Lincoln (56 page)

Side by side, Chase and General Viele clung to the ship’s railing, and watched the waves precede them; the wind was leeward now. “We are making excellent speed,” said Chase, quietly expert—h
is
cutter.

“A summer storm.” Viele pointed to the dark receding clouds in the distance. “Weather’s fickle.”

“It will,” said Chase, cocking an old salt’s eye at the pale sun, “still be light when we make landfall.”

In absolute dark, the
Miami
anchored off Fortress Monroe. Fortunately, at sunset, the waters of the Chesapeake had grown as still as glass and the cutter was, thought the contented Chase, exactly like a painted ship upon a painted ocean.

The President was now in good spirits. Although Stanton’s eyes were bothering him, even he was amiable, as they were helped from the cutter into a tug that would take them to Commodore Goldsborough’s flagship, the
Minnesota
.

In absolute stillness, the tug came alongside the towering, floating
wooden fortress, ablaze with lights—a tempting target, Chase could not help but think, for the
Merrimack
.

The ship’s side looked to Chase like a mountainside, smelling of tar and burnt gunpowder. A ladder of incredible fragility descended from the ship’s deck high above them. A sailor stepped forward and held the bottom of the ladder. He looked, expectantly, at Lincoln. “You first, sir?”

Stanton’s authoritative voice sounded in the night. “Naturally, military etiquette requires that the President go first. Then the Secretary of the Treasury. Then the Secretary of War. And the others, each according to rank.”

“On the theory,” said Lincoln, steadying the two parallel guiding ropes which flapped against the ship’s side, “that should the ladder
not
hold, each of the remaining officers would move up one rank.” On that sardonic note, the President put one large foot on a rung of the wooden ladder; and like, thought Chase, disrespectfully, the Original Ape, Lincoln rapidly ascended the ladder. Then Chase put a foot carefully on the nearest rung and, slowly, pulled himself up. The warm May night enveloped him like a shroud. He knew that if he looked down at the dark sea, he would fall and drown. So he looked ever upward at the shining stars, not to mention the kerosene lamp a sailor on deck held, presumably to light his way while, simultaneously, blinding him. But the perilous journey finally ended; and Chase was able to take some pleasure in the gasps and groans of the Secretary of War, who lurched up the ladder calling out, piteously, for aid.

Commodore Goldsborough was a stern self-confident officer of what Stanton liked to call “the old school, which means you can teach him nothing now that school’s out.” The Commodore showed the great officers of state into the low-ceilinged wardroom, where lamps made bright the dark wood interior. He was particularly attentive to Chase, who had once considered marrying the Commodore’s wife. In Chase’s youth in Washington, he had got to know the Attorney-General William Wirt, a famous lawyer who had begun his career as one of the prosecutors of Aaron Burr for treason. Wirt’s five daughters had enthralled Chase. But duty—and necessity—had made marriage impossible then. Nevertheless, he still enjoyed the company of Mrs. Goldsborough; and the Commodore.

Lincoln shook hands with a number of naval officers, who seemed genuinely pleased to gaze upon Old Abe. The President’s continuing popularity with the military forces was a mystery that Chase had yet to solve. It was not as if they ever had any dealings with him as opposed to McClellan, who worked mightily—and successfully—to make the army love him; or Stanton, who worked equally hard—and successfully—to
make himself feared. But, somehow, the vague, gentle President had captured the imagination of the troops in a way that the face on the one-dollar bill, Salmon Portland Chase, had not. But then Lincoln was not an abolitionist politician. Like Lincoln, the troops were fighting for the Union, while Chase was fighting for the abolition of slavery and the glory of Christ. Curiously enough, Stanton had, lately, come round to Chase’s view. At least, he had started to go to church; and read the Bible; and question Chase at length on the fine points of Scripture. But then Stanton’s baby son was dying, most horribly; nevertheless, a soul might yet be saved.

“I do not think, sir, that the entire rebel army can save Richmond.” Commodore Goldsborough had spread out a number of maps of the peninsula on the wardroom table and the visitors peered at the various points of interest. “General McClellan is now here—at Yorktown. His advance guard has moved to Williamsburg and so, from there, to Richmond, using the York river—here—as his line of communications.”

Lincoln put his finger on the Chickahominy River, a wriggling line that split the peninsula in two parts. South of the river was Richmond. North of the river was Yorktown. “I assume that once General McClellan is established at Williamsburg, he will keep the army south of the river, which strikes me as a good thing because if he puts the army north of the Chickahominy, he will, sooner or later, have to cross the river, a hard thing to do with the entire rebel army between him and Richmond.”

“I’m not in his confidence to that extent,” said the Commodore. “I do know that he has, this morning, landed four divisions here at West Point—which is north of the river. I believe that he will hold that position until General McDowell’s corps descend from Manassas to Fredericksburg to rendezvous with him at West Point. He needs reinforcements.”

“Reinforcements?” Lincoln spoke with a certain wonder. “I cannot believe that General McClellan has too few men for the work at hand.”

Stanton then turned to the Commodore, and fired questions at him. Why had the
Monitor
not sunk the
Merrimack
during their first engagement? Why had the
Monitor
not pursued the
Merrimack
at least to the beginning of Norfolk harbor? Why had the newly arrived
Vanderbilt
—a former yacht of the eponymous Commodore now heavily iron-clad—not been brought into the general engagement? With growing temper, the Commodore explained to Stanton the various logistical and tactical difficulties involved, while Stanton, whose own temper never ceased to grow choleric when confronted, harangued the Commodore on the importance of destroying the
Merrimack
by any and every means. The ship represented a mortal danger to the Union.

As the two men pushed the map back and forth between them, Lincoln walked over to the nearest porthole and looked out at the rectangular Fortress Monroe on its promontory. Chase joined him. Neither had seen this legendary fortress before, this solid anchor to the Union’s effort in the South. “It should be fair tomorrow,” said Lincoln, indicating the clear black sky in which shone a white, small moon.

“I wish I understood better the naval dilemma,” said Chase, as the voices of the Commodore and Mars, as Lincoln had taken to calling Stanton, sounded in the background. Chase noted that Stanton’s voice was now uncommonly dulcet; always a sign that he was working himself into a real fury. “But I do not.”

“Nor do I,” said Lincoln. “But I shall want to see these ships in action tomorrow. We’ll try to call out the
Merrimack
, and see if the
Monitor
and the
Vanderbilt
can’t sink her or drive her to ground. This thing is so new to us—ships made of iron-plate, with turrets that move around, like tin cans on a plate.”

“The London
Times
is now predicting the end of wooden navies.”

“In that case, I suggest we invest in a lumberyard. The
Times
usually gets it wrong.”

There was a stir at the door to the wardroom; the commanding general of Fortress Monroe, John E. Wool, made his entrance. He was a grim, lean old man who had served with Winfield Scott in the War of 1812. Slowly but precisely, he saluted the President; then he introduced his staff.

General Wool also had a number of telegrams from McClellan, addressed to Stanton, who thanked him and withdrew to a corner of the wardroom to read them, while the old man took the President and Chase to one side. There were a number of polite but pertinent remarks about the weather. “The rains have been seasonable but unusually intense, and we have been obliged to build corduroy roads to and from Yorktown.” Chase nodded solemnly; he had only recently learned that a corduroy road was one in which planks of wood or branches of trees were set down in the mud of the roadway in order to provide sufficient traction for wheeled vehicles to pass. It was a laborious and costly process. Naturally, McClellan took pleasure in the corduroy road, as he did in any engineering task. He should be back in the railroad business, thought Chase sourly, connecting the east coast to the west, the perennial ambition of a thousand entrepreneurs; and one to which Lincoln often adverted. But as long as the President gave no Federal money to any of the entrepreneurs, Chase did not grudge him his daydream of a railroad line from New York to California.

“What condition are the men in?” asked Lincoln.

The old man frowned. “They arrived in April, as fine an army as I have ever seen. But then the weeks spent before Yorktown took their toll.”

“In what sense?” asked Chase.

“The fever, sir. Half the army is ill.” Wool turned to Lincoln. “We feed them quinine the way you feed horses hay. The air of these marshes is poisonous in the extreme.”

“So the army is not what it was. And the fever beats us.” Chase recalled that after the death of Lincoln’s son, the President had taken to his bed—for the first time—with Potomac fever; and so had Stanton. Chase alone of the Cabinet seemed exempt from Washington’s fevers. But then he had served a term in the Senate, and was almost as inured to the climate as a native.

“It is not that bad, sir. But the advance does not go as swiftly as it ought.”

“Tell me, General, how many rebels were there at Yorktown, all this month?”

Although Wool looked somewhat embarrassed, Chase did not feel in the least sorry for him. He had suspected all along the answer the old general now gave. “At the most there were never more than ten thousand men. They waited until all our earthworks and roads and artillery batteries were in place, and then they moved out.”

“So we outnumbered them ten to one,” said Lincoln; and Chase knew then that McClellan’s career was finished unless, in a swift and totally uncharacteristic blaze of activity, the Young Napoleon were to seize Richmond and end the war.

“Tactically, less than ten to one, sir. But certainly four to one.”

“We could have broken through?”

Wool nodded; but said nothing. Stanton joined them, telegrams crumpled in one hand. “General McClellan is upset that McDowell has not reinforced him.”

“That sounds familiar,” said Lincoln. “Is he well established at West Point?”

“As of this morning, yes. There are no later dispatches. Tell me, General Wool, is there any information from Richmond?”

“Yes, sir. There is panic in the city. The Confederate … I mean the rebel congress has adjourned. All the government files—and the gold from the Treasury—are loaded on railroad cars. They expect to lose their capital.”

“We are so close,” said Lincoln, softly. “So very close.”

The next day the President did his best to hasten the end. He stood with General Wool and Commodore Goldsborough on the wall of Fortress
Monroe, facing due south across the James River to Sewell’s Point, a pale yellow-green promontory in the misty light. To the right of the point was the entrance to Norfolk harbor, where the
Merrimack
lay in wait. The Union ships were now in a line close to the point. The
Monitor
—looking very odd to Chase’s eye—waited nearby, turret aimed at the harbor mouth.

“It would be a good thing,” said the President, removing his hat, to Chase’s relief, as he made a perfect tall target when he stood, unmistakably his giant self, against the sky, “if we were able to sink the
Merrimack
today.”

“Yes, sir,” said the Commodore, plainly uneasy. “But we are not certain if that is possible …”

Stanton was curt. “It is two iron-clad ships to one. Not to mention our wooden ships …”

At that, there was a terrible roar, as the Union ships opened fired on Sewell’s Point. During the intervals between bombardments, Lincoln tried to extract from General Wool the strength of the garrison at Norfolk. General Wool conceded that no one knew for certain but there had been a rumor that when the rebels abandoned Yorktown, they had also abandoned Norfolk.

“But you are not certain?”

“No, sir.”

“Then,” said the President, “I suggest that we do our best to find out, and should there be no great garrison, occupy the town.”

“Naturally, sir, our intelligence will …”

There was a cry from the soldiers farther along the high wall. The
Merrimack
had come into view, low and sleek and ominous.

“The
monster!
” said Stanton, as if there was indeed something supernatural about the curiously iron-plated, prowed ship. As the Union’s wooden ships began to move out of range, the
Monitor
swung in an awkward arc toward the
Merrimack
while its turret turned in order to sight the monster, which moved, first, directly toward the
Monitor
but then, abruptly, swung to starboard and disappeared round Sewell’s Point.

“That was
not
the battle that I had in mind.” Lincoln spoke with some disappointment. He turned to Wool. “I’d like a good map of the Norfolk area.”

“I’m afraid, sir, there is no such thing.”

“We can get you a pilot’s map, sir,” said Goldsborough. “They are exact—reasonably exact—for this area.”

Lincoln turned to Wool. “As I see the exercise, we must move as quickly as we can with all available men to Norfolk. Speed is necessary
because we must occupy the Navy Yard before the
Merrimack
can stop us or escape or whatever.”

Chase thought the aged general looked more than usually aged as the full morning light came glittering across the water—the famous Hampton Roads.

“I can produce six regiments, sir. They are here and at Camp Hamilton and near the town of Hampton.”