The First Lady and the Rebel, page 27
“If I weren’t so busy, I’d try to catch him as Hamlet tomorrow.” Mr. Lincoln laughed. “Did you catch him looking at me when his character was accused of favoring emancipation, and he denied it? Clever of him, very clever. Looked rather sharply at me, too, I thought.”
* * *
Though Mr. Lincoln did indeed extend an invitation, Mr. Booth declined it on rather vague grounds, to Mary’s relief. Mr. Lincoln, though mildly disappointed, had other preoccupations, including his upcoming trip to Gettysburg, where a Union cemetery was being dedicated, to make some appropriate remarks. “It’s going to be a short speech,” he told Mary. “But those are the hardest to write, I think. No room for mistakes.”
“Can I go with you, Pa?”
“Only if your throat is better.” Over Tad’s head, the President exchanged a glance with Mary. Tad did not seem seriously ill, only a little flushed and hoarse—but had not Willie started his illness in exactly the same manner?
Tad’s rasp did not improve; the best that could be said was that he was not markedly worse. Still, he roused himself sufficiently so that his howls of rage echoed through the Executive Mansion as his father’s carriage left for the depot the morning of November 18 without him.
If Mary had had her way, her husband would not have left Washington, either. He looked not only tired and careworn—Chattanooga, occupied by the Union and under siege by the rebels, was much on his mind—but downright unhealthy. How he could deliver any sort of respectable speech in such circumstances, Mary had no inkling. At least she could send him the good news, later that afternoon, that Tad was somewhat better.
She was able to send him yet another encouraging telegram the next morning. Mr. Lincoln did not reply, which was no surprise, as the public inevitably took possession of him on such occasions. Mary would have to wait up for him to learn how he had borne up, and she was still waiting when, well after one in the morning, she heard the sound of the President’s carriage. “You didn’t have to wait up,” Mr. Lincoln said. “Watch my hand; it’s sore from shaking.”
“Mr. Lincoln, you look terrible!”
“Yes, I think I might have a bit of what Tad’s got—or something. Anyway, my bed looks mighty good to me at the moment.”
“I will send for the doctor immediately.”
“No, let me get some sleep. It’s nothing that can’t wait.”
“You were able to give your speech?”
“Oh, yes. People liked it well enough. I gave my copy to Hay, but it’ll be in the papers, no doubt.”
And so it was. Fourscore and seven years ago… Mary read her husband’s words over and over, marveling over his ability to encompass so much in a speech that surely must have been delivered in less than five minutes. We are met on a great battlefield… We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate—we cannot consecrate—we cannot hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.
She carried the newspaper into Mr. Lincoln’s room, where he was dressing for the day, although a sensible man would have stayed in bed. “You’re wrong about the not-long-remembering part, Mr. Lincoln,” she said. “It was a magnificent speech. Here, let me get that thing for you.”
Her husband stood still as she adjusted his cravat. As long as he had been wearing them, he still acted as if he were being garroted when she tied it. “Well, I hope you’re right, Molly.”
* * *
For a few more days, Mr. Lincoln attended to his duties, while for once, all the inhabitants of White House—Mary, the secretaries, the staff—were united, bound by their desire to see him go to bed and rest. Even Tad, bedridden himself but improving daily, pointed out that if he had to stay in bed, there was no reason that Pa should not as well.
At last, a week after his return from Gettysburg, the President allowed that he did not feel equal to rising from his bed. Soon he had a spectacular rash, and Dr. Washington van Bibb, called from Baltimore to give his advice, gave his diagnosis. “Varioloid.”
“The smallpox?” Mary wailed.
“A mild case of it, it appears. But you must be confined to your sickroom, Mr. Lincoln, for the next few days, and see no one who has not had smallpox.”
“Not even any office seekers?” The President managed a faint smile. “That’s a shame, for now I have something I can give to everybody.”
* * *
By December, the President, though thinner than ever and pale, had largely recovered, although under doctor’s orders, he rested in his room daily and retired at a respectable hour. With her husband mending and Tad fully mended, Mary could turn her attention to an upcoming visit from a group of Russian officers, which would require considerable pomp. She was pondering what the evening’s musical selections should be when Mr. Lincoln came in. “We are going to have a visitor, Molly. A special one.”
“Another one? Who?”
“Your sister Emily.”
22
Emily
November 1863
After a quest dogged by delay and bureaucratic muddling on the part of the chain of command of two warring nations, the passes were in order: Emily could go North, and her mother, who had been boarding in Lexington with Kitty while her Kellogg nieces attended school in that city, could go South to get Emily and the children. With Tennessee in contention, the party would have to go to City Point near Richmond, then take a flag-of-truce ship to Fortress Monroe outside of Norfolk, under Yankee control, and proceed to Baltimore. From there, they could at last leave for Kentucky.
Her sister Martha, with her husband safely home from his brief war service, would be joining them as well. She claimed that she wanted to consult a specialist about a female problem she was having, but Emily suspected that her stylish sister was lured more by the prospect of replenishing her wardrobe in the metropolis of Baltimore.
The addition of Martha to the party, however, would be countered by a subtraction. Very early in Emily’s quest to return to Kentucky, it had become clear that if Maggie came with them, it would have to be as a free woman or not at all. Freeing her was out of the question, Emily had decided. It was too much like conceding defeat. But she could not sell her either, although as an experienced nursery maid and fine seamstress, she would have fetched a fair price. Even if Maggie’s people had not been with the Helm family for generations, Emily had recoiled too often as she walked by slave markets to inflict that fate upon a woman who had tended her children, and tended them well, from their infancy. Nor would she risk having Maggie fall into the hands of a man who might treat her unspeakably.
At last, Emily had determined to leave Maggie in Selma with Elodie, although Elodie and her stepdaughters already had their personal maids and hardly needed another servant. But Elodie was once again expecting. If the child thrived this time, as Emily prayed he or she would, there would be a need for Maggie’s services until Emily could reclaim her servant.
Still, warning the children of the impending separation had been scarcely less difficult for Emily than telling them of their father’s death—after all, for two years they had seen more of Maggie than they had of poor Hardin. And Maggie herself… She had said quietly, “I was kind of hoping to get to Kentucky, too, ma’am.”
“I know, but I simply can’t take you there now with things as they are. But as soon as I can manage it, I will send for you. In the meantime, you will be fine with Mrs. Dawson. You know her, and she is a kind mistress.”
“Yes, ma’am. She is.”
That was all that had been said on the subject. But Emily could not shake her feeling that she had not done right by the woman, especially when she saw a tear drip from Maggie’s eye as the servant sat reading the Bible while the children napped. Even that was a reproach, as it had been Hardin’s sister Lucinda, back in Kentucky, who had taught her and all the Helm servants to read. Not even the gowns Emily gave to Maggie—some scarcely worn, but all useless to Emily now that she was in mourning for Hardin—assuaged her guilt. Instead, Maggie in her cast-off gowns seemed to be only a darker, equally gloomy version of herself.
But then the news that her mother was on her way south cast, for the moment, all thoughts of Maggie from Emily’s mind. As Mrs. Todd wanted to spend a few days in Selma with Elodie and Martha, Emily said goodbye to the Bruces in Georgia and traveled there.
Emily had not trusted herself to contain her emotions on meeting her mother for the first time in two years, especially under the present circumstances. Instead, she waited at Elodie’s home while her sisters went to the depot to meet Mrs. Todd’s train from Montgomery.
At last, Emily saw the Dawsons’ carriage come into view. The stately figure inside—dressed in mourning like herself—had not even put both feet to the ground when Emily ran into her arms. “Mama,” she said, her tears keeping her from saying more.
“My darling girl. I wish I could make it right for you; I cannot. But I am here to be useful for you in whatever way I can.”
But Mrs. Todd was a grandmother as well as a mother, and when Emily at last pulled away and made an effort at composing herself, Mrs. Todd turned to beam at the girls and Ben. “Girls, do you remember Grandma? And look at this fine young man! Now, I couldn’t pack much, but I did bring some presents for you.”
As the servants lugged some trunks into the house, their quantity and bulk suggesting that Mrs. Todd’s ideas of light packing were flexible, a colored woman stepped out of the carriage. She curtsied and smiled shyly at the children, who, standing alongside an impassive Maggie, looked warily at her as Mrs. Todd said, “Children, this is Delilah. She will be helping take care of you while…for a while.”
Kate and Dee glared at the interloper, while Ben stuck his thumb into his mouth contemplatively.
Wisely, however, Mrs. Todd gave Delilah the task of opening the largest of the trunks, into which the children promptly delved. The girls squealed as they discovered their presents—a French doll and a coral necklace for each—and Ben happily dragged out anything that took his fancy, ignoring the little train and Noah’s ark designated for him. With difficulty, Mrs. Todd wrested various items from Ben’s possession to hand to her daughters, then nodded at Emily. “These are for you, my dear, just some nice things appropriate for your situation. You mustn’t let yourself go; it will lower your spirits, and poor Hardin would want to see you looking well.”
Emily stared at the pile of goods her mother had handed her—the finest mourning cloth that could be had in Lexington, jet necklace and brooch, and a black bonnet and veil to top it off—and smiled. Woman that she was, she had hated her present mourning attire, which showed all too clearly that it had been assembled in makeshift fashion.
“Tomorrow we’ll go to the dressmaker’s,” Mrs. Todd said. She patted Emily’s hand. “And I have some cod-liver oil for you to take. You look terribly run-down, poor thing.”
“Yes, Mother,” Emily said dutifully.
It was a blessed relief, being told what to do.
* * *
That evening, as a servant helped Emily out of her petticoats and hoop and removed her corset—it being unthinkable in the Dawson household that any white person should disrobe unaided—Emily caught her mother looking closely as Emily stood revealed in nothing but chemise and drawers. She waited until they were alone to say, “I am not pregnant, Mama. I have had two bleeds as proof positive of that.”
Too relieved to scold Emily for speaking so frankly, Mrs. Todd said, “I almost wish it could have been otherwise, but under the circumstances…”
“Yes, I am poor enough as is.”
“What do you have?”
“A couple of hundred dollars in gold—the government was kind enough to pay me Hardin’s unpaid salary in coin instead of our money—and some receipts for cotton that Hardin bought from time to time and stored in Mississippi and Georgia. If I could bring the cotton to market in the North, I would be comfortable for a while.”
Mrs. Todd nodded knowingly. The need of the South for capital and the North for cotton had led to a flourishing trade in cotton between the two enemies, some of it illicit, some of it sanctioned by both the Union and the Confederate governments. Mr. Lincoln had issued a number of permits for the practice.
“You must get Mr. Lincoln to let you sell it.” Mrs. Todd patted Emily’s shoulder as they lay down side by side, and Emily instinctively curled closer to her mother. “And I am sure he will. You were a favorite of his, and goodness knows that after Hardin and your brothers, he owes you some decency.”
“I haven’t even asked you about your own sorrows, Mama.”
“I am trying to bear them like a Christian, child. That is all I can do. But it is hard, especially with Alec. Sam at least left behind something of himself in his daughters. But with Alec, it is almost as if he never walked the earth. At least I know he had a decent burial. That gives me some comfort. That must suffice.”
* * *
A day or so before Emily was set to travel to Richmond, a letter arrived from Mac. He had read in the newspaper of her mother’s arrival in the South—the connection with Mrs. Lincoln making the various Todds’ comings and goings a matter of interest in the press—and was writing in hopes that the letter would reach her before she went North. He thought she would like to know that he had survived the recent Battle of Chattanooga (he did not need to tell her the sad news of the South’s loss there), and asked her if she could send the enclosed letter to his mother, as he did not know if she had gotten his last flag-of-truce letter. He missed Hardin and sometimes found himself talking to him in his head, not in a crazy manner of course. And, to tell the truth, he missed her, just as he missed his sisters. One day, he hoped, he would see her in Kentucky. In the meantime, she would always be in his thoughts, and he hoped he would be in hers.
It was a simple, straightforward, brotherly letter, but something in it made her smile, and something in it made her cry. But then, just about everything made her cry these days.
* * *
The steamer New York from Richmond to Norfolk was full of humanity. There were a couple of gaunt political prisoners, returning to their homes after being exchanged for Southern counterparts; a pathetic clutch of orphans, going to reside with relatives in the North; a few invalids and elderly people headed for specialists or more congenial climates; wives, mothers, and sisters come to tend their wounded; and widows in every stage of mourning. The girls, whose travels thus far had not included a steamer, scurried on deck among them all, and Delilah, who thus far had stayed well in the background, displayed a hitherto unseen force of character by periodically snatching them away from the railing.
None too soon for Emily, who had discovered that travel by water made her slightly queasy, the steamer docked at Fortress Monroe, and a man in a blue uniform boarded the ship, clutching a sheath of papers. “Loyalty oaths,” he said. “Sign them, and you’re free to pass on.”
Their faces showing a gamut of emotions, the Southerners on the boat took the papers, and soon the room was filled with the sound of scratching pens. Emily stared at the paper before her.
I do solemnly swear, in presence of Almighty God, that I will henceforth faithfully support, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and the Union of the States thereunder; and that I will, in like manner, abide by and faithfully support all acts of Congress passed during the existing rebellion with reference to slaves, so long and so far as not repealed, modified, or held void by Congress, or by decision of the Supreme Court; and that I will, in like manner, abide by and faithfully support all proclamations of the President made during the existing rebellion having reference to slaves, so long and so far as not modified or declared void by decision of the Supreme Court: So help me God.
“Ma’am? Isn’t your pen working?”
“I cannot sign this.” Emily held out the paper. “I just cannot.”
“My dear child—”
“Emily, sign it, for heaven’s sake.”
“I have a pass from Mr. Lincoln himself. Isn’t that good enough? I will do nothing to make him rue his generosity. But I cannot take this oath. My husband died fighting for the South! It would be a betrayal of him.”
“Shoo, now, all of you,” the officer said, waving out the oath takers. “You’ll be wanting to get on your way. Ma’am, much as I sympathize with your position as a widow, I cannot let you pass through the lines without you taking the oath. You’ll have to talk to General Benjamin Butler, I suppose.”
“Beast Butler?” asked Martha.
“General Butler, madam. It would do you well to remember that.”
“I’m not the one refusing to take the oath,” Martha said pertly. “She is.”
They followed the soldier to General Butler’s stately headquarters. Leaving them in the parlor, he disappeared and returned with General Butler. Few Yankees, though he had impressive competition, were more loathed by Southerners. When he was the military governor of captured New Orleans, the general had ordered that women who showed contempt for the occupying soldiers would be treated as women of the town, and it was he who had come up with the idea that escaped slaves would be treated as contraband of war instead of being returned to their masters. “I understand we have a problem here,” he said in a milder voice than Emily had expected.
“They want me to take the oath. I cannot.”
“So I heard. Madam, without the oath, I have no power to send you on. I can certainly send you back, though. But is it really such an impossibility? All you have to do is swear to be loyal, which in a nutshell means that you aren’t to commit treason. No one’s asking you to cheer on the Union army or wave the flag.”
