He bowed over her hand. “You are too kind” to me, Mrs. Davis.” She was a pretty, dark-haired woman, some years younger than her husband—and also a good deal more outgoing. Without her, the President’s levees would have been too austere to be worth visiting. As it was, the gatherings, if not the most intellectual in the city—that distinction surely belonged to Mrs. Stanard’s salon—were the most variegated, with congressmen, judges, soldiers, and officials of the administration mingled promiscuously with merchants, preachers, and simple citizens anxious to conduct business with Jefferson Davis or simply to see him, and with ladies corresponding to all those types.
Lee ran a hand down the sleeve of his black wool formal coat. Being out of military gray still seemed strange and unnatural, as if he were parading through Richmond in his underclothes. He added, “I am also most pleased at how lovely you look out of black.”
Varina Davis’s eyes were shadowed for a moment.” As you will know, what with the sad loss of your Annie, the passing of a child is hard to bear.” A little more than two years before, her little son Joe had fallen from some scaffolding and died the same day. She and Lee shared a few seconds of sad remembrance. Then she went on, “But life also calls to us, and we must continue as best we can. Do come in; I know my husband will be glad to see you.”
The President stood by a table crowded with punch bowls and plates of fried chicken and ham, baked potatoes, and tall cakes with yellow icing. Standing with him, a chicken leg in one hand and a glass in the other, was Stephen R. Mallory, the Secretary of the Navy, a tall, heavily built man who resembled nothing so much as an Anglo-Saxon version of Judah P. Benjamin, save that his jowly, beard-fringed face more usually bore frown than smile.
Jefferson Davis beckoned Lee to him. As Lee approached, the President said loudly, “I am confident that when my term expires, sir, I shall leave the nation in your capable hands.”
Silence spread outward as everyone present turned to stare at Lee. After his resignation, Richmond had buzzed with political rumors. Now, all at once, the gossip acquired solid flesh—a figure of speech almost inevitable when looking toward the rotund frame of Secretary Mallory. Lee knew his answer would gain similar weight. He said, “If that be the will of the people, I shall humbly accept it, though conscious as always of my own shortcomings.”
Still in that public voice, Davis replied, “I am equally confident that the people, observing your manifold virtues, will think as highly of them as do I, and as they assuredly merit.” By then Lee was close by. As he dipped out a glass of lemonade, Davis, reverting to normal tones, said to Mallory, “You see how it is done, Mr. Secretary—no vulgar party politics, such as first forced us to abandon the United States and then left that unhappy nation divided against itself, will mar our republic’s smooth transition from one chief magistrate to the next.”
“Our states do seem more united in purpose than those which claim that title.” Mallory had a big bass voice; Lee, in a moment of irrelevant irreverence, wondered if it was because he was shaped like a big bass fiddle. The Secretary of the Navy went on, “I can see no issue which would divide our happy confederation.” He tossed aside the gnawed chicken bone, piled ham and potatoes onto a plate, and poured gravy over both.
“I see one,” Lee said.
Jefferson Davis’s features, always thin and dyspeptic, pinched further, as if at some sudden new gastric pang. “It will not be an issue if you do not choose to make it one,” he said.
“It will,” Lee answered. “Sooner or later, it will return to haunt us; how could it do otherwise? I would sooner engage the problem at a time of my own choosing than let it grow to crisis strength and overwhelm us.”
“You may wear a simple suit, sir, but you still speak like a soldier,” Mallory said. Though pompous, he was also keen: “You have grown dissatisfied with our treatment of our Negroes, have you not? I recall it was at your urging that we sent the Alabama to join the antislavery patrol off the west African coast.”
“Many of the South’s best men have long been dissatisfied with slavery; too many have chosen to keep that dissatisfaction to themselves,” Lee said. “I do not believe we can afford to do so any longer. As for the Alabama, I am glad we had it to send.”
“So, no doubt, is Captain Semmes,” Mallory replied. The Alabama had been in Cherbourg harbor with the U.S.S. Kearsarge, a much more formidable vessel, waiting just outside French territorial waters for it to emerge when word came of the fall of Washington and the armistice.
“They might well disagree with you about slavery even in the United States, General Lee,” Jefferson Davis said. “Their constitutional amendment to abolish it just went down to defeat in the Illinois legislature, despite the vociferous protests of Mr. Lincoln.” His voice took on a certain satisfaction at his wartime rival’s discomfiture. “Only two U.S. states outside New England have ratified that amendment, and only one since Seymour became President.”
“But slavery is now legal in only two of their states, Maryland and Delaware, and is moribund in the latter,” Lee said…Further, the Negro constitutes but a tiny fraction of their population, which is emphatically not the case with us. Thus he presents them a smaller problem and allows them to confront it more nearly at their leisure.”
“You know we disagree on this question. Still, I shall not lose sleep over it,” Davis said. “For one thing, I may be wrong; the Negroes in the Union army and the guerrillas who remained on our soil after the Federal withdrawal proved themselves capable of deeds more manly than I would have expected from their race.” For Davis to admit he might be wrong was very nearly a prodigy. His mouth thinned as he weakened that admission by continuing, “For another, believe as you may, you will have your hands full in getting Congress to accede to your wishes. You will have your hands full in getting Congress to do anything at all.” His own battles with the legislative branch, though milder now than during the crises of the Second American Revolution, left him with a permanently jaundiced perspective on its utility.
Lee frowned as he contemplated that aspect of government in action—or perhaps of government inaction. As a commanding General, he could give orders and feel sure they would be obeyed—and if they were not, he had the power to punish those who failed in their duty. But the President of a republic like the Confederate States of America could not rule by fiat. If Congress refused to go along with him, he was stymied.
As if reading his thoughts, Jefferson Davis reached up to put a hand on his shoulder. “Take heart, sir, take heart. While we have as yet no political parties in the Confederacy, our Congress was and is most definitely divided into factions favoring and in opposition to myself; but, so far as I know, no faction opposed to Robert E. Lee exists within the bounds of our nation, not after the extraordinary services he has rendered to it.”
“If he speaks in any way against the continued servitude of the black man, such a faction will spring to life soon enough—he is right about that,” Stephen Mallory said.
“True,” Lee said, thinking that an anti-Lee faction, in the persons of Nathan Bedford Forrest and the men of America Will Break, was already very much alive. “Well, if I fail of election on that account, I shall return to the bosom of my family without any great anguish. I wasted too large a part of my life away from them. I shall not dissemble for the sake of votes—I leave such ploys, as you said, Mr. President, to politicians in the North.”
Davis raised his glass in salute. “Long may those ploys remain there.” Lee and Mallory drank with him.
Julia came up to Lee in the study. “ ‘Scuse me, Marse Robert, but there’s a soldier here to see you.”
“A soldier?” Lee said. Julia nodded. Lee gave a whimsical shrug. “Having resigned from the army, I thought I would henceforth be free of soldiers.” The black freedwoman looked back in incomprehension. Lee got up from his chair. “Thank you, Julia. Of course I shall see him.”
The “soldier” proved to be a pink-cheeked second lieutenant who looked so young t
hat Lee wondered if he could possibly have seen service in the late war. When he saw Lee, he went into a brace so stiff that Lee feared for the integrity of his back bone. “General Lee, sir, I have a letter here, sir, which the Secretary of War directed me to deliver into your hands. Sir.”
“Thank you very much, Lieutenant,” Lee said, accepting the envelope the youngster in gray proffered. After extending his hand to give it to Lee, the lieutenant returned to attention. “You may go,” Lee told him.
“No, sir. I am directed to wait and bring your reply, if any, to the Secretary.”
“I see. Very well.” Lee broke the seal on the envelope. It held not one but two letters, the first folded around the second. ‘The outer sheet was in James Seddon’s copperplate script: “My dear General Lee: In view of the political developments centering on your name which have of late occasioned so much gossip and so many wildly speculative stories in the Richmond papers, and in view of the rumored estrangement between yourself and General Forrest on the one hand and between yourself and America Will Break on the other, I send you the enclosed so you may act upon it as you see fit and as the times demand. I have the honor to remain, your most ob’t c., James A. Seddon.”
Lee opened the inner sheet. The handwriting and spelling on that one both left something to be desired; Nathan Bedford Forrest’s formal schooling had lasted only a few months. But the import of the letter was clear enough: Forrest was resigning his commission in the Confederate army. His last sentence explained why: “If Genl Lee thinks he will be come the Presadent with the job handed him on a silver platter,” he wrote, “Genl Lee can think again.”
Lee read Forrest’s letter several times, shook his head. As far as he could see, the South had just acquired political parties. Jefferson Davis would not be pleased. He was not pleased himself.
The young lieutenant asked,” Shall I take any message back to the Secretary of War, sir?”
“Eh? Lieutenant, you may convey to Mr. Seddon my gratitude, but past that, no, I have no message.”
* XIV *
Raeford Liles bustled about inside his general store, straightening a bolt of cloth here, scratching out a price and writing in a new one there. He muttered under his breath as he worked. Some of the mutters were sulfurous; since Israel went off to work for Henry Pleasants, he hadn’t found anyone who suited him as an employee.
Nate Caudell slapped a wooden pocket comb on the counter. He glanced at the low stack of three-day-old Raleigh Constitutions there. “Looks as though you were right, Mr. Liles,” he said.
Liles’s head poked up between a couple of woven straw fans. “Right about what?” he asked. When he saw Caudell looking down at the newspapers, he scowled. “This ain’t a library, you know. You want to read that, you can buy it.”
“All right, I will.” Caudell lifted the top paper, set it by the comb. “You were right about having General Forrest to vote for—it says here he is going to run for President.”
“Good for him,” Liles said. “He’ll keep the niggers in line if anybody can. Way things seem sometimes nowadays, the North might as well have won the war.”
“I don’t know.” Caudell read further. “Anybody who calls Robert E. Lee ‘a traitor to the ideals that form the basis of our republic’ is crazy and nothing else but. Without Robert E. Lee, the North would have won the war, and we wouldn’t be here arguing now.”
“You know I never had a bad thing to say about Robert E. Lee,” Liles answered, and Caudell had to nod, for that was true. The storekeeper continued, “But from what I hear, Lee is makin’ noises about lettin’ all the niggers go free, an’ if the war wasn’t about slavery, then just what the hell was it about?”
“Slavery was a big part of it, sure enough,” Caudell admitted, “but it wasn’t the whole reason for the war. Besides, from all I’ve read, Lee’s not talking about freeing all the slaves at once. I agree with you, anybody who did that would be out of his mind. But the Yankees turned too many niggers loose for us ever to get ‘em all back. You’ve said as much yourself. It makes me think we can’t keep ‘em all in bonds forever.”
Raeford Liles grunted. “You been listenin’ to that damnfool Yankee friend o’ yours too much. Might could be you ought to go North your own self.”
“Don’t you call me a Yankee,” Caudell said hotly. “You’d better not call Henry a damnfool, either, not when you look at the crop his farm brought in.” What with too little water and then too much, 1866 had been a hard year all through the South. But Pleasants, with his engineering knowledge, got his crops enough water in the dry times and not too much in the wet, and sent enough tobacco and corn to market to make himself the envy of his neighbors.
Liles grunted again. “Well, all right, maybe he ain’t a damnfool. But I ain’t fond o’ no smart Yankees, neither—what business does he have down here, anyways?”
“Making a living, same as you or me.” Caudell could not quite keep from remembering that Henry Pleasants was making a much better living than he was, and a better living than Raeford Liles, too. But Pleasants was his friend, so he went on stoutly, “He could have gone back to Pennsylvania after the war was over, but he chose to stay down here and become part of our new country instead.”
“If he was as fine as you make him out to be, Nate, he’d walk across Stony Creek outen gettin’ his feet wet.”
“Oh, horseshit. He’s no more the Second Coming than he is a devil with a pointy tail, the way you paint him.” Caudell tossed coins, some Federal, some Confederate, down on the counter, stuck the comb in his pocket, and walked out of the general store with the newspaper. The closing door cut off Liles’s reply in midword.
He suspected Henry Pleasants would remain a Yankee in the eyes of Nash County until the sexton shoveled dirt down onto his coffin; if he ever married again, whatever offspring he had would likely be labeled “the Yankee’s brats.” Their children might escape the taint of Northern origin,—or might not. Nash County was a clannish place.
One column of the Raleigh Constitution was labeled “events of interest from foreign parts.” He read a report from Montevideo dated October 29 (six weeks old now, he thought) on the South American war between Paraguay and all its neighbors. Closer to home, the Mexican forces of the Emperor Maximilian, stiffened by a couple of brigades of French troops, had inflicted another defeat on the republican army led by Juarez. Caudell nodded in some satisfaction at that—Maximilian’s government remained friendly to the Confederacy.
The next foreign item came from Washington. That still sometimes struck him as odd. He half expected it to be a protest from President Seymour against the aid the French were giving Maximilian, but it was just the opposite: the report said that most of the U.S. troops in the New Mexico and Arizona territories were being withdrawn. Seymour had in fact issued a protest, but to the government of Great Britain for increasing its garrisons in the Canadas. Adding those two items together, Caudell smelled war brewing. He wondered when it would boil over. From his own experience against the Yankees, he thought England was about to get a nasty surprise.
A drop of rain smacked the dirt street in front of him, then another one. Still another hit the brim of his black felt hat. He hurried back toward the widow Bissett’s, glad the rain wasn’t snow. His head turned at a colorful broadside, freshly pasted—it hadn’t been there when he went to the general store—on a fence along Alston Street. SAVE THE CONFEDERACY—VOTE FOR FORREST! the poster exclaimed in big letters. Below that legend was a picture of the stalwart cavalry leader.
Rain or no, he paused to stare at the broadside. The election was eleven months away. He’d never heard of starting a campaign so early. He trotted on, scratching his head. A couple of houses farther down the street, he discovered another political poster. This one, besides Forrest’s picture, bore a four-word slogan: FORREST—HIT ‘EM AGAIN!
He passed several more such sheets by the time he got to his room. He wondered how many he had not seen, how many had been stuck up all over town to ma
ke sure everybody saw at least one. He wondered how many towns like Nashville the Confederacy held, and how many of those had been similarly broadsided. He wondered how much all that had cost. Nathan Bedford Forrest was supposed to be rich. If he campaigned on this scale till November, he would need to be richer than Caudell thought he was.
When he passed a broadside partly protected by an overhanging roof, he paused for a closer look. Under Forrest’s hard but handsome features appeared a line of small type: Prepared by van Pelt Printers, Rivington, North Carolina. Caudell studied that for a couple of minutes before he went on. If the Rivington men were working with Forrest, he would have all the money he needed.
From an upstairs window in Arlington, Lee looked across the Potomac toward Washington, D.C. Smoke curled up from hundreds, from thousands of chimneys, rising to the true clouds and also turning to a dirty gray the smoke that blanketed the city.
Lee’s mood was a dirty gray, too. “Bedford Forrest is a very devil,” he said, throwing a copy of the Richmond Examiner down onto a tabletop. “He makes political hay merely by noting where this place is.” He picked up the paper again, read, “No wonder General Lee chooses to reside only a stone’s throw from the heart of Yankeedom. His ideas show him to be a Yankee himself, in gray clothing.”
“Let him say whatever he wants,” Mary Custis Lee answered. “Now that my dear home has been made habitable once more, I would live nowhere else. I always felt myself an uprooted plant in Richmond,”
“I know that, my dear, nor did I protest when you wanted to remove here,” Lee answered. For one thing, he knew such protest would have done no good; with her mind once made up, his wife was harder to drive from a position than any Federal general. For another, he had not imagined Nathan Bedford Forrest could turn his choice of residence against him.
The Guns of the South Page 47