The line froze up again between Eighth and Ninth streets. Philosophy had trouble competing with an empty stomach; Caudell wished he’d gotten to eat one of those cakes. At last, though, he and his comrades snaked into Mechanic’s Hall, advanced toward the desks in the foyer. Signs above those desks read A-B, C-D, E-F, G-H, and I-K. Caudell got into the appropriate line.
“Name and company?” asked the clerk behind the C-D desk.
“Nathaniel Caudell, Mr., uh—” Caudell read the man’s nameplate. “—Jones.”
“Caudell, Nathaniel.” John Beauchamp Jones meticulously lined through his name. He reached over to a pile of paper, handed a sheet from it to Caudell. “This is your railroad pass home, to be used within five days’ time, You will be required to turn in your rifle and ammunition at the station before boarding your train.” He glanced at Caudell’s sleeve. “First sergeant, eh?” He took a paper from another stack, wrote a number on a blank line. “Here is a warrant for two months’ back pay, which will be honored at any bank in the Confederate States of America. Your nation is grateful for your service.” Unlike Mary Lee, Jones sounded as if he were parroting a memorized phrase. Even before Caudell turned to go, he called out, “Next!”
Caudell looked at the sum for which his pay warrant had been issued. Forty dollars Confederate wouldn’t go far. And he’d been owed four or five months’ pay (he couldn’t remember which), not two. Still, he supposed he was lucky to get any money (or even the promise of money) at all. He stuck the warrant in a trouser pocket, went back out onto Franklin Street.
The line of waiting men in gray still stretched northwest up the street as far as the eye could see. A couple of fellows in another uniform, the mottled green-brown of the Rivington men, sat on the steps of the building across from Mechanic’s Hall and watched the thick, slowly advancing column. Their red and white banner with its spiky black symbol flew atop that building alongside the Confederate flag. As Caudell started down the stairs of Mechanic’s Hall, the Rivington men solemnly shook hands.
*IX*
Robert E. Lee rode Traveller up Twelfth Street toward President Davis’s residence: up in the most literal sense of the word, for the Greek Revival mansion stood on the tip of Shockoe Hill, north and east of Capitol Square.
Jefferson Davis met him in front of the gray building that, despite its color, had come to be known as the Confederate White House. Lee dismounted. Traveller swung his head down and began to crop the grass beside the walkway.
“Good morning. Good to see you, General,” Davis said as the two men shook hands. The President turned his head, called, “Jim! Come and see to General Lee’s horse.” All at once, he looked nonplused, an unfamiliar expression for that stern countenance to bear. “That’s twice I’ve done that this month alone, and it was January when Jim ran off, and Mrs. Davis’s maid with him.” He raised his voice again: “Moses!” A plump black man came out of the mansion, took competent charge of Traveller.
Lee followed Davis to the porch. The black-painted iron banister was rough under the palm of his right hand as he climbed the stairs. “Come into the parlor,” the President urged, standing aside so Lee could precede him.
Another slave brought in a tray of coffee, rolls, and butter. Lee broke a roll, but sniffed at the butter before he began to spread it. He set down the knife. “I believe I shall have it plain today,” he said.
Davis also sniffed at the butter dish. He made a sour face. “I’m sorry, General. Impossible to keep it fresh in this climate.”
“I know; I’ve found that, too. It’s of no consequence, I assure you.” Lee ate the roll, drank a cup of coffee. By the taste, the brew had some of the real bean in it; with the armistice, commerce was beginning to revive. But he also noted the sharp flavor of roasted chicory root. Times were still far from easy. He leaned forward in his seat. “How can I help you today, Mr. President?”
Davis fiddled with the black silk cravat under his wing collar. He leaned forward too, set his half-empty coffee cup on his knee. “Despite the armistice between ourselves and the United States, General, many points of disagreement obviously remain, the most urgent of them being precisely where our northern boundary shall rest.”
“Yes, that is a pressing concern,” Lee said.
“Indeed.” Davis smiled thinly at the understatement. “Mr. Lincoln and I have agreed to appoint commissioners to settle the matter amicably, if that proves at all possible.” The smile disappeared. “I sent commissioners to Washington from Montgomery before the war began, to settle our points of difference with the Federal government. Not only did he then refuse formally to treat with them, he and Secretary of State Seward led them to believe all would be peacefully resolved, when in fact they were planning the resupply and reinforcement of Fort Sumter. This time, I expect no such games.”
“I should hope not,” Lee said.
“And that is why I bade you join me here today,” Davis went on: “to ask if you would be kind enough to serve as one of my commissioners. Your colleagues would be Mr. Stephens and Mr. Benjamin. I want to have one military man as a member of the commission, and a man in whose judgment I may implicitly rely.”
“I am honored by the trust you repose in me, Mr. President, and pleased to serve in any capacity in which you think I might be of assistance to the nation,” Lee said. “Has President Lincoln also appointed commissioners?”
“He has,” Davis said. His mouth tightened, and he did not seem pleased about going on.
Finally Lee had to prompt him:. “Who are they?”
“Mr. Seward; Mr. Stanton, the Secretary of War.” Davis stopped again. He got the last name out from between clenched teeth: “For his third commissioner, Lincoln has had the infernal gall to propose Ben Butler.”
“Has he?” Lee said, dismayed. “It is” an insult.”
“It is indeed,” Davis said. Butler, an accomplished lawyer and Democratic politician before the war, had turned into the worst sort of political general once fighting broke out. In Virginia, he had started the practice of treating escaped Southern slaves as contraband of war. As Federal proconsul of New Orleans, he had insulted the city’s women and made himself so loathed that the Confederacy vowed to hang him without trial if he was captured. Sighing, the President went on, “I wish we’d caught him as he was retreating from Bermuda Hundred. Then, if we’d found enough rope to go round his fat neck, we’d have been rid of him for good. But with the war ended, Lincoln has conferred diplomatic immunity upon him, and molesting him would only rouse fresh hostilities—with the onus of guilt for them upon us.”
Lee sighed, too. “Your reasoning is cogent, as always. Very well, Ben Butler it shall be. Are we to go to Washington, or will the Federal commissioners come here?”
“The latter,” Davis answered. “As we were the victors, theirs is the obligation to acknowledge that victory by visiting us. The telegraph will keep them adequately connected to Mr. Lincoln. Moreover, I entertain the hope that Butler will lack the courage to reenter a nation he has done so much to defile, thereby removing from us the requirement of treating with him.” By the doleful tone in his voice, he found that unlikely.
So did Lee. Though uncertain how much courage Butler possessed, he knew the man was long on effrontery. He asked, “When will the two gentlemen and Mr. Butler arrive?”