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Blogs by Robert A. Mills
AURA LEE PART FOUR
12/2/2009 1:29:43 PM
That evening when Lincoln entered the room no one, at first, stood. The tall president, buggy whip thin and equally as agile, stopped a step inside the doorway and surveyed with rheumy, sleep-deprived, brown and tan protean eyes the motley cabinet assembled there. His clothes, a black poplin jacket over a crumpled broadcloth shirt whose starch had long since vanished, were baggy and ill-fitting, worn by a man whose interest in fashion had dissipated entirely, if, in fact, it had ever existed. The cuffs of his wrinkled trousers were as far from his scuffed shoes as were the cuffs of his jacket from his bony, gnarled wrists. A close observer might have noticed that his wrists were grotesquely thick and lumpy, distorted by remnants of ganglions that had endured losing bouts with crashing Bibles and weighty law books. They were the wrists of a woodsman, a plowright, a rail-splitter, and a champion wrestler. When Lincoln spoke, his voice was surprisingly soft and melodious—yet with an actor’s projection to the farthest row; the group around the low mahogany table slid back their chairs and rather begrudgingly came to their feet.
“Gentlemen,” said the sixteenth President of the United States, “please; do not trouble yourselves. Sit down!”
As he entered the room and took his place at the head of the table, the others retrieved their chairs and collapsed into them with what appeared to be a sense of relief. Lincoln, however, did not sit down right away. He stood as ramrod straight as his weary posture would allow and let his glance roam casually about the table.
“Gentlemen,” he again intoned, “we are losing this abominable war. Quickly and decisively. Many of our battles are proving Pyrrhic victories. It is going badly for us. It may be a cause celebre.”
Whatever its cause, his staccato remarks elicited a sardonic chuckle from the few cabinet members assembled. Secretary of War Edwin McMasters Stanton was one who neither chuckled nor smiled; had Lincoln taken a moment to think about it, he could not recall that Ed Stanton had ever been known to find humor in anything except, perhaps, watching their combined children at play outside their summer homes. Gideon Welles, on the other hand, as Secretary of the Navy, laughed or giggled at just about everything. Outsiders who had no contact with him misunderstood and misapplied his reputation for stuffiness. With his white hair and abundant white beard, he would have been quite at home posing for Christmas lithographs as old St. Nicholas. Secretary of State William Seward, despite his numerous enemies and longtime friendship with Jefferson Davis when the President of the Confederacy served in Washington as a congressman and senator, smiled with a nearly regal tolerance of anything that Lincoln said, especially if it derived its humor from a sophisticated wit he was certain none of his colleagues appreciated or understood. A handsome man, thin to the point of awkwardness, and a physical fitness fanatic, Seward might have been a renowned thespian had politics not been his bent. His voice, a most melodious instrument, was nearly as polished for performance as Lincoln’s.
“Mr. President,” he now intoned, “your despondency leads us to wonder why you feel so strongly the war is lost.”
Lincoln looked far down the long table and regarded his Secretary of State, his dark eyes narrowing to a purposeful gaze. He silently wondered, Does he truly not read the dispatches and wires from the front? It was no secret that he did not like Seward, never had; had made him something of a national cynosure; had appointed him to his rather lofty position as a favor to his good and loyal friend and secretary John Hay who, for reasons Lincoln could never discern, was curiously fond of the man.
“War,” Lincoln offered, quickly deciding humility was too weak a card to be played in response, “is a fugacious occupation for civilians such as we to spend much time dallying with. We are not military men—fighting men, perhaps—but we do not have military insights. Most of us, I might warrant, have little sense of the comity and courage it takes to wage war. Now—now, hold on—don’t get your dander up!”
Impugning a politician’s courage in wartime was a leitmotiv Lincoln often employed, especially with his cabinet. Seward, Stanton, and Welles had slid back their chairs, but only Seward had made it to standing.
“Mr. President . . . really, I must . . . !”
Lincoln raised his left hand, leaving his elbow cocked on the arm of his chair, and waved with his fingers for Seward to be still.
“Ah, Billy, Billy, Billy . . . if only you’d chosen West Point and I could send you riding against Lee and Jackson and all those others President Davis has at his beck and call! What am I left with? McDowell and Grant—God help us, what if we’d let McDowell really attack Richmond and leave Washington sitting unprotected with Jackson sniffing like a wild animal across the Potomac? Even the Almighty probably could not, would not, have fixed his course on saving us!”
At that, Seward flopped back into his chair. He was no fool; he knew Lincoln was right. Although begun as such, this was no longer the politician’s war. It may have been conceived in the womb of governmental expediency and assertions by Southern states that the essence of the status quo was tantamount to a greater democracy, but this war would be won or lost through the machinations of the West Pointers, the men in the field, the soldiers who were trained and those who were not—the ragtag farmers, storekeepers, pioneers, mountaineers, students and school boys—and business men unlucky enough (or not wealthy enough) to be swept up like cannon and musket fodder by an idealism as ancient as man’s inherent inhumanity to man.
“They call this a ‘Civil War’,” Lincoln once mused, while addressing a committee of newspapermen assigned to cover the conflict from the relatively safe vantage of the unfinished Capitol building’s basement pressroom.
“What an oxymoron; what a pleonasm. Civil war,” the giant chuckled. “Well, perhaps it is, when you think of it as a war of civilians, a war being fought by civilians, directed by a phalanx of military geniuses, and orchestrated by the likes of Jefferson Davis, Bill Seward, Stephen Alexander—and me! And all of us Americans. Lord . . . disseminate divine mercy on us all!”
Tonight, however, Lincoln was not in a philosophical mood. He was depressed and annoyed that now at the end of the day the dark, flat, stinging reality was that the North indeed was on the final precipice of defeat. The president, if nothing else, was a strategist nonpareil, and he’d just come from a full day of pouring over maps and comparing positions with communiqués from his generals at the front—actually, fronts, when you considered the Federals were being forced to fight the Rebels in full scale battles in half a dozen or more places within a one hundred mile radius of the Union capital.
“Chief among my antagonists,” Lincoln suddenly exhaled, “is that scamp, that scalawag, that—that parasitic, dipterous tick! That—Thomas ‘Stonewall’ Jackson!”
Lincoln’s choice of words and his speech pattern brought a giggle from Gideon Welles. “Mr. President, don’t be coy. Tell us how you really regard the man!”
Lincoln nodded his head and looked across at the Secretary of the Navy, tilting forward as though he were wearing spectacles on the tip of his nose and were peering over the tops.
“Would the Everlasting had decreed him a love for the Union that I might have him leading our men on the paths of a more sanctified and noble cause!” The president sighed and said no more for a few moments. Welles, as was his usual wont, leaned forward, picking up a pen, and scribbled Lincoln’s words for posterity on a scrap of notepaper.
Stanton spoke first. “General Jackson is reputed to be crazy; insane.”
Lincoln looked up and pursed his thick lips, patiently pondering his Secretary of War. “Yes, that is so,” he said, softly. “Insane. Crazy. Batty as an actor in an Alonzo Freidman play. Who in his right mind would lead an army aimlessly about the Shenandoah Valley, up one cold mountain and down another, in the heat of the day and the ghostly freeze of the night? And never tell them where they’re going or why. Lee and Davis don’t even know where that specter in his filthy uniform is most hours of the week. Leading his Rebels to where Federals are sleeping, overtaking one brigade after another, fighting like the madman we say he is, thrusting and parrying and out-maneuvering us at every turn. Let me astound you gentleman one more time: if I had three Stonewall Jacksons fronting our troops, this war would have been over within six months of Fort Sumter.
“Conversely, if Lee had just one more, you and I—all of us—would be in our own garrison’s stockade pleading with Davis not to hang us!”
Seward was tempted to suggest the president was overstating the situation, but he held his counsel and remained silent. He knew that if Lincoln were exaggerating, it was but a mild enhancement. For over a year now, the War House, the White House, the Capitol building, and the saloons of D.C. had been monitoring the escapades, the successes, the military breakthroughs and outright victories that were piling up at the feet of Stonewall Jackson; and there was genuine concern at all levels that the adroit graduate of West Point who had emerged as this bumbling professor from the Virginia Military Institute was going to single-handedly win the war for the South and, in all likelihood, because of his heroism and adoration on both sides of the Potomac, wind up eventually running the shattered country from the very mansion next door. Whereas Robert E. Lee was regarded as the Grand Old Gentleman of Southern Aristocracy, Jackson was seen as the Charismatic Savior of the Old South and All It Stood For. Courageous fighting men of honor would follow Lee into battle against ponderous odds with nothing more than a pocketknife. Those same men—and all their brothers and sisters—would follow Jackson through the very Gates of Hell with nothing more than a dripping icicle.
The president suddenly rose again and moved toward the door. He turned back to his assembled cabinet and rapped with hard knuckles against the rough oak. “I’ve invited someone here tonight,” he said, “and I want you to meet him face to face.”
The door swung open and General Joseph “Fighting Joe” Hooker slipped sideways into the room. Hooker was, militarily, an imposing figure; tall but not broad, he wore his braided, resplendent dress uniform with flair, a sense of theatrical grace, his hat well-plumed and tucked under his arm as though he were carrying in the gift of a small, live swan. There was a muted clang to his gleaming brass buckles and the ornate sword and scabbard its wide belt supported. “Fighting Joe” Hooker was West Point, a veteran soldier of many campaigns against the Indians and the Mexicans, against the Confederacy at Antietam and Fredericksburg; and his medals and ribbons were worn across his chest on a navy blue sash, some decorations actually hidden by his full, coiffed and soon-to-be-shorn pale beard.
“Gentlemen,” Lincoln offered, “as you know, I have fired General Ambrose Burnside as a result of the Fredericksburg fiasco for which I hold him eminently responsible. Let me present the Union’s last, remaining hope: our personal Jesus, late from the orchards of California; the one man I am confidant can bring down Jackson’s abominable army that tonight camps less than three score miles from our doorstep. Please welcome Major General Joseph Hooker—the scourge of Chapultepec in the Mexican War. And, I might add, the one Union commander I have heard of who has given Stonewall Jackson measure for measure in the few battles they’ve shared and contested.”
Lincoln reached out and slipped his arm through Hooker’s unencumbered one, leading him into the room, ushering him to a chair at the far end of the cluttered table.
Ironically, none of the cabinet had ever met this particular general before, but his reputation had preceded him to this, his first visit to the White House enclave.
Joe Hooker was an adored leader whose officers and troops openly refused to serve under any other. Perhaps it was the ready supply of liquor and women with which he plied his battalions that urged them into battle with devoted ferociousness. Even the name “Hooker” had taken on new and purposeful meanings. “An army,” he once told U. S. Grant, “is like no other social structure on earth. It has needs that must fit the times, and those needs are base. Men away from home and hearth, men living among other men, fighting side by side, dying, always dying—whiskey and female companionship is their opiate. I want it easily accessible to my troops at every opportunity. They are as important as dry and abundant gun powder.”
“Gentlemen,” he said tonight, “it is a privilege and an honor to be summoned here and meet such an august body as Mr. Lincoln’s cabinet.”
“Yes,” agreed the president, “and I’m distressed the entire group could not have been so hastily summoned.” Aside, he muttered, “There it is: What we have will suffice.” He looked across at those assembled and introduced them all, allowing the general to place his hat on the table and shake hands as each one stood.
When they were finally seated, Lincoln moved against the nearest wall beneath a glowing chandelier, leaning back and addressing the group—Hooker most specifically—as though in a brown study at George Washington University.
“General,” he spoke at last, “I have placed you at the head of the Army of the Potomac. Of course I have done this on what appear to me sufficient reasons, and yet I think it best for you—and these gentlemen here—to know there are some things in regard to which I am not quite satisfied with you.”
“Mr. President . . .” Hooker started, half rising from his seat, but Lincoln held up his long and crooked index finger for his subordinate to be still.
“Perhaps,” Stanton interjected in the sudden gap, “this is a discussion between the two of you . . .”
“No,” the commander-in-chief insisted. “My cabinet and my generals are the unified body of all my decisions on matters of this peculiar war, and I cannot render unilateral decisions without total candor, awareness, and acquiescence.”
He kept his gaze tight on Hooker as he continued, unconcerned that Welles was scribbling furiously.
“General, I believe you to be a brave and skillful soldier, which of course I like. I also believe you do not mix politics with your profession, in which you are right. You have confidence in yourself, which is a valuable if not indispensable quality. You are ambitious, which, within reasonable bounds, does good rather than harm; but I think that during General Burnside’s command of the army you have taken counsel of your ambition—and thwarted him as much as you could—in which you did a great wrong to the country, and to a most meritorious and honorable brother officer.”
Lincoln paused to note Hooker’s reaction, and he seemed pleased there was none. The general never wavered in his eye contact, his piercing blue/gray gaze and his face remained as impassive has it had been since he entered the room. The assembled cabinet moved uncomfortably in their chairs and glanced surreptitiously at one another.
Lincoln cleared his throat and went on: “I have heard, in such a way as to believe it, of your recently saying, that both the army and the government needed a dictator. Of course it was not for this, but in spite of it, that I am giving you command. Only those generals who gain successes can set up dictators. What I now ask of you is military success, and I will risk the dictatorship. The Government will support you to the utmost of its ability, which is neither more nor less than it has done and will do for all its commanders. I much fear that the spirit that you have aided to infuse into the army, of criticizing their commander, and withholding confidence from him, will now turn upon you. I shall assist you as far as I can to put it down. Neither you nor Napoleon, were he alive again, could get any good out of any army while such a spirit prevails in it.” The president took a deep breath, as though encasing his words in a time capsule. “And now, beware of rashness! Beware of rashness! But with energy and sleepless vigilance go forward and give us—victories!”
There was a crushing silence in the Situation Room; General Hooker’s unblinking stare was locked with Lincoln’s, and no one moved until “Fighting Joe” nodded his head in understanding and acceptance. He knew, as did the others, the flaccid defense of argument and denial were useless.
Lincoln moved on, speaking directly to his cabinet. “General Hooker’s assignments are being changed as we speak. Within hours, he will depart Washington with one hundred thousand Union troops and join Generals McClellan, Fremont, and Banks somewhere north of Richmond—spread out across northern Virginia—and collectively with more than one hundred fifty thousand of the finest cavalry, infantry, and artillery sweep down on Lee and Jackson and Hill and Longstreet and God knows who else the Rebels have left—hopefully to bring a total turnabout and victorious conclusion to these insane hostilities. And we—I—am going to make sure that he can do it.”
Seward smiled and looked around the table, then back at Lincoln. “Sure?” he asked. “Some phantom guarantee?”
Lincoln nodded. “Most certainly. . . What one event would make it a certainty?”
Gideon chuckled. “Only that Jackson would have an attack of apoplexy and keel over and be called to meet his Maker!”
The president nodded. “More certain than that.”
Stanton smirked. “A Minié ball in his lap as he sits on that damnable midget horse of his!”
“Little Sorrel,” Hooker grinned, somewhere behind his dense shrubbery. “General Jackson is most certainly a curious sight aboard that dwarf with his size 14 boots dangling six inches from the ground!”
“No.” Lincoln moved back to the table and placed his great paw on Hooker’s shoulder, his fingers toying with the epaulet and its bright star. “No, we will not risk waiting on a stray cannon shell or nearly-spent musket ball. What I want is the definitive action of a paid assassin, someone hand-picked by General Hooker here to rid this conflagration of the most painful thorn ever stuck in the side of the righteous.”
Hooker looked up at his commander-in-chief. “And, sir, I have just the man for the job. My plans are perfect, sir, and when I start to carry them out, may God have mercy on Bobby Lee; for I shall have none.”
“Bobby Lee? . . . Ah, yes, of course. Bobby Lee.” Lincoln nodded solemnly and looked deeply into Hooker’s eyes.
‘Fighting Joe’ continued: “Mr. President, the Rebel army is now the legitimate property of the Army of the Potomac. They may as well pack their haversacks and make for Richmond; and I shall be after them!”
Lincoln continued to gaze with apparent concern at his Messiah. Then he raised his head and spoke to his cabinet.
“Gentlemen,” the president said, his voice now a harsh whisper, “many years ago this country was facing a turmoil not entirely unlike the debacle in which we now find ourselves, and John Adams’ secretary of war, man named McHenry, a great patriot, was pleading his case for a strong, imperious army and of what he called ‘genius in the command of it.’ President Adams, also a great patriot and a leader with uncanny insight, said that ‘Genius in a general is oftener an instrument of divine vengeance more than a guardian angel.’ That remark has soaked into my thinking with relentless purpose, and I am going to make a proposal to you, to which I have given long, hard thought. I bring it to you, in this room, and set it on this table not for argument or discussion, but for simply a yea or a nay. If it’s to be nay, if your position is in the least negative, so be it: that will be the end of it, and this rhetoric will never have taken place. On the other hand, if it’s a firm and unwavering, solid yes, then I shall proceed accordingly—and history can take the hindmost.”
He had their attention. To a man, they leaned forward and their eyes were on him, riveted in anticipation. Welles’ pen was again poised to record history.
“It is a simple military expediency,” the president said, “and I want your answers, in the majority, now, tonight, before we leave this room. And it must be unanimous. An unanimous majority, if such a phrase makes any sense.”
He looked from one to the other, his black and tan eyes penetrating as if to their souls. The quiet that hung over the room was a velvet shroud; even the air about them suddenly took on a musty, teleological odor of design and purpose.
“I want,” Lincoln whispered, “the removal of Thomas Jonathan Jackson from his mortal coil. I want him taken down. I want someone, preferably an officer, or someone appointed by an officer, to—there is no other word—assassinate this demon knight, kill him dead as certain as he stands in his boots, and rid us of the Union’s most dangerous enemy, most troublesome detractor.”
Lincoln paused for effect, though he knew none was needed. “Figuratively, I want Jackson’s head delivered to me on a spike. Not a silver platter; no Biblical imagery. A spike. Nothing less will do.
"What say you?”
TO BE CONTINUED
Copyright©2009 by Robert A. Mills
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