by Bob Mayer
“He didn’t deign to see me,” Grant said with unusual venom in his tone. “I sat there all yesterday and today. Sitting like a fool in his adjutant’s office. Was told he was in meetings or out or kept with other business. There were many officers there armed with quills, Elijah. Quite an encouraging and rousing site. All those quills wielded by such martial men.”
“Men with quills can be dangerous men on occasion,” Cord said. “And you need a man with a quill to sign a piece of paper so you can get into this fight.”
“What about you?” Grant asked. “Will you seek a commission?”
Cord shook his head. “No. For me that’s a trap I cannot allow. I meant what I said in Mexico City.”
“But Ben will be safe overseas,” Grant said.
“When have you ever known things to work out the way they are planned?” Cord slapped Grant on the shoulder. “What if you go about it the other way?”
“And which way is that?”
“If you won’t ask the politicians to appoint you, query the men to ask for you as a commander.”
“What men?”
“The men you mustered in to service.” Cord gestured toward the street. “Look out there, Sam. The lack of discipline. The lack of good command of the volunteers. Men want to be led. Especially men facing combat. Find a regiment you recruited that has weak leadership and have the men petition their governor for you to command.”
“That’s undermining whoever commands—“ Grant began, but Cord cut him off.
“You got me to jump York,” Cord said. “I know you can lead. This will be between me and you and whichever of the men of the regiment you speak to. No one else need know. It’s better than sitting here and drowning your sorrows in whiskey. We’re both aware that goes nowhere.”
Grant nodded as the idea sank in. “It’s a path.”
“And you always get to your destination.”
12 June 1861, Palatine, Mississippi
Violet Rumble stood in the shadows and held the cleaver in her gloved hands. She watched Tiberius’s sweat-soaked chest rise and fall as he slumbered in the Mississippi June heat. The snoring was going to force her hand. The longer she stood there, the more convinced she grew of that. She had not shared a bed with her husband in fifteen years and she couldn’t remember if he’d made this God-awful racket back then, but she couldn’t imagine tolerating it for a night. Her nerves had been fraying for years and now that there was war, it seemed as if all was becoming unraveled, so she might as well follow the country’s lead.
The heavy curtains to the room were closed, preventing the morning sun from illuminating the room and keeping any semblance of a breeze from penetrating the stifling air that reeked of sweat and alcohol. Tiberius lay on his back, wearing only his leggings, the blankets and covering thrown to the side, his discarded clothes littering the floor. He’d been driven back in his carriage from a meeting of the local militia the previous evening, drunk and delirious with joy over the mustering of a local company, which Seneca would command.
It was the joy that had snapped her. She’d fumed all night in her sitting room, furiously reflecting on her life and all the golden moments when she could have made a different choice and gone down a different path, and how all those moments were now lost in the past.
All she had was the time left her.
So at first light, she’d gone to the kitchen and taken the cleaver. Violet took a step toward her husband. Another. She reached the edge of the bed and brought the cleaver up.
The door creaked open behind her.
“Mother!” Seneca’s hoarse whisper was more subdued than the snoring. More afraid to wake Tiberius than have his mother split his father’s head like a melon.
Violet’s hand trembled. A drop of sweat crawled down her nose, causing her to shift her focus from Tiberius to the glistening bead. It fell, staining her hoop skirt. Defeated once more, Violet lowered the cleaver. She walked out of the room, brushing by her youngest son without comment. She took the back stairs to the kitchen, Seneca hurrying to keep up. Violet slammed the clever down on the cutting board with a resounding whack.
“Mother, what—“ Seneca couldn’t find the words to ask the question to which he did not want to know the answer. He wore a fancy gray uniform, bare of rank and insignia, his sudden induction and promotion too fast for the accouterments to be sewn on. He did, however, still have his walking stick in hand.
Violet put on her brave face and smiled at her son. “You command the company?”
Seneca blinked. “Yes.”
“And you’ve read of war. I’ve seen the books you’ve been perusing this past year.”
“I have.”
Violet gestured for Seneca to follow. She walked to the back door of the house and down the stairs. Together they wove their way into her garden until they reached the angel fountain. Violet sat down on the wooden bench while Seneca remained standing, hands fidgeting with his cane.
“Are you afraid?” Violet asked.
Seneca started. “Of course not!”
“I would prefer you be afraid,” she said gently. “Fear has a way of making one wiser. When your brother came back from Mexico and retrieved Ben and Abigail, he would not speak of what he’d experienced. But I could see the effect. I don’t exactly know what it is like, although I have fought my own form of conflict, but I am certain war is not what your father or all those other men think it is. It is not all glory.”
“I will serve with honor,” Seneca said.
“I’d prefer you serve with intelligence,” Violet said. “Put honor on the back shelf if need be to come home.” She placed her hands on his shoulders briefly, looking up at him. “I want you to come home safely, son.”
Seneca was taken aback. “We go east in two days. By rail. The word is there’s going to be a great battle in Virginia soon and all this will be over after we whip the Yankees. They’ll learn their lesson.”
“Why are you being sent east?”
“The governor ordered it,” Seneca said. “He wanted Mississippi to be represented in the battle.”
Violet frowned but said no more on that matter. “And if you meet your brother?”
Seneca blinked. “He’s at West Point. Teaching riding, mother. I figure he’ll stay there.”
“I figured that for the last war,” Violet said. “I don’t like this. I don’t like this at all. Men are damn fools.”
“We have to fight, mother. We have to protect our way of life.”
“Why?” Violet waved off the question and asked a different one. “How does Rosalie feel about all that has transpired?”
“She’s not pleased,” Seneca admitted, “but she has her time full running her father’s plantation now that her mother is ill.”
“Rosalie’s a strong woman,” Violet said. “It’s good you give her a free hand to do what she does best.” She reached into her hoop skirt and her hand came back out holding a pistol from a hidden pocket. “Your father’s,” she said, handing it to her son.
“Mother!” Seneca took the Starr revolver in his hands. “Father will miss it.”
“He won’t,” Violet assured her son. She sighed. “It seems my fate to outfit my sons with guns as they go off to war. Lucius came back safely. I expect the same from you.”
Chapter Thirteen
13 June 1861, Springfield, Illinois
“Sir, given that we enlisted for ninety days and have been forced to accept three years of Federal service, we respectfully submit to you that we at least go into this war with a competent commander we can rely on.” The young captain who made this statement stood at rigid attention, a trickle of sweat etching its way down each dusty cheek.
Governor Yates, the de facto commander of all the regiments mustered into service in Illinois, leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers as he glared at the cluster of young officers crowded in front of his desk. The wood surface was piled high with paperwork and Yates had only made the time for this meeting because
he’d already received several reports of unruliness concerning the 21st Illinois Regiment, which had arrived in the state capitol at dawn. And it wasn’t noon yet. It was bad situation, which was only going to get worse.
“I could have you shot as a mutineer,” Yates said, having no idea if the term applied to soldiers in addition to sailors. Or if he could have the man shot, which seemed like it would just be a waste of an officer and a bullet, both of which were needed at the moment. A muscle twitched in the captain’s jaw and the other junior officers shifted uncomfortably.
“Did you come here just to complain or do you have a plan?” Yates finally asked.
The captain kept his eyes fixed on a spot above Yates head. His words tumbled out in a rush, obviously nervously rehearsed and delivered. “Sir, we were mustered into service by Captain Grant, formerly of the regular army. And a West Pointer, sir. And he fought in Mexico, sir. We request him as Colonel of the regiment, sir.”
“You do now? You request?” Yates was tempted to look over his shoulder and find what the young man was focused on. “Dismissed!”
The officers scurried out of the office. When the door shut behind them, Yates turned to his two advisors: the state auditor and an assistant in the adjutant general’s office; both men had their ear to the ground politically.
“I haven’t heard of this Grant fellow,” Yates said. He waved a hand over the piles of paper on his desk. “I’ve got requests for commissions from every favored son in the state. Why have I not heard of him?
“He’s from Galena,” the auditor said. “His father is Jesse Grant; runs a tannery.”
“That’s his father,” Yates snapped. “Grant’s a West Pointer, for God’s sake. How many of those do we have? Why hasn’t he applied for a commission?”
The assistant handed the governor a cigar. “This Grant fellow believes himself—“ he searched for a word—“separate from politics.”
Yates laughed. “That’s a change. But still. A West Pointer. Not many of those. What else should I know?”
The assistant and auditor exchanged a glance. “It’s rumored he drinks, sir.”
Yates laughed again. “Who doesn’t? Especially now. Hell, a drinking man may be just what the 21st needs. At least he’ll understand them.” He waved a hand. “Give him the commission and give him the 21st. I don’t want any more complaints from the mayor about rowdy soldiers.”
15 June 1861, West Point, New York
Lucius Kosciousko Rumble sat in the grass in front of his wife’s tombstone. The flowers he’d planted the first spring after her death were once more rising out of the ground at the base of the stone, searching for the light. They hadn’t yet blossomed and Rumble knew he would not be here for that event.
War beckoned.
“Our son will continue to be safe,” Rumble said in a conversational tone. “With what has occurred recently, you were even more right to get him out of the Corps. General Delafield asked me to accompany him to Washington in a few days. I’m to brief some war department bigwigs regarding my notes from the Mexican War, although the General is not confident they’ll listen. Still, if I can save a life or two, it’s most certainly worth the trip. Lil’ Ben will accompany me as he hasn’t been to the capitol. And to be honest, I’m not ready to say farewell to him yet.” Rumble held up a hand as if the stone itself were protesting. “Fear not, dear Lidia. I’ve arranged passage on a ship for him from Washington to Europe. It sails next month. His point of departure has only changed, not the fact of his departure. He’ll be safe in Europe and the war might well be over by the time he lands on those foreign soils.”
Rumble reached forward and brushed some leaves away from a new bloom. “All right. I can’t lie to you and never could. I don’t think the war will be over swiftly. It’ll be a bloody affair, much more so than most think as I’ve seen the mettle of the men who will command both sides and neither will back down. We taught them well here. Perhaps too well.”
Rumble’s head dropped slightly and he wiped a blue sleeve across his cheeks, brushing away the tears. They always came. No matter how many springs and how many blooms.
“Ben’s a fine young man, my dear. You would be most proud of him. And Abby is breaking many a cadet’s heart, but I keep close watch. Given current events, I will not allow her to accept some war-bound officer’s ring.”
Rumble reached out and ran his fingers over the words carved in the stone:
Lidia Rumble
Mother of Ben & Abigail
Heart of Lucius
1823-1842
Rumble took a deep breath, dropping his hand, and resuming his conversation. “Abby will stay here with Benny and Letitia while I’m in Washington. No traveling to Palatine, which I’m certain you’ll be glad to hear. Things on the plantation are worse than they ever were. And my mother wrote to say Seneca has donned the gray.” Rumble shook his head. “My brother in uniform is a sight I’d never thought I’d see, although, knowing Seneca, he will don the finest uniform available.”
Rumble bowed his head. “Sometimes I think it all started that day Agrippa saved me from the river. That all would have been as it should have been, the way mother and father planned it—“
“Who was Agrippa and why was I named after him?”
Rumble stiffened as he recognized his son’s voice behind him. He didn’t turn his head. “What are you talking about?”
Ben sat down next to his mother’s tombstone, meeting his father’s eyes. “I’m not deaf and dumb, father. You were just speaking of Agrippa and since I haven’t saved you from a river, it must be someone else. And I heard the whispers and saw the looks when I was at Palatine. Even though it felt like living in a prison, never being allowed out of the great house except on special occasions, I was still able to pick up some rumors and I know there was another there with the name. That place abounds in secrets and whispers. You gave me this name for a reason. If I’m going to be parted from you overseas for several years, I need to know that reason.”
“In case war consumes me and the story is lost forever?” Rumble asked.
“Let’s not speak of that,” Ben said.
Rumble stood, dusting the grass and leaves off his uniform. “Agreed. At least not in front of your mother.” He led the way out of the cemetery. Ben walked alongside.
“Imagine growing up at Palatine,” Rumble began. “Do you sense my mother’s plans for you?”
“She views me as heir to the plantation unless interrupted by Uncle Seneca and Aunt Rosalie having a—“
Rumble cut him off. “That’s one secret that has been withheld from you. They will never have a son. It’s impossible.”
“Might I know why?” Ben asked as they exited the cemetery and turned left, heading toward main post.
“You may not, as it’s a personal matter between your aunt and uncle.”
“Yes, sir.”
“My mother had plans for me also. So did my father. Back when they spoke to each other civilly, they hatched the great plan, which they envisioned as becoming my life. Graduating West Point was part of that. Beyond that, the plantation, politics, and more.”
“So marrying mother was not.”
Rumble nodded. “They had other ideas. I was disowned by my father as soon as he found out.”
“Why did you turn against their plan?” Ben waved a hand. “Sorry. That was a foolish question, having spent time at Palatine. It wasn’t the future you wanted.”
“It wasn’t,” Rumble agreed.
The Plain came into sight, a handful of cadets drilling. With more earnestness than in previous years.
“Father. Who was Agrippa?”
“My best friend and a slave.”
Rumble didn’t break stride, although his son paused in surprise for a moment, before catching up. Rumble continued. “Do you remember Mary? She passed away this past winter?”
“Of course. She practically raised me while I was at Palatine and you were in Mexico.”
“Mary might a
s well have been my mother also,” Rumble said. “She had a son, just six months older than me. Agrippa. We spent our youngest years together.”
“Then it’s natural he should be your friend.”
“It was not natural. Not in Mississippi.” Rumble stopped on the edge of the Plain and turned to his son. “You might have heard whispers at Palatine, but you never went to Shantytown, did you? You never saw the other side of the plantation. It was anything but natural for a white man and a slave to be friends. It happens, but no one speaks of it and you are supposed to outgrow it.”
“What happened?”
Rumble started across the Plain. “I thought I was doing a good thing.” He gave a bitter laugh. “It seems as if every time I think I do a good thing it turns out worse than I could have ever conceived.”
Father and son walked in silence. They reached the stairs to Kosciuszko’s garden. Rumble led the way to the small island of solitude. He gestured for Ben to sit on the bench, while he strode back and forth, unable to be still as the long bottled up story finally spilled out.
“We spent all our days together when we were small. From sunup to sundown since Mary worked in the big house and brought him with her. Of course, things changed when we came of age. Me for schooling and Agrippa for the fields. And that should have been it. No more friends, no more talking. But we’d grown too close. I was too alone in that big house as my mother dealt with my father. And Agrippa was too miserable in Shantytown and in the fields.
“So we would meet. Whenever the moon was full so we could see. On Sundays, when the slaves were given their only time off.” Rumble paused for a moment sighed deeply. “He saved my life.”
“The river,” Ben said, startling his father.
“How do you know that?”
“The way grandmother despises it. She would never let me near it unless carefully watched. And never allowed me to go in it. Constantly warned me against the Mississippi as if it were an enemy.”