by Judy Alter
I was astounded. "You can't..."
"They are perfectly trustworthy," he said. "You'll see."
And I did. They were meticulous in their parceling out of the spoils, and when we returned to Monterrey, our share of the gold was neatly bagged and returned to the trunks.
"That tells you something about California," I said. "I think maybe thirty years ago you might have been able to do something similar in St. Louis... but no more."
For all our lollygagging along the road to San Francisco and back, serious business awaited in Monterrey. In September a convention framed a constitution so that application could be made for statehood. California had no intention of becoming a territory.
Both of us knew that John's name had been mentioned frequently as a candidate for senator from the new state. It was an honor that I determined must come to John. He deserved it—and he needed the glory, after his court-martial and the failure of the last expedition.
"John, if they named you, would you be senator?"
"If they named me, yes. But I will not campaign for the nomination," he said firmly.
I thought he sounded firmer than he really was, but from that moment on my ambition for him rose again.
Although not a delegate, John was in the thick of the constitutional meeting, and so was the issue of slavery. "California must not enter the union as a slave state," John said over and over again, and we devoted all our efforts to avoiding that. I encouraged John to bring visitors by the score to our adobe home—soldiers he had marched with earlier, men who came from the East for gold, anyone with a part in the new government.
"You could be the richest woman in the world, Mrs. Frémont," said one man. "All you have to do is convince that husband of yours to use slaves to mine all that gold up there."
"I don't need to be the richest woman in the world," I said calmly, having at last learned the lesson Father never learned—it does no good to argue with a person whose mind is made up.
A Mr. Lippincott from Philadelphia brought several people to the house one evening. "Wanted them to hear you say you wouldn't own a slave," he explained.
"I would not," I said firmly. "No one in my family would. My father never has, and my mother freed her family slaves."
One man eyed me with real interest. "If a Virginia woman like yourself can get along keeping her own house, so can my wife, who's always telling me she needs 'suh-vents.' We'll keep this place clean of slave labor."
I smiled gratefully at him.
But my favorite comment about the issue came from a gold seeker, an old man who had been with John at the Bear Flag Revolt and was now at Las Mariposas, panning for gold. "In a country where every man makes a slave of himself, ain't no use in owning another slave."
The constitution declared California an antislavery state.
* * *
By December the rainy season had come, and Lily and I were often alone in Monterrey, John being at Las Mariposas to check on things or off in San Francisco on business or, increasingly, in San Jose, where the legislature was meeting. Lily and I occupied ourselves by watching the ocean from one big window in our salon, reading borrowed books—I was even lent a set of the London Illustrated News—and sewing. I was a particular failure at the latter, having cut up one good dress to use it for a pattern for the silks John had sent. My "new" dress fit oddly in several places, and I seldom wore it—but its making whiled away the time.
Late one stormy night as I sat reading, Lily long since in bed, I heard hoofbeats. No, I told myself, it cannot be. He would not come this late at night.
But then I heard the familiar step and a shouted "Jessie?" I threw open the door and was immediately enveloped in the wettest embrace I've ever had. John, though, was oblivious of his wet clothes and dripping hair.
"They did it, they did it! I'm elected as senator!" The triumph in his voice was beyond description, and I knew he felt more strongly about this honor than all the praise ever heaped on the first three expeditions.
Pretending amazement, I kissed him heartily, but in seconds he pulled away to say, "We leave for Washington January first."
The wheel had come full circle. We had left Washington at the lowest point, and now we would return at the highest. It was, I thought, justice at last, and I could not wait to write to Father.
"I am so very, very proud of you," I told him, and he looked a little like Lily when I complimented her attempts at cursive writing.
He had ridden seventy-five miles from San Jose to tell me the news, and in the morning he would turn around and ride back. It was, he said, worth the trip to see my expression. Only later, in the night, did he remember to tell me that he and the other senator, William Gwin, had drawn straws, and John had drawn the short term. He would have to stand for reelection again in six months.
* * *
It was storming again the night we boarded a steamer for Panama, and John carried me through the muddy streets of Monterrey in his arms. Gregorio bore Lily behind us, though both he and Juan refused our suggestion that they come to Washington with us.
"We meant to stay seven years in peace and quiet," John reminded me. "Are you sad to be leaving?"
"Yes and no," I said. "I will miss much of our life here... and I fully count on coming back. But I am so very glad to be going home—and for the reason we are going."
"And, Jessie, we're going home rich, richer than our wildest dreams."
That, too, was part of the joy, but for me it was overshadowed by the emotional side of our triumph.
* * *
I thought that crossing the isthmus, not intolerable before, would be sheer adventure because John was by my side and because we were going home, but I hadn't counted on a raging illness that struck all three of us and delayed us for weeks in the home of the blessed Madame Arce. Lily and I both suffered from intense fever, Lily's so high that at one point her head was shaved in hopes of making it easier to cool her brain. John, meanwhile, suffered severe pain from inflammatory rheumatism in the leg that had been frostbitten. Madame Arce lined up three cots in her large ballroom, making it an infirmary, and her servants cared for us day and night, though I remember little of that time.
John later told me he had no worry about either Lily or me until we left Madame Arce's and headed over the mountains for Gorgona. John's fellow explorer John Stephens, who was living in Panama, had the clever idea that I should be carried over the isthmus in a hammock, my strength being entirely gone after the fever. Stephens rigged a hammock between two poles and enlisted four Indians to carry me—two rested, while two carried. A small crowd gathered as I was being carried out of Madame Arce's, deathly pale from my illness, and one woman said in Spanish, "Pobrecita! Such a shame to die so far from home."
John cried out, "No, Jessie, don't die! Not now! Not when we're at the high point!"
"Would you have let me die after the court-martial, at the low point?" I asked.
He shook his head. "Never. Up or down, I need you, Jessie. Without you..." He shook his head, and his words trailed off, but he had said enough for me.
It seemed months before we reached Washington, though in truth it was but a matter of weeks. We were home by early March. The trip still blurs in my memory, though I remember that all the men aboard the boat from Panama to New York were taken with sympathy for Lily. She looked so pitiful with her shaved head and her pinched white face—though her color did return during the voyage, simply because of the bracing sea air, I thought. But the returning gold miners gave her all kinds of trinkets and rings and things made of gold and begged me to allow her to keep these gifts.
I did, and she burst through the door of the house on C Street calling, "Grandfather, Grandfather, look what I have!"
"My goodness, Lily," he said, catching her in his arms, "you're a rich lady. You've a wealth of gold."
"It's very valuable," she informed him solemnly.
And then he turned to me, and I saw that he had aged. The court-martial, the ongoing fight ov
er slavery, all had taken their toll on my father, and he was no longer the invincible man I had grown up adoring. Now I almost felt a need to protect him.
"Jessie," he said, his voice husky, "it is good to have you home."
"It's wonderful to be here," I said, my voice betraying the strength of my emotion.
Father and John clapped each other on the back and came as close to hugging as they ever would, and it was no time before Father drew John into his library. "You've got to be aware of what's going on in the Senate, John. This slavery thing's going to wreck this nation...."
It was good to be home, and I was glad to be back in the middle of politics. I left the two of them to talk, though curiosity burned through me, and took Lily up to see my mother. She too had failed, but the change was not as dramatic as with Father.
We arrived, though, to find turmoil in the Senate. At issue was whether California should come in as a free or a slave state, and the debate had gotten so hot at one point that Senator Henry Foote of Mississippi had drawn a pistol on Father in the Senate chambers.
"What did you do?" John asked.
"Told them to let him fire," Father roared. "Tore open my shirt and told him to fire on an unarmed man... damned assassin! Thinks he can prevail by terror. Well, I showed him I wasn't afraid."
"Obviously," I said, "he did not take you at your word and shoot you."
"Would have," Father grumped, "but too many others got in the way, and then someone took the gun and locked it up. Foote's not a rational man, I tell you."
"He feels strongly about slavery," John said.
"And I feel strongly against it," Father countered. "Besides, the man's already fought three or four duels."
"How are things otherwise?" I asked.
"Humph! I have to stand for reelection in the fall, you know, and I'm in for a fight. Southerners in Missouri perceive me as an abolitionist... and they're right!"
"You're never better than when you are in a fight," I said reassuringly. Father had been in the Senate for thirty years; I could not fathom the idea of his defeat.
I resumed my chores in Father's study, now working for both my husband and my father, which meant long hours at the desk copying speeches and preparing background notes for them. Lily was once again relegated to the care of Sophie and Mathilde, where she flourished.
The summer of 1850 went by in a flurry of parties, gala teas, and simmering tempers. I always enjoyed the world of men, and in California I had often relished being the only woman in a group of men, but now I was glad to be in the company of sociable women. Zachary Taylor was in the White House, and his daughter, a Mrs. Bliss, was acting as hostess, because of the illness of her mother. Whereas Mrs.Polk had made the presidential mansion a formal and serious place, Mrs. Bliss was open and hospitable, and there were many receptions. A steady stream of Californians came to the capital to be presented to the President, and it was our good fortune to take them to the White House.
And there were other parties—the senator from New York, a talented artist named General Dix, entertained often, and we were invited by Baron Von Geralt from Germany and many others. Best of all, I saw the friends of my youth. I frequently saw Count Bodisco and his wife, my schoolmate Harriet. I could not help but cry out her name when I first saw her, and then I nearly had to bite my tongue to keep from adding, "You've grown fat!" She had indeed become a plump matron at an early age, but she was obviously a wealthy matron, lavishly gowned and expensively jeweled.
"Jessie! I've worried about you out there in that wild land...."
"It's not a wild land," I protested, "it's paradise. But I am glad to be back in Washington."
We traded news, and she told me not once but a dozen times what a wonderful man the count was. To my eye he was still the same little ugly man he had always been, but Harriet truly worshipped him, and I was happy for her.
Everywhere we went—and we were celebrities, invited to every party given—talk was of the admission of California and the debate over abolition. John was courted for his opinion, flattered on his accomplishments, and treated as a hero. Every memory of the court-martial seemed to have vanished, and we were, as I'd told him, riding high on the wheel of fortune.
In September, California was admitted as a free-soil state, and I watched from the gallery as John and William Gwin were sworn in as California's first senators. I was also in the Senate when John introduced several important bills necessary for the running of California as a state. I was appalled that the Senate seemed ready to admit the state but to forget about such necessities as establishing courts and postal routes, providing for the recording of land titles and surveys of public lands, setting up land offices, and the like. Without John the Senate would have left California in worse chaos than before.
Trouble came, however, over a bill that had nothing to do with California. John felt strongly against the use of flogging as punishment in the navy and introduced a bill to abolish the practice. Senator Foote, of all people, misunderstood and thought it a bill having to do with California land titles—a bill that had been tabled until the next session.
Speaking against the naval appropriations bill, which John had presented and in which he included the measure to abolish flogging as punishment, an intoxicated Senator Foote said John's bill would "disgrace the country" and implied that the bill sprang from private corrupt motives. It was the last night of the session.
When John heard this, he immediately left the Senate and went to an anteroom. From there he sent a page to demand that Foote be brought to him.
"What did you say?" I asked.
"Told him his language was unwarranted and that no gentleman would have so committed himself," John said. "And then"—he paused dramatically—"the old ruffian tried to assault me."
"Assault you?"
"Absolutely right." John drew himself up indignantly as he paced about the library. "Took three men to pull him off." He shrugged. "I guess I'm lucky he didn't pull that same pistol on me."
"And then?" I was having to drag this story out of him, and I did it with my heart in my mouth, for I knew what the next step would be for any southern gentleman such as John.
"I demanded an apology or satisfaction with the weapons of his choice," John said matter-of-factly, as though it were taken for granted.
To me it was a very real possibility that John would be the loser should a duel actually come about. After all, Foote was practiced at these things, and John, for a certainty, was not. Still, I knew enough to be aware that I could not say that, I could not diminish John by doubting him.
Foote, fortunately, was prevailed upon to apologize in writing to John, and I was left in the happy position of congratulating John on his victory—and silently thanking the Lord for his continued health and well-being.
John was a senator for a little more than three weeks, between the time of his swearing-in and the adjournment of the session. Unwisely, I had put to the back of my mind the fact that he had drawn the short term.
On a day in September when I was planning a tea to visit with Harriet Bodisco, John announced, "I must return to California to campaign. I didn't know how satisfying Senate service would be; I want to be reelected."
"Of course," I said absently, my mind busy with thoughts of sweetmeats and tea flavored with mint. "When shall you go?" The delights of California had faded in my mind, replaced by the more immediate pleasures of being in Washington, and I remembered now only the hardships, particularly the physical hardship of crossing the isthmus.
"We," he said, "must go together, Jessie. I cannot do this without you. And we'll leave in five days."
I dropped my pen on the floor and then dived to find it, giving myself time to recover. Still, when I spoke, it was with a gasp. "Five days?"
"There's simply no time to waste," he said firmly.
Every ounce of my common sense knew that it wasn't necessary to hurry back to California, but I was once again forced to let John make the decisions, lest I be accused
of usurping the man's role. Who would have accused me? Probably no one in stronger terms than my own, but I still remembered that accusation leveled at me by my father when I was very young. There was, however, one thing I had to say, and then he could draw his, own conclusions.
"John, we will have another child in about six months."
He grabbed me from my chair, pulled me into his arms, and said triumphantly, "And he'll be born in California! A true native."
It was not the response I hoped for, but now there was nothing for it. I began to pack that evening.
Chapter 12
"Fire! Fire!" Even as the words penetrated my consciousness, I was aware of the clanging of bells and, worse, the acrid smell of fire—not a clean wood fire but that which destroys everything in its path.
San Francisco was ablaze! With my new infant son, John Charles II, in my arms, I rushed to the windows and saw a scene of horror. From the hilltop on which our house sat, I looked down on a layer of smoke with flames leaping through it from time to time, reaching as high as the heavens. And the border of those flames, even as I watched, crept closer and closer to our house, inching its way up the hill.
I was home alone with Lily, little Charley, and the servants. John was away at Las Mariposas, and I was in charge. Paralyzed, I sat and watched the fire come toward me in the dark of night.
We had been back in California nearly six months, having landed in November after yet another difficult crossing of the isthmus. I have deliberately wiped out the memory of that crossing and remember only that none of us were deathly ill and that the baby I carried apparently suffered no harm.
We arrived to find San Francisco a far different city from the one we had left less than a year ago. For one thing, it spread like a blight into the hills and showed no sign of stopping, its borders daily pushed out by influxes of newcomers. Many of those newcomers were what John, with studied understatement, called "a rough lot." Convicts and ne'er-do-wells from Australia "escaped" to San Francisco, other British penal colonies allowed men to come to California, and the French sent a large number of the Guarde Mobile—Napoleon had found these men useful, but they since had proved far too troublesome to keep in Paris. These rough men mixed with Chinese, Mexicans, and, of course, the large number of Americans who arrived daily in tattered covered wagons and took up residence in flimsy shacks. Meantime, those who had struck it rich on gold—not a large population—lived grandly in houses filled with French furniture and draped in red velvet. There was no middle ground between the two ways of life, and antagonism was inevitable. Greed seemed everywhere—I was so grateful that John seemed to have escaped that disease—and the city was dangerous: the word "thug" entered my vocabulary, and I read with increasing horror of muggings and murders on the street.