“Once I woke up and started thinking…”
“Then you started to fuss yourself and worry, that’s what you did. But not today.”
“But today is so important…”
“Every day is important now. You must forget what happened in Kentucky. Since then you have done work that General Halleck is proud of. He is your supporter, as is your friend Grant.”
“I let them down once, I can’t forget that.”
She turned and took his hands, pressed them firmly between hers as if to add physical support as well. He tried to smile but could not. She stood and clasped his thin body to her.
“Who knows you better than I? We have known each other since I was ten years old. Since we have been married, so many years now, you have never failed me or the children.”
“I failed in the bank in California — and in the army in Kentucky.”
“Halleck does not think so — or he would not have reinstated you in command. And you have paid all your debts in San Francisco — none of which you had to.”
“But I did. The bank failure was not caused by me. But I did encourage fellow officers to invest in the bank. That was my doing. When they lost their money — why I had a debt of honor to repay them. Every cent.”
“Yes, you have done that, and I am proud of you. But there was a cost. Living so far apart for so long. Life has not been easy, I am the first to admit that, and we have been separated too much. And it has been lonely.”
“For me as well,” he said, pulling away and sitting on the edge of the bed. “I have kept it to myself but, more than once — I have felt so — suicidal. But for you and the children… Only seeing Minnie and Lizzie and Willy, thinking of them… without that I could have cast myself into the Mississippi.”
Ellen knew that when he was in this black mood there was no reasoning with him. She glanced down at the watch pinned to her dress.
“Today is too important for you to get yourself all worked up. What time is John meeting you?”
“Nine o’clock, he said, in the lobby downstairs.”
“More than time enough to change your shirt then. And while you are doing that I’ll give that coat a good brushing.”
Sherman sighed deeply and climbed to his feet, straightened his back. “You are right, of course. A war is being fought and I am a soldier and I do not fear battle. In fact I welcome it. And the first battle is to put these dark thoughts behind me now and think only of this meeting. My future depends upon its success.”
Senator John Sherman was smoking his first cigar of the day when he saw the couple come down the stairs. He stubbed it out and crossed the lobby to give his sister-in-law a fraternal kiss on the cheek. Turned, smiling with pleasure, to greet his brother.
“You’re looking fit as a fiddle, Cump. Ready to meet with the railsplitter?”
Sherman smiled, but his eyes remained icy cold. Today’s meeting was too important to make jokes about.
“Can’t these job seekers wait? Must everyone who wants a government appointment come to see me personally?” the President asked, lifting the thick sheaf of papers unread, letters unsigned, urgent matters unresolved.
“I’ve kept the ones that are not urgent waiting, for weeks some of them, and have dissuaded or canceled the very worst of them,” Nicolay said. “But you made this appointment yourself, with Senator John Sherman. And he wants you to meet his brother, General Sherman.”
Lincoln sighed deeply and let the papers drop back onto the desk. “Well — it is politics that keeps this war going, so politics it will be. See them in.”
They were not a very prepossessing pair. The Senator was young and already balding. General Sherman had a wiry red beard and a short but tough body, although he did have the erect and military bearing of a West Point graduate. His eyes were as cold and empty as those of a bird of prey. Unless he was addressed directly he did not speak. Instead he sat quietly, looking out the window at the Potomac River and past that to the plowed fields of Virginia on the far side. Apparently having no interest at all in the political conversation. Lincoln watched him out of the corners of his eyes, struggling with a memory that was just below the surface. Of course!
“Well Senator,” the President cut in, interrupting what was turning into an all too familiar abolitionist speech, “what you say has a lot of good reason to it. All I have to say is what the girl said when she put her foot into the stocking, ‘It strikes me that there is something in it’. I shall keep your thoughts in mind. But now I would also like to have a word or two with your brother.” He turned in his chair to face Sherman. “General, stop me if I am wrong, but didn’t we meet at least once before?”
Sherman nodded. “We have, Mr. Lincoln. It was soon after the Battle of Bull Run.”
“That’s it, of course, a little matter of discipline with one of your Irish regiments as I recall.”
“You might say that. As I remember it happened soon before you arrived. A captain, a lawyer if you will excuse my saying so, came up to me and spoke while a number of his soldiers were within earshot. In no uncertain terms he told me that his three-month term was up and he was going home. I was not going to abide by this, not in front of the men.”
Sherman’s face was rigid with anger as he relived the moment. “This kind of thing has to be stopped the instant it starts. Particularly in front of men who have already fled once from battle. So I reached inside my overcoat and said, ‘If you attempt to leave without orders, it will be mutiny, and I will shoot you like a dog’. The matter ended there.”
“Not quite,” Lincoln said, smiling at the memory. “It must have been later that same day when I was riding through the encampment with Secretary of State Seward when this same captain comes up and points at you and says, ‘Mr. President, I have a cause of grievance. This morning I went to speak to Colonel Sherman, and he threatened to shoot me’.”
Always savoring a good story, Lincoln leaned back while he hesitated a dramatic moment before going on.
“I waited a bit, then leaned down and whispered to him in what I believe they call a stage whisper. I said, ‘Well, if I were you, and he threatened to shoot, I would not trust him for I believe he would do it!’ ”
They laughed together because it was a good story well told.
“Of course,” Lincoln added, “I only discovered what it was all about after Colonel Sherman, as he was at that time, explained. My feeling was that since I did not know anything about it, I did still feel that you knew your own business best.”
“Morale was not good after our defeat at Bull Run so any talk like that had to be stopped at once.”
“In the West Point manner.”
“That is correct.”
“After leaving West Point were you not also at one time superintendent of the Louisiana State Military Academy? Is that true?”
“I had that honor.”
“Cump is too reluctant by far,” John said. “He founded that academy, practically built it by himself. Started with an empty field, designed the buildings and had the school up and running within two months.”
The President nodded. “With a responsible post like that you must have had many friends in the South?”
“I had — and perhaps still have some of them. During my service I grew to know the men of the South. I had personal friends there whom I admired as men. But for their attitude toward the Negroes they enslave I have no respect at all. If a man goes forth and no matter how well dressed and well spoken he is, he is a man like any other. However if a man goes forth and is followed by a slave who attends him, why in the South he is looked upon as something else again. A man who enslaves other men — and is proud of it to boot. In many other ways they can be fine and honorable people. If trained, they make good soldiers. They are a military people with a strong military tradition.”
Lincoln nodded. “Unhappily that is so. Far too many of your West Point comrades are fighting on the other side.”