Mrs. Lincoln's Rival (11 page)

“Nothing has been accomplished,” said Father. “My fellow delegates are too easily distracted, and this day, especially, has offered distractions in abundance.”

It was all too true. Aside from the joint session of Congress to which they were on their way, news of Mr. Lincoln’s train journey was everywhere: descriptions of the cheering crowds that had greeted him the first two days; his eloquent speeches, which drew praise for their brevity and moderate tone; the threats upon his life, which had come to the attention of authorities in the cities along his route. Closer yet, a sense of apprehension hung over the city, provoked by fears that Vice-President Breckinridge, a known Southern sympathizer, would betray his duty to preside over the counting of the electoral votes that would confirm Mr. Lincoln’s victory.

As was the custom, the official election certificates had been kept in the vice-president’s personal custody since their arrival in the capital, but with animosities between North and South rising by the hour, the occasion presented a dangerous opportunity for a political coup. The stalwart General Winfield Scott, charged with the defense of the capital, had vowed that interference with the lawful count of the electoral votes would be firmly and decisively quashed. Any man who tried to interfere, he declared, whether by force or unparliamentary disorder, “should be lashed to a muzzle of a twelve-pounder and fired out of a window of the Capitol. I would manure the hills of Arlington with fragments of his body, were he a senator or chief magistrate of my native state!” The general backed up his words by ordering two batteries of cannon into position along First Street near the Capitol. Kate eyed them anxiously but found some comfort in their presence as she accompanied her father to observe the count.

The halls of the Capitol were jammed with onlookers, the mood tense and wary. The delegates to the Peace Convention had been invited onto the House floor to witness the proceedings, so while Father made his way into the crowd of lawmakers and special guests, Kate climbed the stairs to the gallery. “There’s Miss Chase,” she heard someone murmur excitedly, and the crowd parted as heads turned to look her way. She exchanged warm, cordial greetings with those who gave her welcome, and nodded graciously to others who peered eagerly her way but were too shy to address her. A vacant chair appeared for her in the front, and as she took her seat she searched the crowd below for her father, and found him easily, his tall, imposing figure regal and solemn amid the milling throng.

At noon the House was called to order, and after the chaplain led them in prayer, the previous day’s journal was read and approved. A member from Illinois submitted a perfunctory resolution that the Senate should be summoned for the reading of the votes, a measure that swiftly passed. While the House awaited the senators’ arrival, a lengthy communication from the Treasury Department about a crucial loan matter was read. Afterward, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Mr. Sherman, asked to introduce a bill allowing the president to issue bonds to help meet the imperative needs of the Treasury. Immediately following the reading of the bill, a voice rang out, “I object!”

A murmur went up from the gallery. Kate searched the House for the speaker and her gaze lit upon a clean-shaven man of about forty years glaring about defiantly—Mr. Garnett, a Democrat of Virginia.

“I trust the gentleman from Virginia will not object,” Mr. Sherman replied, brow furrowing, “as the simple effect of the bill will be to give to the creditors of the United States coupon bonds as evidence of indebtedness. No new debt will be incurred.”

“After the recent declaration of war by the president-elect of the United States,” Mr. Garnett retorted, “I deem it my duty to interpose every obstacle to the tyrannical and military despotism now about to be inaugurated!”

A chorus of assent clashed with a roar of anger in the air above the House floor. “Declaration of war?” Kate overheard a woman exclaim from the back of the gallery. “What on earth could he mean?”

Below, Mr. Sherman tried again to introduce the bill, only to have a representative from North Carolina object. As voices rose in a clamor of proposals and objections, the Speaker struggled to regain control of the chamber, finally banging his gavel and declaring that in accordance with precedent, he ruled it out of order to conduct any other business until the votes were counted.

At twenty minutes past twelve o’clock, the doorkeeper announced that the Senate had arrived. The members of the House rose as the gentlemen filed solemnly into the hall, Vice-President Breckinridge and the sergeant-at-arms at the head of the procession. Kate’s pulse quickened at the sight of the tellers carrying the two large cases containing the election results from each state. “Breckinridge could have opened them at any time,” a man muttered somewhere to her left. “He was a candidate too, and don’t you forget it.”

“Are you suggesting he might have substituted forged ballots with his own name for Mr. Lincoln’s?” another man jeered in an undertone. “After the results from the states were announced in the papers?”

“His name or someone else’s,” the first man retorted.

Other voices in the gallery hissed and snapped for the first two to be silent. Vice-President Breckinridge had taken his seat to the right of the Speaker of the House, while the senators occupied the seats that had been reserved for them elsewhere in the chamber. Kate’s gaze was riveted on the three clerks, who set the sealed cases upon the clerk’s desk and seated themselves.

“The two Houses being assembled,” Mr. Breckinridge began, his voice clear but his visage grimly somber, “in pursuance of the Constitution, that the votes may be counted and declared for president and vice-president of the United States for the term commencing on the fourth of March, eighteen hundred and sixty-one, it becomes my duty, under the Constitution, to open the certificates of election in the presences of the two Houses of Congress.” He paused and inhaled deeply. “I now proceed to discharge that duty.”

An expectant, apprehensive hush fell over the chamber as Mr. Breckinridge opened and handed to the tellers the record of electoral votes from each state, beginning with Maine. As each state’s results were announced, Kate compared the tallies to those listed in a newspaper clipping she had saved from the day after the election, and a rustle of newsprint told her that others in the gallery were doing the same. None of the numbers conflicted; no one stormed the clerk’s table and stole the records at gunpoint. A little more than halfway through the list, the electoral votes from Ohio were credited to Mr. Lincoln; with a pang of regret, Kate stole a look at her father, whose face she could see in profile as he sat below, listening stoically. Ohio’s votes should have gone to him. If only the Ohio delegation had been true at the Republican Convention—

Quickly she returned her gaze to the newspaper clipping. There was nothing to be gained by dwelling upon what might have been. She should think instead of what yet could be.

As Mr. Breckinridge continued to announce the electoral votes, a murmur rose from the galleries, and distantly, Kate heard it echoed in the halls outside the chamber, overcrowded with eager, unfortunate would-be witnesses who had been unable to squeeze their way inside. The vote was going exactly as expected without a single indication of the dreaded coup. This development, judging from the tone of the rising murmur of voices, had brought relief to many but disappointment and anger to an impassioned few.

California, Minnesota, Oregon—and then it was done.

“Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois,” Mr. Breckinridge declared, “having received a majority of the whole number of electoral votes, is elected president of the United States for four years, commencing the fourth of March, eighteen hundred and sixty-one.” An outburst of cheers from the Republicans interrupted him, but he raised his voice to be heard above it as he announced that Hannibal Hamlin, of Maine, had been duly elected vice-president.

The chamber was called to order again with some effort, and then, their joint session concluded, the senators departed for their own chamber. As the Speaker resumed conducting House business—the first matter was a movement to adjourn, which was briefly argued before it was voted down—Kate joined the flow of spectators leaving the gallery and waited in the vestibule for her father, who was, as she had expected, delayed, most likely cornered by a series of congressmen with causes to champion or curiosity to satisfy. Everyone wanted to know whether Father intended to return to the Senate or join Mr. Lincoln’s cabinet, Father most of all. At last she spotted her father’s noble head above the crowd, and she smiled and waved to catch his eye. He was surprisingly ebullient as he offered her his arm and escorted her from the Capitol. “You apparently appreciated the show more than I thought you would,” she remarked as they crossed the Capitol grounds on their way back to the Willard, where the Peace Convention was scheduled to reconvene within the hour.

“Why would I not have?” He sounded genuinely puzzled. “The legitimately elected candidate was verified according to law and protocol, with no malfeasance and, thank God, no violence.” He halted and glanced down at her upturned face. “Because the votes were not for me?”

She nodded, her heart full of sympathetic indignation.

He sighed and resumed leading her down Pennsylvania Avenue. “It is the will of the majority of the men of this country that Mr. Lincoln should lead it for the next four years. More important, it must be God’s will, for nothing happens that is not a part of His divine plan, although we cannot always fathom his design.”

Kate nodded again, although she only partly agreed with him.

When they reached the corner of Fourteenth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, Kate left her father at the Willard with a kiss and good wishes for a successful afternoon. Then she continued down Fourteenth Street to the Rugby House and upstairs to the family’s suite, where she found Nettie entertaining the quiet, grandfatherly Mr. Hawthorne—a gentle, refined man with snow-white hair and a mustache, a youthful face, and large, soft, very dark eyes—chatting over tea as she showed him a series of whimsical sketches she had made to accompany his novel
The Marble Faun
. Kate had never met a shyer, more reticent man, and when she greeted him warmly and invited him to join the family for supper that evening, he begged off without bothering to invent an excuse. He left soon thereafter, but not until Nettie extracted his promise to have tea together again soon.

“You frightened him away,” Nettie scolded after their celebrated guest hastily departed.

“I didn’t mean to,” Kate said, by way of an apology. “Nettie, dear, Mr. Hawthorne is a very busy and very bashful man. Are you sure you aren’t becoming a nuisance?”

“No, I’m not. Of course I’m not.”

“No one who is a nuisance ever believes themselves to be one.”

“Then why did you bother to ask me?” Nettie leafed through her drawings, smiling. “I’m not a nuisance. Mr. Hawthorne likes me. He says I have talent, and that if I nurture it faithfully, I might become an accomplished artist someday.”

“Did he, indeed?” It was the fact that Mr. Hawthorne had strung together so many words at once rather than the content of his statement that surprised her. “I agree with him wholeheartedly. The question is, will you devote yourself faithfully to the task?”

Nettie didn’t answer, for her attention had already turned elsewhere—to the drawings scattered across the table, to the renowned author’s praise, to sketches she planned to begin as soon as she found fresh paper. Nettie had shown artistic talent from the time she could hold a pencil, a gift she had likely inherited from her mother, Belle. Kate remembered fondly the charming sketches her stepmother had included in the letters she had sent to Kate at boarding school, her affection for her stepdaughter evident in every stroke of the pen. Belle had loved Kate as dearly as if she had truly been her own child, until consumption claimed her life as it had Kate’s own mother’s.

The deaths of three young, beloved wives—that too, Father would say, was an inexplicable part of God’s plan.

When Father returned later that evening for supper—a simple family affair since their reticent neighbor had declined Kate’s invitation—the weariness of a long day had settled upon him, but he remained in good spirits. Mr. Lincoln and his family were in Columbus, he informed his daughters, and while attending a celebration in his honor at the state capitol, Mr. Lincoln had received the good news that the electoral votes had been counted and his election was official. “Soon thereafter,” Father added, “Mr. Lincoln was presented at a reception for members of the legislature at Governor Dennison’s home, and following dinner, he will attend a military ball.” He glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. “Perhaps he is there at this very moment.”

“I wish we were too,” sighed Nettie, ignoring the inescapable fact that she was not out in society yet and would have stayed home with Vina while her father and sister enjoyed the lavish ball. “It seems so strange, to think that Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln are in our city, while here we are, in theirs.”

“Washington is our city now,” Kate corrected her sister, “and Mr. Lincoln’s rightful place is not this city but Springfield. It is there he will return in four years’ time, you’ll see.”

One glance at her father’s faint smile told her that her words had pleased him.

• • •

Apprehension and excitement rose in the nation’s capital as the president-elect’s train wended its way toward Philadelphia, with appearances in Harrisburg, Leamon Place, Lancaster, and Baltimore—a city full of Southern sympathizers in a slave state, well-known for mob violence and secessionist fervor—next on the route. A few days before Mr. Lincoln was due to arrive in Washington, alarming rumors swept through the city of threats that he would not leave Baltimore alive.

All of Washington seemed to hold its breath, awaiting word from Mr. Lincoln’s travels with a dread unlikely to abate until he had safely arrived in the capital. The coup they had feared on the day the electoral votes had been read could yet come, with the swift, merciless strike of an assassin’s bullet.