At twenty minutes past twelve o’clock, the doorkeeper announced that the Senate had arrived. The members of the House rose as the gentlemen filed solemnly into the hall, Vice-President Breckinridge and the sergeant-at-arms at the head of the procession. Kate’s pulse quickened at the sight of the tellers carrying the two large cases containing the election results from each state. “Breckinridge could have opened them at any time,” a man muttered somewhere to her left. “He was a candidate too, and don’t you forget it.”
“Are you suggesting he might have substituted forged ballots with his own name for Mr. Lincoln’s?” another man jeered in an undertone. “After the results from the states were announced in the papers?”
“His name or someone else’s,” the first man retorted.
Other voices in the gallery hissed and snapped for the first two to be silent. Vice-President Breckinridge had taken his seat to the right of the Speaker of the House, while the senators occupied the seats that had been reserved for them elsewhere in the chamber. Kate’s gaze was riveted on the three clerks, who set the sealed cases upon the clerk’s desk and seated themselves.
“The two Houses being assembled,” Mr. Breckinridge began, his voice clear but his visage grimly somber, “in pursuance of the Constitution, that the votes may be counted and declared for president and vice-president of the United States for the term commencing on the fourth of March, eighteen hundred and sixty-one, it becomes my duty, under the Constitution, to open the certificates of election in the presences of the two Houses of Congress.” He paused and inhaled deeply. “I now proceed to discharge that duty.”
An expectant, apprehensive hush fell over the chamber as Mr. Breckinridge opened and handed to the tellers the record of electoral votes from each state, beginning with Maine. As each state’s results were announced, Kate compared the tallies to those listed in a newspaper clipping she had saved from the day after the election, and a rustle of newsprint told her that others in the gallery were doing the same. None of the numbers conflicted; no one stormed the clerk’s table and stole the records at gunpoint. A little more than halfway through the list, the electoral votes from Ohio were credited to Mr. Lincoln; with a pang of regret, Kate stole a look at her father, whose face she could see in profile as he sat below, listening stoically. Ohio’s votes should have gone to him. If only the Ohio delegation had been true at the Republican Convention—
Quickly she returned her gaze to the newspaper clipping. There was nothing to be gained by dwelling upon what might have been. She should think instead of what yet could be.
As Mr. Breckinridge continued to announce the electoral votes, a murmur rose from the galleries, and distantly, Kate heard it echoed in the halls outside the chamber, overcrowded with eager, unfortunate would-be witnesses who had been unable to squeeze their way inside. The vote was going exactly as expected without a single indication of the dreaded coup. This development, judging from the tone of the rising murmur of voices, had brought relief to many but disappointment and anger to an impassioned few.
California, Minnesota, Oregon—and then it was done.
“Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois,” Mr. Breckinridge declared, “having received a majority of the whole number of electoral votes, is elected president of the United States for four years, commencing the fourth of March, eighteen hundred and sixty-one.” An outburst of cheers from the Republicans interrupted him, but he raised his voice to be heard above it as he announced that Hannibal Hamlin, of Maine, had been duly elected vice-president.
The chamber was called to order again with some effort, and then, their joint session concluded, the senators departed for their own chamber. As the Speaker resumed conducting House business—the first matter was a movement to adjourn, which was briefly argued before it was voted down—Kate joined the flow of spectators leaving the gallery and waited in the vestibule for her father, who was, as she had expected, delayed, most likely cornered by a series of congressmen with causes to champion or curiosity to satisfy. Everyone wanted to know whether Father intended to return to the Senate or join Mr. Lincoln’s cabinet, Father most of all. At last she spotted her father’s noble head above the crowd, and she smiled and waved to catch his eye. He was surprisingly ebullient as he offered her his arm and escorted her from the Capitol. “You apparently appreciated the show more than I thought you would,” she remarked as they crossed the Capitol grounds on their way back to the Willard, where the Peace Convention was scheduled to reconvene within the hour.
“Why would I not have?” He sounded genuinely puzzled. “The legitimately elected candidate was verified according to law and protocol, with no malfeasance and, thank God, no violence.” He halted and glanced down at her upturned face. “Because the votes were not for me?”
She nodded, her heart full of sympathetic indignation.
He sighed and resumed leading her down Pennsylvania Avenue. “It is the will of the majority of the men of this country that Mr. Lincoln should lead it for the next four years. More important, it must be God’s will, for nothing happens that is not a part of His divine plan, although we cannot always fathom his design.”
Kate nodded again, although she only partly agreed with him.
When they reached the corner of Fourteenth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, Kate left her father at the Willard with a kiss and good wishes for a successful afternoon. Then she continued down Fourteenth Street to the Rugby House and upstairs to the family’s suite, where she found Nettie entertaining the quiet, grandfatherly Mr. Hawthorne—a gentle, refined man with snow-white hair and a mustache, a youthful face, and large, soft, very dark eyes—chatting over tea as she showed him a series of whimsical sketches she had made to accompany his novel The Marble Faun. Kate had never met a shyer, more reticent man, and when she greeted him warmly and invited him to join the family for supper that evening, he begged off without bothering to invent an excuse. He left soon thereafter, but not until Nettie extracted his promise to have tea together again soon.
“You frightened him away,” Nettie scolded after their celebrated guest hastily departed.
“I didn’t mean to,” Kate said, by way of an apology. “Nettie, dear, Mr. Hawthorne is a very busy and very bashful man. Are you sure you aren’t becoming a nuisance?”
“No, I’m not. Of course I’m not.”
“No one who is a nuisance ever believes themselves to be one.”
“Then why did you bother to ask me?” Nettie leafed through her drawings, smiling. “I’m not a nuisance. Mr. Hawthorne likes me. He says I have talent, and that if I nurture it faithfully, I might become an accomplished artist someday.”
“Did he, indeed?” It was the fact that Mr. Hawthorne had strung together so many words at once rather than the content of his statement that surprised her. “I agree with him wholeheartedly. The question is, will you devote yourself faithfully to the task?”
Nettie didn’t answer, for her attention had already turned elsewhere—to the drawings scattered across the table, to the renowned author’s praise, to sketches she planned to begin as soon as she found fresh paper. Nettie had shown artistic talent from the time she could hold a pencil, a gift she had likely inherited from her mother, Belle. Kate remembered fondly the charming sketches her stepmother had included in the letters she had sent to Kate at boarding school, her affection for her stepdaughter evident in every stroke of the pen. Belle had loved Kate as dearly as if she had truly been her own child, until consumption claimed her life as it had Kate’s own mother’s.
The deaths of three young, beloved wives—that too, Father would say, was an inexplicable part of God’s plan.
When Father returned later that evening for supper—a simple family affair since their reticent neighbor had declined Kate’s invitation—the weariness of a long day had settled upon him, but he remained in good spirits. Mr. Lincoln and his family were in Columbus, he informed his daughters, and while attending a celebra
tion in his honor at the state capitol, Mr. Lincoln had received the good news that the electoral votes had been counted and his election was official. “Soon thereafter,” Father added, “Mr. Lincoln was presented at a reception for members of the legislature at Governor Dennison’s home, and following dinner, he will attend a military ball.” He glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. “Perhaps he is there at this very moment.”
“I wish we were too,” sighed Nettie, ignoring the inescapable fact that she was not out in society yet and would have stayed home with Vina while her father and sister enjoyed the lavish ball. “It seems so strange, to think that Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln are in our city, while here we are, in theirs.”
“Washington is our city now,” Kate corrected her sister, “and Mr. Lincoln’s rightful place is not this city but Springfield. It is there he will return in four years’ time, you’ll see.”
One glance at her father’s faint smile told her that her words had pleased him.
• • •
Apprehension and excitement rose in the nation’s capital as the president-elect’s train wended its way toward Philadelphia, with appearances in Harrisburg, Leamon Place, Lancaster, and Baltimore—a city full of Southern sympathizers in a slave state, well-known for mob violence and secessionist fervor—next on the route. A few days before Mr. Lincoln was due to arrive in Washington, alarming rumors swept through the city of threats that he would not leave Baltimore alive.
All of Washington seemed to hold its breath, awaiting word from Mr. Lincoln’s travels with a dread unlikely to abate until he had safely arrived in the capital. The coup they had feared on the day the electoral votes had been read could yet come, with the swift, merciless strike of an assassin’s bullet.
Kate prayed daily, urgently, for the president-elect’s safety. She understood the necessity for elected officials to go out among the people, but if she were Mrs. Lincoln, she would urge her husband not to expose himself so heedlessly to danger, regardless of the possibility of souring public opinion. Perhaps Mrs. Lincoln did not exercise that sort of influence over her husband.
On the morning of February 23, Kate woke to a thrill of trepidation. President Lincoln was due to arrive in Washington City on the four o’clock train, but first he must safely pass through Baltimore. She rose, washed, and dressed, and went downstairs to the breakfast table, where her father already sat sipping his coffee and reading his Bible. Nettie soon joined them, smiling and cheerful, her face freshly scrubbed and hair neatly braided.
Vina served the meal, and while they were eating, Will brought in the morning papers. “Mr. Chase,” he said, “I hear that Mr. Lincoln is in Washington.”
“No, not quite yet,” Father replied, glancing at the front page of the newspaper on the top of the pile. “His train isn’t due until late this afternoon, and God willing, no street-mob violence will delay it.”
“No, Mr. Chase, he’s already here. He was seen breakfasting with Mr. Seward at the Willard not half an hour ago.”
“Mr. Lincoln is in the city? Now?”
Will nodded. “That’s what I heard.”
“He must have passed through Baltimore on the night train,” Kate said. Will was not one to spread unfounded rumors. “A prudent measure, I should think, due to the threats of violence.”
“Prudent, perhaps, but it will look cowardly.” Frowning, Father pushed back his chair and rose, his breakfast forgotten. “Of course, Seward has already cornered him.”
“Perhaps Mr. Seward wished to apologize for that dreadful conciliatory speech he made in the Senate in January,” Kate suggested.
Father shook his head. “Seward wouldn’t concede any wrongdoing. No, his purpose is to exert his influence over the president-elect from the moment of his arrival. He thinks to become the power behind the throne, but I believe he’ll discover that Mr. Lincoln is not as indecisive and biddable as Mr. Buchanan.”
With apologizes for his haste, Father hurried off to the Willard, in hopes of welcoming Mr. Lincoln to Washington before reporting to the Peace Convention.
Kate and a small group of other Republican ladies had planned to greet Mrs. Lincoln upon the arrival of her afternoon train, and she regretted the unwelcoming impression the empty platform must have given her. Hoping to make up for their absence with a belated welcome, at midmorning Kate went to the Willard, where she charmed the front desk clerk into revealing that the president-elect had been given Suite Number Six, the hotel’s very best, but that he was not there at the moment. “Perhaps his wife will receive me,” Kate said, offering the clerk her card and a disarming smile. “It is indeed she whom I came to see.”
“Mrs. Lincoln isn’t here,” he replied.
“She has gone out?”
“I haven’t seen her at all,” the clerk confessed, “but I’ll be sure to deliver your card.”
Puzzled, Kate thanked him and turned away. A few raindrops began to patter upon the dusty street as she walked back to the Rugby House, but lost in thought, she scarcely noticed them.
Later, when Father returned home for a quick supper, he reported that Mr. Lincoln had arrived in Washington at six o’clock that morning, having passed incognito through hostile Baltimore on the night train, with only a few companions in his retinue. Father had arrived at the Willard a few minutes too late to see him, for after breakfast, Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Seward had gone to the White House to call on President Buchanan. Ensconced with the other delegates at the Peace Convention, Father did not know how the president-elect had spent the rest of his day, but he had heard that Mrs. Lincoln and her sons had arrived as scheduled on the four o’clock train. Unaware that Mr. Lincoln was not on board, a large crowd had gathered in a cloudburst to welcome him. Mr. Seward—“It is always Seward,” Father grumbled—had met the train, but after Mrs. Lincoln and her sons disembarked, and it became apparent that Mr. Lincoln was not with them, the people loudly voiced their displeasure, shouting, joking disparagingly, whistling, and swearing. Shaken by the unpleasant welcome, soaked from the downpour, exhausted and nervous from travel and threats to her husband, Mrs. Lincoln had leaned on Mr. Seward’s arm and had begged to be taken to the Willard with all speed.
“At this hour Mr. Lincoln dines at Seward’s home with his family and Mr. Hamlin,” Father said, frowning at his plate with such glum worry that Kate knew he wished he had been invited. “I will see Mr. Lincoln tonight, however, when the Peace Conference delegates meet with him at the Willard.”
“Might I come along?” asked Kate. “I tried to call on Mrs. Lincoln today, thinking she had arrived with her husband. The clerk told me that she was out, not that she had never arrived, and so I didn’t know to meet her at the train station this afternoon.”
“I don’t know if Mrs. Lincoln will be present,” her father replied.
“I’m happy to take that chance.”
Father considered. “Very well. I’m sure she’d be delighted to meet you. Your kindness and charm will help her forget the unpleasantness of her arrival.”
“Can I come too?” Nettie piped up.
“No,” Father and Kate replied in unison, and Father added, “You are not out yet, and it will be past your bedtime.”
Nettie lifted her chin. “I am thirteen now, and I think because you will be senator and will attend so many nice balls and things that I should be out now.”
Kate laughed, astonished. “What an idea! No one is out at thirteen.”
“Well, I should at least have a later bedtime.”
“That is a discussion for another day,” said Father wearily. Nettie frowned, disappointed, but she knew Father’s moods well enough not to press her luck.
Shortly before nine o’clock, Father escorted Kate, dressed in the lovely green silk gown she had worn the previous September at the dedication of Commodore Perry’s monument, to Willard’s, where they discovered that many other Republican delegates had also brought
their ladies. Like Kate, all were eager to meet the president-elect and his wife, about whom the newspapers offered such contradictory descriptions that it was impossible to form any true sense of her. One reporter corresponding from the Lincolns’ journey east had written, “The entire female population are in ecstasies of curiosity to know who she was, what she is, what she looks like, what her manner is, and if she has a presence of the sort necessary in the exalted station to which she will soon be introduced.” Kate had laughed ruefully when she had read the arch remark, recognizing herself. Soon, she hoped, many of her questions would be answered.
While the gentlemen delegates went off to call on the president-elect, Kate and the other ladies waited in the best parlor, hoping the Lincolns would put in an appearance, sharing what little information they had about the future First Lady, and sizing up one another as they chatted. Their patience was rewarded much later when the delegates escorted Mr. Lincoln to the parlor to meet them. Father was at his right hand, Kate noted with satisfaction as the gentlemen entered the room and joined their ladies. Mr. Lincoln took his place of honor at one end of the room, the ladies formed a line to pass in review, and as each pair approached the president-elect, each gentleman introduced his lady.
“Kate, dear,” Father said when it was their turn, “may I introduce our president-elect, Mr. Abraham Lincoln. Mr. Lincoln, this is my eldest daughter, Miss Kate Chase.”
“It is an honor to meet you, Mr. Lincoln,” said Kate.
“The honor is mine,” he replied, his voice warm and sincere. He was more handsome than his portrait, and when he smiled his melancholy look vanished and a gentle, interested, and compassionate expression took its place.
“Did Mrs. Lincoln not accompany you?” Kate asked. “I have been looking forward to making her acquaintance.”
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