Mrs. Lincoln's Rival (25 page)

All that day and the next Kate waited pensively as she tended the wounded soldiers left in her care, looked after Nettie, and, whenever she had a moment to herself, skimmed the disheartening reports in the press and carefully examined the casualty lists. Finally, shortly after breakfast on Wednesday morning, William appeared on their doorstep.

“I should have sent my card two days ago,” he said to Kate by way of greeting. “After I promised not to neglect you—”

“That’s quite all right,” said Kate quickly, too relieved to care about the delay. “I’m very glad to see that you’re alive and unharmed—very, very glad.”

She invited him in, introduced him to Bishop McIlvaine, and sent word to the kitchen for coffee and biscuits and preserves to be brought out, in case William had not had breakfast. He devoured the food as if he had not eaten for weeks, but in a distracted, impatient fashion as if his thoughts were elsewhere and he wanted to rush off and join them. “I was in charge of a battery of artillery,” he began without preamble. “One of our guns was the first cannon discharged at the enemy’s line of battle of the war. I furnished the first ammunition myself.”

“I’m sure that will long serve as a point of honor for your men,” Kate said.

“Honor,” he said bitterly. “If they ever had any.”

Kate was shocked. The Rhode Island regiments were William’s pride and joy. She had never heard him disparage them before.

“When the battle commenced, the men were detached and separated. Some of the men stood firm, but others”—he shook his head, frowning—“others were confused.”

“How close were you to the enemy?”

“Only half a pistol shot distance away. Men were struck and died where they fell. Horses too. I continued to supply ammunition from horseback, and did my utmost to give confidence to the line. The bullets were so thick and close that my loose blouse bears their holes.”

“My goodness, Governor!” Kate exclaimed, pressing her hand to her heart, which thumped almost painfully.

“The Union lines held, but it was a grueling struggle, and the men seemed disinclined to charge.” He stood suddenly and paced the length of the dining room, pausing to glance out the window before fixing her with a look that seemed almost defiant. “The men will remember when I rode in front of them, the only officer they could see, and struck their muskets to a level with the enemy. And I shall never forget the blast of enthusiasm with which these twelve hundred men received me. Then, Kate, then we were ripe for a charge. I led.” He fell silent, and grief swept over his face. “My horse was shot.”

“No!” Kate cried out. “Not your white stallion. Not that magnificent creature.”

William nodded. “He perished, and there was nothing I could do to comfort him as he died. I took off his saddle in front of the line—and the men fell back, without orders to do so.”

So the rumors were true. “Perhaps in the confusion—”

William cut her off with a quick gesture. “No. They did not misunderstand me. Their courage deserted them, and they deserted me.” He barked out a laugh, short and bitter. “The officers led the way.”

“Oh, William,” she said. “That’s inexcusable. It’s reprehensible.”

“It was utter chaos,” he continued. “Wagons carrying men and arms toward the battle were blocked by ammunition carts in full retreat. The heat, the dust, the uproar—all defy description. Men were running past me, their faces streaming perspiration, and many must have lost or discarded their weapons in flight, for they carried none.” He inhaled deeply and let out a long, slow breath as if barely containing his rage. “They told me their three months’ enlistments had expired, and that they were determined to go home. And so they did.”

Kate had been too preoccupied with the wounded soldiers in her care to ride out to the Rhode Island encampment above the city, not even to seek news of William. “They went home to their camp,” she asked, “or home to Rhode Island?”

“The latter, to my everlasting shame, and theirs. They didn’t even pause long enough to answer the call for reinforcements to protect the capital. Thus the regiment was led off by the so-called million-dollar men who would not stay to fight, but the artillery remained and I with it.” He shook his head, his jaw clenched in anger. “If Burnside’s men had held, they would have carried the day, but instead, they neglected to guard the rear of the army.”

They were not the only regiment to fail in that regard, Kate knew.

“I remained on the field,” said William, weariness overtaking the anger in his voice. “As twilight fell, I wrapped myself up in my greatcoat and fell asleep, awaiting reinforcements.”

“Alone and undefended? What if a rebel had come by and shot you?”

“Then I’d be dead, and I’d be spared the embarrassment of my regiment’s cowardice,” he snapped, but he immediately amended his words. “My apologies. It is wrong to mock death when so many men lost their lives today, and it is always wrong to speak harshly to you.”

“I understand,” she replied, regarding him with fond amusement. “You’ve had a very difficult day, so I’ve resolved to be more forgiving than usual.”

He managed a wan smile. “You are an angel.”

“Yes, so I’ve been told.”

He frowned briefly as if wondering who might have told her that, but then his thoughts turned back to his own story. “When I woke, it was about two o’clock in the morning, the field was dark and quiet, and I was alone. I mounted a horse I found wandering without its rider, jumped the fences, and made for Washington. Along the way I passed a trail of disgrace—the ground strewn with abandoned coats, blankets, firelocks, cooking tins, caps, belts, bayonets—the detritus of cowardly flight.”

Kate could only shake her head in sympathy. She was not convinced that it was fair to label all the men who had retreated cowards, but it was not the time for that debate.

“I reported at once to President Lincoln, finding him awake in his office, as I had expected. I prevailed upon him to send forward new troops to stop the disorder, but he refused.”

From what Father had told Kate of General Scott’s and Secretary Cameron’s reports, Mr. Lincoln had made the only reasonable decision, but again she kept her own counsel. “What will you do now?” she asked instead.

“Now?” He shrugged and shook his head. “Gather up whatever stragglers from the Rhode Island regiments I can. Organize them into a company if enough remain, a squadron if that is all I have enough for. I’ll return home and recruit more troops.”

“How soon?”

He glanced her way, and his chagrin told her he had not considered how that news might grieve her. “I have not decided,” he said. “But I will return, with braver men than before.”

“I have every confidence that you will,” she told him, but her heart sank a little all the same.

A
UGUST
1861–J
ANUARY
1862

I
n the aftermath of the shocking defeat at Bull Run, Washingtonians nursed the wounded and mourned their dead and wondered how the terrible reversal had come about. The press took to calling the Union’s disorderly retreat from the battlefield “the Great Skedaddle,” bringing shame upon the federal soldiers and heartening their enemies throughout the South. The longer the people’s bewilderment remained unsatisfied, the hotter their anger burned, until the newspapers demanded answers in ever more belligerent tones and recruiting offices overflowed with angry volunteers eager for revenge.

Although Mr. Lincoln maintained a calm, stoic front for the public, Father observed that he was in fact quite melancholy. Newspapers throughout the North castigated him for his army’s embarrassing performance, but rather than firing back acerbic retorts, the president listened patiently and attentively to their criticisms, and more important, to reports from the field explaining what had gone wrong. He sequestered himself with his cabinet and his most trusted generals, using the bitter lessons learned to shape a new military strategy and to ensure that the Union never again experienced such a debacle.

Soon President Lincoln issued orders for the troops to be “constantly drilled, disciplined, and instructed,” so that the confusion and disorder of the battlefield never again led to widespread panic. When he learned that the three-month men had initiated the retreat, he proposed to discharge any of them who did not wish to commit to a lengthier term of service. He ordered blockades set up before the Confederacy could make the most of their victory by strengthening ties with opportunistic, professedly neutral European nations. Last, he sent a telegram to General George McClellan, presently serving in western Virginia, with orders to report to Washington and take command of the Army of the Potomac. Although General McDowell and his wife were dear friends of the Chases, and they were sorry to see General McDowell replaced, Mr. Lincoln’s choice nevertheless gratified Father’s pride, for General McClellan was another fellow Ohioan whom he had recommended to the president.

Kate observed that Mr. Lincoln also wisely endeavored to regain the confidence of his army and his people. He visited regiments—often with Mr. Seward by his side, Father noted sourly—and raised the soldiers’ spirits with encouraging, inspiring speeches, marked by his characteristic humor. He pledged to provide the troops with everything they needed and encouraged them to appeal to him directly if they were wronged. As the summer passed, the Northern press again turned in the president’s favor, commending his firm resolve and applauding a renewed patriotism throughout the Union, which was most readily apparent in the thousands of volunteers who signed up for three-year enlistments.

Pride and confidence and favorable public opinion could be restored, Kate knew, but the people of the North would never regain their certainty that the war would be swiftly and easily won. The stunning defeat at Bull Run had dispelled those vain illusions forever.

• • •

The first days of August were oppressively hot and humid, with no relief on the horizon. After hosting a state dinner for Prince Napoléon III—to which Father, but not Kate, was invited—Mrs. Lincoln took her sons Willie and Tad and her cousin Mrs. Grimsley on a vacation to Manhattan and upstate New York. They were among many residents of Washington to flee the torrid, muggy weather for the cool breezes of the North, and in their absence, the social whirlwind of the capital subsided.

William was among the exodus, although he left for Rhode Island for entirely different reasons. When he arrived home, he was given a hero’s welcome, and in a letter to Kate he confided that the people’s joy and pride compelled him to remain silent about the Rhode Island regiments’ dismal performance at the Battle of Bull Run. “It is not because I wish to preserve their reputations,” he admitted, “but because if the truth were made known, it would hurt recruitment efforts.”

That was the last thing Kate wanted, because the sooner William recruited a new regiment, the sooner he could return to Washington. On their last day together, they had gone sailing on the Potomac, and in the privacy of the boat she had allowed him liberties she had never granted another man, and could not quite believe she had granted him. She longed to feel his touch again, and yet she knew that it was perhaps best that she could not. She came dangerously close to allowing desire to overcome reason whenever she was alone with him, and she knew enough about men to understand that the more a lady consented to, the more would be expected. She would be ruined if she permitted too much.

Not everyone fled Washington in the heat of August. Soldiers, opportunists, politicians, aspiring nurses, newspaper correspondents, and ambitious folk of all kinds continued to make their way to the capital. Some came to settle and stay, at least for the duration of the war; others were merely visiting, and among these, many were eager to see Father. A seat at the table at one of Father’s breakfast parties was highly coveted, for in addition to a better meal than one could find at a crowded hotel or boardinghouse, guests would enjoy Kate’s enchanting company and an almost private audience with the secretary of the treasury. One guest, Mr. John Garrett, the president of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad and a longtime acquaintance of Father’s, appreciated their hospitality so much that afterward he sent both the Chase family and the Lincolns a consignment of live terrapin to grace their dinner tables.

Nettie shrieked when Father pried open the crate with a crowbar and they discovered the reptiles within, some crawling over one another, others hiding within their shells. “I would rather Mr. Garrett had sent us a puppy,” she said, summoning up her courage and peering into the crate. “But I suppose I’ll get used to them.”

Father let out a rare laugh, but Kate only smiled as she said, “Nettie, darling, these aren’t meant to be pets. We’re expected to eat them.”

“What?”

“They’re considered quite a delicacy here in the East.”

“Come, now, daughter,” said Father. “You know people eat turtles. You’ve eaten turtle soup on several occasions.”

“I didn’t know they were these kind of turtles.”

“What kind of turtles did you think they were?” Kate asked, laughing. “The kind that grow on turtle trees?”

“No, but”—Nettie winced as she watched the terrapin crawling awkwardly around the bottom of the crate, some trying to scale the wooden wall and topple over the edge to freedom—“in soup they don’t have legs and shells and faces.”

Kate and Father exchanged a look, and they knew that Mr. Garrett’s gifts would never be served in their dining room. “What shall we do with them?” Kate asked her father.

He thought for a moment. “Perhaps they would find the basement comfortable.”

Nettie was very pleased by this suggestion, as the basement was a far better destination than the cookstove, so Father and Will hauled the crate to the basement and left the top off. It was only a matter of hours before the reptiles deserted the crate and scuttled off into the nooks and crannies of the dimly lit room, and within a few days, all had contrived to flee the house, if terrapin can be said to flee, through a hatch Kate had deliberately propped open. Most were never seen again, but occasionally the sisters spotted one or two ambling unconcernedly in the garden as if unaware of how narrowly they had escaped their doom.

With her own captives liberated, Nettie became quite concerned about their brethren that had been shipped to the White House. The next time both sisters accompanied Father to an event where the president was in attendance, Nettie, her brows drawn together in worry, asked him what had become of his terrapin. Mr. Lincoln, who Kate had observed was always kind and solicitous to children, smiled upon Nettie and confessed, “I felt so sorry for the poor little fellows that I took mine all out into the garden and let them run away.”

Nettie nodded seriously and told him she thought he had made the right decision.

Another new arrival to the capital—and one who received a far grander and more widespread welcome than the terrapin—was General George McClellan. Handsome, athletic, and at thirty-four one of the Union’s youngest generals, General McClellan was celebrated and cheered by a relieved populace who believed he was the man to create a strong, disciplined army out of the scattered, inexperienced troops still shaken by the terrible rout at Manassas. Descended from a distinguished, well-educated Philadelphia family, he had attended excellent schools, including the military academy at West Point. Reassuringly, he had recently defeated a band of Confederate partisans in western Virginia, the Union’s only victory in the war thus far. Under his direction, the capital soon took on a more martial appearance; no longer did hotel bars spill drunken soldiers into the streets, nor did troops wander the city late at night pounding on doors in search of lodgings. General McClellan seemed to infuse the demoralized army with his own abundant confidence, and their renewed courage and pride was soon evident in their marching, their carriage, and their words.

Father said that President Lincoln hoped the young general’s spirited strength would complement the mature General Scott’s experience and wisdom, and that together they would form a powerful, effective team. Privately, Father was somewhat concerned that General McClellan seemed to view General Scott as more of an obstacle than a partner. He infuriated the old soldier by questioning his judgment—even putting his concerns in a letter that he copied to the president—and by arguing that the Army of the Potomac was entirely insufficient compared to the vast numbers of Confederate troops arrayed against them. “Mr. Lincoln mollified the generals by asking McClellan to withdraw his letter,” Father told Kate, “but I fear they’ve achieved a temporary peace at best.”

The rival generals were not the only officers to create additional difficulties for an already overburdened commander in chief. At the end of August, Major General John C. Frémont, commander of the Department of the West, issued a proclamation freeing the slaves of Confederates within the state of Missouri. Not only had he not received any authorization from the president beforehand, but Mr. Lincoln first learned of Frémont’s proclamation on the same day and by the same method Father, Kate, and most of the nation did—from the newspapers. Acting entirely on his own, General Frémont had defined the war as what Kate had always thought it to be: a war against slavery. Furious, Mr. Lincoln commanded General Frémont to rescind the proclamation, and when the general refused, the president revoked it himself, angering Northern abolitionists and provoking a storm of criticism from Radical Republicans in the Congress and the press.

“Slaves were freed, and now your Mr. Lincoln has put them back into bondage,” Kate lamented one afternoon as she and John Hay went riding along the Potomac. She usually refrained from criticizing Mr. Lincoln in his company, for he had become more loyal and admiring of the Tycoon with each passing day in his employment. In unspoken agreement, John held back his criticism of William Sprague, which Kate knew was inspired mostly by envy.

“Mr. Lincoln was convinced that making this conflict a war against slavery instead of a war to preserve the Union would drive Kentucky right out of it,” John explained. “If you had seen the alarmed and panicked letters the president received from Unionists in Kentucky after Frémont’s reckless act, you’d understand why he had no choice but to do exactly as he did.”

“Perhaps I would,” said Kate, more icily than she intended. She would like John much better if he did not believe Mr. Lincoln to be so superior to every other man in the cabinet, including her father.

“Now, Kate,” he cajoled. “Don’t be cross just because on this one matter I’ve taken the Tycoon’s side instead of yours.”

“Who says I’m cross?” said Kate airily. And how could he suggest it was only that one time? John rarely disagreed with anything the president did or said anymore, and his conversations had become much less entertaining for it. “I’m merely regretful that you embrace willful ignorance out of blind, misguided loyalty to your boss.”

John whooped with laughter, causing his horse to toss its head and whinny in annoyance. “My loyalty is neither blind nor misguided,” he said, patting the horse reassuringly on the withers. “I came to it gradually, as I realized how much Mr. Lincoln deserves it.”

Kate sighed with exaggerated sorrow, although in truth, she did feel a pang of regret. Already John’s ever-increasing admiration for the president was creating friction in their friendship. She dreaded to think how badly they would get along three years hence when her father competed with Mr. Lincoln for the Republican nomination.

“If it makes you feel any better,” John confided, “Mrs. Seward feels as you do. She’s furious with Mr. Lincoln for revoking the proclamation and with her husband for allowing it, and since she can’t scold the president, her husband bears the brunt of her fury.”

“I always did like Frances Seward,” Kate remarked, her temper much improved. John grinned, and she smiled back at him, their harmony restored for the moment.

• • •

September brought blessed relief from the heat and humidity, but Nettie did not welcome the end of summer, for Father had arranged for her to attend boarding school at the Brook Hall Female Seminary in Media, Pennsylvania, west of Philadelphia. She was a bright student, but the coursework was rigorous and she was often homesick. Nettie turned fourteen that month, and she spent part of that day composing a letter to her sister. “Today is my birthday, I ought to have some proper thoughts for the
great?
occasion, and I fully intended to have them, but I can not for the life of me think what they were”—Kate laughed aloud—“except that I want to see you and Father ever so much but I think of that often or rather always.”

Kate felt a wrench of sympathy for her sweet, lonely little sister, but the sentiment was startled out of her by the paragraph that followed. “Is Gov Sprague back yet?” Nettie inquired. “I wish (if you do not think me impertinent) that you would marry him. I like him very much wont you? But of course not until I grow up I shant give my consent before that, perhaps though he may get tired of waiting.”