The Titans (5 page)

that way. If they try to fight us we'll have them whipped by the time Old Abe's ninety-day conscripts are due to go home." Jephtha left through the gate of President's Park and once more started across the traffic-thronged mire of 788An Oath Registered in Heaven" Pennsylvania Avenue. He didn't believe the clerk was right. He wasn't sure the President held the same opinion either. As he'd told Nicolay, the Southern people could never be accused of cowardice. That turned his thoughts back to his three sons. Gideon, the eldest, would be eighteen in June. Matthew was but a year younger. Jeremiah, thank heaven, was not yet fifteen. But what if the older boys decided to enlist in one of the militia units that had been drilling throughout the South for months? Damn! He wished-he knew where the boys were. He wished he and Fan hadn't parted so bitterly. But she was as loyal to her convictions as he was to his. Fan and the boys were seldom out of Jephtha's mind for more than a few hours. He always thought of his sons with longing-and of his former wife with anger. Her behavior over the past nine years occasionally drove him into violent rages that upset his relationship with Molly, the diswoman with whom he'd been living for better than twelve months. No use working himself into a fury now, he decided. He had a problem to solve. What sort of dispatch could he file to satisfy Theo Payne? As he dodged carriages on the avenue, he peered at his hastily written notes. He had nothing solid to send to New York. Much of what Lincoln had told him in private was already widely known. Jephtha's lack of copy would infuriate Payne on two counts. The editor wanted only fresh material. And preferably the kind in which Lincoln, or someone in the administration, fulminated against Southern "traitors." Long an abolitionist even more ardent than Jephtha himself, Payne considered the President not sufficiently hostile in his attitude toward the new-Confederacy. The gag order now in force in the government departments made further foraging there almost useless. But Payne would still expect a dispatch late today or early The Titans79 tomorrow. What the hell could he send except the news of the Douglas endorsement-which everyone else would have too? Feeling increasingly frustrated, he jostled his way along the crowded plank sidewalk on the north side of the avenue. His destination was Willard's Hotel, one of the cockpits for Washington gossip. There, with breakfast and a little liquid refreshment to inspire him, he might find a way out of his professional predicament. For the riddle of the whereabouts of his sons he saw no answer at all. iv The establishment run by the Willard brothers served breakfast to late-rising Washington from eight until eleven. Jephtha was in time. After he bougiht four cigars, he took a small table in the corner of the bar. He ordered steak and onions with fried oysters on the side, and a double shot of Overholtz 1855, one of the bar's best whiskeys. The place was crowded. Government men, officials from foreign embassies, and quite a few army and militia officers were all jabbering about Sumter's surrender. Most of the soldiers were already full of liquor and bombast. The goddamned rebels who had been flaunting the threat of secession for decades-and who had finally acted on it, then dared to fire on the Stars and Stripes-would be taught a swift and humiliating lesson! Hunched over his drink, Jephtha grimaced. If he'd gone the other way along Pennsylvania, to the National Hotel at Sixth, he'd have heard equally gaseous rhetoric from the Southern sympathizers who generally gathered there. He interrupted his meal to dart to the bar and corner a new arrival, a young man named Alfred Hume who 808An Oath Registered in Heaven" was an assistant secretary at the British embassy. He asked Hume whether the ambassador, florid-faced Lord Lyons, had as yet formulated a policy about recognition of the Confederate government. "Still a bit early for that, old chap," Hume answered in his languid way. "Must await instructions from Whitehall, don't y'know?" "Come off it, Alf. Jeff Davis was inaugurated over two months ago. Every report out of Montgomery says he and his cabinet are going to stand by a policy of holding Southern cotton off the European markets. They want to use the cotton to bargain for recognition of the South as a sovereign nation, not a section of America in rebellion." Hume looked bored. "Say it again-nothing official to report." Then he leaned closer. "Tell you this much, though. If the chaps in the Confederacy continue to sail on that course, they're bloody fools." "Why, AM?" "Because the decision's a blunder! A complete misreading of the economic situation. Let jolly old Jeffey try to use his cotton to force Her Majesty-or Nappy the Third over in France-to recognize his so-called government, and I'm afraid he'll find he's aiming an empty weapon. For the first time in years, all the mills back home and in Europe have a surplus of cotton. So where's Jeffey going to find recognition? Or the money to finance a war? I've heard there's no more than twenty-five millions in bullion in the entire South!" "True," Jephtha replied. "And it won't go far. There isn't a single first-rate iron mill, rolling mill, or powder mill down there either. Those cost money to build. Big money." Hume's smile was smug. "Which in turn requires the sale of the only product the South produces in quantity comcotton. See what I mean about an embargo? I repeat combloody fools." The Titans81 The assistant secretary hailed the barkeep for a refill. It took him three calls to make himself heard above the din. After he'd been served, he turned to Jephtha, pursed his lips, and said, "God, I despise this town. Chap can't find a proper club anywhere. Just these noisy saloons. You fellows may be our cousins, but damned if you don't have a lot to learn about life's refinements." "Alf, one more question about-was "Cheer-o, Kent," the young diplomat said, turning away and waving to another acquaintance further down the bar. Jephtha went back to his table, smiling because Hume was typical of the Europeans on assignment in Washington. They considered the capital raw, raucous comll better than a backwoods village. Another man Jephtha knew, a sketch artist for Harper's Weekly, stopped by as he was finishing his meal. After a few perfunctory words of greeting, the artist passed along a rumor that a political demonstration would take place on the stage of Canterbury Hall, a popular variety theater, the following night Jephtha's pale eyes narrowed, "A demonstration for which side?" "Could be Union, could be secesh. Either way, with the mixed crowd the Canterbury draws, it might be lively." A cynical look crossed Jephtha's face. "And to what do I owe this journalistic largesse? I don't have many colleagues who'll point me toward a potential story." The artist shrugged. "I'm just paying a debt. You tipped me about Miss Chase going to see Joe Jefferson in Rip Van Winkle. I hired the box opposite and sketched her." "That's right, I'd forgotten," Jephtha nodded. The eldest daughter of Secretary of the Treasury Chase was Washington's reigning beauty. "Well, knowing she was attending the theater wouldn't have done me much good. I can't draw, and her looks are what everyone's talking 828An Oath Registered in Heaven" about." He raised his whiskey glass. "Thanks for the returned favor." "Sure, Reverend. As the good book says-one good slap on the cheek deserves another. Or something like that." The artist waved and left. Jephtha's face was scarlet. The twisted allusion to scripture wasn't accidental. But by now he should have been able to handle the occasional jibes about his background-which was no secret. Somehow, he wasn't able to do it. He hated to be called Reverend. Perhaps because he sometimes felt guilty about turning away from the church. From God- No. It was the other way around. God had turned away from him. When he'd taken a stand for Christian principles as he understood them, he had lost the respect of the congregations to whom he traveled. He'd lost the right to preach. He'd lost his home. And he'd lost the love and companionship of his sons. His faith hadn't been strong enough to withstand that sort of punishment. Regardless of what it said in the Book of Job, a God who would do all that to a man wasn't a God worth serving. The artist's remark had spoiled his meal He pushed Ms plate away; made a note about the Canterbury Hall tip. A piece on a sectional scrap in a theater would be better than no copy at alLike Still, Jephtha prided himself on being a professional. So he pored over his notes again, hoping to find some point he'd overlooked. To stimulate his thinking-and dull the edge of his worry about his sons-he drained another double shot of Overholtz. Just as he was doing so, he spied a line that had gotten smudged while the notes were in his pocket. R. Lee-Arlington. The words were followed by two large question marks. The Titans83 Damn! There it was. Lee was only a half hour away in Virginia-and certainly a man worth talking to, if it comwas possible. Anxious that someone might beat him to the source of his inspiration, he paid his bill and hurried toward the entrance of the Willard bar. He was momentarily blocked by two contractors who were discussing their hope that the rebellion would grow into a long war. Fortunes could be made selling the Federal Army everything from buttons to biscuits- "Damn vultures," Jephtha muttered as he pushed between the two men. One of them whirled; raised a fist The other snickered: "Calm down. That's Kent, the reporter who used to be a preacher." The man lowered his voice. "Look, you don't want to fool with him-he's got a hell of a temper. He was thrown out of the Southern Methodist Church for sermons about freeing the niggers. Everyone in town says it left him a little bit crazy." CHAPTER n Colonel Lee JEPHTHA STARTED FOR VIRGINIA shortly after noon, riding a mare hired at a stable near Willard's. The sky was clearing. The pale April sunlight seemed to accentuate the city's raw, unfinished look. And it did precious little to warm his bones or raise his spirits. Some of the initial bluster of the citizenry was already diminishing. As he jogged along the avenue near President's Park, he saw a sidewalk speaker haranguing a small crowd. He heard the orator shout, "coma dire and misguided insult to the Union! It shall be punished!" Little applause greeted the warning. Jephtha suspected the truth of the situation was beginning to sink in. Washington was encircled, if not by the actual Confederacy as yet, then by states sympathetic to it. There could be danger-and soon. He saw further evidence behind the iron fence of the park. To the rattle of a drum, a local militia company was holding a muster-in on the lawn of the War Department. He recognized the uniforms of the National Rifles, an organization riddled with Southern partisans. How much help they'd be in defending the capital was debatable. He turned south at Fourteenth Street and crossed the canal on the high iron bridge. He nearly gagged at the stench below. Once across to the Mall, the surroundings were only slightly more pleasant. Through the trees

The Titans85 on his left he glimpsed the red stone towers of the Smithsonian and the Capitol with its unfinished wings and dome. Construction sheds, blocks of marble, stacks of lumber littered the Capitol grounds. He guided the mare around the maggot-covered corpse of a mongrel lying in the mud on the Mall's south side. As he neared the city end of Long Bridge, traffic increased. Farmers bringing milk and produce into town created a jam with their vehicles. Jephtha managed to ride through. As he clattered onto the bridge over the broad river, he saw, at the far end, disheartening proof of Washington's precarious situation. Two blue-clad United States cavalrymen sat on their horses, rifled muskets resting across their thighs. The cavalrymen watched the continuous flow of wagons and carts passing over the bridge. Before long, Jephtha guessed, there would be more than just mounted pickets on duty. He put down a mental wager tl backslash at by the end of the week, Winfield Scott would be protecting the Long Bridge with cannon. ii Passing between the cavalry pickets, Jephtha got an even greater shock. A powerful-looking man sat on the ground against the largest of several blossoming cherry trees growing near the riverbank. Though the man had his hat brim slanted over his eyes and appeared to be resting, Jephtha recognized him instantly-and knew he wasn't resting at all. Like the cavalrymen, he was observing those crossing the bridge; particularly those headed south. What the devil was a disreputable bully like that doing in Washington? Jephtha kept going. He had no intention of acknowledging the man's presence. The man had other plans. g6Colonel Lee He tilted up his hat; gave Jephtha a long stare and a faint smile. Then he rose, dusted off the seat of his pants and walked toward the road. Uneasy, Jephtha reined in. Beneath Samuel Dorn's tight-fitting coat, he noticed a small bulge. A concealed pistol- Dorn stopped in front of Jephtha's horse. "Hallo, Reverend." The man was young, with a blocky Teutonic face, blue eyes and yellow hair curling around his ears. None too bright, Jephtha recalled from their first meeting down at the depot on February 23. He'd been wakened that morning by an informant-a boy he paid to keep watch on the comings and goings of notables. The boy breathlessly told him of Lincoln's arrival at six on a regular passenger train, ahead of the Presidential Special due later that day. Jephtha had rushed down to the station and tried to interview Allan Pinkerton and some of his men who had helped smuggle Lincoln into the capital. "Mr. Dorn," Jephtha returned with a slight nod. The blue eyes fixed on him. "Visiting Virginia today, are you?" "I can't see that should concern the Pinkerton detective bureau. Or anyone else, for that matter." "Hell, it's only a friendly question. I just happened to be resting here-was "Spying on travelers?" Dorn's cheeks reddened. "Watching," he snapped. "The word is watching." "Whatever the word-or the assignment-I'm damned if I know where you get the authority for it." Dorn struggled to control his anger. "The chief and a few of the operatives are in town on a special job-was "If I recall, Mr. Pinkerton is under contract to protect the property of the Philadelphia, Washington and Baltimore-and you're a good distance from the rail The Titans87 road's right-of-way. Isn't it up north? Or has there been an extension I don't know about?" The man didn't like the sarcasm. "We're looking over the security of the railroad facilities here. If it's any of your business." "No, it isn't," Jephtha returned. "But it is my business when you question my right to enter Virginia." "Nobody's questioning anything," Dorn shrugged. "If you want to mix with a crowd of traitors-was "See here-was "comif you have, ah, some special reason for wanting to mingle with them-carrying a little message, maybe-was "Get out of my way, Mr. Dorn!" Dorn actually looked pleased. Pinkerton, the shrewd Scot who had built a successful Illinois detective bureau, was at least intelligent. But some of the men he was forced to hire were little more than thugs. An all- too-plain anticipation lit Dorn's eyes: "That's pretty strong talk for a gospel man." "I'm a reporter and you know it." "But the chief told me about your-ah-former job. The one that didn't turn out so well-was "Get the hell out of my way!" Suddenly Dorn's right hand shot up, fastening hard on Jephtha's left arm. "Don't be so goddamn snotty, Kent. We did come down to survey the yards and the trackage. But we're doing some special work for one of the gents in the government, too." Hoping to startle an admission out of the detective, Jephtha said instantly, "Seward?" The detective had wits enough to control his tongue: "Afraid I can't answer that. But I'll warn you-there is a close watch being kept on people who come over the bridge." "Well, you just run back to your chief and tell him 88Colonel Lee Jephtha Kent went to Arlington. To talk to a man who's given thirty-five years of his life to the United States. And who knows more about good manners, I suspect, than you ever will." Savagely, Jephtha wrenched his arm free. Dorn started to reach beneath his coat; checked his hand at the last moment. His eyes were venomous: "Y'know, Reverend, I didn't like you the first time we met. I didn't take to the way you badgered and pushed and asked questions down at the depot-was Jephtha shrugged. "Happens to be my job." "May be. But-was "As I recall, you were doing most of the shoving. And making all the threats about a fight." Dorn rubbed an index finger across his upper lip. "Reverend, you want to climb down from that horse?" "For what purpose?" "We're going to finish what I should have finished at the station." Calmly, Jephtha answered, "No, thank you." That amused the detective. "Why not? I won't bruise your nice Christian face too much. "Less of course it's a yella streak that holds you back." "You damned, ignorant-was "Or maybe it's your preacher's training. I wouldn't guess a preacher could hold his own against a real man." Jephtha flushed, ready to jump from the saddle and knock Dorn's insult down his throat. Jephtha's years of itinerating on horseback had kept him lean and well- muscled-characteristics he hadn't lost. But he didn't dismount, though Dorn obviously hoped he would. His task at the moment was to reach Lee. "I'll oblige you some other time," he promised. "When I feel up to taking on a baboon." He hammered his heels against the mare. She bolted The Titans89 forward, giving him a last, blurred impression of Dorn red in the cheeks and grabbing for the hidden pistol. Jephtha's face broke out in a sweat. His spine prickled as he trotted toward the bend of the road that would take him safely out of pistol range. He didn't look back. But he didn't relax until he was certain the contour of a hill had cut off Dorn's view. No doubt Samuel Dorn thought he had good reason for enmity. That morning at the depot, Dorn and the other Pinkerton men had been forced to shove Jephtha away repeatedly, while Jephtha attempted to find out whether the President-elect had indeed been smuggled into Washington at Pinkerton's insistence and under his guidance. Unsettling as the confrontation with the bad- tempered detective had been, Jephtha was even more disturbed by his presence on the Virginia side of the Long Bridge. As far as Jephtha knew, Allan Pinkerton's agency only served various railroads and had no official connection with the United States Government, other than when Lincoln traveled to Washington on the public railroads. The bearded detective was a protege" of a once- promising young army officer, Captain George Brinton McClellan. But McClellan had resigned the service a few years ago to take up a more lucrative civilian career. He had quickly become vice-president of the Illinois Central Railroad and then had advanced to the presidency of the eastern division of the Ohio and Mississippi. He kept Pinkerton operatives busy guarding the property of his lines. Perhaps the detective and his men had been secretly summoned to Washington over the weekend, as the Government's concern at the threat of an invasion mounted. Of-one thing Jephtha was virtually certain. Dorn could have no official assignment at the Long Bridge. As he'd admitted, he was simply doing a favor 90Colonel Lee for someone in high places. The fact that unofficial spying was already underway showed again how deep the mood of distrust and fear had become- Jephtha had a healthy fear of a brute like Dorn. Such men were drawn to work that permitted them to indulge their fondness for bullying others. They could develop an instant and permanent dislike for anyone who challenged their authority-which was precisely what Jephtha had done with his persistent questioning at the station. He hoped he wouldn't encounter the Pinkerton maft again. With a start, he realized Dorn would probably still be lounging by the tree when he returned from Lee's home. Well, he'd meet that problem later. Right now he wanted a story. He urged the mare into a canter. He'd ridden no more than a few hundred yards when another thought drove the memory of Dorn from his mind. He felt the pain born of remembering- He was on Southern soil. In Virginia-where he'd lost so much of himself. So much that was precious to him- Cantering through the pleasant countryside toward Arlington, he thought that very little had actually changed since the day more than fifteen years ago when he'd passed through the northern part of the state, a new pastor bound for the little town of Lexington in the Shenandoah Valley. Yet everything had changed. And change was one cause of the dilemma that had swept the South into secession, and war. The American nation-the whole world, in fact- was being pounded by the tides of change. The cottage industries were dying, replaced by the huge smoky in The Titans91 dustrial plants he'd first encountered when he was on his way to Vermont for pastoral training. Jephtha had been born in the mountains bordering the Pacific, child of the mountain man Jared Kent, who had seen his livelihood disappear along with the demand for beaver pelts. Before wandering down to the California gold fields at the start of the great rush of "49, Jared had struggled unsuccessfully as a farmer in the valleys of Oregon. Jephtha's mother, Grass Singing, had raised her son to have great reverence for a universal Deity. And so, despite his father's objections, he'd offered his life to God with the help of one of the first Methodist missionaries who had come to the Willamette Valley. He'd journeyed east to the Biblical Institute-and had gazed in wonder at the dark, clattering manufactories ushering in a new age. As a new, young minister, Jephtha had quickly acquired a liking for Virginians-whom he found to be typical of most Southerners. They were hardworking people; devout yet high spirited; honorable; hospitable. Soon, though, his liking had become tainted by a growing moral anguish over the slave question. Only later, after he'd courted and wed Fan Tunworth and started raising a family, did it occur to him that perhaps industrialization had caught the South in a trap not entirely of its own devising. As the North began to assert its dominance with the factory system, she locked the South into a set of circumstances which prohibited easy change. The spuming works of the Northeast and Europe demanded huge quantities of cotton. To supply this world market, the South had clung to slave-based agriculture comat a time when it should have been developing its own industrial base. The refusal to acknowledge the need for change was more than saddening. It was disastrous. To Jephtha, Virginians such as his wife's father, Cap 92Colonel .lee tain Virgil Tunworth, were pathetically unrealistic about the way industrialization was trapping them. So they blinded themselves to the evils of the system on which they were increasingly dependent. They convinced themselves-in part because they had to-that slavery was altogether right, proper, and immutable. In Jephtha's eyes the sectional crisis was rooted not only in a peculiarly American problem-Constitutional interpretation comb in an issue that was global in scope: change, and the resistance to it There was another facet to the problem of change. Since the days when Jephtha's great-grandfather, Philip Kent, had fired his musket against the King's troops at Concord bridge and fought side by side with Southerners to win American liberty, the South had virtually dominated American politics. Now that too was over. The swollen cities of the Northeast and the expanding population of the Northwest had combined to bring forth the first truly successful sectional party-the Republicans. The traditional party of the North and South-the One and Indivisible Democracy as its adherents liked to call it-had been hopelessly divided on ideological grounds. Change. Change- It backed a man into a corner. It robbed him of power he'd once savored. And a man thus trapped often fought to protect or restore the old ways. Fought with desperation; with an almost religious fervor. No single incident had aroused the South's militant spirit more than the almost totally foredoomed Harper's Ferry raid in October of '59. With twenty-one men, the abolitionist John Brown had attempted to seize the little town's Federal armory-in preparation for exhorting Southern blacks to rise up against their masters. Brown's scheme, many said, was secretly financed by Boston money. During its planning, it had been referred The Titans93 to by a code phrSse-"the speculation in wool." Thanks to the swift action of Colonel Lee and that detachment of Marines Lincoln had mentioned, the raid had failed. And the Virginians who'd brought Brown to justice had given him an exceptionally fair trial before sending him to the gallows. In the jail at Charles Town where he'd awaited hanging, the condemned man had written, "I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood." The words had a special significance for Jephtha. He'd stood dry-mouthed and trembling among the reporters who'd watched the mad-eyed old man climb the gallows steps with remarkable composure-then drop moments later, his neck snapped. Jephtha knew of Brown's passion for a verse in the ninth chapter of Paul's epistle to the Hebrews. Time and again, he was haunted by the realization that, centuries ago, the great Apostle had foretold that the present: "And almost all things are by the law purged with blood," and "without shedding of blood is no remission." While he was still a preacher, and zealous to the point of fanaticism, Jephtha had interpreted the passage as only a condemnation of the slave system; a promise of punishment for the South, and for those who permitted its peculiar institution to flourish. Now he saw the verse in broader and more tragic