How Few Remain (66 page)

“Mr. President, you are starting at shadows,” Jackson said. “Douglass”—he’d forgotten about saying
Mister
Douglass—”is a prominent figure in the United States, but his prominence does not translate into popularity.”

“What you say is true, so far as it goes,” Longstreet agreed, nodding his majestic head. “It does not go far enough. You see over the hill to the battle just ahead, but not to the larger fight three weeks later and half a state away.”

“Enlighten me, then,” Jackson said, more than a little testily. He knew he was no match for Longstreet as a politician, but did not enjoy having his nose rubbed in the fact.

Almost to his disappointment, Longstreet
did
enlighten him: “As you say, Douglass is not nearly so popular as he would wish in the USA. He embarrasses his countrymen by reminding them they lost the War of Secession, an unpalatable fact on which they would sooner not dwell. But Douglass is popular in France, and he is extremely popular in England, and has been for upwards of thirty years. We would have had an easier time explaining to the United States how we had killed one of their citizens than explaining to our allies how we had come to kill a man they revere.”

“Ah. Now I see it plain.” Jackson dipped his head to the president. “I humbly beg your pardon, Your Excellency: in such matters your mind does cast a wider net than mine.”

“Each cat his own rat,” Longstreet said. That was not quite the same as admitting Jackson made a better soldier than he, but it came close enough to keep the general-in-chief from being offended. Then the president of the CSA leaned forward and asked, “And how did you find Douglass, General?”

He might almost have taken that curiously avid tone had he asked Jackson about a lewd photograph or something else at the same time illicit and attractive. After meeting the Negro agitator, Jackson understood why. “He is a … formidable man, Your Excellency,” he answered after a pause spent groping for a word that fit.

“That I believe,” Longstreet said.

But Jackson, once begun with his judgment, would not give over until he had completed it: “Were all men of his race endowed
with gifts even approaching those he possesses, we should never have succeeded in holding them in bondage.”

“I believe that, too, but they are not so endowed. I have read much of his work,” Longstreet said. Jackson blinked, startled. The president saw the blink and laughed. “Do you not favor knowing the enemy, General?”

“Mm,” Jackson said. “Put that way, yes, sir.”

“Having done so, I will say, within the confines of these four walls and these four ears, that few white men are endowed with gifts even approaching his. In any public setting, of course, I should say nothing of the sort.”

“I understand, Your Excellency,” Jackson said. And he did. The Confederate Constitution mandated free speech, but no one used that mandate to proclaim the Negro’s equality to the white man, let alone his superiority over him.

“As I say, you did the nation a good turn by your forbearance,” Longstreet said. “I have received cables from both London and Paris thanking and congratulating us for our prompt release of Douglass. I am convinced it has made our allies more willing to play an active part in the fight against the USA.”

“They certainly have done that of late,” Jackson said with a smile. Now he told of the blows on his fingers: “Boston, New York, the Great Lakes, Los Angeles—nice to find the French doing something—San Francisco, that town up in Washington Territory—”

“Seattle.” Longstreet supplied the name.

“Thank you, Mr. President. And this invasion of Montana Territory is one more stroke against which the Yankees will be hard pressed to find an effective response.”

“Ah. I see you have not heard the latest.” A smile broke through Longstreet’s beard like the sun breaking through clouds. “No fault of yours, General—you’ve been on the train. But this morning British and Canadian troops crossed over the border from New Brunswick into Maine.”

“Maine?” Jackson shivered theatrically. “Brr! Why would anyone want it? Give me Mexico any day. Or, seen from Canada, does Maine look warm?”

“There’s a—chilling thought,” Longstreet said with a smile. “But there are two excellent reasons for invading it. One is that the border, which was not settled until the 1840s, was not settled altogether to England’s satisfaction. And the other”—the smile
got wider, as if the president was inviting Jackson to share the joke—”the other is that Maine is President Blaine’s home state, which makes the invasion doubly humiliating to him.”

“Ah,” Jackson said, appreciating the beauty of it.

With a certain savage satisfaction, Longstreet went on, “When I last offered President Blaine peace on the
status quo ante belium
, he refused not least on the grounds that the United States were undefeated. If I make him the same offer again, he will have a harder time putting forward that claim.”

“He certainly would,” Jackson said with a chuckle. Then he checked himself and studied the president of the Confederate States. “Your Excellency, are you thinking of renewing that offer?”

Longstreet’s big, leonine head went up and down. “I am. Along with the matter of Douglass, gaining your opinion of such a move was the other reason I asked you to come here. My view is that at this time no one in the USA or anywhere else in the world could possibly believe we would offer peace because we are weak rather than because we are strong. How say you?”

“Our Lord did say, ‘Blessed are the peacemakers,’ “Jackson answered, “but I must tell you that I would prefer to see the United States pay a high price for starting a war over something that was none of their proper concern in the first place.”

“Having to give up the war while gaining nothing, and having to recognize our right to Chihuahua and Sonora, to prevent which acquisitions they went to war in the first place, should be price enough, don’t you think?” Longstreet asked. “The United States have now twice elected Republican presidents, twice gone to war with us almost immediately thereafter, and twice failed in mortifying fashion to achieve their purpose. Based on that, General, how long do you reckon it will be before they elect a third Republican president?”

“Sooner than you think, perhaps, Mr. President, if you let them down too gently,” Jackson said.

“Are you saying I should not do this?” Longstreet looked unhappy, as he did when anyone disagreed with him. “They
are
there, General.” He pointed north. “They will be there. We cannot subdue and occupy them. Now they see they cannot subdue and occupy us. Is it not enough?”

Air hissed out between Jackson’s teeth. “Put that way—” He
was not happy himself, nor anywhere close, but the president had a point. Grudgingly, he said, “Perhaps it could be tried.”

“I knew you’d see it my way.” Now Longstreet was all smiles.
Why not?
Jackson thought.
He’s got what he wanted
.

Brakes squealed, iron grinding against iron. Sparks flew up from the rails. Brevet Brigadier General George Custer turned to his brother and said, “Reminds you of muzzle flashes in a night battle, doesn’t it, Tom?”

Major Tom Custer shrugged. “Nobody’s trying to kill us, not yet, unless it’s the railroad line.”

The conductor stuck his head into the car that carried the Fifth Cavalry’s officers. “Great Falls!” he shouted. “All out for Great Falls!”

Custer shifted in the seat he’d occupied far too long. Something in his back gave a sharp click. He let out a sigh of relief. “That’s a little better, anyhow. The railroads,” he muttered. “Ah, the railroads. How I do love it when the faster way to go from hither to yon is around three sides of a square.”

He stretched again. Despite that welcome click, his back remained unhappy. To get from Salt Lake City to Great Falls, his regiment had had to travel back past Denver, then up through Nebraska, into the Black Hills country of Dakota Territory, clipping a corner of Wyoming Territory before they finally entered Montana. And that had been a while ago; Montana itself was a big place.

“God’s own luck it’s not General Gordon and the British army meeting us here,” he grumbled. “Wouldn’t that be fine?—to get shelled and shot up as we were trying to leave the train, I mean.”

“Happened a couple of times during the last war, didn’t it, Autie?” his brother said. “But you’re right—it’s not what I’d want to do for fun. We’re blasted lucky the Mormons didn’t greet us that way when we got to Utah.”

“Oh, don’t I know it.” Custer got to his feet as the train slowed to a stop. “Well, let’s get ourselves disembarked and on the move. The sooner we set to marching, the sooner we can send the damned—the dashed—Englishmen back over the border with their tails between their legs.”

He was the first one out of the car. Back in the days when he was a mere colonel, others might have tried to leave ahead of him—more likely Tom than anyone else. But those shiny stars on
his shoulder straps froze the rest of the officers in their seat till he had gone by.
A general
he thought, and walked straighten
I’m a general
.

Down to the ground he sprang, boots scuffing on gravel. An infantry colonel stood there waiting to greet him, a blond man a few years older than he was and weathered leathery by sun and wind and snow. “Welcome to Montana, General Custer,” he said, saluting.

His voice was familiar, even if his face hadn’t been at first glance. Custer looked again and did a double take. “Henry Welton, you son of a gun!” he exclaimed, and clasped the other man’s hand. “I’d heard you were up in these parts, but it went clean out of my head in the rush to get here from Salt Lake City. By thunder, it’s grand to see you again. Been a long time, hasn’t it?”

“Since we were a couple of McClellan’s bright young men? Almost twenty years,” Welton said. “That one didn’t turn out the way we wanted it to. Here’s hoping we do better this time around.”

“Amen, and we’d better,” Custer said. He grabbed his brother by the arm. “Henry, did you ever meet Tom here?” When Welton shook his head, Custer went on more formally: “Colonel Welton, I’d like to present to you my younger brother, Major Tom Custer. Tom, Henry Welton and I both served together at Little Mac’s headquarters in our Army of the Potomac days.”

“Very pleased to meet you, sir,” Tom said.

“And you, Major.” Welton lowered his voice as he spoke to George Custer once more: “And after all that Army of the Potomac duty, how did you find serving under Brigadier General John Pope?”

“As a matter of fact, that went better than I’d thought it would,” Custer answered. “We differed, naturally, in our views of General McClellan, but discovered a common aversion to the Latter-Day Saints and another to the abilities and characters, such as they are, of Abraham Lincoln.” He stiffened. “Speak of the devil! There he is on the platform. I thought I’d never set eyes on that Goddamned old undertaker again”—he forgot about
dashed
and other euphemisms—”after we sent him packing from Salt Lake City.”

“He’s been up here most of the time since, trying to raise trouble,” Welton answered. “He managed it in Helena, but he
hasn’t had such good luck in Great Falls … Christ, here he comes. What does he want with us?”

Lincoln towered over Henry Welton and both Custers. Tipping his hat to George, he said, “I know you find my good wishes superfluous, Colonel Cus—” He caught himself. He was an observant man. “Excuse me—
General
Custer. Congratulations. In any case, I do hope you enjoy all good fortune in driving the invader back from our soil.”

“I aim to do exactly that, Mr. Lincoln,” Custer said. “And when I have done it, and when our great nation is once more free to turn to the things of peace, I expect you, sir, will go right on setting class against class and preaching hatred and strife until they plant you in the ground.”

“I preach neither of those things,” Lincoln said quietly. “I preach justice and equality for all men in the United States.”

“Yes, for the Mormons,” Custer jeered. “We gave them justice and equality, all right—they were plenty equal at the end of a rope.”

Lincoln’s long, sad face grew longer and sadder. “I had already heard of that. May it not come back to haunt us.”

“Pah! You care for the Mormons more than for the decent citizens of the United States.” With a fine show of contempt, Custer turned his back. “I’ve wasted enough time. Now to get this regiment moving.” Behind him, he heard Lincoln walk away. The ex-president’s step was that of a much younger man, firm and regular. As long as he was leaving, Custer didn’t care what he sounded like.

Cavalry troopers filed out of the cars behind the one housing the regimental officers. They hurried back to the freight cars that held their mounts. From one freight car emerged not horses but the regiment’s Gatling guns and limbers, carefully guided down special, extra-wide ramps by their crews.

“Heavens!” Henry Welton’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “You’ve got enough of those contraptions, don’t you?”

“Enough and to spare,” Custer answered, not altogether happily. “I had two in Kansas, and went down into Indian Territory and did good work with them. After my regiment got sent to Utah to help overawe the Mormons, the other half dozen were attached to me, for no better reason than that the first two had done good work. And when I was ordered here, I was ordered here with the Gatling guns specifically included.”

Welton asked the first question that would have entered any good soldier’s mind: “Can they keep up?”

“The first two did well enough in Kansas,” Custer said. “I made sure the gun carriages had good horses, not screws. I’ve been doing the same with all of them, but now, with eight guns and eight limbers, we have four times as many things that can go wrong.” He affected a tone of ruthless pragmatism: “If they cause trouble on campaign, I’ll leave them behind, that’s all.”

“That makes good sense, sure enough,” Welton said. “Well, we’ll have a chance to see how well they travel from here up to join with the Seventh Infantry. From that point on, we’ll be moving against the British, so if they can’t keep up, they will have to fall back.”

Custer’s face crinkled into a frown. “I haven’t been so well briefed as I would have liked,” he said, which would do for an understatement till a bigger one came along. He exulted at having the command in Montana, but with command went responsibility. “You’re not in contact with the enemy?” He didn’t care for the sound of that.