by Gore Vidal
“So it would appear.” Viele reined in his horse. Chase did the same. The dragoons fanned out on either side of them. Over the flat spring countryside, the Union forces were stopped at the river’s edge. Rebel artillery was in place to the east of the town on a low wooded hill, as well as in place beyond the burned-out bridge, where earthworks has been raised and bayonets now gleamed.
“We have been misled.” Chase was conscious of the sun’s heat on his bald head. At that moment two Union generals approached from the direction of the rebel earthworks. They paused to confer, respectfully, with Chase.
One general said that he thought the number of rebels in the works up ahead were few, but that he had counted at least twenty-one major guns, and so, all in all, they had best turn back and consider flanking the works. The other general favored an out-and-out assault. Chase decided that they had best turn back.
On the road, Chase met General Wool at the head of a regiment. As the general conferred in the now dusty roadway, Chase crossed his arms on his chest, as he had seen McClellan do so often. He tried to think of some novelty that would save the day, but as he could think of nothing at all he gravely endorsed General Wool’s plan to send General Viele to Newport News for an additional brigade. Meanwhile, the Union regiments were reassigned; yet all were under General Wool, to whom Chase was now, reluctantly, attached.
As the newly reorganized Union army wheeled back toward Norfolk, fire and smoke appeared from behind the earthworks. A moment later a squad of Union cavalry rode up to report that the rebels had evacuated the earthworks and set fire to the barracks. The Union cavalry had already breached the works.
“Norfolk is ours.” Chase spoke with quiet satisfaction to Wool as, side by side, they rode into the abandoned fortress. The barracks—mere huts for the most part—were already ashes; and the worst of the smoke had been dispelled by a cool west wind. The troops rode through fortifications where the great guns were still in place; loudly, they cheered their victory.
In the distance, the steepled town of Norfolk seemed empty of all life except for a delegation of civilians who were coming toward them. Chase sat very straight astride his horse, aware that he was now surrogate for the Commander-in-Chief. Beneath a tall elm tree a stout white-haired man got out of a closed carriage; and removed his hat to General Wool. “Sir, I am here, as mayor of Norfolk, to surrender to you, peacefully, our city. If I may, I should also like to introduce to you the aldermen, who have come with me; and present you with the key to our city.”
Wool looked at Chase, who nodded and said to the mayor, “I shall receive the key, in the name of the President. I am,” he added, quietly, “Secretary Chase.”
“Well, sir, I ought to have known you from those greenbacks we see every now and again.”
Chase smiled politely; and dismounted. He was stiff in every joint. Beneath a large tree, the mayor, a loquacious Southern gentleman, introduced the city worthies to Chase and Wool. The mayor was careful to make the point that: “Personally, I was for fighting to save the city but the Administration at Richmond decided otherwise, and so we must throw ourselves on your mercy and hope that you will respect property and persons, according to the immemorial laws of the United States.”
Although Chase made a short, decorous speech, he was somewhat amazed that twice during his well-chosen, even compassionate words, Wool had looked at his watch. Chase then accepted a large rusty key, alleged to be that to the city if not to its citizens’ hearts. Then the mayor proposed that they all repair to City Hall. He turned over to Chase and Wool the fine carriage in which he had arrived. “It was used by our commanding general,” he said, somewhat bleakly, “until this morning.”
Once inside the carriage, Wool said, “We must find out about the Navy Yard. I think they are trying to delay us while the Merrimack escapes.”
“To where? The Union fleet is waiting off Sewell’s Point. The Monitor is ready. No, General, the Merrimack will not escape. I am certain of that.”
At City Hall, the mayor attempted a second speech to a small, grim crowd of elderly white men and hot-eyed crinolined women but Chase, politely, cut him short. Then Chase appointed General Viele military governor of Norfolk; and ordered the Union flag to be raised over the handsome Custom’s House, a Greek-revival building of considerable charm. Meanwhile, General Wool ascertained that the Navy Yard was still occupied by rebel troops. “We shall move against the Yard tomorrow,” he said, as he joined Chase and Viele in the mayor’s office.
“The President thinks we have been too slow,” said Viele. “When I was at Newport News, collecting the brigade, he sent for me to come see him at Fortress Monroe. He wanted to know what we were doing back on that side of the water. I told him that I had come across to get the brigade. He wanted to know why all the available regiments had not been sent over in the first place.” Viele looked at Wool, who frowned but did not answer. “I said I did not know, and then he took his hat off his head and threw it on the floor. He was, gentlemen, in one hell of a rage!”
“The President?” Chase was startled. He had never seen Lincoln anything but controlled—phlegmatic and rather listless, if the truth were known.
“Yes, sir. Anyway, he wrote out an order sending all available troops to Norfolk.”
“He will be pleased,” said the old general, “that Norfolk is ours this day. And that the Navy Yard will be ours tomorrow. Now, Mr. Chase, I suggest we avail ourselves of the carriage, and return to the Miami, leaving Norfolk in General Viele’s competent hands.”
The moon had begun to fade when Chase found himself in the parlor of the house where the military commander of Fortress Monroe lived—when not moved out by the President. In the parlor, Chase found a familiar uniformed figure, Governor Sprague, who was holding enthralled a group of naval officers. When Sprague saw Chase, he leapt to his feet. “Mr. Chase, sir. It is good to see you. The President’s gone to his room. So has Mr. Stanton, who’s now gone blind. I’m aid to the chief of artillery, with McClellan. I was at Williamsburg. We whipped them. Now McClellan’s moving out. But he’s got to have reinforcements …”
Unable to think of a polite way to stop the staccato sentences of the boy-governor, Chase turned to one of the officers and said, through Sprague’s lurid description of the battle for Williamsburg, “Tell the President that I am here, with General Wool. Norfolk has fallen.”
This stopped Sprague, to Chase’s serene delight, which was even further enhanced by the arrival of the President, who pounded him on the back with pleasure when he told him what had happened. The President’s happiness was only somewhat marred by the fact that the Navy Yard was still in Confederate hands, and that the Merrimack was still at large. “But we cannot have everything, I suppose,” he said to Stanton, who had joined them, eyes streaming with opthalmiac tears. Then Lincoln turned to Wool. “You should make a concerted effort to take the Yard tomorrow. Failing that, keep the Merrimack bottled up; and out of the Hampton Roads. Now, gentlemen,” Lincoln turned to Chase and Stanton, “we’ve been away from Washington too long.”
“At this rate, sir,” said Sprague suddenly, “you could probably end the war before the week is over.”
Lincoln laughed. “Well, Governor, there is such a thing as beginner’s luck, which I am not about to press any further. Since General McClellan is only twenty miles from Richmond, I shall let him finish things off properly.” Lincoln turned to Stanton. “Have you a ship for us?”
“Yes, sir. The Baltimore, ready to leave at seven in the morning.”
“We shall be ready.” With that Lincoln disappeared to his room and Chase, well pleased, went to the room assigned him by General Wool, and slept so well and so heavily that he did not hear the explosion in the night. At breakfast, he was told that the rebels had fired the Navy Yard; and blown up the Merrimack.
“In one week, thanks to the President,” said Chase to Kate at breakfast, two days later, “we took Norfolk, destroyed the Merrimack and secured the Virginia coast.”
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br /> “You must take all credit, Father. You chose the landing place. You accepted the key to the city …”
Chase nodded and hummed a few bars of “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God,” as a quantity of sausage slowly settled in his stomach. It was good to be home again.
“What else did Governor Sprague have to say?” Kate’s hair, that morning washed, was shrouded now in a towel that looked like some exotic Venetian turban.
“He was more talkative than informative. He was commended officially by General Hooker, at the battle of Williamsburg—or skirmish, I suppose it should be called. By now he’s back in Providence, I should think.”
“It’s a pity they don’t give him a proper command.”
Not for the first time did Chase wonder whether or not Kate really liked the little millionaire, who plainly worshipped her in, admittedly, his own highly curious way. “I fear that Governor Sprague lacks the principal prerequisites of a modern general.”
“You mean that he did not attend West Point?”
“I mean that he has not practised law like the best of us generals.”
Kate laughed. “I sometimes think there is probably nothing to being a general but common sense. And luck,” she added, motioning to the butler to pour her father tea.
“He did tell me that he’d be coming here to live, if he does not get a proper command.”
“What will he do here, when all those cotton mills of his are up there?”
“He controls the Rhode Island legislature.” Chase filled up his teacup with sugar. “He will have them elect him to the Senate. That means his term would begin next March.”
“Senator Sprague.” Kate looked at her father, thoughtfully. “He would be useful here, wouldn’t he?”
“Oh, yes. The Administration needs all the help it can get with Ben Wade and his friends …”
“I was thinking ahead, Father, to 1864 …”
Chase nodded. “Yes, Kate. Senator Sprague would be useful, if the times should require a different president.” Chase looked at Kate, and realized, from her expression, that she would, in due course and entirely for his sake, marry William Sprague IV.
SIX
ON THE back porch of the Old Club House, Seward lay in a hammock, eyes shut, and ears attuned only to the chatter of birds in the flowering backyard, where huge roses in full bloom made the air heavy with their scent. Congress had dispersed three days earlier, and Seward felt like a free man again, no longer the target of Ben Wade the Bluff and all the other Jacobins who now held him totally responsible for the slowness of the war effort, not to mention the vile continuation of slavery everywhere on earth.
As Seward rocked slowly back and forth in the hammock, he thought, longingly, of sending a detachment of troops to surround the Capitol while Congress was in session. There would be a mass arrest. He himself would speak to the assembled members of the two houses—would they be chained to one another? He left that detail for a later daydream. But, for the present, he was seated in the Speaker’s chair, and smoking a cigar as the terrified members of the Congress stood before him, guns trained on them from soldiers in the gallery. Naturally, he would address them pleasantly; he might even make a joke or two. Then he would explain how no state could support, in time of war, the luxury of such a large, unwieldy and often dangerously unpatriotic band of men. Therefore, it was with true sorrow that he was dissolving the legislative branch of the government. Most of the members would be allowed to return home. Unfortunately, there were a number who would be obliged to stand trial for treasonable activities. Senator Wade would, of course, be given every opportunity to defend himself before a military court. But should he and the other Jacobins be found guilty, they would, of course, be hanged—in front of the Capitol. Seward was debating whether or not the gallows should be placed at the east or the west end of the Capitol, when the servant announced, “Mr. Chase to see you, sir.”
Seward opened his eyes; and there was Chase, in a white linen jacket, looking reasonably cool on such a hot day. “Forgive me for not stirring,” said Seward.
“You are forgiven,” Chase pulled up a chair and sat at the foot of the hammock—like a physician, thought Seward, motioning to the servant to light his cigar for him. “I’ve been enjoying the peace and the quiet, now that Congress has gone, and we’ve only the war to worry about.”
Chase nodded. “They take up so much time, our old colleagues. I am told that Ben Wade has announced that the country is going to hell.”
“I can only hope that he gets there first,” said Seward.
“Things are coming to a climax, Mr. Seward.” Chase stared at the small figure in the hammock so like, with its short legs and large nose, a parrot fallen from its perch.
“You mean with McClellan?” Seward knew what Chase meant: the freeing of the slaves was now a matter of great urgency. But whose slaves? That was the problem. Meanwhile, England and France were more than ever pro-rebel; each nation taking the high line that the Lincoln Administration was essentially indifferent to the fate of the black man, a subject of no particular interest to either power but a highly convenient rationale for supporting the South—and the breakup of the youthful American empire.
Currently, the radical Republicans were threatening to abandon the Republican Party and the Lincoln Administration. Some of the Jacobin firebrands in Congress—yes, he would have them chained to one another, and the executions would take place on the north side of the Capitol—were insisting that Seward, as Lincoln’s evil genius of moderation, resign immediately and that the Joint Committee, together with Chase, free the slaves, sack McClellan and together prosecute the war. Seward was never entirely certain to what extent Chase was involved in these devious plots. He did know that Chase tended to agree with whatever any of the radicals had to say about the President or himself.
“I was not thinking of McClellan, though he is a part of the problem.” Chase had come to detest the Young Napoleon. Ever since he himself had delivered Norfolk into the Union’s hands, Chase had lost all awe of the military. Some organizational ability, a degree of common sense—and courage—were all that was needed. McClellan had only the first. Chase had all the rest; and so did any number of civilian leaders. Even Lincoln was better equipped to conduct a military operation than McClellan, who had got within six miles of Richmond; and then had failed to take the city, though his army outnumbered the rebels at least five to one; and the rebel commander, Joe Johnston, had been seriously wounded at Seven Pines, one of the few real battles of the so-called Peninsula campaign. Johnston had been succeeded by Robert E. Lee, the friend of the Blairs.
During June and July, McClellan continued to ask for more troops. He claimed that Lee had two hundred thousand men, ready to crack the Union army. Actually, Chase had learned that Lee’s army was closer to eighty-five thousand men. In desperation, Lincoln had slipped out of Washington and gone up the Hudson River to the military academy at West Point to confer with Winfield Scott. The result had been that Halleck was soon to arrive as general-in-chief while General John Pope—also from the Western army—was now the commander of a new Army of Virginia, to protect the capital and hold off the alarming “Stonewall” Jackson, who ranged at will up and down the nearby Shenandoah Valley. Finally, with Pope approaching Richmond from the west and McClellan from the east, the city was bound to fall.
McClellan’s troops were still divided by the Chickahominy River; and the rains were falling, and the creeks were swollen. But then while everyone was predicting that with a single stroke McClellan could take Richmond, Lee attacked McClellan; and McClellan lost what little nerve he had. After denouncing the President and Stanton, the Young Napoleon retreated to the James River and set up a new headquarters at Harrison’s Landing.
Since the Confederate government was now conscripting men, Lincoln sent Seward, secretly, to New York City to meet with the Northern governors and ask them to petition the President to call for more troops. As there was now no great general eagerness to enlist in
the Union army, the day before Congress adjourned those men between the ages of eighteen and forty-five might be liable for military duty.
But Chase had not come to Seward’s house to discuss McClellan. He had written off McClellan and he knew that Lincoln would, presently, replace him. Chase had total faith in John Pope, a dedicated abolitionist, who had made an excellent impression on the Joint Committee. The war would come to its predestined end. “But, Mr. Seward, we cannot remain silent any longer on the subject of slavery.”
Chase got the full benefit of Seward’s single, bright parrot’s eye—the nose made it impossible for Chase to see both eyes at the same time of the recumbent Secretary of State.
“Silent? Mr. Chase, we chatter of nothing else. Even the President is beginning to sound like an abolitionist. I told him it would do no good to try to talk to those border-state congressmen. But he thought he had to. So last week he told them he’d pay three hundred dollars a head for each of their Negroes; and they said no.”
“They did not all say no.” Chase had thought Lincoln more than usually feckless in the way that he had handled so difficult a business. Lincoln had appealed to their patriotism, which was irrelevant since they were all on the Union’s side, more or less willingly. Lincoln had then made the curious point that as long as they maintained slavery within their borders, the states in rebellion would always feel that one day the border-states would join them; but should slavery be abolished and the slave-holders compensated, the rebel states would not continue to fight much longer. Like so many of Lincoln’s attempts at logic, this essay had left Chase as cold as it had a majority of the border-men present. “But I suppose it is hard for the President to forget that he is a Kentuckian, and that Mrs. Lincoln’s brothers are all at war against us.”