“I don’t suppose anyone but President Lincoln knows that for certain,” said Julia, unable to resist emphasizing Mr. Lincoln’s title. “President Lincoln is a good, just, and wise gentleman, and I must assume that any decisions he would make on any serious matter relating to the war would reflect that.”
When Mr. Hunter’s frown deepened, Julia decided to steer the conversation elsewhere. “Did you know,” she said lightly, “that although you are the first three Confederate commissioners that I have met, you are not the first that I have known?”
Mr. Hunter and Judge Campbell exchanged bewildered looks, but Mr. Stephens smiled as one did when entertained with a riddle. “My dear lady, how can you know a commissioner whom you have not met?”
“Because I know him only through the post and we have never been properly introduced,” said Julia. “For many months I have been corresponding with the commissioner for the exchange of prisoners at Columbia, South Carolina, where my brother John has been held for almost a year.”
Judge Campbell’s brows drew together in sympathetic bewilderment. “Was General Grant unable to arrange for him to be exchanged?”
“Of course not,” said Julia. “My brother isn’t a soldier. He is, however, as ardent a rebel as there ever has been. We had many an argument on the subject before the war.”
“If he isn’t a soldier,” asked Mr. Stephens, prepared to take on another riddle, “how did he come to be in prison?”
“He was visiting a friend in Louisiana when he was captured,” said Julia. “When it was discovered that he is the brother-in-law of General Grant, he was taken for a spy, despite his many proclamations to the contrary.”
She waited, but while they expressed sympathy, not one of the gentlemen offered to intercede on her brother’s behalf—and so she smiled, poured more coffee, and did not offer to intercede on their behalf to Ulys.
Mr. Lincoln had sent envoys, including Secretary of State William Seward, to meet the commissioners at Hampton Roads in Virginia. On the second day of February, he telegraphed Ulys, “Say to the gentlemen I will meet them personally at Fortress-Monroe, as soon as I can get there.”
The president himself was coming to the conference. Mr. Hunter could not ask for more evidence of Mr. Lincoln’s tremendous desire for peace than that.
Late in the afternoon a few days thereafter, Julia was in the cabin straining her eyes and sewing buttons on Ulys’s dress uniform when a knock sounded on the door. She rose to answer and discovered President Lincoln standing before her, tall and gaunt in a dark suit and stovepipe hat. “Mr. President,” she said warmly, despite her astonishment. “What an honor this is! Do come in.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Grant.” He removed his hat but still had to bend sharply to pass through the doorway. He glanced around their little home, and when a small, cryptic smile appeared on his weary face, Julia remembered that he, too, had once lived in a cabin. “I’d like to speak to General Grant, if he has time.”
“He would always have time for you, Mr. President,” she said. “He’s at his office at present.”
“I thought this was his office.”
“He works here occasionally, but only because he is always working and is sometimes here.”
Mr. Lincoln chuckled. “I understand completely. I believe I can find someone to direct me. Thank you, Mrs. Grant.”
“Mr. President,” Julia quickly said as he turned to go, “I assume you come directly from the conference. Have you reached any agreements in the interests of peace?”
The president hesitated. “Well, no.”
“No?” Julia exclaimed, her heart plummeting. “Why, Mr. President, aren’t you going to make terms with them? They are our own people, you know.”
“Yes, Mrs. Grant,” he said, nodding somberly. “I never forget that.”
He took from his pocket a piece of paper, which he unfolded and read aloud. Julia listened intently to the terms of peace he had presented to Mr. Stephens and his companions: national authority would be restored over all the states, slavery would be abolished throughout the country, and all military forces hostile to the government of the United States would be disbanded. When Mr. Lincoln finished, he looked up, fixed his sad, rueful gaze on Julia, and returned the paper to his pocket.
“They did not accept that?” asked Julia.
“They did not.”
“But those terms seem most liberal.”
“The commissioners, echoing the instructions given to them by Jeff Davis, insisted that the goal was to achieve peace between two sovereign nations,” the president said. “I seek peace within our one common country. I insist upon the end of slavery, while Mr. Stephens is bound to the opposite. We have no common ground to tread upon.”
“I see.” It was all Julia could manage to say, so profound was her disappointment.
“I thought you would, when I explained it to you.” The president fit his lanky frame through the door and bowed to her before replacing his hat. “I have, for the past year or so, looked to General Grant for the end to this cruel war. The conference has failed, and so I rely upon him more than ever.”
“He will not fail you, Mr. President,” Julia replied. “He has his mind set upon victory, and he always was a very obstinate man.”
“I know my trust could be no better placed.” When the president smiled, it was like the sun breaking unexpectedly through clouds. “Mrs. Grant, did you have the opportunity to see the three commissioners?”
“I did.”
“Did you meet Mr. Stephens, and did you notice his unusual coat?”
“Yes, indeed, Mr. President.”
“Well, did you not think it was the biggest shuck for the littlest ear you ever did see?”
Julia laughed. “I confess I didn’t think of it in quite those terms, but now I always shall.”
The president rewarded her with a warm, hearty laugh of his own.
Later that day, Julia learned that Mr. Lincoln had found Ulys at his office and had conferred with him briefly before departing for Washington. “I told him I’d see him soon,” said Ulys wryly.
Julia reached for his hand and gave it a sympathetic squeeze. Ulys had been summoned to appear before the House of Representatives to testify before the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War about General Benjamin Butler’s failure to take Fort Fisher. It was not a task he relished, so Julia felt a trifle guilty for looking forward to a few days in the capital.
They left City Point on February 9, arriving in Washington City the following day. Julia had grown accustomed to the fanfare and frenzy that always marked their arrivals, and she smiled and bowed graciously and exchanged pleasantries with several of the ladies in the throng as Ulys’s aides swept them off to their waiting carriage. After they were settled into comfortable rooms at the Willard, Julia received callers in the ladies’ parlor while Ulys met with President Lincoln and Secretary Stanton at the War Department. That evening, after dining alone in the peaceful seclusion of their rooms, they attended the theater with Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln and General and Mrs. Burnside. The program at Ford’s Theatre included the comedy Everybody’s Friend followed by the farce Love in Livery, which pleased Ulys greatly, for although he detested opera, like Mr. Lincoln he loved a good play.
When the president’s distinguished party arrived, the orchestra struck up “Hail to the Chief,” and the audience welcomed them with such thunderous applause and powerful cheers that the performance onstage was suspended for several minutes. The president bowed to his admirers with the utmost courtesy and humility, while Ulys looked as if he wished the people would quiet down, take their seats, and allow the play to continue. For her part Mrs. Lincoln basked in the admiration, smiling proudly down upon the audience and inclining her head gracefully to one person and then another. Suddenly she threw Julia a quick, arch, sidelong smile, as if to urge to her relish the cheers, to bask in
the reflected glow of her husband’s glory while she could, for they would fade all too soon.
• • •
Despite Mrs. Lincoln’s silent warning of the transience of fame—which might have been Julia’s imagination, too much read into one inscrutable glance—Ulys’s star seemed on a trajectory of unrestrained ascent. The following morning, after delivering his testimony to the joint committee, he was received with great enthusiasm in the House. Julia watched from the gallery as, shortly after Congressman Daniel Wheelwright Gooch read excerpts regarding prisoner exchanges from Ulys’s testimony, Ulys himself was recognized on the floor and the chamber voted to recess so the members could pay their respects. Scores of congressmen crowded around him, eager for introductions, but after several minutes he was escorted to the clerk’s desk and formally introduced to the entire body, while the chamber resounded with thunderous applause from officials and spectators alike. A similar scene played out soon thereafter in the Senate, where he was praised and congratulated with such enthusiasm that Julia could scarcely imagine how they would respond when he ultimately won the war.
Later that afternoon, Ulys and Julia attended Mrs. Lincoln’s reception at the White House, which Julia overheard several guests remark was in many respects the finest of the season. Mr. Lincoln, gaunt but amiable, assisted his wife in receiving her guests, among whom the most prominent were Admiral Farragut and Ulys himself. Mrs. Lincoln looked elegant and self-assured in a rich lilac gown trimmed with black velvet and narrow ribbon, the neckline cut low to show off her lovely shoulders, the skirt set with diamond-shaped panels of white satin and velvet. Her dark hair was braided and coiled and adorned with a headdress of point lace and feathers, and she completed her costume with a necklace of lustrous pearls, a diamond breast pin, white kid gloves, and a lace fan.
Julia supposed that only one lady could have outshone Mrs. Lincoln that afternoon, but when she looked around for Mrs. Sprague, she did not see the auburn-haired beauty anywhere. A few discreet inquiries among the officers’ wives revealed that Mrs. Sprague had spent most of the winter social season at her Washington home, for she was in a delicate condition, not yet in confinement, but far enough along that she declined most invitations.
“Surely she’ll attend the inauguration,” a colonel’s wife told Julia archly. “Chief Justice Chase will be administering the oath of office, and the ball will be the social event of the season. Mrs. Sprague would have to be mere minutes away from her blessed event to be kept away from that.” She peered at Julia inquisitively. “Will you and General Grant attend, Mrs. Grant?”
“I don’t know.” Ulys had said nothing about it, and it had not occurred to Julia to wonder if they might. “I suppose it will depend upon what’s happening with the war.”
She resolved to ask Ulys the next time she saw him, but when he found her in the crowd soon thereafter, he forestalled her question with a command: “If there’s anyone else here to whom you ought to pay your respects, do so now. We’ll be leaving soon.”
“For the Willard?”
“Yes, and then on to City Point.”
“This afternoon? Already?”
With a slight frown Ulys replied, “I would say rather, ‘at last.’ My place is in the field. I’ve tarried too long already.”
• • •
General Sherman had moved on from Savannah into South Carolina, and on February 17, his valiant men captured Columbia. The news filled Julia with wild hope, because if the Union army liberated the prisons, and if the captives had not been marched off elsewhere before the city fell, her brother John might be freed and allowed to go home at last.
The day after General Sherman took Columbia, the Confederates surrendered Fort Sumter and evacuated Charleston. A Union victory seemed more certain than ever before. Julia frequently overheard Ulys tell his most trusted aides that he did not see how the Confederacy could endure much longer. His network of loyal Unionist spies in Richmond had smuggled out reports that clerks serving Mr. Davis’s cabinet secretaries were frantically packing up important documents for transport, and a plan to evacuate the government from the city had been devised and approved. Every day scores of soldiers in butternut and gray deserted the rebel camps and surrendered themselves to Union pickets, while others simply packed up their kits and went home, probably assuming that the war would be over soon anyway and they ought not to get shot in the meantime. Throughout the South, the Confederate military had been conscripting every able-bodied man between eighteen and forty-five, but new laws had been passed allowing for the drafting of boys aged fourteen to eighteen, who formed the junior reserves, and men from forty-five to sixty, the senior reserves. “They’re robbing the cradle and the grave,” said Ulys regretfully one night as he finished his last cigar. The lives he sought to preserve by bringing a swift end to the war were not all on the Union side.
Even with the enlistment of boys and old men throughout rebeldom, Ulys figured the enemy lost at least a regiment each day, taking into account casualties of battle, deaths from disease, fatalities from natural causes, and desertions. With rebel morale at its lowest ebb, Ulys was impatient for winter to end so he could commence the spring campaign, which he firmly believed would be the last of the war. For weeks heavy rains had drenched the landscape, and the muddy roads had become an impassable morass for artillery and teams. Until the downpours relented and the sun dried the roads, his teamsters could not move the wagon trains and artillery necessary for prolonged fighting in enemy territory. He wanted General Sheridan’s cavalry with him too, but they were still maneuvering north of the James, having come from the Shenandoah Valley. Ulys would not set out until Sheridan’s forces could join him south of the river.
Ulys’s headquarters crackled with activity from before dawn until long after sunset. Unable to move on General Lee’s army, they planned and prepared, drilling the troops, studying maps, collecting intelligence, and testing the roads. They were focused, determined, apprehensive, and eager—but often their concentration was broken by visitors from the North, politicians, dignitaries, newspapermen, and often their ladies, eager for a glimpse of the soldiers in their natural setting before the war ended and they would be viewed only in parades. To lift the burden from her husband’s shoulders, Julia gladly assumed the role of hostess.
Late one afternoon, upon returning to the cabin after calling on soldiers on the sick list, Julia found Ulys at his desk engaged in earnest conversation with General Ord.
“See here, Mrs. Grant,” Ulys greeted her. “General Ord has returned from rebel lines with an intriguing suggestion that terms of peace may be reached through you.”
“My good lady,” General Ord began, “recently I met under a flag of truce with General Longstreet to resolve some problems with fraternization between the opposing pickets. Our soldiers and the rebels have been trading papers, sharing tobacco, even challenging one another to races and whatnot, and it’s high time this was stopped. After settling this little matter, I said to him, ‘Longstreet, why do you fellows hold out any longer? You know you cannot succeed. Why prolong this unholy struggle?’”
Julia resisted the urge to ask how Cousin James looked, if he had quite recovered from his dreadful wound, if he seemed to be starving, as so many of the rebel deserters who crossed into their lines did. “What was his reply?”
“He said he would be glad to have peace restored between our two nations.”
Ulys sighed and lit a fresh cigar, and Julia thought of Mr. Lincoln’s distinction between peace among separate nations and peace within one common country.
With a glance for Ulys, General Ord continued, “It was proposed that a conference between Generals Grant and Lee could be arranged, and that since you are old friends, you and Mrs. Longstreet could cross enemy lines and act as mediators.”
“What an intriguing idea,” Julia exclaimed.
“It was our belief that you ladies could become the mediums
of peace,” General Ord explained. “Mrs. Longstreet has already been summoned from Lynchburg to Richmond for this purpose.”
Julia would rejoice to see her dear friend again, especially to broker peace. “I’m willing to go the minute you give the word,” she told General Ord, and then, remembering herself, she turned to Ulys. “I may go, may I not?”
Ulys smiled but shook his head. “No, I think not.”
“Why not?” Julia protested. “I’d be proud to serve my country this way.”
“No, that would never do.”
Julia approached him and took his hand in both of hers. “Please, Ulys, do consent. Mrs. Longstreet is coming. How will it look if I seem unwilling to meet her?”
“Mrs. Longstreet will understand that it was not your decision.” Ulys gave her hands an affectionate squeeze and returned to his desk and the cigar he had left smoldering in the ashtray. “Even if I were willing to put you at such great risk, which I am not, it would be out of the question. The men have fought this war and the men will finish it.”
It was not only a man’s war, Julia well knew. North and south, women had been engaged in their own battles for more than four years. Though they did not carry rifles and wear Union blue or homespun butternut, many suffered, and many had perished.
Chapter Twenty
FEBRUARY–MARCH 1865
I’m afraid I might be obliged to leave Washington soon,” Jule confessed sadly as she and Emma made their way to church one icy morning in late February, linking arms to steady themselves. Earlier that week, an unexpected taste of spring warmth had melted the ice along the banks of the Potomac and drenched the city in rain, but temperatures had plummeted overnight, freezing puddles and ruts in the muddy streets into a precarious landscape frosted in white. “Maybe for New York or Boston.”
“But why?” Emma protested, not daring to lift her gaze from the icy terrain underfoot. “You’re comfortably settled. You have almost more work than you can manage. You have dear friends who would miss you terribly.” She gave Jule’s arm a little squeeze to indicate that she considered herself foremost among them. “Why would you want to start over somewhere else?”
Mrs. Grant and Madame Jule Page 29