by Gore Vidal
Sherman ignored Lincoln’s hesitancy. “I said to you then that this would be a long and terrible war, and you said you didn’t think it would be all that long and, anyway, you supposed that even if it was, you’d manage somehow to keep house.”
“Did I say that?” Lincoln shook his head with wonder. “Well, I am only a politician, you know, and we tend to say stupid things. What’s worse, of course, is we do them, too. Well, you were the better prophet. So tell me, what do you prophesy next for us?”
“This time, sir, you are what the prophet must contemplate. Because once the fighting stops, the future is going to be what you make of it.”
Grant stared hard at Lincoln. “Sherman’s right. You’ll have to decide everything. Like what do we do with the rebel armies? With the generals? With the politicians? What shall we do with Jefferson Davis?”
“Mr. Davis …” Lincoln’s face lightened. “That reminds me of this man who took the temperance pledge. Then he went to the house of a drinking friend who tried to tempt him, but he would not be tempted. He asked for lemonade. So the lemonade was brought to him. Then the friend pointed to a bottle of brandy and said, ‘Wouldn’t it taste better with some of that in it?’ and the temperance man said, ‘Well, if it is added unbeknown to me, I wouldn’t object.’ ”
The three men laughed. Admiral Porter said, “In other words, if Mr. Davis were to escape to another country you wouldn’t mind?”
Lincoln merely smiled; then he said, “I am for getting the Union back to what it was as quickly and as painlessly as possible.”
“You will have your problems with Congress,” said Sherman, a senator’s brother.
“Well, that is my job. I must say, Sherman, I’d feel safer if you were back in North Carolina with your army.”
Sherman laughed. “I promise you it will not disintegrate that quickly.”
Lincoln stretched his arms until there was a creaking sound from the vicinity of the shoulder blades. Then he said, suddenly, “Sherman, do you know why I took a shine to you and Grant?”
“I don’t know, sir. I do know you have been kinder to me than I ever deserved.”
“Well, it’s because, unlike all the other generals, you never found fault with me.” Lincoln rose. “At least not so that I ever heard.”
Lincoln then took a long fire-ax from its bracket on the bulkhead. “Let’s see if you fellows can do this.” Lincoln grabbed the ax at the end of its haft and held it away from his body, arm outstretched and parallel to the deck. One by one, the others tried to do the same but, in each case, the weight was too great. “It is a sort of trick of balance,” said Lincoln.
“And muscle,” said Sherman.
The next day President and generals rode out to the main encampment of the Army of the James to witness a grand review. Mrs. Lincoln and Mrs. Grant followed in an ambulance, which kept to a corduroy road that had been set across a sea of red Virginia mud and swampland. Mary had never in her life known such discomfort, not to mention pain; a headache had now installed itself just back of her eyes and would not go away.
At the back of the swaying and lurching ambulance Mary and Julia Grant sat on a bench, side by side, when they were not thrown together. One of General Grant’s aides sat opposite them, apologizing for the state of the road.
“It’s never comfortable,” said Mrs. Grant, clutching the wagon’s side.
“We can endure the discomfort,” said Mary regally. “But, surely,” she addressed the officer, “we are going to be late for the review?”
“I think not,” said the man. “Of course, the driver is deliberately slow.”
“Then tell him we should like to go faster.”
“But I don’t think that’s wise,” said Julia Grant and the eye closest to Mary turned, impudently, away.
“But we must go faster!” Mary exclaimed. The officer gave the order to the driver, and the horses sprang forward just as flat marsh gave way to a section of corduroy road made up of trees of different sizes. The ambulance sprang into the air. The two ladies, as one, left their seat and would have departed the ambulance entirely had the back section not been roofed in. As it was, two large, splendidly decorated hats prevented the heads beneath from breaking open but at the cost of two miraculous examples of the milliner’s craft, now crushed. As Mary fell back into the seat, she screamed, “Stop! Let me out! I shall walk!”
The ambulance stopped. The ornamental pheasant that had been the central decoration of Mrs. Grant’s hat had slipped forward onto her forehead, and one glossy wing now pathetically caressed her round cheek. “Mrs. Lincoln, no! Please.”
Mary was halfway out of the carriage, when the officer pulled her back in. “Madam,” he said, soothingly, “the mud is three feet deep here. No one can walk.”
“Oh, God!” shouted Mary, directly to the Deity, who did not answer her. As she sat back in the bench, head throbbing and eyes shut, she felt, one by one, the wax cherries that had made beautiful her hat come loose and fall to the ambulance floor exactly as the originals would have done when ripe.
But Mary had predicted correctly. They were late for the review. On a great muddy field, an army division was going through its paces. Mrs. Grant, helpfully, identified the commanding general in the distance, James Ord. Meanwhile, as the ambulance approached the review stand, a slender woman on a great horse cantered past them. “Who is that?” asked Mary. “I thought women were forbidden at the front.”
“They are,” said Julia Grant, “but that is General Griffin’s wife. She has a special permit.”
“From the President himself,” said the aide, with a smile which was, for Mary, lasciviousness writ scarlet in the air. She responded with a scream; and was pleased to see some of the redness go from those hideous, mocking lips.
“She has had an interview with the President? Is that what you are hinting at? A private interview?” Mary could hear a mocking snigger from Mrs. Grant at her side. They were all in it together. “Yes, that is what you want people to believe. But no woman is ever alone with the President. So tell as many lies as you please …”
General Meade was now at the ambulance. Mary turned to him for alliance. As he helped her down, she said, most craftily, she thought, “General Meade, it has been suggested to me that that woman on the horse has received special permission to be at the front, given her by the President himself.”
Meade said, “No, Mrs. Lincoln. Not by the President. Such permissions are given, and very rarely, by Mr. Stanton.”
“See?” Mary wheeled on her tormentors. She addressed the corrupt officer. “General Meade is a gentleman, sir. It was not the President but the Secretary of War who gave permission to this slut.” Mary savored her triumph. Fortunately, General Meade was very much a gentleman, from one of Philadelphia’s finest old families; and so he acted as if nothing had happened as he escorted her to the reviewing stand. But Mary was conscious that her two mortal enemies were just behind her, heads together, whispering obscenities to each other. Well, she would bide her time.
As Mary took her seat facing an entire division drawn up at present arms, she saw the President, flanked by Generals Grant and Ord, begin his ride down the long dark-blue line of troops. As the President came to each regiment, the men would cheer him and he would remove his hat. Back of the three men, there were a dozen high-ranking officers, and a good-looking young woman on a horse.
“Who is that?” asked Mary.
Mrs. Grant said, “It is Mrs. Ord, the general’s wife.”
“She is riding next to my husband.”
“She is actually,” said Mrs. Grant, gently, “riding next to her husband, General Ord.”
Mary turned to General Meade for assistance but he had moved away to the telegraph hut at the end of the reviewing stand. In his place, there was a solicitous colonel. “Sir, has that woman been riding with the President all during the review?” Mary watched his face very carefully; she knew that she could tell in an instant if he was lying; it was as if her eyes
could see with perfect clarity straight past his dull face and deep into his brain.
“Why, yes,” said the colonel.
“Actually, she is with her husband, Mrs. Lincoln …” began Julia Grant.
“I am quite capable of calculating the distance—look now!” Mrs. Ord was indeed alongside the President. “My God!” Mary exclaimed. “She is pretending to be me! They will think that that vile woman is me! Does she suppose that he wants her at his side like that?”
A young major rode up. The colonel said, quickly, “Here is Major Seward, the nephew of the Secretary of State …”
“Mrs. Lincoln.” The Major saluted Mary.
“I know all about Mr. Seward,” Mary began, noticing the young man’s parrot’s beak of a nose, so like that of his uncle, her enemy.
Major Seward was aware that they had been watching the President and Mrs. Ord, who were now riding side by side. “The President’s horse is very gallant,” said Major Seward, with all the corrupt insolence of his uncle. “He insists on riding by the side of Mrs. Ord’s horse.”
“What,” Mary cried, pushed now to the very edge of public humiliation, “do you mean by that?”
Major Seward’s response was an abrupt retreat. Meanwhile, President and generals had moved off the field toward the Petersburg front while Mrs. Ord rode toward the reviewing stand. Mary could not believe her eyes. The woman’s insolence was beyond anything that she had ever had to endure in her life. The woman dismounted; and walked over to the reviewing stand. “Welcome, Mrs. Lincoln,” she said.
Mary rose in her place. She felt exalted. At last, she could strike at her enemies a mortal blow. “You whore!” said Mary, delighted that she was able to control so well her voice. Then, word by word, sentence by sentence, effortlessly, she told the slut what she thought of her and of her behavior. Mary felt as if she were floating over the landscape like a cloud, a thundercloud, true, but a serene one. All that needed to be said to this now scarlet-faced woman was said. From high up, the cloudlike Mary saw the tears flow down the vicious face; saw the Colonel as he tried to divert her from her necessary task; saw Julia Grant as she dared to interrupt her.
In a way, Julia Grant was the worst, of course. Whores were whores everywhere and the good wife could always manage to shame them or, if they were truly shameless, to drive them away. But Mrs. Grant was a threat. Mrs. Grant was the wife of a hero—a butcher-hero, of course, but still a hero to the stupid public. Mrs. Grant was also insolent. She had sat unbidden in the presence of the First Lady. But then it was no secret that she was already scheming to be herself First Lady one day. “I suppose,” said Mary, with incredible cunning and the kindliest of smiles, “that you think you’ll get to the White House yourself, don’t you?”
Mrs. Grant—whose eyes were as crossed and flawed as her character—dared to answer, “We are quite happy where we are, Mrs. Lincoln.”
“Well, you had better take it if you can get it.” Mary was delighted with her own subtlety. She was, however, somewhat taken aback by the sound of a woman screaming. Could it be Mrs. Ord? No, she was weeping silently. Mary wondered where the screaming was coming from as she said, coolly, “It’s very nice, the White House.” Then Mary saw the fiery nimbus around Julia Grant’s head; and then Mary realized that the screaming that she heard was herself. Then Mary ceased to be conscious of where she was.
But it was not The Headache, because that same evening, aboard the River Queen, Mary was almost herself again. Naturally, she had been humiliated by Mrs. Ord in public view; and insulted by Mrs. Grant in private. But Mary presided at the dinner table with, she thought, admirable poise. She did find it disturbing that she could not recall how she had got from the reviewing stand back to the ship. In fact, as they sat at dinner with six staff officers—and Mrs. Grant to the President’s right and General Grant to Mary’s right, she was not entirely certain how the dinner had begun. But now that everything was going so smoothly, she felt that she could murmur to Grant, “I hope that you will, in future, control Mrs. Ord, whose exhibition today, in pursuit of my husband, caused so much unfavorable comment.”
General Grant’s response was not clear. But the President said, “Now, Mother, I hardly knew the lady was present.”
“For no want of trying,” Mary was regal. “Anyway, why should she, or any woman, be here?”
“Ord needs her,” said Grant.
“The way General Grant needs me at times,” said Mrs. Grant.
“Oh, we know all about those times,” Mary began. But the President cut her off. “Mother, the army band is coming aboard after dinner. There will be dancing.”
“We thought it might be gay,” said Mrs. Grant. “In all this horror. To forget for a moment.”
“I am glad if it makes you glad.” Mary was consummately gracious. She turned to Lincoln. “Everyone seems agreed that General Ord is the principal reason why the Army of the James has been stopped here for so many, many months now.” Mary felt that she had now outflanked the Grants. “If he were to be replaced might we not be able to win the war more quickly?”
“Now, Mother …” Lincoln seemed very distant from her at his end of the table. She had some difficulty in hearing his voice but she had no difficulty hearing General Grant, who said, “Ord is a fine officer. I cannot do without him.”
As Mary explained to General Grant the urgent need to replace Ord, she felt a sudden swimming ecstasy that suffused her entire body and mind. Simultaneously, again like a cloud or, perhaps, the moon, she was floating far, far above the table. She was a little girl in Lexington again; and there were her dolls, far below, at a tea party.
ON APRIL 1, Mrs. Lincoln returned to Washington for a brief visit. Both she and the President had been alarmed by a vivid dream that he had had: the White House was afire. This was the pretext for her return. But she would be back, she said, with a small group of friends, and Keckley.
For several days, Lincoln had installed himself in the telegraph office next to Grant’s log-cabin headquarters. He took delight in personally sending news to Stanton at the War Department; and there was a good deal of news. From all directions, Union troops were now moving against Richmond. The arrival of Sheridan had, in effect, sealed off the city.
“It is a good thing,” said Grant, as he prepared to go to the front, “that Sherman will take no part in the last battle.”
Lincoln gazed down at the small general with some surprise. “Surely,” he said, “there is glory enough for all.”
“There isn’t,” said Grant. “That’s the problem. The army we have here is the Eastern army. More important, it is the Northern army. And the war is of special importance to the North. But this army has always failed. If Sherman were to join us, the country will say that the east starts wars that westerners have to finish.”
“You know, General,” said Lincoln thoughtfully, “you have the makings of a very superior politician.”
Grant nearly smiled. “Just as you, sir, have the makings of a very superior military tactician.”
“I am not at all sure just how I am supposed to take that,” said Lincoln, as they walked from telegraph office to headquarters.
“Tell me something.” Grant stopped at the cabin door. He looked very young in the sharp spring sunlight, the brown beard glossy as fox fur and the blue eyes glowing. “Did you at any time in the last four years doubt the final success of the cause?”
“Never,” said Lincoln, “for one moment.”
Grant nodded. “That’s what I told Sherman.”
A kitten appeared at the cabin door. Absently, Lincoln scooped it up and scratched its ears as they went into the busy war-room, where orderlies came and went and all the lines on the map of Virginia now converged on Richmond.
On April 2, General Grant occupied Petersburg: Lee had pulled back to Richmond. It was now urgent that Lee not be allowed to break out of the area.
“It is our fear,” said Admiral Porter to the President, as they rode in the cars to Petersburg, �
�that he will retreat into North Carolina, and join up with Johnston’s army. If he does, they could hold that state for a long time.”
Lincoln nodded. “It must end now, once and for all.” He stared out the window at the trees in new green-yellow leaf; and at the signs of war—abandoned earthworks, dead horses, skulls, the casings of shells.
At the Petersburg depot Captain Robert Lincoln greeted his father. “Welcome to Petersburg, sir,” he said, saluting the President.
Lincoln returned the salute; and said: “We have taken our time getting here, but we got here, finally.” Lincoln mounted the horse that Robert had brought him. Then, surrounded by a cavalry contingent, they rode through the streets of the town, deserted save for timid blacks.
Grant met them on the porch of the house which he had secured for himself as a headquarters.
Lincoln shook Grant’s hand. “I’ve had a sneaking suspicion for some days now,” he said, “that you were going to wind this thing up at last. Now you’re doing it.”
Grant took his time lighting a large cigar. Then he said, “Mr. President, at eight-fifteen this morning, General Weitzel accepted the surrender of Richmond. Last night, Mr. Davis and his so-called government moved on to Danville. General Lee is now trying to escape to the south. But we won’t let him. At last, we have him where we want him.”
Lincoln stood in the hard, dried mud of the street, frowning at the ground. As he continued mysteriously to lose weight, he had grown more stooped; he was now, he liked to say, a close student of the earth. But then he looked up, and said, “It looks, General, as if our work is just about done.”
“We took too long, sir. But we started in perfect ignorance, both sides.”
“We are not ignorant now,” said Lincoln. “If anything, we know too much of war, and all its costs … I shall myself telegraph the news to the nation. I, who have brought so much bad news to so many people, can now at least proclaim the end of this vast trouble.”
The next day, aboard Admiral Porter’s flagship, the Malvern, Lincoln and his party steamed upriver and into Richmond harbor, where the ship promptly went aground. But Admiral Porter was ready with a twelve-man ceremonial barge to transport the President to the enemy capital.