The President's Daughter (61 page)

I remember, I couldn't have been more than four years old. My father suddenly swung down from his horse and swept me up into his arms, then lifted me high above his head, his huge hands propelling me upward into the sky, which raced by my floating body in such a pandemonium of happiness that I shrieked with delight while my mother screamed with fright.

“This one,” he exclaimed, “will live!” I tumbled downward like a joyous angel fallen into his laughing chest.

“Mother?” said Sinclair. His tall body leaned protectively toward mine; his brave, innocent eyes held only the beginning of knowledge. He hadn't been
at Gettysburg. His superb uniform caught the sunlight and turned golden, the copper buttons gleaming, his dress sword like a stab of sunlight, his silhouette cut out against the field of crosses. I turned away from my white son as I had turned away from my slave mother that day she stood etched against a field of flowers, a blinding pain bursting at the nape of my neck. Tears came then, as I wept.

• A Military Ball •

• Grandsons•

• Bermuda Hundred •

• Reunion with Sinclair •

• Fall of Atlanta •

• Charlotte's Affidavit •

• A Treatise on Blackness •

• Jubilee •

• Thenia's Affidavit •

• Harriet's Affidavit •

• Eston's Affidavit •

• Madison's Affidavit •

Indeed, considering numbers, nature, and natural means, only a revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation, is among possible events.

Thomas Jefferson

It was the third year of the war. At Washington's Birthday Ball, we danced on the graves of the South, while across the river, the Confederacy danced on ours. The celebration at the Union Army headquarters on the banks of the Rapidan River, began promptly at 9:30
P.M
. Railroad cars full of officers' wives and daughters had come from as far away as Philadelphia to join those wives who attended the ranking and influential military in their winter quarters. And across the river, like a twin image, were Robert E. Lee and the Confederate encampment, who were celebrating the President's birthday with
their
ball. Blithe notes of music wafted across the frozen Rapidan, which served as the line of demarcation between enemies. The visiting womenfolk, like Maria and me, were housed in wall tents, and since a woman in the monumentally wide hoop skirts of this year's fashion could neither ride a horse nor walk on the muddy planks of an army camp, we were transported in white-topped army ambulances. The mood was deliberately gay, as if the music, the stylized embrace of the waltz, might pull us all out of the tendrils of a gloomy winter and the terrors of still another campaign in the spring of a war which had gone on for almost forty months. Nevertheless, the officers in their dress uniforms wore spurs to the dance floor, and the women who swirled in their wide crinolines wanted only one thing: to create an illusion for a moment of an era which was dead, in both North and South, forever.

It was wartime, and our private grief merged with the larger collective grief of thousands of fathers who had lost sons, mothers who wept for one, or even two or three, wives who would never sleep in their husbands' arms again. Maria wore a yellow ribbon over her white-gloved wrist in homage to her brother.

Beverly, stationed at the hospital at Rapidan for the winter and resplendent in his close-fitting blue serge and yellow silk sash, wore his mourning on his sleeve, as did scores of his comrades; on February 15, 1864, black bands were fixed on the sleeves of thousands of uniforms. One hundred ten thousand men were dead, wounded, or missing in the past year. Condolences were as common as good morning.

Standing beside Beverly was his wife Lucinda, who had come to stay with him for the rest of the winter with the twins, Roxanne and Perez, now safely asleep with their nurse in the village. It had been a long time since I had seen this handsome couple together. Beverly had the look of forty instead of the thirty-three he was. But he was happy. He was cramming twenty years of medical experience into two. I glanced over at Maria.

It was not her first ball, but the novelty was enough for her to be flushed with excitement, which only enhanced her complexion, turning it a deep peach rose, which in turn was flattered by the burgundy velvet ball gown trimmed in white roses. Maria's sleek, dark hair was held back in a swath of crocheted ribbons trimmed with the same white roses as her dress, and tendrils fell along her face, out of which peeked my best pearl-and-emerald earrings. She was radiant, and the pack of young officers on the opposite side of the ballroom had already recognized both her youth and her beauty and the fact that she was not engaged. I dreaded the idea of another war marriage, but I realized that the glamour, tragedy, and emotion of war heightened even the most banal attraction to the level of deathless love.

The dancers were acting the parts for which high drama called. The extravagant dresses of silk and lace, velvets, and grosgrain trimmed with everything from silk roses to glittering rhinestones and jet mingled with the colors of the Union military. There were dresses of crushed silk and sheared velvet, embroidered satin and spangled lace; there were gowns of violet and pale green, buttercup yellow and spectacular white, blues of every hue interspersed with mourning blacks and gray. The dress uniforms in white, navy, or Prussian blue glittered with gold braid, brass buttons, shoulder straps, red, gray, or yellow sashes, and short, elaborate dress swords. Broad chests sparkled with combat ribbons, war crosses, and medals. Flowing shoulder-length hair and swashbuckling mustaches graced the handsome faces of young men old before their time. There were colonels who were twenty
and brigadier generals who were twenty-five. The orchestra played gallops and polkas, mazurkas and polonaises, quadrilles and waltzes, keeping reality at bay so that the boys and girls could maintain their defiant attitude of lighthearted gaiety.

“Ma tante,
I think as a kissing cousin, I should at least have the first polka with Maria.”

“Maurice,” cried Maria, and she threw her arms around him.

“Maurice, don't tell me Grant gave you a furlough for this party?”

“No,
chère tante,
I am here on official business for the general. Of which I cannot speak.” He looked around. “Some party, isn't it? It could be the ball the Duchess of Richmond gave on the eve of Waterloo.”

“Maurice, don't be facetious.”

“Well, it's certainly hot and crowded enough! I hear they built the ballroom from scratch—-how American!”

“It's true,” said Maria, dropping her dance program, “the army engineers spent a fortnight building it.”

“Well . . . my, then, it's almost a bagatelle, isn't it?”

The army engineers had built a cedar and pine shingle building of more than a hundred feet long, and the scent of new wood, beeswax, and varnish mingled with the women's perfume, the candles, the food, the tobacco smoke, and the cinnamon used to flavor the punch. The hall was triple height, and from the ceiling hung all the regimental and headquarters flags the Second Army Corps possessed: some two hundred and thirty. The multicolored silk, shot with greens and blues and whites, stars and stripes, eagles, serpents, cocks and doves, clouds and suns, swords and arrows, halberds and sabers covered the ceiling. The names, numbers, and letters swayed and shifted in the draft of the dancing couples as they whirled by the Chinese lanterns that illuminated the entire assembly with deft golden light. At one end of the ballroom was a raised platform on which there was a theatrical and idyllic reconstruction of a typical army bivouac: clean, new shelter tents, pulled smooth and tight, piles of drums and bugles, tripods of stacked muskets, a fake campfire with a working kettle hung over it, and two magnificent, gleaming, and polished brass Napoléon cannons, as deceptively festive as any instruments of pain and death could be. In the light emanating from the tall, rectangular windows of the ballroom, I could see an assembly of orderlies, adjutants, regulars, cooks, ambulance drivers, couriers, and contrabands standing outside looking in. They reminded me of the assembly of maids, carriage boys, outriders, drivers, valets, body servants, lackeys, and footmen that would gather outside the ballroom windows of Virginia's plantations, watching. I had stood amongst them at Montpelier the night before I fled
Monticello. My foot tapped to the music, if only for a moment; then the strains of Gabriel Prosser's song took over whatever the orchestra was playing.

There was musket shot and musket balls

Between his neckbone and his knee,

The best dancer amongst them all

Was Gabriel Prosser who was just set free!

Wasn't I the best dancer and the best ballet master?

“Je t'écrirai, Maman.”

“Oui, écris-moi.“

“Tu ne viens pas?”

“Non, je ne viens pas.
I'm not coming. …”

“We haven't conquered a piece of Virginia soil except what we're standing on.”

It was Charlotte, extremely attractive and abundant in pale blue shot silk which matched her eyes. The gown was expensive, elaborate, and unsuitable for her age, yet she looked divine. Her blond hair was piled high, real and fake, into a diamond and moonstone tiara. She wore a
parure
of the same, and carried a huge ostrich fan, dyed to match her ball gown.

“This ball has the selfsame aura as our war,” she said. “Stagey, overdone, and overripe with melodrama—not even the nobility of Greek drama. No, this is more Paris, Second Empire, Napoléon III: profit, corruption, collaboration, treachery, treason, villainies, incompetence, cowardice, slaughter ...”

“Charlotte, such—”

“Ambiguity? Disloyalty?”

Charlotte had never gotten over the needless slaughter at Gettysburg, or the colossal blunder of General Meade, who had let Robert E. Lee get away. Meade was making his way toward us on the arm of Charlotte's husband.

“That assassin. Don't let me say anything, Harriet!” I squeezed her hand.

“All right. Are your boys all right?”

“Yes, and yours?”

“All right. Sinclair is still attached to the
Monitor,
patrolling the Mississippi. Madison has returned to active duty in western Tennessee.”

“Too bad Sarah isn't here; she loves this kind of Washington hurrah.”

“Ah, but she
is
here. You must know she can get herself invited anywhere in or
near
Washington.”

“Well, where is she?”

“Probably eavesdropping on Lincoln's impromptu cabinet meeting!”

“Humph,” breathed Charlotte. I squeezed her hand again.

Thor and the general didn't linger long. George Meade laughed and made small talk, tried a joke, and played the role of the victorious major general with nothing particular on his mind. When he and Thor had left, Charlotte said, “It's General Grant we need. We'll never win this war without him.”

“Sarah says Lincoln is thinking about it.”

“Thinking
!. You mean Abraham Lincoln actually
ponders?
Or maybe he looks into Mrs. Lincoln's crystal ball. If he does, he'll see that he's going to be a one-term President.”

“A mother's grief is not to be ridiculed,” I replied.

“It's not her grief that's ridiculous; it's her spiritualist and her husband.”

I looked across the room first at the ever-twirling Maria Wellington, then at Sarah Hale and her husband, who were heading for us. I didn't want to argue with Charlotte over Mary Todd Lincoln—she was a southerner caught in both personal and national tragedy. She had three brothers who were dead to her because they had chosen to fight for the Confederacy, and she had one dead son. There was nothing like a dead son to drive one crazy, I thought. If I thought I could talk to James through a medium or anything else, I concluded, I would.

“Secretary Chase is going to be our next President,” said Charlotte.

“No, my dear. McClellan,” said Sarah Hale, and she leaned over and kissed me. She was wearing a Prussian blue dress with extravagant hoops of at least six feet. It was trimmed in silver braid and silver buttons, and it suited her very well. I told her so. She also wore a silver lace mantilla over a gigantic fake chignon.

“My daughter's going to dance herself into permanent exhaustion,” Thor said fondly. “Have you ever seen so many boys around one single girl in your life?”

But the memory of Prestonville would not leave me. It was not a bitter memory, but as the happy, heedless granddaughter of the President danced on, I watched the orderlies and regulars outside, a quiet reminder that balls and brilliant officers and everything else rested on those that stood outside, just as it had at Prestonville. These were the men in the ranks who went to no parties and got up at five to parade their strength for the admiration of the officers' ladies. These were the same who left their life's blood on the battlefields, becoming names and numbers on casualty lists in newspapers and pins on a map to their generals. They had a name for themselves now: they called themselves “cannon fodder.”

The U-shaped tables were laden with every war-embargoed luxury food. There were French cheeses, foie gras and truffles, and four kinds of pâté, three different soufflés, and a baba-au-rhum. The English had donated bottles of malt and Irish whiskey, punch spiked with cinnamon, plum pudding and fruitcakes, sturgeon, roast beef, and baked goose with mint jelly. There were Italian wines, macaroni and cheese, Italian grapes, and more cheeses. From the Germans came strudel, herrings and potato salad, venison, and wild boar. All contraband from the blockade. The official menu printed by the United States Mint consisted of twenty-five different hors d'oeuvres and sixteen entrees. The buffet was like the war: profligate, incoherent, excessive, indulgent, and slowly spoiling.