Scott looked out the window for a moment. "Assuming Driscol's in command? Which, of course, he would be, if he's still alive when-if-that time comes." He paused for another moment. "Let me put it this way, Mr. President. Were you, or anyone, to ask me to command such an expedition, I would strongly-very strongly-urge that an alternative route of attack be chosen."
" What alternative route, Winfield?" Adams demanded. It was not so much a question as a statement-and a caustically posed one, at that. If the president was known for his affable manners, the secretary of state was not.
Adams heaved himself out of his chair and went to another window than the one Monroe had been looking out earlier. The same window, in fact, that had been the focus of Scott's examination. That window allowed a view to the west.
Once there, Adams stabbed a finger at the land beyond. "Attacking the Confederacy from the south means marching through Texas. That means a war with Mexico, and probably Spain. An unprovoked war with Mexico-and no one except southern slave-owners would accept the premises for such a war as a provocation suitable for a casus belli-runs the risk of embroiling the European powers. The last thing we need. Not even Jackson would support that, as much as he hates the Dons."
He shifted his finger slightly to the north and jabbed it again. "The only other alternative is coming at the Confederacy from the north. That would be diplomatically feasible, but as a military proposition:"
He shifted his gaze back into the room, to land on Scott. "You're the expert, Winfield. What's your opinion?"
The general grimaced. "The logistics would be a nightmare. You'd have to move the troops down the Ohio to the juncture with the Mississippi. Then-"
"Passing by free states as you went, each and every one of which will be opposed to the expedition," Monroe injected. "They have no quarrel with the Confederacy. Rather the opposite, since many of them are happy to be getting rid of their own freedmen-and without the Confederacy, they can't."
Scott's grimace had never quite left his face, and now it returned with a vengeance. "Yes, I understand that, Mr. President. You'd have to bivouac on the south bank of the Ohio and resupply in Kentucky ports."
The president wasn't about to let up. "I remind you that Richard Johnson keeps getting reelected by the citizens of Kentucky, General. What's he likely to say about that?"
"He'd pitch a fit," Adams agreed. "There's not only the matter of his personal attitudes to be considered, either. Senator from Kentucky or not, living openly with a black woman or not, don't forget he's also the darling of the northeast workingmen-and they're even happier with the freedmen exclusion laws than Calhoun is. Except, not being slave-owners, they don't care a fig about the problem of runaway slaves. Let the darkies escape to Arkansas, and good riddance-and for sure and certain, don't expect them to support a war to get them back. Much less volunteer to fight in it."
"I wasn't advocating such an expedition, Mr. President, Secretary of State. Personally, I think it'd be sheer folly. But you asked my military opinion, and I'm simply trying to give it to you."
"Of course, General." Monroe's courtesy was back in full force. "Neither I nor the secretary meant any of our-ah, perhaps impatient view of the matter-to be inflicted upon you."
"Yes," Adams grunted. "My apologies, Winfield. I didn't mean to suggest you were a party to Calhoun's madness. Please continue."
Scott nodded. "It would help a great deal, Mr. President, if I had a map to work from. Is there one at hand?"
"I can have one brought, certainly." The president began to rise, but Adams waved him down. "Please! The proprieties must be maintained. The best maps are in my office, anyway. I'll get one for us. Just the trans-Mississippi region, Winfield?"
"Yes, that should do."
Adams was at the door to the president's office. "This will take a moment. There's no point sending a servant. He'll just waste time not finding it and then waste still more time trying to think up an excuse."
It was said rather sarcastically. Adams said many things rather sarcastically. It was a habit his wife chided him about. As did a veritable legion of other people, including Adams himself. He tried to restrain the habit, but:
Alas. John Quincy Adams had many virtues. Even he would allow that to be true, as relentlessly self-critical as he was. But "suffering fools gladly" was not and never would be one of them.
Still, he thought God would forgive him that sin when the time came. As sins went, it was rather a small one, after all. Even Jesus, if you studied the New Testament from the proper angle, suffered from it to a degree.
By the time Adams returned to the president's office, Monroe had cleared his desk of all the materials on it. Adams, with Scott assisting, spread the large map across the surface.
"Good. This will make it all much clearer," Scott said. "Let's begin here, at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi."
A long, powerful-looking finger pinned the spot, then slid to the north. "Then, up the Mississippi to St. Louis. At St. Louis-upstream again, you'll notice-you move along the Missouri, skirting the Ozarks to the south. Then:"
He looked up, giving the other two men a sardonic glance. "Then: what? "
"There's the Grand River," Adams suggested, but with no great force. "Eventually."
"Ah, yes, the Grand. Also called the Neosho, I believe. Hard to tell from this map, but it doesn't really look all that grand, does it? And do please note that you have to traverse a considerable distance before you can reach any headwaters of the Arkansas. By now, you've gone hundreds of miles upstream, followed by a land march with no means of supplying your troops except with horses and wagons. That's difficult even without enemy resistance being encountered-and we're bound to encounter some. From the indigenes, first-those are the Osage, you know, a fierce tribe-even before we come into Cherokee territory."
He straightened. "I won't say it can't be done. It could, certainly, with the expenditure of enough time, effort, and-most of all-money. There's simply no way around it, Mr. President, Mr. Secretary. West of the Mississippi, the main rivers all run west to east, or northwest to southeast. There is no real help there for an army large enough to do the job that tries to approach the Confederacy from the north."
Monroe pushed aside a portion of the map and sat down heavily in his chair. "I understand. The gist of it is that there is no practical alternative, unless one is prepared to wage a long and costly war, to launching a major expedition against the Indian Confederacy except up the Arkansas River valley."
"Yes, sir. The Red River can't serve, not with at least a hundred and fifty miles of it clogged up with fallen trees. The Great Raft, they call it."
"And Driscol, being a very experienced soldier, knows that perfectly well."
"Yes, sir."
"So he designed his fortifications and lines of defense-his version of Wellington's Lines of Torres Vedras in the Peninsular War-in such a way as to channel any attacker up the river."
"Yes, sir. His lines are brilliantly designed, too. Far better than I would have thought, to be honest. I think he must be getting advice from somewhere. Driscol was a sergeant in Napoleon's army, not an officer. And the only sight he would have ever gotten of Wellington's defenses would have been from a distance. Even with his huge army, Massena never made any serious attempt on Torres Vedras."
"How do you mean, 'brilliantly designed'?" asked Adams.
The general turned to face him. "Consider the problem he faces. Even with the recent flood of immigrants coming from the freedmen communities, added to the constant influx of runaway slaves and the settlers sponsored by the American Colonization Society, there still can't be more than some tens of thousands of negroes in that Arkansas Chiefdom, as the Confederates call their respective states. Certainly not more than eighty thousand, I shouldn't think. Add to that perhaps ten thousand whites by now, all told."