US Grant Mysteries Boxed Set

by Jeffrey Marks

  "Well, I'm not sure I understand how that — woman — stole her own jewels for money." Julia clamped her hands together in her lap and pursed her lips.

  Hart tucked the papers back in his pocket. "It was all a ruse. They put the Confederate bills on the real Pinkerton man to throw everyone off. Those bills had no real significance other than they kept us off the real trail. Especially since they had no monetary value. The robbery was more of the same, plus they needed the money to put their plan in action. Booth went to the pawnshop in disguise and cashed in the jewels to buy the rifle and the poison for their plan. He was the one who actually made the attempts on your life, the sniper attack, the poisoning."

  "So it wasn't the stew?" Grant poked Julia lightly in the ribs.

  "No, the pills that Booth suggested were tainted. He made the sleight of hand with me present and then took them on his last visit to your room. No evidence that way."

  "He showed me his little magic tricks when he heisted that wallet from Mrs. Massie. Picked up on the stage, I suppose?"

  Hart nodded. "Most likely. He was getting a little desperate at that point. He knew you'd be more careful after the poisoning attempt and wanted to throw your suspicions in the wrong direction."

  Julia shivered despite the sunny day. "Well, I'll just be glad when he's caught. I can't get it out of my mind that he came into our room and accosted me like that. Picked me up like trussed meat. It just proves my statements that I remember him following me in Washington. It was most disturbing."

  Grant thought about asking her why she hadn't recognized him in Georgetown, but after all, he did have several more travel days with her. Silence is sometimes the better part of marriage. "Verity is tracking Booth now. It shouldn't be long before he finds him and puts him away."

  Hart pulled up next to the carriage. "If I were Booth, I'd be long gone. I'd put a lot of miles between me and Georgetown."

  Grant barked out a short laugh. "You'd take any excuse to leave that town, son."

  "True enough, General, but he'd be foolish to stick around here. Ohio will be looking for him."

  "Not necessarily. After all, Seward gave the ax to any idea of writing about Booth's reappearance, so besides us, no one knows he's still alive. All in all, I think we've seen the last of that man."

  A Good Soldier

  By Jeffrey Marks

  Money is a good soldier, sir, and will on.

  Merry Wives of Windsor

  Chapter 1

  Ulysses S. Grant recognized death as he paused at the home’s entrance. The black crape that clung to the door had swaddled the coach light in its doleful clothes. This family was in mourning. He hesitated to intrude. Yet at the same time, he and his family had accepted an invitation to make this their home while staying in Bethel, Ohio for a few days. The village of a few hundred souls was barely big enough for a tavern much less a suitable hotel.

  Julia and little Jess, their son, waited in the carriage. His father, Jesse Root Grant, had already left to seek out his old cronies for lodgings. Grant could imagine the older man, chest puffed out ‘til the fancy gold-braided buttons on his jacket strained against their threads, telling his friends about how his son had whooped the Rebs single-handedly. How any of the Bethelites could manage to house the man’s big ways was beyond Grant.

  The tiny town lay halfway between Cincinnati and Georgetown on the coach route. Ohio was dotted with tiny farm communities like the place that he’d visited during his summers off from West Point. After growing up in Georgetown, Grant’s father had uprooted his family to Bethel shortly after Ulysses had left for the military institute, one of many such moves. More than likely to find a fresh batch of people who hadn’t suffered Jesse’s strong opinions. The prosperous tanner had found the smaller community more to his liking. Jesse had actually been the first mayor of Bethel, after it incorporated in 1851. He mentioned that fact with every breath these days when talk of Grant’s rumored presidential nomination arose. He called his election a landslide as if 31 votes could be a majority of anything. Although Grant had visited Bethel as much as he could, Julia had stayed in the village during her pregnancies, and had given birth to Ulysses, Jr., better known to his kin as Buck, in Bethel. Nell had come later, but she too had arrived from this tiny town. The town held a tender spot in his heart for these facts alone.

  Now Grant stood in front of one of the finer homes in town and wasn’t sure what his welcome would be here. The dark fabric that shrouded the hurricane light by the door fluttered in the wind. He hadn’t seen Chris Halley in nearly a decade. He’d been looking forward to recollecting about the old days. Back then, Grant had thought himself unfit for military service. So much for his prognostications.

  That seemed so long ago. His friends had not been quite so war weary. He’d heard about Halley’s capture during the war and his imprisonment at Andersonville. The mere word made Grant shiver like someone had plunged a bayonet into his grave. The prisoner of war camp had been the scourge of the South’s efforts to defeat the Federals. Over ten thousand men died of disease and starvation in an overcrowded prison camp while Southern leaders sat on their hands. Grant didn’t know a precise total, but he’d fought campaigns with fewer losses. So much for Bobby Lee’s airs of a genteel Southern army man. His treatment of the blacks and prisoners of war made a more telling story than chivalry and fancy dress uniforms. The South had needed every captured man exchanged to continue fighting and Grant had suspended prisoner trades. The stories that filtered back were unbelievable. The worse the conditions got at Andersonville, the more pressure was put on Lincoln to give in to the Rebels.

  The inhumane conditions were still being discussed in Washington. The commander of the camp, that coward Captain Henry Wirz, a foreigner to boot, was on trial for war crimes for his treatment of men like Halley.

  How ironic it would be for Halley to survive Andersonville to expire after just returning home a few months before. That place had taken a toll their constitutions. Disease and dysentery had wasted more inmates than guns and knives. Grant shook his head and faced the door again. Here he was all maudlin and he didn’t even know the facts.

  Grant raised his hand and rapped on the door. The noise echoed inside the house. As he turned to return to the carriage, the door opened by a hair’s breadth. A woman stood half-hid behind the wooden structure. She stood five foot tall if that, and was dressed from head to toe in the deepest shade of black. Her dress was new, bombazine or grenadine or one of those dull fabrics he knew from Julia’s shopping. Deep gathers of black crape covered the lower half of the skirt, reminded Grant of the door’s decoration. A thick meshed veil covered her expression, except for the occasional sniff. Grant couldn’t be sure if this was Mrs. Halley or one of her children. The little ones had a way of getting big while you were off fighting wars. His own sons, Fred and Buck, were nearly grown. Nell favored her ma, which only left little Jess to make him feel like a Pa.

  The woman raised her head to look at him and gasped. “General Grant, forgive me. I’d forgotten about your arrival . . .” Her words drifted off into the late September breeze. She opened the door further and laid a gloved hand on the general’s wool jacket. The autumn day was sunny, but still cool enough to warrant his outer garments.

  Grant cleared his throat and looked at her. “I’m sorry about your –”

  The woman stopped and tilted her veiled head up at him. Crape fell down to her waist, telling Grant that it was the deepest of mourning. Grant couldn’t tell a thing about her expression through the mourning clothes. “It was Christopher. He passed away suddenly last week.”

  Grant nodded and tried to signal a look to his wife. Julia would know what to say, how to handle a widow woman. She was the more experienced in social graces and awkward situations.

  “It was rather sudden. We weren’t expecting it at all.” She paused in the doorway and followed Grant’s gaze. “Oh my, forgive me. I totally forgot about your family.” She retreated beyond the doorframe.


  Grant stopped this time. “Perhaps we should stay elsewhere as to not impose on you in your time of grief. John Young is still in town.”

  The woman shook her veil. “You must not of heard. John was killed in a skirmish at the end of the war. One of the gray back guards from Andersonville shot him squarely in the face.” Despite the harshness of the message, the woman didn’t seem to have any shivers in speaking it. Perhaps the war had hardened them all.

  Grant tried to take in the notion. Two of his boyhood possums dead. How many like them had he seen on the battlefields? Bodies stacked so high that you couldn’t’ see the ground. The country had paid a high price to see unity again, including Mr. Lincoln’s death. Grant had to believe that a single nation was worth the sacrifice.

  He still pondered his next step. He couldn’t very well impose on a grieving family, but at the same time, Bethel was not the kind of town where lodging would be easy to come by. If Young and Halley were dead, that didn’t leave many options. He’d be content to sleep on the ground, but Julia would have a conniption. Only five men had been his companions during his summers in town. Now two were gone. He turned to look at Julia, but a large man on crutches caught his attention as he joined the woman at the door.

  “Captain Sam, I thought that was you. What are you doing here?” The man offered a hand out from the crutch. Grant could see him more clearly now and spied the familiar pants leg pinned above the knee. He was dressed in a black suit with a white shirt whose sleeves showed the signs of wear against the crutches. His dark hair was streaked with gray, slicked back for the occasion. Muttonchops whiskers covered the start of jowls.

  Grant squinted to recognize the man, but kept coming back to the missing leg. None of his boyhood chums had been injured, or so he thought. Even so, the man knew his West Point nickname, a sobriquet that few remembered. Only Sherman and a few old classmates still referred to him as Sam.

  “It’s Zeke Newman. You remember?” The hand stretched out a bit further and Grant clasped it in both of his hands.

  “Zeke, sure enough.” Grant marveled at the changes. Had Grant changed so much in the intervening years? The man barely resembled the lad he’d known, even though it had been over a score of years since he’d last seen him. At least one comrade had survived.

  “That your wife and boy out there? Here, have them in.” He managed a few steps out on to the porch and waved a hand at the carriage. Grant wondered how long the man had been injured. The war was full of men who’d lost an arm or a leg to the cause. The most common cure for gunshot wounds was amputation. “You’ll be staying with me, Sam. No arguments. Mrs. Halley isn’t in any shape for company.”

  Grant’s shoulders relaxed. At least, he’d be able to spend the night in Bethel and not have to travel on to Cincinnati. He wasn’t up for the thirty-five mile trip after spending a full day with his father and family. He needed respite. A nice hot bath and a good cornhusk mattress might do the trick. He smiled, thinking how soft he’d gotten since the war.

  Julia stepped down from the carriage, giving a hand to little Jess. The boy bounded from the sideboard and barely escaped the mud along the street’s curb. He galloped up the stairs and threw his arms around Grant’s left leg, the same one Newman had lost.

  The troop followed Newman into the house. The casket of his late friend reposed on the dining room table. Even in the half-light of the oil-lamps on the walls, the box was hard to miss, an elaborate affair of fruitwood and brass. A deathplate in the form of a small shield had been attached to the head of the casket. “Christopher Halley, beloved husband, father, and friend. A good soldier to the end.” The dates of his too short life were etched into the metal. Grant thought he could still see shavings from the engraved numbers.

  As ornate as the casket was, Grant couldn’t take his notice from the body inside. He would never have recognized the cadaver as his friend. The chubby boy was gone, replaced by a rail-thin man. The dark suit was miles of fabric too big, and his hands were so frail that Grant swore he could count bones. His sunken-in face showed his cheekbones in high relief.

  The state of the corpse fascinated him. Grant was used to the natural decomposition of men, the bodies he’d seen in battle that had quickly been reduced to bones and rags. The hot humid days of Mississippi and Tennessee had seen to that. Halley was a different matter altogether.

  The man had been embalmed, drained of blood and filled with chemicals. Grant gave a small shiver to think of the abuse the man’s lifeless shell had endured, all to look a bit better before giving way to dust. Such artifice, not to mention expense. While the family had always had a right bit of money, he knew that the Halleys didn’t have as much as his own father. Jesse would rather burn his greenbacks than see them poured into the veins of a dead man to be preserved like a taxidermist’s model. He knew that they’d done the same thing to Lincoln for his long trip back to Springfield, but that was the president being viewed by thousands, not a soldier in Bethel, Ohio.

  Halley’s body made Grant more aware of his surroundings. The gargantuan mirror hung on the opposite wall only accentuated the opulence of the room. The table was a thick cherry wood with chairs that looked like they could have been Heppelwhites. Grant knew the furniture artisans from the stately homes he’d captured during the war. The homes had been the finest that the South had to offer, and now he found the same décor in a Bethel farmhouse.

  He could discern the same appraising glance in Julia’s gaze. She ran her eye across the tender porcelain dishes and the silver flatware. Even the haughty Dents at their beloved White Haven couldn’t do any better than this. She was probably lamenting the death of Halley from a standpoint of not being able to bask in such lavish surroundings.

  Newman seemed to pick up on the home’s surprises. “We used to talk about death a lot – back when we were down South. Halley always said that he wanted to be buried up right proper if we didn’t up in a shallow, numbered grave there. It was the least we could do for him when his time came.”

  Grant nodded. The soldiers he’d known had jawed about the same thing. They’d written letters to their loved ones before battle, afeared that they would never walk off the field. Dying was a necessary part of war. The letters were identification as well as a farewell to their kin. Those soldiers planned in advance for the possibility of not living to nightfall. They knew the risks, but chose to fight for their country.

  He wasn’t sure how the men in Andersonville stood the uncertain conditions. Grant wondered if you could live with death on that scale and come out the same man. They were trapped inside those log walls without clean water, living like livestock on cornhusks and raw meat. They hadn’t enlisted for penal servitude, even if it helped save the Union. A heavy price to pay for patriotism. How did a country thank men for what they had sacrificed?

  Money would be no good in replacing a person. Grant wasn’t really comfortable with the idea of paying a death fee to the families. The questions of a man’s worth were hard to answer. Was a captain worth more than a private? How much was a limb worth? Or two limbs?

  People tried to put a price on serving in the Army. Early in the war, wealthy men had paid boys to take their sons’ place in battle. Grant shook his head. Nothing more than indentured servitude with a gun. The rich always tried to keep a cushion of cash between them and reality. If the rich could get a body to die in their place, he was sure they’d manage it somehow.

  Little Jess interrupted his thoughts, making more noise than a tribe of red men. He whooped down the hall after the Halley brood. Children seemed inured of death, fast forgetting the deceased and the pain of loss. He marveled at their resilience. Grant hoped the country could heal as quickly.

  Newman laughed at the sight of the children. “I think we might better be getting home. I’m sure you’re tuckered out after that trip.”

  Julia gave the man a half-smile, and nodded. She went to collect Jess, and Grant murmured a few words of condolence to the widow. She seemed to not notice that th
e group was leaving. She looked out the window without acknowledging Grant’s words or Newman’s good-byes.

  The group made their way slowly down the porch stairs and across Plane Street, the main street for town. The coaches and carriages that passed through Bethel had rutted the path. That’s the only way most people knew of this town. Grant smiled, thinking how the world had almost passed this place by.

  Jess practically galloped circles around Newman as they made their way down the street. The boy certainly was wound up over something. Perhaps the travel or spending time with his father after so many years in battle. He wished for a fraction of the lad’s gumption.

  Newman opened the door to another good-sized home. Grant was surprised to say the least. He had expected a more modest dwelling. The Newmans had never been money. They’d owned a shanty on the skirts of the village, two bedrooms for six people. And now with one leg, Newman could afford a two-story in Bethel. Grant had to wonder at the marvels of this little hamlet. Social caste didn’t seem to mean anything here. Perhaps the war had produced a liberating effect on Bethel’s folk. Or maybe folks had decided to honor their veterans for service, like Philadelphia and New York had done for him.

  Julia demurred at the door, letting Jess and Grant enter first. Newman stood in the entryway and pointed to the stairs, cocking his head in the same direction. “Sorry if I don’t go up with you, but these confounded walking sticks don’t see eye to eye with them stairs. If you need anything, give Patsy a holler. She’s the help.”

  Newman limped off into the darkness beyond the entryway. Grant eyed the staircase of curved dark wood railings and carpeted steps. After a long bumpy ride, it looked a little like a path to heaven. Julia took little Jess by the hand and mounted the stairs with resignation. Grant followed behind her lugging two of the carpetbags they had brought along. The trunks could wait until later.