Shattered Nation

by Jeffrey Brooks

  “Were you there?” she asked. “Were you there in those battles?”

  “Yes,” he said simply.

  She looked him over with concern, clearly seeing the physical torment his body had endured over the past several days. She took another step forward. Finally, he reached out to her and pulled her into his embrace. Her face pressed against his chest and her felt her taking long, reassured breaths. He forgot the burning wound to his torso. The pain in his head subsided and then disappeared entirely. As they stood together, the deeper spiritual wounds inside of him, which she had begun nurse months ago, now healed completely.

  He would go with her, McFadden decided. He would report to Cleburne, of course, for he was no deserter. As soon as he could, though, he would get out of the army and devote the rest of his life to Annie. For the first time since leaving for New Mexico, he felt he had a place in the world to call home, and that place was wherever Annie Turnbow was.

  “The man you said you had to go after,” she said softly. “Did you get him?”

  “No.”

  She pulled back slightly and looked up into his eyes.

  “He’s still out there?”

  He shrugged. “I suppose so.”

  “Are you going to go after him again?”

  “No,” he said firmly. He meant it, too. Cheeky Joe had been a demon, but McFadden was through dealing with demons. “I no longer care about him, Annie. All I care about is being with you.”

  Her eyes widened, and he decided to say the words he had been thinking for months.

  “I love you, Annie. I want to be with you for the rest of my life.”

  “Oh, James. I love you, too.”

  Chapter Twenty Two

  November 8, Night

  The impersonal clicking of the telegraph machines was the only sound that broke the silence in Major Eckert’s office in the War Department. No one had spoken much since the first election returns had begun filtering in three hours before. Outside, an appropriately gloomy rainstorm was coming down, distant lightning and thunder seeming to manifest the angry response of nature itself to what was happening.

  The quiet belied the fact that the room was filled with people. Stanton and Seward were both there, as were some other members of the Cabinet, reading the telegrams as they came in. All wore the most somber expressions on their faces. Major Eckert occupied himself with paperwork at his desk, while the telegraph clerks hurriedly transcribed the messages coming in. Two staffers kept the room continually supplied with hot coffee. They all maintained a business-as-usual attitude, as though the news streaming into Washington didn’t sound the death knell of the Union.

  Lincoln sat silently on the couch, quiet and still with his hands on his knees. An infinite sadness was manifest in his deep eyes. He was lonely. He was so lonely.

  Stanton finished reading the telegram in his hand. “More returns from Indiana. McClellan remains ahead of us there by twenty thousand votes.”

  The President nodded. “Yes. It is as I expected it would be in that state. What do you have, Mr. Seward?”

  “Some returns from upstate New York. They favor us, but the tide in the state as a whole remains against us. The Democratic vote in New York City is simply too large. McClellan is ahead in the state overall by over forty thousand votes at present.”

  “It’s Tammany Hall’s doing, if you ask me,” Stanton said. “They control the votes of all the Irish immigrants in New York City. And that bastard Butler has done nothing to stop them. Probably helping them, in fact. Lord knows what the Democrats offered him to make him turn traitor.”

  Lincoln shook his head. “It doesn’t matter why it is happening. Not now. It only matters that it is happening.”

  The utter resignation with which Lincoln spoke startled the men in the room. They looked over at him in near despair, wanting to comfort their friend and their chief and yet knowing they could not. Lincoln seemed like the floating debris of a sunken ship, quietly bobbing up and down in the sea that had just torn him to pieces.

  “Most of New England remains true,” Seward said. Normally the most optimistic of men, Seward’s voice now seemed desperate to cling to anything that resembled good news. The voting in Massachusetts and most of the neighboring states had favored the Republican ticket, due largely to the strong abolitionist vote. “Only Connecticut and New Hampshire remain undecided. The other New England states have declared for us. That will account for twenty-eight electoral votes in our column.”

  “Yes,” Stanton replied sourly. “And those are the only states which we can definitively place in our column. On the other hand, we can firmly put New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and Kentucky in McClellan’s column. That gives him sixty-one electoral votes.”

  “One hundred and seventeen are needed to win the election,” Lincoln said jadedly. “McClellan is more than halfway there and the night is yet young.”

  “It is not over yet,” Seward said firmly. “We cannot yet concede Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, or Pennsylvania. Until those states are called, the outcome of the election is still open.”

  “We are behind in all those states, according to the most recent returns,” Stanton growled. “I have to admit that I think Ohio is a lost cause.” The Secretary of War said this through gritted teeth, as Ohio was his home state.

  Lincoln nodded. “Vallandigham continues to torment me from beyond the grave,” he said. A grim smile crossed the President’s face. Had the accidental bullet fired from one of those soldiers in New York City not sent the devilish Copperhead to an early grave, everything might have been different.

  “If we tally Ohio with the Democrats, that gives McClellan eighty-two electoral votes,” Stanton grumbled.

  Seward was handed a telegram that had just been transcribed. “Ah, some good news for a change. We have decisively won the state of Kansas.”

  “No surprise there,” Lincoln replied. The state had been largely settled by anti-slavery radicals during the political turmoil that had preceded the war. “I appreciate the support of the good people of Kansas. Unfortunately, the three additional electoral votes this gives us are unlikely to make much difference. It gives us a mere thirty-one votes to McClellan’s eight-two.”

  “There remains a path to victory,” Seward said hopefully. “If Illinois and Pennsylvania go our way, and if Michigan, Iowa and Minnesota favor us as well, we will come close to the electoral margin we need.”

  “Too many ifs,” Stanton replied. “Why should we expect those states to go our way when everywhere else the news has been even worse than we expected?”

  “I am simply pointing out mathematical reality,” Seward said in response, his voice tinged with uncharacteristic irritation.

  The night wore on interminably. As it did so, even Seward’s optimism began to fray. At ten thirty, conclusive word reached them that Ohio had indeed gone to McClellan. Less than half an hour later, it was confirmed that Pennsylvania had fallen into the Democratic column as well. Every man in the room made the same quick calculation in his head, finding that this gave McClellan one hundred and eight electoral votes. An hour before midnight, McClellan was within a hairsbreadth of crossing the electoral threshold.

  Between eleven fifteen and eleven thirty, there was a brief surge of hope for the Republicans. The telegraph wires hummed with the news that Minnesota, West Virginia, and Missouri had all gone for the Republicans, raising their vote total from thirty-one to fifty-one. Lincoln knew that his victory in Missouri, a slave state that had sent several thousand troops to fight for the Confederacy, was due primarily to pro-Confederate Missourians having boycotted the election. But at this point, he was willing to take any vote he could get.

  The momentary rise in Republican fortunes proved short lived, however. Just after midnight, the telegraph begin clicking once again. One of the clerks quickly jotted the message down.

  “It’s from Illinois,” he said simply. Everyone in the room tensed, for all knew that if the Democrats won Illinois and its
sixteen electoral votes, George McClellan would be the next President of the United States.

  Stanton snatched up the paper the moment the young man had finished writing. He scanned through the message without a word, while every other man stared at him intently, not moving or making a sound. The Secretary of War slowly turned toward the sofa on which Lincoln was sitting, gazing at him sadly.

  “Illinois has gone for McClellan.”

  “It is over, gentlemen,” Lincoln said in near despair. He raised his hands to cover his face. “Our effort to reunite our nation has failed. Our armies have been repelled and the people have voted us out of office.” He looked up, an expression of infinite sadness on his face. “I have failed.”

  “You are still the President until March, my friend,” Seward said. “Perhaps if we mount a renewed offensive in Virginia, we could”

  “To what end, William?” Lincoln snapped. “Do the rebels show any signs of breaking? No. Quite the contrary, in fact. Their armies seem stronger and more motivated than ever. Our own armies are demoralized, desertion is rife, and the men have no stomach for further fighting. Besides, the approaching winter means that any offensive will become impossible in a matter of weeks. How could I live with myself if I ordered thousands of men to die for a cause that has clearly already been lost?“

  Lincoln stood and walked over to Major Eckert’s desk. He took up pen and paper and quickly scribbled a note, eventually handing it to Eckert.

  “Major, would you be so kind as to transmit this message to George McClellan, in Trenton, New Jersey?”

  “Of course, Mr. President.”

  “What are you telling him?” Seward asked.

  “I am congratulating him on his victory in the election and offering my support for his efforts to preserve the Union.”

  “What do you hope to accomplish by such a message?” Seward asked. “He’ll simply ignore you.”

  “Perhaps so,” Lincoln said sadly. “Probably he will, in truth. But if I cannot save the Union, I at least want history to know I tried my best.”

  *****

  January 1, Morning

  It was the fourth time President Jefferson Davis had hosted a New Year’s Day reception at the White House of the Confederacy. For the first time, he was actually enjoying himself.

  Having endured two hours of handshakes in the receiving line, he now happily looked around the room, holding his third glass of champagne. The atmosphere was effervescent, with every guest appearing as cheerful and content as could possibly be imagined. There was General John Hunt Morgan in a fine dress uniform, regaling a small gathering of elegantly attired ladies about his famous escape from a Yankee prison. Rear Admiral Raphael Semmes, recently returned from England, was telling a similar group of females about his exploits when captain of the CSS Alabama. On the other side of the room, noble and austere, General Robert E. Lee stood next to his wife, talking politely with Secretary of the Navy Stephen Mallory. Everywhere there was laughter and animated conversation, helped by the copious amounts of champagne and fine food that had been thoughtfully provided by Secretary of the Treasury Trenholm.

  He thought for a moment about the previous two months. It had not been until the morning of November 10 that clear word of Lincoln’s electoral defeat had arrived in Richmond. In the end, Lincoln had won Kansas, Missouri, Minnesota, West Virginia, Rhode Island, Vermont, Massachusetts and Maine. McClellan had been victorious in every other state, beating Lincoln by one hundred and eighty-three electoral votes to fifty-one. In the popular vote, McClellan had taken fifty-five percent to Lincoln’s thirty-eight percent, with seven percent having gone to the Radical candidate John Fremont. It seemed that the Radical vote had been sufficient to guarantee a Democratic victory in certain states where McClellan had not achieved a majority, thereby contributing to Lincoln’s defeat. Even better for the Democrats was the fact that they had gained control of the House of Representatives and cut down the Republican majority in the Senate.

  With Lincoln’s defeat at the polls, everything had changed overnight. It had been just as Davis had predicted several months earlier. The Lincoln administration had declined to communicate officially with any Confederate authorities, still stubbornly refusing to acknowledge the independence of the South. Union military commanders in the field, though, had sent word under flags of truce that they would refrain from offensive military operations if the Southern forces agreed to do the same. Throughout mid-November, the guns had fallen silent on the various battlefronts across the Confederacy. Despite occasional skirmishes, the truce appeared to be holding rather well.

  In late November, Thomas Seymour, the former Democratic governor of Connecticut, had appeared in Richmond, having run through the blockade at Wilmington. He had brought with him a personal letter from George McClellan addressed to Davis, which had referred to the Confederate President as “the chosen representative of the South” and had offered to call a “convention of the states to resolve the problems besetting all our people.” Seymour had offered to act as a go-between and carry back to McClellan whatever response Davis saw fit to make. The Confederate President had thereupon closeted himself with Judah Benjamin to draft an appropriate response.

  Since McClellan had not yet been inaugurated as President of the United States, Davis and Benjamin had decided to treat the letter as simply a courtesy from one gentleman to another. Therefore, they could safely ignore the fact that McClellan did not address Davis by his proper title and that he declined to technically acknowledge the legal existence of the Confederacy. The constitutional and diplomatic niceties, they had decided, could be dealt with later.

  Three days after receiving the letter from McClellan, Davis had handed Seymour the response he and Benjamin had carefully crafted. They accepted the idea of a conference but insisting that it take place “between the authorities of the United States and the authorities of the Confederate States”. Seymour had dutifully departed with the letter and had not yet returned.

  Davis was not much concerned as to how McClellan would respond. If he insisted on holding a convention of the states rather than agreeing on negotiations between two individual governments, it would serve Confederate aims perfectly well. The important thing was to commence negotiations as quickly as possible, so as to make what was an informal and shaky ceasefire into a permanent and official armistice. Once that was done, political realities were such that it would be impossible for the incoming McClellan administration to resume hostilities. If McClellan agreed to official negotiations between the two governments from the beginning, so much the better. Either way, Confederate independence was all but assured.

  Davis was in the midst of a pleasant conversation with General John Breckinridge and General Wade Hampton when he noticed Secretary Benjamin enter the room. From long experience, he realized that the look on his friend’s face indicated that he had important news to share.

  Surprisingly, Benjamin only nodded in the President’s direction and did not approach. Instead, he picked up a glass of champagne and strode toward the center of the room, sipping as he went. He then picked up a fork and began tapping loudly on the glass, continuing with the ringing sound until everyone in the drawing room was silent and looking in his direction.

  “Forgive me, ladies and gentlemen,” Benjamin said with a grin. “I hope I may be excused for interrupting the festivities, but I think that the news I have to impart to all of you will be most welcome.”

  A hush fell over the crowd. All eyes were intently focused on Benjamin.

  “This morning, I received a dispatch from Mr. Mason in London. The House of Commons voted two weeks ago on a resolution to recognize the independence of the Confederate States. I am happy to tell you all that a decided majority of the Members of Parliament voted in favor of the resolution. The United Kingdom has officially recognized the Confederacy as a sovereign state!”

  The room erupted in cheers. The surprise was such that several people had to ask the person standing next to them whe
ther they had heard correctly. It took Davis a few moments to fully process what Benjamin had just said. Great Britain, the world’s most powerful state, had recognized Confederate independence. France could therefore not be far behind, as Napoleon III had long said he would be guided by the British on the question of Confederate sovereignty. If Britain and France both recognized the Confederacy, Russia, Austria, and the other great nations of Europe would quickly follow.

  “Oh, how I wish I could see Abe Lincoln’s face at this moment!” Varina Davis exclaimed.

  “It is truly wonderful, my dear,” Davis replied. “Wonderful!”

  Breckinridge proposed three cheers, and the hurrahs filled the room with joy. Davis barely heard them, as his own mind was spinning. Surely, this momentous news had already reached Washington and New York. There could no longer be any doubt that the upcoming peace negotiations with the McClellan administration would be conducted on the basis of two nations speaking to one another as diplomatic equals. All the talk about a convention of the states would be revealed for the nonsense it was.

  Benjamin came over and extended his hand. “Congratulations, Mr. President.”

  “And to you, Mr. Secretary. This is the day we have been waiting for since the beginning of the war.”

  “The British and French are merely acknowledging reality. With McClellan coming into office and already committed to negotiations with us, they wanted to inject themselves into the situation so as to derive the maximum advantage. With Lincoln now a lame duck, they no longer fear an invasion of Canada. I would expect the arrival of representatives of the European powers, all clamoring for our cotton and tobacco, within the near future.”