Mrs. Lincoln's Rival (6 page)

Mr. Lincoln’s sincere humility mollified Kate’s anger somewhat. “At least he realizes that he needs your help,” she said, returning the letter to her father. “Will you, as he puts it, ‘do service in the common cause’?”

“Of course,” Father responded solemnly. “No amount of personal disappointment could compel me to forsake my duty to my country.”

Kate had never been more proud of him.

Mr. Lincoln was right to admit that he needed help if he were to win the national election, and some help came to him unwittingly from an unlikely quarter—the Democratic Party. After their convention in Charleston had ended in shambles, the Southern delegates who had walked out were replaced by other men from their states when the Democrats officially reconvened in Baltimore on June 18. There, to no one’s surprise, Mr. Douglas was chosen as the party’s nominee. Five days later, elsewhere in the city, the excluded Southern delegates defiantly held their own convention, where they nominated former congressman and current vice-president John C. Breckinridge, a Kentuckian who adamantly insisted that the Constitution permitted slavery throughout the states and new territories. Further crowding the slate of presidential candidates was Mr. John Bell of Tennessee, the nominee of the Constitutional Union Party, an alliance of conservative Know-Nothings and Whigs whose simple platform suggested that their approach to the slavery question was to ignore it altogether. With the Democrats splintered, the outlook for a Republican victory in November seemed promising, although Kate and her father agreed that the battle for electoral votes would likely break along geographic lines, with Mr. Lincoln battling Mr. Douglas for the Northern states and Mr. Breckinridge and Mr. Bell for the Southern. But as Kate had noted on the last day of the convention, Mr. Douglas had trounced Mr. Lincoln before. The Republicans could take nothing for granted.

His loyalty to the party stronger than its loyalty to him, Father kept his promise and campaigned on behalf of his former rival in midsummer and into the fall, just as he had when Mr. Lincoln ran for the Senate in 1858.

In September, Father decided to take time away from his electioneering for a trip to Cleveland to attend the dedication of a monument to Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, the “Hero of Lake Erie,” who had commanded the American naval forces in tremendous, unprecedented victories against the Royal Navy in the War of 1812. Father’s good friend Richard Parsons, a Cleveland attorney and the Speaker of the state House of Representatives, had invited the Chases to be his honored guests during their visit.

“A trip to Washington would be more fruitful,” Kate urged. “In half a year you will be in the Senate again. There is no time like the present to begin building a coalition.”

“It will not look well if I don’t go to Cleveland,” Father said, surprised by her reluctance. “The people will think I sulk at home, or that I begrudge a hero his accolades. No, Katie, I must go, and I would have you come with me.”

“Take Nettie instead.”

“I wish to take you both.” His brow furrowed. “You usually relish this sort of pageantry. Why don’t you want to go? Is it because Columbus didn’t celebrate for me back in May?”

“No, it’s not that.” Kate had not even thought of the canceled fireworks and the muted bands and the melancholy single-cannon salute since the last night of the Republican Convention. “Every notable Ohioan will be in Cleveland, and I confess I haven’t forgiven those who betrayed you in Chicago.”

“Dear Katie.” Her father held her at arm’s length and studied her sympathetically. He did not have to incline his head far to meet her gaze; for most of her life he had seemed to tower over her, a powerful figure taking up most of her small sky, but now he did so only in her heart and memory. “You must be brave, brave and practical. When I return to the Senate in March, I’ll need friends if I am to push through the good works I intend to accomplish. We must show them we are not cowed, and that we are not broken. They will remember how I bear this disappointment four years hence.”

She knew he was right, and that it was folly to hold a grudge against the people upon whom her father’s political future might depend.

“Come, now,” her father cajoled. Suddenly she realized that he did not want to go without her; he would if he must, but he would not impress voters and dignitaries half as well without her by his side. “There will be a ball, and you may buy a new dress. Silk, if you wish.”

“Oh, well, that’s a different matter entirely,” she replied, managing a smile. Whereas other women of their class adorned themselves in silk and jewels on special occasions, Kate wore white linen and flowers. Others praised her simple, elegant style, saying that it suited her youth and did not distract from her own natural beauty. What they did not know was that linen and flowers were the best her father could afford, and she happily would have bedecked herself in diamonds if permitted. “You didn’t tell me I could have a new silk dress.”

He smiled back, greatly relieved, although he promptly began to caution her not to spend too much on her gown. She tolerated his warnings fondly. Despite her father’s political stature, he was not a wealthy man. They had invested a great deal of money in their home and had filled it with the trappings of success, but much of their extended family depended upon Father’s support, and he often found himself short of funds. He abhorred debt nearly as much as drunkenness, but the life he had chosen demanded certain unavoidable expenditures.

Kate dutifully—but not unwillingly—ordered a new gown from her favorite New York dressmaker, who knew her measurements and her tastes and could be relied upon to work swiftly. Two days before their departure, the gown arrived—a lovely pale-green silk trimmed in exquisite lace, with a flatteringly snug bodice embellished with mother-of-pearl buttons up the front and a modest train. Nettie was pleased with her pretty frock too, a fine blue wool dress adorned with white ribbons that had once belonged to Kate but had been let out in the waist and hemmed. Father, as always, would dress impeccably, in a well-fitted gray suit and a new waistcoat of burgundy brocade.

It rained heavily on the evening they traveled with Governor Dennison’s party north to Cleveland on the shores of Lake Erie. Mr. Parsons, an energetic lawyer in his early thirties, was among those who met them at the station, and while the Committee on Arrangements escorted his entourage to the Angier House on the corner of Bank and Saint Clair streets, Mr. Parsons took the Chases home to his charming residence on Prospect, where his wife, Sarah, welcomed them warmly at the door. The rain had stopped but the heat of the day remained, so they took supper in the shady garden. Afterward, while the Parsons’ two young children, a girl and a boy, played nearby and Nettie wandered off with a sketchbook and pencils to draw a bird’s nest she had found nestled in the crook of a tree, Kate and her father and the Parsonses talked politics. While Mr. Parsons would have preferred to vote for Father in November, he and his wife found Mr. Lincoln a satisfactory and even appealing alternative, but reports of increasing rancor between North and South troubled them deeply. “Mr. Lincoln must win,” Mr. Parsons said, “and yet, if he does, I cannot imagine that the South will not respond with violence.”

“
When
Mr. Lincoln wins,” Father replied, with decisive emphasis, “the slave powers will discover that their influence in Washington City has diminished precipitously. They will have no choice but to abandon slavery—immediately, as I would have it, or gradually and with compensation for their financial losses, as Mr. Lincoln seems more inclined to do.”

“There is another choice,” Mr. Parsons reminded him. “War.”

Father shook his head. “The South would have to be a conglomeration of fools to start a war they have no chance of winning. They lack the resources, the men, and the will to go to war. Generations of slaveholding have rendered them soft and self-indulgent. They preen and polish their swords and threaten duels, but they will not go to war.”

“Then let us not even speak of it,” urged Mrs. Parsons, shaking her head so that the chestnut-brown curls framing her face bounced lightly. “It is too dreadful a subject to contemplate on such a fine autumn evening, with so many delightful events awaiting us.”

The gentlemen nodded politely and agreed, as did Kate, although she happily would have discussed politics all evening and well into the night. Some women considered a keen interest in politics unbecoming in a lady, but thankfully, Father had no such prejudices.

The rain resumed overnight and continued throughout the next day, which Father devoted to meeting with acquaintances and potential allies from the realms of business and politics, not only to support Mr. Lincoln’s candidacy but also to prepare for his return to the Senate. Kate knew that he had been right to insist that they come. The city hummed with excitement and possibility, and as she made her own round of calls escorted by Mrs. Parsons, she made sure to court old acquaintances as well as to arrange for introductions to the wives and daughters of gentlemen who might have occasion to help her father someday. She and her father were a formidable team, she thought, even when they toiled separately.

Sunday morning dawned bright and promising, the downpours and oppressively sultry air of the previous two days at last giving way to the cool, clear breezes of autumn. The heavy rains had wet down the streets sufficiently to keep down the dust, and yet not enough to make them impassible rivers of mud, so after breakfast Mrs. Parsons took Kate and Nettie out driving to view the preparations for the next day’s celebration.

Numerous military regiments that would march in the grand parade had bivouacked at Camp Perry on the county fairgrounds, where their brilliant regalia, shining brass, and neat rows of white tents lent a thrilling martial air to the scene. There Mrs. Parsons and the Chase sisters left the carriage, lifted their skirts to pick their way across the soft, damp grass, and joined the throng of admiring onlookers lining the parade grounds as the soldiers marched and drilled in preparation for the grand procession. When a cavalry regiment passed swiftly by, hooves flashing and manes tossing and banners flying, Kate was rendered breathless from excitement.

As the cavalry regiment circled and passed again, Kate’s gaze flew to the young, dark-haired officer in the lead. “Who is he?” she heard herself ask. He sat his horse as naturally as if he had been in the saddle all his life, and despite his youth, his bearing was one of a man accustomed to command.

“That’s William Sprague, the governor of Rhode Island.” Mrs. Parsons watched him pass. “They call him the Boy Governor. He’s no more than thirty.”

Astonished, Kate kept his eyes fixed on his back as he rode away. “A governor, and a cavalry officer, at thirty?”

“And an extraordinarily successful man of business too. He and his brother—I think it was an elder brother, but perhaps it was a cousin—founded the A. & W. Sprague Company. Have you heard of it?” When Kate shook her head, Mrs. Parsons continued. “They run cotton mills in Rhode Island. That remarkable young man is worth millions.”

Kate felt her cheeks grow warm as the Rhode Island regiment passed again, and she deliberately tore her gaze away from the gallant figure on horseback to face Mrs. Parsons. “Commodore Perry was a native son of Rhode Island, if I recall,” she said. “I suppose that’s why so many Rhode Islanders have made the long journey west for this occasion. Soldiers, politicians, newspapermen—and I see many of them have brought their wives and children.”

“Yes, indeed.” An amused smile played in the corners of Mrs. Parsons’s mouth. “But Governor Sprague did not, because he is not yet married.”

“I wonder why,” Kate said, as if she were only vaguely interested. “Too busy, I suppose. Businessman, governor, officer—any one of those occupations is usually enough for one man, and he is trying to do all three.”

Mrs. Parsons looked as if she was struggling not to laugh. “Trying, and from what I hear, succeeding tremendously.”

Kate shaded her eyes, deliberately looked in the other direction, and resisted the urge to ask what else Mrs. Parsons had heard of the gentleman from Rhode Island. “Nettie, look how neatly and precisely arranged the soldiers’ tents are. How do you suppose they do it? With a peg and a long piece of string to mark a straight line?”

Nettie tore her gaze away from the horses to peer up at her sister. “I don’t know,” she said, in a tone that implied it was her sister’s manner and not the question that baffled her.

The next morning the sun rose brilliant in a sky of white-puffed blue, with no threat of rain. Governor Dennison had invited Father to ride in the parade as a member of his contingent, but he had declined, explaining that he would see very little of the glorious procession if he were in it. Kate knew that was not the only reason, if only because without his spectacles, Father would see very little of the parade no matter where he was. Some politicians—Mr. Lincoln, perhaps—might enjoy waving and smiling and nodding graciously on public display for hours at a time, but Father would find it a painful ordeal. Instead the Chases joined the Parsons in an excellent spot on the public square in the viewing stands reserved for honored guests.

And what a glorious procession it was, and what a perfect view they had of every band, every regiment, every gray-bearded veteran! First came the parade marshals and assistant marshals and their staffs, followed by a band playing a spirited march, then the First Regiment of Cleveland Light Artillery, the pride of the city, and the Brooklyn Light Artillery and the Cleveland Light Dragoons. Rousing cheers for the local boys had scarcely begun to fade when another band marched proudly past in time with their exuberant tune. Next came General Wilson of Pennsylvania and his staff accompanied by the Hibernian Guards, the Cleveland Grays, and other military corps. The Union Cornet Band followed, and more Pennsylvania regiments, proudly and neatly attired, and a contingent of politicians and other officials, including Governor Dennison and his staff, and then—Kate felt an electric jolt of recognition—Governor Sprague, seeming even younger and bolder and more handsome surrounded by a distinguished company of legislators and other dignitaries from Rhode Island.