by Steve White
I’ll just bet it should! “Thank you, sir.”
Lee reached into an inside pocket of his coat and pulled out a pad of paper. But before he could write anything, an annoyed frown crossed his face. “Actually, Captain, I’m very nearly late for an appointment to see the president. It shouldn’t take long. I’ll give you the dispatch and write out the requisition afterwards.” He started to turn toward the mansion, then seemed to have an afterthought. “You may accompany me inside to wait, Captain, as it’s somewhat chilly out here. I’m sure your men can wait in the kitchen, for the same reason.”
“Thank you, General. That’s most considerate.” Jason turned to Mondrago. “Sergeant, see to it.” He could hardly bear to meet Dabney’s stricken eyes. He was certain the historian would literally have given an arm for the opportunity that he, Jason, was about to have. But he couldn’t think of a good excuse for “Private Dabney” to accompany him into the precincts he was about to enter.
As he followed Lee toward the steps leading to the front entrance, Jason belatedly remembered to activate the recorder function of his implant by direct neural command. Now everything his eyes saw and his ears heard would be preserved on a minute disc that would be extracted from a slot in his right temple on his return to the twenty-fourth century. That disc’s storage capacity, though vast beyond the conception of earlier eras, was of course not infinite, so the recorder didn’t function continuously. So far on this expedition, Jason had used it only intermittently—to record the faces and voices of Mary Bowser and Elizabeth Van Lew, for example. Now he simply left it on.
They were ushered into an oval entrance hall with two niches containing life-sized plaster statues of ladies clothed in styles Jason had seen in fifth century B.C. Athens, holding gas-jet lamps that were cutting-edge technology for this milieu. Through a door straight ahead, Jason glimpsed a parlor elaborately decorated in the “Rococo Revival” style. But Lee turned through a door to the right and ascended a circular staircase whose well, like the entrance hall, featured marbleized wallpaper and niches from which Classical ladies gazed. Emerging onto the second floor, they turned right into a stair hall which functioned as a waiting room, judging from a fanciful mahogany hat rack and several chairs. Here, the furnishings were relatively plain and functional. Under the stairway leading up to the third floor was a kind of pass-through connecting to a tiny office where a handsome but overworked-looking man could be glimpsed. Lee led the way around a corner to the door of that office, and the man immediately rose to his feet.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Harrison,” Lee said. “I believe I am expected.”
“Of course, General,” said the man, who Jason gathered was Jefferson Davis’s secretary. “The president will see you at once.” He turned to a door immediately to the left of his, opening onto a much larger office. “Mr. President, General Lee is here.”
From his position behind Lee, Jason could look over the general’s shoulder and glimpse a tall man, gaunt to the point of cadaverousness, rising slowly to his feet behind a desk. In contrast to the full-bearded Lee, he had only a tuft below the jaw, with the front of the chin shaved. His cheeks were hollow, his nose sharp, his eyes pale blue-gray. Jason recalled Dabney’s verdict on Jefferson Davis: A brilliant man in many ways … but not exactly what is called a “people person.”
“Please wait in the stair hall, Captain,” said Lee, adding with a twinkle, “I’ll only be a few minutes with your compatriot.” Jason recalled that Davis was from Mississippi.
Jason turned back to the waiting room and settled into one of the leather-seated chairs. From only a few yards away, the voices from the president’s office were, to normal hearing, only a mumble. But the recorder implant’s pickup could be adjusted to amplify them, which in turn made them audible to Jason. At first the conversation consisted of commiseration by Lee over Davis’s poor health, and other pleasantries. Then Lee’s voice took on a getting-down-to-business tone.
“Mr. President, I asked to see you privately while I am in Richmond so that I can speak freely. We both know that our cause has suffered many reverses in the last few months, beginning with the fall of Atlanta in September, followed by Sherman’s devastating march through Georgia—”
“An act of barbarism without parallel since the days of Attila the Hun!” Davis’s voice was thick with anger.
“—and most recently the overwhelming disaster suffered by the Army of Tennessee at Nashville, of which the word arrived by telegraph only today.”
“Yes. General Hood was too rash.”
“However, these are not the only misfortunes to befall us—and the Army of Tennessee in particular. I am thinking of the death of Major General Patrick Cleburne just over two weeks ago at the battle of Franklin.”
“Yes. He was a brilliant and heroic soldier—‘the Stonewall Jackson of the West,’ men called him.” Davis’s voice took on a shrewd edge. “But I do not believe it is because of his exploits on the battlefield that you bring him up, General. In fact, I think I see where this is leading.”
“You are too perceptive for me, Mr. President.” Jason could almost hear Lee’s smile. But then his voice grew somber. “Almost a year ago General Cleburne did something which, in my opinion, required more courage than facing an honorable death in battle. He openly declared that we should recruit slaves for our army, offering freedom to any who would serve.”
“Yes. I remember all too well the hornet’s nest he stirred up. I had no choice at the time but to order our officers to let the matter rest.”
“But as you know, it refused to remain at rest. As our military prospects grew—and it must be said—increasingly desperate, other voices were raised. And only last month you yourself had the wisdom to propose a compromise under which the Confederacy would purchase 40,000 slaves for military labor but not for armed service at that time, although possibly at a later date, after which they would be emancipated.”
“You will also be aware that the Congress refused to accept my proposal.” Davis paused. “I know your views on this matter, General—and, indeed, on slavery itself. I recall that you freed your few inherited slaves.”
“I have never been comfortable with the institution. Indeed, I have called it a moral, social and political evil, and I meant it. I have sometimes thought that, if tempered by humane laws and Christian sentiments, it may be a necessary evil, allowing the two races to live together in peace for now in the present state of society’s development. But its day is clearly over. To put it bluntly: either we will free our slaves or a victorious North will do it for us. As for emulating George Washington in the Revolution and offering freedom to slaves in exchange for loyal service to our nation … yes, I have favored that course for some time.”
“And have been urging it on me repeatedly, while pressing for it through other channels as well. Yet you have not spoken out publicly.”
“I have not thought it appropriate to do so, Mr. President, especially in light of your earlier ban on discussion of the matter by officers. But now, in our nation’s extremity, I cannot keep silent much longer.” Lee paused, then continued earnestly. “I have watched, heartsick, as our troops freeze and starve outside Petersburg in the mud and filth and misery of the trenches they have dug to take shelter from the indiscriminate slaughter of today’s weapons—hardly war as you and I grew up believing it would be like. Certain wits in the ranks, evidently familiar with at least the title of Monsieur Hugo’s celebrated novel, have taken to calling themselves ‘Lee’s Miserables.’” Even the famously humorless Davis chuckled. But Lee continued in dead seriousness. “For six months they have held at bay an army of inexhaustible numbers and ample supplies. Even when those people tunneled under our lines and ignited the greatest man-made explosion ever seen on God’s earth, our men sealed the gap at that monstrous crater and continued to hold. But mortal flesh can take only so much. The odds are too great. Our men must be reinforced, or their suffering will have been for naught. But our white manpower is exhausted. It is
my belief that the Negroes would make excellent soldiers—as, indeed, many thousands of them already have, wearing the uniform of blue—if offered the incentive of freedom. And I am now prepared to say so openly.”
The silence lasted long enough to make Jason wonder if there was something wrong with his recorder implant.
“You realize, of course,” said Davis at last, “that there are those who will say that the course you propose calls into question just what our secession from the United States was for. Some who would rather lose the war than win it by arming and freeing the Negroes.”
“Then, Mr. President, our Confederacy must decide whether it wishes to keep its independence or keep its slaves. I fear it can no longer do both. For make no mistake: if the Negro becomes a soldier, he can never again be a slave. I do not presume to dictate your choice in this matter. I merely put the issue squarely before you.”
There was another long silence before Davis spoke. “You know that I agree with you. I only wish we had acted as you propose long ago, before Lincoln’s hypocritical ‘Emancipation Proclamation’ that didn’t free a single slave in the border slave states still adhering to the Union. That would have taken the wind out of the Yankees’ canting self-righteousness! But the political problems … !” He audibly drew a deep breath. “General, I will only ask this: maintain your silence for another two months. Then, I believe, the time will be right to propose it to the Congress.”
“I fear, Mr. President, that by then it will be too little and too late.”
“You do not understand the difficulties of my position!” Davis lowered his voice. “General, I pray you to indulge me in this. Your endorsement, issued at just the right time, will undoubtedly assure the measure’s passage.”
“Very well, Mr. President,” sighed Lee. “Have I your leave to go?”
“Of course. Oh, and General …” Davis’s voice took on an almost ingratiating quality. “It will not be made official until the end of January, but I have the pleasure to tell you informally that I intend to appoint you General-in-Chief of all the armies of the Confederate States!”
“Thank you, Mr. President.” Lee’s voice was oddly somber, as though he wondered how long there would be any such armies left. “But I am unworthy of such an honor.”
“Nonsense! It is long overdue. And I fancy the announcement will have a heartening effect on our people. As you are no doubt aware, they have come to regard you as their great defender, under whose leadership our arms cannot fail.”
“If, indeed, they place such exaggerated confidence in me, I can only do my poor best to justify it. Good day, Mr. President.”
Jason shot to his feet as Lee emerged from the president’s office and entered the waiting room. As they turned toward the circular staircase, there was a burst of childish laughter from behind them. Turning and looking through a door beside the stairway to the third floor, Jason could glimpse what looked like a nursery. Three children—a girl of nine or ten and two boys, apparently aged about eight and three, came running out, squealing. They were followed by another little boy, obviously of half-African descent. The girl took him by the hands and swung him around, sending him spinning off and causing him to collide with Jason’s booted legs. He looked up with round dark eyes. Jason wondered who he could be.
“Children! That will do!” A dark-haired woman of about forty, no beauty but not unhandsome, bustled out of the nursery carrying an infant. “You must excuse Jim, Captain … Oh! Good day, General Lee!”
“Mrs. Davis,” said Lee with a courtly inclination of his head. “I am pleased to see you and your children are in good health.”
“Excessively robust health, as some might say! Come, children.” Varina Davis, first lady of the Confederacy, hustled her brood, including the biracial boy, back into the nursery.
As they descended the staircase, Jason worried that Lee would be too preoccupied with weightier matters to remember the requisition. But once on the street the general wrote it down and handed it to him along with the dispatch for the cavalry corps commander—which, Jason reflected, General Hampton would have to get along without. He wondered why that troubled his conscience.
“Farewell, Captain Landrieu,” Lee said as he returned Jason’s salute. “Give my best regards to General Butler. I know you will continue to honorably perform your duty.” A shadow crossed the still-handsome face. “As will we all.” Then he turned, boarded the carriage, and was gone.
Only then did Jason notice that a baker’s wagon was in front of the kitchen. Mary Bowser was there, in furtive colloquy with the driver. In the guise of reassembling his men, Jason walked over as the driver gave a final nod and departed.
“I’ve got to get back inside,” Mary Bowser told them. “But here: this is a note for Gracchus.”
“I see it’s in Elizabeth Van Lew’s code,” Jason noted.
She smiled briefly. “Yes. It comes in handy even in ways she doesn’t know about.”
“But where is he?”
“Rectortown, up in Fauquier County. You’ll just have to find him.” She handed him another note, this one in plain language. “This is the only address I have that might do you some good. Memorize it, and then destroy the note.”
“Right.” Jason started to go, but curiosity got the better of him. “Let me ask you something. When I was inside, I saw the Davis children, and there was this little black boy with them. Mrs. Davis called him ‘Jim.’ Who was he?”
“Oh, that’s James Henry Brooks—or ‘Jim Limber’ as they call him. He’s the son of a free black woman. His stepfather was mean to him—real mean. Mr. and Mrs. Davis got him out of there and have brought him up with her own children. He’s their inseparable playmate.”
“I see. That was good of them. But it almost seems … well, sort of incongruous …”
“Yes. I know what you’re trying to say.” Mary Bowser sighed. “The Davises are not bad people. There are a lot of slaveowners who aren’t bad people.” Jason thought of Lee. “But there are those that are. And when you’re a slave, all you can do is trust to luck that you’ll get the first kind, because there’s no limit to what the other kind can do—no real limit, because how can laws against cruelty be enforced when slaves’ testimony isn’t admissible in court? It’s slavery itself that’s evil, even when the people aren’t.”
Dabney spoke softly, as though quoting:
“Bury the unjust thing
That some tamed into mercy, being wise,
But could not starve the tiger from its eyes
Or make it feed where beasts of mercy feed.”
Mary Bowser looked at him sharply. “What?”
“Oh, it’s from a poem. You won’t have heard of it.”
She looked at him, and at all of them in turn. “I don’t know who you are, and I don’t need to know. I’m not even sure I want to know. But good luck in your own war.” She turned and vanished into the kitchen.
“What was the poem?” Jason asked after a moment.
“John Brown’s Body, by Stephen Vincent Benét. The reason she hasn’t heard of it is that he’ll write it in 1929.” Dabney shook himself and turned to Jason with a pleading look that would have melted the heart of an iron statue. “Commander, please tell me what you saw and heard in there.”
“You’ll have a chance to review it all when we get back and my recorder implant is downloaded,” Jason assured him. But he recounted Lee’s meeting with Davis. Dabney nodded his head sadly.
“Yes. Lee will go public with his long-standing support for freeing and arming the slaves in mid-February. And in mid-March—about three weeks before the fall of Richmond—the Confederate Congress will narrowly pass a bill to enlist black soldiers … but without offering them freedom, although Davis will override that part by executive order.”
“What!” blurted Mondrago. “You mean to say they expect the slaves to …” He trailed to an incredulous halt. “Talk about too little and too late!”
“Lee used those exact words, just n
ow,” Jason recalled.
“He would,” sighed Dabney. “He was always ambivalent at best about slavery. And he was flatly opposed to secession—spoke out against it strongly, in fact, arguing that the framers of the Constitution wouldn’t have gone to all the trouble if they’d intended for the Union to be broken up at will by any of its members. But once his Virginia voted to secede despite his advice, that was the end of it as far as he was concerned. He turned down an offer from Lincoln to command the United States army. Only a stern sense of duty induced him to accept a commission from the nation he would come to symbolize, and which he kept alive for four years against impossible odds.”
They all turned as one and looked down Clay Street, where a departing carriage could still just barely be seen.
“He was,” Dabney said simply, “the last of the knights.”
CHAPTER TEN
Three days later they were riding through Fauquier County, Virginia in steadily worsening weather.
Lee’s requisition had worked its expected magic at the Government Stables. Officials had practically fallen over themselves in their haste to provide “Captain Landrieu” and his men with the best mounts available. Of course, that didn’t mean as much as it once would have, even though the Confederate government still had agents making the rounds of horse farms and buying all the horses they could with increasingly worthless paper currency and even more worthless promissory notes. There simply weren’t as many horses to be had as there had been earlier in the war, and the conditions under which they were raised were harsher. So the agents brought in horses that were too young or poorly nourished or both.
Still, the time travelers had been given their pick of what was available, and they also got tack whose leather was still supple, not dry and stiff. They had even been able to obtain items like bedrolls and rations on the side. The rations consisted mainly of the corn bread which the Southerners generally used in place of the Yankees’ hardtack, and which attracted vermin even better than the latter. They had no intention of eating it except as an alternative to starvation.