" Roosevelt," the cavalry officer answered impatiently. "Theodore Roosevelt." He scowled up at Lincoln through his gold-framed spectacles. "How do you mean, sir, not quite on the mark? In what way am I in error?" The challenge in his voice declared that, like George Custer, he saw disagreement as affront.
Still, Lincoln judged the question seriously meant, and so answered seriously: "A Marxian Socialist, Colonel Roosevelt, believes the revolution will come, no matter what measures be taken to prevent it. My view is, the revolution will come unless strong measures be taken to prevent it."
"Ah." Roosevelt gave a slow, thoughtful nod. "That is a distinction." Unlike Custer, he evidently could feel the intellectual force of a counter-argument. That index finger stabbed out again. "But you do believe the pernicious Marxian doctrine of the class struggle."
"I do believe it, yes," Lincoln said. "I do not believe it pernicious, not after spending my time since the War of Secession observing what has been afoot in the United States, in the Confederate States, and, as best I can at a distance, in Britain and Europe as well."
"Class struggle is balderdash! Poppycock!" Roosevelt declared. "We can attain a harmonious society by adjusting our laws and their interpretation so as to secure to all members of the community social and industrial justice."
"We can, surely. I said as much," Lincoln replied. "But shall we? Or will those in whose hands most capital now rests seek only to gain more? That looks to be the way the wind is blowing, and it blows a fire ahead of it."
Roosevelt surprised him again, this time by nodding. "The worst revolutionaries today are those reactionaries who do not see and will not admit that there is any need for change."
"You had best be careful, Colonel Roosevelt, or people will be calling you a Marxian Socialist," Lincoln said.
"By no means, sir. By no means," the brash young officer said. "You believe the damage to our body politic is… I shall give you the benefit of the doubt and say, all but irreparable. My view, on the contrary, is that the political system of the United States remains perfectible, and that resolute action on the part of the citizens as voters and the government as their agent can secure the blessings of both liberty and prosperity for capital and labour alike."
"I have heard many men with your views, but few who express them so forcefully," Lincoln said. "Most, if you will forgive me, have their heads in the clouds."
"Not I, by jingo!" Theodore Roosevelt said.
"I wish I could believe you likely to be correct," Lincoln carried out. "For reform to be carried out in the manner you describe, though, a man of truly titanic energy would have to lead the way, and I see none such on the horizon. I do see workers by the millions growing hungrier and more desperate day by day. Now if you will excuse me, Colonel, this other gentleman wished to speak with me." Roosevelt turned away. Lincoln heard him mutter "Poppycock!" under his breath once more. Then the former president, being greeted by a supporter, forgot about the young cavalry colonel.
Frederick Douglass wished he could go home to Rochester. In fact, nothing save his own pride and stubbornness kept him from going home to Rochester. If he went home, he would be admitting defeat: not only to those who read his despatches from the Louisville front in their newspapers, but also, and more important, to himself.
As he got out of a carriage Captain Richardson had furnished him and headed for the newly built wharves several miles east of Louisville, he knew defeat was there whether he admitted it or not. Captain Richardson kept right on being obliging, still, Douglass was convinced, in the hope that he could get him killed. With each new time Douglass crossed the Ohio into Kentucky, the total chance of his getting killed grew more likely, and he knew it. He kept crossing anyhow, every time he could.
The United States now held two tracts on the southern side of the river, one inside battered Louisville itself, the other projecting toward it from the east. The shape of that second salient, sadly, was deceiving; the front had not advanced more than a couple of furlongs in the past several days. Hope that the flanking manoeuvre would drive the Confederates from Louisville had all but died. With it had also died a great many young men in U.S. blue.
Confederate artillery pounded away at the U.S. positions east of Louisville. This salient was bigger than the one in the city, and had pushed the Rebels out of range of the Indiana side of the Ohio. The amount of ground gained, however, was not the be-all and end-all of the campaign. The be-all had not come to be, and the end-all was not in sight.
Another barge was loading. Barges were always loading, sending in more soldiers to do what they could against the Rebels' entrenchments and rifles and cannon. Some soldiers came back on barges, too, shrieking in anguish. Some stayed in Kentucky and fought and did not go forward. Some stayed in Kentucky and died and were hastily buried. Some stayed in Kentucky and died and were not buried at all.
Sometimes Douglass had trouble persuading the soldiers he had the right to cross. This time, though, he met no difficulties. Even before he drew from a pocket Captain Richardson's letter authorizing him to go into Kentucky, one of the men tending to the barge's engine waved and said, "Got a letter from my cousin, sayin' she really likes the way you're writin' about the war."
"That's very kind of her," the Negro journalist said as he stepped aboard the barge. Had he been white, he thought the soldier would have called him Mr. Douglass. Few white men could bring themselves to call a Negro Mister. Making an issue of an act of omission, though, was much harder than doing so about an act of commission. Douglass kept quiet, consoling himself with the thought that he might have been wrong.
Once the one white man had accepted him as an equal, or something close to an equal, the rest did the same. He'd seen that before, too. People all too often put him in mind of sheep. Had that fellow mocked him and called him a nigger, the others packing the barge likely would have followed that lead as readily as the other.
U.S. guns on the Kentucky shore not far from the riverbank belched smoke and flames as they tried to put their Confederate counterparts out of action. Near the guns lay wounded soldiers who would go back to Indiana aboard the barge once it had unloaded the men it carried. Some cried out, some groaned, and some lay limp, too far gone in suffering to complain. Along with the soldiers headed toward the battle line, he averted his eyes from the bloodstained evidence of what war could do.
He did not accompany the fresh troops to whatever position they had been assigned. Instead, he made his way toward the men of the Sixth New York. They had come closer than any other U.S. troops to breaking the Confederate line and smashing into Louisville as General Willcox had envisioned. Only a desperate countercharge by a Rebel regiment-led by a lieutenant, some said, though Douglass didn't believe it-had knocked them back on their heels and let C.S. forces bring in more troops and solidify their position.
Several Confederate shells came screaming down within a couple of hundred yards of him. He took no notice. Back before the battle began, they would have sent him diving, panicked, for the closest hole he could find. He was astonished at how blase he'd grown about shell-fire.
On toward the line of battle he tramped, not at any great speed but as steadily as if powered by steam. That comparison made him smile. He puffed less now on such hikes than he had when he'd first made them; his wind was better than it had been for years. He'd always been blessed with a robust constitution, which served him in good stead today.
He'd gone up to the Sixth New York's position so often by now, some of the troops behind the line had grown used to his presence. One made as if to set his watch by Douglass. "How are you this morning. Uncle?" another called. The Negro answered that with a nod and nothing more; as usual, Uncle straddled the line between polite and insulting.