Samuel slept and woke and stood and stretched and sat and fumed all through the rocking, jerking, loud, uncomfortable night. It was well past dawn when the train came to a ragged halt at the main depot in Montgomery and Bowater secured a black porter with ragged trousers and an old wide-awake on his head to carry his bag in a barrow.
They walked down the wide, sandy main street. Samuel had been to Montgomery only once before, a decade ago, and it was more built-up and crowded than he recalled. Trees and buildings of various height and description lined the street, and in the distance the Alabama River moved slowly between its brown banks. The huge capitol building loomed over all, like a magnificent Greek temple on a hill, Alabama’s own Parthenon.
Bowater arrived at last at the Exchange Hotel, where he intended to stay, on his father’s recommendation, and with the use of his father’s name he was able to secure a room, despite the mass of people crowding the place, and, indeed, crowding all of Montgomery.
Once in his room, Samuel unpacked, then washed up in the basin standing in a corner. The water was tepid but it felt utterly refreshing, splashed on his face and run through his hair. He was exhausted from the trip, but far too excited to sleep. He stepped out into the hot, dusty late morning, made his way to the capitol building.
It was an enormous edifice, three stories tall and fronted with six grand columns that rose forty feet to support a heavy portico over the grand entrance, and a clock, itself fifteen feet high, on top of that. Rising up behind the clock, a magnificent dome capped the building proper.
Beside the clock, standing straight and bold, as if being purposely defiant, a flagpole, and hanging listlessly from the pole the flag of the Confederate States of America: a blue field in the canton with a circle of white stars, reminiscent of the flag of the Revolutionary forefathers, a wide red stripe, a white stripe, and a red stripe.
It was not as original as Samuel might have wished, and he wondered how well it would be distinguished from the United States flag at a distance.
Bowater made his way into the grand foyer and found the offices of the Navy Department, shunted away in a far corner of the building. It was Sunday, but the building was still crowded with men. Things were happening too fast, and there was too much to do, for officials of the Confederate government to enjoy the luxury of keeping the Sabbath holy.
He left his name, determined the hours that Secretary Mallory would be seeing people on the morrow, then returned to the hotel, where he dined on an excellent wild duck and rice and then retired to his room.
Samuel pulled a chair over to the window, sat with stocking feet up on the sill, sketched the scene laid out before him with pencil and charcoal; Montgomery, Alabama, capital of a new nation.
He thought of all the hard lessons learned by the founding fathers—three different capitals, the faltering start with the Articles of Confederation, the long uncertainty regarding strength and place of the military. The Confederacy had already benefited from those lessons, taken the best, discarded the mistakes, set up fresh and decades ahead of where the United States had been at its birth.
He sketched and pondered and soon he could hear snoring coming through the wall from his neighbor’s room and he was reminded of how tired he was. He packed the sketch pad and pencil and charcoal away and crawled wearily into bed.
Samuel Bowater woke the next morning and dressed with care. He was surprised by the nervous agitation in his stomach, the slight tremor of his fingers as he anticipated the morning’s interview. I have been too damned comfortable for too damned long, he thought as he looked himself in the mirror and brushed his hair and mustache and goatee. He relished the fear. It meant he was not dead.
He arrived at the capitol building well before the naval office opened. When at last the clerk opened the door, Bowater found a seat, addressed it with his handkerchief, and waited for his appointment to be called in the order it was made.
He sat, undisturbed, for six hours.
His eyelids were growing heavy with the stuffy heat of the office when the clerk called, “Samuel Bowater?”
Samuel stood, smoothed out his frock coat, took up his bundle of papers, and stepped through the door.
The first he saw of Stephen Mallory was the top of the Secretary’s head and his unruly mop of hair. Mallory was seated, his elbows planted on his desktop, his head, which he was slowly shaking, sunk in his hands.
Bowater stood for a moment at something near parade rest, waiting for Mallory to recover.
At last the Secretary gave a loud sigh. He straightened, leaned back in his chair, eyed Samuel with an expression that seemed to say, Now what? Apparently he was not having a good day.
Samuel Bowater had a preconceived idea of what a navy man should look like, and Stephen Mallory was not it. His hair, which looked unruly from the top, looked worse from the front. It seemed as if no amount of brushing or cutting would contain it.
Mallory’s face was round and fleshy. He wore a beard that skirted the perimeter of his face like a chin strap and made him look like a Quaker or Amish or some member of one of those severe Northern sects. But his eyes were dark and penetrating and he did not look like a low-level, lick-spittle pencil-pusher.
“I am here to request a commission in the Confederate States Navy, sir.”
“Indeed?” Mallory’s enthusiasm was not excessive. “What is your naval experience?”
“I am a graduate of the Naval School in ’47. Saw some action in the Mexican War. I have been commissioned lieutenant in the United States Navy since. I last sailed as second officer aboard USS Pensacola.”
At that Mallory smiled and shook his head, and Bowater bristled. “The Pensacola was a good and fine ship, sir. Just because I find myself in opposition now to the United States does not change that fact.”
“No, no, Lieutenant. It’s not that. I am well aware of how fine a ship the Pensacola is. She was one of mine.”
“Sir?”
“I was the one who shepherded her construction, back when I was chairman of the Committee of Naval Affairs in the United States Senate. A fine ship, and now my handiwork comes back to bite me in the ass. Do you see the irony of that, Lieutenant?”
Samuel nodded. “I do, sir.”
“So tell me, you are just resigned from the United States Navy?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I have had officers coming south for half a year now. You are a bit tardy, sir, in deciding where your loyalties lie.”
Bowater stiffened. Mallory’s remarks were coming very close to insinuation, and he would not stand for it.
“Mr. Secretary,” he began, and his voice carried an enforced calm, “I swore an oath to the government of the United States, and I take my oaths seriously. A man of honor could do no less, nor would I expect you to look for less in your own officers. Now that I have seen where my duty lies, you can expect me to display the same loyalty to the Confederate States.”
Samuel waited for a reply, wondered if his words sounded as pompous to Mallory as they did to himself. Still, he would stand for only so much where his honor was concerned. It was a hanging offense to challenge a superior officer to a duel. What about a cabinet member? Of course, Samuel realized, he was not an officer in the Confederate Navy. He was still a civilian. And after that exchange likely to remain one.
“From what state do you hail, Mr. Bowater?”
“South Carolina. Charleston.”
Mallory’s eyebrows went up. “Indeed? Such reticence from a Charleston man. I had thought you were all a bunch of fire-eaters. Well, no matter. I think men of sense do not rush into these things. I myself have been accused of being too lukewarm to the cause, even treasonous, if you can believe it. My own state of Florida did not support my nomination to this post, did you know that?”