1871
Page 7
To quiet her critics, Mary tried to shift the focus to less controversial matters. She made the White House more accessible to the public, and she spruced up the aging mansion with new carpets, fine china, and other decorations. In peacetime she probably would have been praised for her efforts, but in wartime the public saw her as wasteful. Moreover, she was notoriously bad with money, and she spent thousands of dollars that the government couldn’t spare. She exacerbated the problem by trying to hide it: she padded her expense accounts, reallocated money from elsewhere, and even tried to bribe the White House gardener. But in the end, her debts were too big to hide. Her husband was furious when her deception came to light. Congress had to appropriate extra money to cover the shortfall, although they managed to bury it inside a larger spending bill.
Her husband’s death threw her into a tailspin. She refused to eat for long stretches, and she didn’t leave her bedroom for days. Her mood swings, which had always been dramatic, became all the more volatile. In the public’s eyes, Mary became a tragic figure. The papers compared her to Britain’s Queen Victoria, who had been secluded in mourning for years.
But even in her condition, Mary remained an object of gossip. In her hunger for money, she decided to auction off her old clothes. In her mind, she had no use for the colorful dresses she’d worn in the past, since she planned to wear black for the rest of her life. But when the story broke, it spurred a media frenzy. Crowds flocked to the auction house, and pundits denounced it as a publicity stunt. Mary had hoped to raise a hundred thousand dollars, but to her great dismay, she didn’t sell a thing. Then, to make matters worse, her best friend wrote a tell-all book chronicling the affair in detail.
Mary came away mortified. Robert was equally appalled; he felt his mother had made a spectacle of herself, and that she had embarrassed the family. In the end, Mary decided to flee from the press. She and Tad left the country, and they spent the next three years traveling around Europe. There the papers wrote about other things, such as the war machinations between Germany and France, so it was much easier to keep a low profile. By May 1871, the gossip had died down, and the Lincolns were glad to be home. Mary was in high spirits, Tad seemed to be doing well, and Robert was happy to be reunited with both.
As they rode to Robert’s home, Mary kept jabbering on at her usual pace. “I cannot realize,” she said, “that I am now a grandmamma. It appears to me at times, so short a time, since my sainted husband— your father— was bending over me. He showed as much love and tenderness as a human being is capable of when you yourself were born. Now you have enacted over the same scene— such are time’s changes. I sometimes feel myself rather old, but perhaps I am not. Do you feel yourself a young Papa?”
“I cannot say,” Robert said. “I feel I am in my late twenties. Is that not a reasonable age for such things?”
“I suppose,” she replied. “It is all the better I think for young men to settle down early— but if I had a daughter, I think I would not give her up so easily. How does Mrs. Harlan feel about that?”
Robert smiled. “Mother, I assure you that Ann is perfectly contented. She was delighted when her granddaughter was born, just as you were— and just as I was, for that matter.”
“Well,” Mary said, “I must say though, I was mighty jealous that the other grandma presided over the birth. I feared she would consider herself entitled to the baby’s name.”
“Why would she?” Robert asked. “Ann was delighted with the name we selected.”
“Good,” Mary said. “I am exceedingly happy that you made the right choice. I abominate ugly names if they can be avoided.”
The carriage stopped in front of Robert’s house. Mary Harlan was already waiting with Mamie in her arms. Mary Todd threw up her arms in delight, jumped out of the carriage, and set about smothering her first granddaughter.
Robert sighed and shook his head, but he couldn’t help being amused. He looked back at Tad.
“Welcome home, my brother,” Robert said.
LINCOLN PARK WAS A BLOCK FROM SIMON’S HOUSE. It wasn’t much of a pleasure ground; it looked more like a dark swampy graveyard that hadn’t been tended in years. Headstones were gradually sinking into the ground, and half-rotten logs lay in stagnant pools of water. At first, Simon thought he had misunderstood Miss Andrist, for he couldn’t imagine why she would want to meet him in such a sinister place. But after a few moments, he heard the neighing of a horse, and Miss Andrist rode up on an Arabian mare.
“Good mo’ning,” she said.
Simon frowned. He hadn’t expected her to come by herself, and he was worried about what passersby might say.
“Come off it,” Miss Andrist said before he uttered a word. “I asked you to come this way for a reason. Does anyone else know you’ve come?”
“No,” he replied. “Should they?”
“Absolutely not,” she replied as she dismounted and tied her horse to a tree.
“Suppose you tell me what this is about,” Simon snapped. “I’ve nearly had enough of this secrecy of yours.”
“Naturally,” she replied. “You bought you’ land from Charles Volney Dyer, correct?”
“I did,” he said, “but what has he to do with this?”
“Well, Miste’ Caldwell, since you seem so impatient, I might as well come out with it: he may have falsified the title to your home.”
“What?” Simon asked. “That’s impossible, I would have known if something had been wrong—”
“How?”
Simon paused. He didn’t have an answer.
“Let me tell you the facts as I know them. Then you may tell me what you think.”
Simon nodded. “Please do,” he replied.
Miss Andrist explained that Dyer had deep roots in Chicago, having first come to town as a surgeon at Fort Dearborn. He had been a prominent abolitionist in the years before the war, so much so that the State Department sent him to Sierra Leone in West Africa. Dyer was appointed to the Mixed Court for the Suppression of the African Slave Trade, but he treated his job as a patronage position. He spent two years traveling around Italy and Switzerland at taxpayer expense, reportedly acquiring Swiss bank accounts along the way.
When Dyer returned to Chicago, he claimed a plot of land on the North Side. In truth, Dyer was no more than a squatter, but he forged the city’s records to make it seem as though he were its rightful owner. He put the title under the invented name of “Ira Judd,” and he proceeded to build ramshackle homes and collect rents from the site. Eventually the city realized his deception and sued. The city won the case and took ownership of the land.
Simon frowned. “What are you telling me?” he asked. “Are you saying I’ve been had?”
“I don’t know,” she replied. “That is one of the things that we’ll have to find out.”
“So what happened to that land?”
“The city exchanged it,” she replied, “fo’ the land on which you and I a’e now standing.”
“But this is just an old graveyard,” Simon replied.
“It didn’t use to be,” Miss Andrist replied. “It used to belong to the Milliman family, until the city swindled them out of it. The land was then included in the City Cemetery, until the deception came to light and the city had to give it back. Then, when the city acquired the Judd tract from Dyer, it found itself in a dilemma. The city had no use fo’ the Judd tract, so it gave that land to the Millimans in exchange fo’ taking back the old cemetery. And the newspape’s acted as if were nothing at all. The Tribune mentioned it in the city council’s weekly minutes, but that was essentially all.”
Simon walked past a grove of trees, and he looked out at the lakeshore beyond. “Look,” he said. “I see that you seek an exposé, but this is not a groundbreaking story.”
“What do you mean?” she asked. “It most definitely is— and why do you not seem to care that you you’self could be deeply involved?”
Simon rolled his eyes. “Miss Andrist,” he said, “I fail to
see your logic. If the papers have already reported on the matter, and all of that information is already publicly known, then what could there possibly be left to investigate?”
“Oh, there is quite a bit,” she replied. “For example, why was Dyer encouraging the land swap— and quietly making payments to the alde’men who would vote on it— when by rights he should have no vested interests at that point?”
Simon didn’t have an answer. His gut reaction was that she had to be wrong. He tried to tell himself that that there was a benign explanation, but he struggled to figure out what it might be.
“You see, Miste’ Caldwell, this was a case of dirty money from beginning to end,” she said. “And this must be found out, because money and influence make the world go round— and you, I should think, would want to stop Miste’ Dyer’s malfeasance.”
Simon shook his head. He thought back to what Robert had said. Simon knew he couldn’t get drawn into these schemes, not when he was trying to impress his superiors. “I want no part of it,” Simon finally said.
“Why?” she asked. “Is it that you’re afraid of finding out the truth?”
“I’m afraid of nothing,” he replied. “Now Miss Andrist—”
“Lillian.”
“All right then, Lillian,” he said. “Why do you care so much about an obscure real estate matter? What’s your stake in this? And how did you become so well-informed?”
Lillian stopped and looked out over the water. When she turned back to Simon, he sensed a hint of guilt, or perhaps fear, in her eyes. “Neve’ you mind,” she replied.
“What does that mean?” he asked.
“It means nothing,” she said, “but frankly, Miste’ Caldwell, that is none of you’ concern. Is it too much to ask for a lady to do the right thing?”
Simon gritted his teeth. He wasn’t satisfied with that.
“We’re in Chicago,” Lillian said. “We must not fo’get that. Now the true question is, will you look into this o’ not?”
Chapter Five: Dear Brother
“The name of ‘Tad’... recalls the tricksy little sprite who gave to that sad and solemn White House the only comic relief it knew. The years that have followed, spent in study and travel, produced an entirely different person.”
— John Hay
ON MAY 25, THE TRIBUNE SPOKE OF A “GREAT DANGER FROM FIRE,” and its front page was full of breathless reports. But upon close inspection, none of those stories had to do with Chicago. They were about the city of Paris instead, which had been brought to its knees by the Franco-Prussian War. The French government had fled the capital and left it in the hands of Marxist rebels. Now numerous armies had surrounded the city, and the fighting was coming to a bloody bitter end. Mobs and soldiers were battling in the streets; the Palais des Tuileries had already gone up in flames, and now the Louvre was burning as well.
Most Chicagoans heard about the destruction but paid it no mind. The city’s French population was negligible. The other immigrants had little love for that country, since the old European rivalries were still alive and well. For the native-born Americans, Paris could just as well have been in a whole different world. And so the city ignored the events transpiring thousands of miles away.
Even Tad Lincoln was not interested in the least. He had already seen the war in Europe up close, although he had stayed safely away from the fighting, and now he had no desire to hear any more about it. When he unfolded the Tribune, he gave the front page no more than a cursory glance; then he opened the paper and found a more exciting story— headlined “The Apache Murders”— on page two.
Robert stood in the doorway and watched his brother read. He couldn’t help but be impressed because Tad had been illiterate for most of his life. In fact, many people had assumed Tad was backward, although Robert knew it wasn’t true. Tad was a quirky boy, for better or worse. He had been born with a cleft palate, which caused a strong speech impediment. Outsiders had often struggled to understand him, but in truth, Tad was just as smart as any other child; he just had no patience for books or tutoring or anything of the sort. His father had never pressed the issue, since he had barely set foot in a classroom himself. Abraham Lincoln had assumed that if he could become President without a formal education, then his son could do without it too.
Robert thought back to a decade before, which seemed in retrospect to be such an innocent time. His brothers used to be all but inseparable. Willie had always been the family’s golden boy, the sweet little charmer with a wicked sense of humor, while Tad had played the role of the tempestuous baby. Together the boys had turned Washington into their personal playground. When the war began, for example, they built a “fort” on the White House roof. They spent endless hours firing a “cannon”— actually a log— at imaginary oncoming soldiers. Another time, they ate all the strawberries intended for a state dinner, and the cooks had to scramble to find a new dessert. John Hay often wanted to kick the boys in the shins, but the newspapers loved them, and their father never ceased to be amused by their antics.
Willie’s death was especially difficult for Tad. He had lost his best friend, and he found himself plagued by nightmares that often drove him into his father’s bed. For years, Tad refused to discuss his brother’s passing. Then, when his father was killed, Tad thought his childhood was over. When the Lincolns moved to Chicago, Tad left all his toys behind, saying that “I must learn to take care of myself now. Yes, Pa is dead, and I am only Tad Lincoln now, little Tad, like other little boys. I am not a President's son now. I won't have many presents anymore. Well, I will try and be a good boy, and will hope to go someday to Pa and brother Willie, in heaven.”
Tad could be as moody and exasperating as his mother, and his adolescent years were as difficult and as eye-opening as those of any other boy. But his time in Europe did turn out to be fruitful. He attended a real school for the first and only time; there he finally learned how to read, and he steeped himself in Old World culture. Outside the classroom, he traveled with his mother from Italy to Scotland to every country in between. He even overcame his speech impediment, with the help of Doctor D. Hohagen; in fact, Hohagen had done such a good job that Tad had acquired his German accent.
Now, at the age of eighteen, Tad was turning into an eager young man. He had gotten to be very tall and handsome, although he had the awkward thinness that often followed a growth spurt. Tad’s extended time with his mother had brought the two quite close, to the point where he had become Mary’s closest confidant. Now he wanted to spread his wings in the world, although he still didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life.
Mary Harlan walked into the room with a tea set. “This should help your throat,” she said as she poured him some tea.
“Thank you,” Tad said as he took the cup in his hands. He had coughed quite a bit in the night, and he was afraid of having woken the family. Fortunately his symptoms had eased up by morning, although he still had a certain pallor in his face.
“Tad,” Robert said, “I must ask you something.”
Tad swallowed his tea. “What?” he asked.
“It’s Mother,” Robert said. “I must know how she is doing. I have tried to gauge her myself, but I find it so difficult sometimes—”
Tad shrugged. “She’s the same as always,” he replied. “She has her moments, but she seems well enough— why wouldn’t she be?”
Someone knocked on the door, and Mary Harlan went to answer it. Robert sat down at the table. “I just want to be sure,” Robert said.
Tad shrugged and stifled another cough. “Well, she’s as fanatical as ever, so if you wish to read the paper, I suggest you do it now. By the time she’s through with it, the newsprint will have worn off the page.”
They heard a voice in the foyer. Robert turned and saw his wife accepting a telegram. “Thank you,” she said to the Western Union boy.
Tad gave off another bone-rattling cough, and Robert looked back toward his brother. “Are you all right?” Robert asked.
It was then that their mother came storming down the stairs. “What news from Washington?” she asked as she made a beeline for the paper.
“Here we go,” Tad said.
Mary went straight for the political headlines. “Oh thank goodness,” she said. “The Vice President’s illness has eased. I had trembled lest he be unable to serve— heaven knows he is indispensable compared to our nitwitted President.”
Robert helped himself to an egg. “Mother, I assure you President Grant is much more capable than you make him out to be.”
“Hogwash,” she replied. “Do not allow your wartime service to give you such delusions. Grant was a butcher then and is a butcher now. If he had been in the least grateful for favors received from your father, who did everything for him, in fact made him, the first act he should have done would have been to offer you a first-class foreign mission.”
“Mother—”
“No, you have been working far too hard for so young a man, and you require a change. I wish you would set aside your diffidence and make your request at the White House. Remember, no one ever gets an appointment unless it is asked for— I do hope you heed this.”
“Mother,” Robert said, “need I remind you that this is my decision to make?”
“I should think that you would happily pursue it,” Mary said. “Why, where are your beloved father’s works of love and mercy— that his family are thus requited? I cannot believe that those who revere even the name of their late beloved President, whose precious life was sacrificed for his country, would tolerate such a state.”
Robert rolled his eyes. He knew where his mother was going with that. As the widow of an assassinated President, Mary felt she was entitled to a pension. She had been lobbying the government for years, and in 1870, Congress had agreed to pay her three thousand dollars per annum. But that was only a fraction of the income she had asked for. Mary blamed all her woes on a lack of money, and she never missed a chance to complain about it.