“You will not need to look far to find a second for that motion, either, Congresswoman,” Senator Taft said. Flora nodded back to him. He was only half the man his father had been; he was on the lean side, where William Howard Taft had been as round as the golf balls he’d loved to whack. William Howard Taft had also had the fat man’s gift of being, or at least seeming, good-natured most of the time. His son was far more acerbic—which had probably helped him lose the last election.
George Norris coughed. “You do realize that publicizing disagreements over policy may give aid and comfort to the Confederate States?”
“Oh, no, you don’t!” Flora said sharply. “I’m sorry, sir, but no one is going to get away with that. You can’t say I’m not a proper patriot if I don’t agree with everything this administration does. That’s Jake Featherston’s way of doing things, and he’s welcome to it. Why have we got a Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War if we can’t ask questions that have to do with the way we’re conducting the war?”
Several Senators and Representatives clapped their hands. The chairman licked his papery lips. He spoke carefully: “We are at war with the Confederate States, Congresswoman, and with the Empire of Mexico, and with Britain, France, Japan, and Russia. We are not at war with the state of Utah.”
Flora curtsied. “Thank you for informing me of that, Mr. Chairman. You might do better to inform the state of Utah, which seems unaware of the fact.” She got a laugh loud enough to make Norris ply his gavel with might and main. She continued, “By all precedent, it is a war. Congress established a Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War during the War of Secession, long before we had to recognize the CSA as an independent nation. Will you tell me I’m wrong, sir?”
By his expression, George Norris would have liked nothing better, but knew he couldn’t. “Call the question on the motion!” someone yelled. Looking even more unhappy, the chairman did. It passed with only a couple of dissenting votes.
When Flora walked into to her office, her secretary said, “Mr. Roosevelt called a little while ago, Congresswoman. He’d like you to call him back.”
“Thanks, Bertha. I’ll bet he would,” Flora said. How angry would the Assistant Secretary of War be? Only one way to find out. She went into the inner office and made the call.
“This is Franklin Roosevelt.” As always, his voice conceded nothing to the illness that left him in a wheelchair. When Flora gave her name, Roosevelt started to laugh. “You’ve been naughty today, haven’t you?” he said.
“I don’t think so. I think the administration has,” Flora said. “Talking with the Mormons? It’s madness.”
“Is it? President La Follette doesn’t think so. Neither do I,” Roosevelt said. If he did, you would, too, Flora thought. But a lot of politics worked that way. Roosevelt went on, “Don’t you think the Confederate States would be better off if Jake Featherston tried talking with his colored rebels instead of doing his best to put them all six feet under?”
“I don’t want the Confederate States better off,” Flora said.
Roosevelt’s laugh invited everyone who heard it to share the joke. “You can’t duck me like that and expect me not to quack,” he said. “You’re too smart not to know what I’m talking about.”
“We can talk to the Mormons till we’re blue in the face,” Flora said. “What good will it do if they don’t want to listen?”
“That’s what Ferdinand Koenig would say, all right.” Roosevelt was being as exasperating as he could.
“What can we possibly give the Mormons that would satisfy them and us?” Flora asked.
“I don’t know,” Roosevelt admitted. “But the President thinks we ought to find out and not go on till everyone who could fight us is dead.” Pointedly, he added, “And he thinks his own party ought to back him while he’s doing it.”
“I will happily back the President when I think he’s right, or even when I’m not sure—I haven’t said a word about whatever is going on in western Washington, and I don’t intend to,” Flora said. “But when I think he’s wrong . . . I’m sorry, Franklin, but party loyalty doesn’t go that far.”
A lot of people thought it did. Presidents were usually of that opinion. Roosevelt just sighed. “I might have known you’d say that. As a matter of fact, I did know you’d say that. It doesn’t make things any easier for me, you know.”
I’m the one who’s in charge of keeping you from running wild, Flora translated mentally. “Tell me what sort of terms we’re offering the Mormons. Then maybe I’ll change my mind and believe this is worth doing,” she said.
“Not my bailiwick,” Roosevelt told her. “But I’d hope you’d trust Charlie La Follette far enough to believe he wouldn’t make terms that are bad for the country.”
“I trusted Al Smith not to make a deal that was bad for the country,” Flora said. “Look how that turned out.” Good God! she thought. I sound just like my reactionary brother David. But that didn’t mean she thought she was wrong now, however much she wished it did.
“Low blow,” Franklin Roosevelt said.
“Is it? We’ll see what the Secretary of the Interior has to say,” Flora answered.
“Some people are disappointed in the stand you’re taking.”
Though Roosevelt couldn’t see her, Flora shrugged. “They can put up another Socialist candidate when my district nominates this summer. Or they can back the Democrat against me this fall.”
“No one would do anything like that,” Roosevelt said hastily. Flora also knew nobody would do anything like that. She’d represented her district for most of the past twenty-six years, and she was a President’s widow. They’d need better reasons than this to oppose her: treason, say.
A few days later, the Secretary of the Interior did appear before the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War. Harry Hopkins came from Iowa and still spoke with a flat Midwestern accent, but he’d gone to New York as a young lawyer. He’d got to know Al Smith there, and had risen with him. Now he had to defend the policies of another President.
“What terms has the administration offered the Mormon insurgents in Utah?” Senator Norris asked the question reluctantly. He knew the other members would be sharper than he if he faltered.
“No more than a return to the status quo ante bellum if they lay down their arms,” Hopkins answered. “If they want peace, we will give them peace: no treason trials, no persecutions. But that is absolutely as far as we will go. Demands for autonomy and independence for the so-called State of Deseret have been and will continue to be rejected out of hand.”
“And what is the response of the Mormon representative to this proposal?” the chairman asked. “Uh—what is the gentleman’s name?” He plainly wanted to call the Mormon representative something else, something less polite, but refrained.
“Rush. Hyrum Rush.” Hopkins spelled the Mormon’s first name. Having done so, he let out a resigned sigh. “Mr. Rush does not feel our proposal goes far enough, and fears it leaves his people vulnerable to further U.S. aggression. Those are his words, not mine.”
Flora raised her hand. With a certain amount of trepidation, Norris recognized her. She said, “Mr. Hopkins, why does Mr. Rush think Utah would be any safer as an independent country surrounded by the United States than as one state among many? This makes little sense to me.”
“He said, ‘You gave Kentucky and Houston and Sequoyah plebiscites, but you wouldn’t give us one. You thought we were a bunch of perverts, and we didn’t deserve one,’ ” Hopkins replied.
Hyrum Rush wasn’t so far wrong. Flora said, “Don’t you think we ought to get rid of an abscess like that instead of putting a bandage on it?”
“Normally, Congresswoman, I’d say yes. Right now, we’ve got bigger things to worry about than an abscess.”
Flora winced. With the country cut in half, she couldn’t very well disagree with the Secretary of the Interior. “The rebels show no sign of agreeing to these terms?” she asked.
“That�
��s correct, ma’am,” Harry Hopkins said.
Good, Flora thought, but she kept it to herself. She nodded to the chairman. “No further questions.”
****
Brigadier General Abner Dowling studied Confederate dispositions on a large map pinned to a wall of the house in Culpeper he used as a headquarters. If the U.S. Army ever moved deeper into Virginia, the house’s owner would get it back, and would probably be unhappy about the holes in his plaster. Dowling, whose own disposition was none too good, intended to miss not a moment of sleep worrying about that.
He called Captain Toricelli in to look at the latest dispositions. His adjutant was a sharp young officer. “Tell me what you make of this,” Dowling said, as neutrally as he could. He left it there. He wanted to see if the junior officer noticed the same thing he had—and if it was truly there to notice.
Angelo Toricelli eyed the map with unusual care. He knew Dowling wouldn’t have asked him for no reason. After a thoughtful pause, he said, “They really are thinning out their positions a bit, aren’t they?”
“It looks that way to me,” Dowling answered. “It’s got to the point where we can’t ignore it, hasn’t it?”
His adjutant nodded. “I’d say so. But the bastards in butternut don’t want us to spot it. Just by the way they’re doing it, I’d bet money on that.”
“Does seem so, doesn’t it?” Dowling said. “And why not? For fear we’ll pour through? They aren’t weakening themselves that much.”
“Where are those men going?” Toricelli asked.
“If I knew, I would tell you.” Dowling scratched his head. His hair was thinning—one more indignity of age. He sighed. “We ought to send out raiders, bring back some prisoners. They may know where their pals are headed. It doesn’t seem to be down toward the Wilderness. That was what I guessed when I conferred with General Morrell. If it turns out to be over toward Fredericksburg instead, we’ll have to alert General MacArthur, assuming such a thing is possible.”
“Er—yes, sir,” Captain Toricelli said. These days, Dowling didn’t bother hiding his scorn for his superior. MacArthur didn’t like him, either, and manifested it by withholding men and matériel from his corps. That was how things looked to Dowling’s jaundiced eye, anyhow.
“Draft the orders,” Dowling said. “Send them by runner, not by telegraph or telephone or wireless, not even in code. I don’t want the Confederates getting wind of what we’re up to and priming some men to lie like Ananias.” Maybe he had what the smart alienists these days were calling a persecution complex. He didn’t intend to worry about it. An Army officer who didn’t worry that the enemy was out to diddle him didn’t deserve his shoulder straps.
And Toricelli didn’t think his orders were anything out of the ordinary—or, if he did, he had the sense to keep his mouth shut about it. “I’ll have them on your desk in twenty minutes, sir,” he promised.
“That sounds good,” Dowling said.
As if further to disguise whatever they were up to, the Confederates in front of Dowling’s corps suddenly turned aggressive—not in any big way, but with lots of raids and artillery barrages and all the other things that made it look as if a major offensive might be brewing. Several regimental commanders sent panicky messages back to Culpeper.
One thing Dowling was good at was not getting excited at every little thing. Had he got excited at every little thing while serving under General Custer, he would have jumped out a window early in his career. He managed to calm down his subordinates, too. Had he been wrong, had the Confederates been planning a big push, he might have ended up with egg on his face for calming them down too well. But no big push came.
In due course, the interrogation reports did. Dowling’s eyebrows rose toward his retreating hairline when he read them. He looked up to Captain Toricelli, who’d given him the transcripts. “The questioners think this is reliable and accurate?” he asked.
“Yes, sir. I talked to one of them. They’re pretty certain,” Toricelli replied.
“All right. We’ll relay it to General MacArthur’s headquarters, and we’ll also relay it to the War Department,” Dowling said. “In code, mind you.”
“Oh, yes, sir,” his adjutant agreed. “This is too hot to go out in clear.” For once, he showed none of the quiet scorn with which adjutants often greeted their superiors’ ideas. I hope my notions aren’t as bad as a lot of Custer’s were, Dowling thought. And yet one of Custer’s ideas—as foolish at first sight and as stubbornly maintained as any of the others—had gone a long way toward winning the Great War. You never could tell.
A few hours later, Dowling’s telephone jangled. He picked it up. “First Corps Headquarters, Dowling speaking.”
“Hello, sir. This is John Abell.” The General Staff officer didn’t give his rank or affiliation. That was no doubt wise. A lot of telephone wire lay between Philadelphia and Culpeper. If the Confederates weren’t tapping it somewhere, Dowling would have been amazed. Abell went on, “You have confidence in the information you sent us?”
“Would I have sent it if I didn’t?” Dowling returned.
“You’d be amazed,” Abell said, and that was probably true. He continued, “We still have to confirm it at the other end.”
“I don’t know anything about that,” Dowling said. “But I do know what I’ve seen, and I know—or I think I know—I wasn’t imagining it.”
“You weren’t, not if these reports are even close to accurate,” Abell said. “Have you heard anything from General MacArthur yet?”
“No, not a word,” Dowling said.
The General Staff officer sniffed disdainfully. “Why am I not surprised?”
“I’ve alerted him to the possibility. That’s all I can do,” Dowling said. That’s all I want to do, he added to himself. If I could have found any way to keep from doing even that much, I would have grabbed it like you wouldn’t believe.
“I hope something good comes of it.” Abell’s tone suggested he didn’t think that was likely. “So long, sir. Take care of yourself.” He hung up.
So did Dowling, muttering to himself. Daniel MacArthur didn’t want to talk to him any more than he wanted to talk to MacArthur. So he thought, anyhow. But when the telephone rang again and he picked it up, what he heard was an abrupt rasp: “This is MacArthur.”
“Yes, sir.” Dowling unconsciously came to attention in his chair. “What can I do for you, sir?”
“It’s really true that the Confederates are draining men away from this entire front?” MacArthur demanded.
“Sir, that’s the way it looks from here.” Dowling didn’t intend to commit himself any further than that. Assert that something was really true and it was only too likely to come back and haunt you.
What he did say seemed to satisfy MacArthur. “In that case, I’m going to take one of the divisions out of your corps and bring it east.”
“What?” The word burst from Dowling’s throat as a pained yelp. “What do you want to do that for?”
“We mounted an attack at Fredericksburg that could have succeeded—that should have succeeded, in fact,” MacArthur answered. “I intend to send more men in this time—send them in and have them break through.”
From everything Dowling had heard, the attack on Fredericksburg hadn’t come anywhere near as close to succeeding as MacArthur claimed. From everything Dowling had heard, U.S. forces hadn’t even got over the Rappahannock and into Fredericksburg itself. Would throwing in more men help? Dowling didn’t know. Custer had always liked to smother fires by burying them in bodies. He’d had his share of bloody fiascoes, but he’d also finally had his breakthrough. Maybe Daniel MacArthur would, too. Maybe.
One thing was certain: if MacArthur wanted one of Dowling’s divisions, he had the right to take it. Dowling did what he could, saying, “We’ll be spread thin here if you do shift it east.”
“So are the Confederates you’re facing. You found that out yourself. Since they are, why worry? It seems to me that you spend too
much time carping and complaining and not enough figuring out how to strike the foe.”
It seemed to Dowling that MacArthur spent too much time figuring out stupid ways to strike the foe. He didn’t say so. What point to it? He’d just get MacArthur angry at him again. He wouldn’t change his superior’s mind. No one except MacArthur could do that, and he wasn’t in the habit of doing so.
Suppressing a sigh, Dowling said, “Sir, I’ll do my best with whatever men you leave me. You can rely on that.”
“There. You see?” Daniel MacArthur actually sounded pleased. “You can be cooperative when you set your mind to it.”
By be cooperative, he meant do exactly what I tell you without asking any inconvenient questions no matter what. Dowling knew that only too well. Again, though, what could he do about it? Not much, as he knew all too well. He tried his best to keep resignation out of his voice as he answered, “Yes, sir.”
“Good,” MacArthur said. Dowling wondered if it was. MacArthur went on, “You’ll have your orders soon. Thin their lines against me, will they? I am going to bury those Confederates—bury them, I tell you. There’s no doubt in my mind.”
“Yes, sir,” Dowling said. Maybe he would. But how many U.S. soldiers would they bury, too? No way to know, not till it happened. Dowling had long since abandoned optimism along with the other illusions of his youth. He had thought before that MacArthur had more in common with George Custer than either of the two generals would ever have admitted: a complete lack of doubt and a strong belief in their own brilliance running neck and neck.
As if to underscore that, MacArthur said, “See you in Richmond, then,” and slammed down the telephone. Dowling slowly replaced his own handset in its cradle. See you in Richmond? MacArthur would either make good on the boast or an awful lot of young men would die trying.
Dowling knew which way he would bet. He couldn’t say anything about that, not to anybody, not without being accused of deliberately damaging morale. He couldn’t even get on the telephone to Philadelphia, the way he had when MacArthur proposed the amphibious operation aimed at the mouth of the James. That had been madness. This might work. Dowling didn’t think it would, but he had to give his superior the benefit of the doubt.
Drive to the East Page 17