by Peter Quinn
“I ask no apologies, but if you should wish to continue our conversation, feel free to come out to Orange Mountain. I’m returning there this afternoon and expect to spend the summer. The door is always open to my old comrades-in-arms. The war is far from over, and we must continue to concentrate our energies on finding ways to end it, in the political as well as military sphere.” McClellan rejoined the group of officers he had arrived with.
Noonan caught up with Wool as the old man was entering his coach. Wool huffed from the effort. “Good, sweet, suffering Jesus,” Wool said, “if that little bucket of slops could fight like he can talk, the war would have been over a year ago.” He sat back in his seat. “What was on the mind of the American Napoléon?”
“Conscription and emancipation,” Noonan said.
“Hell, that’s all anybody in this town talks about. Eat with the Democrats and they spoil your meal by ranting about the worthless niggers. Eat with the Republicans and they can’t stop going on about the shiftless Paddies. For my part, I’ve had quite enough of all of ’em, niggers, Paddies, Democrats, Republicans. I say to blazes with the lot. Get on with this God-blasted war, draft everybody, nigger, redskin, Chinee, white man, stick ’em all in uniforms, shoot those who refuse, hang every yellow-livered jackal who preaches compromise or defeat, one from every lamppost in the city, and when you run out of lampposts, use the trees in Central Park, swing a traitor from every branch—and start with that Tom Thumb Caesar you were just talking to, put the hemp around his scheming throat, jack him up right in front of City Hall and let the body rot there till the stench reaches the nostrils of every copperhead in New York.”
The coach traveled swiftly up Broadway. There was little traffic, and few people were about. Noonan took it as a good sign. The city was wrapped in a sweltering summer torpor. It drained the life from everyone.
Wool put his kepi on the seat next to him and ran his hand over his freckled, spotted pate, smoothing down the strands of hair drawn forward from the rear of his head.
“The problem isn’t with the draft itself,” he said. “It’s the refusal of our legislative imbeciles to do away with substitution and the three-hundred-dollar exemption. A bad business, Noonan, but you’re stuck with it, and my advice is to get on with it. I learned that lesson back in the thirties, during the Indian removals down in Georgia. Cruelest work I ever knew. Worse than war. Rounding up innocent, hardworking Cherokees, forcing them off their land, slaughtering their livestock, confiscating their homes, coercing them to move west to some distant destination beyond the Mississippi. But the cruelest part of all was doing it piecemeal, dragging it out, being unprepared, not having the men and supplies to get the thing done quick, with merciful dispatch.”
“We’re doing the best we can under the circumstances,” Noonan said.
The coach pulled up in front of the St. Nicholas Hotel. Noonan got out first. Wool moved slowly. He crouched, put one hand on the door, and took Noonan’s arm with the other. He grimaced as he stepped down. “Those Goddamn Tories,” he said. He rubbed his thighs. “It’s been fifty years since Queenston Heights, fifty years since them snot-eating British, them ass-kissing sons of Saint George, shot me right here.” He patted his left thigh. “The ball traveled through the leg and came out here.” He patted the back of his right thigh. “My first time under fire. I was lucky that the ball didn’t hit any bone, just passed through me like a knife through water, and them Englishmen and the Canadian toadies that fought for ’em never got their hands on me, good thing, since they enjoyed nothing more than finishing off the wounded, sticking a bayonet through you as you lay there helpless. But that’s the British way, ain’t it? Kick you when you’re down. That’s what they’ve been trying to do to us these past few years, taking the Rebels’ side, just waiting for the right moment to step in and finish us off.”
General Wool’s coach moved off, but he continued to stand in the street. “Seems to me we got a score to settle with these royal bastards once this war is over. Might be a good idea to march north and take Canada. Should’ve done it fifty years ago when we had the chance, right there at Queenston Heights, it could have been a great victory, a second Yorktown, dropped the whole of the north country into our laps. But the Goddamn militia wouldn’t cross the Niagara River into Canada. Did you ever hear of such a thing? Said they couldn’t be forced to set foot on foreign soil. And the sons of bitches got away with it!”
A carriage drew up to drop off its occupants at the St. Nicholas, but Wool ignored it and stayed where he was.
“General,” Noonan said, “please, step onto the curb.”
“You know what those militia boys needed, Noonan? They needed a taste of the lash! Ain’t no substitute for it! Been up to me, they each would have got a backful of strokes. My whole career in uniform, half a Goddamn century, I never hesitated to apply the lash. Never unjustly or out of spite. I had a man whipped, he knew he deserved it. And now Congress has forbidden its use. Worse thing those blockheads ever done, and God knows that’s saying something. The lash is an irreplaceable instrument of soldierly education. Does more to instill the fear of God than all the military statutes and laws ever written. Never had any use for tying men up or hanging men by their thumbs or making them carry logs or knapsacks filled with stones. The longer a punishment goes on, the less of an impression it makes. Men grow used to cruelty faster than to comfort. But no man ever seen a whipping forgets it, and no man been stripped and whipped hasn’t gone out of his way to avoid a repetition.”
The driver of the coach that was waiting to pull up to the St. Nicholas motioned with his long switch at Wool. “Hey, General Washington,” he said, “clear the way, I got people who needs to get into the hotel.”
Wool looked up at him. “Was a time I would have had you dragged down from that perch and lashed senseless for such impudence.”
“Was a time I woulda run you over without bothering to ask you to move. Now stave aside and let a man make his living.”
Noonan took Wool by the arm and led him toward the hotel. Wool muttered to himself. He stopped at the door. “Perhaps we will win this war, but for the life of me I can’t figure how,” he said. “We’ve traitors for generals, and now we propose to turn sewer scum into soldiers. I wish you luck, Noonan. All the luck in the Republic.” Wool began muttering to himself again. He and Noonan crossed the wide, elegant lobby of the St. Nicholas. At the bottom of the sweeping marble staircase were two of Wool’s adjutants.
“Go ahead,” Wool said to Noonan, “don’t wait for me. It will take me a bit to mount this terrain.”
Noonan went up the stairs. He heard Wool grunting behind him. A sentry saluted Noonan as he reached the second landing. The ‘entire floor had been taken over by the War Department. Noonan walked down the corridor to the linen room that had been turned over to the Provost Marshal’s office, the shelves for sheets and pillowcases removed, a simple desk placed by the window. It was far less comfortable and spacious than the regular offices on Leonard Street, but the War Department had a telegraph connection to Police Headquarters and so could receive reports from precinct houses all over the city. Noonan sat and smoked a cigarillo. Nothing to do but wait. He missed the distraction of Wool’s voice. The sounds from outside were few, some wagons rolling along Broadway, no shouting, at least nothing like the usual discordant workday oratorio.
It was almost 9:00 A.M. In a few moments, Captain Jenkins would commence the draft lottery in the Ninth District office. Noonan had inspected the office the previous afternoon. Jenkins had formed a platform by putting two large tables together. He had placed the wheel containing the names of all the eligible men on top of it, 13,359 in number, from which a quota of 2,521 was to be drawn. Noonan had paced the office with Jenkins. There was a railing in front of the tables. Jenkins said he would place two policemen at it to watch the crowd. Noonan told him to have the police wait outside. “This isn’t a courtroom,” Noonan said. “There are no defendants and no prosecutors. The proceedin
gs must be as routine and everyday as possible.” If there was any trouble, the forces necessary to put it down would converge rapidly on the office, the police from the nearby Nineteenth Precinct and the Invalid Corps and the Provost Guard via streetcars from Police Headquarters on Mulberry Street. Jenkins was fidgety. He yelled at one of his clerks for misplacing his spectacles, then found them in his own breast pocket. Noonan was disappointed. He had picked Jenkins’s office to commence the draft not only because of its uptown location but because Jenkins seemed to be a balanced, even-tempered officer who wouldn’t panic. Noonan went over the details of the next day’s schedule several times, and Jenkins seemed to grow calmer. “Invite anyone who wishes to inspect the lottery drum to come forward,” Noonan said. “There are rumors that we have fixed the proceedings, that certain names have already been chosen. Make sure there’s absolutely no hint of secrecy. If you wish, invite a spectator to tie the blindfold about the eyes of the clerk doing the drawing.”
Now the draft was under way. The name, address, color, and age of each conscriptee was being announced and entered in a register. Noonan lit another cigarillo. An orderly knocked on the door and brought in a telegraph dispatch that had gone from the Nineteenth Precinct to Police Headquarters to the St. Nicholas:
DRAFT IS COMMENCED
FIRST 46 NAMES SELECTED
NO TROUBLE
The dispatches arrived on the half hour throughout the day. Noonan awaited them like a speculator anticipating some fantastic rise or fall in his stocks, and scanned the orderly’s face for any hint of the nature of the reports as they were brought in. Noonan himself betrayed no sign of anxiety. He directed the orderly to place the telegrams on his desk, kept doing his paperwork until the orderly left, then slowly unfolded the paper. The messages reported the mounting number of names selected, and all ended the same way: NO TROUBLE.
In the early afternoon, General Wool stopped in to see Noonan. “It is done,” Wool said. “The draft horse is saddled. Whether it will carry us anywhere remains to be seen.” Wool shuffled off.
Noonan felt exhausted. It was more than just the previous night’s lack of sleep or the months of hard work he had invested in the draft. It was also the sense of isolation he felt. On the pretext of keeping him informed, men would take him aside and tell him the latest lie, that he had married a colored woman, taken to drink, accepted a bribe, that he hid in his office all day, afraid to go about in public, that his friends had turned against him. He was told that General Meagher had said to a gathering of veterans, “Noonan is either an imbecile or a scoundrel.” James McMaster, the editor of the city’s Catholic newspaper, had published the announcement of Noonan’s appointment as Provost Marshal on the front page. Beneath it, in a black-bordered box, was this legend: PROSTITUTION: THE PROFESSION OF ENGAGING IN DEBASING ACTS FOR MONEY. Noonan went to Archbishop Hughes to complain. Hughes dismissed it. “McMaster is a convert,” he said, as if that somehow excused the man for employing New York’s Catholic paper in support of the South.
Noonan threw the day’s pile of telegrams into the wastepaper basket and straightened his desk. The room was very warm and close, the air stale, distasteful, filled not just with the relentless heat and the dust and dirt of Broadway but with a deathful stillness. It had been this same way yesterday afternoon, when they had finished the inspection of the district office on Third Avenue. He had stood with Captain Jenkins in the doorway and smoked a cigarillo. There was no breeze, no wind. It was as oppressively hot outside the office as in, the sky bereft of clouds, no sign that this weather would ever change. A lethargic flow of traffic moved on the avenue. They were about to go back inside when they heard people screaming. Up the avenue, a cartman’s horse, overcome with the heat, staggered in its braces like a drunk. The vehicle veered wildly, knocked down a woman crossing the street, and mounted the sidewalk. People scattered to get out of the way. The driver was dragging on the reins, tugging violently, but the horse lurched ahead. The left wheel of the cart caught on a lamppost and ripped loose; a crate pitched to the ground. An enormous black pig struggled out of the wreckage. It squealed with terror, and its hooves clattered loudly on the sidewalk. Once free, it charged forward, head down, straight at the doorway where Noonan and Jenkins were standing, its short, stiff legs pumping furiously. Jenkins jumped back. Noonan stood where he was. He could see the blind, mad fear in the pig’s eyes. Jenkins screamed at him to move. The pig came so close that its rough, bristle-coated skin brushed against Noonan, but it veered away from the doorway at the last minute and clattered down the sidewalk, hugging the side of the building as it went. It charged off the sidewalk, back into the traffic, its black bulk driving forward.
II
BEDFORD STOOD ON DECK, partly to enjoy the river breeze, partly to avoid being recognized by someone inside the passenger cabin. Uncanny how many times it happened in New York, despite the city’s size and the numbers of people, the regularity with which you accidentally encountered someone you knew. “New York isn’t a big city at all,” Stark had been fond of saying, “but several dozen small towns piled on top of one another.” On the other side of the deck was a band of cricketers, men in white, their female companions in soft, flouncy dresses, hats tied securely to their heads. Bedford scanned their faces to make sure he didn’t recognize any from the small town that was Wall Street. He didn’t.
The ferry docked in Hoboken. Bedford let most of the passengers disembark before him: baseball players as well as cricketers; respectable-looking clerks and their families, picnic baskets in tow; officers with their ladies—a crowd with means enough to afford the fare and spend the day watching ball games. He stopped at a tavern and had a glass of beer. The bar was only a few dozen yards from the water, but even at that short distance the wind died and the heat grew more intense. He ordered another beer—not his drink of choice, but he had worked up a thirst and the beer relieved it. The taverner was German and so was most of the clientele. They clucked and growled in their native tongue, and Bedford enjoyed his total ignorance of what they were saying, his freedom from being drawn into half-heard conversations.
After another beer, Bedford went out into the sunshine. The day was becoming blisteringly hot. His head swam a little, but the surrounding swards of greenery, the bleached blue summer sky, white sails on the river, made him feel in a festive mood, the first time he had felt that way in months. He walked a cinder path beneath the shade trees through the Elysian Fields, the parkland beside the river that had been set out years before by Colonel Stevens, the owner of the ferry franchises to New York, an attraction designed to draw a steady stream of fare-paying visitors who might otherwise never consider a journey to the wilds of New Jersey. He strolled at a leisurely pace. The path bent and twisted beside the river. At one point he saw a series of tents set up by the water, and soldiers scrambling over a barge. They sent a rocket blazing into the sky, a puff of smoke and sparkle that was only a test in preparation for the evening’s fireworks, still another celebration of the twin victories of a week before, Gettysburg and Vicksburg, east and west, thundering blows against Secessiondom that made the final victory seem only a matter of time.
The trail of vapor the rocket left behind and the small smudge it made hung limply in the sky. Bedford felt his spirits sag. He had bought gold later than many others. He started at $144 an ounce and ended at $146, after a two-day frenzy of buying. He sold all the stocks, through the Exchange he could manage to without appearing to be liquidating his business, and he fenced securities through Capshaw, everything he could get his hands on: his clients’ holdings, and the Stark estate, which he managed for the heirs. He held back nothing. If he was to pay back Morrissey the money he owed him, a debt compounding at the rate of 25 percent per week, if he was to cover what he had already taken from his clients’ accounts, if he was to regain the capital he needed for investment, there was no real choice. He put it all on a Union loss, on one final victory for Lee, a whipping in the style of Chancellorsville, except on nor
thern soil, a fatal blow against the Yankee greenback.
Gold didn’t move for almost a month. Just hung there at about $145, the whole country holding its breath. Bedford couldn’t sleep. He wandered the house at night until the servants thought he was becoming unhinged. The cook brought him glasses of boiled milk. He’d douse the milk with whiskey, and drink the mixture in two gulps, but still he couldn’t sleep. The heat settled on the city earlier than usual, and the early storms of summer, the lightning and thunder, jangled his nerves, reminded him of how his whole fortune now hung by one thread, the mass and accuracy of Rebel guns. Lee was apparently headed for Harrisburg. Once in possession of that town, he would be within equal striking distance of Washington and Philadelphia.
On the 30th of June there was a terrific storm in the middle of the night that blew through the house, ripping down curtains and scattering Audley Ward’s papers across his room. The servants ran about, closing windows and mopping up water. Ward yelled for them to help him gather his papers. Bedford met Ward in the hallway. The old man was standing there in his nightshirt, his hands clasping sheets of paper. “My God,” he cried, “this is a disaster!” He held up the soaking papers, the ink running down them in watery squiggles.
Bedford felt himself on the verge of seizing Ward and striking him, grabbing him by the collar of his nightshirt and dragging him down the stairs, throwing him and his soggy diary or history or whatever it was into the street, watching the pages wash away. He went past Ward without a word, down the stairs, through the pantry, into the cellar. He sat on the floor of a small, windowless room that was dank and cool. In it hung a row of winter coats wrapped in greased paper that moths couldn’t eat through. He started to cry and, once started, couldn’t stop. He sobbed for what seemed like an hour. He heard the door at the top of the stairs open, and the hesitant voice of one of the Irish servant girls call out, “Mr. Bedford, sir, are ye down there? Is everything all right?”