there, including Kate, and I would hate to read about it coming in from a
cold and lonely patrol.
After Stanton had hustled out, I told the Tycoon about his interview with
Madam, which rather pleased him. I said he had hired an opinionated, impol-
itic, and highly excitable man as his Secretary of War.
Reminded him, etc. "Some Westerners had a Methodist preacher who got
himself all worked up," said the Prsdt, "hellfire-and-brimstone, exhorting
them at the top of his lungs, jumping up and down in the pulpit. Finally they
came up with a solution to the fervent preachingthey put bricks in his
pockets. We may have to do that with old Mars, but I guess we'll let him
jump awhile first."

CHAPTER 13
THE BALL WITH NO DANCING
Kate Chase descended the stairway in their home, ten blocks from the Execu-
tive Mansion, looking as dazzling as she knew how. Her dress, bought for the
occasion at A. Stewart in Philadelphia, was caf6-au-lait lace; she intended the
buttons high to her neck to de-emphasize her lack of bosom and call attention
to her graceful neck. The hoop in her skirt was smaller than the fashion, but
she had asked for it that way because she wanted to move closer to people.
Kate Chase went to parties not to be an island but ametropolis, not to be
circled by admirers but to extend her father's network of influence.
As she neared the bottom of the stairs, she could hear her father speaking
sternly to Jay Cooke, the financier, in the library. "If they can't come up with
fifty million this week, I'll print paper money until it costs a thousand dollars
to buy breakfast!"
He used that threat often, but rarely to Mr. Cooke, the Philadelphian he
had chosen to be chief financier of the war. Jay Cooke was a man Kate
admireddynamic, shrewd, unafraid to admit to his financial ambitions
and he would, she was sure, be helpful in raising the money for a future Chase
presidential campaign. The ball gown she was wearing had been purchased
through Cookeactually by Cooke, since he had been thoughtful enough not
to send the bill. That was a small confidence the two of them did not feel the
need to share with her father. The Secretary of the Treasury was almost
ostentatiously stiff about accepting favors from anyone, setting a standard for
Stanton to follow, but Kate, who did the Chase family bookkeeping, was
more aware than her father of the low state of their funds at the moment. The
Chases were almost as broke as the country, which struck her as fitting.
Perhaps, if the nation's affairs reached a state where it cost a thousand dollars
for breakfast, it would be easier to pay off their overdue bills.
"You mustn't use that tone of voice to Mr. Cooke, Father," she said,
entering modestly, deliberately not sweeping in as her younger sister would.
"I'm sure he's doing his best."
"You ought to listen to her, Chase," Cooke said. The banker looked at her
with obvious delight: "Look at her, too. Wish my daughter looked like that."
Cooke was forty, like an uncle to her, and because he was not a beau, she felt
she could accept the gown.
"Stanton wrote a draft for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to Indi-
ana's militia today, my dear," her father told her, "and the United States
Treasury doesn't have the money to cover it. To use the vernacular of the
banking system, that check will bounce as if made of rubber. I am hoping our
friend Jay will pass on to his banker friends the urgency of the nation's need
for a loan."
"Rest assured I shall drive home that point," Cooke said, still looking at
the girl in the gown he had secretly bought for her, "And also the fact that
you now have the ability to print United States notes, thanks to the Legal
Tender Act."
"That too, I suppose," Chase said heavily, in the tone she recognized from
their Sundays in church when he was called upon to accept the inevitable. "I
am ashamed to be associated with that betrayal of the public trust."
Kate took his arm and drew him down for a kiss. He really did lose sleep
over the country's danger. She took the arm of both men and pleased them by
saying no woman in Washington had handsomer escorts to the ball.
Mary Todd Lincoln pulled the sleeves down a little farther, helping the
dress accentuate her fine shoulders and breasts. She had chosen white satin
overlaid with black lace, and a flounce of black lace on one shoulder. Nobody
wore black and white these daysthis was the year for pinks and shades of
purplebut because Queen Victoria's consort, Prince Albert, had recently
died, and because Thurlow Weed had written that the Prince had been so
influential in averting a war with Britain, Mary thought it would be appropri-
ate for at least part of the wardrobe of the President's lady to acknowledge
the British Government's official mourning. She made a mental note to tell
that to Mr. Russell, the awful London Times man, and to Lord Lyons, the
nice ambassador. That is, if she could find Lyons at the party; he was a
bachelor and would probably be giving his attention to Kate Chase, like the
rest of them.
"Whew!" her husband exclaimed, "our cat has a long tail tonight." Lin-
coln, in his plain black suit, raised his eyebrows at her dress's elegant train,
and then at the near-bareness of his wife's bosom. She did not deign to reply.
"Mother, it is my opinion, if some of that tail was nearer the head, it would
be in better style."
What did Abraham Lincoln know about style? It was all she could do to
get him to keep his shoes on in the daytime. The residue of the Todd family's
disapproval of her match lingered even now: they were all convinced she had
married beneath her station. She had seen strength and dignity where others
had seen awkwardness and boorishness, and tonight, at her first White House
grande lev6e, she would show all the Todds and their friends, North and
South, that she had been right in her choice, and she would show the world
that her husband had the foremost lady in the nation on his arm.
"I have arranged for Lisabeth to stay in Willie's room this evening," she
said, examining in the mirror the striking headdress of natural white roses in
her hair. Willie's fever had not abated; she remembered her lost Eddie, and
she worried. Willie, more than any of them, was the joy of her life;
Abraham's too. Taddie was loved in a different way; he was to be protected.
She hoped he would not catch Willie's fever, but could not keep the boys
apart.
"Maybe we should have called this party off," he said, the melancholy look
crossing his face.
"Not at the last minute. Washington society hates me enough as it is." The
idea for a great reception like this, a musicale and midnight supper, had been
her break with tradition: up to now, entertaining at the Executive Mansion
had been limited to small dinners, or to huge receptions open to all comers on
New Year's Day or the Fourth of July. Here was Mary Todd Lincoln's inno-
vation, an invited grand reception with music, which would have been a ball
had it not been for the war and Ben Wade's nasty letter. The ladies of Wash-
ingtonthose matrons remaining after the leaders of Southern society had
been forced out of townwere waiting for Mrs. Lincoln to prove their gossip
right. They said she was a Western bumpkin, wife of a man amusingly
cartooned as a baboon, incapable of entertaining in high style. She would
show them; she had redecorated the Mansionat too great expense, perhaps,
but with great tasteand her parties would prove that she was as elegant as
any of them. She would be a conscientious mother, too, visiting Willie fre-
quently through the evening.
"Well, Mother, who must I talk to tonightshall it be Mrs. Douglas?" She
knew he enjoyed the company of the widow of his former political rival.
"That deceitful woman! No, you shall not listen to her flattery." Addie
Douglas, with her syrupy voice and languorous eyes, told him everything he
wanted to hear. Mary Lincoln pinned a diamond brooch on the sleeve oppo-
site the flounce of lace, and nodded; that went well with the pearl bracelet.
Were the diamond earrings too much? She thought not.
"What do you say to Miss Chase?" he asked, she thought mischievously.
"She is too young and handsome to practice deceit."
"You know well enough, Mr. Lincoln, that I do not approve of your flirta-
tions with silly women, just as if you were a beardless boy, fresh from
school."
He was trying to get his huge hand into a white glove, with an expression
of mock gravity. "I insist I must talk to somebody," he said, pushing her
patience further. "I can't stand around like a simpleton and say nothing."
"Anybody you like, just not Mrs. Douglas or Miss Chase. I detest them
both." She did not want to hear the next day that the daughter of the Secre-
tary of the Treasury had captivated the President. This was to be Mary
Lincoln's night, the center stage shared with nobody else.
"Very well, Mother. Now that we have settled the question to your satisfac-
tion"he proffered his arm, which she took, "we will go downstairs."
Robert Lincoln, home from Harvard, waited for his parents to come out so
that he could walk downstairs with them. It was hard to get a minute to talk,
what with the concern about Willie and the preparations for the big party. On
the subject troubling him, the eldest son was eager to speak to both parents
together: talking to Father alone was hard, and he could never pry a decision
out of Mother alone. Getting them together was not easy; he could not go to
them early in the morning, because they never slept in the same room, and
lately his father had taken to sleeping with Taddie on the end of his bed.
Robert repressed the tug of jealousy; that sort of intimacy had never been
shown to him.
"I have to tell you an incident that happened on the way down from
Cambridge," he began, hoping to break the ice.
"Have you looked in on your brother?" his father said. "Willie's not been
well."
"I will." Always Willie. "Mother, you look lovely. Anyway, I was buying
my sleeping car reservations from the conductor on the platform just where
you board the train in Boston. There's a space between the platform and the
train, do you know? The crowd started to push, and I guess I wasn't looking,
and I stepped into that crack and started to drop. Really, I was helpless. Then
I could feel my coat collar grabbed and somebody pulled me up out of dan-
ger. You know who the man who saved me was? It was Edwin Booth, the
famous actor."
"I've seen him perform," said his father. "You should send him a note.
Look in on Willie now, he needs cheering up."
Time was slipping away; they were at the stairs leading to the crowded
party. Robert breathed deep and blurted it all at once: "Now that I have you
both here, I want to talk to you about joining the army. Sixteen of my
classmates at Harvard have volunteered, and at age twenty it just isn't seemly
for anyone, especially me, to be in college during a war. If I"
"Not now," said his father, irritated.
"I couldn't bear it," said his mother. "I know you're being manly and
noble, my darling, and I want you to do what you think is best, but I'm so
frightened you may never come back to us."
"Father?"
"This is not the time."
It was never the time. Coming into public view at the beginning of a big
reception was hardly the best time for a discussion of his future, Robert
granted, but he had no alternative. There was no good time to bring this up:
Father was still angry with him for asking if his roommate could have a
commission, to the point of threatening to pull him out of college if Robert
sought political favor for anyone again. He had been ashamed of himself later
for that, but unashamed about wanting to serve in the army and not wanting
to be called a shirker. Mother was a worrier and had always been overly
protective, but Father should be on his side about this. He followed a few
steps behind them into the public eye, trying to conceal his disappointment by
making his face a mask.
The new Secretary of War knew that the way to suborn a newspaper editor
was to take him into his confidence. Charles Dana was the key to Horace
Greeley, who controlledor at least, in Stanton's opinion, had an inordinate
effect uponLincoln's attitudes on slavery and the use of negroes as soldiers.
With the backing of Greeley's Tribune, Stanton would not have to worry
about Bennett's irksome Herald or bother with Raymond's stolidly loyal
Times.
"I want you to know how grateful I am for your editorial column upon my
appointment," he told Dana, "but you must be carefulpraise makes me
vulnerable to jealousy." He looked over toward George McClellan, who was
holding forth to a group of officers. He was pale, but obviously on the mend.
"You have enemies," Dana told him, "and some of them have ways to
reach Greeley."
Stanton sensed an opening: perhaps Greeley had a less than enthusiastic
supporter in his own chief lieutenant. "As soon as I get the machinery of this
office working," he assured the editor, "I shall move. First I have to get the
rats cleared out and the rat holes stopped."
"We hear the Army of the Potomac is going to sit out the winter," Dana
told him. He was correctly informed.
"This army has got to fight or run away," Stanton promised. "While men
are striving nobly in the West, the champagne and oysters on the Potomac
must be stopped." That was a direct slap at the elegant parties McClellan
liked to attend, and an indirect derogation of tonight's affair, as much as
Stanton dared.
"I hear that there is movement out West, even as we speak," said the
editor. "Our correspondent reports that Admiral Foote and General Grant
are already moving boats and men toward the forts protecting the Tennessee
River."
"You haven't printed that yet, have you?" Stanton was alarmed; perhaps
Halleck and the command out West was taking Lincoln's General War Order
No. I seriously. Why hadn't Stanton been informed? Why should newspaper-
men know more about the conduct of the war than the Secretary of War?
"Dana, you appear to me to be a patriot and I shall take you into my trust.
Tomorrow I intend to take an action that will have every newspaper in the
country furious at me."
"Censorship," said Dana, not surprised. "About time."
Stanton was thunderstruck. Whose side was Dana on, that of the press or
the government?
"Greeley and Raymond won't like it," Dana went on. "James Gordon
Bennett will be especially angry because he has the best men in the field. But I
think you're rightthe rebels should not learn our plans by just reading our
newspapers. I figured that was what you had in mind by taking over the
telegraph lines."
"Dana, if you can calm Greeley down on this, you will be doing the cause
of the war a great service."
"I may have my troubles with Greeley," Dana said circumspectly. Stanton
wondered what he was getting atwas there more than minor friction at the
Tribune? Could Dana be used now, perhaps be detached from journalism and
then used by the government in another capacity?
"Whatever troubles you have in keeping Greeley aggressive," Stanton said
with care, "and whatever your patriotism costs you in your career, that will
be carefully considered here." As Dana nodded, Stanton decided to make the
offer more specific. "One day you might want to serve your country here,
right across the street. At the propitious moment, say the word."
Dana nodded again. Stanton felt sure he had him.
"Cloth is hot."
Elizabeth Keckley removed the wet cloth from Willie's brow, immersed it
in the pan of cool water, wrung it out, and replaced it on the fevered forehead
of the President's middle son. The bilious fever, which had lasted for over a
month, had wasted the boy, and showed no signs of abating. It should have
passed by now, she calculated; it was probably the same fever that struck
General McClellan, and he was up and around. Some people were better able
to throw it off than others.
"My pony?"
"He's fine. Your father and Tad go over to the stable every night." That
was no story; Lincoln and his youngest son made sure Willie's pony was
taken care of, and reported to Willie that the animal missed him.
The modiste sat silently in the dark, listening to the boy's breathing and the
sounds of the party below. Twice tonight the President had come in, said a
few words of comfort to his son, felt his hot hand, and returned to his guests.
Mrs. Lincoln had come in briefly with her son Robert; in the shaft of light
spilling from the open hall door Lizzie could see Willie smile at his older
brother. It was said that Robert favored his mother, and it was trtie that his
face resembled hers, but he had his father's remoteness. Willie had his fa-
ther's swings in mood, from inexplicable sadness to sudden laughter and the
urge to share the humor with everybody, and in her judgment was the one
through whom Lincoln saw his spirit living on.
The party below was not a good idea, the negro woman decided. Mrs.
Lincoln had staked too much on it, and in her mind had irrationally linked
the ball, which could not be canceled, and her son's fever, which no bed rest
or cool bath could long control. Mrs. Lincoln seemed to her friend the mo-
diste always on the edge of breaking. She could not join in the general hatred
of the South, where her relatives lived, but she was a loyal enough Unionist
with no desire to protect slavery. She was worried almost to distraction about
Willie, having lost one boy to illness already, and refused to let Robert go
near danger. President Lincoln was in a fix about that, Mrs. Keckley knew,
torn between the boy's desire to enlist and his wife's need for him not to
enlist. Besides, there was the talk of favoritism, keeping the boy out of uni-
form. Lincoln, she felt sure, would put up with the criticism and Robert's
pleading in order to keep his wife from losing her mind.
Was "losing her mind" too strong? Lizzie Keckley thought no; Mrs. Lin-
coln was a good woman in more trouble, with more pressing down on her,
than anybody knew. She dipped the cloth in the pan and wrung it out again.
"The wallpaper was worth it," Major French said to George Nicolay, who
was helping himself to the champagne punch in the Japanese bowl at the
center of the State Dining Room.
"Sixty-seven hundred dollars' worth?"
"It comes all the way from Paris," the major argued, hoping to win an ally
close to the President. The walls were really beautiful, French was certain, far
nicer than the Executive Mansion had ever seen, a mark of good taste directly
attributable to Mrs. Lincoln. The new carpet, too, and the silver service; why
should the palace of the American President be a shabby place, ridiculed by
the European diplomats? "It's going into an appropriation for sundry civil
expenses." The Congress had better go along, the major thoughteight hun-
dred dollars of the advance for the wallpaper had come out of his own pocket.
That was when Mr. Lincoln flatly refused to pay for what he kept calling
"flub-dubs."
"Who laid out this feast?" Nicolay asked. The musicale portion of the
evening had ended, and when the doors of the East Room were opened, the
guests were led to a giant punch bowl in the central hall. Waiters passed
through the crowd dispensing what French had been told were "finger sand-
wiches." He quickly admonished Nicolay to ignore the sandwiches and save
his appetite for the display of exotic foods served at the midnight supper.
"Maillard's of New York. Come through here." Major French had ordered
a ton of game: partridge, pheasant, and venison were laid out on the tables of
the State Dining Room, along with the usual ham and turkey and duck. On a
table of dressed game, the confectioner had created a sugar model of Fort
Surnter. Plunk in the middle of the venison, a model of the frigate Union was
in full sail on a stand supported by cherubs and draped in the flag. Charlotte
russes ran out of a sugar beehive, and water nymphs made of nougat sup-
ported a fountain. Nothing like that, Major French was certain, had ever
graced the Mansion before.
"My God, what's that?" breathed Nicolay.
French smiled proudly. "That's Fort Pickens, done to exact scale, and
stuffed with quail eggs. Wait till you try a quail egg, Nicolay. Put your hand
right through the front of the fort."
The President's first secretary declined. "Good thing you didn't send to
Paris for the food," said Nicolay, breaking a piece of nougat off one of the
parapets of Fort Surnter. The fellow was obviously a Philistine when it came
to elegant parties. French knew that the presidential secretary's younger col-
league, Hay, was more socially adept, and hoped he would be suitably im-
pressed.
"You see that fillet of beef over there? It's called Chateaubriand, the su-
preme achievement of the gastronomic art," Major French instructed him.
"I've already heard this function compared to the Duchess of Richmond's
ball in Brussels."
"I read about that ball," nodded Nicolay, swallowing the nougat and head-
ing to the Chateaubriand table before the crowd, "in the history books. Night
before Waterloo."
Lord Lyons, the British Ambassador, waited his turn to greet the Presi-
dent's Lady. An American senator was ahead of him.
"I just met your son, Mrs. Lincoln," he heard the senator say sourly.
"Fine, strapping lad. He should be in uniform."
"He wants to go, Senator Harris, but I just cannot bear the thought at the
moment."
The senator said pointedly, "My only son is in the army."
She looked stunned and Lyons rescued her. "I note that part of your gown
is black, Mrs. Lincoln," he interrupted, easing the senator out of the way,
"and I will include that in my report to Her Majesty. I know Queen Victoria
will be grateful for your most appropriate expression of condolence." The
President's wife quickly recovered her composure, and Lincoln looked re-
lieved.
The ruddy, hearty Englishman, cheeks fringed with whiskers, had come to
respect Lincoln during the Trent affair. Lyons was no longer as certain as
some of his countrymen, including the Foreign Secretary, that the South
would win its independence.
General McClellan had done a remarkable job in rebuilding a defeated
army in a short time, according to the military experts Lyons trusted most.
Moreover, the British Ambassador had learned from one of McClellan's
more impetuous aides that the General-in-Chief had just sent a force under
General Burnside to seize Roanoke Island, which gave the Federals a first-
rate base off North Carolina to enforce the blockade. Lyons had also heard
from some Southern friends that seizure of the offshore island provided a clue
to McClellan's intentions: he might be planning to approach Richmond by
water, maneuvering the Confederates out of their positions near Washington.
In addition, McClellan had authorized Halleck and Grant to begin operations
against the forts guarding the Tennessee River in the West.
Some heard only the foolish complaints of the press and the radicals in
Congress, but Lord Lyons also listened to the well-considered worries of the
Southerners as well. With McClellan gathering his forces for a surprise at-
tack, and refusing to be bounded by amateurs into a premature midwinter
advance, Her Majesty's envoy now considered British neutrality a wiser
course than intervention, Southern cotton or no.
Having done his diplomatic duty to the Lincolns, the bachelor British
envoy went in search of his favorite Washingtonian. Most of the evening,
Kate Chase had resisted holding a small levee of her own, preferring to dart
in and out of conversations, but now she was surrounded by admirers, includ-
ing Sprague, the Governor of Rhode Island, inebriated as usual, as well as
Congressman Roscoe Conkling from New York, an officer from Ohio named
Garfield, and one of Mr. Lincoln's younger secretaries. Lord Lyons sighed
and joined the group.
Anna Carroll took Salmon Chase aside. "I must see you a moment in
private."
"For you, my dear lady, I am always available." He was such a fine-looking
man, a tower of strength; she thought it a pity about his unwavering, some-
times excessive, dignity. The Wades insisted that Chase was the only man in
the Cabinet of presidential stature, a political assessment that included and
then rejected Seward; Anna was inclined to agree. Chase looked and moved
like a Presidentmore so than Lincoln, surely. He was surrounded by an
aura of probity, almost nobility. She shared in the general trust of Chase, and
saw an opportunity to do a favor for him.
"This is none of my business," she began, pleased at the way he inclined his
majestic head down to hear her low voice, "but I noticed when you came in
and greeted the Lincolns, your daughter said something that was less than
kind to the President's wife."
He winced. "Kate is headstrong. I didn't hear what was said, I was talking
to the President."
"I overheard it," she said, "Kate said somethinga little too sweetly, if
you ask meabout Mrs. Lincoln being far more experienced than she, and
the President's wife took it as a reflection on her age."
"Ah." He looked helpless; Anna was glad she had spoken up.
"Here's what you should tell your daughter," she said, presenting the solu-
tion immediately after staling the problem, which she liked to do. "The Lin-
colns' son, William, is upstairs with a fever. It may be the same typhoid fever
that killed Prince Albert, and almost killed General McClellan. Mrs. Lincoln
is upset, worried sick, trying not to show it."
"My God. And my daughter was"
"It's not something that Kate would have said, I'm sure, if she had known
about the boy." She put her hand on his arm and took a deep breath, showing
her concern and her bosom. "Tell her to go back to Mrs. Lincoln and offer
her sympathy. Be good for the both of them."
"I'll do that immediately. Miss Can-oil"
"Anna."
"Anna, I know better than most what it is to be in fear of losing a loved
one." Anna was aware that he had lost three wives and five of his seven
children to disease; death was a frequent visitor to this strong, magnetic,
probably lonely man. "I will be certain that my daughter expresses the pro-
found understanding of the Chase family. She and I are in your debt."
Anna squeezed his arm and sent him on his way. Why did he make her
think of Breck? Probably because of his height and deep voice, and the pull of
his personality. She found herself afflicted by the thought of Breck for a
moment, until Brady, the photographer, came up to her. He peered at her
through thick spectacles, recognized her face, and urged her to drop into his
shop for a portrait soon. She begged off for the moment; a photographic
portrait required a new dress and she would have to make a decision about
the length of her hair.
It was after I A.M. and the party was at its peaksurely a first, Anna
figured, for this early-retiring Southern city. She was flushed with its excite-
ment: People were doing business, diplomats were doing each other in, gener-
als were taking the opportunity to mend fences with politicians, and social
Washington had to be impressed with the ability of the Lincolns to entertain
royally even in the midst of war. Everyone had gasped at the display of viands
in the banquet hall. Anna judged that the big party ws not a lapse of taste, but
an expression of Union confidence in a dark time; the Wades had been wrong
to stay away.
She looked for Stanton; before dinner was served, she had seen him talking
intently to the man from the Tribune, but the Secretary of War had appar-
ently slipped out while the party was in full swing.
Anna guessed that he would have gone across the street to the War Depart-
ment before going home; Stanton was the sort who would like it to be known
that he had been too busy with official cares to partake of the midnight feast.
He would also wonder what he had missed. She seized the opportunity: in a
moment, she was in the kitchen with Major French, putting together a basket
of game and delicious victuals from Maillard's for the Secretary of War. She
also obtained a small package of cakes and nougat icing for young Homer
Bates and whoever else might be in the telegraph office at this hour, listening
to the sounds of revelry across the street.
Anna was convinced that the moment had come for the Union Army in the
West to strike. The Tennessee River was at high water and Fort Henry was
probably half inundated, and Federal gunboats under Admiral Foote were
out of the boatyards and in operation at last. Was anybody following her
plan? Tom Scott was out there, on a survey for Stantonsurely he would be
urging the movement on the generals in the field, telegraphing his recommen-
dations back to the War Department.
She drew her cape around herone day, when she received recognition
and recompense, she would be able to afford furgripped the basket in her
ungloved hand and scurried across the street to the building that she hoped
had become the nerve center of the war.
"My dear lady, you are like a visiting angel," Stanton said, pleased that
someone would report his selfless presence at his post. He was also glad to
have the food. His wife, at home with their ailing infant, would want to know
about the party; at least he would have something to give her from there
without the indignity of asking Major French, surely a wastrel and probably a
thief, for a packet to bring home. "Take the cakes to Eckert and his men
across the hall right away, they'll bless you for it. And come right back."
Even as the President's wife was stuffing her guests with expensive game,
the War Secretary knew that the navy had undertaken to reduce Fort Henry.
That rebel installation at the head of the Tennessee River was under attack by
some of Halleck's command under Congressman Washburne's prot6g6, Gen-
eral Grant. Halleck was worried about Grant: unstable. If he took Fort Henry
and continued on to the seriously defended Fort Donelson, Grant could get
himself cut off and be forced to surrender fifteen thousand men. The Union
could not afford another defeat, and Stanton's spotless reputation as orga-
nizer of victory would be immediately besmirched. Was it worth the effort?
Assistant Secretary Scott was all for the movement. Scott was a sound
executive and honest, but a Pennsylvania Cameron man; he would have to go.
Only men absolutely beholden to Stanton could work at the top echelons of
the War Department. This little lady who claimed to have conceived the idea
was urging it on all and sundry, and her closeness to Wade meant that Stan-
ton would show her at least the courtesy of consideration. Stanton had re-
solved to leave that military decision to Halleck; if it failed, he could fire
Halleck, court-martial Grant, and blame the defeat on the navy. The West
was not important anyway; this war would be settled in the East, if ever he
could get McClellan to move. The caution he saw as an asset in Halleck was a
liability in McClellan. He, too, would have to go; Stanton would put in his
own man to run the war in the field. He thought of how he had been forced to
stand like a beggar at McClellan's dinner table, awaiting the great general's
notice, and the memory of that studied slight made him burn.
"You will be pleased to learn," he told Miss Carroll on her return, "that all
political prisoners arrested under authority of the Secretary of State will be
released upon taking a loyalty oath." That would display Union confidence
and appeal to Democrats who had been making a fuss about civil liberties.
"Spies, too?"
"John Dix will determine who will or will not be exempted," he replied. He
could count on Dix, a Democrat who had served with him in the Buchanan
Cabinet, to make certain Rose Greenhow would be properly oathed and sent
South before she made any more trouble.
"And if habeas corpus requires suspension again?"
She was an astute little woman. "Extraordinary arrests will hereafter be
made," he smiled, "under the direction of the military authorities alone."
Seward was out of it, his prisoners given amnesty; now the power was
Stanton's.
"Good," the little woman said. "A war power belongs in the war office."
He impulsively pushed a stack of deciphered cables toward her, withhold-
ing only the one expressing Halleck's concerns about Grant's "bad habits" to
McClellan. "Senator Wade will be interested to know that the Tennessee
River campaign that you and he suggested is under way."
Let her think it was all her idea; that would involve Wade, protecting
Stanton from criticism from the Joint Committee if the attack on Forts Henry
and Donelson failed. If it succeeded, credit would devolve on Halleck and the
generals in the West, and of course on the new Secretary of War.
"The purpose of this war is to attack, pursue, and destroy a rebellious
enemy," he said. He was certain that George Brinton McClellan was no
destroyer; the general probably harbored some notions of a negotiated peace
after some good days on a battlefield, which made McClellan more of an
enemy to the Union cause than any rebel soldier. He would have to be bro-
ken, his place taken by a general of Stanton's choosing.
The parading around was over; he would make heroes of the generals who
accepted the need for mutual slaughter. The North could afford the lives, the
South could not. After Miss Carroll left, Stanton wrapped up the expensive
food and took it home to his wife.