1824: The Arkansas War (39 page)

But it was time to settle the current dispute. “Fine, Patrick. Seeing as how you’re being stubborn—”

“When is he
not?
” demanded Shreve.

“—we’ll sink every dime we can into buying iron plate from the foundries in Cincinnati and Pittsburgh. The ones who’ll still do business with us, anyway.”

Seeing Driscol’s sarcastic expression, he chucked. “Which, I admit, is all of them. Amazing, in a way, since Ohio’s supposed to be solid for Henry Clay.”

Shreve snorted. “ ‘Solid’ refers to politics. Money has no country.”

He glared at Driscol. “Besides which, the United States is a republic. A nation of free men, where the idea that the government could tell a man what he could and couldn’t do with his own property is anathema.”

“Especially when the property talks and has a black skin,” Driscol fired back. “So don’t preach to me about ‘freedom,’ Mister Shreve. I find myself quite willing to abrogate the lesser freedoms to maintain the great ones. We’re
still
going to buy all the iron plate we can, since we can’t make it in our own little foundries, so that when the bastards come up the river it’ll be our boats—yours, when I give them back after the war—who steam out of the encounter. And theirs which go under. Or would you rather we did it the other way around?”

Put that way…

Shreve threw up his hands. “Fine! I’m going back to work. Otherwise your lunatic scheme will sink the boats right there at the piers, all the iron you’ll try to bolt onto them.”

“I wouldna dream of telling an engineer his business,” said Driscol, his Belfast accent thicker than usual. “Mind, I’d appreciate the occasional reciprocation.”

But Shreve had already left.

Washington, D.C.

D
ECEMBER 18, 1824

“Well, that’s it,” said Adam Beatty. “We’ll have a merry Christmas, gentlemen. With Louisiana’s vote having come in, everything’s been reported.”

At the head of the table in the boardinghouse, Henry Clay rubbed his face wearily. “Summarize it, please.”

“Nationwide, Jackson has the plurality of votes, though not by as large a margin as it appeared he would in midsummer. That’s the ‘Arkansas effect,’ most likely, coming in at the last minute. Still, he’s got eighty-five electoral votes, just a little under one-third of the total. Adams comes a pretty close second, with seventy-six.”

“In short,” Peter Porter said bluntly, “our two principal enemies—who’ve now formed an alliance, with Adams willing to throw his support to Jackson—have a total of one hundred and sixty-one votes. Which is a clear majority in the electoral college. And the same percentage, roughly speaking, in the popular vote.”

“A little over sixty percent,” Beatty agreed. “But it really doesn’t matter, because the electoral college is not where the issue gets settled, according to the Constitution. Since no
single
candidate won a majority, the three top candidates are the ones chosen from by the House. And there—”

He smiled widely. “Henry’s the third man. Clear-cut, no question about it. He got forty-two votes to Crawford’s thirty-four and Calhoun’s twenty-five. All we’ve got to do, gentlemen, is turn that forty percent in the electoral college into fifty-one percent in the House.”

Put that way, Porter mused, it didn’t sound so bad. But the sense he’d had of a situation steadily unraveling was getting stronger all the while. Because the
other
way to look at it was that the man who could only muster…

Porter was good at arithmetic. Silently, in his head, he did the calculations.

And was appalled. Henry Clay had gotten barely
sixteen percent
of the popular and electoral votes. Which Beatty was cheerily projecting he could triple—more than triple—in order to get elected, purely and solely based on political maneuvering in the House of Representatives.

That it
could
be done, Porter didn’t much doubt. Clay’s ability to manipulate the House was practically legendary by now. But could a president elected in such a manner actually carry out the tasks and duties of the nation’s chief executive in the years to follow? That was another matter entirely.

His musings were interrupted by Clay’s voice. “Peter, are the rumors we’ve been hearing about Van Buren true, in your estimate?”

A bit startled, Porter looked up. “Well…It’s hard to know. Van Buren plays the game very close to the chest. But I think it’s likely, yes. Jackson, unlike Adams, has always had a clear stance on states’ rights, which is what matters to the New York Radicals. They simply don’t have the same concerns regarding Arkansas and the issues surrounding it that Calhoun’s people do, and some of Crawford’s.” He cleared his throat. “Some
others
of Crawford’s, I should say, since they were in that camp themselves.”

Clay nodded, his expression weary but still alert. “In other words, Crawford’s camp is breaking up.”

“Pretty much, yes. His Northern supporters shifting toward Jackson, his Southern ones in our direction. More toward Calhoun than us, though, and keeping in mind that it’s certainly not a split down the middle. Most of his support was in the South, to begin with. New York was really his only major Northern stronghold.”

“The key’s the South, then,” stated Josiah Johnston. “It’s that simple. We haven’t got enough, even getting all of Calhoun’s and Crawford’s votes. And we can’t possibly hope to crack anything away in New England, that matters. Or Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Or Tennessee.”

He stopped there, a bit awkwardly. Porter didn’t blame him. He could have added
or Kentucky, probably.
The two most populous border states had gone for Jackson, even Clay’s home state.

Clay sat up straight. “All right. I agree with Josiah. It’s simple enough. We’ve got to keep Calhoun solid—that, whatever else—and win over Crawford’s Southern supporters. Then—”

He took a deep breath. “Ignore New England altogether. Ignore Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Go straight at the Southern congressional delegations, and a few of the softer Western ones, like Indiana and Illinois. We can assume that Ohio and Missouri will remain solid for us. Persuade them that the allegiance many of their states showed for Jackson was an error, produced by the fact that news of Arkansas—and Jackson’s disturbing reaction to it—hadn’t had time to reach the populace before they voted. Surely they would have voted otherwise, had they known.”

“Remember Arkansas Post!” Beatty exclaimed. “That’s the drum we beat.”

Clay looked around the room. Everyone nodded. Even Porter, in the end. What else was there to do?

CHAPTER 26

Washington, D.C.

D
ECEMBER 19, 1824

“Please, Colonel Taylor, have a seat.” General Brown half rose from the seat behind his desk when Zachary entered his office, motioning toward a chair next to the one occupied by General Winfield Scott. A bit to the side sat Thomas Jesup, the army’s quartermaster general.

Taylor would have felt awkward under any circumstances in such august company. Since the reorganization and drastic reduction in the size of the army ordered by Congress in 1821, Jacob Brown was the only remaining major general, and thus the commanding general of the entire U.S. Army. Winfield Scott was one of its two remaining brigadier generals of the line and commanded the eastern department of the military. For the moment, at least. Rumors were that he and Brigadier General Edmund Gaines, who commanded the western department, would soon be exchanging posts.

In short, he was sitting in an office with three of the army’s four generals. Nor were they “political generals,” although Brown had begun his career as a political appointee. All three of them were considered by the entire U.S. military—except for a few rivals in the officer corps like Gaines—to be the army’s best fighting generals. Brown had been in overall command of the Army of the Niagara, which had won the first major American land victory in the war with Britain; Scott, the general in command of the forces that triumphed at the Chippewa; Jesup, then a colonel, had commanded the 25th Infantry regiment that Scott had used in the battle to drive back the British right flank.

The presence of Jesup was a bit reassuring, since Jesup had been Taylor’s principal supporter in the army’s high command since the days they’d worked together in the northwest frontier. Still, the situation was nerve-wracking. Zachary had been half expecting to receive a summons for a court-martial since he arrived in the capital.

He decided to deal with that immediately. “General, I’m quite aware that I had no specific orders to report to Washington. Still, as soon as I was assured that my post in Baton Rouge was in good order, I felt it incumbent—”

Jesup chuckled. Brown waved his hand. “Oh, relax, Zack. You’re not in any trouble.”

“Not from us, anyway,” Scott murmured.

Taylor glanced at him. Then, looked back at Brown.

“The reason I asked you here,” the major general said, “is because of these.” He leaned over and picked some papers from his desk. The movement was stiff and ungainly, as his earlier rise from the chair had been. Brown had suffered a bad stroke three years earlier and was still recovering from the effects.

Even from the distance, Taylor recognized the handwriting on the sheets. Which was hardly surprising, since it was his. Well…

Brown’s stiff face broke into a smile. “First, by the way, let me congratulate you on the sudden and marked improvement in your penmanship.”

Taylor felt himself flushing a bit. “Not mine, actually. I’d suffered, ah, something of a sprain in my wrist. Miss Julia Chinn wrote the dispatches for me, at my dictation.”

Jesup frowned slightly. “Chinn. Isn’t she Senator Johnson’s woman?”

“Wife, I believe, in reality if not in law,” corrected Scott. He gave both Jesup and Brown a quick, hard glance. “Shall we get to the point, gentlemen? We wouldn’t have invited Colonel Taylor here if we didn’t think he was trustworthy.”

Trustworthy of what?
Zack wondered. But from the look Scott was now giving him, he realized he was about to find out.

“Here’s how it is, Colonel,” Scott continued. “I’m from Virginia, as you are. So’s Thomas Jesup. Our august commander”—a thumb indicated Brown—“on the other hand, is a Pennsylvania Quaker.”

“More of a New Yorker, really,” Brown said mildly, “although I was born in Pennsylvania. And I abandoned pacifism quite some time ago.”

Scott ignored him, his eyes still intent on Taylor. “Not a single New England abolitionist in the lot, you’ll notice. That said, all three of us think John Quincy Adams would make the best next president of the United States. Failing him, Andrew Jackson—yes, even me, despite my well-known feud with the man. But what’s most important is that all three of us think the election of Henry Clay, which now seems almost certain, is going to be a disaster. Not simply for the nation, but for the army in particular.”

Brown winced. Jesup was scowling openly.

For his part, Taylor was simply trying to keep from gaping openmouthed. Even by the standards of the U.S. Army, whose top officers politicked aggressively, this sort of blunt and open statement concerning current politics was almost unheard of. From any officer, at least, who didn’t expect to be relieved from duty.

Which—

Scott smiled crookedly. “Oh, I shan’t give the bastard the satisfaction of discharging me. The day it’s officially announced that Henry Clay will be the sixth president of the United States, I shall tender my resignation from the army.”

“So will I,” said Brown. “My health is poor, as it happens, so that gives me a graceful way to do it.” He gave Scott something of a sly glance. “Unlike what I suspect will be Winfield’s more flamboyant language.”

“The tactics Henry Clay is using to win the presidency are a stench in the nation’s nostrils,” stated Scott, “and I will not hesitate to say so publicly when the time comes. Leaving aside everything else, he’s recklessly using the army as if we were simply a card in his game. He knows perfectly well that the army is far too grossly understrength to be talking as if a victory over Arkansas is simply a matter of will and purpose.”

Jesup cleared his throat. “I’ll stay. They’d find me hard to replace, and they won’t care that much anyway.”

That was probably true, Taylor thought. Jesup had brought professional order and system into what had in earlier times been a disgracefully slapdash manner of keeping the military supplied. And since the quartermaster corps was outside the normal chain of command for line units, an ambitious officer like Gaines wouldn’t consider him a rival.

Not knowing what to say, Taylor kept his mouth shut. He looked back at Brown.

“You’ll be staying in service, yes?” asked the major general.

Zack nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“Good,” said Brown. He lifted the sheets. “These reports were excellent. What’s your assessment of our chances in a war with the Confederacy?”

“It depends, sir. If it were done right, there’s no question we would win. Despite the Confederacy’s considerable geographic advantage in a defensive war—which is what they’d be fighting, of course—the overall disparity in numbers is simply overwhelming. The United States has a population of about ten million people; the Confederacy, less than two hundred thousand. But it won’t be easy, it won’t be quick, and…”

He relaxed a bit. The rest of what he had to say would certainly bring no censure from the men in
this
room. “And, finally, it’s just absurd to think it can be done with an army the size ours has been since the demobilization after the war with England. We’ve got—what? Not much more than six thousand regular soldiers in the whole country?”

“About that,” agreed Brown. “Officially—the real numbers vary a bit—the bill passed by Congress in 1821 allows us five hundred and forty commissioned officers and slightly over five thousand, five hundred enlisted men. Divided into seven infantry and four artillery regiments.”

“Clay will call for an immediate expansion of the armed forces,” Jesup predicted.

Scott’s answering grimace was just short of a sneer. “Oh, splendid. Even in the war with Britain, it took a year and a half to build up to fifteen thousand men. By the end of the war, we had not more than thirty-five thousand regulars. Half of whom, throughout, did purely garrison duty. And that war was generally popular outside New England. This new war, if it begins, will be anathema in New England and popular nowhere except in some—not all—of the Southern states.”

Now the expression on his face was an outright sneer. “The same states of the Deep South, I remind you, whose contributions to the war against England were pitiful.”

Jesup grunted. “They didn’t even do much against the Creeks except plunder helpless villages. The real fighting, outside of regulars, was done by border state militias.”

It was a harsh indictment, but Taylor couldn’t find any real fault with it. Throughout the recent war, Jackson’s Tennessee militia had borne the brunt of the fighting in the southern theater; first against the Creeks and later the British. The Kentuckians had contributed a large number of soldiers also, although they’d generally produced mediocre officers. The rest of the South, outside of the many officers produced by Virginia, hadn’t done much. The Georgia militia, in particular, had been as notorious for its incapacity in the field against a real enemy as for its penchant for committing atrocities against noncombatants. Jackson had despised them and made no bones about it.

“And Clay won’t have the Tennessee militia as a southern anchor, this time around,” Jesup continued. “Not a chance. Not with the stance Jackson’s taken. He’s already starting to call it Henry Clay’s War. Usually with a string of adjectives attached, the mildest of which is ‘benighted.’ ”

Winfield Scott raised an eyebrow. “William Carroll’s the governor of Tennessee, though, Tom. Not Andrew Jackson—and they’re political enemies.”

Jesup waggled his hand. “Yes and no. There’s no personal animosity between them, and not really all that much in the way of real political issues in dispute. Their ‘enmity’ is mostly just a matter of old factional quarrels in Tennessee politics. Go back a few years, and they were close friends and allies. Who’s to say they can’t be again?”

“Yes, I agree,” said Brown. “Despite his reputation, Jackson’s perfectly capable of ending a feud if there’s no personal injury involved.”

“Even then!” snorted Scott. “He’s burying the hatchet with Thomas Hart Benton right now.”

Moving stiffly, Brown sat up straight in his chair and placed his left hand on the desk. His other hand remained in his lap, since he’d lost most of the use of his right arm after his stroke.

“There’s no chance at all that Governor Carroll will agree to let the Tennessee militia be used in any war against the Confederacy,” he said firmly. “Not this war, at any rate. And there’s no better chance, in my judgment, that the Kentucky militia will be available to Clay, either. The current governor, John Adair, served under Jackson at New Orleans. And both he and his successor, Joseph Desha, are members of the Relief Party. They’re Clay’s political enemies, not his friends.”

Taylor didn’t have the familiarity of the three generals in the room with the politics of the nation as a whole, but he did know Kentucky politics. So, finally, he ventured an opinion.

“I agree. And for sure and certain, Senator Johnson’s going to be against any such war. Leaving aside his political allegiance to Jackson, his two daughters are going to school in Arkansas, and his—ah—Julia Chinn is still residing there also. At least for the moment.”

Brown cocked his head. “She didn’t return to Kentucky?”

“No. That was her original plan, but…well…The girls are only twelve.”

He had to fight a little to keep a straight face. It’d have been more accurate to add
going on thirteen, with their eyes already on two boys not all that much older.

“So, there it is,” stated Jesup. “A war fought with a regular army stripped to the bone, and without the Tennessee and Kentucky militias to provide the additional men we relied on in the southern theater against the Creeks and the British.”

Brown picked it up immediately. “Yes, there it is. So what’s your assessment, Colonel Taylor? And please add, if you would, your own recommendations.”

“Assume for the moment that you were in overall command,” chimed in Scott.

Taylor didn’t hesitate. He’d now spent months considering the problem. “Whatever else, avoid the obvious route. The Arkansas River valley is a trap that could easily turn into a death trap.”

He saw Scott and Brown exchange glances. Triumphant, in the case of Scott’s; acknowledging, in the case of Brown’s. Apparently he wasn’t the only one who’d been pondering the matter.

“Well fortified?” That came from Jesup.

“Arkansas Post is as well built a fort as any in North America, outside the coastal regions,” Taylor stated. “I wasn’t able to personally inspect the fortifications farther up the river, but from what I was able to determine, they’re possibly even more formidable.”

“I
did
inspect them, not long ago,” said Scott. “Your assessment is quite accurate, Colonel.”

Taylor nodded. “I’d simply establish a stronghold at the confluence to block the Confederacy’s access to the Mississippi. Then, launch a diversionary attack up the Red River—”

“How would you deal with the Great Raft?” Brown interrupted.

Taylor smiled. “With great difficulty, sir.”

A little laugh filled the room. “Still, with some patience and good logistics,” Taylor continued, “it’s not impossible. But I stress that this would be merely a diversion. Its main purpose would be to force the Confederates to maintain a considerable military force on their southern border. The Confederacy’s great advantage is geography; its great disadvantage, a small population from which to draw soldiers. We’d need to use the former, as best we could—however hard it might be—to place as great a strain as possible on the latter.”