I Am Abraham (27 page)

“I promised nothing,” she said.

I wanted to return the twin ponies to these bankers, but it would have made even more of a ruckus. And I didn’t want to undercut Mother’s rôle as Lady President. The boys would have been heartsick without their new ponies. I thought at least I’d get something, that Mother might have some news from our older boy.

“And what about Bob?” I had to ask. “Is he still enamored of Harvard?”

She looked away again, like a waif now, not a scheming child, as if I’d caught her in some skullduggery.

“Oh, I didn’t have time to see him. There were too many dinners, too many things to buy. And Bob just couldn’t break away from his classes. But he promised to come down to see us—the moment he has a chance.”

Hadn’t realized how much I’d been looking forward to hearing about her visit with Bob, the cream cakes they had, the lobster bisque, the chats with his tutors and all his chums. What could have held her in Manhattan? Midnight suppers with War Democrats? Yachting parties with bankers and publishing tycoons? Bottles of perfume and swatches of drapery from some owner of a dry goods emporium? She’d always made time for Bob. Manhattan must have been too much of a
thrill
, even for Mother, who had to use up some of her charm to secure twin ponies for Willie and Tad.

25.

The Picnic War

H
E
WAS
A
general with a gigantic appetite—could fart like a furnace and eat six roasted quail at one sitting—but didn’t have much of an appetite for war. He’d rather feast at Gautier’s with his
family
and their brass spurs, or spend the night at his favorite bawdyhouse. Half the town seemed to know his battle plans; that’s how many Rebel spies we had in the District. There were no secret maneuvers in the dark. McDowell left in the early morning, on the sixteenth of July, under a blazing sun, and he didn’t leave
alone
with his thirty thousand troops. He had a wagon train of followers—six United States Senators, ten Congressmen, a gaggle of journalists and Washington wives with their own carriages and supplies—umbrellas, opera glasses, and picnic baskets. Every available wagon had been hired in advance of the battle. The capital’s caterers charged a fortune for the simplest baskets and hampers they had, with or without a bottle of wine. There was a kind of giddy joy that we were stopping at Manassas Junction to duel with the Rebels a bit and then march all the way into Dixie Land. I couldn’t deal with
romance
in this first real engagement of the war. We had one mission—to dislodge the Rebels from their works behind the meandering mud of Bull Run Creek and break their will, else the insurrection would fall into some distant romance and never end.

I despised a wagon train that could turn war into an opera in the countryside, but I couldn’t discourage all the carriages. The excitement of the ladies was like a terrible plague. They’d be out picnicking while men died. But the Senators had their war committees, the journalists their sketchbooks, the photographers their
Shadow Boxes
, and I was back home in the White House with Mary and the boys, far from the thunder and flying red spit.

For one darn moment I wished I was aboard that caravan, moving into Virginia, past the deserted farmhouses and dusty roads in the wake of war. There weren’t only fools and Senators on the wagon train; there were soldiers’ sweethearts and wives, with bandages and rum, and
vivandières
—young female sutlers—carrying fresh pies and the colors of some company that had adopted one or two of them. Yet I didn’t want to be on some hill overlooking the battle around Bull Run, with all the Senators and the Washington wives with their opera glasses and roast chicken, like spectators at a bloody game of bowls.

The despatches that came in over the wire talked of one little victory after the other, as the Rebels were pushed back deeper and deeper into the woods. No one talked of bedlam, and the impossible tug of war. And that’s what scratched at me, all the hurrahing and the hoopla. There were runners who posted each new despatch on the Willard’s front door and read the despatches aloud while folks predicted McDowell and his men would break through Manassas Junction and arrive in Richmond tomorrow. They dreamt of Mr. Jeff Davis roped up on the White House lawn like a monkey on display.

The Rebel yell couldn’t have had much shrift at Manassas. We all expected a rout. I went to the Navy Yard with Willie and Tad, to talk with the yard’s commander about our gunboats. Sailors saluted us as we went into that maze of sheds and dismantled ships. Willie and Tad wanted to carouse among the torpedoes, but I couldn’t carouse. There was a message from Secretary Seward waiting for me at the White House.

The day is lost.

I couldn’t make much sense of it all. McDowell had smashed the Rebel line. How could battle lines leap around like that? I didn’t rush to headquarters. I waited a bit. General Scott wasn’t snoring on his gigantic couch. He looked very grave in his gold buttons and feathered hat. The Rebel cavalry arrived from nowhere, swarmed out of the woods in a lightning raid—like ghosts, it seems, and swept our boys right out of the battle. Some of the Rebs were wearing Union blue. And that’s what befuddled our boys, who expected the strict neutrality of butternut or blue that would allow
any
bluecoat to leap right into our lines. Others swore that these diabolical cavalrymen were all black. I dared not believe it.

Scott explained the tactics behind that puzzler. Officers often rode into battle with their servants on the same horse. And such servant might thrash about with a wooden saber and blind some Ohio boy. I’d never understand
modern
war. Black Hawk might have scalped soldiers and civilians, but he wouldn’t have dressed his braves in soldier blue, or had his own white prisoners and slaves carry toy tomahawks. He wouldn’t have demeaned a man like that.

Scott read one of the despatches. “The routed troops will not re-form. Save Washington and the remnants of this army.”

I’m not sure how long I stayed at the War Department, with McDowell’s wires recounting the chaos. His army had become a confused mob. Soldiers fled with that broken caravan of Senators and Washington wives in what was soon known as the Great Skedaddle. Some of the boys must have gone berserk; they were carrying dead men’s boots in their arms like leather babies while they hopped around on hardscrabble with their toes peeking out of torn socks. A drummer boy with a bloody eye beat a wild tattoo that sounded like a devil’s dance; no human could have marched or run to that rat-a-tat. Women and wounded men dropped near the roadside, begging for a drink of water. That dazed caravan passed them right by. Soldiers sang their regimental songs in a hoarse whisper, but couldn’t recollect most of the words. A Congressman was captured and led away to Richmond, in a wooden cage no less. Fancy hats, jars, umbrellas, and opera glasses were strewn along the road, as grim reminders of that picnic war, but it was even harsher than that—crinolines and umbrellas caught fire in all the panic, and one of the ladies burned to death in her gown.

I didn’t have to wait around for any more of those despatches.

I returned to the White House. It had the familiarity of a morgue. I could hear the rattle of ambulances filled with wounded men. I saw them from my window—listless, half-dead men leaning over the sides of ambulances, like the parched crew of a whaler, wearing knotted handkerchiefs on their heads. I went out in the middle of the night to meet with some of the soldiers, giving them cups of water and whatever grub I had. Felt as if I myself had managed this war with a picnic basket, watching the battle at Manassas on some imaginary hill.

I could hear the random roar of rain on the roof, like the drumrolls of an incoherent army. Soldiers kept returning in tattered coats; a whole lot of them limped into Washington without boots. Old Fuss & Feathers arrived early at the White House. His eyes were swollen, and his hands shook. He stuttered in the cavernous tomb of the East Room. Took him a whole minute to collect himself. He wiped the spittle from his tongue. As the nation’s General-in-Chief he’d assumed the right to assemble Mary and the boys. He told her flat out that the Rebels could be rushing to Washington this minute. It was no longer safe for her to be here with Willie and Tad.

“Mrs. Lincoln, I’ll have members of my own guard ride with you to Philadelphia, if you prefer.”

Mary was wearing her war bonnet with strings she had knotted with her own hands. She’d made a tent for Willie and Tad, clutched them under her shawl, as if that little dark tunnel might deliver them from the
Secesh.
She was worn through, hadn’t slept since Manassas, and couldn’t even answer the General. Mary turned to me.

“Will you go with us, Mr. Lincoln?” she asked. She knew I’d never skedaddle, not after the rout at Bull Run, with soldiers caught in the drizzling rain. But I was a little formal in front of Old Fuss & Feathers.

“Most assuredly, Mrs. Lincoln, I will not leave at this juncture.”

She was just as formal, though her eyes darted, and I could sense she was at the limit of whatever little control she had left.

“Then I will not leave you at this juncture,” she said, and marched upstairs with my two boys under that tent of hers.

26.

Yib

T
HE
W
HITE
H
OUSE
had its own schoolroom, but the boys were always playing tricks on their teacher, swiping his hat or setting one of his shoes on fire. That damn school became a sore spot between Mrs. Keckly and me, and the subject of our first altercation. The children of our servants often played with Willie and Tad, and were part of their own little band, the Union Jacks. And once, after this wild band took possession of the attic, Keckly came to see me. I was in my office, scratching around with the kitten she gave Tad as a gift, though that kitten, I suspect, was as much a gift for Tad’s
Paw
. She must have sniffed my isolation, that singular loneliness of a Commander-in-Chief after Bull Run.

“Madame Elizabeth,” I said, “I was about to call on you. I’m in need of your opinion. It’s about this colonization business.”

I could see that startled look in her mournful eyes.

“What colonization business? Mr. Lincoln, are you asking slaves and freedmen to
volunteer
to leave their homes for some forlorn spot in Africa?”

Suddenly I felt like the main attraction in a monster show. “But Lizabeth,” I pleaded, “we’d be sending them back to the land of their fathers.”

“Most of their fathers were born here, as you must know—I was born in Virginia, Mr. Lincoln. I learned to read and write as a slave. My master, Mr. Armistead Burwell, took my mother as his concubine, only I never discovered that until the day she died. But I’m a Virginian, sir, and all the wealth in the world couldn’t get me to say otherwise.”

I was like a lonely dog looking for a lick of affection.

“What did you want to ask me, Madame Elizabeth?”

“It’s the classroom at the White House, sir. I was wondering if I could make use of it? It has a chalkboard and such. And I’d like to help the housemaids’ little boys to read and write.”

She never even asked if the White House tutor would give private lessons to these little boys, or if they could come and join Willie and Tad’s class. She wouldn’t trespass upon Washington manners. All she wanted was to
borrow
the chalkboard.

“Elizabeth, you can borrow the chalkboard
and
the tutor.”

Keckly was wearing black for the first time. I figured she’d lost a favorite aunt. And once she secured the rights to the chalkboard, Elizabeth commenced to teach her own special class to all the colored children at the White House. She was much better at tutoring than the tutor we had. My own boys volunteered to join Keckly’s class. She’s the one who taught Tad how to spell. After a month he talked like Hamlet with a slight stutter. He scribbled poems to his
Paw.
Keckly was attached to that boy. He called her
Yib
, which must have been his own personal corruption of
Elizabeth
.

I
WAS
DRAWN
TO
K
ECKLY
’
S
hint of melancholia, but I was also frightened of Elizabeth a little, I had to admit, frightened of that
lash
of pain I could feel around her eyes. Tad was more familiar with Elizabeth than I would ever be.

“
Paw,
how come Yib don’t move into the Mansion and stay with us, huh? She could sure use another son.”

I had to learn about Yib’s bereavement from my own ten-year-old boy. Keckly had a son—George Kirkland—killed at Wilson’s Creek. I had to pry all the particulars out of Mary, who was loath to give Elizabeth’s secrets away. Born in Virginia, as she said, Yib was fair game for any aristocratic tomcat once she arrived at the ripeness of a girl. And she couldn’t fend such tomcats off forever. One of these “persecutors,” as she called them, was a profligate young merchant from Hillsborough, North Carolina, Mr. Alexander Kirkland, whose own wife was pregnant at the time, and who forced himself upon Yib when she was seventeen or so. And Yib gave birth to a little boy, a
ghost child
who belonged to her mistress, Anne Burwell Garland.