by Gore Vidal
“What did Lincoln say to that?”
Seward exhaled blue smoke and, with the smoke, the last of the headache departed. “He said Greeley had figured the mileage by the shortest way—the mail route from Washington to Springfield, which hardly anyone takes, as opposed to the Great Lakes route, which he had taken. He also reminded Greeley that the law only requires that you take ‘the usually travelled’ road, which is what he took. He’s a sharp lawyer, Mr. Lincoln. But not yet Andrew Jackson or even ‘Tippecanoe’ Harrison, whose log cabin he borrowed in the campaign against me.” Seward paused; he could feel the pulses beating rapidly at his temples. He must not relive the campaign, even for a moment. “Greeley is the wisest fool I’ve ever known.”
“Let’s hope Mr. Lincoln doesn’t jail him, too.”
“More likely the other way round. The President’s afraid of him. Bennett, too. I can’t think why.”
“At least,” said Frederick, “he’s taken care of the New York Daily News.” In August this inflammatory Democratic newspaper had been forbidden to use the government’s postal system. The editor—a brother of the secession-minded mayor of New York City—had then tried to transport the newspaper by railway express, but Mr. Pinkerton’s secret service had quickly put a stop to that. As a result, the Daily News was obliged to suspend publication. Elsewhere, not only were newspapers being shut down but their editors were being imprisoned. Seward not only supported the President in all of this, but he himself ordered most of the arrests in his capacity as the Secretary of State, whose “inherent powers,” he had pointed out to an amused if nervous President, had never been entirely explored.
Seward’s strategy was to hold the editors for an indefinite period; then, without ever charging them with any crime, he would let them go—to sin no more. Since Congress had, at presidential request, suspended for all practical purposes the First Amendment as well as habeas corpus, there was nothing that the Administration could not do, under its wartime powers.
“Now what will he do to the Herald?” asked Frederick.
“Nothing,” said Seward, looking at the clock. In five minutes he must stroll over to the Mansion, where the emergency Cabinet was due to meet. “Bennett’s too big for him; and too clever.”
“I should think he was vulnerable. It must be against some law to steal or borrow the President’s message to Congress.”
“I agree.” Seward, wistfully, stumped out the end of the first cigar of the day. Later cigars would be good; but not like the first. “It would be highly embarrassing for a President to admit that he is so careless with secret documents that someone from the Herald—or whoever it was—could get a copy of the speech. His Satanic Majesty is safe.” Seward rose. Frederick rose, too. “Have you the Trent folder?”
Frederick nodded. “How do you think the Herald got a copy?”
“I think,” said Seward, who had indeed thought a great deal about the matter, “that Mrs. Lincoln gave it to her friend the Chevalier Wikoff, who then gave it to his friend Mr. Bennett.”
“But why would she do that?”
Seward shrugged. “She is deeply in debt.”
Frederick was shocked. “You mean she sold it to Bennett?”
“I mean nothing, my boy. But I suspect something like that has happened. We’ve not heard the end of this.”
As the Sewards, father and son, stepped out into Lafayette Square, a smiling Rose Greenhow saluted them from the window of her house, where she and a number of other rebel ladies had been under arrest since August. Rose enjoyed embarrassing Seward from her window, aware that it was he who had ordered Mr. Pinkerton to arrest her.
Seward lifted his hat; and gave the imprisoned lady a courtly bow. “What a fool,” he said to his son, “that woman was, to be so open. Personally, I like my spies to be totally clandestine—as well as lovely.”
Father and son crossed the avenue to the President’s House, which was almost as white as the icy sky, and far whiter than the banks of snow that had suddenly accumulated at the end of November and never since melted.
In a romantic mood, Seward thought of Rose Greenhow, whose late husband he had known in days gone by. He had enjoyed visiting her in those rose-lit, rose-scented parlors where, now, a dozen very angry Southern ladies were quartered along with Rose, under lock and key.
“Do you think Mrs. Greenhow is really a Confederate spy?” Frederick seldom had much difficulty in reading his father’s mind.
“Oh, yes. But she fooled me for a long time. You see, she was so open about being a spy that I thought she wasn’t one. I broke my own first law, which is that people are always, without exception, exactly what they seem.”
Frederick grinned. “Then what is Mr. Lincoln?”
“The President,” said Seward promptly. “And somewhat sly.” As soldiers saluted at the gates of the Mansion, a carriage containing a thoughtful Chase passed them by.
In the White House living quarters, Mary helped Keckley dress Tad. Ordinarily, one person was enough for this task. But whenever the boy was more than usually excited, two people were needed. For reasons that Mary did not allow herself to think about, the eight-year-old Tad was still unable to dress himself or read or write, despite a series of tutors and a blackboard and schoolbooks that had been assembled for the two boys at one end of the state dining room. Where Willie was unusually advanced for his age, Tad was unusually retrograde. Mary had consulted doctors; but they had been of no use at all. They gave Latin names to his speech defect, and to his excessive energy; but they could not explain why a child so bright should have such trouble with simple tasks like dressing himself or learning to read. She, of course, understood Tad’s every word, as did Mr. Lincoln, but to others, as Cousin Lizzie had somewhat cruelly told her, he simply quacked like some sort of bird. “Poppa dear,” his phrase for the beloved father—Mary knew that she came second with him. Just as she came first with Willie—sounded like “Pappy-day.” Yet for all of Tad’s deficiencies, he was endlessly well organized and inventive. He arranged circuses on the White House roof, charging five cents admission, which he kept. He drilled the soldiers. He loved to imitate his father, even to wearing his gold-rimmed spectacles, to the fury of John Hay, who once spent an entire day searching for them only to find Tad on the roof, surrounded by children, wearing the President’s spectacles and top hat, and singing war songs.
“Hold still!” Keckley shouted; and Tad who had seldom if ever heard that serene woman raise her voice stopped wriggling, curious to see what other new sounds she was capable of. Mary let go his arm.
“What will we eat today?” asked Tad, sociably, as if he had not been causing both women endless trouble.
“You won’t eat anything if you keep on like this.” Mary straightened her morning-dress in the dusty mirror that hung over a table strewn with toy soldiers and cannons.
“Like what?” Tad was lamblike.
“Wait and see. Thank you, Lizzie.” As Mary left the room, Lincoln came out of the bedroom, his hair disordered, and papers stuffed in every pocket. “You’re even worse than Tad.” She tugged his lapel, the signal for him to lower his head to her level so that she could flatten the hair.
“What’s Tadpole up to now?”
“He wouldn’t let us dress him.” Mary retied Lincoln’s tie; tried but failed to smooth out the black frock coat. Nicolay appeared from the executive end of the corridor.
“The Cabinet’s all present, sir.”
“All right.” Absently, Lincoln bent low and kissed the top of Mary’s head. Then he followed Nicolay down the corridor. There were times, Mary noticed, when he walked toward his office like a man approaching the scaffold, with slow, deliberate, flat-footed tread, head pushed forward and face concentrated. At such times, she wished devoutly that they had not come here. The ongoing rumors about her Confederate sympathies had been bad enough; now she was being accused of selling the President’s message to the Herald. Mary was enough of a politician to realize that this sort of thing was to be exp
ected; also she knew that as Tad had his disability, she had hers—the spending of money. She had exceeded the budget set by Congress for renovating the White House; worse, she had no clear idea exactly how much in debt she was because whenever figures were mentioned to her, she heard only a sort of scream in her head, not unlike The Headache. Although Major French, the Commissioner of Public Buildings, was her ally, even he could not mention dollars to her without causing the panic to set in. Meanwhile, the visits to New York City had grown more and more ecstatic. Great department store magnates like Alexander T. Stewart himself would wait upon her; and she would buy and buy. For a year the credit had seemed endless but now, at year’s end, the bills, respectfully addressed to “Mrs. President Lincoln,” were beginning to arrive. But just as she could not hear sums, she could not read them either. The figures simply blurred on the page. She gave her personal bills to Stoddard and the White House bills to Major French, with the injunction that they tell no one. She was desperate for money; but did not know how much. She refused to tell her husband, out of shame.
In the oval sitting room, Mary began arranging the Christmas presents. Now that Lizzie Gormley had gone back to Springfield, she had no one to talk to except Keckley, who did not count, good as she was. The sight of the room’s new silk curtains cheered her somewhat, as did the thought of the triumphal ball that she was planning for February to celebrate the completion of the White House. If nothing else, future generations would be grateful for what she had done to what was, after all, the nation’s own unique palace. As Mary arranged a wreath of holly above the mantel of the fireplace, she wondered just how the Chevalier Wikoff had managed to steal the President’s message to Congress.
At the other end of the Mansion, the subject of Wikoff did not come up during Cabinet, though Seward did make a joke or two about arresting James Gordon Bennett, and Lincoln had laughed, without much enthusiasm, thought Hay, who took notes. Hay was personally convinced that Madam had received money from the Herald but Nicolay thought that she had simply let him see the message. In either case, both Hay and Nicolay were agreed that Wikoff was the guilty party. But what could ever be done to him? Thanks to the Chevalier’s celebrity as a White House habitué, any move against him would cast upon the throne itself a shadow.
The President teetered back in his chair; and came to the point. “I think the Cabinet should know that I recently set Mr. Seward one task and myself another. He was to write out all the reasons why we should turn over to England those rebels that we seized, and I’d write out all the reasons why we should hold on to them. Well, he completed his task, and I never began mine, because I couldn’t think of any urgent reason why we should risk a war with England at a time when, I think, we are all agreed,” and he looked toward Seward, whose full lips were arranged in a seraphic half smile, “one war at a time is about all that we can handle. So Mr. Seward has prevailed in this matter.”
Hay admired the way that the Tycoon had gradually eased Seward, the advocate of worldwide war, into the role of peace-keeper with England.
Seward himself had been quite aware of what Lincoln was doing but then he knew what Lincoln did not know, that he had never for one moment wanted war with England at a time when he much preferred to reveal himself to the world as the man who had kept the peace despite the rantings not only of the press but of his own considerable Irish Catholic constituency. Seward then proceeded to read aloud a statesmanlike paper, proposing arbitration between the two powers and, meanwhile, the cheerful, as he put it with some panache, return of the rebel commissioners.
When Seward had finished, Lincoln motioned for Chase, as the second-ranking Cabinet member, to comment. All in all, Chase had been relieved by Seward’s approach. “I give my adhesion,” he said at the end of his own thoughtful analysis of the affair, “to the conclusion to which the Secretary of State has arrived.” Chase did feel obliged to add that “although it is gall and wormwood to me to give these rebels up, we must demonstrate to the world that for the sake of inflicting just punishment on rebels, we will never commit even a … technical wrong against neutrals.” That was indeed well said, thought Chase, happy in the knowledge that the “s” in the word “against” had not been lisped, as he had feared when he saw it coming up in his mind.
The Cabinet did not debate the matter for long. No one was happy with the business. Lincoln summed up for them all: “It is a bitter pill for us to back down. It looks like we’re afraid of England, which we are—but only at this particular awkward moment. Anyway, I reckon their little triumph will be short-lived, because by the time this war ends we will have a navy superior to theirs, and the world will be a different place. But I can’t say this course, which we must follow, has given me the greatest pleasure.” Lincoln turned to Cameron, who was staring straight ahead, lost in his usual world of contractors and commissions. “Mr. Cameron, I want you to release the rebels before the New Year and send them on to England.”
There was a long silence in the Cabinet Room. To the embarrassment of all, it was plain that the Secretary of War had not heard the President. Then Cameron became aware that all eyes were on him. “I’m sorry,” he said, mildly, “I must’ve missed something there.”
Lincoln repeated his order. Cameron nodded. “Well, if that’s what you want, that’s what you’ll get.” He sounded as if he were concluding a deal with a Harrisburg legislator. Seward sighed. At the beginning of the Administration, Cameron had been his creature. In fact, if not in title, Seward alternated with Chase as Secretary of War, a state of affairs that did not in the least distress Cameron, whose innumerable other fish were constantly in the fat frying. But this happy state of affairs was now drawing to a close. During the course of a recent meeting in General Scott’s office, Lincoln had turned to Cameron. “How many troops,” he asked, “do we have in the vicinity of the city of Washington?”
“Well, I’m not all that sure.” Cameron had not been in the least taken aback. “There is a list somewhere, I guess.”
The President had then turned to the commander of the Army of the Potomac, already known to the nation’s press as the Young Napoleon even though he had yet to win a major battle. “General McClellan?”
“I don’t have the figures at hand, Your Excellency. I can give you the figures for the Army of the Potomac, of course. But not the rest.”
With some wonder, Lincoln had turned to General Scott. “You are general-in-chief …”
“Yes, sir. I am general-in-chief.” The old man’s red-glazed eyes stared at McClellan. “But I am given no information.”
At this point, wanting not only to be helpful but to avert a scene, Seward had undone at a single stroke his own power over the War Department. “I have the figures here.” He had then produced the small notebook that he always carried with him. Halfway through his reading of the statistics, Seward realized, too late, the immensity of his error. Lincoln’s face had set as if cast in bronze, while the low brow of the handsome McClellan was now so creased with thick lines that between thick straight brows and glossy auburn hair there was practically no brow at all to be seen. Cameron alone was unmoved.
When Seward was finished, Winfield Scott got, unassisted, to his feet. “This is a remarkable state of affairs,” he rumbled. “I am in command of the armies of the United States, but have been wholly unable to get any reports or any statements of our actual forces. But here is the Secretary of State, a civilian for whom I have great respect.” The old man stared hard at Seward, who did his best to appear at ease, yet eminently respectful—had he not invented presidential candidate Scott? written all his speeches? governed him? “But he is not a military man nor conversant with military affairs, though his abilities are great. Even so, this civilian is possessed of facts which are withheld from me.” Like some ancient arcane engine of warfare, Scott swiveled round to face Cameron, whose tricky eyes were now at rest upon a chandelier. Seward found himself sweating. He glanced at Lincoln, and saw that that usually restless body was unusually sti
ll in its chair. Meanwhile, the huge engine was now swinging toward the President, who began, slowly, to sit up like an unprepared schoolboy about to be called upon to recite. “Am I, Mr. President, to apply to the Secretary of State for the necessary information to discharge my duties?”
Lincoln turned to Seward, who said, “General, I simply collect this sort of information because it interests me. I like to know which regiments have come, which have gone …”
Scott spoke through him. “Your labors are very arduous.” The old man’s contempt was withering. “But I did not before know the whole of them. If you, in that way, can get accurate information, the rebels can also, though I cannot.” It was not until then that Seward realized that Scott must have known all along that it was McClellan who had given him the figures, on the not unreasonable ground that of all the officers of state, including the President, Seward alone had been able, not to mention obliged, to gather in his hands the reins of power. But those reins now snapped.
Scott’s last mischief to the nation was to break up what Seward had been convinced was the winning team of Seward and McClellan. The old man now turned on McClellan, who promptly thrust his hand inside his tunic, like Napoleon—was he not the Young Napoleon? But then, in the face of an actual hero of the republic’s wars, McClellan withdrew the hand from his tunic. “You were called here by my advice,” said Scott. “The times require vigilance and activity. I am not active and never shall be again. When I proposed that you should come here to aid, not supersede me, you had my friendship and confidence.” General Scott paused; then he murmured, “You still have my confidence.” On that note, the old man left the room, something that his sense of protocol had never before allowed him to do without the President’s leave.