1 January 1814, Saturday
New Year’s Day
The day was a triumph, but I must remind myself why it is important to create these social extravaganzas. My thoughts return to the children orphaned by the war and to the women left young widows. I was once a young widow. I wish it upon no woman.
Everyone attended except for those too feeble to walk. The war hawks turned out in full force, but then, so did the Federalists.
Henry Clay, impeccably dressed as usual, appeared older to me tonight. I noticed that his hairline is receding. Or maybe it’s me. For some reason everyone looks older. I notice the crow’s-feet around eyes, the slight downturn of mouths once upturned. Clay, surrounded by supplicants as well as enemies, could barely move. I wanted to speak to him in private but it will have to wait. Perhaps getting this war, which he wanted so badly, is aging him.
Suffice it to say that I, too, am showing my age, and again I credit the war. My hair stays jet black, for which I am grateful, but if I weren’t just a bit plump, the wrinkles would be plain to see.
Well, I’m not losing my vision. Anna is, and she is so much younger. Well, she’s not actually losing her sight, but I observe that she’s beginning to hold papers farther and farther from her face when she reads. Apart from that she remains as lovely as ever.
When I was young, I don’t think I noticed people’s age as much as I do now. Odd. I wonder why?
Louis Serurier was as delightful and amusing as ever. Strange, I feel as though I’ve known the Seruriers all my life.
How different from the last French minister, General Louis Marie Turreau, with those ferocious black mustaches. They bent each time he passed through a door! His face was as red as a Harvard beet. An unfortunate word, for he mercilessly beat his wife, a most intelligent and generous woman who managed to keep her good humor despite her loathsome spouse. I seldom spent a moment in her company but what I cracked my sides laughing.
The fierce general disported himself amongst the whores of Washington with such alarming frequency that I doubt there is a single one in Washington who has not been visited by that loathsome man—or by Mr. Clay either, for that matter!
Why marry a woman if you’re going to betray her, and if you’re going to betray her, why beat her? The fault is not hers. Not all horrors are the horrors of war. I sometimes think the worst we do, we do behind closed doors.
Thank God both my husbands were tender, decent men. For a woman who never wanted to marry, I hit sevens when I cast the dice.
Senator Brown was explaining craps to me, and if you roll seven or eleven, you win the pot. I do love games of chance and I’ve lost too much money playing cards. My New Year’s resolution is, no more cards. Of course, dice are different from cards and—no, I mustn’t even entertain the thought, although I’d love to see Elizabeth Monroe’s face if I suggested a genteel game of craps at our next Dove Party. Usually my distaff Cabinet meetings are pleasant, but sometimes, when Mrs. Monroe sees fit to tell us how things are done in New York, I count to ten. It’s been a very long time since she lived in New York. How odd that she and I have known each other for years and yet we’ve never become close, and I’ve known Madame Serurier but a brief time and feel that she is almost a sister.
I miss my darling Payne terribly, and I haven’t heard from him in months. I hope Jemmy and I did the right thing by allowing him to go to Russia. I’m curious to hear about the Czar. They say Alexander is a handsome man, robust and blond. What sufferings those people have endured. Remarkable as Bonaparte may be, it is hard to think of his Russian foray as anything but a celebration of death.
How can Napoleon continue? He knows only victory. I should think it would dull the senses.
I’m so tired I can’t hold up my head.
Until the morrow, God willing.
D.P.M.
The wood grain in the smooth dark table appeared to vibrate before James Madison’s eyes. He touched the wood. The papers on the desk in front of him refused to budge. The message was no illusion. The wood grain wasn’t vibrating, but Mr. Madison’s head was. His pocket watch told him it was three o’clock in the morning. Everyone had gone to bed. He could be alone with his worries.
Even though he knew better, it was only human to hope, especially at the turn of a new year. At the start of 1813 he had replaced his Secretary of War with John Armstrong, but Armstrong was not proving to be much better than William Eustis.
The coastal blockade was driving the New England states to new pitches of commercial fury; yet even while they wept and wailed about lost profit, a sentiment the President certainly understood, they sold goods to the enemy, an action he deplored. The representatives from New England and New York, ever sensitive to the sound of a falling dollar coin, skillfully deflected investigation of what some called treason.
Rufus King appeared to be a mediating influence between Federalists and Republicans, but he needed to hold on to his Senate seat the same as anyone else did. New York politics was a dogfight.
No nation with seventeen ships, three of them frigates creaking with age, ought to declare war on a nation possessing one thousand warships, bristling with guns of fabled precision.
No nation with six thousand Regulars in its Army ought to declare war on a nation whose Army was like a splendidly ordered infernal machine, a machine true and tested by the Napoleonic Wars. The United States officers were either aged Revolutionary veterans, as creaking as the frigates, or young men who had never fired a shot at an enemy and, more telling, had never withstood the shot fired back.
Madison hoped his fellow Republicans Henry Clay and John Calhoun were happy. They had lusted for this war. They had forced his hand. Oh, how the shine of ambition glowed on their young faces, each man believing his destiny was to be President. Well, the presidency was more a curse than a prize. Madison had watched the highest office in the land age Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and now himself. He hadn’t been very young when he entered the office and now was in his sixties. The presidency could kill a man.
Lack of good fighting men could well kill the infant nation, although at least Lieutenant Colonel Winfield Scott had captured Fort George and General William Henry Harrison looked bellicose. There was an officer patrolling the South, Andrew Jackson, who was aggressive. All was not lost on land, but by and large the Army was shabby, its leaders worse.
The irony of this war was that the few celebrated victories were on the waters against perhaps the greatest naval power the world had ever known.
That was no comfort to the people of Buffalo.
Nor would there be any comfort for the President tomorrow when he would ask for the court-martial of Brigadier General William Hull. Better to see if there’s discussion within the Cabinet than to order to court-martial outright. That would seem high-handed. Hull had surrendered Detroit on August 16, 1812, without a shot being fired. Although his men were not even outnumbered, Hull had heard of British General Isaac Brock’s alliance with the Shawnee chief, Tecumseh. Fearing the possibility of superior enemy numbers, he caved in without a fight. What did Hull think, that ten thousand Indian braves would spring up overnight? The sorrow of this mess was that Hull had been a good officer in the Revolutionary War.
Congress needed a scapegoat, and Madison, in the eyes of the Federalist Party, fit the bill. But relations between the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans, called Republicans by most people, were so rancorous that no Republican President could have repaired them, or so Madison believed. Now his enemies would say he was using Hull as his scapegoat. After all, the President was the commander in chief and he had picked the coward. Maybe Hull was just too old. Maybe Madison was too old.
On the surface of it, a court-martial had nothing to do with party politics. But there would be someone with something to lose, and someone with something to gain. There always was.
George Washington, towering at six feet four in his boots, had enjoyed good relations with Congress during his presidency. James Madison co
nsidered the likelihood that George Washington was the only United States President who would ever enjoy good relations with Congress. As for himself, he was faced with a body of men in which even some malcontents of his own party schemed against him, and lately it seemed as if their number was swelling. The balance of seats, narrowly held by the Republicans, ensured constant fighting in both houses and no comfort for James Madison. While he had been reelected in 1812 by an electoral college vote of one hundred twenty-eight to DeWitt Clinton’s eighty-nine, he had never known the ease of a clear majority in Congress. He was constantly accused of being ineffectual in working with the legislature, an arena in which he had excelled as a young man.
Wouldn’t John Randolph, the supreme Republican dissenter, steeping in his own bile down in Roanoke, thrill to the news of Buffalo? The President thought a moment. Randolph would take no pleasure in the miseries of the people of Buffalo, but he would rejoice in the miseries of the President. John Randolph loathed Madison almost as much as he loathed Jefferson. James Madison hoped that out of Congress, Randolph would cause less mischief than he had when he was in office. With Randolph, one could never be sure.
Years ago, when John Randolph strode into Congress with his pack of hunting dogs and unleashed them on the delegates, Madison had decided he was deranged, though capable of brilliance. Now he was convinced that the genius had withered and Randolph was quite mad, seeing an incipient autocrat in every President. The President was also convinced that Randolph, in some sly way, was making contact with Madison’s bitterest Federalist enemies in New England—men who had been Randolph’s own enemies. Randolph was more obsessed with bringing down Madison than with coming back into politics himself. Well, if the two should coincide, so much the better for Randolph. He was convinced that Madison was leading the Republicans away from their—meaning Randolph’s—principles. The purity of his party meant more to Randolph than did winning the war, whereas for Madison winning the war meant life or death.
The President had no proof, not a scrap, that Randolph was up to anything, but he was wary. Pray God Randolph didn’t make an alliance with DeWitt Clinton. The mayor of New York wielded considerable power. Clinton thought Randolph mad, too—Madison knew that—but madmen can be useful. Even though Clinton was no Federalist, his goal was to break up what he saw as the Virginia dynasty. Then, too, Madison’s administration had refused DeWitt Clinton’s motion for his pet project to build a canal linking the Hudson River with Lake Erie. Clinton was passionate about that canal. Not that Madison held any animosity toward his former presidential opponent; he didn’t, but Clinton was a New York man and New York was seeing more of this war than its people imagined it would.
Would there be a state left untouched before the war was over?
John Armstrong, secure in his belief, which was unsupported by fact, swore the British would never drive toward Washington. The Secretary of War felt the theater of conflict would remain in the Great Lakes and perhaps the Mississippi.
Could Madison replace a second Secretary of War so shortly after removing the first one?
The gray sleet poured down harder. Madison got up from the desk to look out the window. The weather accentuated his misery. If the United States lost this war, its back would be broken. No foreign nation would feel compelled ever to consider its welfare. The strain of the war, the defeat, and the mounting debt might then force an internal crisis. If the United States cracked open to form new, smaller nations, the states of the Union would be picked off, one by one, by the great gilded vultures of Europe.
The United States had to win this war.
How?
2 January 1814, Sunday
Buffalo has been burned. And so the war continues like a bloody dye spreading over our country. Even if the flood recedes, I worry that a deep stain will stay in our hearts.
Jemmy is so exhausted I fear he’ll make himself ill. The nation can’t afford that. Neither can I.
I don’t think any other man could take the strain. I marvel at my husband. He remains steadfast in his desire to prosecute this war. A peace treaty with favorable terms would be “most agreeable.” Agreeable! It would be a gift from God. But short of that, we will press on.
His face was ashen when he told me. The bleakness of the day, the constant sleeting rain, reminded me of a day when we were living at Montpelier. The rain poured and poured and Jemmy and I—I can’t remember why—couldn’t bear being trapped in the house. So I dared him to chase me around the portico until we had run a full mile, and he did. We laughed so hard we fell into each other’s arms just as Mother Madison came out to see what the ruckus was about. We told her, she laughed too, and then we all three ran around the portico.
Jemmy smiled when I recalled that day. Then he chased me around the room and I chased him back and Uncle Willy squawked at the top of his considerable lungs. French John and Sukey rushed in. Uncle Willy saw he had a larger audience and took full advantage of it.
Sukey thinks we’re not right in the head. There was no need to explain our running to French John. He brought us a little sherry to “ward off the chill,” as he put it. Sukey, relieved not to be given a chore, left to flirt with Paul Jennings. Being mulatto, he is light-colored and quite a handsome lad. But Paul, at fifteen, is no match for Sukey and she flaunts her power over him. She shouldn’t torment him so.
I’ve noticed this last month that Sukey has been more insolent than ever. I had hoped she would be married by now. She is of age, and if she found a good partner from a neighboring plantation, Jemmy would do all he could to arrange the marriage. She evidences no interest in the prospect. I like to think that marriage settles people, but the truth is it settles some and scuttles others. My sisters and I made good marriages, but I have seen many friends languish in theirs. They proved to be part of a mismatched team. When one horse is pulling both along, no good can come of it. I have also noticed that the woman usually pulls more than her share. Jemmy and I pull together.
No one could believe that at twenty-six I would marry James Madison, who was forty-three. I couldn’t love any man more than I love my James, although I did love poor John Todd. I always knew Jemmy was of the highest intelligence, but he has an inner strength; these terrible times have allowed me to see that in him and to love him more, though I would have thought it impossible to do so.
Uncle Willy, cloth over his cage, has a great deal to say. I can’t write with his carrying on. He’s rocking the perch and throwing seeds all over the floor. Sukey will complain tomorrow.
I do love that bird because Payne gave him to me. When I look at Uncle Willy, I think of my son, but quite apart from that, Uncle Willy reeks of personality.
I believe God meant for us to love all living creatures.
Until the morrow, God willing.
D.P.M.
The faint winter light changed from deepening blue to Prussian blue. Anna, mindful of costs, lit the tallow candles in the hall and tiptoed into the parlor to light the expensive beeswax ones. Dolley and Henry Clay, engrossed in conversation, barely noticed. Anna tiptoed out. Her boys were at a birthday party and Dolley’s namesake, Dolley Payne, almost two and a half, was sound asleep upstairs. At least Mr. Speaker and Dolley enjoyed some quiet.
“… Western states should be another country.” Clay leaned back in his chair. “It’s this shortsightedness that will cost the Federalists the future.”
“Only if we win the war,” Dolley swiftly replied. “Then it’s natural for our energies to shift from the Atlantic to our interior and that’s where the next fight will be. Of course, if you and Mr. Calhoun can continue to work together, the South and the West can outvote New England.”
“I see we’ve been thinking along similar lines, Mrs. Madison.” He reached for his glass of port. “I’m delighted, as always.”
Dolley smiled. She knew that Henry Clay was devoted to her husband and therefore he was dear to her. “New York is the key,” she said. “Will New York throw her weight with our own developing
commercial interest or will Europe sing her siren song? I don’t know, but I know that DeWitt Clinton is nobody’s fool and I continue to hope that Daniel Webster is.”
“Ah, a Webster-Clinton alliance. Well, Webster is a bright hope but bright hopes fade. There was a time when Josiah Quincy looked the coming man, and he’ll never, ever return to Congress.”
“Don’t underestimate Webster, young and new as he is to Congress. He has greatness.” Dolley had taken Black Dan’s measure. “And he hates what they call the Virginia Cabal, which means he hates my Jemmy. We must find a way to trim his sails …” Her voice trailed off as she thought. “Perhaps the key is his opposition to the war, which is bringing him such attention.”
“You are a gambler, Mrs. Madison.” Clay’s light blue eyes brightened.
“Well, I know better than to cut cards with you.” She laughed, then her voice grew earnest once more. “I don’t know how much of a gambler I am but I can read a map.”
“Ma’am?”
“Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New York. One of those states will emerge to control the Atlantic coast. If Benjamin Franklin were alive, I’d say it would be a dogfight between Pennsylvania and Virginia.”
“I regret I never had the opportunity to work with Franklin.”
“A rollicking sense of humor—you share that with him.” Dolley knew Franklin well. “But you have a boldness, Mr. Speaker; some will call it arrogance. I have never seen a man grasp a situation so quickly and act with such speed—when it suits you.”
“And when it doesn’t?” Clay, like everyone, was fascinated to hear someone else’s view of himself.
“You’re as capable of intrigue as a Byzantine.”
“Is that a compliment, ma’am?”
“Today it is.” She merrily pointed her finger at him.
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