Lincoln (34 page)

“Ultimately, I think you are right, General.” Lincoln was conciliatory. “But we have a rare chance now to strike a blow at the head of the other … snake. Thanks to General Horace Greeley, ‘Forward to Richmond’ is now on every lip, up North. At least, it is daily on
his
lips, and everyone, they say, reads the
Tribune
.” Lincoln glanced at Hay, who smiled. Hay was often obliged to placate the fiery foolish New York editor who never ceased in public and private to bombard the President with eerily bad advice. At the time of the Lincoln-Douglas debate, the Republican Greeley had favored Lincoln but plainly preferred the Democrat Douglas, to Lincoln’s despair. Yet it was Greeley who had given such coverage to the Cooper Institute speech that, overnight, Lincoln was famous. Yet again, at Chicago, as a delegate, Greeley, having fallen out with Seward, voted for Bates. But then, for a time, Greeley had wanted to let the Southern states go. Meanwhile, so extensive was his published and private advice to Lincoln that one entire pigeonhole of the presidential desk was devoted to Greeley. After all, half a million people read the weekly edition of the
Tribune
, particularly in the midwest.

Ordinarily, the very fact that Greeley favored a prompt advance on Richmond would almost certainly have impelled Lincoln west to the Mississippi River. But Hay knew what hardly anyone else knew: that Lincoln had been struck by one line in Greeley’s latest outburst. The Confederate Congress was to meet for the first time at Richmond on July 20. If Lincoln could prevent such a meeting, the rebellion would be considerably shortened; and Chase’s war bonds would sell at par; and Seward’s disagreeable relations with those European powers that were threatening to recognize the South would grow more agreeable.

McDowell spread out his own map of Virginia on the Cabinet table. Everyone—except General Scott—rose and leaned over the map as McDowell explained his strategy. “Beauregard is here at Manassas with over twenty thousand men. He protects this railroad line, which is the northern link of the entire Southern railway system. He is now placed between two depots. The one closest to us is here at Fairfax Courthouse. The one farthest from us is at Manassas, which is also a point of junction between two lines, the Manassas Gap Railroad and the Orange & Alexandria line. I propose to move on Fairfax from three directions, with some thirty thousand troops. At Fairfax, our forces will converge. Then we move on to Germantown and Centerville, where we engage the enemy.”

Chase nodded appreciatively. This was the sort of terse bare-boned
briefing that he would have given had he been the commanding general. In a sense, there was no great difference between what he was obliged daily to do at the Treasury and what McDowell was doing now. Each commanded men; each added and subtracted numerous sets of figures that represented resources. Finally, Butler and Banks and Frémont were all politicians, and though he himself had no particular liking for any of the three, he took some collegial pride in the fact that they were, at the moment, the most illustrious of the Union generals.

On the other hand, Chase felt truly secure with McDowell. Here was a perfectly trained soldier in the French style. Chase looked at Seward. The constant schemer seemed to be scheming—or, perhaps, only daydreaming. Seward chewed, idly, an unlit cigar; nodded at all the wrong moments during McDowell’s discourse; pulled at one of his huge ears as if to reassure himself that that all-important-to-a-politician organ was in place, not to mention in good working order.

Chase was aware that the relationship between Lincoln and Seward had somehow altered. The prime minister was less offhand with the sovereign than before. He tended to interrupt Lincoln less in Cabinet; unfortunately, as if in compensation, he interrupted his colleagues more. Gideon Welles and Blair both openly despised Seward, while Chase was quite aware of the unscrupulous way that Seward and his familiar Thurlow Weed influenced the politics of the North. Although Chase could never be an admirer of Seward, he was perfectly willing to be an ally. In politics, the years move more rapidly than in ordinary life. Soon it would be 1864. Since Chase was reasonably certain that Seward would not put himself forward as a presidential candidate, the party was left with only one viable candidate, Salmon P. Chase. Thus, like it or not, Chase and Seward were potential allies; also, Chase had made it clear to Seward that he was perfectly willing to share in a sort of consulate with him. But Seward had never again adverted to the matter. Had he given up the idea? Or had he worked out some new
modus operandi
with the symbolic—Chase had yet to find a more descriptive word—president? What, he wondered, was in Seward’s mind?

At that moment, there was nothing of any great moment in Seward’s mind. He was hoping that McDowell knew what he was doing. Although Seward had more than once used Winfield Scott for his own political ends, he respected the old man as a soldier, if only because Seward knew nothing of warfare and, unlike Chase, he did not see himself as a Bonaparte-in-waiting. Seward assumed that Scott’s knowledge of warfare equalled his demonstrable ignorance of politics. In any case, Seward’s use of the old man had ended with the rejection of Scott’s advice to abandon
Fort Sumter, prompted entirely by Seward, who had believed then and still believed that, given a foreign war, the seceded states would return to the fold. But Lincoln had undone this policy. Seward was still not certain just how it was that Lincoln had taken the initiative from him but he had. Now Seward must wait for the new Congress to assemble next week. Since a third of the membership belonged to states that had seceded, there would be a Northern Congress, with a large Republican majority. Unfortunately, the firm of Seward and Weed would control not much more than the New York delegation. Worse, powerful committees of the House and Senate were dominated by hard-core abolitionists like Sumner. Although these powerful chairmen had little respect for the cautious Lincoln, they positively hated Seward. To a man, they favored Chase. Seward looked across the table and found that Chase was looking at him with the curious myopic intensity which usually meant that Chase was undertaking a new move in their game of political chess. Seward smiled benignly. Chase dropped his eyes to the map; plainly, in some distress at being observed observing.

McDowell had finished his explanation; and his aide folded up the map. Lincoln looked about the room. “Are we all … satisfied?” he asked. Everyone looked grave and martial, except General Scott, who seemed to be asleep. No one spoke. “Very well, General McDowell.” Lincoln shook the general’s hand. “It rests with you now.”

Lincoln then disappeared into his own office while Hay joined Nicolay in the secretary’s office, where Lincoln’s first message to Congress was strewn across Nicolay’s desk. The Tycoon had already written and rewritten it a number of times. Certain sections had been shown to the Cabinet officers involved. Bates had helped with the section on
habeas corpus
, while Chase had justified not only the raid on the Treasury but the various bond issues that they hoped would finance the war. Seward had contributed some flowery passages on foreign affairs and, to Seward’s disgust, Lincoln had carefully pruned the loveliest of those blossoms.

“All in all a noble document,” said Nicolay, assembling the pages as if they were his own.

“How is it delivered?” Hay was curious.

“How is what delivered?”

“Well, does the Ancient go down to the Capitol and knock on the door, and then read it to Congress, or what?”

Nicolay frowned. “I don’t know. Ask Edward.”

As always, Edward was instructive. A somewhat prim colored man, he regarded the inner workings of the Executive Mansion as comparable to those of Heaven; and as immutable. “Mr. Jefferson was such a bad public
speaker that he used to write out his messages and send them over to Congress, where one of the clerks would read them. All of the later presidents have done the same.”

“But how, exactly, do we get the message to them?”

Hay was inspired. “We give it to the Postmaster-General, Mr. Blair …”

“You,” said Edward, who did not much like levity in these high matters, “Mr. Nicolay, will present yourself at the door to the House of Representatives. The Sergeant-at-arms will then approach you, and you will say, ‘I have a communication from the President of the United States.’ The Sergeant-at-arms will take the message, while the Speaker interrupts the business of the House, so that the Senate can be summoned, and the message read to all of Congress by Mr. Forney, the Clerk to the Senate.”

“That is very satisfying,” said Hay.

“Thank you, Mr. Hay,” said Edward, returning to his post as the waiting room’s helmsman.

“I wonder who they’ll elect Speaker?” Nicolay was now assembling the pages of the message inside a vellum cover.

“The Tycoon thinks Frank Blair can be elected, but he’ll have to give up being a colonel, which he probably won’t.” The previous year Hay had worked for Frank Blair’s Missouri
Democrat
, acting as its Springfield correspondent. Although Blair had been a Bates man at the Chicago convention, the family had quickly shifted to Lincoln; and Hay had done his part to make sure that Missouri was kept informed of Lincoln’s candidacy. Of all the Blairs, Frank was the most appealing to Hay—even romantic. When Frank fell in love with the same Maryland girl that one of his brothers wanted to marry, Frank’s solution was typical; he promptly moved west to the Missouri Territory, where he more or less invented the state, with some assistance from a third brother, Montgomery. In imitation of Frank, the other brother went off to sea; and the now-entirely Blair-less girl dropped from history.

Hay retired to his own small office, uncomfortably shared with William O. Stoddard, known, familiarly, as Stodd, a recent acquisition whose difficult task was the management of Madam, who now regarded Nicolay and Hay as, collectively, the enemy. At twenty-five Stodd was an amiable youth with a sensibly worried expression. He had written a Lincoln-forpresident editorial in 1859 for the
Central Illinois Gazette;
he had then sent this rousing document to hundreds of newspapers; and many had used it. Hay had always thought that the Tycoon had put Stodd up to writing the editorial at a low moment in Lincoln’s political career, but Nicolay was inclined to the view that it was the Tycoon’s law partner, Billy Herndon, who had arranged the matter. Herndon was a newspaper-reading addict
who thought in headlines. Years before Lincoln was spoken of as a serious candidate, Herndon was busy proposing his candidacy to the newspapers.

“Is Madam in good spirit?” Hay enjoyed teasing Stodd.

“We’re going to Long Branch in August.”

“Where’s that?”

“New Jersey, I think. By the sea.”

“Will the precious children go?”

“Yes.”

“How quiet the White House will seem, with only us and the war.”

“That depends on whether or not the President has seen all the bills from the New York stores.” Stodd was grim. The New York press had enjoyed describing “Mrs. President’s spring spending spree.” Although Stodd gave no details to his rivals Hay and Nicolay, it was plain that he was worried; also, the as-yet-unconfirmed Commissioner of Public Buildings had told Hay that he found alarming the grandeur of Madam’s vision of what the White House must be. Thus far, the Tycoon seemed to be unaware of the gathering storm of unpaid bills, both private and public. But then there were other storms. Congress was in the city …

O
nward to Richmond!

“I wish,” said Mary, from behind her silver tea service, “Mr. Greeley would leave the war to Mr. Lincoln.”

“So do I, Cousin Mary,” said John C. Breckinridge, late Vice-President of rather more United States than his successor was Vice-Presiding over. Breckinridge was now the newly elected senator from Kentucky. “With Mr. Lincoln in absolute charge, Mrs. Davis will be pouring tea in this room by the end of the month.” Although Breckinridge’s blue eyes were bright with what was meant to be good humor, they did not quite negate his thin-lipped smile.

“Oh, Cousin John!” Mary maintained what she thought of as her own small correct Queen Victoria smile. She must, at all costs, charm her turbulent cousin. “How you tease me, sir! Sugar?”

Breckinridge indicated two lumps. They were seated in the Blue Room. As usual, the Chevalier Wikoff acted as lord-in-waiting. As usual, there were more men than women at Mary’s levee. The Washington ladies who had been so eager to snub the Lincolns were now themselves snubbed; and denied the glitter of her social gatherings, where Sumner was almost always to be seen, as well as such statesmen as Fessenden and Trumbull from the Senate, and Thaddeus Stevens and Frank Blair and Elihu B. Washburne from the House of Representatives.

The return of Breckinridge to the Senate had caused a sensation. Although Kentucky was being held in the Union by Lincoln—with both hands, as he had observed somewhat grimly—the new Senator Breckinridge was suspected of favoring secession. “I’ve already had several pleasurable meetings with President Davis, Cousin Mary.”

Breckinridge’s large round face against the dark blue of the room’s wall resembled, Mary decided, the full moon at midnight. She responded with exquisite sweetness, “I don’t know of any president called Davis, Cousin John.”

“Oh, there’s such a president, all right.” Appreciatively, Breckinridge looked about the newly papered and gilded Oval Room. “He’ll be much in your debt for going to all this expense. Or at least Mrs. Davis will. You know what they’re saying all over the South now? ‘Onward to Washington.’ ”

“If one rebel gets as far as this room, Cousin John, he’ll have me to contend with! With a rifle, sir.”

“What if the soldier’s Ben Helm? Or one of your own brothers?”

“I would,” said Mary coldly, “shoot him dead for a traitor.”

“Well, you are a Todd, after all.”

“When, sir, will
you
be joining Mr. Davis?” Mary allowed the Queen Victoria smile to fade entirely.

“Why, I’m a Union man. You know that. In my way, that is. I’m also curious to see how this session of Congress goes.”