Lincoln (67 page)

A messenger arrived with a stack of telegrams, which Stanton was now in no state to read. He gave them to Hay, who read them quickly; then feeling like the messenger who was bound to be executed for the news he brought, he announced, “As of the latest returns, we have lost Ohio and Indiana. Wisconsin is split. New Jersey remains Democratic.”

There was no sound in the room but the rain beating on the window; and Stanton’s gasping. Hay had never seen the Ancient look so sad or sound so confident. “The other thing,” he said firmly, ignoring message and messenger, “that we can take credit for is the Homestead Act. No other nation has ever done such a thing, giving a man a rich farm of at least a hundred and sixty acres in the Western territories, with no conditions other than he farm it for at least five years. We will gain five, ten,
twenty million good farmers from Europe, and fill up the whole West.”

It was close to dawn when they were joined by Seward, red of face from what must have been a long convivial evening. He had followed the returns through the wire-services. “Well, Mr. President, as midterm congressional elections go, this is not a great victory. But all is not lost.”

“Well, Governor, maybe not all, but a great deal is lost, you must admit.” Lincoln was now on his feet, restlessly pacing the room. Washburne’s eyes were shut. Hay was trying to figure out the provisional if not the final vote for the Congress. Stanton now looked to be dead behind his desk.

“I’ve worked it out, Mr. President. We control the Senate, naturally. And we shall control the House by eighteen votes.”

“That means,” said Lincoln, “the Democrats have gone from forty-four seats to seventy-five.”

“But we hold our majority, thanks to Michigan, Kansas, Iowa—which I thought we’d lose—Minnesota, Oregon and California.”

Lincoln shook his head. “They gave us the additional seats, but it is the border-states, thanks to Mr. Stanton, and New England, that control the Congress. But …” Lincoln struck his right fist into his left hand. “Oh, it is hard! We lost New York and the other great states because our best people are away at war, and because the press does everything to inflame the average person against us.”

“It is not for want of us trying to shut down those voices of treason,” said Seward, magniloquently. Hay rather hoped that he would make one of his dazzling, tipsy speeches.

But Lincoln spoke through him. “What we have had to do we have done and I hope that we have done it fairly. I have suspended
habeas corpus
throughout the Union, and on January the first I shall free the slaves in the rebel states. Yet I am told that I do not go far enough. Oh, it is hard!” Lincoln turned to Stanton, who had now returned to a blue-faced lazarene sort of life. “Mr. Stanton, tomorrow you will relieve General McClellan, as commanding general of the Army of the Potomac.”

“With pleasure, sir; and relief,” said Stanton, in a normal voice.

“This is great news,” said Washburne.

“I could not do it before the election for fear people would think that I was bowing to the radicals, who’ve been asking for his head.”

Seward was suddenly uneasy. “By the same token,” he said, allowing himself to strike slightly the Jesuitical note, “there will be those who say that you did not dare remove him
before
the election for fear that you would lose the support of the moderates, not to mention the lovers of slavery—and of McClellan—in the border-states.”

“Whatever I do, Governor, will be misconstrued by most.” To Hay, the Tycoon seemed now to be relieved at last of some heavy burden. “In any case, I gave McClellan every possible opportunity. Fact, I made a little bet with myself. If McClellan didn’t cut off Lee on the way to Richmond, which could easily have been done in the last two weeks, then he did not mean to bust the enemy, for whatever reasons. Well, he did nothing, as usual. And now he is gone.”

Stanton had already written out the order of dismissal. He himself left the room to see that it would be taken, as rapidly as possible, by courier to McClellan.

“Who will take his place?” asked Washburne.

Hay looked at Lincoln, aware that the President had now spent months talking to generals, communicating secretly with Winfield Scott at West Point, asking Halleck pointed questions. With Lincoln’s eerie bad luck in military matters, Old Brains was now no more than a head clerk. After Pope’s debacle at Bull Run, Halleck had simply given up. Once again Lincoln was his own General-in-Chief, supported vigorously by Stanton, the only good thing to have happened to the Tycoon since the war began. But as Hay had said to Nico, two sly lawyers do not an Alexander make; and both agreed that Lincoln’s political skill and strength of character were of no use to him when dealing with generals. He simply did not have the experience to know which commander was capable and which was not. He had endured McClellan because Little Mac was good at drill; and a born engineer. Also, there were urgent political reasons for keeping him on; reasons that had now vanished beneath the stack of telegrams on Hay’s desk.

Lincoln had trusted McDowell; but then obliged him to go into battle with a green army. Lincoln had accepted Pope at Pope’s own high evaluation of himself; also, Pope was pleasing to Chase and the radicals. Now the Ancient was faced with a choice between Ambrose E. Burnside and Joseph Hooker. Neither general liked or trusted the other. It was all too reminiscent, thought Hay, of the McClellan-Pope rivalry, which had led to the Union’s worst disaster.

If nothing else, Burnside was, a splendid-looking figure, with ferocious, much-imitated moustaches that connected with the whiskers at his ears. This extraordinary display of facial hair was now known far and wide as “burnsides,” and much imitated. Burnside had been Governor Sprague’s choice to lead the first of Rhode Island’s regiments. Later, he had served with distinction in North Carolina. The previous summer, Lincoln had offered him McClellan’s place, and Burnside had declined it; partly because he was then on friendly terms with McClellan, and partly because
he did not think that he had the competence to direct an entire army. He was not yet forty years of age; he was a martyr to chronic diarrhea. But Burnside did think of himself as a fighting general, and Lincoln inclined to such men.

Joseph Hooker was in his forties; and his career had followed the by-now-usual pattern for nonpolitical generals. He had graduated from West Point; fought in the Mexican War; resigned from the army and gone west to California, as had Halleck, whom he detested. Hooker was reputed to be a heavy drinker as well as a bold, even reckless, conversationalist. He was close to Chase, always a bad sign in Hay’s eyes. Chase’s wooing of generals was one of the scandals of the city. Whenever a general looked as if he might indeed be the leader the war required, Chase would draw close to him and befriend him. If the general was also politically correct in Chase’s eyes, the Secretary of the Treasury would then go to work on Ben Wade and the other Jacobins of the Joint Committee. All this, Hay knew—and, presumably, Lincoln knew, so that the winning general would stand at Chase’s side in the election of 1864.

During October, another of Chase’s protégés, William S. Rosecrans, had been given command of the Department of the Cumberland. Previously, under Grant, Rosecrans had done moderately well at the battles of Corinth and Iuka. There were times when Hay thought that the secret master of the armies of the United States was Salmon P. Chase, who, in turn, affected to believe that the actual master of the nation was Seward. In political circles, little credit was given Lincoln for anything, which, in Hay’s eyes, was probably a good thing for the present. Let Chase and Seward take the blame for the Union’s long series of military defeats. Sooner or later, the Tycoon would assert himself. The war would be won. He would be reelected; and Hay would be a poet—or something.

The President was at the map of Maryland when he answered Washburne. “I have chosen Burnside to take McClellan’s place. He is a fighting general, you know. I have faith in him.” But Lincoln sounded, to Washburne, curiously listless.

As they crossed to the Mansion, a small crowd cheered the President on the Republican victory. Then Lincoln paused to speak to the secretary of the Senate, who was also the editor of Washington’s daily
Chronicle
, John Forney, known to the Democratic northern press as “Lincoln’s dog.” “It will be a difficult year for us in Congress,” said Forney, sadly.

“Well, that seems to be the usual condition for us,” said the President. Hay clutched the telegrams; and tried not to yawn.

“What did you feel when we lost New York?” asked Forney. This was
easily the most idiotic question that Hay had heard since the last journalist had questioned the President.

But Lincoln rallied nicely. “Somewhat like that boy in Kentucky who stubbed his toe while running to his sweetheart. The boy said he was too big to cry, and far too badly hurt to laugh.” Those in the street all laughed at this; and Lincoln bade them good-night.

As they entered the Mansion, Hay asked, “Did you have that prepared, sir?”

“Have what prepared, John?” Lincoln was bent over, studying each step as they walked up the main staircase.

“What you said to Mr. Forney.”

“Oh?” Lincoln glanced at Hay; like someone just awakened from sleep. “
What
did I say to him?”

“You said you felt like the boy who stubbed his toe …”

“Too old to cry, too hurt to laugh,” Lincoln finished. Then he smiled. “Sometimes I say those things and don’t even know I’ve said them. When there is so much you
cannot
say, it’s always a good idea to have a story ready. I do it now from habit.” Lincoln sighed. “In my predicament, it is a good thing to know all sorts of stories because the truth of the whole matter is now almost unsayable; and so cruel.”

T
HERE WAS
in the capital no drawing room more entirely agreeable and stimulating to Seward than that of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Eames. Mr. Eames had been, in earlier years, a publisher of the Washington
Union
, a Democratic newspaper long since vanished. The Eameses themselves had vanished for four years, during which time he was American minister to Venezuela. They returned to Washington in the last golden secesh days of the Buchanan Administration; and thanks to Mr. Eames’s charm and to Mrs. Eames’s New York wit they conducted what was, in effect, Washington’s only salon in the European sense. To be at home with the Chases was a far grander experience; but the house of the Chases was, simply, the elegant command headquarters of the next
president, and the guest lists at Sixth and E were altogether too calculated, in Seward’s amused view, to amuse him. But one was invited to the Eameses only if one were amusing or wise or, like William Seward himself, both.

When Seward stepped into the drawing room, Mrs. Eames gave him a delighted smile and a small curtsey. “
Monsieur le Premier
,” she murmured reverently.

“Do rise, my dear. I know how exciting it is for you to see me like this, power radiating from my fingertips. But do battle with your natural awe.” Seward took her arm comfortably, and surveyed the room. Of the twenty or so guests already arrived, Seward remarked, contentedly, “There is not one uniform. That is a relief, let me tell you.”

“The only military men we know, Governor, live only to fight. They are either in the field—or safely, heroically, under it.”

“Do you actually know
any
men of this sort?”

“Yes. And they are all Democratic politicians. And here is their queen.”

They were joined by Mrs. Stephen Douglas, widow of the last leader of the entire Democratic Party. Seward was much taken with Mrs. Douglas’s charm, Southern though it might be. As there had been much speculation in recent months that should Kate Chase marry Governor Sprague, Chase himself would marry the widow Douglas, Seward felt free to inquire if this would be the case.

“Oh, I don’t think so!” Mrs. Douglas turned slightly away so that Seward might better view her famous profile, whose high, curved forehead and straight, perfect nose had inspired legions of newspaper writers to classical allusions—usually mistaken, Seward would duly note. Mrs. Eames went to greet the Baron and Baroness Gerolt and their large but handsome daughter Carlota.

“I think you’d make a splendid couple,” said Seward, enjoying the profile, as it began, delicately, to flush.

“I esteem Mr. Chase highly,” she said.

“And is not Miss Kate—your prospective stepdaughter—glorious?” Seward liked nothing better than to make lighthearted mischief.

“Oh, is
that
the word?” Mrs. Douglas gave him her full face; and full smile. He noted that the teeth were not as regular as those of a Greek goddess. But then she need not eat marble. “Glorious,” she repeated in her soft voice. “Well, yes, she
wants
glory.”

“Meaning she desires it, or lacks it? Our old verbs have so many meanings.”

“And you know them all.” But Mrs. Douglas was not about to be drawn out on the dangerous subject of Kate. “Mr. Chase did pay me a call one
day when I was out. So he left me, as his card, half a one-dollar bill, with his picture on it.”

“Such elegance!” Seward was delighted at the thought of the ponderous, Bible-quoting, hymn-singing, monomaniacal (on the subject of himself and the presidency) Chase tearing up dollar bills and leaving them as calling cards on beautiful ladies. He would have to tell the President, who had not had much to laugh at since the beginning of the third and last session of the Thirty-seventh Congress of the United States on December 1, 1862. In the last ten days, the full weight of the Republican Party’s loss at the election had been felt. As a result, the radicals were now crying out for Seward’s head; and Chase was not so secretly inciting them. Once Seward ceased to be premier, Chase would take his place, with the blessing of Congress and the acquiescence of the weak and now weakened Lincoln. Seward’s thoughts, always mercurial, were turning dark indeed, even as he smiled at Adéle Douglas; but she lightened his mood with her response to Chase. “I sent him back his unusual calling card, with a note saying that I did not accept money from gentlemen.”