Mrs. Lincoln's Rival (9 page)

“I know.” She held tighter to his arm, wishing she could shut her ears to the roar and snap of the inferno, that she could close her nostrils to the terrible scorched odor of smoke and ember. “I pray no one was hurt.”

When they reached home, she washed her face and hands and brushed her hair and changed clothes, but the smell of smoke lingered as if she had taken it into herself. Soon thereafter, the messenger returned with the news that the Odeon Theater had caught fire, and that Mr. Lincoln had won the Northwest and Indiana. Kate quickly calculated that he still needed New York to claim a majority of the electoral votes, and the realization set her heart pounding with trepidation. New York City’s substantial Irish population, strongly Democrat, was likely to go for Mr. Douglas.

By ten o’clock, Father had begun intermittent pacing in his office, and Kate had recited all the prayers she knew and had begun, reluctantly, to compose a congratulatory letter to Mrs. Douglas in her head. And then, just before eleven o’clock, the weary young messenger brought word from New York that Mr. Lincoln had made steady and promising gains throughout the state, but the results from New York City had not been tallied in sufficient percentages for the Republicans to claim victory.

“But the returns from the city will decide it,” Kate said, her father’s vigorous nods indicating that he shared the same thought. “Without that, the state returns are meaningless. If Mr. Douglas builds up a sufficient majority in the city, he could easily overcome Mr. Lincoln’s lead elsewhere in the state.”

And without New York’s precious thirty-five electoral votes, Mr. Lincoln would fall seven short of a majority.

Father urged her to bed, but Kate demurred, noting that she was too anxious to sleep anyway. She fixed them a pot of tea, and prepared a tray of cream and sugar and sweet buns, and when she returned to the library she found that her father had set up the chessboard. “I thought we could have a game to distract ourselves,” he said, his exhaustion and worry etched in lines and shadows on his strong, handsome face.

They had finished one game and started another when, shortly after midnight, church bells began to peal—first one, and then another, until it seemed that all the steeples of Columbus rang with the news that a president had been chosen. But whom? Father and daughter exchanged a silent, hopeful, anxious look, and then, the game forgotten, they hurried to the foyer to await the messenger.

He arrived soon thereafter, breathless from his mad dash through the streets of Columbus, and yet he seemed exultant, knowing he was sure to receive a generous gratuity for the happy news he carried.

New York had gone to Mr. Lincoln, and Mr. Lincoln would go to the White House.

• • •

The response of the press to Mr. Lincoln’s election was swift and unsurprising. One Kansas paper referred to the news of his victory as “glorious tidings,” while the
Richmond
Dispatch
gloomily intoned, “The event is the most deplorable one that has happened in the history of the country.” A Massachusetts editor was more sanguine, reassuring his readers that a Lincoln presidency would not “mean evil to any section of the country. It is not only regular and lawful, but is necessary to restore the old spirit and policy of the country, and give peace to the land.” The
Courier
of New Orleans sharply disagreed, warning that the election had “awakened throughout the South a spirit of stubborn resistance which it will be found is impossible to quell.” The
New York
Enquirer
paid homage to the spirit of democracy and took a conciliatory approach, proclaiming, “Stretching out our hands to the South over this victory, we have no word of taunt to utter for the threats of disunion which were raised for our defeat. Let those threats be buried in oblivion.” The editor of the
Semi-Weekly Mississippian
would have none of that, and beneath a headline declaring, “The Deed’s Done—Disunion the Remedy,” appeared a foreboding statement that Kate feared was echoed in hearts throughout the South:

The outrages which abolition fanaticism has continued year by year to heap upon the South, have at length culminated in the election of Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin, avowed abolitionists, to the presidency and vice presidency—both bigoted, unscrupulous and cold-blooded enemies of the peace and equality of the slaveholding states, and one of the pair strongly marked with the blood of his negro ancestry. . . . In view of the formal declaration, through the ballot box, of a purpose by the northern states to wield the vast machinery of the federal Government as now constituted, for destroying the liberties of the slaveholding states, it becomes their duty to dissolve their connection with it and establish a separate and independent government of their own.

“It never ceases to amaze me,” Kate told her father, “how any reasonable person could believe that it is wrong to destroy the liberties of slaveholding states and yet perfectly acceptable to destroy the liberties of human beings. And to call for disunion so that they might persist in their cruelty”—she shook her head—“what good do they expect to come of this?”

Father reminded her that the South had been threatening to leave the Union for more than forty years, and that a certain amount of heightened agitation and a frenzied clamor for secession could be expected in the aftermath of such a hard-fought election. “Nothing will come of these calls for disunion,” he assured Kate. “They will subside after Mr. Lincoln’s inauguration, just as they always have, and Congress will settle down to the usual squabbling and deal making.”

Kate hoped he was right, but in the midst of the postelection turmoil, it was still unclear whether Father would be involved in that squabbling and deal making. No cabinet position had been offered him, and his queries to mutual acquaintances received inconclusive replies. It was known that Mr. Lincoln was forming his cabinet, but whether he meant to include Father was uncertain. And so Father prepared to return to the Senate, although he told Kate that the prospect of resuming his position there disheartened him, and he would happily decline and retire from politics altogether if he thought he could do so honorably. The admission would have greatly troubled Kate if she had not known that he was merely speaking his mood of the moment, and not the true desire of his heart.

In the meantime, Father’s prediction that the outrage of the South would subside proved terribly, shockingly wrong. A few days before Christmas, at a state convention held at Saint Andrew’s Hall in Charleston, the delegates of South Carolina voted unanimously to secede from the Union.

Although warnings of secession had appeared with increasing frequency in Southern papers after Mr. Lincoln’s election, many people in the North, including Father and President Buchanan, were astounded when South Carolina finally made good on their threat. The stock market roiled, politicians debated what to do, and citizens North and South wondered with trepidation or eagerness which state would be next to secede. Any hopes that South Carolina could swiftly be restored to the Union through negotiation were dashed when its newly appointed leaders declared that the three federal forts within its borders fell within their jurisdiction. While President Buchanan dithered over the appropriate response, perhaps wishing that Mr. Lincoln could assume his high office sooner than scheduled, the federal officer in charge of one of the forts took action. On the night of December 26, Major Robert Anderson moved his troops from their vulnerable position at Fort Moultrie on the mainland to the more defensible Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. The next day, South Carolina militia seized Fort Moultrie and Castle Pinckney, and demanded Major Anderson’s surrender. Major Anderson declined, and instead resolutely held his post while the South Carolina military settled in for the siege.

In the midst of unprecedented national turmoil and alarm, Mr. Lincoln was still obliged to continue the work of his fledgling administration. In the early days of what boded to be a tumultuous New Year, Father received a brief letter from Springfield.

Hon. S. P. Chase

Springfield, Ill.

December 31, 1860

My dear Sir:

In these troublous times, I would much like a conference with you. Please visit me here at once.

Yours very truly,

A. LINCOLN

Kate’s heart jumped when she read the angular script and discerned the urgency of the request. “When will you depart?”

“Tomorrow.” Father’s expression was a curious mixture of joy and apprehension. “He must want to name me secretary of state immediately so I may assist him in addressing this crisis.”

Father wrote back to inform the president-elect that he would leave the following day on the morning train, which would put him in Springfield on January 4. Swiftly Kate helped him pack and prepare for the journey, wishing that she might accompany him. Indeed, she saw no reason why she should not, except that her presence might suggest to Mr. Lincoln that Father regarded the visit as a social call rather than a serious matter of state.

While her father was away, Kate followed the news from Fort Sumter and Washington in the papers and waited for a telegram from Springfield that never came. Tantalizing glimpses of her father’s meetings with Mr. Lincoln appeared in brief newspaper reports noting his arrival in Springfield, the quality of his lodgings at the Chenery House, and the days, locations, and duration of his visits with the president-elect. Rumors about the nature of their discussions varied so wildly that she could trust none of them. They were almost lost too, amid the flurry of reports from the East. The day Father departed for Springfield, the
Herald
reported that a steamship called the
Star of the West
had set out from New York en route for Charleston with supplies and troops to relieve Major Anderson at Fort Sumter. Other newspapers confirmed the story, noting where and when the merchant vessel had been spotted as it journeyed south along the coast. Kate would have felt more reassured by President Buchanan’s decision to take action if she were not aware that the people of Charleston could get the news from Eastern papers as easily as she could. Surely their military forces would be ready and waiting when the
Star of the West
arrived.

When Father at last returned home, nearly a week after his departure, Kate flew to the door to welcome him and help him out of his coat, but his grim, bedraggled expression stopped her short. “What’s wrong?” she asked as he stood on the doorstep stamping snow from his boots. “Did Mr. Lincoln not offer you the Department of State?”

“He offered me nothing.”

“What?” They had assumed from the moment Mr. Lincoln’s letter had arrived that he would not have summoned Father so urgently for anything less than a cabinet position. “Why on earth did he have you travel so far for nothing?” Her father’s look was so full of woebegone misery that she immediately adopted a gentler tone. “You must be exhausted. Wash up and change if you like, and by the time you come downstairs again, I’ll have a hot supper waiting for you.”

Father obediently trudged off, his servant Will trailing after him with his suitcase. Kate summoned the cook and put the kettle on, and when Father came to the table, his gloomy expression cleared somewhat at the sight of the plate of eggs, ham, pickled asparagus, and toast spread thickly with butter. Nettie bounded in as he seated himself and queried him about the most trivial aspects of his journey—what he had seen through the train windows, whether Mr. Lincoln truly was as ugly as everyone said—with such innocent eagerness that his misery gradually dissipated. By the time he finished eating and Nettie danced off again, his manner had become relaxed, though subdued, and he seemed ready to talk.

“It was a bewildering interview,” he told Kate when they were alone. “From the tone of Mr. Lincoln’s letter, I had expected the offer of a cabinet position.”

“As did I,” said Kate.

“I cannot help thinking that he had intended to offer me a position, but that between writing the letter and meeting me at my hotel in Springfield, something happened to change his mind.” Father sighed and ran a hand over his brow. “Upon my arrival I had sent him my card and a note saying I would call when convenient. I had scarcely settled into my room when the bellman came up and told me Mr. Lincoln was waiting for me in the lobby.”

“Then it
was
an urgent matter.”

“So it seemed. I went down promptly to see him, and he shook my hand and thanked me heartily for my efforts on his behalf leading up to the election, as well as the stumping I did for him in 1858.”

“As well he should have.”

“We talked at length about the issues of the day, when quite unexpectedly, he said, ‘I have done with you what I would not perhaps have ventured to do with any other man in the country—sent for you to ask whether you will accept the appointment of secretary of the treasury, without, however, being exactly prepared to offer it to you.’”

For a moment Kate could only stare at him, dumbfounded. “He offered you the Treasury, and yet did
not
offer it?”

Father sighed wearily and nodded.

“He had you travel hundreds of miles merely to gauge your interest?” Indignant, Kate folded her arms over her chest and sank back into her chair. “This was not a question you could have answered just as easily through the mails?”

Father nodded again. “You understand, then, why I was less than enthusiastic in my reply.”

Kate was almost afraid to hear the answer, but she asked, “What did you say?”

“I denied that I had sought any appointment whatsoever, and I implied that if I were to be offered a cabinet post, I would not accept a subordinate place. And there our interview concluded.”

Kate’s heart sank with dismay, but she kept her voice even. “But that could not have been the last word, or you would have come home sooner.”

“Exactly so. We met again, several times over the next few days, and Mr. Lincoln eventually revealed that he intended to make Seward his secretary of state in deference to his status as the leader of the party.”