s surrender, and General Felix might have won the West, but it was this brilliant West Point graduate and former banker, tall and elegant, who had marched through the South, burning and blasting everything in his path, destroying the rebels’ will to resist. If Grant was loved throughout the North, Sherman was revered—and, probably, feared.

He was also known to be a Lincoln man through and through.

It was Monday afternoon, and time was running out. Here, then, was the strategy on which the President and his lawyers had settled. The meeting had been contentious. Jonathan had sat in the corner, taking notes. From the beginning of the trial, Lincoln had insisted that no military officers be called to testify on his behalf. It was one thing, he said, for professional politicians to take their chances, but soldiers should not risk punishment for the sin of telling the truth. For as long as they could, the lawyers had indulged their client’s preference. Now too much was at stake. It took some doing, but they finally wore Lincoln down, persuading him that there was no alternative. On Saturday night, the telegram had gone to Sherman, who was down in North Carolina, straightening out a dispute between two other generals. He had arrived in Washington this morning by train.

Standing before the Senators now, knowing the witness had their full attention, Dennard had Sherman state his name and his rank and his current assignment, took him crisply through his war record, and placed honestly before the Senate Sherman’s warm affection for the President of the United States.

Then began the effort to pick apart the impression left by the testimony of poor Major Clancy.

“Now, General Sherman, in September of last year, were you summoned to the White House by the President?”

“I was, sir.”

“And did you have a private meeting with him?”

“I did, sir.” The general sat ramrod-straight, occasionally stroking his short brown beard, unanimously held to be the most neatly trimmed in Washington.

“What was the subject of this meeting?”

“The difficulties of Reconstruction,” Sherman began.

“I have a concern with this line of questioning,” said Butler, rising. “Just last week we established that the Managers would not be permitted to place into evidence the President’s state of mind.”

Dennard was firm. “That was for the limited purpose of deciding allegations of offenses where the state of mind is not in question.”

“Such as the suspension of habeas corpus,” Butler sneered.

“That is correct,” said Dennard airily. “The only question, so the Senate decided by vote”—a small bow in the direction of the chamber—“was whether the President acted and whether his act was justified, not what his motive was.”

Chase made a note. “Continue, counsel.”

“Here we have an entirely different question,” Dennard said. “We do not seek to delve into the President’s state of mind. The Managers have made many claims about what the President ordered his generals to do. General Sherman himself is the best witness to the President’s orders.”

Butler remained unsatisfied. “The President’s orders are still declarations, and are therefore outside the scope of what was decided on Friday.”

“Your Honor,” said Dennard, “the Senate did not vote to exclude all words or actions by the President, but only those intended to show his state of mind.”

The Chief Justice nodded. “Objection overruled. You may proceed, Mr. Dennard.”

Sherman resumed his testimony. Yes, the subject matter of the meetings had been the difficulties of Reconstruction. Sherman explained that he, among other commanders, had warned Lincoln repeatedly of the problems. There was not enough money. There were too many overlapping offices. The Freedmen’s Bureau was understaffed, and unenthusiastic about its work. Where state governments had been reconstituted, there were still too many violations of the rights of the recently freed slaves, and up in the gallery Abigail winced, because their witness was in effect testifying for the prosecution. She noticed the satisfied look on Kate’s pug face, and realized that the defense had been had. Butler had not really wanted to keep this part of the testimony out. When they got to the part that helped the President, however …

“Did the President agree with you?”

“Sir?”

“You said that you told the President about some of the problems in the Reconstruction of the South. I am asking if Mr. Lincoln made any response.”

Butler was on his feet like a pistol shot. “Objection. Your Honor, they are still trying to elicit Mr. Lincoln’s declaration for the purpose of showing his state of mind.”

“No, Your Honor,” said Dennard. “All we are trying to establish is the state of mind the President conveyed to his subordinates. Again, let me emphasize that it is the Managers who have put this matter in issue.”

“Overruled. The witness will answer.”

Sherman took his time. “Sir, the President at all times expressed great concern over the course of Reconstruction.”