by Peter Quinn
RIOT AMONG THE ’LONGSHOREMEN. COLORED LABORERS ASSAILED BY IRISHMEN. More labor troubles. The war-induced inflation was fueling a growing number of strikes. The employers were determined not to be intimidated by combinations of their employees. In this instance they had tried to bring in colored workers to replace the striking Irishmen, and the docks turned into a battlefield. Without the least provocation or word of warning the rioters commenced hurling stones and brickbats at the unoffending colored laborers, shouting “Drive off the d—m niggers,” “Kill the niggers,” etc. Such were the men Lincoln and Stanton were proposing to conscript. Ward was right. God help the Army. One of the colored men, in self-defense, drew a pistol and fired, the shot taking effect upon the person of one of the rioters. The mob assaulted the police and tried to maul the colored man, whom the police had taken into custody. The clear purpose with which the war had begun was now a hopeless muddle. Another set of defeats or another Secessionist invasion of the North, perhaps sometime in the late spring, by August at the latest, and a negotiated peace would be unavoidable.
The night before last, Sunday, the Union League Club had held a dinner at the Maison Dorée, a restaurant near its headquarters, which were still in the process of being refurbished. One hundred and fifty guests had been invited. In the middle of the room was a great triple-tiered cake. On top was a confectionary incarnation of the goddess Liberty. Beneath, eight marzipan infantrymen acted as supports, and the layer they stood on was supported by twelve marzipan ironclads in a sea of blue sugar rippled with whitecaps. Most of the guests were older, but there was a representation of younger men from the financial community. Everyone understood that a merchant or businessman could leave his company in order to take a commission in the Army, and that his firm, under the stewardship of his assistants, would suffer no disruptions; many of the city’s younger men of substance had followed such a course. But it was also understood that this was not true for those who labored in the financial markets. A well-run commercial concern was like a train moving along the rails. Once running properly, the engineer might turn it over temporarily to an assistant, but the financial markets were a roiling, raging river, a swollen, savage, treacherous course: The vessels that set out on it required a helmsman of experience and stamina who never left his post. This was almost universally recognized by the propertied class, most of whom had investments and none of whom wanted them placed in the hands of the eager but unseasoned. Few quibbled with the decision of those on Wall Street to serve the nation by continuing to add to its wealth.
Bedford was invited to the dinner in recognition of the money he had helped raise among his fellow brokers for the work of the Sanitary Commission. Two weeks before, at a ceremony on the pier at the bottom of Fulton Street, he had formally turned over to the Army’s Medical Bureau six ambulances that had been purchased in England with the funds he had helped raise. A small platform had been set up. Dr. Bellows spoke for an hour and a quarter on the purposes and methods of the Commission. He emphasized the responsibility of men of property and wealth in supporting the national cause, but he never mentioned Bedford by name. The officer from the Bureau was briefer and more gracious. He thanked Bedford and asked him to stand. Bedford stood to acknowledge the applause. He took his hat off and bowed slightly. This was the pier where fourteen years before he had hauled paving blocks out of the holds of immigrant ships.
For some time he had had the feeling that life was coming to a close, that the permanence he thought he had achieved was an illusion, that the curtain was coming down on him as surely as it had come down on so many others. Several months before, one of the English visitors Sarah filled the house with had sat next to Bedford at dinner and talked interminably about the Hindoos and their wisdom. Bedford half listened. It seemed so much gibberish: the illusion of all material things, the eternal cycle of existence, a constant transmigration of souls. But standing on the platform and listening to the clapping, realizing that this was where he had started his climb, Bedford felt the resonance of the Englishman’s words. His spirits lifted and he wished he had listened more carefully. The Hindoos were right. Nothing was forever. Life was a great wheel, around and around we go, continually, and if the curtain comes down on one act, another one soon begins. The Englishman had said something about resignation, submitting to one’s own fate. Bedford made little sense of that, then or now. You resigned yourself at death. Before that moment you struggled, worked, planned, plotted, pushed, never giving in. You shaped your own destiny, and if circumstances took you from the top of the wheel to the bottom, you began over again, renewed, in a different incarnation, wiser than before.
Bedford had tried to maintain that inner confidence that had illumined his mind on the Fulton Street pier. But the true nature of his dilemma constantly threatened to extinguish it. His problems were financial, and the debts he owed were ruinously large. Yet far worse than what he owed was to whom he owed. Morrissey. A murderer and professional thug, with a small army of Paddy retainers ever eager to execute his wishes. And now Bedford had added embezzlement and the illegal sale of securities to his worries. He was stuck as deeply in his own swamp as General Grant was in his. Bedford lifted the paper again and made an effort to keep reading. He sought some solace in the immensity of the Union’s military problems but found none. He had expected that the dinner at the Union League Club would be an uplifting affair, even perhaps renew the surge of confidence he had felt a few weeks before. But it had cast a pall that had still not lifted. Yes, he had drunk too much at the dinner and kept drinking afterward until he had to be helped into a coach, but the effects of that had worn off a day ago. The problem was not a mere case of katzenjammer.
He had been seated at an obscure table with two men in their dotage and one young man whom he knew vaguely from Wall Street, a small dark-eyed character whose furtive looks suggested he was about to steal the silverware. On the other side of the room was the head table, at which were seated A. T. Stewart, the department-store prince; George Griswold, the tea merchant; Franklin Delano, the son-in-law of William Astor; and a group of high-ranking military officers. In the middle of the group was George Templeton Strong, a man Audley Ward detested. A year ago, they had engaged in some sort of a debate over the war that had escalated into a shouting match over matters philosophical and theological. As it was related to Bedford, Ward had called Strong “a degenerate Puseyite whose pretensions could never totally erase the smell of raw fish that clung to his family’s origins in some Long Island backwater.” Strong, in turn, dismissed Ward as an “atrabilious relic of Nieuw Amsterdam who belongs in Barnum’s Museum next to the What-Is-It?”
The room was noisy with conversation, but no one spoke at Bedford’s table. One of the two older men slurped his soup. Bedford tried to remember the name of the young man sitting across from him. Gold, Ghoul, Gouge. Something along those lines. He had been a leather merchant and a tanner, and had been involved in some disreputable affair. A partner had been murdered or committed suicide. Bedford couldn’t remember the exact details of all the rumors he had heard because Wall Street was continually rich with rumors. The trading of rumors was the only bull market that never flagged. But whatever was said wasn’t complimentary. Rumors never were.
Bedford grew more uncomfortable with the silence at the table. He felt people looking at them. He half rose from his chair and held out his hand to the young man across from him.
“Charles Bedford,” he said.
The man took his hand; Bedford was surprised by the firmness of his grip. “Jay Gould,” he said.
Gould. The name he had searched for. Gould stared off into a corner of the room. He made no attempt to use Bedford’s introduction as an opening for conversation.
“Whom are you with?” Bedford asked.
“With?”
“What firm do you work with?”
“Myself. I’m with myself.”
Gould picked up a knife. He held it at both ends and ran it between his fingers. He stood i
t on its handle and nervously tapped the table. Bedford had heard it rumored Gould was an Israelite, a co-religionist of August Belmont’s. But he obviously didn’t share Belmont’s Democratic politics, not if he had been invited here, and it seemed equally improbable that Gould could be a Jew and have been asked to share this company.
“What brings you here this evening, Mr. Gould?”
“Here?”
“To this dinner.”
“You mean, why am I here?”
“Yes.”
“I was invited.”
Gould picked up the spoon. He put it through the same drill as the knife. Bedford felt the wine taking effect. The two older men said nothing. One excused himself and went off to the toilet. The other, the soup slurper, stared at his hands. Gould kept his eyes averted. The wine relaxed Bedford, made him less intimidated by the silence.
“I don’t think you answered my question,” he said to Gould.
“Your question?”
“Yes, why are you here? Are you a member?”
“A member of the Union League Club?”
“Yes, a member.”
“No, I’m not.”
“What brings you here, then? What is the reason you were invited?”
“The reason?”
“Yes, the reason.”
“Contributions. I am a contributor to the cause.”
Bedford found Gould’s evasiveness an enjoyable distraction, and the man’s obvious discomfiture made Bedford feel an insider. He was about to ask about the nature of Gould’s contributions when A. T. Stewart rose and asked the entire company to stand. He proposed a toast: “To the Union, one and undivided, now and forever.” This was followed by toasts to the President, General Hooker, the Army of the Potomac, General Grant, the Navy, and Admiral du Pont.
Bedford noticed that Gould held the glass to his lips but did not drink. Standing, Gould seemed even younger than when seated. He was so short and slight that except for his piercing, feral eyes, there was a boyish air about him, an adolescent’s manner. They sat down to eat. Bedford forgot the question he wished to put to Gould. Gould pushed his food around on his plate. Bedford had more wine. He searched for something to say to his dinner mates, but the old men seemed lost in their senescence, and the boy-man locked in his shyness. Bedford’s sense of ease began to give way to a darker mood. He had worked hard to raise money for those ambulances and been publicly honored for his achievement by a representative of the Medical Bureau. They had applauded him on the pier. Perhaps he hadn’t expected to be seated in a place of honor, not on the dais with Stewart and the club’s nestors, but he had expected to be placed somewhere up front, in proximity to the prominent.
The old man got up to go to the toilet again. The soup slurper was no longer staring at his hands. He was now asleep. Dessert was served. Bedford’s piece of cake was topped by half a confectionery ironclad. He pushed it away and asked for more wine. When the old man returned from the toilet, he tapped Bedford on the shoulder and gestured for him to stand. The old man drew Bedford aside, to the corner of the room. He pointed to his ear with his forefinger. “The hearing’s gone,” he said. “Didn’t catch your name before, but just now someone stopped me and told me that I was sitting with Charles Bedford.”
Bedford nodded, unsure of what to say.
“I’m Jacob Valentine,” the old man said.
“Of course,” Bedford said. “I should have known.” He searched his mind for some clue as to why he should know Jacob Valentine. Was he a client of the firm’s?
The old man said, “Eh?” He pointed to his ear again. “You must speak up.”
Bedford raised his voice. “I said I should have known.”
“Known what?”
“Known who you are.”
“I thought I just said who I am. I’m Jacob Valentine.”
Bedford spoke even louder. “Of course, of course, I should have recognized you.”
“But I don’t believe we’ve ever met.”
“No, but I’ve heard a great deal about you.”
Valentine nodded. “From Audley, no doubt. He does go on. A trait of the Vandervorts. Incurable talkers, with a theory on everything. You married into a fine family, and from what I’m told you’re bringing new honor to that escutcheon.”
“It’s kind of you to say that.”
“Eh?”
Bedford leaned close and repeated himself into Valentine’s hairy ear.
“Kindness has nothing to do with it. It’s the truth, and I’m grateful for it. Sometimes I think the manliness, the virility, is going out of our race, and it’s encouraging for a senex like me to see that there are still men of honor in the world.”
They returned to their seats. Stewart rose again at the dais and thanked them for coming. He said that this commemoration of the surrender of Fort Sumter might induce melancholy thoughts in some, and while an element of sadness was certainly attendant to the disruption of the Union and the ensuing bloodshed, they should keep in mind two things: “First, in our presence tonight is Jacob Valentine, the son of one of the youngest participants in the Revolutionary War. As a boy of twelve, in the hills above the city, with the Americans in retreat from what seemed a decisive defeat by the British, Jacob Valentine, the namesake of our tonight’s companion, had left his family’s house to see what he could do to help. Wiser and older men would have eschewed such a course, putting self-interest and safety before the interests of what seemed already a lost cause, and some did. But Jacob’s wisdom was not the world’s, and he put courage ahead of caution. He shouldered a musket that was undoubtedly taller than he, and as the exhausted, defeated Americans fell down in the grass, desperately trying to get some rest before they resumed their retreat, young Jacob stood guard over them. When the British approached, thinking to silently surround and overwhelm the remnants of the American forces, young Jacob fired the shot that awoke them and saved not just the day but the Revolution.”
Stewart asked Jacob Valentine, son of the boy hero, to stand. Valentine was facing the dais, but Bedford realized the old man hadn’t heard a word. He leaned over and said into Valentine’s ear, “He wants you to stand.” Valentine looked puzzled. Bedford put his hand under Valentine’s elbow and gently nudged him up. “The Valentines are still with us,” said Stewart. “Like the father, the son seeks not the path of comfort but of commitment, and there are thousands, nay, millions, like them, a race of Jacob Valentines, adolescents, adults, and the aged, who will never—never—desert the Union, no matter what course others may take.”
The room rocked with applause. Bedford tugged on Valentine’s sleeve. The old man sat. The other point to ponder, said Stewart, was that if the war had turned out to be a more bitter, costly, drawn-out affair than could have been anticipated, and if the nature of the struggle had demoralized and discouraged some, in far more cases it had inspired a new fervor and determination, a fiercely formed patriotism, implacable, unquenchable, unstoppable. There were an endless myriad of instances of this new patriotism, both on and off the battlefield, and in mentioning one he hoped he wouldn’t be interpreted as slighting the many, but he felt the work done by Mr. Charles Bedford on behalf of the Sanitary Commission deserved at least a mention. He asked Bedford to stand. Bedford heard no more of Stewart’s words. He felt a ringing in his ears and his eyes blurred with emotion as he stood with hands folded in front of him, the Union League Club’s cynosure.
When Stewart was finished, the entire audience rose to sing “The Star-Spangled Banner.” They were then directed to the lyrics of “We Are Coming Father Abraam, 300,000 More,” printed on the back of their dinner programs. They sang it also.
Bedford switched from wine to brandy. A kindly-looking, white-haired man came over and introduced himself as Rodney Atkinson. Atkinson expressed to Bedford his profound admiration and said how important the support of men like Charles Bedford was to the successful conclusion of the war. He thumped Bedford on the back. “My apologies about the seating arrangements
,” he said.
Bedford waved his hand as if the lapse were a trifle.
Atkinson continued: “I’m afraid the dinner was oversubscribed, and since the object was to raise money, that was the prime criterion for admission. Unfortunately, this required us to seat some of the nobodies amid the Charles Bedfords and Jacob Valentines.” Atkinson gave Bedford another thump on the back and walked away.
Nobodies. Bedford stood alone and put his drink down on the table. He had an image in his head of Mr. Stark looking down from the window of the Merchants’ Exchange Building on the crowd in the street. That was the race he belonged to, the race he had risen from, numerous as the stars of the heaven or as the grains of sand upon the seashore. Charles Bedford had changed into Ezra Van Wyck and back into Charles Bedford so as to molt his nobodiness and put on somebodiness. He picked up his glass of brandy and took a mouthful of it. Suddenly he understood that what he had felt earlier wasn’t anger at being relegated to a table with the likes of Jay Gould, but fear. The race of nobodies could never be stopped. It was endowed with an endless capacity for multiplication and a remorseless urge to advance. We are coming Father Abraam, three hundred thousand more, / From Mississippi’s winding stream and from New England’s shore; / We leave our plows and workshops, our wives and children dear, / With hearts too full for utterance, with but a silent tear. Come they would, the war would only accelerate the process, and just as the somebodies became secure in their somebodiness, the nobodies would arrive to overthrow them, assuming their trappings and their airs, purchasing their presumptions as well as their furniture, possessing their daughters as well as their houses, growing secure in their somebodiness until the new wave of nobodies descended on them. Bedford suspected the process was as old as time, but he was too little acquainted with history to be sure. What he did know from experience was that if it hadn’t been the rule of existence, it was now.