Antebellum BK 1 (19 page)

“
They’re done.”

“
Well go do something else. I have a lot of work to do.” He went back to the task of totaling the columns of figures.

Johnny started to go, then retrieved the letter from the trashcan. “I think I’ll keep this, just as a memento.”

“
Good idea,” Thomas said, without looking up from the ledger. “It isn’t everyone who’s received a Presidential appointment to the United States Military Academy. Especially when they have a brother attending.”

“
What’s that?”

“
I said it isn’t everyone who’s received a Presidential appointment to West Point.”

“
No.” Johnny shook his head. “After that. About brothers.”

“
Oh. It’s against Academy policy to allow brothers to attend. It may have been instituted because of William, Jack, Robert and me. It became policy the year after Robert graduated.”

“
Then how did I get accepted?”

“
The Napoleon Bonaparte Buford exception.”

“
What?”

“
Napoleon Bonaparte Buford, class of twenty-seven, lobbied the government to allow his younger brother John to attend. John Buford was accepted into the class of forty-eight. Once an exception to a rule’s been made, another’s fairly easy to obtain.”

Johnny looked at the letter for a moment, then walked out of Thomas’s office and closed the door behind him.

Thomas sat back in his chair and chuckled. “Welcome to the long gray line, Son.”

May 4, 1852

New York, New York

“
I
’m not going to print that, Anna,” Horace Greeley said emphatically, pointing to Anna’s copy pages.

“
Will you just read it? Please?” Anna said in an annoyed tone.

“
I have read it, and it won’t be printed in this newspaper.”

“
Why?”

“
Frederick Douglass has become too radical.”

“
Radical?” she said in a shrill tone. “By asking that slaves be freed? What’s radical about that? We print that same sentiment every day.”

“
We don’t insult our readers
every day
,” Greeley insisted.

“
How is what Douglass said insulting?”

“
Let me read it to you.” He picked up her copy pages. “What, to the American slave, is your 4
^th
of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass-fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parades and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy – a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour.”

He tossed her notes back onto his desk. “If I printed that I’d be lynched.”

Anna folded her arms. “If you don’t print it, I’ll resign.”

“
If you don’t get out of my office I’ll fire you.”

“
You can’t fire me; I quit.”

“
Get out.”

Anna turned on her heel and fifteen minutes later, she was standing across the desk from Henry J. Raymond, editor of the fledgling
New York Times
. “I know that I’m too liberal for your new paper, Henry, but I can get you stories that you’ll never even see, otherwise. And…”

“
Stop.” Raymond raised his hand. “You’re hired. Stop selling.”

“
I’m hired?”

“
I was planning to offer you a job anyway.”

“
In that case, Henry, what about my byline? Do I still have to be A.M. Van Buskirk? ”

“
No. You can use your full maiden name, Anna Marina Van Buskirk, in your byline. The whole world will know that A.M. Van Buskirk is a woman and that you are A.M. Van Buskirk.”

“
The same pay I was getting at the
Trib
?”

“
What do you care? You don’t even cash your paychecks.”

“
I just don’t want Mr. Greeley to think he’s won. If you can’t afford it I’ll make a donation or buy advertising or something.”

“
I’ll pay you ten percent more than Greeley was paying you and if I can’t afford that, I shouldn’t be in the newspaper business.” He took all the money from his wallet and offered it to her.

Anna took the cash. “What’s this for?”

“
Expenses. I want you to cover the presidential election from Washington. Stay at the Willard and file your stories by Western Union and send your expense reports by mail. I’ll reimburse your expenses every week.”

“
A suite at the Willard.”

“
No. A single room.”

“
No. I’ll rent a suite and charge my expense account for a single room.”

He waved his hand. “Fine.”

“
What’s the angle?”

“
Anything that will sell newspapers.”

“
That’s it?”

“
No. Build yourself a network down there.”

“
What kind of network?”

“
Female. The women of Washington know everything that’s going on and they’re more likely to talk than the politicians.”

“
I should be insulted.”

“
If you are, I misjudged you.” He held out his hand. “Give me that expense money back.”

Anna shook his extended hand and stuffed the money into her pocketbook. “Thank you.” She started for the door.

“
Anna?”

“
Yes?”

“
Secrets are often shared in bedchambers. Some of the women who know the most have less than stellar reputations.”

She smiled. “I know. Don’t worry. The woman in Washington with the very worst reputation is a dear friend of my mother. But before I see her, I’m going to Baltimore to interview my father’s dear friend, General Winfield Scott.”

“
Do you think Scott is going to be the Whig candidate?”

“
I’m sure of it. But he won’t be our next president.”

“
Do you know something I don’t?”

“
Lots. That’s why you hired me.” She hurried out the door.

~

“
Washington.” Nancy turned up her nose.

“
If you can survive living in a tent in Nebraska, Washington’s Willard Hotel should be like heaven,” Anna replied.

“
Assuring that the states created in Nebraska are free is a cause; Washington is your job – although I’ll be damned if I know why you want to work.”

“
I’ll rent a two-bedroom suite,” Anna said. “Your bedroom will be there for you if you want to use it.”

“
Won’t you miss all the New York social life?” She waved toward the window at the view of Manhattan. “The theaters, the library, the park?”

“
If you keep your apartment here, we can come back on weekends or we can go to New Jersey and just relax, away from it all.”

“
Will you be invited to all the embassy parties in Washington?”

“
I imagine so. The paper will probably get me two tickets to everything, like the
Trib
does here.”

“
Okay,” Nancy grumbled. “But I still don’t understand why you want to work.”

“
It gives my life meaning.”

“
Having fun is meaningful.”

“
Oh, Nancy.”

“
When do we have to go?”

“
How about tomorrow?”

“
I can’t be ready that fast.”

“
We’ll only stay a few days, then come back. If we take the early train in the morning, we’ll get there right after lunch.”

“
What?” Nancy shook her head. “That’s too fast to be safe.”

“
They say the new tracks can support speeds up to a mile a minute.”

“
I’ll take a boat and meet you there.”

“
The train’s perfectly safe. There’re four express trains that make a round trip every day and there’s never been an accident.”

Nancy still looked unsure.

“
What’s the matter with you? You just went with me from here to No-name Nebraska and back, facing hostile Indians, bandits, pirates, and every other kind of peril, without so much as a complaint. Now you’re afraid of a train?”

“
I’m not afraid of the train, I’m afraid of the train wreck at a mile a minute.”

“
The trains don’t go that fast yet.”

“
You just said they did.”

“
I said the tracks are engineered for trains to go that fast; I didn’t say that the trains went that fast.”

“
How fast do they go?”

“
I don’t know exactly. Maybe fifty miles an hour.”

“
That’s pretty close to a mile a minute.”

“
Nancy, you’re being childish about this.”

“
Okay, okay. But if I get killed in a train wreck, I’ll never speak to you again.”

May 8, 1852

Fort Humboldt, California

L
ieutenant Ulysses S. Grant saluted the mounted colonel and continued walking toward his quarters.

“
Is that any way for an old friend to behave?” the colonel asked.

Grant stopped and turned around, then a grin split his heavily bearded face. “Professor? Is that you?”