The Banished Children of Eve (63 page)

It was almost 9:00
A.M
. In a
few moments, Captain Jenkins would commence the draft lottery in the Ninth District office. Noonan had inspected the office the previous afternoon. Jenkins had formed a platform by putting two large tables together. He had placed the wheel containing the names of all the eligible men on top of it, 13,359 in number, from which a quota of 2,521 was to be drawn. Noonan had paced the office with Jenkins. There was a railing in front of the tables. Jenkins said he would place two policemen at it to watch the crowd. Noonan told him to have the police wait outside. “This isn't a courtroom,” Noonan said. “There are no defendants and no prosecutors. The proceedings must be as routine and everyday as possible.” If there was any trouble, the forces necessary to put it down would converge rapidly on the office, the police from the nearby Nineteenth Precinct and the Invalid Corps and the Provost Guard via streetcars from Police Headquarters on Mulberry Street. Jenkins was fidgety. He yelled at one of his clerks for misplacing his spectacles, then found them in his own breast pocket. Noonan was disappointed. He had picked Jenkins's office to commence the draft not only because of its uptown location but because Jenkins seemed to be a balanced, even-tempered officer who wouldn't panic. Noonan went over the details of the next day's schedule several times, and Jenkins seemed to grow calmer. “Invite anyone who wishes to inspect the lottery drum to come forward,” Noonan said. “There are rumors that we have fixed the proceedings, that certain names have already been chosen. Make sure there's absolutely no hint of secrecy. If you wish, invite a spectator to tie the blindfold about the eyes of the clerk doing the drawing.”

Now the draft was under way. The name, address, color, and age of each conscriptee was being announced and entered in a register. Noonan lit another cigarillo. An orderly knocked on the door and brought in a telegraph dispatch that had gone from the Nineteenth Precinct to Police Headquarters to the St. Nicholas:

DRAFT IS COMMENCED
FIRST 46 NAMES SELECTED
NO TROUBLE

The dispatches arrived on the half
hour throughout the day. Noonan awaited them like a speculator anticipating some fantastic rise or fall in his stocks, and scanned the orderly's face for any hint of the nature of the reports as they were brought in. Noonan himself betrayed no sign of anxiety. He directed the orderly to place the telegrams on his desk, kept doing his paperwork until the orderly left, then slowly unfolded the paper. The messages reported the mounting number of names selected, and all ended the same way:
NO TROUBLE.

In the early afternoon, General Wool stopped in to see Noonan. “It is done,” Wool said. “The draft horse is saddled. Whether it will carry us anywhere remains to be seen.” Wool shuffled off.

Noonan felt exhausted. It was
more than just the previous night's lack of sleep or the months of hard work he had invested in the draft. It was also the sense of isolation he felt. On the pretext of keeping him informed, men would take him aside and tell him the latest lie, that he had married a colored woman, taken to drink, accepted a bribe, that he hid in his office all day, afraid to go about in public, that his friends had turned against him. He was told that General Meagher had said to a gathering of veterans, “Noonan is either an imbecile or a scoundrel.” James McMaster, the editor of the city's Catholic newspaper, had published the announcement of Noonan's appointment as Provost Marshal on the front page. Beneath it, in a black-bordered box, was this legend:
PROSTITUTION: THE PROFESSION OF ENGAGING IN DEBASING ACTS FOR MONEY.
Noonan went to Archbishop Hughes to complain. Hughes dismissed it. “McMaster is a convert,” he said, as if that somehow excused the man for employing New York's Catholic paper in support of the South.

Noonan threw the day's pile of telegrams into the wastepaper basket and straightened his desk. The room was very warm and close, the air stale, distasteful, filled not just with the relentless heat and the dust and dirt of Broadway but with a deathful stillness. It had been this same way yesterday afternoon, when they had finished the inspection of the district office on Third Avenue. He had stood with Captain Jenkins in the doorway and smoked a cigarillo. There was no breeze, no wind. It was as oppressively hot outside the office as in, the sky bereft of clouds, no sign that this weather would ever change. A lethargic flow of traffic moved on the avenue. They were about to go back inside when they heard people screaming. Up the avenue, a cartman's horse, overcome with the heat, staggered in its braces like a drunk. The vehicle veered wildly, knocked down a woman crossing the street, and mounted the sidewalk. People scattered to get out of the way. The driver was dragging on the reins, tugging violently, but the horse lurched ahead. The left wheel of the cart caught on a lamppost and ripped loose; a crate pitched to the ground. An enormous black pig struggled out of the wreckage. It squealed with terror, and its hooves clattered loudly on the sidewalk. Once free, it charged forward, head down, straight at the doorway where Noonan and Jenkins were standing, its short, stiff legs pumping furiously. Jenkins jumped back. Noonan stood where he was. He could see the blind, mad fear in the pig's eyes. Jenkins screamed at him to move. The pig came so close that its rough, bristle-coated skin brushed against Noonan, but it veered away from the doorway at the last minute and clattered down the sidewalk, hugging the side of the building as it went. It charged off the sidewalk, back into the traffic, its black bulk driving forward.

B
EDFORD STOOD ON DECK,
partly to enjoy the river breeze, partly to avoid being recognized by someone inside the passenger cabin. Uncanny how many times it happened in New York, despite the city's size and the numbers of people, the regularity with which you accidentally encountered someone you knew. “New York isn't a big city at all,” Stark had been fond of saying, “but several dozen small towns piled on top of one another.” On the other side of the deck was a band of cricketers, men in white, their female companions in soft, flouncy dresses, hats tied securely to their heads. Bedford scanned their faces to make sure he didn't recognize any from the small town that was Wall Street. He didn't.

The ferry docked in Hoboken.
Bedford let most of the passengers disembark before him: baseball players as well as cricketers; respectable-looking clerks and their families, picnic baskets in tow; officers with their ladies—a crowd with means enough to afford the fare and spend the day watching ball games. He stopped at a tavern and had a glass of beer. The bar was only a few dozen yards from the water, but even at that short distance the wind died and the heat grew more intense. He ordered another beer—not his drink of choice, but he had worked up a thirst and the beer relieved it. The taverner was German and so was most of the clientele. They clucked and growled in their native tongue, and Bedford enjoyed his total ignorance of what they were saying, his freedom from being drawn into half-heard conversations.

After another beer, Bedford went out into the sunshine. The day was becoming blisteringly hot. His head swam a little, but the surrounding swards of greenery, the bleached blue summer sky, white sails on the river, made him feel in a festive mood, the first time he had felt that way in months. He walked a cinder path beneath the shade trees through the Elysian Fields, the parkland beside the river that had been set out years before by Colonel Stevens, the owner of the ferry franchises to New York, an attraction designed to draw a steady stream of fare-paying visitors who might otherwise never consider a journey to the wilds of New Jersey. He strolled at a leisurely pace. The path bent and twisted beside the river. At one point he saw a series of tents set up by the water, and soldiers scrambling over a barge. They sent a rocket blazing into the sky, a puff of smoke and sparkle that was only a test in preparation for the evening's fireworks, still another celebration of the twin victories of a week before, Gettysburg and Vicksburg, east and west, thundering blows against Secessiondom that made the final victory seem only a matter of time.

The trail of vapor the rocket
left behind and the small smudge it made hung limply in the sky. Bedford felt his spirits sag. He had bought gold later than many others. He started at $144 an ounce and ended at $146, after a two-day frenzy of buying. He sold all the stocks, through the Exchange he could manage to without appearing to be liquidating his business, and he fenced securities through Capshaw, everything he could get his hands on: his clients' holdings, and the Stark estate, which he managed for the heirs. He held back nothing. If he was to pay back Morrissey the money he owed him, a debt compounding at the rate of 25 percent per week, if he was to cover what he had already taken from his clients' accounts, if he was to regain the capital he needed for investment, there was no real choice. He put it all on a Union loss, on one final victory for Lee, a whipping in the style of Chancellorsville, except on northern soil, a fatal blow against the Yankee greenback.

Gold didn't move for almost a month. Just hung there at about $145, the whole country holding its breath. Bedford couldn't sleep. He wandered the house at night until the servants thought he was becoming unhinged. The cook brought him glasses of boiled milk. He'd douse the milk with whiskey, and drink the mixture in two gulps, but still he couldn't sleep. The heat settled on the city earlier than usual, and the early storms of summer, the lightning and thunder, jangled his nerves, reminded him of how his whole fortune now hung by one thread, the mass and accuracy of Rebel guns. Lee was apparently headed for Harrisburg. Once in possession of that town, he would be within equal striking distance of Washington and Philadelphia.

On the 30th of June there was a terrific storm in the middle of the night that blew through the house, ripping down curtains and scattering Audley Ward's papers across his room. The servants ran about, closing windows and mopping up water. Ward yelled for them to help him gather his papers. Bedford met Ward in the hallway. The old man was standing there in his nightshirt, his hands clasping sheets of paper. “My God,” he cried, “this is a disaster!” He held up the soaking papers, the ink running down them in watery squiggles.

Bedford felt himself on the
verge of seizing Ward and striking him, grabbing him by the collar of his nightshirt and dragging him down the stairs, throwing him and his soggy diary or history or whatever it was into the street, watching the pages wash away. He went past Ward without a word, down the stairs, through the pantry, into the cellar. He sat on the floor of a small, windowless room that was dank and cool. In it hung a row of winter coats wrapped in greased paper that moths couldn't eat through. He started to cry and, once started, couldn't stop. He sobbed for what seemed like an hour. He heard the door at the top of the stairs open, and the hesitant voice of one of the Irish servant girls call out, “Mr. Bedford, sir, are ye down there? Is everything all right?”

He said in as steady a voice as he could, “Yes, fine, I'm merely looking for something I misplaced. Go away, please.”

“Yes, sir.” The door closed. He lay down on the floor, his face against the dank earth, and fell asleep. The next day, the heat was worse than ever. He bathed and dressed. He left without eating any breakfast. The mood in the Exchange was one of desperate anticipation. Everyone was fidgety and irritable. He went to Old Tom's at ten and stayed there drinking coffee and brandy until the early afternoon, then went home and climbed into the safe, soft familiarity of his bed. He drew his legs up to his chest and fell immediately asleep. The thunder woke him. It was nighttime again. He was wet with sweat. He heard the servants running about to close the windows and prevent a repetition of the previous night's damage.

The next morning's
Tribune
was filled with reports from a town named Gettysburg. An engagement had begun. The Union troops had caught the Rebels before they reached Harrisburg. Lee was on the attack. The news seemed to favor the Union forces so far, but that was to be expected; it always began on a high note, no matter how great a debacle resulted. He stopped at the Union League Club on the way home. The mood was no better than at the Exchange. The heat and anxiety made everyone sick with fever. Night brought no relief. Bedford went straight to his room. He hadn't eaten a proper meal in days but felt no hunger.

He was sitting in his office
the next afternoon when he heard shouting in the street. He poked his head out the window. A boy was running about, screaming, “Vicksburg's fallen! Vicksburg's fallen!” People were emptying out of the buildings, and there was a tentative air of celebration. But within an hour the next edition of the papers was out, with no bulletin from the west. Bedford had a splitting pain in his head. He choked back tears. He told himself that he didn't care anymore; let Lee win or lose, but let the waiting end. Not wanting to go home, he stopped at the Union League again. The place was full of men who looked pale and ill. They were all in the same quandary. A few, he knew, were playing the same game as he, betting their future on gold and victory for Lee. He had seen them in the Coal Hole. Most were still in stocks and greenbacks, assets that would tumble in value if Lee succeeded. But they were all suspended above the same void, members of the same party of fear and unknowing. For the moment, at least, those like Bedford who had bet against the Union had no need to disguise their emotions, to pretend joy at a Rebel defeat or sadness at a Rebel victory. Everyone was equal in his fear.

Bedford slept well that night. There were no storms. He had no dreams. The church bells woke him at daybreak, a ringing that grew and grew in volume until it seemed certain every bell in the city had joined in. He knew in an instant what it meant. Lee had been defeated. Stopped by a nonentity like General Meade. Bedford lay still, relieved that it was over. He wasn't sure what to do now, although his choices were few, but the nervous tautness in his legs and back was gone. He was done with waiting. After a few moments, the windows rattled with the boom of the harbor guns, an incessant booming that saluted what had to be a great victory. He closed his eyes. In his mind he drew one of those allegorical sketches the papers would soon be filled with: A shell marked
GETTYSBURG
was traveling in a descending arc to make a direct hit on a fort marked
SPECULATION.
Rats in top hats were scurrying over the walls to avoid the explosion.