by Jane Peart
Late that night, JoBeth could not go to bed until she had written about her evening in her journal. She did not want to forget a single detail.
I feel like the cat who went to visit the queen in the old nursery rhyme. Although we are a republic and not supposed to be in awe of royalty, I suppose going to the White House is as close as I’ll ever come to such magnificence.
The White House has been newly refurbished, I was told, and there has been much malicious gossip about “Madame President’s” extravagant expenditures for new velvet drapes and Italian carpeting. But the Green Room, where the reception was held tonight, is truly splendid.
Mrs. Lincoln, in comparison to her tall, rangy husband, appears very small indeed. Her gown was quite lavish—grenadine over silk, the bodice trimmed with point lace—and her hair was dressed with artificial roses. She may have been considered attractive as a young woman—her coloring is very vivid: bright blue eyes, rich mahogany-brown hair—but I found her animation forced, her manner of speech affected. What once might have been a “pleasing plumpness,” at age forty-three has grown to fat. I thought her flushed face and rather petulant expression most unattractive.
Here JoBeth paused and reread what she had just written. She hadn’t meant to be unkind, just truthful. There was something about Mrs. Lincoln that she couldn’t quite define. An artificiality, a buried hostility she could not quite conceal, as though she viewed everyone—mainly young, attractive women—with slight suspicion. JoBeth had felt quite chilled as those blue diamond eyes fixed themselves upon her for a few seconds, and then the president’s wife had given a prim little smile and held out her gloved fingers to JoBeth, who pressed them lightly, murmuring, “Good evening, Mrs. Lincoln,” then moved down the line.
Although JoBeth knew that Mrs. Hobbs’s unfavorable opinion was drawn largely from journalists who did not like the First Lady, she remembered Mrs. Hobbs’s comment. After observing Mrs. Lincoln in person, JoBeth could not help but agree that there might be some truth in the rumor.
Her impression of the president was quite different. She looked into a face that was gaunt, deeply etched with lines, the eyes deep-set and dark, the expression of wisdom, sorrow, giving him the appearance of both determination and vulnerability. In the midst of all the music, the merriment, that flowed around him, he seemed to be troubled, brooding. She was too much in awe to do more than touch his hand briefly and move on. For some reason, she had felt drawn to turn and look back at him and was moved to instant sympathy. What burdens must be his to carry, what responsibility—the lives of so many to be lost or spared at his command.
JoBeth continued to write.
It was the person of Kate Chase Sprague (our landlady’s “ideal”), the daughter of the secretary of the treasury, who quite outshone Madame President, in my opinion. A truly beautiful young woman with a slender, graceful figure, magnolia white skin, hair glinting with bronze lights, she was dressed in a lovely apricot satin dress and seemed always to be surrounded by admiring gentlemen.
Chapter Twenty-Five
JoBeth did not keep a daily diary. Her journal entries were sporadic. Sometimes days passed, even weeks, without her writing in it. However, there were times when something unusual happened during the otherwise rather uneventful passing of her days, and then she would write at some length.
November 1863
President Lincoln issued a proclamation declaring that the last Thursday in this month be set aside as a national day of Thanksgiving. Mrs. Hobbs invited Wes and me to have dinner with her and a group of her friends to celebrate the event. She told me it was a holiday long observed in her husband’s native state of Massachusetts, and I guess it is celebrated in other New England states also. The Pilgrims’ landing at Plymouth Rock is as great a cause for celebration as almost any other.
We dined on roast turkey, mashed potatoes, several kinds of vegetables, salad, and both pumpkin and apple pie. I could not help but contrast all this abundance with the probable fare of my relatives in the South. Even before I left, they were experiencing shortages of all kinds, due to the successful blockade of ports along the Southern coast.
Oh, that all this would soon be over and we could be one country again! That was the fervent prayer in all hearts, I’m sure, as we bowed our heads for grace before that festive meal.
December 8th
President Lincoln offered amnesty to any Confederate who would restate his allegiance.
Would that it were that simple. He doesn’t understand or realize the strength, determination, resentment, of most Southerners, who are fighting for what they believe are their states’ rights.
December 1863
The early days of the month passed by pleasantly enough, even though JoBeth had to fight back nostalgic thoughts of bygone Christmases in Hillsboro. This third year of the war, she knew that Christmases back there must be much different now than those she recalled so pleasantly. She was sure the Northern blockade of Southern ports intensified all the hardships, shortages, that had already begun to affect the lives of her family and friends before she left. Naturally, she missed her mother and Shelby terribly. Nevertheless, she was determined to make her first Christmas with Wes especially happy.
JoBeth was giving him her pledge quilt as a Christmas gift. For the first time, Wes would see her labor of love, the record of her constancy all during their separation. She worked in Mrs. Hobbs’s apartment so that it would be a surprise. JoBeth spent hours stitching the squares onto the under-cover batting and binding the whole with yards of blue trim the color of Wes’s army uniform. When that was done, she carefully embroidered her name, the date of his departure, and the date of their wedding in one corner patch.
She planned to have a small trimmed tree, a new holiday custom popularized by Queen Victoria’s German husband, Prince Albert, who had introduced it to England. Americans quickly adopted the idea, integrating it into their own Christmas decorations.
Besides giving Wes the now finished pledge quilt, she could afford only a few small gifts for him. A lieutenant’s salary was small, and everything was so expensive. Still, she enjoyed being out among the bustling shoppers, who evidently had money to spend. JoBeth was sure that Washington was in sharp contrast to most cities in the South at this time. Downtown stores were blazing with lights until evening, windows displaying all sorts of attractive merchandise. One afternoon while mostly window-shopping, JoBeth happened to catch a glimpse of the newly wed Kate Chase, now Mrs. William Sprague. The woman was getting into her shiny, gilt-trimmed carriage outside one of Washington’s most expensive department stores. She was extravagantly elegant, wearing a moss green brocade jacket with a pale mink collar and cuffs, a graceful skirt, a bonnet laden with shiny black and green feathers. JoBeth found herself gawking like a pauper viewing a duchess. She couldn’t wait to tell Mrs. Hobbs about it.
JoBeth’s time with Mrs. Hobbs was always amusing and diverting, and their conversations were not as gloomy as the war news Wes reluctantly brought home. The war seemed a seesaw: First, one side seemed to have the advantage, achieving some strategic objective; the next time the other won a decisive battle, claiming victory. However, Wes expressed the general feeling in Washington about the final outcome of the war, that the North would eventually emerge victorious.
JoBeth had mixed feelings—a Union victory meant a Southern defeat. She sometimes did not want to hear the latest news of battles. Perhaps she was acting like an ostrich, she thought. But if there was nothing she could do about the situation, what harm was there in being entertained by the reports Mrs. Hobbs related about the chaotic private lives of those in the White House?
Mrs. Lincoln’s extravagance was notorious. Her frequent shopping sprees to the New York emporiums were widely reported. But even more interesting to JoBeth was the strange “behind the scenes” melodrama. It seemed that since their little son Willie died, Mrs. Lincoln had been consulting spiritists and attending seances. Although fascinated by these bizarre stories, JoBeth coul
d not help being sympathetic toward this woman.
Christmas Eve afternoon JoBeth felt restless and a little homesick. She didn’t want Wes to come home and find her melancholy, so to offset her mood she decided to go out for a while and mingle in the holiday crowds to try to capture some spirit. It worked. After browsing through a succession of shops, she made a few impulsive last-minute purchases. Some scented candles, a book of Browning’s poetry, a pair of house slippers for Wes to wear when he kicked off his boots at night. Feeling better, she came out into the street to find it had begun to snow. She hurried home through the wintry dusk, anticipating the evening ahead. The snow was still falling when she let herself into Mrs. Hobbs’s house, grateful for its welcoming warmth.
Upstairs in their apartment, she drew the curtains against the growing dark, looked around the cozy, firelit parlor with satisfaction. She fitted the spruce-scented candles into the brass holder on the mantelpiece.
Mrs. Hobbs had insisted they have Christmas Day dinner with her and some friends. But tonight was to be just for the two of them. Soon Wes would be here and they could have a candlelit dinner before the fireplace. From one of the small catering establishments that flourished in this city, she had bought a small roasted chicken, salad, a plum pudding she could heat on the spirit burner. They planned to attend the Christmas Eve service at a nearby church, then open their presents.
JoBeth wrapped the poetry book and the slippers and had just placed them under the tree when she heard the sound of Wes’s voice speaking to Mrs. Hobbs on the landing.
She turned to greet him with a welcoming smile as he came in the door. But one look at his expression stopped her. Something was wrong. Something had happened. She opened her mouth to speak. Then, without knowing why, her heart chilled.
“What is it, Wes?”
“I’m sorry, darling, A telegram. Your Uncle Harvel died of his wounds in Tennessee.”
JoBeth felt her knees buckle, and she had to hold on to the table to steady herself.
Poor Uncle Madison and Aunt Josie—and all those poor, adorable little children. She felt dizzy. She swayed and Wes was beside her in a minute, holding her, supporting her over to the sofa.
JoBeth’s gaze moved to the tiny trimmed tree, with its paper chains and gilt candleholders. It looked so gaudy, so bizarre, taunting, in the face of this tragedy.
In her mind she was transported to Holly Grove. Remembering the gaiety of that last Christmas scene, the merry laughter of Harvel’s children as they ran through the rooms festooned with evergreen boughs, holly, and mistletoe. Everyone had been so happy—
JoBeth closed her eyes against the pain.
In wartime everything is on the precipice. No one is guaranteed even a full day of happiness…
Entry from JoBeth’s Journal
Chapter Twenty-Six
February 1864
Access to the president and to the White House still amazes me. People seem to wander freely in and out, with very few being stopped or questioned about their intent or errand. Does it not seem strange that the man most responsible for the great struggle to reunite our nation is so open to whosoever would come?
I suppose it particularly affects me because of the difference between Lincoln and the Confederate president, Jefferson Davis. He is almost a recluse. When I was in Richmond awaiting my pass to Washington, he remained a mysterious presence. Rarely did I hear of anyone, outside his immediate circle of trusted advisors or army officers, having an audience. Occasionally he could be seen riding out in the afternoons with General Lee or one of the other generals, ringed by a protective guard on horseback. But it was also said that because the threat of Unionist spies meant possible danger to his person, his route was often altered and his driver took him for airings on back roads and country lanes.
Here it seems to me that no such caution is taken for President Lincoln’s safety, although secessionist sentiment runs high. He and Mrs. Lincoln are often easily viewed taking carriage rides with only a few mounted soldiers in escort.
I suppose this is much on my mind because of an encounter I had today. Wes had asked me to meet him at the White House, where Major Meredith’s headquarters are located. We were to go to a late afternoon levee, held at the Merediths’ home, for some new officers on his staff, and it would be easier and save time if I met Wes there.
As I was seated in the corridor, waiting for Wes, I observed the constant parade of people from the desk of the president’s secretary to his office. How could he see so many people, hear so many petitions, answer so many questions, make so many decisions? One would have to be almost superhuman to handle such a load of demands.
Suddenly I became aware of a young girl, hardly taller than a twelve-year-old child, carrying a large artist’s portfolio. She came down the hall toward me, juggling a sketch book that almost seemed too heavy for her slight build. There was an empty chair beside me, and she asked me timidly if it was taken. At my negative reply, she sat down.
At closer view, I reversed my estimate of her age and guessed her to be about sixteen, not more than seventeen at the most. She was quite pretty, her features regular, and her dark hair fell in ringlets to her waist. We acknowledged each other with a smile and a nod. I had no idea who she was and what on earth her business with the president might be. However, after a few minutes she introduced herself and enlightened me as to her purpose in being there.
Her name, she said, was Vinnie Ream, and she was an artist and sculptor. Shyly, not bragging or a bit arrogant, she then proceeded to tell me she had been given permission to station herself in the president’s office and make sketches of him from life with the ultimate goal of sculpting a statue of him.
I was completely taken aback by this statement. She looked so young, looked to be barely out of the schoolroom. Quite unaffectedly she filled me in on her background. She had attended Christian College in Missouri, studying art and especially interested in sculpting. She told me her father had moved the family to Washington, where he was employed as a government mapmaker. She told me that on her very first day in the city, she had caught a glimpse of the president, and the nobility of his face had made a profound impression. Even then it became her ambition to sculpt him.
She went on to say it was a “miracle” how her deep desire came to be, how she was allowed to sit in the president’s office and sketch him “from life.” She may consider it a miracle—however, from listening to the account, it might well have also been her own persistence. What I’ve learned from being here in Washington, close to the political hub, is that it is also a matter of “whom you know” which most often is the way of accomplishing your goals. And so I believe it to be with Miss Ream. She went on to tell me that through the Missouri congressman James Rollin, she was apprenticed to a well-known Washington sculptor, Clark Mills. Eventually, through her connections, she was able to gain her long-held dream of actually drawing the president from life, with the object being a bust or statue of him.
She was very sincere in telling me what a privilege it was, how intimate the sittings became with Mr. Lincoln. That he shared with her the grief he felt for the loss of his little boy (his son Willie died tragically of typhoid fever), for whom he still mourned so deeply. She recounted to me how he would sometimes stand at the window looking out on the White House lawn, where he used to watch his children at play. Tears brightened her eyes as she told me how his head would bow, great tears would roll down his hollow cheeks, his shoulders would shake, even as he tried to control his sobs.
About this time she was motioned forward by the lift of the appointment secretary’s hand. It was time for her to go, the girl whispered, and she quickly rose and, almost like a will-o’-the-wisp, slid quietly down the hallway and disappeared through the door of the president’s office.
How much of all she told me is true, how much her dramatic rendition, I cannot say. However, I did feel that putting down this encounter might someday be of historic importance, should this young woman’s dream of
sculpting a statue of the president be fulfilled.
April 1865
Appomattox! Lee surrendered. The war is over!
From the pictures I’ve seen of General Robert E. Lee, stately and silver-haired, and the glimpse I once had of General Grant, the commander of the army of the Potomac, when he was in Washington—short, stocky, his uniform unpressed and rumpled—it’s hard to imagine two more different men. Victor and vanquished. One could imagine that if they were actors in a play, their roles would be reversed. I wonder how this news is being received at home? Certainly not with the church bells ringing, celebrations in the streets, as is here.
JoBeth heard that some of the still staunchly loyal Confederates were moving their families to South America, to Brazil, to escape living under what they feared would be harsh treatment from the dreaded Reconstruction government. She knew the heavy price many persons dear to her had paid. They had lost all, then had been deprived of the victory that would have made their sacrifice worthwhile. She grieved for them. Again—it was as true now as it had been at the beginning of the war—she had a divided heart.
Dearest Mama,
Good news. Less than a week since the surrender was signed, and the travel bans between North and South have been lifted by presidential decree, so it should be possible soon for me to come home for a visit. Do you think AuntJosie and Uncle Madison will welcome me? Or are they still angry and bitter about what I did? I would come alone and Wes would join me later. Perhaps I can lay the groundwork for reconciliation before he comes? After all, the president is advocating that the country come back together as one nation again. Surely our family can do no less? Let me know as soon as you can how you feel my plan will be received.