But before I pen signature to this record, I wish to touch on two items remaining.
Getting the Thirteenth Amendment through Congress took the sum total of all I had learned in my four years in Mr. Lincoln’s office. Wrangling Southern sympathizers and Northern firebrands was a bit like chasing a number of foxes around a henhouse. Though the object is obvious, if conducted incautiously, the chickens can escape to their doom outside the coop. But after much wrangling of the chickens and abeyance of the foxes, we got the Amendment passed, and it is the capstone for my service—unelected though it might be—to this country. Abolishing slavery is, and was, the only solution to binding the nation’s wounds beyond the end of the war. I firmly believe that.
It might take generations, I know this. But we begin with this fundamental principle in Mr. Paine’s Rights of Man—as applied to all men—as a basis upon which we can reconcile two brothers so disparate in their individual beliefs. Over time, if we can avoid such bloodshed again, I know we can have not only peace, but a single, cohered nation, under God, dedicated once again to common principles.
As to the practicalities of the war’s end itself, I shall summarize: Gen. Grant’s strategy succeeded. Bobby Lee surrendered at Appomattox Court House less than a week ago, and Grant’s generosity of terms and show of personal respect for Lee and his officers set a tone for the future I wish to take up as a national anthem of sorts. Now that peace is born, though barely a week old, I intend to encourage its growth by extending the hand Grant offered Lee as a grander gesture, from the whole North to the whole South.
There is nothing to be gained by exercising the baser instincts of our natures, and in the end, after all, the South is my home too. No revenge shall be had. No subjugation shall be exercised. Only should the Union wish to stoke the still-burning embers of resentment and revolution should we extend anything but a welcoming hand to our Southern brethren; my countrymen, that is, even moreso after the war than before.
For if this bloodbath has proven one thing to me—the man as much responsible for it as John Brown or Harriet Beecher Stowe or any General or Private in either army—it is this: only virtue can salve the pain of personal suffering. Only patience, forgiveness, and a longer memory than that of the past five years can bind wounds so sorely inflicted by one brother on another. We must recall the time when we first became one family—some four score and nine years ago.
We must keep the demagogues of retribution in check, especially those sitting in Congress who have the power to couch cruelty in law. We must guard against the immoral impulse of those who would visit upon a burned town and its homeless residents the bitter elixir of the snake-oil salesman. We must avoid, at all costs, fueling those fires of resentment, Southerner for Northerner. For as long as those exist, opportunists like Napoleon III will seek to divide and exterminate our nation.
Let us remember that not even we ourselves could, in the end, do that; and God in His Heaven knows we tried. Shall we open the door to allow another, foreign power to so easily conquer us? No! Reconciliation, not retaliation, is what I shall preach from my presidential pulpit. Having so recently been reelected—by the narrowest of margins, to be sure—I at least have some time to bind up the wounds of war, and with them, God willing, the country.
Whoever you are, whenever you are, if anyone at all ever reads this—know that I am both a traitor and a patriot. I have served in each of these roles to both the North and the South. I am a murderer by proxy a thousand times over and more. I am a man for whom no citizen ever cast a ballot but who, like Paul, came to see the error of his ways and worked diligently thereafter to balance those transgressions on the scales of history. If God wills me to complete my term and perhaps one beyond that still, I shall do all I can to make this country whole again. And if He does not—well, the wisdom of Providence is beyond what man may know.
Evening comes and Mary is calling. The play, she says, is a comedic one, and comedies are known for their palliative qualities. It has taken me all day to write this, and reliving these events has made me melancholy. But also hopeful for the future. With that hope smiling in my heart, I will enjoy a laugh this evening at the play. I will, at long last, allow my mind to be at ease, knowing that the actors have no secret mission to fulfill and are, for once, mere players on a stage.
Jean-Pierre Barras
A Southern Son and Citizen of These United States
* * *
The general folded the last page in front of him.
Gerow watched him carefully. His commander sat with perfect posture as he stared down at the wrinkled document. The only window on his mood was how fast his jaw worked the nub of cigar in his mouth. He chewed quickly. Ash flicked down in a great clump on the paper, and Gerow reached out instinctively and brushed it away. The fire roared in the fireplace. It seemed almost, in the summer heat, a reflection out of its proper place and time.
“General?”
His commander cleared his throat as he took off his reading glasses. “How’d you come by this, Gee?”
“A junior officer was scouring the Archives diplomatiques, sir—the French archives of foreign affairs—for Nazi records of the occupation.”
The general glared, grumbling, “Yes, I speak French, Gee, thank you for the translation.”
He blinked once, then again. “It’s a hoax,” he said, tossing the glasses on the desk. His voice carried that tinny quality again, but weaker somehow. Gerow hated hearing the faltering tone. Weakness wasn’t something he associated with his commanding officer.
“Sir?”
“It’s a hoax. A flim-flam. Can’t possibly be true.” He rose, dragging the papers with him, considerably less concerned with their preservation than when Gerow had first handed them to him. The general began to move around the room, its battle maps and cognac and easy chair next to the fireplace forgotten. The sole item commanding his attention was now crumpled in his right fist.
“But sir,” began Gerow, “clearly the document appears to be real. The idiom of the speech, the age of the paper itself. We could easily have it authenticated by the boys in Intelligence. Why would anyone fabricate—”
“It’s a goddamned hoax, Gee!”
There it was. The discipline of command school overruling the fear of the individual. The general’s voice no longer sounded like an adolescent’s morphing into adulthood. It now epitomized the strength of decisive action.
Gerow went quiet. Clearly, the general was thinking as he paced. His feet on the marble floor click, clicked like the ticking of a timepiece.
If he really thinks the memoir a fraud, why is he so agitated? Gerow wondered. He stood up from the desk and moved quietly to the center of the room. He came to parade rest and waited.
“It has to be. It has to be a hoax,” the general repeated, his step slowing as he neared the fireplace. “Even so… it’s dangerous knowledge to possess. Dangerous to you… even to me. Information like this can get a man killed.” He turned to his subordinate. “This junior officer you mentioned… can his discretion be trusted? Do I need to personally talk to this man?”
Gerow considered it for a moment. “Your prerogative, sir. But he’s solid. He won’t say a word.”
The general nodded. He took what remained of the cigar from his mouth and turned his gaze to the fire. As the gruff career army man leaned on the mantel, heat wafted over him, and an orange glow flickered in his gaze. To Gerow he seemed to be staring through the flames, as if searching for answers on the other side.
Or in another time, maybe, thought Gerow. Another reality, where Lincoln had lived through the war and this letter had never been written.
The general tossed something into the fire.
“Sir!”
His commander turned, the document still clutched in his right hand.
Only the spent cigar. That’s all he threw in. Gerow’s stomach returned to his gut.
“You believe this is real, don’t you, Gee?” The general held up the memoir. The glo
w of the fireplace lit the pages from behind. Gerow could see the scrawl from the hand of its long-dead author. Tiny black marks on worn yellow vellum. Words that would change history. And, quite possibly, the relationship of two nations still allied against an unconquered evil.
Gerow drew himself up. “Sir, I believe that—”
“Yes or no?”
“Yes, sir.” Gerow swallowed. “Yes, sir, I do.”
The general nodded, turning back to lean on the mantel. “And if you do, so will others,” he said. Gerow saw him blink once, then again, the firelight reflected in his eyes. Then his commander threw the document into the flames.
“General Patton, sir! What—”
“We’ve just fought a war beside France,” his commander interrupted, turning to him. The crackle of the fire took on new life. “And another war is coming… the goddamned Bolsheviks are already planning how to carve up Berlin. If this got out…” Patton merely shook his head. “Hoax or no hoax.”
Cracks and snaps and fraying wisps of paper rode heated air up the ancient chimney.
“But sir, others must know! Surely, now, as Barras himself suggested, now that so much time has passed…”
Patton merely stared at him until Gerow stopped speaking. “Perhaps, perhaps not. But we can’t afford to take that chance. The world can’t. Not now. Another war is coming, Gee.” The general shook his head. “If this got out, it would only cost more lives in the long run. And every soldier’s life must count for something. It must be a glorious death with purpose, not merely thrown away. I think Mr. Barras would agree with burning the letter, given our circumstances.”
“But, General.” Gerow was exasperated, even despondent. Did he really just throw the letter into the fire? “Sir… what about history?”
His commanding general reached down to the small table next to his chair beside the fireplace. He picked up another cigar, carefully lit it, and puffed it into life.
“History is never the literal truth, Gee,” Patton said. “It’s just the truth we need it to be.”
About the Conspiracy Theory:
Abraham Lincoln
Everything in this story is absolutely true—except for the parts I made up.
Okay, to be fair, I made up the whole French-conspiracy-to-replace-Lincoln thing. And General Gerow of V Corps actually reported to General Hodges of First Army, not General Patton of Third Army. (Prosaic license, there. I couldn’t resist having Patton—who believed himself a reincarnated warrior of the past—decide the course of history.) Other than those things…
I exaggerate a little to make a point: the best conspiracy theories are grounded in just enough truth that they might be true—with just a dash of imagination applied to “the facts.” So, like any good conspiracy theory, I grounded my story in a historical reality that might have created such a circumstance as you find in my story. For example, not everyone agrees that Booth killed President Lincoln as the trigger-man for a Southern conspiracy. Like Kennedy’s assassination a century later, Lincoln’s death spawned its share of tinfoil-topped hypotheses.
In 1866, after finding a photograph of Booth in a box of Andrew Johnson’s things, none other than Mary Todd Lincoln wrote a letter accusing him of conspiring with Booth. (There are similar theories about Lyndon Baines Johnson and Kennedy.) Another Lincoln assassination theory involved a cadre of international bankers upset to the point of regicide because Lincoln refused to accept high-interest loans from Europe. Yet another put the entire Roman Catholic Church as the accessory to murder—it posits that Booth was merely the hired gun of the Jesuits. (Books have been written about that one.) And well-documented animosity existed between Lincoln and members of his cabinet; some even claim those hard feelings extended into the presidential box at Ford’s Theatre.
While I made up the idea that the Sûreté killed the president and replaced him with an agent of its own, much of what Jean-Pierre Barras describes of his times is historically accurate. Napoleon III and his European allies invaded Mexico in 1861 to collect on unpaid Mexican debts, but France was quickly abandoned by England and Spain after they determined the emperor’s intention was to conquer Mexico. One source I found specifically talked about Napoleon III’s desire to use Mexico as a base from which to limit the Manifest Destiny of the United States as it moved westward. Apparently, intelligence of this plan leaked to contemporary newspapers, and many assumed the French Emperor intended to ultimately cross the Rio Grande after subjugating Mexico. Napoleon III was no doubt encouraged in his ambitions by the disastrous state visit of Prince Napoleon to the White House in August 1861. Yep, that actually happened too—and was even more embarrassing than Barras describes it in the story.
Throughout and after the Civil War, one individual concerned by the French presence in Mexico was Lincoln’s secretary of state, William Seward. But Seward had to be cautious in dealing with the French threat during the war, when the Union could ill afford to drive such a wealthy power into the waiting arms of the Confederacy, which was desperate for a European ally. Dig a little bit, and you’ll find that fear of the United States going to war with France was very real in the 1860s. Is a French plot to assassinate and/or replace Lincoln so far-fetched after all?
And of course, there’s the death of Patton himself. He was injured in an auto accident on December 9, 1945, and died twelve days later. But a number of suspicious details surround the events of that day, and as a result, conspiracy theorists have long argued that Patton’s death was no “accident.” Could it have been because of his strong anti-Soviet sentiments? Or perhaps because he knew about a certain letter written by one Jean-Pierre Barras?
Why do we make up such elaborate theories about the deaths of great leaders like Lincoln, Kennedy, and Patton? Maybe, when you get right down to it, our need to believe in conspiracy theories is just another expression of existential angst. At the end of the day, maybe it’s difficult for us to accept that the simplest solution—one man pulled one trigger and changed all of history—is most likely the case. Maybe we want the complexity behind the cause of a great leader’s violent death to match that leader’s stature in history. Maybe we need to believe that the lives of great leaders—not to mention our own—aren’t so easily or trivially snuffed out.
I’d like to take a moment and thank David Gatewood for inviting me to participate in this anthology. I’m honored to be in a collection with so many authors I admire. The research was fun, and writing the story was even more of a hoot! As always, my wife Alison was my alpha reader and principal supporter throughout the writing process, so thank you once again, my best friend. And thanks to David Bruns, Ellen Campbell, Hank Garner, and Will Swardstrom for beta-reading it for me. Their feedback and encouragement helped me make it a better story for you.
If you want to find out more about me and my writing, please visit my website, or just email me and say howdy.
Manufacturing Elvis
by Jennifer Ellis
“I need you to do me a favor, Anna. A big one.” Charlie Rooney lifted his tufty grey eyebrows for emphasis.
Anna regarded the old man carefully while she swept some crumbs under the table with her slipper. Her grandfather was the purveyor of bad jokes, shots of rye, and fifty-dollar bills taped to a box of Turtles at Christmas. He did not normally ask for favors. “Sure, Gramps, what do you need?”
He’d seemed a little pasty and agitated when he’d arrived on her doorstep wearing his best driving hat and plaid wool pants. And now, sitting at her kitchen table, his cap on his thigh, he looked about as nervous as a man about to propose.
“I need you to take Dolores to the Bermuda Triangle for me.”
“What? Why? You like Dolores.” Visions of sending Dolores out in a two-passenger plane over raging seas flashed through Anna’s mind.
The tufted brows rose and shifted toward each other. “I love Dolores. What does that have to do with it? She’s got this Elvis thing, you know.”
Anna was well aware of Dolores’s “El
vis thing.” It involved a room in Dolores and Charlie’s small condo devoted to Elvis photos, Elvis albums, and general Elvis memorabilia, including a crocheted Elvis wall hanging, several Elvis bobblehead hula dancers, and a jar of dried grass clippings from the lawns of Graceland, which she had visited in 1986 with her now dead husband, Harold.
Dolores never hesitated to tell everyone, even perfect strangers, that she and Elvis shared a birthday: January 8, 1935.
Dolores also harbored the persistent belief that Elvis was alive.
She—and Elvis, according to Dolores—had just turned eighty. My sassy younger woman, Charlie liked to call her.
“Sorry, what does Elvis have to do with the Bermuda Triangle?” Anna asked.
“There was a sighting there. Recently. This one, according to Dolores, seems like it has some merit. You know the theory that Elvis was working for the DEA and had to disappear because he was testifying against the Mafia?”
Anna nodded. Dolores had frequently regaled her with theories regarding Elvis’s “disappearance.” She refused to call it his death.
“Anyway, it turns out the Bermuda Triangle might be controlled by the Mafia for drug trading. So it makes sense, to Dolores, that Elvis would be there. Anyway, she wants to go check it out. She’s booking the tickets today. Wants me to go with her.” Charlie clasped his sausage fingers with thickened knuckles together on the table and lifted his eyes furtively.
“So, why don’t you?”
“I’m ninety-six. I have prostate problems and I don’t like to use strange bathrooms. Besides, I bowl on Fridays. Bowling is important to me.” Charlie had gone bowling every Friday at the Valley Bowl Lanes for the past forty years.
“So… you want me to take her?” Anna said.
Tales of Tinfoil: Stories of Paranoia and Conspiracy Page 30