The question being unanswerable for the time being, Lee put it aside and kept reading. He pursed his lips and tightly clenched his jaw when he came upon a picture of a wrecked locomotive in the burned-out ruins of the Richmond and Petersburg Railroad depot. A few pages farther on, he encountered himself, old, grim, and defeated, standing on the back porch of the rented house in which he and his wife had lived in Richmond. It was uncanny, seeing himself in a photograph for which he’d never posed. As eerie was the photograph on the facing page of his farewell order to the’ Army of Northern Virginia, unmistakably in the handwriting of Charles Marshall, and as unmistakably nothing Marshall had been compelled by fate to write.
He read of Lincoln’s second inaugural address and of the broad peace Lincoln hoped to gain, and, a page later, he read of the bullet that had slain Lincoln on Good Friday evening in 1865. He clicked his tongue between his teeth at the thought of a President dying at an assassin’s hands. Then, all at once, he shivered as if suddenly seized by an ague. He had seen Lincoln in Louisville that Good Friday, had listened to him plead without avail for Kentucky to stay in the Union, had even spoken with him. He shivered again. In defeat in the world he knew, Lincoln had wanted to martyr himself for the United States. In the other world, where there was no need for it, he had been made a martyr in the hour of his greatest triumph.
At last, Lee closed the Picture History of the Civil War. His joints creaked and protested when he got up from his chair: how long had he been sitting, rapt? He took out his watch. He blinked—it was after midnight.
“Dear God, I’ve entirely forgotten Melvin Bean!” he exclaimed. He hoped the young soldier had bought supper as well as dinner with his money, hoped even more that he was still here—perhaps stretched out asleep on a couch in the hotel lobby—to be questioned. Lee opened the door, hurried down the hall to find out.
To his dismay, he found no gray-clad soldier taking his ease in the lobby, or at the bar. No waiter recalled serving supper to any such person. Scowling, Lee headed for the front desk. Bean had said he had money; maybe, just maybe, he’d taken a room here.
The desk clerk regretfully spread his hands. “No, sir, nobody by that name has checked in today.” He spun the registration book on its revolving stand so Lee could see for himself. Then he turned to the bank of pigeonholes behind him. “This came in for you this afternoon, though, sir.”
Sure enough, the envelope he held out bore Lee’s name in a sprawling scrawl. Lee accepted it with a word of thanks, slit it open. When he saw what was inside, his breath went out in a surprised hiss.
“Something wrong, sir?” the clerk asked anxiously.
After a moment, Lee said, “No, nothing wrong.” He took the twenty dollars out of the envelope, returned the bills to his pocket, and slowly walked back to his room.
“What can I do for you today, General Lee?” Andries Rhoodie asked, more than ordinary curiosity in his deep, rough voice. “I tell you straight out, I’d not expected you to ask me for a meeting.”
“Nor had I expected the need for my doing so to arise,” Lee answered. “I find, however, that you and your colleagues have been less than completely candid with me and with others in the Confederacy concerning the course events would have taken had America Will Break not intervened on our behalf—or perhaps on your own behalf would phrase it more accurately.”
“Haw!” Rhoodie fleered laughter. “You find that, do you? I tell you now, what I have said before is the truth. And even if it weren’t, how the devil would you know?”
Lee sat beside a small marble-topped table, covered at the moment with an antimacassar borrowed from the couch. He pulled the cloth aside to reveal the Picture History of the Civil War. “By this means, sir.”
Rhoodie’s air of disdainful arrogance crashed in ruins; for the first time since he’d known the Rivington man, Lee saw him altogether at a loss. Rhoodie lost color, gave back a pace, sank heavily into a chair. His mouth opened, but no sound came forth. After a few seconds of gathering himself, he tried again: “How did you come by that book?”
“That is none of your affair,” Lee said.
Though he had no intention of revealing it to Rhoodie, the question still bothered him. As far as he could tell, Melvin Bean had disappeared from Richmond, nor had discreet questions at the railway depots revealed anyone who had seen a person of his description boarding a southbound train, whether in uniform or other men’s clothing. Lee had also had the military records examined: sure enough, a Melvin Bean had been mustered out along with the rest of the 47th North Carolina in 1864, but there the trail ended. It was a puzzle, but one that was not relevant here and now.
He went on, “In any event, no matter how I obtained the volume, it speaks for itself.”
“So it does,” Rhoodie said, rallying. He was neither weakling nor fool, and not a man to be cast down long. “It tells you how the United States would have crushed your country and your dreams to dust without us. You’ve not been any too bloody grateful for our help, either.”
“I freely acknowledge it,” Lee said. “As for gratitude, I should feel more were I surer your aid was disinterested, intended to further our ends rather than your own.”
“Some of us died in the taking of Washington,” Rhoodie growled.
“I know, but for what cause?” Lee reached out to lay a hand on the Picture History of the Civil War.” As you can imagine, I have read this work repeatedly, and with the closest attention. Yes, our struggle for freedom would have failed without you; in so much you told the truth. But in other regards—you spoke of Lincoln’s tyranny over us, of ceaseless strife between black and white, of other evils whereof your book here makes no mention. What it does mention is a continuing search for justice and equality between the races, one incomplete even in that distant future day, but nonetheless of vital import to both North and South. This seems to me to be in accord with a continuation of the trends that have grown here in my own century, and dead against your account of what lies ahead.”
“Nonsense.” A wave of Rhoodie’s hand brushed aside Lee’s words. “Or would you care for one of your daughters to marry a kaffir and submit to his loving embrace?”
Lee did not particularly care for the idea of his daughters marrying at all. He answered, “No, to be frank, I should not care for that. But it is neither here nor there. The discrepancy between your words and the tone of this history makes me wonder whether you and American Will” Break are in accord with the spirit of the future, as you claim, or whether you are in fact as misplaced and out of step with your own time as John Brown was with his.”
Andries Rhoodie had gone white before. Now he turned red. One big fist clenched. His guttural accent came thicker than Lee had ever heard it as he ground out, “Since you aim on taking the’ Confederacy to the devil, General Lee, we will show you what we are. That I vow.”
“Do not think to threaten me, sir.”
“I do not threaten,” Rhoodie said, “I promise,”
* XVI *
“You jus’ leave it all to me, Marse Robert,” John Dabney said. “I promise I take care of everythin’ for you, make your inauguration day special,”
Robert E. Lee liked that kind of talk, whether from a junior officer during the war or, as now, from a caterer. Smiling, he said, “I place myself entirely in your hands, John.”
The rotund Negro beamed. “Make me a raft o’ mint juleps for drinks. The Prince of Wales, he like my mint juleps, you know that, sir?”
“So I’ve heard, yes.” Now Lee kept a damper on his smile: Dabney told that story at any excuse, or none. But it was true; when the prince visited Richmond in 1860, he’d praised the colored man’s juleps to the skies. The renown that won Dabney helped him gain so many cooking and bartending jobs that he ‘d been able to buy himself and his wife their freedom. Before the end of the war, he’d started his own restaurant and catering service. Since then, no one who was anyone in Richmond would think of holding a large entertainment without his supervis
ion.
Dabney’s eyes got a faraway look as he added some detail to the feast that would follow Lee’s installation as President. The Negro could neither read nor write; he had to carry in his head all the preparations for each of the banquets he had in progress. Nobody had ever known him to slip up on that account.
Lee went into the bedroom of his Powhatan House suite. There Julia and his daughters were helping Mary Custis Lee into her gown. “You look lovely, my dear,” he said. “That shade of creamy yellow is particularly becoming to you.”
“I wish I’d had the seamstress make a jacket to go with the dress,” his wife answered. “It’s a raw day out there.”
“Early March is apt to be,” Lee admitted, “Still, the sun is shining. If I’d chosen to be sworn in on Washington’s birthday, as President Davis did, rather than waiting until March 4, we should have displayed ourselves in Capitol Square in the midst of a snowstorm: hardly an edifying spectacle for the people.”
“Why did you decide to wait?” his daughter Mary asked. “With the family’s connection to Washington, I’d expected you to follow Davis’s lead.”
“I had two reasons. One was fear of the weather, which proved justified. The other was that the Constitution prescribes March 4 as the first day of a new President’s term, and I desire to observe scrupulously its every provision.” Lee reflected on his own hypocrisy. While following all the meaningless minutiae for his inauguration, he aimed to sidle around the much more Prominent Constitutional prohibitions against interfering with slavery.
He intensely disliked feeling like a hypocrite, which was both alien and repugnant to his nature. But a show of observance on small matters would help mask his deviation in great ones, and he was resolved to deviate. The success of a man like John Dabney pointed up the injustice of slavery as no abolitionist tract could. Aside from the caterer’s undoubted ability, that was one reason Lee had engaged him: if legislators saw a successful black man in action, they might be more inclined to allow other Negroes to seek the same road.
Mildred Lee fastened a last stay. “We’re ready, Father,” she said.
“Excellent. Then let us proceed.”
“I want a lap robe, lest I catch my death,” Mary Custis Lee declared.
“Fetch your mother a lap robe, and quickly,” Lee said, with a pointed glance at his watch. “The ceremony is to commence at half past eleven o’clock.”
Mildred draped the robe over her mother’s knees. “Is that fast enough to suit you?” she asked. “Or if I’d taken longer, would you have left without us, the way you used to march off to church by yourself sometimes when we were slow?”
Lee, whose natural sense of punctuality had been reinforced by more than thirty-five years of military discipline, said,” As well you didn’t expose me to the temptation.” Mildred stuck out her tongue at him. He made an effort at looking severe, but found he was smiling in spite of himself.
Julia started to push Mary Custis Lee’s chair, but Lee waved her away: this was a duty he would undertake himself. Rather than going out to the lobby of the Powhatan House, he headed for the hotel’s rear doorway, which opened right across from Capitol Square. His daughters walked proudly behind him, their wide skirts rustling as they glided down the hall.
Chill air smote. Lee’s breath puffed from him, as if he had suddenly taken up pipe smoking. His wife pulled the lap robe higher. “There; you see? I should have frozen,” she said.
Lee reached down to pat her shoulder. “I am glad you have it.”
Capitol Street and the paths through Capitol Square already swarmed with people making their way toward the covered wooden platform which had been erected under the statue of Washington. Marshals with drawn swords—and with AK-47s slung on their backs—briefly halted the tide to let Lee and his family cross. Before he and Albert Gallatin Brown were sworn in on that platform, other ceremonies awaited at the Confederate Capitol.
Marshals helped Lee wrestle his wife’s chair up the stairs to the flag-draped entrance to the Capitol. The chief marshal, a plump, superannuated colonel of ordnance named Charles Dimmock, saluted. “Mr. President-elect,” he boomed.
Lee inclined his head. “Mr. Chief Marshal.”
Congressman Sion Rogers of North Carolina bustled up to Lee. “Mr. President-elect, on behalf of the Joint Committee on Arrangements, it is my privilege to welcome you to the Congress of the Confederate States of America. If you and your charming family will please to come with me?”
He escorted the Lees into the chamber of the Virginia House of Delegates—the Virginia legislature continued to meet in the Capitol, along with the Confederate Congress. Congressmen, senators, members of the Virginia Senate and House, Virginia’s Governor Smith, several other state heads, judges, generals, and clergymen packed the hall, along with a goodly number of reporters. They converged on Lee until Colonel Dimmock interposed his formidable person between the throng and the President-elect.
The minister from the United States caught Lee’s eye. “Congratulations, General, or rather, Mr. President-elect.”
“Thank you, Mr. Pendleton,” Lee answered gravely. George Pendleton, a former congressman from Ohio, was a close friend to U.S. Vice President Vallandigham, and had favored peaceful accommodation with the South throughout the Second American Revolution. Lee added, “Let me applaud you on General Sheridan’s recent capture of Winnipeg. Your armies continue to perform very well, as does your ironclad fleet on the Great Lakes.”
“You are generous to a recent foe.” What Pendleton meant by that was thanks for forbearing to comment on the complete dominance of the British fleet on the high seas. Not only had Boston harbor been bombarded again, but a force of English marines had seized and burned San Francisco, then reembarked on their ships and departed before U.S. forces could do anything about it.
“If you will come with me, Mr. President-elect…” Congressman Rogers said. Lee obediently followed him to the front of the chamber. Jefferson and Varina Davis, Albert Gallatin Brown and his wife Roberta, and outgoing Vice President Alexander Stephens, a lifelong bachelor, were already standing there chatting. So were Lee’s three sons and Joseph Brown; Albert Gallatin Brown’s other son, Bob, captured at Gettysburg, had emerged from a Northern prison camp so weak that he had died a year after the war ended.
“There, you see, Mildred, we are the last to arrive,” Lee said. His youngest daughter only sniffed. He laughed a little; Mildred was incorrigible.
As he came up, he noticed that, while Varina Davis and Roberta Brown were talking animatedly, their husbands, longtime political foes in Mississippi, still had little to say to each other. “That is a lovely ring, Mrs. Davis,” Roberta Brown remarked. “May I see it more closely?”
Varina Davis extended a slim, shapely hand. “Mr. Davis gave it to me upon our engagement. A dozen small diamonds surround an emerald-cut sapphire.”
“Lovely,” Mrs. Brown said again. “The mounting is also very fine work.”
The talk broke off when Jefferson Davis saw Lee approaching and hurried up to shake his hand. Albert and Joseph Brown followed, as did Stephens and Lee’s own sons. Lee also bowed over the hands of Varina Davis and Roberta Brown. Jefferson Davis said, “I leave you a nation at peace and secure within its borders, sir. God grant that you may offer your successor a similar boon.”
Congressman Rogers, who wore a harassed expression, consulted a scrap of paper he carried in his left hand. “If you ladies and gentlemen will be so kind as to form a receiving line… First you, Mr. Vice President, then the Vice President-elect’s family, then Mr. Brown himself, then the President’s family and Mr. Davis, then the Lees, and finally General Lee himself in the place of honor at the end…” He repeated himself several times, and chivvied people about until he had them all where he wanted them.
Dignitaries began filing past, shaking hands and offering best wishes. Lee returned murmured words of thanks, which he wondered if they heard. Finally, Senator Louis Wigfall of Texas broke the routine. N
athan Bedford Forrest’s defeated running mate was a burly, broad-shouldered man, with a fierce countenance and a long, thick beard. He growled, “If you think you’re gonna turn the niggers loose, General Lee, you’ll do it only over my dead body.”
“I do hope it won’t come to that,” Lee said quietly—let Wigfall make of the answer what he would. The Texan stopped, stared, scowled, and, at last, forced by the crowd behind him, moved on.
Lee’s arm was tired and his hand sore when Congressman Rogers declared, “The hour now nears half past twelve o’clock. We shall proceed out through the east door of the Capitol to the platform in the following order: first, Chief Marshal Dimmock and his marshals; next, the band, which has—I hope—gathered by the east door; next, the members of the Joint Committee on Arrangements; next, the President-elect, attended by the outgoing President; next, the Vice President-elect, attended by the outgoing Vice President; next, the families of these officials; next, the members of the old and new Cabinets—excluding Mr. Davis, for obvious reasons—and their families, next…”
He went on for some time, marshaling his hosts like any good general. Senators and congressmen even lined up in columns of four. The press made up the rear of the procession, behind Masons and members of other benevolent societies but ahead of the generality of citizens.
The band began blaring “Dixie” as Lee made his way toward the east door—Congressman Rogers let out an audible sigh of relief to hear them. Lee remembered the last time he had left the Hall of Delegates. A band had played then, too, for he had just been invested with the command of the armed forces of a Virginia not yet even formally affiliated to the Confederate States of America. His step faltered for a moment as he thought of the changes he had been part of through the past seven years.
Outside, Colonel Dimmock was shouting at the generality of citizens who already crowded Capitol Square: “Make way for President Lee! Without the President, you don’t have a show. Make way, make way! Marshals, move them aside.”
The Guns of the South Page 55