Jerome Charyn - I Am Abraham: A Novel of Lincoln and the Civil War

This book is for
my redhead
Lenore .

CONTENTS

The Silver Sword of Appomattox

T HEY COULD NATTER till their noses landed on the moon, and I still wouldnt sign any documents that morning. I wanted to hear what had happened to Lees sword at Appomattox. Thered been wild rumors about the fate of that sword. One tell was that Grant had given it to a young captain on his staff who proceeded to gamble it away at a local bawdyhouse. I was mortally embarrassed, wondering if that young captain was Bob. So I was tickled to learn that Bob was on the premises, that hed come to see his Pa.

Id had rough patches with him, and our accommodations as father and son had been a series of truces and declarations of war. But I locked everyone out of my office, even my secretaries, to have breakfast with Bob. We had black tea and et an apple with our knives, as I tried to imagine what a breakfast in the field would have been like.

Bobbie, are you gonna make your Pa beg? What happened to Lees sword after he surrendered it to Grant?

Bob rubbed his mustache a bit and said, Poppycocksheer poppycock, like the Harvard man he was. And while we had our little truce, he told me the real tell.

Lee had shown up first in his finest grays, with a dark red sash and a silver sword in a scabbard embroidered with gold. He was six feet tall, with a head of silver hair; and in walked Grant with his usual slouch, and nothing to show of his rank but a lieutenant generals straps. He was all dusty from the road. Hed spent half the night bathing his feet in hot water and mustard, while Lee had sat alone in an apple orchard, wondering if he should wage a guerrilla war against Grant; but it would have saddened him to watch his own boys become bushwhackers. So he arrived at Appomattox with a single adjutant, bearing a white flag.

Radical Republicans, raucous as ever, demanded that I deliver Lee in chains to Old Capitol Prisonbut these Radicals didnt run the war last time I looked. Lee scratched his name on several documents. His troops were starving, he said, and had to survive on lumps of chalk and a scatter of parched corn; Grant told him that his boys could have all the corn they required from our own cars at Appomattox Station, and then Lee stood up, bowed, and strode out onto the porch, where his war horse was waiting. Bob had been stunned to see how emaciated Traveller was. That iron gray gelding was reduced to a bag of bones. His nostrils quivered as Lee mounted up. Then Grant moved out onto the porch and took off his hat. Lee tipped his own hat as Traveller trotted off with all the pomp of a battle pony, his flanks hurling sparks of light that near blinded Bob.

My generals must have poisoned my mind. Bobbie, I said, are ye certain about the sword? Grant could have claimed it as a war trophy. He was within his rights.

Sir, Bob said, as if berating a child, Mr. Grant wouldnt have bothered about one silver sword. Hed come to Lee with nothing but a toothbrush in his pocket.

But my commanders swear that a Rebel patrol just about captured you and Grant on the way to Appomattox. All of us might have ended up surrendering to Lee.

Thats preposterous, Bob said, resting his boot heels on my map table and lighting up a seegar. We had them outflanked on every side. All my General had to do was wave his glove once, and the whole damn Army of Northern Virginia would have crumpledand thats a fact. Mr. Lee raced to Appomattox in his red sash out of dire necessity, sir.

Bob kissed his Pa impulsively on the forehead and strode out the room, his spurs jangling with the cadence of a captain who sat at Grants table. It mattered to him not one fig that he could wander into the Presidents office without bothering to announce himself.

Please dont tell Mother Im here, he said. I have to return to my General, and shell hold me in her clutches for an hour. I just cant spare the time.

You could say hello, Sonthat wouldnt cost so much. And shell crucify me if she finds out we had breakfast and you never...

He rolled his eyes and saluted me like some martyr. But at least hed dash in and out of Mollys boudoir, and talk a little soljer with Tad. He loved his little brother, and wouldnt have disappeared without offering Taddie some token from headquartersa discarded pencil case, a broken bootstrap, or a Rebel bullet pouch Bob had picked up in the field.

I didnt have much peace after Bobbies visit. The Radicals hounded me in the halls. They wanted me to dismantle Dixie, toss out every single Southern legislature, like Grants discarded pencil cases. I wouldnt listen to their rabid cries. Were changing landlords, a little, I said, thats all. And they cursed me and Grant.

The papers announced that I would be at Fords tonight with the General and his JuliaFords was serving up the same old farce, Our American Cousin , with Laura Keene, the the- ay -ter impresario. I was in the mood for Richard III , and the rumble of kings, but I aint certain she had Richard in her repertoire. The seats were packed once Grants name was announced and prices soared to $1.05 a ticketit wasnt on account of Our American Cousin ; everybody wanted to catch a glimpse of the reclusive General. But at the last minute Grant declined; Julia and my wife just couldnt get along. Mary had insulted her on our last trip to City Point; and I suspect Julia couldnt contemplate sitting in the Presidential box at Fords for three solid hours with Mary Lincoln.

I, too, would have declined, but I didnt want to wreck Laura Keene and Fords. Still, it weighed on me, having to wear a fancy collar and a hat with a silk top, without the clatter of tin swords on stage or the death of one solitary king. My rotund Secretary of War wouldnt go to the the- ay -ter with me in place of Grant. Stanton said it wasnt safe. Any Rebel fanatic could take a shot at the President, no matter how secluded I was in my box.

Well, Stanton, then I might as well pass the time playing checkers with Tad, while soljers prance outside my door.

Mr. President, that would be a more reasonable policy than going to Fords five days after Appomattox.

I wouldnt listen to that taciturn man in the long brown-and-gray beard. Still, I had a hard time in the Presidents palace; it was filled with sutlers who could no longer follow Grant into battle with their supply wagons and wanted me to offer them up a parcel of the South as their own private territory. These vultures were prepared to pay any price. Id have laid them out with a parcel of my own fury, but the vultures had been loyal to Grant. So I hemmed and hawed, said Id have to consult with Grant, and waited for my wife.

Mary appeared in her victory dresswith silver flounces and a blood red bodice. Shed decorated herself for tonight, had bits of coal around her eyes, like Cleopatra. But not all the rouge and black paint in the world could mask Mothers melancholy; the dyings were etched into her forehead, like raw ribbons of pain; even as the church bells pealed and the illuminations went up to mark our victory and memorialize the dead, she was reminded of the boy we lost in the White House three years ago.