The Guns of the South
Page 29
The woman in the wheeled chair nodded vigorously. “My husband never fails to marvel at the spirit the soldiers under his command showed an through the war, even when things looked blackest.” She turned her head so she could look up at me servant behind her. “Julia, fetch the tray of cakes now, if you please.”
“Yes, mist’iss,” the black woman said. She walked back to the house, vanished inside.
By then, the soldiers ahead of the Castalia Invincibles had advanced several yards. The men shouted for them to move up too. Where before Caudell had cursed the line for moving too slowly, now he cursed it for moving too fast. He had to go on. Company E enjoyed the Lee ladies’ cakes. Caudell tried to stay philosophical. He hadn’t expected to meet Marse Robert’s daughters, and did his best to be satisfied with that.
The line froze up again between Eighth and Ninth streets. Philosophy had trouble competing with an empty stomach; Caudell wished he’d gotten to eat one of those cakes. At last, though, he and his comrades snaked into Mechanic’s Hall, advanced toward the desks in the foyer. Signs above those desks read A-B, C-D, E-F, G-H, and I-K. Caudell got into the appropriate line.
“Name and company?” asked the clerk behind the C-D desk.
“Nathaniel Caudell, Mr., uh—” Caudell read the man’s nameplate. “—Jones.”
“Caudell, Nathaniel.” John Beauchamp Jones meticulously lined through his name. He reached over to a pile of paper, handed a sheet from it to Caudell. “This is your railroad pass home, to be used within five days’ time, You will be required to turn in your rifle and ammunition at the station before boarding your train.” He glanced at Caudell’s sleeve. “First sergeant, eh?” He took a paper from another stack, wrote a number on a blank line. “Here is a warrant for two months’ back pay, which will be honored at any bank in the Confederate States of America. Your nation is grateful for your service.” Unlike Mary Lee, Jones sounded as if he were parroting a memorized phrase. Even before Caudell turned to go, he called out, “Next!”
Caudell looked at the sum for which his pay warrant had been issued. Forty dollars Confederate wouldn’t go far. And he’d been owed four or five months’ pay (he couldn’t remember which), not two. Still, he supposed he was lucky to get any money (or even the promise of money) at all. He stuck the warrant in a trouser pocket, went back out onto Franklin Street.
The line of waiting men in gray still stretched northwest up the street as far as the eye could see. A couple of fellows in another uniform, the mottled green-brown of the Rivington men, sat on the steps of the building across from Mechanic’s Hall and watched the thick, slowly advancing column. Their red and white banner with its spiky black symbol flew atop that building alongside the Confederate flag. As Caudell started down the stairs of Mechanic’s Hall, the Rivington men solemnly shook hands.
*IX*
Robert E. Lee rode Traveller up Twelfth Street toward President Davis’s residence: up in the most literal sense of the word, for the Greek Revival mansion stood on the tip of Shockoe Hill, north and east of Capitol Square.
Jefferson Davis met him in front of the gray building that, despite its color, had come to be known as the Confederate White House. Lee dismounted. Traveller swung his head down and began to crop the grass beside the walkway.
“Good morning. Good to see you, General,” Davis said as the two men shook hands. The President turned his head, called, “Jim! Come and see to General Lee’s horse.” All at once, he looked nonplused, an unfamiliar expression for that stern countenance to bear. “That’s twice I’ve done that this month alone, and it was January when Jim ran off, and Mrs. Davis’s maid with him.” He raised his voice again: “Moses!” A plump black man came out of the mansion, took competent charge of Traveller.
Lee followed Davis to the porch. The black-painted iron banister was rough under the palm of his right hand as he climbed the stairs. “Come into the parlor,” the President urged, standing aside so Lee could precede him.
Another slave brought in a tray of coffee, rolls, and butter. Lee broke a roll, but sniffed at the butter before he began to spread it. He set down the knife. “I believe I shall have it plain today,” he said.
Davis also sniffed at the butter dish. He made a sour face. “I’m sorry, General. Impossible to keep it fresh in this climate.”
“I know; I’ve found that, too. It’s of no consequence, I assure you.” Lee ate the roll, drank a cup of coffee. By the taste, the brew had some of the real bean in it; with the armistice, commerce was beginning to revive. But he also noted the sharp flavor of roasted chicory root. Times were still far from easy. He leaned forward in his seat. “How can I help you today, Mr. President?”
Davis fiddled with the black silk cravat under his wing collar. He leaned forward too, set his half-empty coffee cup on his knee. “Despite the armistice between ourselves and the United States, General, many points of disagreement obviously remain, the most urgent of them being precisely where our northern boundary shall rest.”
“Yes, that is a pressing concern,” Lee said.
“Indeed.” Davis smiled thinly at the understatement. “Mr. Lincoln and I have agreed to appoint commissioners to settle the matter amicably, if that proves at all possible.” The smile disappeared. “I sent commissioners to Washington from Montgomery before the war began, to settle our points of difference with the Federal government. Not only did he then refuse formally to treat with them, he and Secretary of State Seward led them to believe all would be peacefully resolved, when in fact they were planning the resupply and reinforcement of Fort Sumter. This time, I expect no such games.”
“I should hope not,” Lee said.
“And that is why I bade you join me here today,” Davis went on: “to ask if you would be kind enough to serve as one of my commissioners. Your colleagues would be Mr. Stephens and Mr. Benjamin. I want to have one military man as a member of the commission, and a man in whose judgment I may implicitly rely.”
“I am honored by the trust you repose in me, Mr. President, and pleased to serve in any capacity in which you think I might be of assistance to the nation,” Lee said. “Has President Lincoln also appointed commissioners?”
“He has,” Davis said. His mouth tightened, and he did not seem pleased about going on.
Finally Lee had to prompt him:. “Who are they?”
“Mr. Seward; Mr. Stanton, the Secretary of War.” Davis stopped again. He got the last name out from between clenched teeth: “For his third commissioner, Lincoln has had the infernal gall to propose Ben Butler.”
“Has he?” Lee said, dismayed. “It is” an insult.”
“It is indeed,” Davis said. Butler, an accomplished lawyer and Democratic politician before the war, had turned into the worst sort of political general once fighting broke out. In Virginia, he had started the practice of treating escaped Southern slaves as contraband of war. As Federal proconsul of New Orleans, he had insulted the city’s women and made himself so loathed that the Confederacy vowed to hang him without trial if he was captured. Sighing, the President went on, “I wish we’d caught him as he was retreating from Bermuda Hundred. Then, if we’d found enough rope to go round his fat neck, we’d have been rid of him for good. But with the war ended, Lincoln has conferred diplomatic immunity upon him, and molesting him would only rouse fresh hostilities—with the onus of guilt for them upon us.”
Lee sighed, too. “Your reasoning is cogent, as always. Very well, Ben Butler it shall be. Are we to go to Washington, or will the Federal commissioners come here?”
“The latter,” Davis answered. “As we were the victors, theirs is the obligation to acknowledge that victory by visiting us. The telegraph will keep them adequately connected to Mr. Lincoln. Moreover, I entertain the hope that Butler will lack the courage to reenter a nation he has done so much to defile, thereby removing from us the requirement of treating with him.” By the doleful tone in his voice, he found that unlikely.
So did Lee. Though uncertain how much courage But
ler possessed, he knew the man was long on effrontery. He asked, “When will the two gentlemen and Mr. Butler arrive?”
Davis smiled at his choice of words. “In three days’ time. I’ve arranged for them to stay at the Powhatan House and for an armed guard to ensure nothing unfortunate befalls Mr. Butler: the forms must be observed, after all. Your discussions themselves will take place in the Cabinet room, which, being but one floor below my own offices, will enable me to quickly form a judgment as to any disputed points.”
“Very good, Mr. President,” Lee said, nodding. Davis was a man to keep a close eye on everything that was done in his administration. Lee went on, “Mr. Benjamin must be pleased to have more activity in his sphere these days than was formerly the case.”
“Oh, indeed,” Davis said. “Along with the European powers, the Emperor Maximilian has sent a minister from the city of Mexico, and Dom Pedro of Brazil has also extended to us his nation’s recognition. As our social institutions are so like those of Brazil, I find that last recognition long overdue, but I shall take no public notice of the delay.”
“Have you specific instructions for the adjustments we are to seek from the United States?” Lee asked.
“I did not object to the armistice terms you proposed to Lincoln—as a starting point for our discussions. As to how much more than that starting point the Federals prove willing to yield, well, General, on that we shall have to await events. The. Rivington men, who have always been uncommonly well informed, seem to be under the impression that they may well surrender both Kentucky and Missouri, as well as specie payments to serve as an indemnity for what they worked upon our country, which, after all, bore the brunt of the recent fighting.”
“Kentucky and Missouri? That was not the impression Mr.
Lincoln created in me. Quite the opposite, in fact.” Lee frowned. He wondered how much—he wondered just what—the Rivington men had told Jefferson Davis. Though dealing with his own President, he felt the need to be circumspect in finding out. He said, “The Rivington men know a great many things, Mr. President, but they do not know everything there is to know.”
“I sometimes wonder.” Davis fell silent. He cocked his head slightly to one side, as if studying Lee. Then he murmured four words: “Two oh one four.”
Lee grinned in genuine admiration; it was all he could do to keep from clapping his hands. Had he not learned the secret of America Will Break, the numbers would have been meaningless to him. As it was…”So, Mr. President, they have also told you they’re from a time yet to come and given proofs you find convincing?”
“They have.” Jefferson Davis’s features were too stern, too disciplined, to be very expressive, but a tiny widening of his eyes, an easing of the tension that pulled, as if with purse strings, at the corners of his mouth, showed his relief. “I wondered if I was the only one to whom they’d entrusted their secret.”
“So did I,” Lee admitted. “I am glad to learn otherwise. But did they not tell you, sir, that while they came from the future, it was a future wherein the Federals overcame us, a future they traveled back here to prevent?”
Davis nodded; his wide, thin mouth narrowed again. “Yes, and of many evils that would arise there. Thaddeus Stevens.” He spoke the abolitionist’s name as if it were a curse. “If nothing else, they have kept that evil from overfalling us, for which alone we should be in their debt.”
“All true, Mr. President. They helped me greatly by their foreknowledge of the course Grant’s thrust into the Wilderness would take. But once I and others began to act upon that foreknowledge and change what would have been, the world grew apart from what they knew. Andries Rhoodie said as much to me; they now see through a glass, darkly, even as other men. They cannot know, then, it seems to me, upon what terms Mr. Lincoln’s commissioners will settle with us.”
Davis reached up to stroke the graying tuft of hair under his chin. “I see the point you are making, General. It is well taken. Nevertheless, they remain astute men, and their considered judgments worthy of our closest attention.”
“Certainly, sir.” Again choosing his words carefully, Lee added,” Any group within our confederation which found itself possessed of such power as the Rivington men enjoy would be worthy of our closest attention.”
“Lest they seek to dominate it, you mean?” Davis said. Lee nodded. So did the President, rather grimly. “That thought has crossed my mind, often in the small hours when I would be better off asleep. When the North remained our chiefest foe, it was a little worry. Now it is a larger one. I am glad to find that a man of your quality shares it. I gain confidence that, at need, I shall be able to pass on the burden to someone already familiar with it.”
“Sir?” Lee said, not quite catching the President’s drift.
Davis’s eyes bored into his. “You know that under the terms of the Constitution of the Confederate States, I am limited to a single six-year term. After the 1867 elections, our nation must have at its head someone able to rise above faction and lead us all. I can think of no one more likely than you to meet that requirement and, additionally, to meet whatever challenge the Rivington men may present. I chose you as a commissioner not only for your undoubted and unmatched abilities, but also to help keep you in the public eye between now and our election day. One thing I have learned is that the people forget too soon.”
“You are serious,” Lee said slowly. He had not been so startled since the day when General McClellan, relying on a captured set of Confederate orders, abandoned his usual indolence and broke through the South Mountain gap to force the battle of Sharpsburg. This surprise was almost as disagreeable as the other had been. “I have never taken an interest in politics, Mr. President, nor ever cared to.”
“I was trained as a soldier myself, as you know perfectly well. I would ten—a hundred—times rather have commanded troops in the field than spent my days wrangling with a recalcitrant Congress over the minutiae of legislation whose urgency in the situation in which we found ourselves should have been apparent to anyone this side of raving idiocy, a state to which I frequently thought Congress was striving to reduce me. But I remained where fate and duty placed me, and I entertain no doubt that, come the time, you will do the same.”
“May that cup pass from me,” Lee said.
“You know what passed with Him who first made that prayer, and how, when the hour came, He drank the cup to the dregs.” The President smiled his thin, wintry smile. “We’ve known each other better than half our lives, since the West Point days when we were youths learning to be soldiers—and to be men. Now that we are become what once we aspired to be, how may we fail to recognize that which is required of us?”
“Give me battle, any day,” Lee said.
“Battle you shall have, even if it be battle without flags or cannon. That, if nothing else, this office holds.”
Lee still shook his head. Davis did not press him further. The President was not always an adroit politician; his own passionately clear view of affairs made him have trouble compromising with those who held differing opinions. But Lee knew Davis had hooked him as neatly as if he were a crappie in a gravel-bottomed stream. Just as a crappie would go for a worm, so Lee leaped high when his duty was invoked. Oh, but the hook was barbed, barbed. “I think I should sooner face the frying pan than the Presidency,” he muttered.
“Of course,” Davis said, taking the privilege of the last word, “for the Presidency is the fire.”
With a screech of iron against iron, a deep-throated bellow from the steam whistle, and a series of jerks as cars came together as closely as their couplings would allow, the southbound train pulled to a halt. Nate Caudell wiped his face with his sleeve. With the windows shut, the passenger car was a stinking sweatbox. With them open, so much smoke poured in that all the soldiers would have taken on the look of a traveling blackface minstrel show.
A brakeman stuck his head into the compartment, shouted, “Rivington! Alf out for Rivington! Half an hour layover.”
“Good luck to you, Melvin.” “Y’all take care now, you hear?” “We uns will miss you.” Whether she was called Melvin or not, her disguise could not have held up much longer, not from the way the Castalia Invincibles hugged her as she walked to the front of the car.
Caudell got off at Rivington too, though he intended to board again, for he was traveling through to Rocky Mount. He told himself he just wanted to stretch his legs and to get a look at the town from which the marvelous Confederate repeaters had sprung, but somehow he was not surprised to end up walking beside Mollie.
“I’m sorry you chose to stop here,” he said after a little while.
“On account of what I’m likely to be doin’, you mean?” she asked. He felt himself reddening, but had to nod. Mollie sighed. “Readin’ and cipherin’ or no, I couldn’t set on anything else that seemed promisin’, if you know what I mean.” She looked up at him. “Or was you maybe thinkin’ of takin’ me along with you?”
Caudell had thought of it, more than once. Being with Mollie as a soldier, as a companion, made him think differently about her—and in many ways more of her—than any other woman he’d known. But…she was still a whore. He could not make himself forget that. “Mollie, I—” he said, and could not go on.
“Never mind, Nate.” She set a hand on his arm. “I shouldn’t’ve asked you. I know how things are. I just hoped—Oh, shitfire.” The more she sounded like a soldier, the harder the time he had remembering she was anything else. She forced animation into her voice: “Will you look at this place? Don’t hardly seem like the same town I left two years ago.”
Caudell looked. The train tracks ran down the middle of what passed for Rivington’s main street. The train station was of familiar Southern type, with clapboard walls, an eight-foot roof overhang on either side to keep off the rain, and unloading doors for freight and passengers. But everything was freshly painted and almost preternaturally clean; two Negroes with long-handled mops went around swabbing off soot as Caudell watched. Several others picked up trash and tossed it into sheet-metal bins. He’d never seen anything like that before anywhere.