by Jim Musgrave
I was beginning to perspire anxiously, just thinking about the consequences. How high did this eugenics movement go in our government? What if Grant were really supportive of what was happening to suppress the rights of Negroes and Jews, and not just a drunk the way General Sherman described him to me? I kept remembering the scrawl I had seen more than once in my journeys inside New York’s sewers and on the wall of the morgue where Samuel Mergenthaler was murdered: “Order 11 for All America! Get rid of the Jewish scum!”
Was Grant really behind such a possibility? Or, was he just a raving drunk like my brother or even my own father? When men become inebriated, did they speak their soul’s desires? Or, did they become another person? Was this a macabre masquerade I was getting myself into? I had heard that the newly formed Ku Klux Klan wore white sheets and called each other “knights.” The name was constructed by combining the Greek "kyklos," meaning circle, with "clan." It was at first a humorous social club centering on practical jokes and hazing rituals. Beginning this year, the Klan began breaking up Negro prayer meetings and invading Negro homes at night to steal firearms. Some of these activities may have been modeled on previous Tennessee vigilante groups such as the Yellow Jackets and Redcaps. We found these organizations hard at work when we occupied Memphis during the war.
I knew many of these racist groups would love to have a world organization behind their goals and precepts. Tennessee had been the birthplace of just such an organization as the KKK, and now I wanted to find out if they were part of a larger conspiracy. I was immediately cognizant that this kidnapping and murder case had become much larger than I had first assumed it to be. It now had world-wide implications, and its members were some of the wealthiest and most important business men throughout the countries they inhabited.
Not only was the father of a five-year-old boy in imminent danger, but the complete future of the South and possibly even the United States was hanging in the balance. We would need to proceed with utmost caution from here on out. The phantoms of the war just waged were circling, like voracious vultures, waiting to pick at the flesh of those who did not survive the coming battle for the hearts and minds of men and women everywhere.
Was I becoming too melodramatic? No, one look at that red flushed face of Colonel John McGuirk had told me all I needed to know about what I was up against. Tomorrow’s masquerade ball would become a sorcerer’s dance of the macabre, and these demons needed to be exposed for the good of the Democratic Republic.
Chapter 12: The Masquerade
The genetic screening and serum therapy of the fifteen special guests was uneventful except for the fact that father had taken a few more drinks of the serum and had begun to sing a serenade to our visitors as they underwent their treatments. At first I thought it would all end in disaster, but the men actually found my father’s voice quite entertaining.
True, the only amusement in father’s tavern, Five Pints, was his singing of Irish ballads for the clientele and old Bill Leary playing the piano to accompany him. My father’s favorite tune was “The Rising of the Moon,” an Irish ballad recounting a battle between the United Irishmen and the British Army during the Irish Rebellion of 1798.
That was what he was singing as these foreigners were getting evaluated by me and Becky. It must have appeared quite humorous to any impartial observer, as we probed their soft and plump midsections, stuck our tongue depressors inside their pink mouths, and felt the shape of their well-heeled, aristocratic heads.
All the while, my father sang his tune, and the men nodded in time to his vibrating tenor voice:
Oh! then tell me, Shawn O'Ferrall, tell me why you hurry so?
Hush ma bouchal, hush and listen, and his cheeks were all a-glow.
I bear orders from the captain, get you ready quick and soon, for the pikes must be together at the risin' of the moon.
After all the verses were sung, and they had passed their screenings and had taken their serums, they each thanked us and said they already felt invigorated with the serum, and well they should because it was my father’s best whiskey! The Italian delegate even tried to pinch Becky and she just swiped his hand away and smiled coquettishly. In varieties of broken English, they said they were looking forward to seeing us at the Masquerade that evening and at the opening exhibition of the new invention afterward.
* * *
That evening’s festivities were quite extravagant. Burlingame’s butler came back from Memphis with all the masks and party supplies needed to plan the event, and Becky took it upon herself to organize the local ladies of the evening into a bevy of buxom beauties. She even taught them how to relate to distinguished gentlemen without offending them or becoming too obnoxiously intrusive on their personal lives.
“These men are here to have a good time, ladies, and you are here to give it to them. You will read them poetry, sing the songs, dance with them, and play masquerade games we have planned. Nothing else is permitted. Do not ask them about their families back home or about their occupations. Is that clear?”
The fifteen women nodded, and Becky went down each row, handing each woman a different mask. “The men will also be wearing a mask, and this is part of the thrill for them. They can be incognito and enjoy your company without your needing to know who they are or how much money they have. You will become a precious and mysterious joy to them as the night goes on, I can promise you that.”
When all the foreign donors had arrived, the party began. Streamers of black macramé were hanging from the chandeliers, and there was a big tub of water filled with apples to dunk for when the time came. There were four musicians: a violinist, a pianist, a harpist and a flautist. They played classical Renaissance music while the guests danced with the ladies, and many couple exchanges were made during the dances, the men getting more aggressive with their flirtations as the wine and hard apple cider spirits were consumed by all.
The women were dressed as tavern wenches, some wore medieval lace-up gowns, and others looked like Maid Marian of the court. Rebecca wore a Lady Guinevere costume with lace-like sleeves and gold trim and matching headband. The men were dressed as Crusader Knights, Innkeepers, monks and Musketeer swordsmen.
Dressed in my Court Jester’s outfit, I tried to stay in the background of the action, as I wanted to make my break during a peak moment. I wanted to investigate that slave cabin again to see what was being prepared for the surprise invention later that night. Anson Burlingame had privately told me at the beginning of the party that he would unveil his invention at the stroke of midnight but that only five members of the Eugenics Collective would be allowed to view it, and I was going to be one of them. I told him I was quite honored and that I was eagerly looking forward to seeing what he had to show us.
Of course, I had an idea that it involved something that the kidnapped Dr. Arthur Mergenthaler had devised for them, and I needed to spy in that slaves’ cabin where he was being held captive in order to find out what it could be. It could be something as innocent as an investment scheme on Wall Street or a new type of business that used cheap labor. Whatever it turned out to be, these men had already committed a felonious kidnapping and most probably a murder, and they needed to be stopped before things got completely out of hand.
As the night played out, Becky nodded to me that I could leave. The ladies were paired off with each of the men, and they were frolicking together in various parts of the mansion. I sneaked out the back and into the night.
The full moon’s glow cast its sinister rays down on my moving court jester form as it headed for slave cabin number 12 at the end of the third row of cabins. I kept my bell hat under my arm so it could not jingle. My heart beat faster as I crept up to the cabin. I hoped this would prove to be a decisive moment in my case. Whatever I would find in this cabin would be needed as proof to bring to the authorities in order to get a proper conviction.
* * *
I could see them from my vantage point outside the slaves’ cabin beside the window. I could a
lso hear them because there was a large hole in one of the panes of glass.
They brought the short, bearded man into the room. The man had a hood over his head, and he was sneezing under the hood, possibly a reaction to the burlap material of the head cover, or perhaps he had congestion from a head cold or an allergy. The man’s escorts were wearing the gray officers’ uniforms of the defeated Confederacy.
The two men stood on either side of the short man, took hold of his arms, and sat him down on a chair at the drafting table. A blueprint document was lying on the table.
The two men pulled off the hood and the shorter of the two men, the man I had earlier recognized as Colonel John McGuirk, said, “This is it. We need to know how it works. There will be one of these in each of the five districts. The world will look back on our work as the establishment of a new direction to purify the races.”
The imprisoned man looked down at the blueprint. His hands and feet were manacled with steel handcuffs. He was a picture of focus, as his very life depended upon his accuracy. He did not show any outward manifestation of emotion except for his obsessive rituals.
Every five minutes, the little man at the desk would begin to groan, in a high-pitched whine, and the second of the two men, a man with a missing left leg, hobbled over to a basin of water and brought it over to the desk. The little man would then dip his hands into the water, rub them together exactly eight times, and then whine again until he was handed a towel. He then would dry himself off and continue with his explanation of the drawing. His voice was monotone and unemotional, and his brown eyes were riveted upon the drawing on the table top.
“The area marked with the numeral 1 is the place where the triple-muffle furnaces will be installed. To the right are the fuel storeroom, numeral 2, and the rooms for the inmates working the installation, numeral 3. To the left are the two dissection rooms, numerals 4 and 5, and the two-door elevator, numeral 6, opening onto both the incineration hall and the first dissection room. The elevator descends into a vestibule that is connected to the outside by two staircases and a chute for corpses, numeral 7. The two large morgues, numerals 8 and 9, extend far beyond the footprint of the building. One of the morgues is equipped with a double ventilation system, numeral 10, to draw fresh air and extract foul odors.”
“Oh my! Foul odors. We know how y’all hates foul odors, ya dirty kike bastard!” said McGuirk, the man with the patch on his eye, and he struck the little man on the side of the head with his big hand.
The little gentleman continued his explanation, seemingly oblivious to the outburst. “This piping makes it possible to transform the morgue into a gas chamber with little effort,” he said.
The two men picked up the hood and placed it over the man’s head once again. They almost lifted him bodily from his seat and led him out of the room and down the hall of the slave quarters. I moved to the other window so I could see inside. When they reached a small room at the end of the hall, the man with the missing leg opened the door. The little gentleman was then escorted into the room and seated on the small bed. The bed had a Confederate States of America army blanket on top of it.
The two men closed the door, locked it, and walked down the hall back to the parlor room, and I moved with them. McGuirk picked up a decanter of mint julep and poured the contents into two glasses. He handed one glass to his friend, and he raised his own glass in a toast.
“To the new order! May the South become the beginning of the end of the mongrel races and of race pollution throughout the world!”
“Amen, brotha!” said the other man, hoisting up his glass.
The two men drank their juleps and sat down the empty glasses on the drafting table. They then sat down at the table, and the man with the missing leg picked up a newspaper and scanned the headlines.
“Says here that white civilians and police killed 46 niggers and destroyed 90 of the niggers’ houses, two schools, and four of their churches in Memphis. It’s started, John, and it will soon spread all over the South. We’ll round-up all these freedmen niggers and northern carpetbaggers and scalawags. Then, when we get these poison parlors set-up, we’ll start the real fun!”
The second man nodded his head vigorously. “We got ourselves a genius to do it all. Ain’t it ironic that Mergenthaler’s a Jew? Hell, we had our own Jew as Secretary of War and then State. That Benjamin bastard. He lost the war for us, by God, and now we got our own Jew to kill all these kikes and niggers. I hope they can track down that Judah Benjamin and put him in one of these gas houses.”
“This New York City Jew’s like a machine, ain’t he? He said he knew of the prussic-acid lances because they were used to harpoon whales. Then he said he could use this prussic-acid in the design of our crematoriums. He said he could create a gas from this acid and that it would cloud up inside the room and kill the mongrel races in less than twenty minutes.”
The man with the missing leg took out a plug of chewing tobacco and gnawed off a hunk. He chewed for a while until his cheek was full, and then he spat a dark-brown liquid onto the floor of the cabin. “Y’all think we’ll be startin’ construction on more of these crematoriums soon?”
“Soon as we get word from New York City. The American Emigrant Company’s sent down our biggest group of workers so far. They’ll be used tonight as the first test. We now have one of these love shacks, Jasper, and we can now test it. Then, we can start settin' all our ducks in a row in all five of the districts.”
“Maybe we lost the war, but we now have a cause that’s a world-wide movement. We got money comin’ in from Germany and even Prussia. Thousands of rich and important gentlemen want to see us succeed. Some of them were even on the other side during the war. If there’s one idea that can unite all white men, it’s the threat of the mixing of the races. Jews, Chinese, Mexicans, they all need to be incinerated to purify the species. That’s what Sir Charles Darwin and Sir Francis Galton said, by God, and now we’re doin’ it! Preservation of the favored races in the struggle for life!”
Colonel John McGuirk stood up and took off the patch. His eye was missing, and he stared in front of him with one eye. “An eye for an eye, just like in the Bible, Jasper. We’ll be doin’ the work of God!”
I was hoping they would leave so I could get inside and take that blueprint. This was proof incontrovertible that this movement meant to murder Jews, Negroes and any other so-called “inferior” races. This was Dr. Arthur Mergenthaler, and I now knew how they were using him. I also knew I must get to Memphis to stop this experiment from happening.
After another twenty minutes, I knew they were not going to leave, so I did. If I could bring back the authorities in time, I could then show them the actual invention itself, and I would not need the blueprints.
I took a horse from the stable, and I was still wearing my masquerade costume as I rode over the fields of the plantation and onto the road to the Collierville train depot. I needed to catch the next train the Memphis and return before this new invention was used for the first time.
* * *
As I rode the rails to Memphis, I kept thinking about General Grant. What if he were behind this conspiracy to kill the “mongrel races,” as they call them? He was behind Order 11, and General Sherman warned me that Grant could be involved because he reported directly to President Johnson, and Johnson was fighting with those Radical Republicans in Congress. In other words, I could be walking directly into a trap.
I met General Ulysses S. Grant at his hotel room in Memphis. As luck would have it, he was not imbibing, so when I told him about what General Sherman had said concerning The American Emigrant Company and how it might endanger his position in the Johnson Administration, he was quite receptive.
The Commanding General of the Union Armies was in full dress uniform, and his rough black beard was as scraggly looking as it ever was. He welcomed me warmly, as we had met on many occasions during battles, as my general would visit him to plan a different strategy and to talk about their families and share
a few drinks.
“How’s old Uncle Billy?” Grant asked, pushing a soft chair out for me to sit in. He was sitting on the hotel room’s couch smoking a cigar. The fumes were quite pungent, but I kept my remarks to myself.
“That’s why I’m here, General,” I said, “I’ve been doing some spying in nearby Collierville. The President of The American Emigrant Company, Anson Burlingame, has kidnapped Dr. Arthur Mergenthaler and has used him for some extremely nefarious purposes. Since time is of the utmost consideration, I would like you to come back with me to see for yourself what they are doing. I don’t believe you understand the complete horror of their plans, General.”
I was sitting forward, trying to rivet my eyes on the general’s. I knew how to get across the emergency of war-time danger, and it seemed to be working on Grant.
He stood up at once and smashed his cigar into a nearby standing ashtray. “Sergeant O’Malley, if what you tell me is not an emergency of national importance, you can be held for charges. I know Sherman, however, and I know you. I am going with you, and I shall bring a company of my best men with us. If what you say is true, then we may need them.”
“Thank you, General,” I said. “We must leave at once!”
As we traveled by Army troop train to Collierville, I kept thinking about what had happened, and what could happen shortly. It was conceivable I could be causing a national incident with this arrest, and I was afraid I would be in for trouble because I was in over my head. Grant was willing to go with me because of Sherman and our wartime relationship, but this was a civilian we were attempting to arrest, and Anson Burlingame was a civilian of the highest order in New York City. I also knew Grant was planning to run for office, and he needed to keep his political face as clean as he possibly could. This intrusion may be the worst thing to happen to him and his presidential aspirations, and I would then become a pariah in my chosen profession.