“Many of the South’s best men have long been dissatisfied with slavery; too many have chosen to keep that dissatisfaction to themselves,” Lee said. “I do not believe we can afford to do so any longer. As for the Alabama, I am glad we had it to send.”
“So, no doubt, is Captain Semmes,” Mallory replied. The Alabama had been in Cherbourg harbor with the U.S.S. Kearsarge, a much more formidable vessel, waiting just outside French territorial waters for it to emerge when word came of the fall of Washington and the armistice.
“They might well disagree with you about slavery even in the United States, General Lee,” Jefferson Davis said. “Their constitutional amendment to abolish it just went down to defeat in the Illinois legislature, despite the vociferous protests of Mr. Lincoln.” His voice took on a certain satisfaction at his wartime rival’s discomfiture. “Only two U.S. states outside New England have ratified that amendment, and only one since Seymour became President.”
“But slavery is now legal in only two of their states, Maryland and Delaware, and is moribund in the latter,” Lee said…Further, the Negro constitutes but a tiny fraction of their population, which is emphatically not the case with us. Thus he presents them a smaller problem and allows them to confront it more nearly at their leisure.”
“You know we disagree on this question. Still, I shall not lose sleep over it,” Davis said. “For one thing, I may be wrong; the Negroes in the Union army and the guerrillas who remained on our soil after the Federal withdrawal proved themselves capable of deeds more manly than I would have expected from their race.” For Davis to admit he might be wrong was very nearly a prodigy. His mouth thinned as he weakened that admission by continuing, “For another, believe as you may, you will have your hands full in getting Congress to accede to your wishes. You will have your hands full in getting Congress to do anything at all.” His own battles with the legislative branch, though milder now than during the crises of the Second American Revolution, left him with a permanently jaundiced perspective on its utility.
Lee frowned as he contemplated that aspect of government in action—or perhaps of government inaction. As a commanding General, he could give orders and feel sure they would be obeyed—and if they were not, he had the power to punish those who failed in their duty. But the President of a republic like the Confederate States of America could not rule by fiat. If Congress refused to go along with him, he was stymied.
As if reading his thoughts, Jefferson Davis reached up to put a hand on his shoulder. “Take heart, sir, take heart. While we have as yet no political parties in the Confederacy, our Congress was and is most definitely divided into factions favoring and in opposition to myself; but, so far as I know, no faction opposed to Robert E. Lee exists within the bounds of our nation, not after the extraordinary services he has rendered to it.”
“If he speaks in any way against the continued servitude of the black man, such a faction will spring to life soon enough—he is right about that,” Stephen Mallory said.
“True,” Lee said, thinking that an anti-Lee faction, in the persons of Nathan Bedford Forrest and the men of America Will Break, was already very much alive. “Well, if I fail of election on that account, I shall return to the bosom of my family without any great anguish. I wasted too large a part of my life away from them. I shall not dissemble for the sake of votes—I leave such ploys, as you said, Mr. President, to politicians in the North.”
Davis raised his glass in salute. “Long may those ploys remain there.” Lee and Mallory drank with him.
Julia came up to Lee in the study. “ ‘Scuse me, Marse Robert, but there’s a soldier here to see you.”
“A soldier?” Lee said. Julia nodded. Lee gave a whimsical shrug. “Having resigned from the army, I thought I would henceforth be free of soldiers.” The black freedwoman looked back in incomprehension. Lee got up from his chair. “Thank you, Julia. Of course I shall see him.”
The “soldier” proved to be a pink-cheeked second lieutenant who looked so young that Lee wondered if he could possibly have seen service in the late war. When he saw Lee, he went into a brace so stiff that Lee feared for the integrity of his back bone. “General Lee, sir, I have a letter here, sir, which the Secretary of War directed me to deliver into your hands. Sir.”
“Thank you very much, Lieutenant,” Lee said, accepting the envelope the youngster in gray proffered. After extending his hand to give it to Lee, the lieutenant returned to attention. “You may go,” Lee told him.
“No, sir. I am directed to wait and bring your reply, if any, to the Secretary.”
“I see. Very well.” Lee broke the seal on the envelope. It held not one but two letters, the first folded around the second. ‘The outer sheet was in James Seddon’s copperplate script: “My dear General Lee: In view of the political developments centering on your name which have of late occasioned so much gossip and so many wildly speculative stories in the Richmond papers, and in view of the rumored estrangement between yourself and General Forrest on the one hand and between yourself and America Will Break on the other, I send you the enclosed so you may act upon it as you see fit and as the times demand. I have the honor to remain, your most ob’t c., James A. Seddon.”
Lee opened the inner sheet. The handwriting and spelling on that one both left something to be desired; Nathan Bedford Forrest’s formal schooling had lasted only a few months. But the import of the letter was clear enough: Forrest was resigning his commission in the Confederate army. His last sentence explained why: “If Genl Lee thinks he will be come the Presadent with the job handed him on a silver platter,” he wrote, “Genl Lee can think again.”
Lee read Forrest’s letter several times, shook his head. As far as he could see, the South had just acquired political parties. Jefferson Davis would not be pleased. He was not pleased himself.
The young lieutenant asked,” Shall I take any message back to the Secretary of War, sir?”
“Eh? Lieutenant, you may convey to Mr. Seddon my gratitude, but past that, no, I have no message.”
* XIV *
Raeford Liles bustled about inside his general store, straightening a bolt of cloth here, scratching out a price and writing in a new one there. He muttered under his breath as he worked. Some of the mutters were sulfurous; since Israel went off to work for Henry Pleasants, he hadn’t found anyone who suited him as an employee.
Nate Caudell slapped a wooden pocket comb on the counter. He glanced at the low stack of three-day-old Raleigh Constitutions there. “Looks as though you were right, Mr. Liles,” he said.
Liles’s head poked up between a couple of woven straw fans. “Right about what?” he asked. When he saw Caudell looking down at the newspapers, he scowled. “This ain’t a library, you know. You want to read that, you can buy it.”
“All right, I will.” Caudell lifted the top paper, set it by the comb. “You were right about having General Forrest to vote for—it says here he is going to run for President.”
“Good for him,” Liles said. “He’ll keep the niggers in line if anybody can. Way things seem sometimes nowadays, the North might as well have won the war.”
“I don’t know.” Caudell read further. “Anybody who calls Robert E. Lee ‘a traitor to the ideals that form the basis of our republic’ is crazy and nothing else but. Without Robert E. Lee, the North would have won the war, and we wouldn’t be here arguing now.”