Eagle's Cry: A Novel of the Louisiana Purchase (60 page)

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Authors: David Nevin

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BOOK: Eagle's Cry: A Novel of the Louisiana Purchase
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“So?”
“So we’ll see, four years from now, but I don’t think I can
be beaten if I start now. It’s a matter of posture and positioning; that’s your idea and I think it’s right.”
He had it now—not campaigning, of course, to present himself as hungry for office would be fatal, even Aaron up in New York insisted he was merely willing to serve on the people’s call. But letting those who count, those on the inside, know that he is the natural successor. Let him stand ready, the goal always in mind; if he knows it, everyone will know it.
Then he laughed out loud, rubbing his hands together. “And the mansion will be yours, and you can repair it to your heart’s content. I’ll authorize anything and everything.”
She jumped up and into his arms. “You are a darling,” she said, and kissed him. She felt their future was settled.
They had dinner, whatever the cook had prepared in the separate kitchen out back, and were well into the second bottle of wine before they went upstairs. There was a lot of laughter and reminiscence and easy talk about easy things and snippets of gossip interworked with observations on the foibles of their friends, and in the whole time Dolley didn’t mention what she would do with the big white house in which the president lived and worked.
Jimmy was tired and went to bed, but Dolley was boiling with energy and she donned a blanket robe and fur slippers and kissed him and pinched out the candle and sat in the alcove formed by the bay window in their bedroom, where moonlight was bright enough to read by and the stars were a glittering swath across the sky.
It would be unseemly to talk overmuch of the great house’s possibilities, perhaps even courting misfortune in the future. But Dolley had a new friend, one Benjamin Latrobe, an architect from England whom Tom had engaged to design a drydock that would lay up the Federalist frigates. She thought the frigates hadn’t really gone out of service and the dock probably hadn’t been built or at any rate finished
and she wasn’t interested enough to ask. She had found herself next to him at a presidential dinner one afternoon. He was rather a handsome fellow with tousled brown hair and light eyes and a very English look, whatever that meant, and in fact she wasn’t sure except that he fitted her sense of the English, who were pleasant enough when they weren’t impressing our seamen and coercing our trade. There was something poetic in his speech and she liked him.
She’d scarcely noticed him until she turned to him out of courtesy and he said in his soft voice, pleasing her with the use of the honorific, “Doesn’t
madame
think this gorgeous building deserves more attention?” She stared at him as he spoke her thoughts aloud. “The walls, so shabby. Water damage not recent—the roof’s been fixed, I take it, but the interior ignored. In fact, you know, the interior rivals the exterior in importance, in meaning—a building’s soul is on the inside.”
He paused, wide-eyed. “But perhaps
madame
does not agree, perhaps she thinks a foreigner’s criticism rude and unseemly, which indeed it is, and yet—”
She put her hand on his to quiet him. “Perhaps you are a treasure, sir. Tell me, you seem conversant with the interior arts—is that a matter of taste or of experience?”
He drew himself up. “I am primarily an architect, but I have decorated some of the great homes of England.”
She made up her mind. “Why don’t you come here for tea tomorrow. Mr. Madison and I will give you a tour.” Mr. Madison so no errant thoughts would strike the architect and because it would do Mr. Madison a world of good to see the house’s faults through a professional eye.
Mr. Latrobe rose fully to her hopes, discussing wainscoting styles with much expertise and moving on to the blending of colors and their multiplicity of shades and the use of their contrasts, the technique of faux marble, the use of rough stone for effect, the kind of windows that made a plain room gracious, a gracious room glorious. On the spot she decided that he would be her consultant and confidant when the time came. Since then he had worked on the Capitol
and other buildings, but he had never lost his interest in her project.
“I want this to be a great house for the people of America,” she told him one day. “I want it to stand for the richness of our democracy.”
She remembered how he had bowed. “It will be a great honor to assist.” Now the day when she might tell him to start seemed measurably nearer.
So she gazed out into the starry night, comfortable, warm, wine still swirling in her head, and let her imagination soar. If she could fly to the glittering carpet above or even over the trees and the houses gleaming all around in the moonlight, if she could soar high over the Appalachians and pick out the Ohio, a silver ribbon winding through the dark, if she could go on and on and spy the great silver streak running southward down the center of the continent and draining east and west, and on over the ground across which Merry and his men soon would march, what would she see?
She smiled, enjoying the fantasy the more because it was so unlike her. If she could fly into the future, what would she see? Farms replacing forests, towns with churches and schools rising along the rivers, southbound flatboats dark specks on the rivers from the Appalachians to what Merry called the Stony Mountains, and it would all be American. They always had known that ultimately American settlers would control the West, but now the process had been wildly accelerated. But out beyond, still further … Jimmy said we would be a continental nation, different oceans washing our shores east and west and maybe you could say the south, except she guessed the Gulf really was part of the Atlantic … .
Well, no matter. A two-ocean nation, that would do. A continental nation. Merry’s expedition surely would make what had been hope become real expectation. Already the public folklore had leaped to the assumption that the purpose of the exploration was to explore the new possession. Of course, maybe out in the future the British and the Spanish would have something to say about our west, but then, the
French had thought to take a hand in the American game and we dealt with them. We’d deal with the others too.
Because we were strong. We had come through a great crisis. We had settled forever—or at least, for as long as the blank future allowed you to guess—the issue of democracy. Anyway, freedom is for each generation to preserve and protect, each generation facing the risk of its loss. We were the only democracy in the world, but we wouldn’t be the last. For we had just proved the strength of the democratic form, proved it against all the naysayers and sad doubters.
And we had opened the West as it never had been opened before; the continental dream beckoned with the glittering stars.
We’ve done well by the country,
she thought, she and Jimmy and all the others. We’ve done well.
She was riding the dream now, eyes shut, and the edge of sky behind her went pale and the sun rose and glinted against the river and far overhead, above her, below her, she didn’t know and it didn’t matter, an eagle wheeled, its harsh warrior’s cry that of a king, lord of all it surveyed … .
She opened her eyes onto the blanket of stars, the image of the great bird vivid in her mind. She was supremely happy.
Cold had overtaken the room. The fire was down, and she stood and gazed once more at the sweep of stars brilliant as daisies crowding a field. Then she slipped off her robe and kicked off the slippers and slid into the warm bed. Jimmy muttered something, and she touched his cheek and he sighed and was gone again in sleep.
“An intriguing overview of the fractious early days of the American public … brimming with personal and political tension, the gripping narrative, vividly recreates a seminal moment in the infancy of the U. S. An intelligent, wellcrafted drama featuring a cast of authentically rendered historical characters.”
—
Booklist
“David Nevin’s colorful novel brings together all the figures, plus James Madison and Napoleon Bonaparte … and explains how the new nation survived discord and discontent, but also flourished.”
—
The Dallas Morning News
“What a book! It is a panorama of five crucial years in American history … told in David Nevin’s inimitably personal style, giving readers fascinating and emotional insights into the great names of American history … hearts as well as heads were at risk yet the ending could not be happier. This is a book to treasure, to reread, to give to friends and relations.”
—Thomas Fleming,
New York Times
bestselling author of
The Officer’s Wives
“The stirring story of a young America’s battle to remain a democracy … Nevin gives human faces to historical icons, Jefferson and Madison, Meriwether Lewis; Andrew Jackson and his beloved Rachel, and most noticeably Madison’s charming, courageous, incomparable Dolley.”
—
Kirkus Reviews
Eagle’s Cry
is a novel. Yet it is in general accurate both as to the history of the events it chronicles and as to the character, personalities, and conflicts of the historical figures. To sum up in a phrase, this is
the imagined inside of a known outside story.
So I believe that with a few exceptions, most listed below, the novel is a close account of what happened and why, and of the individuals involved. I base the words I put in their mouths on the records they and their contemporaries left and my own estimate of how reasonable men and women might reasonably respond. One immediate variance from rigid fact, however, is that I frequently put people together for direct dialogue when in fact they communicated by letter; what I have them say, however, is fully consistent with their positions and attitudes.
History strives for what is documentable and provable. My books strive for the story that underlies reality, what I see as an imagined reality. To clarify that reality, and to give the reader information not readily delivered through a historical character, I have used a few fictional characters to interact with real characters and thus illuminate their views. The biggest fictional additions are Danny and Carl Mobry and their servants, Samuel and Millie Clark. But all that I have them say and do accurately reflects the historical events in which they were involved. In matters such as the Louisiana Purchase or the Jefferson-Burr tie, it must be assumed that much of what passes is not laid out in the record. An example of this is the contact I postulate between Madison—through
Dolley and Danny—with Bayard of Delaware; some contact was made, and I supply a version that could have happened but that would never have been recorded. In my view, the important point here is that all that I have Bayard and the two women saying accurately reflects the situation and attitudes.
Danny’s contact with Mrs. Pichon is fictional but clearly represents Pichon’s position. Though John Quincy Adams and Pichon were friends and their conversation represents historical truth, it is not documented. General Wilkinson is an odd figure, thought then and known now to have been a traitor—the Spanish listed him as Agent #13. His connection to Burr is well documented.
Meriwether Lewis’s trail adventure when we meet him is fictional but consistent both with the times and with his nature. His seizure of command is accurately presented. Dolley’s sister Anna was a real person, but her flirtation with Lewis is fictional; it accurately reflects, however, the trouble that Lewis did have with young women who drew his attention. The reasons I advance for that trouble are not documented, but I believe they are reasonable speculations fully consistent with the known biographical facts. Mary Beth Slaney is fictional, as are the other young women whom I show Lewis meeting. His application to Jefferson for command of a transcontinental expedition when he was nineteen is factual. Mr. Lemaire is a real figure, and Dolley’s relationship with him is accurately portrayed; an initial clash is assumed but not documented.
The strange tale of Andrew Jackson’s marriage and the scandal that followed is fully accurate. The violent response to scandal he presented, and his wife’s crushed nature, are accurately portrayed. The quarrel with Governor Sevier is presented almost word for word as those who were there recorded it. I believe my account of Jackson to be highly accurate, both as to events and as to his personality and nature; the only place I have purposely exceeded the record was in bringing him to Washington when the disaster of the Spanish closing of the Mississippi inflamed the West. The story is
accurate as to the West’s violent reaction, but I have no knowledge that Jackson left Tennessee at this time.
Did Aaron Burr plot to bring about the election tie? He denied it, but Madison was convinced to his death that it was true, and this is Madison’s story. My portrayal of Burr’s character may offend his ardent apologists, who are numerous even today, and while offending anyone distresses me sorely, I do believe a case can be made for my portrayal. Burr’s bitterness over being excluded after the tie is well documented.
General Washington’s last hours were as I portray them, and he was being importuned to return to the helm. Danny’s lover, Henri, is fictional, but her uncle, Daniel Clark, is a famous figure in New Orleans history who did, in fact, undertake a mission to Paris. How the U.S. government recruited him for this mission is not recorded. His mistress, Zulie, is a historical figure. The DuPont family, in the process of starting the great firm we know today, played exactly the role I describe. Senator Ross’s part in persuading Napoleon is accurately stated, but the extent to which and the means by which he and Madison communicated are not documented. I find it impossible to believe that his great speech, put so neatly into Napoleon’s hands, had not been arranged. A splinter party led by Timothy Pickering did for years lead a secession movement in New England which the Adamses, father and son, rejected. The personality of the Adams family and its bitterness are accurately drawn. The Sally Hemings story is accurately drawn, as is, I believe, the character of James Callender, who shortly after this book’s period fell drunk into a shallow ditch in Richmond and drowned. Federalists’ stunned disbelief at losing the 1800 election is accurately portrayed. The unfolding French decision to sell Louisiana is well documented.
Language in the early nineteenth century was more formal than we use today, but I’m sure thoughts were as fluent, tempers as quick, analyses as surefooted as they are today, and that all were rendered from person to person just as fluidly. My aim is to create for modern readers the intimacy of decisions
and pressures then affecting these individuals, and so, while avoiding modernisms, I have chosen language that sounds more formal than modern usage but that probably is somewhat less formal than what actually was used then.
Political parties can be confusing to modern ears. As the opening chapter makes clear, at the start there were no parties. As the democratic spirit rose, reaction to elitism took the form of the first Republican Party under Madison, Jefferson, and others. Almost immediately, this opposition group became known as Democrats, and I have used that term to avoid confusion with the modern Republican Party, which was formed in the 1850s with John Charles Frémont its first presidential candidate. Adams and the old guard took the Federalist label.
The sequel to this novel, now in preparation, will undertake to finish stories that could only be started here. We see that Burr clearly was destroyed by the tie that we chronicle in
Eagle’s Cry
as we watch him play out his fate—the deadly duel with Hamilton, the flight, the attempt to steal the West, the trial, exile.
Meriwether Lewis, set on the path to greatness in this book, makes his monumental trek to the Pacific and returns to his own tragedy. Madison and Dolley persevere against the machinations of radical Democrats and the challenge from Monroe here set up, ending in triumph with election to the presidency in 1808. Dolley can begin her ardent and quite famous refurbishing of what a few people by then had started calling the White House.
The trouble with the British becomes increasingly volatile and dangerous. The possibility of war with England becomes a constant pressure. Madison must walk a narrow path resisting that pressure and holding national pride and position while staving off a war we were too weak to fight, a war that holds off until 1812, which story I have already chronicled in my novel 1812.
Of course,
Eagle’s Cry
depends heavily on research; this is to express my appreciation to the Butler Library at Columbia University, the New York Public Library, the Library
of Congress, the library of the Century Association, and the library of Greenwich, Connecticut, one of the finest and busiest community libraries in the country.
I relied heavily upon Irving Brant’s six-volume treatment of the Madisons and Ralph Ketcham’s single volume. Dumas Malone’s wonderful six volumes on Jefferson are superb, and so is Merrill Peterson’s single volume.
The Age of Federalism,
by Stanley Elkins and Eric McKitrick, sums up the 1790s beautifully. For General Washington, I relied on James Flexner’s fine four-volume treatment and on the more recent treatment by Willard Randall. Stephen Ambrose’s treatment of Meriwether Lewis is definitive, but earlier works by David Lavender and Richard Dillon are useful. Robert Remini’s three-volume treatment of Andrew Jackson is excellent, following Marquis James and James Parton. I relied on Milton Lomask’s two-volume work on Aaron Burr, though my impressions of Burr are different from his very favorable treatment. My portrait of Robert Livingston is drawn from George Dangerfield’s fine biography. Finally, of course, there is the brilliant
History of the United States During the Administrations of Thomas Jefferson and James
Madison, by Henry Adams, its ten volumes available in full today in a magnificent two-volume edition from the Library of America. Adams is splendid, sometimes biased, sometimes off-base in the view of some modern scholars, but unfailingly interesting and often very wise.
In the end, however, I based much of my estimates of how politics and human nature really work (they are, of course, intertwined) on my own substantial experience with politics, Washington, and the White House as a national journalist.
—DN

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