Mrs. Lincoln's Rival (43 page)

Father acquired a copy of the circular soon after the rumors began, and when Kate read it, her heart plummeted. She dared not ask her father or William if they had known about the document before it was distributed, for she was afraid of the answer. “I can’t imagine how Senator Pomeroy expects to keep such a volatile document confidential,” she said instead, “or what good he expects to come of it.”

Leaving the offensive pamphlet on her father’s desk, she swept from his study, trembling with suppressed anger. Her father’s presidential aspirations were her life’s work, and it grieved her to watch others bungle his campaign so badly while she was inexplicably left out. From the time she was sixteen her father had consulted her in nearly everything regarding his political aspirations, and she did not understand why he was apparently excluding her now.

To make matters worse, her remarks about Senator Pomeroy’s foolhardy expectations of confidentiality proved prescient. On February 11, the
National Intelligencer
printed the Pomeroy Circular in its entirety, and a few days later the
Constitutional Union
did as well, and soon thereafter it was reprinted in papers through the North. The effect on public opinion was swift and explosive. Outraged Lincoln loyalists who received the memo by mail in envelopes marked with the congressional frank of Father’s supporters forwarded their copies to the White House, often including personal notes expressing their disgust with Father and their steadfast allegiance to the president. Mr. Lincoln’s friends denounced Father and Senator Pomeroy, and Democrats gleefully celebrated the division within the Republican Party.

It was the worst political disaster of Father’s entire career, and neither he nor Kate nor William knew how to stop it from hurtling out of control.

Frantic, Father wrote to the curiously silent president to disavow any knowledge of the Pomeroy Circular until it was published in the papers, a claim Kate knew to be not entirely accurate. Father insisted that although ambitious friends had asked to use his name in the upcoming election, he had not authorized the formation of the Pomeroy Committee and he did not know which gentlemen comprised it. This too Kate knew to be only partially true. “I have thought this explanation due to you as well as to myself,” Father wrote. “If there is anything in my action or position which, in your judgment, will prejudice the public interest under my charge, I beg you to say so. I do not wish to administer the Treasury Department one day without your entire confidence.” He concluded the letter by emphasizing that their differences of opinion had never diminished his strong personal feelings for Mr. Lincoln. “For yourself I cherish sincere respect and esteem; and, permit me to add, affection,” he asserted, adding hopefully, “You are not responsible for acts not your own; nor will you hold me responsible except for what I do or say myself.”

Father sent off the letter with dim hopes that it would be well received, and the entire household seemed to hold its breath until a reply came the following day.

Executive Mansion,

Washington,

Feb. 23. 1864.

Hon. Sec. of Treasury

My dear Sir:

Yours of yesterday in relation to the paper issued by Senator Pomeroy was duly received; and I write this note merely to say I will answer a little more fully when I can find time to do so.

Yours truly,

A. LINCOLN

Kate never would have expected such a dispassionate reply, even from the preternaturally tolerant Mr. Lincoln, nor such a calculated maneuver. The president clearly meant to keep Father suffering in suspense, deferring his response until he could take his measure of the people’s reaction to the Pomeroy Circular. Then and only then would he decide what to do.

The response of the people was unmistakably the opposite of what Senator Pomeroy had intended, for throughout the North, the circular roused Mr. Lincoln’s supporters from their complacency. Opposing circulars were published denouncing Father and his political machinations, and in one state after another, Republicans met and passed unanimous resolutions calling for Mr. Lincoln’s renomination. Even the usually sympathetic
New York Times
declared that the circular was unworthy of the party, proclaiming, “We protest against the spirit of this movement.”

Following the unfolding nightmare in the press, Kate absorbed each devastating blow with outward stoicism and secret despair. All that she and Father and even William had worked for seemed to be crumbling to ruin all around them. The worst moment came when Father’s friends in the Union caucus of the Ohio state legislature, who had previously blocked efforts to endorse Mr. Lincoln’s reelection, repudiated their support, allowing a resolution in favor of the president to pass unanimously.

As in 1860, her father’s chances to win the Republican nomination depended upon strong support from his home state of Ohio. For Father, the resolution meant that he had lost the election before it had truly begun.

On the last day of February, Father at last received Mr. Lincoln’s response.

Executive Mansion,

Washington,

February 29. 1864.

Hon. Secretary of the Treasury

My dear Sir:

I would have taken time to answer yours of the 22d sooner, only that I did not suppose any evil could result from the delay, especially as, by a note, I promptly acknowledged the receipt of yours, and promised a fuller answer. Now, on consideration I find there is really very little to say. My knowledge of Mr. Pomeroy’s letter having been made public came to me only the day you wrote, but I had, in spite of myself, known of its existence several days before. I have not yet read it, and I think I shall not. I was not shocked or surprised by the appearance of the letter, because I had had knowledge of Mr. Pomeroy’s committee and of secret issues which, I supposed, came from it and of secret agents who, I supposed, were sent out by it, for several weeks. I have known just as little of these things as my friends have allowed me to know. They bring the documents to me, but I do not read them; they tell me what they think fit to tell me, but I do not inquire for more. I fully concur with you that neither of us can be justly held responsible for what our respective friends may do without our instigation or countenance; and I assure you, as you have assured me, that no assault has been made upon you by my instigation or with my countenance.

Whether you shall remain at the head of the Treasury Department is a question which I will not allow myself to consider from any standpoint other than my judgment of the public service, and, in that view, I do not perceive occasion for a change.

Yours truly,

A. Lincoln

The entire Chase household accepted the president’s decision with shock and muted relief. William alone seemed entirely reassured that Father retained Mr. Lincoln’s friendship and confidence along with his cabinet position, but Kate suspected that was because William did not fully comprehend the more dire implications of all that the circular had done and undone. Without Ohio behind him, Father had no chance to win the nomination, and long before the scandal broke, he had publicly expressed that if he did not gain the support of his home state, he would withdraw from the race.

A week after receiving Mr. Lincoln’s letter, Father wrote a public letter to the influential Ohio state senator James C. Hall, a personal friend, solemnly declaring that since the legislature had vowed to support Mr. Lincoln instead of himself, “it becomes my duty, therefore, and I count it more a privilege than a duty, to ask that no further consideration be given to my name.” Ever patriotic and mindful of his loyalty to the Union cause, Father emphatically concluded, “It was never more important than now that all our efforts and energies should be devoted to the suppression of the rebellion, and to the restoration of order and prosperity on the solid and sure foundations of Union, freedom, and impartial justice, and I earnestly urge all with whom my counsels may have weight, to allow nothing to divide them while this great work—in comparison with which, persons and even parties are nothing—remains unaccomplished.”

In the aftermath of Father’s withdrawal, Kate knew, Mr. Lincoln would surely claim the vast majority of Father’s supporters as his own, for Father had all but urged them to rally to his rival’s side.

Father was profoundly disappointed, but Kate was devastated. His presidential aspirations had been resoundingly thwarted, and she knew that the only reason Mr. Lincoln allowed him to retain his post at the Treasury was because Mr. Lincoln wanted and needed him there.

The moment the president believed he no longer did, Father would be peremptorily dismissed.

• • •

While Father’s star precipitously declined, Ulysses S. Grant’s was on the rise. On the same March day that Father wrote to Mr. Lincoln to confirm his withdrawal from the presidential race, he was among the witnesses at the White House ceremony in which Mr. Lincoln awarded the celebrated, taciturn officer a commission as lieutenant general. The next day, after the restless General Grant had already departed Washington to rejoin his troops, the president appointed him general in chief of the armies of the United States.

At the end of March, when the transfer of his command in the West to General William Tecumseh Sherman was complete, General Grant returned to Washington accompanied by his wife, Julia. She was said to be a devoted mother of four, much beloved of her husband, and a pleasant conversationalist, though not much given to politics. Despite her preoccupation with her father’s troubles, Kate immediately recognized the Grants as people the Chases ought to know, and she successfully contended with the general’s resistant chief of staff to arrange for the general to call on her father. Kate found Mrs. Grant to be a pleasant, dark-haired woman in her late thirties, whose plain features were made prettier by her ready smile and unassuming, friendly manner. Mrs. Grant delighted in the attention and praise showered upon her husband, who seemed uncomfortable with the fuss and eager to return to the field. Before he could escape, he was obliged to make the rounds of Washington society, where he was cheered and serenaded and toasted with such fervor that Kate was not surprised to hear him whispered about as a potential presidential candidate. Kate hid her concerns behind a dazzling smile, was gracious to the matronly Mrs. Grant, and must have succeeded in charming the general, for although his dislike of music and dancing was well-known, on one occasion he took a few turns with her on the dance floor. “You made him look much less awkward than he usually does in such circumstances,” an officer who had known General Grant since his West Point days remarked.

When the general departed Washington for his new headquarters near Culpeper, Virginia, Mrs. Grant remained at the Willard, but Kate had little opportunity to further their acquaintance. Stress about Father’s misfortunes and worry and lack of sleep had conspired to make her so desperately ill with various afflictions of the lungs that she required constant care. Since neither Father nor William had the time, ability, or inclination to nurse her properly, General McDowell and his wife invited her to convalesce at their home at Buttermilk Falls in Upstate New York. There, far from the strife of Washington and the incessant scenes of war’s terrible toll on its soldiers, Kate slowly regained her health, thanks to enforced rest and Mrs. McDowell’s adept ministrations.

Father, William, and various friends kept Kate apprised of events in Washington, and so she was in her sickbed when she first learned of the shocking tales of improprieties in the Treasury Department.

For several months, rumors had whispered of irregularities in business and immorality among the Treasury staff, but Father and Kate had dismissed them as the usual malicious gossip. Even Father’s political enemies considered him morally above reproach—in fact, some muttered that he would be more agreeable company if he were not so pious and righteous. Then one outraged citizen wrote to President Lincoln accusing Secretary Chase of speculation in stocks, gold, and cotton, an outrageous allegation that the president gave no credence whatsoever. That fuss had scarcely died down when complaints emerged that women employees of the Treasury Department were reportedly hired for their personal attractions rather than their skills. Several young ladies claimed that they were refused employment until they yielded to the passionate embraces of the superintendent of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. More shocking yet, dozens of the department’s young, unmarried female employees were said to be with child.

Alarmed, Father brought in a detective from the War Department to investigate the allegations, and when the detective found outrage and scandal everywhere he looked, a special congressional committee began a formal inquiry. After hearing the testimony of a series of witnesses, including two young clerks who swore that they had been coerced into intimate encounters with their employer, the committee could not unanimously conclude whether the charges were true or false. The public preferred to believe the most scandalous, salacious version of events, and so even if the Department of the Treasury was not the “most extensive Whorehouse in the nation,” as one critic claimed, its reputation was tarnished—and Father’s was tarnished further, at a time when he was struggling to redeem himself in the eyes of the people.

Certain political enemies were determined to see that he never did. Father had long been embroiled in a feud with the Blairs, a family of conservative Republicans that included Postmaster General Montgomery Blair. That winter his brother, Missouri congressman Francis Blair, denounced Father from the House floor in one of the most bitter and hateful verbal assaults ever delivered in the halls of Congress. For two hours he castigated Father’s character, charging him with corruption in high office, with treason, and with “grasping at all power and patronage for the purpose of providing a fund to carry on his war against the administration which gave him place.”