She shuddered, imagining it all too well, knowing General Lee would have encircled the North if he had been able.
She knew Ulys had no choice but to draw the cordon tight.
• • •
The next morning Captain Barnes took General Sherman aboard the Bat and returned him to South Carolina, and General Ord crossed to the southern shore of the James River with three divisions to take his position for the assault. As Generals Meade and Sheridan, too, moved into place, Ulys told Julia something she had long suspected: He had decided to accompany his armies into the field and direct the operations himself.
On the afternoon before Ulys’s departure, when most of the officers had already left headquarters for the field, Julia returned to the cabin after an outing with Jesse to discover Ulys packing up his office. He placed his hands on Julia’s shoulders and fixed her with a look that allowed for no dissent. “I’ve decided that you and Mrs. Rawlins and the children should move aboard the dispatch boat for your safety. If my plans unfold as I hope and expect they will, I’ll return to City Point soon, and we’ll travel together to Washington.”
Julia managed a smile, but her voice trembled. “How very proud I shall be.”
“But if Lee should escape to the mountains—and I’m concerned that he might, if he moves before I’m ready—there’s no telling when this war will end. In that case, you and Jesse must return without me.”
Julia threw back her shoulders and lifted her chin. “I’m certain that the next time I return to Washington, it will be at my victor’s side.”
On the evening of March 29, Mr. Lincoln called on her aboard the Mary Martin. The lines of his face seemed deeper, the rings beneath his eyes of a darker hue. She had never seen him look more grave, and she knew the weight of his responsibilities oppressed him.
“When I parted with General Grant at the station, he was looking well and full of hope,” Mr. Lincoln told her kindly, his ineffable compassion bringing light to his careworn face. “I’m confident that his last campaign has begun, and that it will end in victory.”
Julia thanked him and assured him that she shared his confidence—for somehow, despite her grave worries, she knew, in that uncanny way she always did, that Ulys would return to her whole and unharmed.
• • •
All those left behind at City Point braced themselves for word from the Petersburg front, for jarring reports of bloody battles, for ambulances full of wounded. Julia; Mary Emma Rawlins, Rawlins’s second wife; and Antoinette Morgan, the wife of Colonel Michael R. Morgan, spent the long, anxious hours waiting for news, minding their children, strolling along the James, speculating in hushed and anxious voices about what their husbands might be doing at that very moment—and praying, silently and fervently, for victory and peace and the deliverance of the men they loved most dearly.
The day after Ulys departed, he telegraphed Julia from Gravelly Run to report that they were well but enduring heavy rains. “The weather is bad for us,” he noted, “but it is reassuring to know that it rains on the enemy as well.”
In the days that followed, he wrote to her frequently, brief notes that were important not so much for what they told her of his military maneuvers—which was very little indeed—but for the assurances they offered that he was alive and well. He sent lengthier reports to the president, who had decided to remain at City Point until the outcome of the offensive could be known, and Mr. Lincoln kindly shared the news with Julia and the other wives.
It was from Mr. Lincoln—radiant, relieved, and beaming—that Julia learned of the fall of Petersburg. After Sheridan’s marvelous victory at Five Forks, Ulys had ordered an assault all along the lines, shattering the rebel defenses and taking the city. By early afternoon, Union scouts reported that the Confederate government was evacuating Richmond. Ulys, telegraphing from his headquarters at the Banks House near the Boydton Plank Road, invited Mr. Lincoln to visit the captured works.
On the morning of April 3, Mr. Lincoln rode out with Tad to meet Ulys at Petersburg and to tour the defeated city. But before Mr. Lincoln and Tad could return with news from Petersburg, other reports came by telegraph from Richmond—word of an event that the people of the North had anxiously awaited for years.
At a quarter past eight o’clock that morning, Union forces under the command of Major General Godfrey Weitzel had entered Richmond.
The Confederate capital had fallen.
• • •
Shortly after noon on that bright, sunny Monday, Jule walked to the workshop of Mr. Peter Bryant, a glassblower, to negotiate new terms. For months he had supplied Jule with bottles and jars for her various concoctions in exchange for an ample supply of her burn salve, but her need for more bottles had grown dramatically, in keeping with demand for her products. Although Mr. Bryant had not complained, she knew no one needed that much burn salve, and only kindness restrained him from asking for cash instead.
An assistant sent word of her arrival, and soon he emerged, wiping his brow and smiling. “Good day, Miss Jule,” he greeted her warmly, as he always did. A few months before, Emma, who seemed to know at least one person in every profession, had introduced her to the freeborn craftsman, a widower in his early forties, the father of two children. In that time Jule had come to know that he was quiet and industrious, but kindly and generous too. His eldest son, fifteen and broad shouldered like his father, worked alongside him in the workshop, and his daughter, almost twelve, attended school and wanted to be a teacher.
“Good day, Mr. Bryant,” Jule replied, smiling back.
The workshop was stiflingly warm, so he offered her a chair outside in front of the shop window. He stood nearby, arms folded in front of his chest, gaze keenly interested, as she opened negotiations.
“I’m glad your business is faring so well that you need so much glassware,” he remarked. “I think I can manage a fair price considering the quantity you want.”
The price he named was so low that Jule had to laugh. “Mr. Bryant, I think you’ll lose money on this deal. This is business, not a favor.”
“I know that,” he said, looking a trifle embarrassed. “If you’re worried about me, you can ask around. You might even find a better rate.”
“I doubt that very much.”
He extended a hand. “Then let’s shake on it.”
Her glance took in the old burn scars on his forearm. “Only if you let me include a regular supply of salve in the deal.”
“Agreed.”
They shook hands, and he held hers longer than necessary, perhaps distracted by a sudden, none too distant burst of artillery fire, followed immediately by whistles and cheers and shouts and a cheerful blast on a trumpet.
Jule gently eased her hand free of Mr. Bryant’s. “I wonder what they’re celebrating.”
He glanced up and down the street, frowning curiously as merry crowds began to gather, shouting and laughing for joy. “Another victory for General Grant, I hope.”
Jule rose from her chair and watched, astonished, as people poured from homes and businesses, tossing their hats into the air, embracing and kissing and weeping for joy. Another artillery salute boomed, and as the blacksmith next door burst from his shop, Mr. Bryant called, “What’s happened? What’s the news?”
“What’s the news, you ask?” The blacksmith beamed, tore off his leather apron, and tossed it over his shoulder through the doorway. “Richmond’s fallen—that’s the news!”
As Jule gasped and pressed her hands to her mouth, Mr. Bryant cheered, punched a fist into the air, and then seized her hands and danced her about in a circle. Joy bubbling up within her, she laughed and danced along—and then froze as he seized her by the shoulders and planted a kiss on her lips.
She stared at him numbly.
“Miss—Miss Jule,” he stammered, releasing her. “Please forgive me.”
“It’s all right,”
she said shakily. “It’s the excitement. I understand.” She took a step back. “We have a deal, about the bottles, isn’t that so?”
He nodded, shamefaced and utterly miserable. “I didn’t mean to offend—”
“It’s all right,” she repeated, managing a smile. “I take no offense. I’ll see you soon.” She nodded and turned, hurrying away home.
Tears filled her eyes as she made her way through the joyful, raucous, exuberant crowds toward home. It seemed that all of Washington City had joined the celebration spilling into the streets, hearts overflowing with joy, happiness shining in the faces of clerks and drovers and housemaids and waiters, white and colored alike. Already citizens were draping patriotic banners and bunting from their windows, and bands quickly formed on street corners and parks to play spirited marches and merry jigs.
“Jule,” she heard a voice cry out happily, and when she turned, she glimpsed Emma waving frantically from the other side of the street, rising high on tiptoe to be seen over the crowd. A surge of relief swept the troubling kiss to the back of her thoughts, and she quickly wove her way to her friend’s side.
“Oh, Jule, isn’t it glorious?” Emma cried, embracing her.
“Yes,” she replied, truly understanding for the first time. “Oh, Emma, it’s wonderful!”
With Emma and her companions, seamstresses from Mrs. Keckley’s workshop and the renowned dressmaker herself, she joined the celebration, linking arms and singing and laughing and marching through the streets. 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. Many revelers indulged in too much liquor, and Jule was at first amused and then alarmed 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 nurse headaches and sour stomachs, but for the moment, nothing could diminish their rejoicing. Jule could not say the same for herself, for regret tempered her happiness—regret for the unexpected kiss, for Gabriel’s absence, for the profound loneliness that only a reunion with her beloved husband could assuage.
That day was coming, she told herself. Every victory General Grant won brought Gabriel that much closer.
• • •
As Ulys and the Army of the Potomac relentlessly pursued General Lee’s forces, the thrilling promise of victory brought a torrent of visitors from the North down upon City Point. The president and his wife had apparently reconciled via the post and the telegraph, for on April 5, two days after the fall of Richmond, Mrs. Lincoln and a small party of companions joined the president aboard the River Queen, docked not one hundred yards from the Mary Martin. Before calling at the presidential ship, Julia enlisted as her escort Congressman Elihu Washburne, a friend of Ulys’s from their Galena days. Aboard the River Queen, they were kindly received and introduced to one and all—Senator Charles Sumner; Secretary of the Interior James Harlan and his wife; their daughter Miss Mary Harlan, whom Robert Lincoln was courting; the Marquis de Chambrun, visiting from France; and an elegant, fashionably attired colored woman whom Mrs. Lincoln introduced as her friend Mrs. Elizabeth Keckley, a dressmaker.
After Julia paid her respects, Mrs. Lincoln said, as if continuing an interrupted conversation, “Suppose we ask Mrs. Grant. Let her answer this important question.”
Offering a serene smile to mask her sudden wariness, Julia inquired, “What question is that?”
“What should be done with the Confederate president Jefferson Davis,” Senator Sumner asked, “in the event of his capture?”
“What should be done?” Julia echoed thoughtfully, stalling for time. Just then her eyes met those of Mr. Lincoln, who regarded her with a friendly smile. Inspired, Julia said, “I would trust him to the mercy of our always just and most gracious president.”
“Well said, madame,” declared the Marquis de Chambrun.
“A most diplomatic answer,” praised Secretary Harlan.
Even Mrs. Lincoln beamed approval, to Julia’s relief.
The next morning the sun rose golden and warm in a sky of perfect blue, so Julia decided to invite Mrs. Lincoln and Tad on a picnic. She put on her prettiest bonnet, took Jesse by the hand, and went ashore—only to discover that the River Queen was gone.
Puzzled, she inquired among the men working the docks and discovered that Mrs. Lincoln had organized an excursion to Richmond for her companions. “She got upset when she learned that Mr. Lincoln visited the city without her the day after it fell,” an ensign confided. “So Mr. Lincoln obliged her with a second trip.”
Julia was hurt that she had not been invited along, and her sense that Mrs. Lincoln had intentionally excluded her heightened the next morning, when she called at the River Queen after breakfast only to learn that the presidential party had taken a special train to Petersburg to tour the fallen city. “I know Mrs. Lincoln is easily offended,” Julia confided to Mary Emma and Antoinette, “but I don’t understand how she could have forgotten me.”
“Oh, she hasn’t forgotten you,” said Antoinette archly. “She simply likes you less, as the people like your husband more. Their cries of ‘Grant for president!’ are like the crash of cymbals in her ear.”
“He doesn’t want to be president,” Julia protested. “He made that perfectly clear before the last election.”
“With the war almost won, perhaps Mrs. Lincoln fears he’ll be searching for another occupation.”
“If so, her fears are entirely unjustified,” said Julia, hurt, “as was her ungenerous decision to leave us behind.”
“Why don’t we make up our own party and take our own boat to Richmond?” said Mary Emma.
Antoinette clapped her hands, delighted. “A splendid idea! We don’t need Mrs. Lincoln to enjoy ourselves.”
Congressman Washburne, as curious to see the vanquished Confederate capital as they, agreed to escort them, and two other officers were easily persuaded to join the group. Soon the Mary Martin set out upon the James, and in the company of her cheerful, loyal friends, Julia enjoyed the warm sunshine on the forward deck, savoring the breeze and the pure, balmy air. The river flowed along majestically, its banks lovely and fragrant with the first sweet blossoms of spring. Beyond them stretched fair fields, the very image of peacetime bounty—but all too often, the illusion of prosperity was broken by glimpses of deserted army camps and ruined forts, the ugly scars of war.
Before long the steamer landed at Richmond, and after disembarking, Julia’s small party arranged for carriages to take them through the city. Their pleasant conversation soon fell silent as they rode through the ruins of the former capital, still smoldering after the fires the Confederates had set as they evacuated, destroying valuable supplies rather than leave them for the Yankees. The streets were unnaturally subdued except for occasional patrols of Union soldiers, a few thin citizens in worn clothing who averted their eyes as they hurried past on business of their own, and an occasional colored servant who glared at them as intruders, which Julia felt they were indeed. The streets surrounding the public buildings were covered in papers—letters and government documents, Julia surmised—and the Virginia statehouse where the Confederate Congress had met was in a state of disarray that spoke of fear and haste—desk drawers yanked open, papers scattered, chairs overturned as if their last occupants had fled in alarm.
The scenes of sorrow and suffering grieved Julia so much that after circling the capitol square she asked to be taken back to the boat. While the others continued touring the city, she gazed out upon the river, listening to the familiar peeping of frogs, so reminiscent of her Missouri home that tears sprang to her eyes. On what was surely the eve of
her husband’s greatest triumph, she was haunted by the tragedies of the long years of war—the homes made desolate, the hearts broken, the treasure lost, the young lives sacrificed.
Eventually her friends and their escorts returned to the boat, which soon thereafter carried them back to City Point. When they landed, they were informed that the presidential party had returned from Petersburg and intended to depart for Washington that evening.
Later, alone in her stateroom, Julia was mulling over the day when Captain Barnes called. “Would you please escort me to the president’s boat?” she asked after they had chatted awhile. “I haven’t seen much of their party of late, and I understand that they’re leaving tonight. I’d like to pay my respects and say farewell.”
“Certainly, Mrs. Grant,” the captain replied, surprised, “but aren’t you going to the reception tonight?”
“Reception?”
“Why, yes, madam. Have you received no notice of it?”
“No,” said Julia, doing her best to sound unconcerned. “But I presume I will in good time.”
“I’d be happy to escort you now,” Captain Barnes said, discomfited, “if you wish to call on them sooner.”
“No, that’s quite all right.” Julia managed a smile, embarrassed for them both. “I’ll wait for the reception.”
But after the captain left, she waited in vain for a messenger to bring her an invitation. The stars came out, and scarcely a hundred yards away, the crew of the River Queen illuminated the ship with lanterns from bow to stern until it shone like an enchanted palace. She watched from the forward cabin as a military band went aboard, but when the sound of tuning instruments and laughter and conversation drifted to her across the water, she drew on her shawl and turned away, disconsolate.
• • •
Sunday dawned warm and clear, with bright sunshine that soon lifted the dew from the grassy riverbanks and softened the mists rising from the river. Julia spent the morning in prayer and contemplation of scripture, and later that afternoon, she and Mary Emma Rawlins received callers in the forward cabin. They were engaged in earnest conversation with several officers from the army and navy, weighing the probability of imminent peace, when a telegraph officer from headquarters appeared, cheeks flushed, eyes wide and beaming, a piece of paper clutched in a grip so tight his hand trembled. “Mrs. Grant,” he exclaimed. “May I have a word?”
Mrs. Grant and Madame Jule Page 33