1871

by Peter J Spalding

  Lillian was tired and exasperated when she came home that night. She tried to vent her frustrations to Robert, but she found him to be just as exhausted himself.

  “It’s preposterous,” Lillian said. “So many seamstresses are women, and yet no one seems to accept or respect a lady manager. Now why on Earth should that be?”

  Robert didn’t know what to say. “I-I....” He cleared his throat. “I know nothing of the clothing business.”

  “Don’t be so dismissive,” Lillian said. “You see? That’s precisely what I mean.”

  “How am I dismissive?” Robert asked. “I simply meant that you know more than I—”

  “Something about me fails to hold your full attention.” Lillian crossed her arms. “Dare I ask what that ‘something’ might be?”

  Robert blinked as he tried to formulate his response. “Now wait—”

  “Are you busy thinking of you’ wife?”

  “So what if I am?” Robert asked. “What, dare I ask, is so diabolical about that? Perhaps I desire the sort of home life that she can give me. And perhaps I wish to stop living my life like a petulant bachelor—”

  “How can you say that when you’ve been married fo’ so long?”

  “It hasn’t been long at all,” Robert said, “three years, one month, and seven days, to be exact. And think of how much of that time we’ve spent apart—”

  “Oh, I’ve thought of it,” Lillian said, “and I know pe’fectly well that you must have had a reason. So why, precisely, has you’ wife been gone fo’ so long?”

  Robert stiffened his posture. “I don’t believe that is any of your business.”

  “Any of my business?” Lillian snapped. “This affects me just as much as it does you, so do not pretend that you and I a’e not in this as one—”

  “Well, perhaps I don’t wish to be one with you,” Robert said. “Our friendship has gone a few steps too far. But that’s all it is— a friendship— for I have no intention of getting wrapped up in an affair. My life is complicated enough as it is....” He glanced toward his mother’s room. “Well, you see, I-I love my family. I do. And I find it quite presumptuous—”

  “Presumptuous?” Lillian asked. “I presume nothing, and do not act as if my request for aid was some diabolical trick—”

  “I said nothing of the sort. And what has that to do with this anyway? Your request for help was just that— a request for help— nothing more.” He paused for a moment and looked into Lillian’s eyes. “Or at least so it should have been.”

  “I see,” Lillian said. “Well, I’m sorry I bothe’ed you, Miste’ Lincoln.” And she stormed out of the room.

  BY THAT POINT, PUBLISHERS ALL OVER THE COUNTRY WERE COMMEMORATING THE FIRE. They gathered all the photographs, sketches, and eyewitness accounts they could find, and they compiled them into books and pamphlets and other sorts of writings. These items sold like hotcakes, for not since the Civil War had anything so gripped the nation.

  Before-and-after pictures abounded, but there were no real photographs of the fire itself. As a result, sketch artists tried to recreate the disaster, although some drawings were more accurate than others. Currier & Ives was a typical example: it had published a panorama of the burning city, but it had shown the flames blowing in the wrong direction.

  Harper’s Weekly, of course, had an advantage over the rest, for John Chapin was one of the few artists who had seen the fire in person. Harper’s ran a large spread with a variety of pictures, but its most prominent image of all was the crowd on the Randolph Street Bridge. In that drawing, Chapin had captured the chaos, the confusion, and the terror of that night better than any photograph could have hoped to convey.

  The picture quickly became iconic, and many artists tried to recreate it. But none of the alternate versions were quite as famous as the original; after all, only Chapin had truly drawn the scene from life. And so, for years afterward, John Chapin’s picture remained the most terrifying rendition of the Great Chicago Fire ever made.

  ON SUNDAY MORNING, ROBERT HELPED TO CANVAS THE SOUTH SIDE. He was working on Thirty-First Street, a few blocks away from where Thomas Grosvenor had been shot. But Robert’s worries had little to do with Grosvenor; they had much more to do with Lizzie Brown, whose husband’s church stood nearby.

  Robert was handing out pamphlets when he saw Lizzie’s figure up ahead. He could have recognized her anywhere; her stiff gait and plain dresses were impossible to mistake. Robert couldn’t help feeling uneasy, but he decided a meeting was long overdue. And so he turned to his companions, and he told them to go on without him. “Lizzie!” he called out. “I must have a word.”

  Lizzie stopped and turned toward him. She had a skeptical look in her eyes; she didn’t seem certain whether she wanted to see Robert or not.

  Robert caught up to her. “Lizzie, you must listen,” he said. “I’m so sorry for what I told you.”

  “What precisely do you want?” Lizzie asked.

  “Well—” Robert sighed. “I need your assistance.”

  “Oh, I’ve assisted quite enough, and I’ve said that before.” Lizzie turned her back to him. “I wish you a good day.”

  Robert hurried after her. “No, wait,” he said, “Lizzie—” He stepped into her path and put his hands on her shoulders. “Listen, I wish to know how to handle my mother... for I know you can do it far better than I.”

  “Is that so?” Lizzie asked. “Is that saying very much?”

  Robert didn’t answer. He just looked into her eyes.

  Lizzie finally took a deep breath. “Truthfully,” she said, “I’ve made sufficient mistakes of my own, so I don’t believe I’m the proper person to ask.”

  “I know whom I’m asking,” Robert shot back, “and I have not asked you in error.”

  An awkward silence hung over them both. Then Lizzie licked her lips. “You must understand something of mothers,” she said. “We live through our children, and they mean more to us than anything else in this world. Mary— more than anyone else— yearns to see you succeed. She wishes for you a happy marriage, as many children as you can manage, and every other success you could conjure for yourself. So if you regain your own happiness, then she shall regain hers.”

  Robert paused. “What makes you think I’m unhappy?” he asked.

  “A woman can tell,” she replied.

  Robert nodded. “Lizzie, there’s one thing I’ve never understood, so I must ask—”

  “Oh?”

  “Well... if you’re so focused on happiness and the like... then why on Earth did you medicate my mother?”

  Lizzie paused. “I never purported to have all the answers,” she said. “All I can say is that she was petrified that night. She was in very real danger of losing all she had left.”

  BY THE DATE OF THE ELECTION, Simon was writing feverishly fourteen hours per day. He dredged up every bit of scandal he could find, and he splashed it all over the pages of the Tribune.

  Medill’s chief rival, Charles C.P. Holden, had chaired the General Relief Committee in the chaotic first days after the fire. Holden was certainly no squeaky-clean politician; he was known in many circles as “Boss,” and Simon had heard a rumor that he’d funneled relief money into his ward. Simon couldn’t confirm if the story was true, but he couldn’t confirm that it wasn’t. It certainly did seem plausible, since Chicago politicians had done such things before. And so Simon had gone ahead with that angle.

  The Tribune, of course, had published the news under suitably sensational headlines:

  HOLDEN’S RELIEF OPERATIONS.

  The Bummers’ Candidate Refuses to Turn Over to the Aid Society $15,000 of Relief Money.

  Important and Damaging Disclosures by Mr. Wirt Dexter.

  Car Loads of Provisions Sent Into the Fifth Ward— Was it to Further Holden’s Political Ambition?

  The Would-Be Mayor Runs up a $240 Livery Account and Sends the Bill to the Relief Society for Settlement.

  As soon as voters heard the ru
mors, they reacted with fury all over the city. Many Chicagoans had never cared about politics or government, but when it came to the fire, they were enraged at the thought of swindlers taking advantage. Simon kept on stoking their anger; he played off all the pent-up frustration among the Irish, the Germans, and everyone else who felt wronged by the city. He began a whisper campaign about the Milliman-Judd real estate deal, alleging that Dyer had bribed aldermen to push the deal through the city council. He also claimed that bribery was behind the plans for the second Water Tower in Bridgeport. He even struck a deal with local Democrats to put their party machinery to work for the Republican Medill.

  “Let every businessman in Chicago make it his first duty to go to the polls early this morning, and not leave them until he has deposited his ballot,” Simon wrote in the Tribune. “The immediate revival of business depends on the spirit shown to-day by the businessmen of this city. Could Chicago to-day give a unanimous vote for the Union ticket, its effect upon our credit would be electrical.”

  Victory, however, was by no means assured. With so many thousands of people displaced from their homes, no one truly knew how the process would work. People debated whether they should vote in their home precincts, or in the precincts where they were temporarily staying. Also, with the voter rolls destroyed, there was no way to track who had voted and where. Each person did have to produce two witnesses to confirm his identity; but that wouldn’t stop people from going from precinct to precinct, casting a new ballot each time.

  Simon spent his Election Day morning simply working the streets. He did it under the guise of journalism— purportedly gauging voters’ reactions— but he was under no illusions over who would be signing his paycheck.

  Lillian was none too happy about that. “Do you realize how undemocratic this is?” she asked Simon. “There is no true choice when the parties have colluded. And the thought of using calamity to further your own ambitions—”

  “I’ve done nothing of the sort,” he replied. “There is nothing unfair or undemocratic about making the best of things, for consider John Drake—”

  “There very much is something wrong, and I’m dismayed you don’t see it.” Lillian looked him straight in the eye. “You and you’ friend— I thought you two might be different from so many othe’ men. I’m sorry to say I was wrong.”

  Simon blinked. “Get off your high horse,” he said. “You’re in Chicago— and don’t you ever forget it.”

  THAT NIGHT, ROBERT WAS IN HAAS AND POWELL’S HALL as the election results trickled in. Lizzie and her husband were standing by his side.

  Robert mused that the sight seemed familiar, with the cheering supporters, the glad-handing politicians, and all of the things that his father used to love. Robert thought back to the times when he had joined his father on the stump; Abraham Lincoln had always thrived in front of such crowds, and he had delighted his audiences with his electrifying speeches. Robert couldn’t help feeling nostalgic for that time, even though he realized that the world had long since changed.

  Runners came in as the precincts reported their tallies. With each successive announcement, it seemed Medill was doing better and better, and the crowd greeted every scrap of news with a cheer. Then, around nine o’clock, an announcement made it official. Medill had won in a landslide. Not only that, but fourteen Fireproof aldermen had been elected to the city council out of the twenty seats available. And Chicago wasn’t the only city that had elected reformers that night; in New York, Tammany Hall had just been voted out of office, breaking William “Boss” Tweed’s nearly twenty-year grip on power.

  Within seconds, the hall had fallen into an uproar. Everyone began laughing and cheering and toasting Chicago’s future. Men started calling for Medill to appear; they knew he was somewhere in the building, but he had not yet made an appearance onstage. The campaign workers were congratulating each other on the feat they’d just achieved.

  Robert looked toward the entrance, and he saw Simon and Elijah step inside. Robert headed toward them and waved.

  Simon nodded. “I suppose we prevailed,” he said.

  “Indeed,” Robert replied. “To find a Holden man today would be a tougher job than to find the cow that kicked over the lantern.”

  Simon was about to answer, but then a cheer erupted, and his father stepped away from his side. Robert turned to see the new mayor-elect step onstage. Lizzie and her husband started clapping. Simon found himself drowned out by the din, and it took quite a while for the noise to die down.

  “Thank you, Chicago,” was the first thing Medill said. A whole new cheer erupted, and Medill briefly made eye contact with Simon. “Thank you,” he said again.

  Simon was anxious to hear the speech, but before it could begin, Elijah tapped Simon on the shoulder.

  “Listen,” Elijah said, “I must speak to you at once.”

  “Not now,” Simon replied. “This is neither the time nor the place.”

  “I just met the man who sold you that land. Is it true what he said?”

  “It depends on what he said. I told you, Dyer is a hustler. You mustn’t believe everything—”

  “So you mean to tell me,” Elijah said, “that you didn’t abandon Tommy to the blaze?”

  Simon scoffed. He couldn’t believe what his father had just said. “That’s ridiculous,” he replied. “It must be a political game—”

  “If you didn’t,” Elijah said, “then why did you ask this man for Tommy’s whereabouts?”

  “It’s quite simple,” Simon snapped. “Tommy was with Billy Holbrook, and I had no way to contact him. What was I to do?”

  “He claims no adult was anywhere to be seen at your house,” Elijah said. “The building was reportedly darkened all night, even when all the other homes on the street were alit. There was no sign of any adult, until an overweight young man appeared in the blaze’s final hours.”

  Simon was silent. He didn’t want to believe what his father was saying. The sounds of the crowd had seemingly melted away, and now he stared at Elijah as if no one else was there. “Y-you cannot be serious,” Simon finally said.

  “I’m afraid that’s what he said,” Elijah replied. “I pray for all our sakes he was lying. He reported seeing looters on the street— in fact, a Mister Farragut’s body was found not far away. To think that Tommy was in the midst of all that, with the blaze bearing down....”

  Simon put his hand to his head. “God damn it,” he said as he rushed toward the door.

  SIMON STORMED ONTO THE SIDEWALK WITH ROBERT CLOSE BEHIND HIM. Lizzie and her husband were trying to figure out what had happened.

  “Where the devil is Billy?” Simon yelled. “Where in heaven’s name is that servant of yours?”

  “I haven’t the faintest idea,” Robert said. “I dismissed him weeks ago.”

  “The bastard,” Simon snapped. “If I get my hands on that godforsaken boy—”

  “Simon, what’s going on?” Robert asked. “What is this all about?”

  Simon hurried down the street. “I must speak with Tommy,” he said. “Billy had better pray that none of these charges are true.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven: We Told You So

  “Mrs. O’Leary persists in denying the story about her cow.... It is too late... it has become a fact of history— and she and all the cows on DeKoven Street cannot now kick it over.”

  — Chicago Evening Journal

  THE HOLBROOK FAMILY WAS NOW LIVING IN A NORTH SIDE SHANTYTOWN. The area was clustered with cheap prefabricated buildings designed as temporary housing. Simon found Billy gathering firewood outside.

  “Where the devil have you been?” were the first words Simon yelled.

  Robert tried to diffuse the situation. “Now Simon—”

  “Don’t ‘now Simon’ me. You were the one who recommended him. You convinced me to entrust my nephew to this boy.” He turned to Billy. “And you! I could’ve lost everything— what in God’s name were you thinking?”

  Billy just shivered in
the cold. He didn’t say a word.

  Robert put his hand on Simon’s shoulder, but Simon yanked it away. “Now listen,” Robert said. “You shouldn’t try to go on some quest for revenge—”

  “Shouldn’t I?” Simon asked. “Why on Earth not? Just think of my poor nephew— he’s such an intemerate soul, even if you don’t give a whit.”

  “That’s not true,” Robert said.

  “Of course it is,” Simon snapped. “If you could only see what sort of misery you’ve wrought—”

  “I can see it,” Robert said.

  Simon looked at Elijah, who was watching from a distance. The cold wind whistled through the shanties.

  “You mustn’t think me blind,” Robert said, “for I can see a great deal.”

  Simon turned back to Billy. He wanted nothing less than to wring Billy’s neck. But as they all stood there, Simon’s conscience began to stir. He knew the situation was more complicated than he dared admit. And, in truth, Simon was just as responsible as anyone else.

  By that point, George and Trudy Holbrook had stepped out of the house. They didn’t know what to make of the commotion, so they just stared at the scene.

  Elijah was the one who broke the silence. “Gentlemen,” he said, “I think we should go.”

  “I agree,” Robert said.

  Simon paused for a moment, then swiveled on his heel and stalked down the street.

  LILLIAN SAT ACROSS FROM KAROL BORUSEWICZ and handed him a package. “This includes all the items you requested,” she said, “ledgers, correspondence, and all the rest. All you’ve got to do is sign.”