The First Lady and the Rebel, page 32
“I think it would be obvious. Your husband served the Confederacy, and one of your brothers is still enlisted in its army. Another is a surgeon for the rebels. Your father-in-law’s loyalty to the Union is dubious at best. You fed Morgan’s men—”
“After they were kind enough to leave my horses untouched.”
“They spared your horses, and not those of your neighbors. Your mother dines regularly with Mrs. Morgan. You and your sisters have provided comfort and support to the Confederate prisoners here and at Camp Douglas, and none to the Union soldiers in our hospitals.”
“There are plenty to look after the Union patients! I have only done what is humane, for my late husband’s sake.” Emily impatiently swatted at a remaining tear. “You do know that I am your president’s sister-in-law.”
“Yes, madam.”
“Then I will show you this.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out Mr. Lincoln’s protection order, which she had got into the habit of carrying since General Burbridge had taken charge. “If you continue to harass me in this matter, you will be violating his own order.”
Her companion studied the order, then said crisply, “We are not harassing you, madam. Simply warning you about some of your dubious activities. You may go now.” He handed her Mac’s letter. “And I see no need for us to retain this, under the circumstances.”
Emily snatched up the letter and stalked home.
* * *
Early in September, Emily, walking by the telegraph office, heard a commotion, followed by a cheer. A soldier ran out and shouted to his comrades, “We’ve taken Atlanta!”
Atlanta, the Confederacy’s largest prize next to Richmond. Atlanta, where she had spent her last days with Hardin and laid him to rest. Emily needed no newspapers to tell her what a blow this was to the South; she only had to listen to the joyful cries of Lexington’s Unionists as she trudged home.
In this case, though, the South’s misfortunes could prove a boon to her own; with Atlanta within Union lines, and more of Georgia surely to follow, it was time to renew her quest to retrieve and then sell her cotton. She considered writing to Mr. Lincoln, but decided a personal appeal would be more suitable. Goodness knew what lies he had been told about her by Burbridge’s men, although they had left her alone since her visit to headquarters.
It was late October when she arrived in Washington and secured a lodging at the Metropolitan Hotel—not wanting this time to be a guest of the Lincolns, although she could ill afford the expense until she could sell her cotton. She found a city full of good humor, both from the fine fall weather and from the most recent Southern defeat at Cedar Creek in Virginia. It did not match her own mood. Last month had marked the first anniversary of Hardin’s death, and Mac’s demise—along with the slow unraveling of the Southern cause for which both men had given their lives—had made the occasion yet more sad. Even General Morgan was dead, ambushed and shot by Union troops.
From her brief stay at the White House the year before, Emily knew that there were certain times when Mr. Lincoln attended to petitions, and had arranged her visit accordingly. Although it would have been an easy matter to be admitted to Mary’s presence, she decided to take care of her business first. A successful outcome would put her in a better humor anyway.
With the election just days away, there were few office seekers in the crowded room where she took a seat. Instead, the room was full of her sister women, some there to beg for the lives of men sentenced to die by military justice, others to plead that their sons or husbands be allowed to come home to help with neglected farms or care for motherless children. One by one, they left the room and returned, most with tears of gratitude streaming down their faces.
At last, Emily’s turn arrived, and she walked in to find Mr. Lincoln sitting at his desk, wringing out a hand aching from being grasped. “Why, Little Sister! Why didn’t you tell us you were coming here?”
“Sir, I need your help desperately. If I am not allowed to secure my cotton now, it may be destroyed. I need my permit now.”
Mr. Lincoln shook his head. “Why didn’t you write to me? I could have given you an answer without you going to the trouble of coming here. Wasted trouble, I am sorry to say. I can’t give you what you seek. Not now.” He gazed at Emily’s stricken face. “Unless you are willing to take the oath.”
“No!”
“So I thought.” Mr. Lincoln searched through a mound of papers. It was a task that looked as if it could take hours, but he found what he sought surprisingly quickly. “This is a letter I received about you, telling me that there was enough against you to arrest you but that you had foiled the effort by showing your pass from me. Giving information to General Morgan and his men. Passing messages to the South. Aiding and comforting our enemies. I wrote to Burbridge telling him that if you had in fact done these things, the pass I gave you protected you only against harassment for the mere circumstance of you being Hardin’s widow, and that it would not protect you against the consequences of any rebellious actions.”
“Sir, I had not met General Morgan since I was a young girl, and I never passed any message to him or his men. I have written to my sisters in Selma and to a good friend in the Confederate army, now dead, but I have told them absolutely nothing that could compromise the North—indeed, all my letters were sent through flag of truce. All I have done is feed a couple of Morgan’s men, who were hungry and had spared our horses, and bring what comfort I can to Southern prisoners.”
“I believe you. And the fact that you haven’t been arrested tells me that Burbridge had sense enough to see the accusations for what they were worth.” He started to insert the letter back into the pile, but changed his mind and tossed it into the fire. “But the fact remains that you’ve refused to take the oath of loyalty, and still refuse to take it, and while you haven’t worked against us, you’ve made it perfectly clear which side you’re on. And there’s your sister Mrs. White. We could have probably clapped her in prison for carrying contraband—what woman needs that many trunks? Instead, we let her pass back to the South, where she mocked us for the amusement of the rebel government. I’ve got a thick skin, but I’m no fool, and I also happen to want to get reelected. I’ve not fought this war for all this time not to see it through to the end, and I’m not going to give my enemies a feast by letting another rebel Todd pass into the South. Your cotton’s kept this long. It will keep some more.”
“It could be destroyed, or taken!”
“That’s a chance your husband took when he invested in cotton with a war raging around him. I won’t be held responsible for his gamble.”
“Gamble!” Emily rose. “I will not stay to have his memory insulted.”
“Not insulting him; just stating a fact. But you’re right. There’s no point in continuing this conversation, except to say that I want you to have your cotton, that I have every intention of helping you get it when the right time comes, and that I’ll do what I can to protect it in the meantime—which may not be much at the moment.” He rose. “I suppose you will be seeing Mary?”
“No. I will wait for happier circumstances. Goodbye, sir.”
* * *
There was black crepe on the door of the Todds’ rented house when Emily returned to Lexington, having accomplished nothing but to deplete the little that remained to her of Hardin’s pay. She stared at Kitty as her sister opened the door. “What is this?”
“Levi died a couple of days ago. Mama nursed him. His funeral was held here yesterday. She’s upstairs resting.”
Emily hurried upstairs to her mother’s room, where Mrs. Todd lay in bed. “Mama! Are you not well?”
Her mother opened her eyes. “Just very tired, my child.” She sat up. “Your brother had a hard death. Delirium tremens. He had such promise when I married your father.”
“And I was not here to help you, but wasting my time in Washington.”
“So it did not go well? Well, there’s little you could have done here, and Kitty was a great help. At least he had a lucid moment at the very end. He apologized for any wrongs he had done to me and to my children and told me that he had written to Mr. Lincoln, begging him for a loan, but heard nothing. He had pawned everything of value, including your father’s watch. I shall try to redeem it so that David can have it.”
“Mr. Lincoln would do nothing for him?”
“Apparently not. I had to pay for his funeral.”
Emily clenched her fists. “Go back to sleep, Mama.”
She left her mother and went to her own room. There, scarcely acknowledging the greetings of her children, Emily sat at a desk and began to write.
30th Oct. 1864—
Lexington. Ky—
Mr. Lincoln—
Upon arriving at Lexington, after my long tedious unproductive and sorrowful visit to you, I found my Mother stretched upon a sick bed, made sick by the harrowing and shocking death of your Brother in law, and my half Brother Levi Todd—He died from utter want and, another sad victim to the powers of more favored relations—With such a sad, such a dreadful lesson, I again beg and plead attention & consideration to my petition to be permitted to ship my cotton & be allowed a pass to go South to attend to it—My necessities are such that I am compelled to urge it—The last money I have in the world I used to make the unfruitful Appeal to you. You cannot urge that you do not know them for I have told you of them. I have been a quiet citizen and request only the right which humanity and Justice always give to Widows and Orphans. I also would remind you that your minié bullets have made us what we are & I feel I have that additional claim upon you—
Will you reply to this—If you think I give way to excess of feeling, I beg you will make some excuse for a woman almost crazed with misfortune—
Respectfully,
Emily Todd Helm
For a few minutes, after addressing the letter to “Mr. A. Lincoln, Washington City,” she debated about whether to send it. Then she snatched up her bonnet and marched to the post office.
27
Mary
November 1864 to March 1865
“I had a letter today,” Mary told Mr. Lincoln when he emerged from his office. “My brother Levi is dead. It is sad news, but with his dissipation, I am surprised it took this long.”
The letter, from her sister Kitty, could hardly be dignified as such, Mary thought. With the note, “I thought you should know this,” Kitty had simply enclosed a newspaper clipping of Levi’s obituary from one of the Lexington papers.
“So I just learned myself from Emily,” Mr. Lincoln said. He held up a letter. “Evidently I am at fault.”
“At fault! How on earth?”
“According to her, he died of utter want and destitution. I suppose his craving for liquor might have played a role, too, but she doesn’t mention that. A few weeks back he sent me a begging letter, mixed in with news of Lexington and assurances that he could help get me elected.” The President shook his head sadly. “He wanted a couple of hundred dollars. He did say he was ill, but also that he was getting better. I assumed that anything I sent would be used to fund his sprees, so I did nothing. Now I wish I had sent him something—maybe through your stepmother or Emily.”
“If he did not know he was dying, you cannot be blamed for not knowing that he was. And he hasn’t provided for his children in years. Why should you provide for him?”
“Well, I feel bad about it anyway. Your sister’s also angry about her cotton.”
Mr. Lincoln had told her about Emily’s meeting with him. The sheer impertinence of her sister, not to even bother to call upon her! “Still? Surely my sister must understand that her silly cotton is not your first priority. May I see the letter?”
“No, it would only annoy you.”
“Then I will see it.” Before Mr. Lincoln could protest, Mary took it from his hand. “Why, this is outrageous! She knows as well as anyone that Levi courted his own death; what could you do? ‘Your minié bullets have made us what we are.’ Why, if the South had stayed in the Union, like people of sense, there would have been no need for minié bullets, yours or theirs! ‘Yours’ as if you did not try to keep the Union together.” Mary handed the letter back to her husband. “I shall let you store this with whatever other treasonous communications you receive. Next, she’ll be blaming you for starting the slave trade!”
Mr. Lincoln shrugged. “She’ll come round to her senses. You Todd ladies always do.”
* * *
Election Day—November 8, 1864—did not so much arrive as it did crawl. Mary had not lost her optimism that Mr. Lincoln would prevail over his Democratic opponent, General McClellan, but she also was well aware that optimism had often proved unfounded over the course of the war.
It was a dreary, rainy day. The White House was empty of nearly everyone but the family and the staff, and even Washington itself had a deserted air, as many of its men had returned to their home states to vote. Mary did not often contemplate the fact that ladies were denied this privilege, but on this day, she wished she could be at the polling place in Springfield, casting her ballot for her husband as any woman of sense would surely do.
Her frustration was shared by Tad, who, also being unable to vote, had to content himself with rallying every man of age he encountered to do so. His parents had barely breakfasted when Tad raced in and tugged his father’s shoulder. “The Pennsylvania men are voting for you! Come see!”
Mr. Lincoln duly followed him, as did Mary, to a window, where they had an excellent view of the soldiers, who were stationed on the White House grounds, casting their ballots, all of which were the right color. Amid them trotted Tad’s turkey, spared from the dinner table by the President. “What’s he doing?” Mr. Lincoln asked. “Is he voting?”
“No,” said Tad. “He’s not of age.”
At seven in the evening, Mr. Lincoln gathered up his umbrella and the cane that Mary insisted he carry for self-protection (when he bothered to remember it) and walked to the War Department to await election dispatches. It was so well established that the vigil was an all-male affair that Mary did not even ask to go with him: as she had in the 1860 election, she would have to await the result from the comfort of her armchair.
Presently, Mr. Lincoln sent a message: early returns were encouraging. Another hour brought a second equally promising message. By then, however, Mary needed no such dispatches. She had the crowd collecting outside, growing larger and more boisterous by the hour even as the rain poured down, to tell her all she needed to know.
Tad, whom no one had suggested sending to bed even if he had been willing, stood beside her, watching the umbrellas bobbing in front of the White House fence. “Do you think Pa won?” he said as a band struck up a tune.
“Yes,” said the President behind them. “Pa won. At least, it’s all but certain. And for all the work the next four years is going to be, it’s a sweet victory.”
Mary and Tad stepped aside as the President, giving in to the clamor of the crowd, opened the window and raised his voice. “I do not impugn the motives of anyone opposed to me. It is no pleasure to me to triumph over anyone; but I give thanks to the Almighty for this evidence of the people’s resolution to stand by free government and the rights of humanity.”
Mary shut her eyes in a quick prayer of gratitude. Not for herself—although the victory had certainly saved her from an onslaught of creditors. For the nation, which had chosen to pursue the war to victory rather than to conclude the cowardly peace that McClellan had proposed. For all those who had died in the Union cause. Most of all, for her husband, who had been so vilified and was now vindicated.
But was not she vindicated in a way as well? She had stood beside him all through this terrible war, through the terrible blow of Willie’s death, and although she did not pretend to have borne the latter as patiently as he had, she had nonetheless borne it. She had stood with him under enemy fire. And with God’s grace, they would stand through the next four years together.
* * *
In January, Bob returned from Harvard Law School, where he had somewhat sullenly enrolled after his most recent appeal to enlist had failed. He came on a late train and arrived at breakfast at the last possible moment, so Mary had no chance for private conversation with him. After some strained small talk, he said, “Father, you said we could talk in your office.”
“And we will.” The President stood. “Excuse us, Molly.”
“Can I come?” Tad said.
“No,” Bob said.
“Then I’ll let Tabby sit at your place,” Tad said, and his cat hopped up on Bob’s chair smugly.
Presently, the men appeared in Mary’s sitting area. Mr. Lincoln cleared his throat. “Molly, Bob and I have arrived at an agreement. Bob still wants to see some of the war, and I no longer believe it fair to deny him his wish. So I will write to General Grant and ask that Bob be allowed to serve on his staff. I can’t say for certain, but I guess he’ll agree. If not, we’ll try something else, but for now, that’s the plan.”
His expression and tone were clear: he would brook no objections. And what objection could she make? No longer could she press the need to stay at Harvard: Bob had obtained his college degree, and a degree from Harvard Law, while desirable, was not essential. After all, his father had done perfectly well as a lawyer without any higher education. Furthermore, it was not entirely a defeat for her, as her wishes had been taken into consideration. Bob would likely not see combat, although on General Grant’s staff he would be far too close to the fighting in Virginia for Mary’s comfort.
So there was nothing to do but say, “I hope General Grant is agreeable. He certainly should be.”
Following the example of graciousness in victory his father had set two months before, Bob said, “Thank you, Mother. It does mean a lot to me, having a chance to serve.”
