North and South Trilogy

by John Jakes

  He counted himself lucky to get out of Texas when he did. There, too, secession was inevitable, and those in charge of the Department of Texas were clearly sympathetic to the South. Old Davey Twiggs, department commander, and Bob Lee, who had returned from Virginia last year to resume command of the Second Cavalry, were just two potential traitors in a command riddled with them.

  He had been fortunate to get out of Texas for other reasons. He had admittedly botched the attempt to eliminate Charles Main, and he was lucky to have escaped a court-martial. With war likely, there could be new opportunities to strike at the Mains and the Hazards. He’d see what the records in Washington revealed. The prospect took some of the sting out of his failure.

  Bent had never satisfied himself about one question: Did Charles know the real reason for his enmity? By now it seemed very unlikely that he did not; Charles and that damnable Orry Main must have exchanged letters on the subject. Letters in which Bent’s relationship with Orry and George Hazard had been revealed. If by some remote chance there had been no such correspondence, the secret would certainly come out the moment Charles returned home on leave.

  Once the Mains knew of Bent’s continuing appetite for revenge, the Hazards would undoubtedly learn of it, too. But he still saw one advantage for himself. The members of both families would surely assume that his desire would fade or vanish in the turbulence of war. That mistaken assumption would be their undoing.

  As Bent read the national situation, hostilities couldn’t be avoided. Charleston was the flash point. The day after Christmas, Anderson’s little garrison had made secret preparations and, when night fell, had transferred by boat to Fort Sumter, spiking the guns left behind at Moultrie and burning the carriages. As a result, the palmetto flag was now flying over all the Federal property in and around Charleston, except for the fort Anderson was occupying in the center of the harbor.

  Anderson’s garrison was still being permitted to buy fresh meat and vegetables from Charleston markets. But state militiamen were pouring into the city. They were being put to work realigning the guns at Moultrie, Castle Pinckney, and Fort Johnson.

  In Washington during the past weeks Old Buck had purged his cabinet of Southern influence and adopted a harder line. He refused to meet with the South Carolina commissioners who came to the capital to argue for the surrender of Fort Sumter, and he sent their memoranda to the files unread.

  On January 9 the opposing forces had reeled to the brink. Buchanan had dispatched a chartered side-wheeler, Star of the West, to Charleston. The relief vessel carried food, ammunition, and 250 soldiers. She had crossed the bar, and then the cadets from The Citadel who were manning the harbor guns had opened fire.

  Anderson’s batteries did not return fire to defend the incoming ship. Hulled once, Star of the West immediately put out to sea again, and the incident was over—except in Washington, where wrangling continued between the government and yet another South Carolina delegation.

  Just a few days ago, Davis and other senators from the Gulf Squadron had left the Capitol after delivering farewell speeches whose contrived sentimentality was designed to mask their treason. This very morning on the city dock Bent had heard that Davis and others would soon convene in Montgomery, Alabama, to form a new government.

  How could that government fail to come to blows with Washington? Old Buck wouldn’t be President much longer, and the new man, that queer fellow Lincoln, though soft on slavery, was uncompromising about preservation of the Union. War was coming. The future looked splendid.

  In this fine frame of mind, Bent ascended a beautiful black iron stair and knocked at the door of an establishment that had been recommended to him by a gentleman he had met while traveling. When the door opened, he used an assumed name to introduce himself.

  Two hours later, half dressed, he was dragged to the rooms of the proprietress by a huge, ferocious-looking Negro who shoved him into a plush chair, then blocked the door, awaiting the settlement of the dispute.

  “One hundred dollars is outrageous!” Bent declared as he tucked in his shirt and buttoned his sleeves. Here was one place where the authority of his uniform might have served him.

  Seated behind her magnificent desk, Madam Conti appeared relaxed and comfortable in her indigo silk robe with its pattern of embroidered peacocks. She was a large, solid woman, about sixty. Her stunning white hair was exquisitely arranged. Near her beringed hand, incense smoldered inside a tiny brass temple; Oriental objects had been the rage ever since Perry’s squadron had sailed into Yedo Bay, Japan.

  “Nevertheless, Monsieur Benton, one hundred dollars is what you must pay. A girl as young as Otille commands a premium price.” The woman consulted a scrap of paper. “You also requested several, ah, special services. I can enumerate them for you—if they have slipped your mind. Did she not inform you of the extra charge?”

  “She most certainly did not.”

  Madame Conti shrugged. “An oversight. It has no effect upon the price.”

  “I refuse to pay, goddamn it. I absolutely refuse.”

  Madame Conti greeted the outburst not with anger but with a tolerant smile. Looking past Bent, she said, “Whatever shall we do with him, Pomp?”

  “Keep on treating him like a gentleman,” the black rumbled. “See if he might change his mind.”

  Bent’s upper lip popped with sweat. He had heard the note of threat in the nigger’s remarks. He struggled to maintain a courageous front. Madame Conti’s smile didn’t waver.

  “Pour our visitor a little champagne. That might help.”

  “It will not,” Bent said. She laughed and called for a second glass for herself.

  Bent withheld another retort, attempting to plan his next move. Obviously he couldn’t fight his way out of the bordello, nor did he intend to try. He let the situation drift a moment, accepting a glass of excellent French champagne from Pomp. He gulped it, then held the glass out to be refilled. Madame Conti gave the black man a nod of assent.

  The champagne had a calming effect. Bent began to take notice of the elegant office. On walls of red-flocked wallpaper hung more than a dozen large paintings, all lit effectively by mantled gas jets. One huge canvas was a rollicking study of fur trappers on a river raft.

  “That is my pride,” the woman declared. “A Westerner named Bingham painted it.”

  Her pride was misplaced, Bent thought, downing more champagne. He eyed a portrait of a young woman hanging behind Madame Conti’s left shoulder. The features of the beautiful, dark-haired creature were familiar somehow. But he couldn’t place her.

  Madame Conti noticed his interest. “Ah, you admire her? She worked here for a time many years ago. She was even more beautiful than my little Otille. And far more expensive.”

  Bitch, he thought. Wouldn’t let him forget the bill, would she?

  Then, abruptly, he knew where he had seen the exotic face in the painting. It was in one of Charles Main’s family daguerreotypes.

  No, just a moment. This woman, smiling her seductive painted smile, wasn’t the same Creole beauty whose picture he had seen in Texas. The resemblance was strong but not exact. Sisters, perhaps?

  “Who is she, Madame?”

  Jeweled bracelets twinkled and clinked as the white-haired woman drank champagne. “I don’t suppose it hurts to tell you. She was a poor girl who rose very high before she died. She left my employ to become the eminently respectable and respected wife of a rich New Orleans factor.”

  “The dusky cast of her skin is enchanting. The painter was inspired.”

  “Only by what he saw.”

  “You mean her skin was that way naturally?”

  “Yes, Monsieur Benton.”

  “I’m fascinated. She creates a lovely romantic image—” He leaned forward slightly; a master schemer, he could be subtle when necessary. “How did her story end—if you know and wish to confide, Madame?”

  She turned her chair, regarding the painted face with affection. “My dear girl had a daughter by
her adoring husband after they married, but, alas, the beautiful mother died. In time, before he too succumbed, the loving father had to send the child far away to make a match. She looked as white as you or I, but some in this town knew her mother’s background.”

  So that was the relationship; mother and daughter. Bent couldn’t take his eyes from the painting.

  “And they knew the child was not French or Spanish but octoroon. Years ago, attractive young women of mixed blood were favored creatures. No longer. The furor over slavery has seen to that. Today”—an expressive shrug, a melancholy smile—“being one-eighth Negro, however light the skin, is exactly the same as being all Negro—Monsieur Benton, what is wrong?”

  Bent’s hand had jerked, spilling champagne on her fine carpet. “An accident, Madame. My profound apologies.”

  He whipped out his kerchief, bending down to mop the rug, a difficult task because of his huge paunch.

  The daughter of a nigger whore connected with that arrogant Main crowd? Obviously they didn’t suspect; no woman with nigger blood would be permitted in a group portrait of plantation aristocrats. What a splendid piece of information! He didn’t know how he’d use it, or when, but that he would use it he didn’t doubt for a moment.

  “Madame, you’re quite right. The champagne has a soothing effect.” His moist face beamed. “The services of the young lady were extremely satisfying, and I was wrong to quibble over the price. I’ll pay in full. I’d even like to give her a handsome tip, if you’ll permit it.”

  Madame Conti exchanged a look with the huge black man who for several minutes had been cleaning his nails with a long knife. At her faint signal, he slipped the knife out of sight.

  “But of course,” she said with a courteous nod.

  A cold rain fell from the Texas sky. A dispirited Charles Main watched the last trunk being lifted and placed with others in the Army ambulance. The trunks belonged to Colonel Lee.

  Five days ago, on February 8, Charles and two enlisted men had left Camp Cooper with urgent dispatches for the regimental commander. They had ridden 165 miles in foul weather and had arrived to find that Lee had been relieved and called back to Washington by direct order of General Scott. No doubt Scott wanted him to declare his intentions—and his loyalty.

  Lee’s departure was more evidence of the chaos spreading through the land. Although important border states such as Tennessee and Lee’s own Virginia had not yet joined the secession movement, Texas had been out of the Union since the first of the month—against the pessimistic advice of Governor Houston.

  During the hours Charles had been riding with the dispatches, a new Confederate government had been born in Alabama. Jefferson Davis was its provisional president, and its provisional constitution was already drafted.

  President-elect Lincoln was traveling eastward from Illinois by train. He was forced to stop frequently along the way to make exhausting speeches to constituents. In Washington, Senator Crittenden had put forward desperate compromise proposals on slavery, but the effort had failed. With all the cotton-state members gone, it had been easy for the Senate to pass a measure admitting Kansas to the Union as a free state.

  Meantime, Major Anderson’s command remained huddled in Fort Sumter, ringed by strengthened batteries and South Carolina gunners itching for a scrap. Charles often wondered if Billy was still on duty at the fort. Anderson had sent several of his men to Washington with dispatches or requests for instructions. Perhaps Billy had been one of them. Charles hoped and prayed his friend would get out of the fort alive.

  In Texas the frontier posts seethed with suspicion and rumors of impending takeovers by state military levies or the Texas Rangers. Although known to be a Southern sympathizer, General Twiggs had four times appealed to Washington for orders. Four times he had received vague and meaningless replies.

  One story, authenticated by a San Antonio paper, seemed to typify the Army’s state of turmoil. In January one of the Military Academy’s most respected graduates, Pierre Beauregard, had been appointed superintendent. He had held the post less than a week and been removed because Louisiana’s secession made him suspect. Men who had bled in Mexico, broken bread together, and shared hardships for years now regarded each other as potential enemies, capable of almost any treachery. It depressed Charles, who was still uncertain about his own decision and his own future.

  Now he waited for Lee in the rain. Nine other officers were waiting with him. Finally the colonel appeared, wearing his talma and forage cap. One by one the officers stepped up to offer a salute and a word of good luck. The last to arrive, and the most junior, Charles was the last to speak.

  “It has been an honor to serve with you, sir.”

  “Thank you, Lieutenant.”

  “I wish you a safe journey.”

  “I don’t relish the circumstances that require me to undertake it. I do want to say this to you, however. You’re a good officer. No matter what else changes, that won’t.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Lee started away. Charles’s inner confusion prompted him to disregard protocol. “Colonel?”

  By the side of the ambulance, Lee turned about. “Yes?”

  “Which way will you go, sir? North or South?”

  Lee shook his head. “I could never bear arms against the United States. But what if it became necessary for me to carry a musket to defend my native Virginia? I had frankly hoped to avoid that kind of question. I thought President Buchanan might restore harmony between the sections by playing on love of country, but he failed. I thought the melting influence of Christianity might resolve the slave issue, but it hasn’t. I’ve owned slaves, and my conscience has tried me because of it. The institution will wither. It should. As for secession, in my view it’s nothing but revolution. Yet at this moment, men who are in most respects eminently decent have established a new government on the pillars of secession and slavery, and so I am unsure of the future and of my own reactions as well.”

  Lee’s face looked haggard in the rain. “I’m certain of one thing only. No matter how each man or woman answers the question you asked, I think there will be but one result from what we’ve allowed the extremists to do to us. Heartbreak. Good-bye, Lieutenant.”

  He trudged to the front of the ambulance and climbed up beside the driver. The vehicle lurched forward through the mud and rapidly faded into the dreary distance.

  Charles walked back to the stockade. Pondering his own confused state of mind, he could only conclude that Lee was right. North and South, both would suffer before this terrible business was done.

  Two days later, in San Antonio, old Davey Twiggs surrendered all the Federal posts in Texas to state forces. Men loyal to the Union were urged to depart for the Gulf ports and given assurance of safe conduct, though for how long no one was prepared to say.

  Charles completed his journey from Fort Mason and arrived at Camp Cooper just an hour before its Union contingent was to pull out. The men were under the command of Captain Carpenter, First Infantry. Some were on horseback, some on foot.

  Dirty and exhausted from long hours in the saddle, Charles watched the Ohioans from Company K ride out in a column of twos. One was Corporal Tannen, who had been a private in the skirmish at Lantzman’s farm; Charles had pushed for his promotion. Tannen took note of those remaining behind, leaned out to the left, and spat.

  “Any man who stays is unfit to wear Army blue.” He said it loud enough for all to hear.

  “What’s that, Corporal?” Charles called.

  Tannen returned his stare. “I said if you stay, you’re a yellow traitor.”

  “I seem to have been robbed of my rank,” Charles said as he flung off his bear-claw necklace, then his filthy and sweat-blackened hide shirt. Before anyone could react, he cocked his revolver and passed it to an Alabama trooper standing next to him.

  “So no one interferes.”

  The Alabama boy grinned, nodded, and got a better grip on the gun. Charles approached Tannen’s horse.
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  “You helped me once. I was grateful. But your remark cancels that.”

  Tannen looked down at him. “Good. Fuck you.”

  Charles reached for him. Tannen tried to lash Charles’s face with his rein. Charles caught the rein and whipped it round and round the corporal’s left wrist. The horse began to buck.

  Tannen drew his saber. Charles twisted it away and flung it out of reach. Then he dragged the Ohioan from his saddle and pounded him until his nose looked like pulped berries. Breathing hard, he spoke to the others who were leaving.

  “Pick him up if you want him. I’ll kill the next one who calls me a traitor.”

  He removed his foot from the middle of Tannen’s back and stood with his hands at his sides until Tannen was thrown belly down over a horse. Soon the Union men were gone.

  An hour later, Charles wrote his resignation. Then he packed. Since there was no regular Army officer left to accept the resignation and report it to Washington, he hammered a nail into the door of his room in the barracks and impaled the paper on the nail. Within minutes he was bound for the Gulf.

  Lee might ponder the philosophical subtleties, but his own future had been decided in a far simpler way. Ah, well. He had never been a deep man. Just a hell raiser and a horse soldier. The South might need someone like him as much as it needed philosophers.

  He hated leaving Texas, which he had come to love. He thought slavery a foolish system and likely a dying one. But his blood called him home. He pushed his horse hard all the way to the coast.

  Book Four

  March Into Darkness

  I tell you there is a fire. They

  have this day set a blazing torch

  to the temple of constitutional

  liberty, and, please God, we shall

  have no more peace forever.

  LAWYER JAMES PETIGRU OF CHARLESTON,

  during the celebration of secession

  DECEMBER 20, 1860