The First Lady and the Rebel, page 17
When, at the cool, gray break
Of day, from sleep I wake,
With my first breathing of the morning air
My soul goes up, with joy,
To Him who gave my boy;
Then comes the sad thought that—he is not there!
When at the day’s calm close,
Before we seek repose,
I’m with his mother, offering up our prayer,
Whate’er I may be saying,
I am, in spirit, praying
For our boy’s spirit, though—he is not there!
Not there! Where, then, is he?
The form I used to see
Was but the raiment that he used to wear.
The grave that now doth press
Upon that cast-off dress,
Is but his wardrobe locked—he is not there!
He lives! In all the past
He lives; nor, to the last,
Of seeing him again will I despair;
In dreams I see him now;
And, on his angel brow,
I see it written, “Thou shalt see me there!”
Yes, we all live to God!
Father, thy chastening rod
So help us, thine afflicted ones, to bear,
That, in the spirit land,
Meeting at thy right hand,
’Twill be our heaven to find—that he is there!
Mary’s eyes filled with tears. “That is lovely. Might I have a copy, sir?”
“I took the liberty of bringing one,” Reverend Pierpont said, reaching into his inexhaustible pocket. “And the latest issue of The Banner of Light, should you wish to become more familiar with spiritualism—do pardon the folds. Tell your husband that I believe he is a blessing sent to this nation to scourge it of the horrors of slavery. And with that, madam, I will take my leave.”
* * *
It was not until late that evening that Mary had a chance to read the Reverend Pierpont’s newspaper. After spending a happy morning in his father’s office, Tad had become lonely for Willie and had to be comforted by both parents, and Mary’s sister Elizabeth, who thought that just about anything could be cured by putting a flower in a pot, had insisted that she go for a stroll in the White House greenhouses. So she had hidden the paper away. It was something of which the very conventionally pious Elizabeth would disapprove anyway. But what would she know? All four of her children were living.
Should she tell the President of the Reverend Pierpont’s visit? Mary decided against it—for now, at least. Although she had not initiated the encounter, Mr. Lincoln would probably take it as evidence that she was unbalanced. Why, just a few days ago—on a Thursday, when she had simply refused to leave her bed—he had threatened, albeit in the most kind and considerate manner, to send her to the insane asylum if she did not rouse herself. She bore him no grudge for this; Willie had died on a Thursday, and since then, that day had been the hardest day of the week for each of them. Even the President had shut himself in his office and ordered that he not be disturbed, as he had the two Thursdays before that. But still, it had been mortifying to have one’s own husband implying that one was a lunatic, and there was no need to give the man more fodder. But what if Reverend Pierpont’s claims were not all nonsense? The old gentleman certainly seemed sane enough, if a bit eccentric. And he had not appeared to have a pecuniary motive.
She skimmed through the slightly grubby newspaper, which advertised itself as “A Weekly Journal of Romantic Literature and General Intelligence.” There was a rather tedious piece of fiction, written in serial form, so that Mary would have to buy the next issue to see how it turned out. (She had to admit she was mildly curious about the matter.) Advertisements for mediums giving lectures jostled rather uneasily against perfectly conventional advertisements. The war was not forgotten, with one columnist exhorting the ladies of the Union to urge their men to do service. There were, of course, several robust defenses of spiritualism.
On page six were the messages from the dead. A young boy, whose father was fighting in the war, assured his mother that his father was fine and would send her money. A crusty Irishman, who had retained his brogue in the spirit world, advised his wife not to waste her money on prayers for him. A rebel soldier who had lost his life at Bull Run, and still bore a considerable grudge, wished to deliver a message of instructions to his son but launched into a tirade about hanging abolitionists before he could give any specifics. A young girl named Martha bore a simple message: “I have been two years a spirit. I died of fever. My father died shortly after me. My mother is left with two younger children, and she is very unhappy. I have come to tell her we did not die, but only went home, and we can come and talk with her if she wants us to.”
What mother would not want that?
The next day, Mrs. Pomroy stopped in to see them. With Tad’s crisis past, she had begged to be allowed to resume her nursing duties at the hospital, but Tad had grown so attached to her that she had agreed to spare a few minutes of her time each day to come see him. “I am glad to see you out of bed, Mrs. Lincoln,” she said.
“I am glad to be out. Mrs. Pomroy, I know you are a widow. Do you have children?”
“A son in the army. The others are long dead.”
“So you have known a mother’s grief yourself.”
“I have.”
“How do you bear it?”
“I did not bear it well at first. I lost my children, my husband, and my home. I was in despair, until I put myself in the Lord’s hands, and I have been a happy woman ever since. When the war broke out and my son enlisted, I was quite alone again, and I was at a loss as to what to do with myself. Then I spotted an ad for nurses and asked myself, Why not? My husband had spent much of his life as an invalid, so I could nurse just as well as I could do anything else. I prayed upon it, and then I answered the ad, and fortune brought me from Massachusetts to Washington.” She hesitated. “Mrs. Lincoln, I must say that the best cure for my own grief has been ministering to those poor lads. So many of them long for their mothers.”
Mary ignored this very gentle hint. “Have you ever tried to communicate with your dead?”
“Goodness, Mrs. Lincoln, why would I want to do that? We will all be reunited by and by.”
“For curiosity’s sake, perhaps.”
“I think it best not to be curious about some things, Mrs. Lincoln.”
Evidently there were two types of New Englanders, Mary decided, with Mrs. Pomroy on one extreme and the Reverend Pierpont on the other.
That night, as usual, she retired to bed alone, knowing that the President would join her late or not at all, depending on what was happening with the war. Normally, this was a grievance of hers, but tonight it suited her well. After settling into bed and hearing no signs of her husband’s footfall, she raised herself up on her elbows. Quietly but distinctly (how loud did one have to be in such cases?), she called, “Willie.”
No answer. She pitched her voice higher. “Willie.”
Something rustled. “Willie!”
The rustling grew yet louder. Then the door opened, and a cat shot out from underneath the bed and toward the hallway. “There you are!” Tad announced. He grabbed up his pet. “Good night, Mother,” he called.
“Good night, sweetheart.”
Mary lay back in bed and sighed. There had to be a better way of contacting Willie than this. And if Tad were around, poor Willie wouldn’t get a word in edgewise anyway.
12
Emily
March to May 1862
“You’re feeling well?”
“Perfectly well.”
“Not…ill?”
“Not at all.”
Alec sighed. “I wish this train wouldn’t jounce so much.”
She and Hardin had agreed that Selma, where her sisters Martha, Elodie, and Kitty were all gathered at the moment, would be the best place for her to have the baby, which was expected in May. Her pregnancy had been an easy one, as her other two had been, and she was anticipating no trouble. Her bachelor brother, however, too young to remember any of his siblings’ births, was less sanguine.
“You’ll tell me if you—”
Emily patted his arm. “Trust me, Alec. When my time comes, you will know. But you’ll likely be long gone from here by then.”
“I admit I’m rather happy about that.”
Emily swatted her brother, but she knew what he meant. “I suppose escorting your pregnant sister isn’t exactly what you dreamed of when you enlisted.”
“Well, no. Though I’m glad to be of help—and it’ll be fun to see the other girls as well. But a fellow wants to see the elephant.”
“Elephant?”
“Battle, sister. Everyone says that something big is going to happen around Corinth, once we finally get there.”
“Where’s Corinth, Uncle Alec?” Kate asked. “What’s there?”
“Mississippi—a state that’s much more fun to pronounce than to be in, in my humble opinion. As for what’s there—two railroads. One running north to south, the other east to west. We need to keep those railroads, and the Yankees want them.” When Kate nodded, satisfied, he turned back to Emily. “It’s frustrating. Our unit has scouted and covered the retreat from Bowling Green, but we haven’t fought. Just marched and frozen ourselves stiff.” He glanced down at Kate. “Now, what are you looking at, princess?”
“Your hair. It’s so red in the sunlight. Almost pink.”
“Kate! Don’t comment on people’s appearances.”
“Well, it is a little hard to miss,” Alec said, removing his cap so Kate could get a better look at his thrush of hair. “A little thin on top, sadly, though not as thin—ahem—as your father’s. Did your mother ever tell you that your father was worried that you were going to turn out a redhead?”
“It’s true.” Emily smiled and ran her hand through Kate’s auburn hair. “Your father was riding the circuit when you were born, and as I was worn out afterward, your grandmother Todd wrote him to give the particulars. She wasn’t at all sure how to describe your hair color at the time, and your father worried that you might be another Alec.”
“Was Papa there when I was born?” Dee asked.
“Yes, he wasn’t traveling so much then.”
Dee stuck her tongue out at Kate smugly.
“Elodie Helm!” Emily frowned at her daughter. “This traveling about has destroyed their manners,” she told Alec. “They see the soldiers horsing about, and people of all descriptions coming in and out of hotels, and they pick up everything.”
“I’ll try to set a better example, then.” Alec sat straight in his seat. In a nasal voice, he intoned, “Young ladies, do not raise your voices. This is a very respectable train, I’ll have you know.”
In this manner, their journey passed pleasantly. In Selma, there was more cheer to come when for the first time since the war had broken out, she was reunited with Martha, Elodie, and Kitty. If their three older full siblings—Margaret, David, and Sam—had been present, it would have been wonderful; if their mother had been there, too, it would have been perfect. Between all of them, they pieced out where the missing ones were: Margaret still in Cincinnati, their mother perhaps with her or perhaps in Kentucky, and David and Sam both heading toward Corinth. “So one way or another, when something happens, a Todd is going to be in the thick of it,” Alec predicted happily.
And perhaps a Helm, too, Emily thought. She shivered.
* * *
While her brothers and her husband were preparing for God only knew what, her prospective brother-in-law, Captain Dawson, was preparing to come home. “He wants to marry as soon as he gets back,” Elodie said. “He is hoping that with his year of enlistment over, he will not be asked to stay in the service, although of course he will follow the government’s orders.” She glanced at Emily. “I hope you do not think the worse of him for wanting to leave.”
“The important thing is, do you?”
“No. I could not love a man who would not fight at all, but he has done his duty, and he has seen battle. As he wrote to me, it is time that some of those idle men enlisted instead of leaving the glories of war to others. And goodness knows it is tiresome to hear men who have not fought in the war criticize the conduct of those who do.”
“You’ve only met him in person a few times. Do you think you’ll be happy?”
“Yes. He is well thought of here, although he is not at all gregarious—I often wonder how he managed to court me! And he writes lovely letters. Would you like to walk by his house?”
Emily agreed, as it was a fine day and Hardin was always urging her to take exercise. As they walked along, various women and girls greeted them, while other merely nodded coldly or not at all. Seeing Emily’s inquiring look, Elodie said, “It’s not easy being Abraham Lincoln’s sister-in-law here, you know. People regularly walk up to me and tell me they hope he is captured and hanged, and expect me to respond with a smile! The worst of it was over Christmas, when someone proposed to put on a tableau portraying him as a black ape, knowing full well how peculiarly situated we Todds are and how much pain it would give us. I made a fuss about it and have been consigned to the second tier of society because of that. But I daresay when I become Mrs. Dawson, and have a house and servants, they will be more accommodating.”
“No doubt.”
Soon thereafter, they arrived at a gray house, well shaded by old trees. Though not ostentatious or imposing, it looked large and comfortable, with an ample porch and beautiful gardens. Elodie said, “Pretty, isn’t it? I confess I thought a little more highly of Captain Dawson when I saw his house. Rather like Lizzy Bennet and Pemberley. His people often send me things from the garden, at his order.”
“It’s lovely.” Emily thought of her and Hardin’s little, lost house in Louisville and could not repress a sigh.
“I hope you will be my first visitor—and that you will have your baby there, if we are married in time. It will be more comfortable for you than in the Whites’ house, which is a bit crowded. And in truth, it will be nice to have a sister in the house while I adjust to marriage. I will adjust, won’t I?”
“Of course.” Emily patted her sister’s hand and gazed at Captain Dawson’s fine house. “It is the separations that you will find difficult.”
* * *
At the end of March, both of Emily’s daughters fell ill with measles—not a serious case, but enough to make everyone in the house thoroughly miserable. Alec left them for the front, and Martha’s husband, in a burst of patriotism, enlisted, even though Mr. White was far from healthy. He had signed up for ninety days, and Emily had her doubts as to whether he would manage that long, even under the best of conditions.
Still, Emily had to admit, there was a certain amount of fun in the sisters having the house all to themselves, save for Emily’s and Martha’s children and the servants. Kitty lined all of her older sisters up and did their hair; Emily loosened her wrapper so that it flapped around her like a tent; and Martha and Elodie gossiped to their heart’s content about their neighbors in Selma and their infinite stupidity. “To hear them talk, you’d think Kentucky was barely civilized,” Elodie said. “They don’t know anything about our beautiful state.”
“Well, someone in Huntsville asked me if Kentucky ladies kissed their horses,” Emily said. “I told her that we just stroked their manes and spoke to them very sweetly.”
“And they think we’re all Yankee sympathizers,” Kitty said. “Of course, that’s because we’re Todds. Though I was sad when poor Colonel Ellsworth died, so I suppose they’re right as far as that goes.”
“A pity all that beauty was wasted on the North,” Martha said dryly.
“I was sad when poor Willie Lincoln died,” Elodie said as the others nodded. “Poor mite. I wonder how Mary’s bearing up. Have you heard anything from her, Emily? You always were her favorite of us.”
“Not a thing. But I suppose she could hardly write to us in the South without causing a stir. And can you imagine the postmaster handing us a letter marked ‘Executive Mansion, Washington City’?”
“I don’t hear from anyone in Springfield anymore, either,” Martha said. “Of course, I haven’t tried to get a letter there, so I suppose I can’t complain. All I know is what I read in the papers. And I suppose that’s all they know of us.”
“I wonder how Father would feel,” Emily said. “The children from his first marriage on one side of this war, and the children from his second on the other. A house divided, just like Mr. Lincoln said.”
“Well, you needn’t quote the man,” Martha snapped.
They were quiet for a while. Then Elodie stood. “Enough of this. Is Emily going to have a boy or a girl, and when? Let’s lay wagers.”
* * *
They could not shut out the war, however—not that they tried. Each morning, they or a servant went out and returned laden with as many newspapers as had made their way into Selma. Then, depending on that day’s haul, each sister would take a paper and turn straight to the war news, which depending on the state of the telegraph lines could be days old by the time it reached Selma. “Victory at a place called Shiloh Church, not far from Corinth!” Kitty said when April was well into its second week. She skimmed down the column. “But heavy losses on both sides.”
“What does ‘heavy’ mean?” Martha asked.
“It means we have to worry,” Emily said. “Although we would do that anyway.”
The next day’s newspaper still spoke of a Southern victory but was far more subdued. General Sidney Johnson, the commanding general in the west, had been killed, but beyond that there was little news to be had of individual casualties.
At last, Hardin telegrammed to say that he and Alec were in Tuscumbia, Alabama, but he gave no news of anyone else dear to the sisters’ hearts. A couple of days passed, and Emily, enjoying a lazy morning in bed, was awoken by Martha’s screams. Wearing only her chemise, she hurried to the parlor to find her sister sobbing and clutching a telegram. “Is there bad news about Clement?”
