Mrs. Lincoln's Rival

by Jennifer Chiaverini

  Early in the morning two days later, after sharing tearful farewells and promises to write often, Mr. Barney accompanied Kate and Nettie in the carriage to the train station, where he entrusted them to the care of Major Anderson. “There’s always a place for you in our home,” Mr. Barney said in parting, but although he smiled, his brow was furrowed, his eyes anxious.

  At noon their train pulled into Philadelphia, where a crowd had gathered in expectation of Major Anderson’s arrival. Rest had revived the exhausted officer, so he willingly stepped out upon the platform to greet the well-wishers, although he modestly declined their calls for a speech. Kate and Nettie stepped off the train too, for a breath of fresh air and a chance to stretch their legs, and while they were waiting for the whistle to announce their imminent departure, Kate spied what looked to be an entire company of blue-clad Union soldiers boarding the train. Among their gear they carried eight large, locked boxes, which evidently were quite heavy and very important, for they were never left unguarded. Nettie cleared her throat softly and nudged Kate’s arm gently with her own, so Kate knew her curiosity had been piqued too.

  Two officers broke away from the company and approached Major Anderson, and after edging closer, Kate overheard enough to learn that the company was also en route to Washington, and that they carried with them half a million dollars in specie.

  “What’s specie?” Nettie murmured in Kate’s ear.

  “Coins,” Kate said. “It must be contributions for the war—loans, perhaps, or funds raised from bonds.”

  “Will they be delivered to Father, do you suppose?”

  Kate smiled, imagining the soldiers solemnly carrying the heavy boxes to Father’s elegant office and dropping them with resounding thuds on the beautiful carpet. “I don’t think so, but if the specie is for the government, it will be in Father’s charge in a sense, even if it’s locked away in a vault and he never sets eyes upon it.”

  Nettie seemed intrigued by the idea, but at that moment the whistle blew, and so they hurried back aboard the train and returned to their private car, where Major Anderson soon joined them. “The two officers informed me that Baltimore is still dangerously unsettled, and the train tracks may not yet be in adequate repair,” he reported. “The company of soldiers you saw boarding the train will be taking a steamer from Perryville to Annapolis, and they have consented to let us travel with them.”

  “Thank you, Major,” said Kate, smiling warmly, although she wondered what dangers had occasioned the change to their itinerary. “I’m sure the journey will be even more pleasant by steamer. The Chesapeake Bay should be lovely today.”

  Three hours after departing Philadelphia, their train arrived in Perryville, Maryland, where the Susquehanna River emptied into the northern end of the Chesapeake Bay. They disembarked at the station to loud cheers for Major Anderson from yet another crowd of eager admirers, many of whom pushed forward to shake his hand. While they made arrangements for their luggage to be carried to the steamer William Whilden, Kate observed the soldiers filing off the train, their arms and gear made ready, and the eight heavy boxes under watchful guard. Studying the crowd as Major Anderson escorted her and Nettie to the wharf, she hoped that the presence of the hero of Fort Sumter would distract the throng’s attention away from the company’s precious cargo. The boxes were unmarked, so their appearance would not give away their contents, but their weight could not be so easily disguised.

  When they arrived at the wharf, they discovered that the soldiers had formed two lines flanking the route to the gangplank, and at Major Anderson’s approach, they stood at attention and presented arms. Visibly moved by the spontaneous show of esteem, Major Anderson walked between the lines and boarded the ship, Kate and Nettie following close behind, proud to share in the honor given to their escort.

  The William Whilden was not far off North Point, east of Baltimore, when a sailor shouted a warning that a ship had appeared in their wake. Kate, Nettie, and Major Anderson had been visiting the captain in the pilothouse, and they followed him as he strode out onto the deck and raised his spyglass to his eye. “I believe that’s a privateer,” he exclaimed, studying the unexpected vessel as it approached.

  Nettie seized Kate’s hand as the captain called for increased speed. “Does he mean pirates?” she asked, her blue eyes wide with alarm.

  “We’ll be fine,” Kate murmured, although her heart quaked. She thought again of the crowds of onlookers who had seen the soldiers carrying the heavy, unmarked boxes aboard the ship under vigilant guard. Any observer could have surmised that they held something of great value, and certain factions would also consider Major Anderson a prize worth capturing.

  “We’re pulling away,” someone cried out, and as Kate watched, clutching Nettie’s sturdy hand in one of her own and the railing with the other, it did appear that they were gaining distance on the other ship. Then there was a commotion among the crew on the deck, shouts of alarm, and suddenly a cannonball came booming through the air above their heads. Nettie shrieked and dropped to the deck, pulling Kate down nearly upon her. As Kate regained her footing and helped her sister to stand, the brigand vessel fired another shot, even closer than before.

  “They want to bring us to,” Major Anderson said, his gaze narrowing upon the vessel.

  “What will we do?” Kate asked. “Will they board us?”

  “They’ll never catch us,” the major said firmly. “Look. Even now the captain is crowding on steam.”

  Even as he spoke, the William Whilden surged forward rapidly, and as the distance between the ships stretched almost imperceptibly, other crew members dragged into position the steamer’s single cannon, a small howitzer, and prepared to defend their ship.

  “Major Anderson,” the captain called in between shouting orders to his crew, “I suggest you see your charges safely below.”

  With a brisk nod, the major took Nettie by the hand and offered Kate his arm. “Ladies, come with me now, if you would.”

  “Please let us stay and watch,” Nettie begged, although her voice trembled and her face was white with fear. Kate wanted just as desperately to remain on the deck, knowing she would be even more frightened if she could not see what was happening, but Major Anderson was resolute and she knew it would be futile and embarrassing to protest. Just before they disappeared down the stairs, she threw one last look over her shoulder and saw that the pursuing ship had run up a black flag. No mercy would be asked, and none given.

  Below, the minutes seemed to stretch on interminably, but just when Kate thought she couldn’t bear another second, they heard footsteps descending and Major Anderson appeared. “Our pursuers changed course and moved out of sight,” he told them. “The captain says you may return to the deck if you wish.”

  Nettie bounded to her feet and darted up the stairs, but Kate hung back to ask the major, quietly, “Do you know who they were?”

  “Confederates, we assume,” he replied. “Or privateers in their employ, or who share their sympathies. We’re not far from Annapolis, and the captain doubts they’ll dare approach us again.”

  Toward nightfall, when they landed at Annapolis, Colonel Benjamin F. Butler met Major Anderson on the dock, stocky and imposing in his blue uniform, entirely bald atop but with dark-brown hair grown long on the sides and back. His stern expression, bags beneath his eyes, and downturned mustache gave him the intimidating look of a belligerent bulldog, which Kate supposed was useful in his line of work.

  Their train for Washington City would not leave for hours, so Colonel Butler invited Major Anderson and the Chase sisters to supper at a hotel near the Maryland State House. When Kate inquired about his regiments’ journey from their home state to Annapolis, the colonel said that when they had arrived in Philadelphia, they discovered that the bridges were down and the Susquehanna ferry had been sunk. Marching his men on to Perryville, he commandeered the ferryboat Maryland and headed down the
Chesapeake Bay, bypassing Baltimore as Major Anderson and the Chase sisters had done.

  When Colonel Butler and the Massachusetts Eighth Regiment had arrived in Annapolis, they had found the rail lines torn up, the locomotives disassembled, the parts scattered, and all means of transportation to the capital destroyed. The enterprising men of the Massachusetts Eighth immediately set themselves to the work of laying the tracks, rebuilding the engines, and running the trains themselves. “When I saw the state of things,” the colonel said, “I called out, ‘Is there anyone here who can put together this locomotive?’ One of our privates replied, ‘Well, now, I guess so, Colonel, seeing as she was built in our shop.’”

  “How lucky,” Nettie exclaimed.

  The regiment had been assigned to guard the road from Annapolis to Washington, and Kate felt greatly relieved to know that one important route into the city would be protected by such resourceful, industrious soldiers. It was thanks to their swift repair work that at long last Kate, Nettie, Major Anderson, and the company of soldiers boarded the train in Annapolis for the last stretch of their journey home.

  On May 5, in the chill dawn of the early spring morning, Kate and Nettie arrived in Washington fatigued but happy, and very grateful to their kind escort. At the station, Major Anderson saw them and their luggage to a carriage, and then he left them to find both rest and breakfast before reporting to President Lincoln and Secretary Cameron.

  As the carriage rumbled off to the Rugby House, Kate and Nettie peered out the windows at the transformed city, marveling at the changes that had been wrought in the weeks they had been away. Washington had become one vast military camp, the streets filled with soldiers in bright new uniforms, troops quartered in nearly every available space. The park across the street from their hotel, Franklin Square, had been converted into an encampment for the Twelfth New York Regiment, filled with rows upon rows of precisely arranged white tents, with the commanding officer’s headquarters in the middle of the square, with an open space for marching and drilling.

  But no sight was more welcome than Father’s handsome face, his open smile, his expression of relief and joy, when he met their carriage outside the Rugby House and embraced them, welcoming them home at last.

  In the days that followed, Kate and Nettie would often look out from the windows of their suite upon Franklin Square, especially when the Twelfth New York performed their afternoon dress parade, which provided a daily source of delight and entertainment. When the sisters next visited the Capitol, they discovered that it had taken on the appearance of a large military fortress, with soldiers bivouacked in the great rotunda and sentinels constantly on patrol. Even the vaults under the terrace had been converted into an enormous bakery, producing thousands upon thousands of loaves of bread every day for the vast multitude of hungry soldiers who had descended upon Washington City.

  The immediate threat of invasion from the Confederates had passed, thanks to the swift response of the loyal Union states who had sent state militia and newly mustered troops to the capital to provide for its defense.

  One of the first of these regiments to reach Washington, Kate learned on the day she returned home, was the First Rhode Island Detached Militia and Battery, under the command of Colonel Ambrose E. Burnside and led by the dashing Boy Governor, William Sprague.

  Chapter Eight

  * * *

  MAY 1861

  T

  he gallant Governor Sprague, who struck a daring, romantic figure astride a magnificent white stallion as he galloped about the city on regimental business, was the talk of Washington society. Father, Vina, Mrs. Douglas, and other acquaintances referred to his grand arrival so often that soon Kate was able to piece together the story without asking too many questions and raising suspicions that her interest in William Sprague was anything more than the ordinary curiosity of someone who had been out of town during a time of great excitement.

  While Kate was stranded in New York, Governor Sprague had responded to President Lincoln’s call for troops by immediately writing to him to offer the services of Rhode Island’s light artillery as well as a regiment of infantry, a force of one thousand well disciplined, fully equipped, and completely trained men. It was said that he had given the state of Rhode Island one hundred thousand dollars of his own personal fortune to outfit the troops, and had himself purchased the ninety-six excellent horses that accompanied the artillery battery. One newspaper, noting that he was the only governor to lead his troops in defense of the capital, reported that he paid nearly all the personal expenses of his men, kept them supplied with clothing, and every month added ten dollars from his own purse to each man’s pay.

  With General Burnside in command, the governor had led the First Rhode Island Regiment to the beleaguered capital so swiftly that they were the second to arrive, beaten by the Thirteenth Massachusetts by one day. At that time the citizens of Washington City had feared that invasion from the South was inevitable and imminent, and so Governor Sprague received a hero’s welcome from a thankful, relieved populace. The ladies of the capital admired his debonair, dashing appearance, from his bold, decisive manner to the jaunty yellow plume he wore in his black felt hat. The men were impressed that a gentleman of his wealth and position bunked with his soldiers, making his bed beside theirs on the hard pine floorboards of the Patent Office, which had been assigned to them as quarters, and drinking water out of a tin cup like any humble private.

  On May 1, the day that Kate had written to Major Anderson asking him to escort her and Nettie home, Governor Sprague’s regiment had been sworn in before the president and a crowd of thousands of admiring spectators. After a dress parade from the regiment’s headquarters at the Patent Office to the White House, fifteen hundred men had raised their hands as they took the oath, their voices resounding as one, and then had presented arms and marched before the president, who reviewed them from the portico with Father, the rest of the cabinet, General Scott, and a few other dignitaries. After the troops had passed, Governor Sprague and his principal officers had been introduced to President Lincoln and the cabinet. “The president was so impressed with Governor Sprague’s regiment that he conferred with General Scott about summoning another regiment of Rhode Island men,” Father told Kate over a game of chess on her second night back from New York. “General Scott said he was so much pleased with what he had seen that he gave his hearty approval, as did Secretary Cameron.”

  “Will this be another Millionaires’ Regiment?” Kate asked lightly, citing the nickname the Rhode Island troops had acquired not only because Governor Sprague had outfitted them so richly, but because he was not the only man of wealth among the ranks.

  “That remains to be seen,” Father replied, allowing a smile. “I can say that since bringing his regiment to defend the capital, he has earned the admiration of the men, and apparently also won the adoration of the ladies. You would know more about that than I, Kate.”

  Kate froze in the midst of capturing her father’s rook with her knight, but immediately recovered when she realized that her father was only referring to her greater awareness of the sentiments of the female population rather than any adoration of her own. “He is very well spoken of,” she said indifferently. “He has certainly accomplished a great deal for a man of thirty-one. However, I think we should be grateful to all of our gallant protectors, not merely those who make a splendid appearance thanks to the wealth of a generous benefactor. Colonel Butler and the men of the Massachusetts Eighth, for example, impressed me very much at Annapolis, but few people here seem aware of their deeds, which were accomplished by sweat and toil.”

  Father looked surprised. “I thought you liked Governor Sprague. You seemed to enjoy dancing with him at the inauguration, and last year in Cleveland.”

  “I do like him,” said Kate. “I simply wish that people appreciated actual deeds more than appearances. What has the First Rhode Island done other than arrive and parade, while the
men of the Massachusetts Eighth have been rebuilding railroads and guarding the route from Annapolis to Washington?”

  “You make a fair point,” Father admitted, “but I hope you’ll be more circumspect when you see Governor Sprague again.”

  “You should know me well enough not to worry about that. I shall be perfectly charming.” She frowned as her father captured her bishop, which she had hoped to use to take his queen in two moves. “I don’t expect to see him, in any case. He sounds terribly busy.”

  “Of course you’ll see him,” Father said. “He called on me the day before you returned and seemed very pleased to learn that you would soon be home from New York. It was my impression that he intended to call on you.”

  “Oh.” Kate shrugged, laid her fingertips gracefully upon one pawn, pulled her hand away, and moved the one beside it instead. “I knew nothing of that.”

  “Do you not wish him to call? I could contrive a polite and credible excuse—”

  “No, Father, that isn’t necessary,” Kate quickly interjected. “I don’t object to seeing the governor again.”

  But Governor Sprague did not seem to be in any hurry to renew their acquaintance, and although she looked for him at the many parties and receptions organized to welcome the newly arrived officers to Washington, she always seemed to miss him by a few minutes or a few hours. She tried not to care. She had other matters on her mind—Arkansas seceded on May 6, Father seemed perpetually embattled with Mr. Seward for preeminence in the cabinet—and many other delightful, handsome gentlemen came to call, some with gifts of flowers, all with admiration in their eyes and respectful praise on their lips. It was from a few of these callers that Kate learned that not everyone was impressed by the warrior governor of Rhode Island.