CHAPTER 15
THE PRESIDENT'S BEST FRIEND
She even slept independently. Most women, in his experience, slept in con-
stant contact with him, no matter what size the bed. They would wriggle their
behinds into his midsection or, if his back was turned, would make a chair
with their knees and fit themselves against him. He did not mind that, unless
the night was oppressively hot, which this night was not; in fact, Breckinridge
rather liked having the need for his physical presence shown by his partner in
the bed.
Anna Carroll, however, most often slept face up, arms at her sides, as if at
attention on the hard mattress. When she was sleeping deeply, her face
seemed to shed twenty years. He liked to study her in that horizontal profile:
perfect nose, long eyelashes, sensuous lower lip, the long red hair covering her
naked shoulders. When she went to bed worried, he had noted, the supine-
attention stance was abandoned. Then she lay on her stomach, fighting the
pillow until it found a niche between her substantial breasts and the tip of her
chin. Her head hung forward over the pillow, a frown on her face, an occa-
sional blurred word barked in her sleep.
At no time in either position did the unconscious Anna seek physical con-
tact; unlike most of the women he had known, she was no snuggler. In fact, in
the first year he knew her, she would instinctively draw away when he
touched her. That had changed this year; he could touch her anywhere in
sleep now, and she would sleepily return the pressure. If that did not lead to
intercoursewhich it usually did, and at greater length and intensity than
with any woman he had ever knownshe would return to her deep-sleep
posture of horizontal attention or worried pillow-wrestling. She had become
accessible, in body and mind, welcoming without searching. He had never
told her how much he appreciated that, assuming she would prefer not to be
watched in her sleep.
He slid the sheet down to look at her in the pulsing light of the gas lamp
outside and just below her corner rooms at Ebbitt House. Nose and toes
straight up, ankles together, breasts spilling toward her arms, hands at her
sides, skin luminescent; for a woman who relied on animation and wit for her
attractiveness, she was more beautiful in repose than she knew. Breck had not
realized before how necessary it was for him to have her close, hands meshing
and minds lightly touching, at such a critical moment in his life. For the past
month, he had been standing almost alone for the preservation of the rights in
the Constitution against men who claimed to stand for the preservation of a
sundered Union. The next day, in the Senate, one grim week after the first
awakening bloodshed, he would probe further into the cause of the war. He
would frame the issue of what lay behind what seemed to him Lincoln's
implacable belligerence.
It would have been hard to face this night-before alone. Colonel Ned Ba-
ker's troops at Bladensburg, earlier that evening, had jeered at him cruelly; he
had managed to turn that around with a politician's trick, but found it trou-
bling that the booing came from good men, patriotic Americans, whose deep
resentment of his flirtation with reason probably presaged the response from
the Senate gallery tomorrow.
Cool air stirred the thin window drapery and Anna pulled the sheet back to
cover her legs. He eased his long body out of beda hard bed, because she
had come to the uncomfortable belief that resilient mattreses were bad for the
backand sat on the arm of the armchair near the window facing west. The
Executive Mansion's white walls struck him as splendid in the half-moon's
light. Not a year ago, as part of "Buck and Breck," he had been a breath
away from residence in that house. He had taken pride in the presidential
palace then, and looked proudly on it nownot three blocks from Anna's
windowwondering if Lincoln was having trouble sleeping that night. He
judged, from his brief visit only six hours before, that the President of a
nation at war had finally found some means of repose.
He had never seen Lincoln more relaxed. Breckinridge had to smile at the
picture etched in his memory that afternoon of Ned Baker, flat on his back,
head cushioned by his rolled-up uniform jacket, with his feet up against the
trunk of the great magnolia tree on the long lawn northeast of the President's
house. Lincoln had been sitting on the grass with his back against the same
tree, in a shirt with the tie untied and the collar open, jacket folded neatly
next to him, shoes unlaced. With his huge feet drawn back, Lincoln's knees
were at his eye level; he balanced his tall hat on his knees as he passed the
time of day with a good friend. His son Willie, born long after the child
christened Edward Baker Lincoln had died, was kicking a ball nearby. A
pleasant and peaceful sight on a late afternoon in midsummer, only a week
after the capital had come so close to capture and the United States to mili-
tary humiliation.
The Kentuckian had handed his horse's reins to the stolid Marshal Lamon,
who was minding the mounts about fifty yards from the tree, and walked to
the two men. Half in jest, Breck asked if they were plotting a dictatorship.
Lincoln scowled at that but Baker smiled.
"Dictator is what the country needs," Baker said, rearranging his feet on
the tree trunk, "with men like you in the Senate. You know what this big
galunk did last week, Lincoln? He blocked Senate approval of your right to
suspend habeas corpus."
"They approved everything else," Breckinridge remembered having re-
plied, "blockade, calling up the troops, waging war, all the illegal spending."
The Senate would have gone along with Lincoln's seizure of its power to
make wartime arbitrary arrests, but the senators paused when Breckinridge
reminded them that it was their own constitutionally given power they would
be handing over forever. Protecting the institutional powers of the Senate had
more of an appeal as an argument than any appeal to individual liberty, so the
use of habeas corpus was left out of the resolution of approval of all Lincoln's
warring acts. No outright disapproval, of course, and the President could
continue to use his despotic power, but the argument about who held the
power was postponed until the emergency was over. A small victory, but
enough to give Breckinridge some hope that his continued presence in the
Senate would do the Republic some good.
"Lucky they did," Baker yawned, picking up and pulling a long piece of
leather near Lincoln's coat to change the subject. "This a new whip crack?"
"Cost a quarter at the harness maker's," Lincoln said. "Take it if you need
one, Ned."
"I will." Baker pulled his feet back, rolled, grunted as he rose. He smacked
the whip against his boot, satisfied with the sound. "I invited Breck to see my
regiment in Bladensburg, have-dinner out there tonight. Want some tips on
training from an old Mexican War veteran."
"I was an army lawyer in Mexico," Breckinridge confessed. "You were the
'hero ofCerro Gordo.' " The Kentuckian remembered that episode as a fool-
ish and potentially costly assault uphill against a fort, but carried by Colonel
Baker with help of a couple of junior officers, a Captain Lee and Lieutenant
Grant. A famous victory, but in retrospect it was clear that Baker and his
inexperienced commanders took too great a chance of major defeat.
"Least you weren't in Congress, Breck, giving the President a hard time
about fighting a war of conquest on some false pretext." Baker smiled. Lin-
coln merely winced. Breck knew that few others could make the painful
reference to Congressman Lincoln's opposition to President Polk's war with-
out drawing the ire of the present warring President. Evidently Baker was
supremely secure in his friendship with Lincoln; Breck hoped Lincoln was
not wholly influenced by the passion of his friend to conquer and punish the
South. "Subjugate" was the word Baker took a perverse delight in using.
They bade farewell to the President, who did not rise from his post at the
tree trunk, and left him massaging his aching feet in the shade. On the road to
the Maryland town where the California and Oregon troops were billeted,
Baker made no effort to argue his guest out of strongly held views. Breck
liked that about the combined senator and colonel. Baker had one of those
departmented minds that had a place for political argument, which was the
floor of the Senate, and a place for personal talk, which was at the base of a
tree or a ride out to his regiment.
Ned Baker was Lincoln's age, a decade older than Breckinridge. Thinning
gray hair brought him the sobriquet of the "Gray Eagle," but Baker exuded
an ingratiating optimism that seemed to the Kentuckian to belong to a much
younger man. Perhaps that inclination of Baker's to see life in primary colors,
rejecting the grays of moral issues, had to do with his decision in middle life
to become a Far Westerner, moving from Illinois to represent the Oregon
pioneers, ultimately opening a law practice in San Francisco. If any man
could be said to "run" most of the west coast of the continent, that man was
Senator Edward Baker. Certainly his influence and vigorous campaigning had
much to do with swinging Oregon away from Breckinridge to Lincoln in the
1860 campaign.
Breck saw some of his own proudest characteristics in Baker: informal to
all, convivial with a few, and, above all, loyal to those who had shown loyalty
to him. As Breck was faithful to the Constitution, Baker's fidelity ran to the
Union and to his friends, especially his friend Lincoln. Breck assumed Baker
would do anything for Lincoln, and grant him any power he needed, because
he trusted the President he knew so well to use even the wrong means to
pursue the right ends. The Kentuckian could understand that sense of loyalty
in a friend, but had often tried to make Baker see that a President was more
than a manhe was one of a line of men that could one day include a tyrant.
Evil means, used with good intent, had an insidious way of corrupting the
best of ends.
"I should tell you I'm making a long speech in the Senate tomorrow, Ned,"
he called to the horseman on his left.
"Despotism again? That dog won't hunt. Lincoln doesn't want to be dicta-
tor, he wants to get re-elected."
"Purposes of the war. Need to stop it now. And your goal of 'subjuga-
tion.' " And much more; Breck suspected that the loss at Bull Run had made
Lincoln a captive of Wade and Chase, the outraged radical wing of his party,
who were now pushing him into a war for abolitionism, against all his prom-
ises. If this suspicion was well founded, then Lincoln, under the rubric of
Union, was secretly plotting abolition, which to Breck meant not only perma-
nent disunion, but two hostile powers on the same continent.
"I'll be there this time," his companion had said. "Just try me on subjuga-
tion of the rebels." Baker, Breck knew, blamed himself for not being present
when the Senate was talked out of approving Lincoln's use of arbitrary arrest.
Breck wanted him there this time. Ned Baker was widely known to be Lin-
coln's man in the Senate; moreover, the fiercely honest Far Westerner would
hold nothing back in arguing Lincoln's side. Perhaps he would modify or
even change Break's views on some points; that was a point of pride in the
Kentuckian, that he could make concessions in debate when the other debater
had a better argument. Breckinridge dearly wanted reasons to stay in the
Senate, to believe that his presence saved that body from the excesses of war
fever. The thought of renouncing the Constitution, as Jefferson Davis and the
others did, was more repugnant to Breckinridge than any sacrilege. Let the
radical Republicans say he was heading South; Breckinridge planned to stand
rooted in his place in the United States Senate as long as a majority of
Kentuckians, or at least enough Kentuckians, went along with his view of a
need for a third force in the divided nation.
"I'll be there," Baker repeated, "but don't get on your feet too early. I have
to inspect and drill the troops in the morning."
"McClellan makes a big point of that, I hear."
"He's just a boy, like you, likes parades." They rode a bit, and Baker
added, "Beware a general who's crazy in love with his wife, it makes him
cautious. About tomorrowas soon as I get to the Senate, Breck, I'll rip your
speech to shreds. Then I'll give you a few minutes for rebuttal, because I feel
sorry for a loner."
They reached camp in Bladensburg in time for the retreat ceremony. With
the sixteen hundred men of his regiment drawn up in front of the flagpole,
Colonel Baker announced with some pride "a distinguished visitor, our for-
mer Vice President and now the senator from Kentucky, John Cabell Breck-
inridge."
A loud groan went up from the ranks, followed by booing and catcalls. The
men had read the newspapers, and knew John Breckinridge to be the one who
led the Senate opposition to the war. Breck, stung, showed no emotion, mur-
muring only "Not many votes in this crowd" to Baker, who was red-faced at
the rude reception.
"Captain," Colonel Baker ordered in a ringing voice, "you will apologize
on behalf of the officers of the California regiment for this insulting behavior
to a guest."
A captain rode up, snapped a salute, and expressed his regret. Baker called
for the sergeant major, who did a better job: "Senator Breckinridge, on behalf
of the noncommissioned officers, I want to apologize for this breach of disci-
pline, and assure you the regiment will be punished for this discourtesy to a
guest of the colonel."
Breck turned to Baker and used a bit of tradition that always made a hit
with the cadets at West Point. "Do you offer guests the privilege of amnesty?"
Baker, suppressing a smile, nodded.
"Then I request that the infraction be forgiven forthwith," said the visitor
solemnly, "and that soldiers under restriction for other minor offenses be
relieved of such restriction."
"Granted," snapped Baker loudly, adding under his breath, "You should
have been in politics."
The sergeant major led three cheers for the visiting senator, and ranks were
broken for dinner. After sunset, Baker broke out the best Tennessee corn
whiskey and the two men told stories of Lincoln's days in Congress opposing
Polk's Mexican War. Breck counseled his host to choose soon between the
army and the Senate, because a straddle would diminish his capacity to fight
and someBreckinridge among themwould object to a military uniform
on the floor of the Senate. Baker confided that a concern for that problem led
him to turn down a general's commission; as an officer of lesser rank, he
thought, he could remain in the Senate to support Lincoln during this crucial
session. After it ended, he would stop straddling. He had made the decision to
resign from the Senate to fight the war, and Lincoln would soon make him a
major general of volunteers. He would be the President's trusted man in the
army; if the war lasted until the next year, as Breck expected, and if McClel-
lan fell short of expectations or proved to be politically unsound, Baker would
be a good bet for a high command.
Breck rode back from Bladensburg to Washington alone, wondering how
such a good politician and soldier, with such a keen lawyer's mind, could be
so monumentally wrong about the burning issue of his time.
How could he seriously believe that one half of a country could conquer
and subjugate the other half, and still maintain the pretence of being a democ-
racy? Wasn't it all predicated on the consent of the governed? Even if con-
quest were possible, what sort of country would emerge, half oppressive occu-
pier and half embittered occupied? Didn't Baker see the quagmire ahead, and
the certain failure even if his most bloody-minded hopes of crushing conquest
were realized? When Baker talked of subjugation, he reminded Breck of Rose
Greenhow: both partizans refused to see that the survival of democracy in
such a nation would be impossible.
Breck pushed the question further: did Baker speak for Lincoln? Where the
President was cagey, Baker was forthright; where Lincoln kept his counsel
and balanced his support, Baker made no bones about the object of the war.
The Kentuckian suspected that the two best friends saw eye to eye, which
offered the bleakest of prospects.
Breck's horse delivered him to his dark home near the Capitol, but he
could not make himself go inside. Instead, he had directed the animal toward
Ebbitt House and Anna.
The possibility that she might not be alone had not occurred to him until
he was halfway up the stairs. He stopped, considered the chances that she had
another guest, thought of the embarrassment and awkwardness of such a
moment, and then continued his climb. There was no way of sending a note
ahead. He would take for granted that she slept alone when he was otherwise
engaged, though she had never made any such commitment to him. If an-
other man was there, the politician in Breckinridge would think of something
to say; he would be walking more of a tightrope in the Senate the next day,
and he needed to be with the only person who knew fully what was going on
in his mind. As he approached her hallway door, he found himself biting
down on the toothache in his mind of her possible infidelity, if it could be
called that. The married Breckinridge reminded himself that it could not.
She had been working on a pamphlet and the delight on her face at his
surprise visit had warmed him. Nowseated on the arm of the chair at the
window, looking past the Mansion toward the Potomac and the battle lines
he savored the recollection of the way she gulped down the news of his
moment with Lincoln and evening with Baker.
A Reply to Breckinridge was the title of the pamphlet she had been working
on, which struck him as a little presumptuous, playing as it did on Daniel
Webster's immortal Reply to Hayne, when those giants of Massachusetts and
South Carolina had addressed today's issue in their own time. However, as
the only pamphleteer who fully understood the import of his attack on the
war power of the President, and as the only woman he knew with a grasp of
the ideas embodied in the Constitution, Anna was entitled to some degree of
presumption.
Before the lovemaking, as she turned down the light she had warned him
against getting hot under the collar in debate the next day, because every
word he said was being taken down and could be used in expulsion proceed-
ings against him. Debates, especially vigorous sallies against men whose opin-
ion you respect, did suck a speaker into saying more than he planned. He was
determined that that would not be the case with him tomorrow. He hoped
Ned Baker would commit some degree of excess, giving him the opening he
needed to expose the iron fist of conquest in Lincoln's velvet glove. At the
same time, he hoped Ned's passion would not take him to the point of per-
sonal political threats. That would be a source of trouble. Not everybody
realized that personal friendship could survive political enmity, or that mu-
tual respect in debate could make civilized discourse possible even in the most
barbaric of times. Baker had the power, as no other senator did, to fan into a
blaze the resentments that smoldered around Breckinridge; the Kentuckian
hoped his opponent would not assume that his colleagues would be as filled
with the spirit of comity after intellectual combat as Baker was himself.
The east wall of the Mansion was picking up the first light. It had been
James Madison's notion to paint the dull sandstone of the Mansion a brilliant
white, in the reconstruction of the President's house after the British had
burned it in the War of 1812. Breck put that down as a good idea: the white
house seemed to awaken the neighborhood in the dawn. White suggested
purity and honor, he mused, as well as cold and death; the Roman senators
wore white togas, and the Roman legions laid white lilies on soldiers' graves.
He allowed his mind to dwell on such morbid thoughts for a time, then broke
off abruptly as Anna stirred beneath her sheet. He thought then of the moral
compromises he had so readily made to open the way to this unique love, and
of the political compromises he was finding it so difficult to make to become
again a contender for the white Mansion across the way. His conscience was
becoming dangerously selective. It occurred to him, as the sun's rays struck
the President's house and the city sounds rose, that a little less fervor and a
little more caution would be the best course in debating the President's best
friend on the subject of constitutional compromises needed to put down an
armed rebellion.