Lee reached down to pat her shoulder. “I am glad you have it.”
Capitol Street and the paths through Capitol Square already swarmed with people making their way toward the covered wooden platform which had been erected under the statue of Washington. Marshals with drawn swords—and with AK-47s slung on their backs—briefly halted the tide to let Lee and his family cross. Before he and Albert Gallatin Brown were sworn in on that platform, other ceremonies awaited at the Confederate Capitol.
Marshals helped Lee wrestle his wife’s chair up the stairs to the flag-draped entrance to the Capitol. The chief marshal, a plump, superannuated colonel of ordnance named Charles Dimmock, saluted. “Mr. President-elect,” he boomed.
Lee inclined his head. “Mr. Chief Marshal.”
Congressman Sion Rogers of North Carolina bustled up to Lee. “Mr. President-elect, on behalf of the Joint Committee on Arrangements, it is my privilege to welcome you to the Congress of the Confederate States of America. If you and your charming family will please to come with me?”
He escorted the Lees into the chamber of the Virginia House of Delegates—the Virginia legislature continued to meet in the Capitol, along with the Confederate Congress. Congressmen, senators, members of the Virginia Senate and House, Virginia’s Governor Smith, several other state heads, judges, generals, and clergymen packed the hall, along with a goodly number of reporters. They converged on Lee until Colonel Dimmock interposed his formidable person between the throng and the President-elect.
The minister from the United States caught Lee’s eye. “Congratulations, General, or rather, Mr. President-elect.”
“Thank you, Mr. Pendleton,” Lee answered gravely. George Pendleton, a former congressman from Ohio, was a close friend to U.S. Vice President Vallandigham, and had favored peaceful accommodation with the South throughout the Second American Revolution. Lee added, “Let me applaud you on General Sheridan’s recent capture of Winnipeg. Your armies continue to perform very well, as does your ironclad fleet on the Great Lakes.”
“You are generous to a recent foe.” What Pendleton meant by that was thanks for forbearing to comment on the complete dominance of the British fleet on the high seas. Not only had Boston harbor been bombarded again, but a force of English marines had seized and burned San Francisco, then reembarked on their ships and departed before U.S. forces could do anything about it.
“If you will come with me, Mr. President-elect…” Congressman Rogers said. Lee obediently followed him to the front of the chamber. Jefferson and Varina Davis, Albert Gallatin Brown and his wife Roberta, and outgoing Vice President Alexander Stephens, a lifelong bachelor, were already standing there chatting. So were Lee’s three sons and Joseph Brown; Albert Gallatin Brown’s other son, Bob, captured at Gettysburg, had emerged from a Northern prison camp so weak that he had died a year after the war ended.
“There, you see, Mildred, we are the last to arrive,” Lee said. His youngest daughter only sniffed. He laughed a little; Mildred was incorrigible.
As he came up, he noticed that, while Varina Davis and Roberta Brown were talking animatedly, their husbands, longtime political foes in Mississippi, still had little to say to each other. “That is a lovely ring, Mrs. Davis,” Roberta Brown remarked. “May I see it more closely?”
Varina Davis extended a slim, shapely hand. “Mr. Davis gave it to me upon our engagement. A dozen small diamonds surround an emerald-cut sapphire.”
“Lovely,” Mrs. Brown said again. “The mounting is also very fine work.”
The talk broke off when Jefferson Davis saw Lee approaching and hurried up to shake his hand. Albert and Joseph Brown followed, as did Stephens and Lee’s own sons. Lee also bowed over the hands of Varina Davis and Roberta Brown. Jefferson Davis said, “I leave you a nation at peace and secure within its borders, sir. God grant that you may offer your successor a similar boon.”
Congressman Rogers, who wore a harassed expression, consulted a scrap of paper he carried in his left hand. “If you ladies and gentlemen will be so kind as to form a receiving line… First you, Mr. Vice President, then the Vice President-elect’s family, then Mr. Brown himself, then the President’s family and Mr. Davis, then the Lees, and finally General Lee himself in the place of honor at the end…” He repeated himself several times, and chivvied people about until he had them all where he wanted them.
Dignitaries began filing past, shaking hands and offering best wishes. Lee returned murmured words of thanks, which he wondered if they heard. Finally, Senator Louis Wigfall of Texas broke the routine. Nathan Bedford Forrest’s defeated running mate was a burly, broad-shouldered man, with a fierce countenance and a long, thick beard. He growled, “If you think you’re gonna turn the niggers loose, General Lee, you’ll do it only over my dead body.”
“I do hope it won’t come to that,” Lee said quietly—let Wigfall make of the answer what he would. The Texan stopped, stared, scowled, and, at last, forced by the crowd behind him, moved on.
Lee’s arm was tired and his hand sore when Congressman Rogers declared, “The hour now nears half past twelve o’clock. We shall proceed out through the east door of the Capitol to the platform in the following order: first, Chief Marshal Dimmock and his marshals; next, the band, which has—I hope—gathered by the east door; next, the members of the Joint Committee on Arrangements; next, the President-elect, attended by the outgoing President; next, the Vice President-elect, attended by the outgoing Vice President; next, the families of these officials; next, the members of the old and new Cabinets—excluding Mr. Davis, for obvious reasons—and their families, next…”
He went on for some time, marshaling his hosts like any good general. Senators and congressmen even lined up in columns of four. The press made up the rear of the procession, behind Masons and members of other benevolent societies but ahead of the generality of citizens.
The band began blaring “Dixie” as Lee made his way toward the east door—Congressman Rogers let out an audible sigh of relief to hear them. Lee remembered the last time he had left the Hall of Delegates. A band had played then, too, for he had just been invested with the command of the armed forces of a Virginia not yet even formally affiliated to the Confederate States of America. His step faltered for a moment as he thought of the changes he had been part of through the past seven years.
Outside, Colonel Dimmock was shouting at the generality of citizens who already crowded Capitol Square: “Make way for President Lee! Without the President, you don’t have a show. Make way, make way! Marshals, move them aside.”
The marshals did their best. Slowly, the procession began to advance. The journey to the base of Washington’s statue took three times as long as it should have. Lee fidgeted nervously as he went along at slow march. Jefferson Davis set a calming hand on his arm. “The crush does not matter, not today. As the good colonel said, without you we have no show.” Caught out like a small boy at some naughty act, Lee spread his hands in a show of guilt.
The band, still playing lustily, took its place to one side of the wooden platform after the marshals cleared away the numerous citizens who had thought the area ideal for viewing the inaugural ceremony. That only packed the rest of the square more tightly; crowds spilled out onto Ninth Street and Capitol Street, snarling traffic on both thoroughfares and creating a hubbub which, in both volume and intensity, seemed inappropriate to the celebration about to take place.
Having displaced the improperly situated spectators, the marshals spread out along the front of the platform. There were at most a dozen of them; it was no great show of force. Lee thought of Lincoln’s 1861 inaugural in a country coming apart, where sharpshooters peered from the windows of the U.S. Capitol and a battery of artillery remained just out of sight in case insurrection broke out without warning. No such fears disrupted the Confederate States, not today.