If her father could not reside at the White House, at least not yet, Kate was determined to see that he should have another home as befitting to his status and dignity as his handsome new offices were. And at last she found it: a three-story Greek Revival brick mansion at the corner of Sixth and E streets. It boasted a bracketed cornice, a pedimented entrance at the top of a stone staircase, and elaborate architraves around all the windows. The basement story was embellished with rusticated stone, and a low cupola atop the roof provided additional light and ventilation that would bring welcome relief from the humidity of summer. Inside were comfortable living quarters for the family and servants, a quiet study for Father, and spacious, elegant rooms for entertaining. It was a tolerable walk to the Treasury Building and not much farther to the White House, where Father expected often to be. Kate toured the residence on her own first, as she had done many times before at many other vacant homes, but after examining the building from cellar nearly to rooftop, she promptly scheduled a second viewing later that same day for the rest of the family. Father approved of the house, and Nettie adored it, and so Father leased the residence, agreeing to pay one hundred dollars a month in rent plus two additional dollars a week for wages for Mrs. Catherine Vaudry, the colored housekeeper in their landlord’s employ. The expense was greater than Father had hoped to spend, considering that his salary was only eight thousand dollars a year, but it was quite reasonable for the size, location, and quality of the property. Father and Kate agreed that it was highly unlikely that they would find anything as suitable for less.
The residence was modestly but inadequately furnished, and while the foundation and structure were sound and the interior had been well kept, it was in desperate need of refurbishment. Kate was delighted when Father delegated this task to her. “You transformed our home in Columbus into an elegant, gracious residence where all visitors, from the most humble to the most illustrious, felt comfortable and welcome,” he said. “I trust you will do the same here, where we can expect to entertain the most celebrated men of our age—senators, foreign dignitaries, and, of course, presidents.”
She felt the warm glow that his praise always inspired when it came without qualification—so rare it had been, from the time of her earliest memories, that her father’s praise was not preceded by twice again as much criticism. She knew how important a gracious home and a skillful hostess would be to her father in his new, exalted position, and she was gratified beyond measure that he entrusted that role to her.
She knew too that no one else could perform it half as well as herself, for no one else knew him as well as she, and no one was more devoted to him, and to his noble ambitions.
With his usual stern, anxious admonitions not to spend any more than she absolutely must, Father dispatched Kate to purchase wallpapers, carpets, furniture, china, anything that could not be sent or needed to be replaced from their home in Columbus. It was with great pleasure that she obeyed. She soon discovered that there was nothing suitable to be had in Washington City, so she made several trips to Philadelphia and New York to obtain what she needed, choosing one object here, another there, accumulating the perfect furnishings over time.
It was while she was on an excursion to Philadelphia that Governor Sprague finally called at the Rugby House. She learned about his visit only upon her return, and she was disappointed that she had missed him, disgruntled that he could not have come on one of the great many days she had been in Washington, annoyed with herself for caring either way, and quite unhappy that the purpose for his visit had been to bid the Chase family farewell, for the following day he was returning to Rhode Island, to his governor’s chair and his bustling factories.
How fortunate it was that she did not care what William Sprague did, Kate reminded herself. She had hardly suffered from a dearth of interesting conversation in his absence; in fact, she had been only partly aware that he had remained in Washington after the Inaugural Ball. John Hay had called several times since that night, even though his work as the president’s assistant private secretary kept him terrifically busy. Mr. Hay intrigued her with his stories of the White House, he was respectful to her father, and he never forgot to bring along a little gift for Nettie—new pencils, a cloth-bound sketchbook. Only two years older than herself in contrast to Governor Sprague’s ten, he had been named “Class Poet” in the year of his graduation from Brown, and he could enchant her with an evocative sonnet as easily as he could amuse her with a lighthearted joke. Nor was Mr. Hay her only admirer—and if Governor Sprague chose not to apply that title to himself, that was fine with her. She certainly did not admire him, she told herself firmly, banishing the Boy Governor from her thoughts.
Her thoughts were full enough with other, far more important matters. On the day after the inauguration, the first item placed upon the new president’s desk had been a letter from Major Anderson at Fort Sumter, informing him that their provisions would be exhausted within a month, even though the men had already dropped to half rations. An addendum from General Scott acknowledged that he saw no alternative but surrender.
At the end of the month, President and Mrs. Lincoln hosted a state dinner, their first, for the cabinet members, their ladies, and a few other dignitaries. It should have been a delightful evening. The Blue Room looked splendid, a testament to Mrs. Lincoln’s refurbishment scheme. The food was excellent, the company interesting and pleasant—with the exception of the hostess, who was in a particularly peculiar and demanding mood, at least when she was alone with Kate. Apparently she had been brooding over an imagined snub ever since the presidential train had passed through Columbus in February and Kate had not been there to welcome her. Kate tried to explain that the Chases had already left for Washington because Father had been appointed to the Peace Convention, but Mrs. Lincoln obstinately refused to accept that as a legitimate excuse. It was all very strange, and in parting, Kate spoke to her more imperiously than she should have done. She regretted her choice of words, but Mrs. Lincoln had been simply impossible and Kate had reached the limit of her tolerance. She was not some meek schoolgirl the First Lady could lord over, and Mrs. Lincoln might as well understand that from the beginning.
As they rode home from the dinner, Kate expected Father to rebuke her for not showing proper deference to the president’s wife, but when he did not mention the exchange, she began to hope that its underlying tone had escaped him. “After the gentlemen withdrew to the Red Room,” she said, to distract him, and also because she was curious, “I saw Mr. Nicolay summon the cabinet into another chamber. I assume it was to discuss an important matter of state.”
“Yes.” Father inhaled deeply, weighed down by the cares of his office. “Mr. Lincoln read us a report from General Scott.”
“Bad news, I gather.”
“It could hardly be worse. The general believes it is now unlikely that the voluntary evacuation of Fort Sumter alone would have any effect upon the decision of those states now considering whether to remain with the Union or secede.”
“How dreadful—but is that really a surprise? Have you not said all along that surrendering the fort would only embolden the secessionists?”
Father nodded. “I have said so, but few in the cabinet have agreed with me. General Scott also believes that in order to persuade these wavering slave states to remain in the Union, we would have to abandon Fort Pickens too, to prove that President Lincoln will keep the promises of his inaugural address and not interfere with slavery where it exists.”
“The Union is meant to sacrifice two forts in order to keep eight states.” Kate managed a bleak laugh. “Some would argue that what General Scott proposes is a fair trade, perhaps even advantageous.”
“This is Seward’s doing,” Father said grimly. “He’s had a temporizing influence on the president all along. He’s long argued that if the president abandons Fort Sumter, the South would be appeased and would eventually return to the Union.”
; “That’s wishful thinking with no basis in logic, in my opinion.”
“Mr. Lincoln presented other arguments in his inaugural address that would be worthwhile to remember. He made a very convincing case for the illegality of any state to secede from the Union.”
“I suppose it remains to be seen which promise Mr. Lincoln will keep,” said Kate. “I cannot see how he can honor both.”
“Nor do I. Surrendering the forts would embarrass the North and tear the country asunder, and sending relief to Major Anderson could provoke an attack that would lead to civil war.” He fell silent for a moment. “The cabinet will meet again, tomorrow at noon, to discuss the latest intelligence from the South, and shortly thereafter, I expect Mr. Lincoln will make his decision.”
“I hope he’ll listen to your wise counsel,” Kate said, taking her father’s hand.
“Katie, dear,” Father said solemnly, “hope first that my counsel will be wise, for at this moment I don’t know how to advise him. From every direction I examine the problem, on the horizon, I invariably see war.”
Kate’s heart thumped, and she held his hand tighter.
They drove the rest of the way home in silence.
The following afternoon, Kate waited anxiously for her father to return home from the meeting at the White House. He brought stunning, though not altogether surprising news: After considering credible reports that Major Anderson’s position was untenable and that loyalty to the Union was dead in South Carolina, President Lincoln had determined to supply and reinforce both Fort Sumter in Charleston and Fort Pickens on Santa Rosa Island near Pensacola, Florida. The majority opinion of the cabinet agreed, with only Mr. Seward and Secretary of the Interior Caleb Smith dissenting.
How and when these relief operations would be conducted remained to be seen.
• • •
Even as he advised the president on the crisis in the South, Father was obliged to devote most of his long hours to the financial and fiscal affairs of the nation. As the former counsel for the Cincinnati branch of the Bank of the United States and the director of several Ohio banks, he was as well suited for his new position as any of his predecessors had been, and better prepared than most. He was well versed in prevailing economic theories, and his sound, logical mind and industrious temperament would enable him to educate himself quickly in the unfamiliar field of government finance.
What Father discovered in his first examination of the country’s ledgers was something just short of a disaster. The government was deeply in debt, with a mere three million dollars in its coffers against a total debt of almost sixty-five million. Corruption in the Buchanan administration, the Panic of 1857, and the rending of the Union had battered the nation’s finances, and with Congress out of session and thereby unable to authorize new taxes and tariffs to raise revenue, Father was forced to seek loans to meet expenses. At first the banks resisted, demanding higher interest rates than the nation could afford, but Father appealed to the bankers’ patriotism as well as their pragmatism and eventually managed to secure enough funding to keep the government solvent. “President Lincoln must hold the crumbling nation together,” Father grumbled to Kate over an increasingly rare chess game. “Secretary Cameron must defeat the rebels, and I must figure out how to pay for it all.”
But defeating the rebels was not entirely left up to Secretary Cameron, for Father soon took on numerous responsibilities that ordinarily belonged within the War Department. As a longtime resident of Cincinnati, just across the Ohio River from the crucial border state of Kentucky, Father naturally became the president’s chief advisor on the region. Mr. Lincoln relied upon him to take principal charge of preventing not only Kentucky, but also Missouri and Tennessee, from succumbing to secessionist threats from within. Father authorized a loyal state senator to raise twenty Union companies from Kentucky, and he composed the orders that granted Andrew Johnson, the only United States senator from a Confederate state who had remained loyal to the Union, to muster regiments in Tennessee. All the while, the president was mindful that secessionist sympathizers lingered, often unknown, in every department, with the potential to substantially undermine the security of the Union. Since official agents could not be relied upon, President Lincoln, with the unanimous consent of the cabinet, instructed Father to dispense millions of dollars to a small group of trustworthy private individuals who would be authorized to negotiate contracts for the manufacturing of weapons and supplies required to mobilize the military.
Father’s labors were many, and his daughters saw less of him as he toiled late into the night in his private office suite at the Treasury Building or rushed off to the White House for cabinet meetings at an unexpected summons from the president. With the house on Sixth and E streets not yet ready, Father encouraged Kate to undertake another shopping expedition to New York to purchase the last items they needed. Father’s good friend Hiram Barney had invited the family to visit, and while Father’s obligations made it impossible for him to leave Washington, the Chase sisters were happy to accept.
Mr. Barney had served as Father’s commissioner of schools during his first term as governor of Ohio, and they had developed a strong friendship based upon mutual trust and commitment to abolition. Four years before, Mr. Barney had moved from Columbus to New York, where he had established a successful law firm. A handsome man of fifty years with a deep cleft in his square jaw, a thick dark mustache, and iron-gray hair swept back from a broad forehead, Mr. Barney possessed an air of strength, sincerity, and purpose, and he had worked tirelessly to help Father win the Republican nomination for the presidency in 1856 and 1860. Although the ventures failed, Father never forgot Mr. Barney’s loyalty, and he was proud to have secured for his old friend one of the most prestigious and lucrative posts within the Department of the Treasury patronage, the collectorship of the custom house of New York. Mr. Barney stood to earn between twenty and thirty thousand dollars a year in salary and fees, more even than the president, and he controlled the posts of hundreds of subordinate employees. Mr. Seward, a native of New York State, had wanted to fill the post with one of his own loyal friends, but in this case Father had triumphed.
Kate and Nettie were met at the station by Mr. Barney; his wife, Susan; and the eldest of their six children, Will, a young man only a few months older than Kate. Slender and bespectacled, with a quiet, intellectual reserve, Will had graduated from Harvard College and had nearly completed his studies at Harvard Law School. Kate enjoyed his company, and she was also very much looking forward to reuniting with his younger sister, a lively, pretty girl of eighteen named Susan after her mother.
“My dear girls,” Mrs. Barney exclaimed, spreading her arms for Kate and Nettie’s embraces, which they happily gave. She was a slender, fair-haired, gentle woman, with long, graceful fingers that were almost always engaged in handwork of some sort, whether knitting or embroidery or playing sonatas on the family’s piano, which was faithfully kept in perfect tune.
After resting from their journey for a day at the Barneys’ lovely home in Spuyten Duyvil, Kate took care of her errands at the shops, and then spent a pleasant week reading, riding, calling on friends, and seeing the sights. She especially enjoyed Nettie’s delight in her first experience of New York, which she took in with wide-eyed wonder.
One evening Mr. and Mrs. Barney escorted the Chase sisters and their own two eldest children to a performance of the New York Philharmonic at the Academy of Music. Afterward they were outside waiting for their carriage when shouts and commotion down the block drew their attention. “Extra! War begun!” one young newsboy bellowed. “Fire opened on Fort Sumter!”
“Anderson returning fire!” another newsboy shouted on the street corner close behind them. Startled, Kate whirled about and spotted the lad, barely visible within a crowd of anxious pedestrians, who snapped up his papers as quickly as he could take the coins from their hands.
Mr. Barney lay his hand on his
wife’s shoulder for a moment before striding off toward the nearest newsboy. Instinctively Kate hurried after him, and when he opened the Tribune she read over his shoulder, scarcely able to breathe, as the terrible news was delivered in a column of bold, abrupt bursts:
WAR BEGUN! FIRE OPENED ON FORT SUMTER. ANDERSON RETURNING THE FIRE.
Reported Breaches in the Fort.
Alleged Success of the Rebels.
Three War Vessels Outside the Bar.
Firing Ceased for the Night.
Hostilities to be Renewed at Daylight.
Several Rebels Wounded.
Major Anderson Stronger than Supposed.
Taking a deep, shaky breath, Kate rested her hand on Mr. Barney’s arm and held on until her knees stopped trembling. Absently Mr. Barney patted her hand but kept his gaze fixed on the newspaper, his jaw clenched, the pages trembling slightly in his grip. Suddenly he folded the paper, tucked it beneath his arm, and murmured, “Come, Kate.” Numbly she kept pace with him as he escorted her back to the family, who had settled into the carriage and were looking anxiously down the sidewalk after them through the windows.
• • •
None of them slept well that night.
The next day, newspaper correspondents in the South reported that Fort Sumter had sustained so much damage that it had been rendered utterly indefensible. When Major Anderson concluded that their position was untenable, he had accepted General Beauregard’s terms of evacuation: He would be permitted to evacuate his command without surrendering his arms, and he and his men would be granted safe, unimpeded transport to the North.
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