The Boy General led his troop of red-scarfed cavalrymen while his regimental band blared "Garry Owen." The schoolgirls surged up, ready to sing again. They threw flowers. Near the presidential stand, Custer stretched out his gauntlet to catch one. The sudden move spooked the bay. It bolted.
George glimpsed Custer's furious face as the bay raced toward Seventeenth. When Custer regained control of Don Juan, it was impossible for him to turn back against the tide of men and horses to salute Johnson. Enraged, he rode on.
No Custer's luck this morning, George thought, lighting a cigar. The road of ambition was not smooth. Thank God he himself had no designs on high office.
According to his engraved program, it would be a while before the engineers appeared. He excused himself to search again for the politician he hoped to find in the crowd.
He did find him, holding forth among the trees behind the special stand. Congressman Thaddeus Stevens, Republican of Lancaster and perhaps the foremost of the Radicals, was over seventy but still had an aura of craggy power. Neither a clubfoot nor an obvious and ugly dark-brown wig could diminish it. He wore neither beard nor mustache, letting his stern features show clearly.
He finished his conversation, and his two admirers tipped their hats and walked away. George stepped up, extending his hand. "Hello, Thad."
"George. Splendid to see you. I'd heard you were out of uniform."
"And back at Lehigh Station, managing the Hazard works. Do you have a moment? I'd like to speak to you as one Republican to another."
"Surely," Stevens said. A curtain dropped over his dark blue eyes. George had seen this happen before with the eyes of politicians put on guard.
"I just want to say that I'm in favor of giving Mr. Johnson's program a chance."
Stevens pursed his lips. "I understand the reason for your concern. I know you have friends down in Carolina."
God, the man had a way of setting you off with his righteousness. George wished he was five inches taller, so he wouldn't have to look up. "Yes, that's right. My best friend's people; my friend didn't survive the war. I must say in defense of the family that I don't consider them aristocrats. Or criminals —"
"They are both if they held blacks in bondage."
"Thad, please let me finish."
"Yes, certainly." Stevens was no longer friendly.
"A few years ago, I believed that overzealous politicians on both sides had provoked the war, unnecessarily. Year after year, I rethought the question, and I decided I was wrong. Terrible as it was, the war had to be fought. Gradual peaceful emancipation would never have worked. Those with vested interests in slavery would have kept it going."
"Quite right. With their cooperation and encouragement, the blackbirders imported and sold slaves from Cuba and the Indies long after Congress outlawed the trade in 1807."
"I'm more interested in this moment. The war's over, and there must never be another one. The cost to life and property is too high. War defeats every attempt at material progress."
"Ah, there it is," Stevens said with a frosty smile. "The businessman's new creed. I am well aware of this tide of economic pacifism in the North. I'll have nothing to do with it."
George bristled. "Why not? Aren't you supposed to represent your Republican constituents?"
"Represent, yes. Obey, no. My conscience is my sole guide." He laid a hand on George's shoulder and gazed down; the mere act of inclining his head was somehow condescending. "I don't want to be rude, George. I know you donate heavily to the state and national organizations. I'm aware of your fine war record. Unfortunately, none of that changes my view about the Southern slavocracy. Those who belong to that class, and all who support them, are traitors to our nation. They presently reside not in sovereign states, but in conquered provinces. They deserve full punishment."
In the eyes beneath the overhanging brows, George saw the light of true belief, holy war.
Cynics often cited sordid reasons for that fanaticism. They linked Stevens's championship of Negro rights with his housekeeper in Lancaster and Washington, Mrs. Lydia Smith, a handsome widow, and a mulatto. They linked the burning of his iron works in Chambersburg by Jubal Early's soldiers with his hatred of all things Southern. George didn't entirely believe the explanations; he considered Stevens an honest idealist, though an extreme one. It had never surprised him that Stevens and his sister Virgilia Hazard were close friends.
Still, the congressman by no means represented all of Republican opinion. Again sharply, George said, "I thought the executive branch was in charge of reconstructing the South."
"No, sir. That's the prerogative of the Congress. Mr. Johnson was a fool to announce his intention to issue executive orders. Doing so has generated great enmity among my colleagues, and you may be assured that when we reconvene, we will undo his mischief. Congress will not have its rights usurped." Stevens rapped the ferrule of his cane on the ground. "I will not have it."
"But Johnson is only doing what Abraham Lincoln —"
"Mr. Lincoln is dead," Stevens said before he could finish.
Reddening, George said, "All right, then. What program would you enact?"
"A complete reconstruction of Southern institutions and manners by means of occupation, confiscation, and the purging fire of law. Such a program may startle feeble minds and shake weak nerves but it is necessary and justified." George grew even redder. "To be more specific, I want harsh penalties for traitors who held high office. I'm not content that Jeff Davis be held in irons at Fortress Monroe. I want him executed. I want amnesty denied to any man who left the Army or Navy to serve the rebellion." Unhappily, George thought of Charles. "And I insist on equal rights, full citizenship for all Negroes. I demand the franchise for every eligible black male."
"For that, they'll throw rocks at you even in Pennsylvania. White people just don't believe blacks are their equals. That may be wrong — and I think it is — but it's also reality. Your scheme won't work."
"Justice won't work, George? Equality won't work? I don't care. Those are my beliefs, I'll fight for them. In matters of moral principle, there can be no compromise."
"Damn it, I refuse to accept that. And a lot of other Northerners feel the same way about —"
But the congressman was gone, to see three new admirers.
The battalion from the Corps of Engineers, Army of the Potomac, swung down Pennsylvania Avenue toward the presidential pavilion. Eight companies marched, smartly outfitted in new uniforms, which had replaced the soiled, ragged ones worn during the last days of the Virginia campaign. On the belts of half the marchers swung short spades, emblems of their dangerous field duty — bridge building, road repair — often done under enemy fire they were too busy to return.
Marching with them in the hot sun, neatly bearded, the pain of his healing chest wound almost gone, Billy Hazard strode along with pride and vigor. He glanced toward the stand where his family should be sitting. Yes, he saw his wife's lovely, luminous face as she waved. Then he noticed his brother and nearly lost the cadence. George looked abstracted, grim.
The brass band blared, sweeping the engineers past the special stands through a rain of flowers.
Constance, too, saw something amiss. After Billy went by, she asked George about it.
"Oh, I finally found Thad Stevens. That's all."
"That isn't all. I can see it. Tell me."
George gazed at his wife, weighed down again by that feeling of hovering disaster. The premonition was not directly related to Stevens, yet he was a part of the tapestry.
A similar feeling had come over George in April of 1861, when he watched a house in Lehigh Station burn to the ground. He had stared at the flames and visualized the nation afire, and he had feared the future. It had not been an idle fear. He'd lost Orry, and the Mains had lost the great house at Mont Royal, and the war had cost hundreds of thousands of lives and nearly destroyed the bonds between the families. This foreboding was much like that earlier one.