Stars & Stripes Forever (33 page)

"Rarely. This one won't repeat his impertinence. He fell at the Battle of Plattsburgh."

"You mention only weapons," Lord Russell said. "Do you also take fault with our morale, our organization, our abilities to fight?"

"Don't misunderstand me, your Lordship. I am a professional soldier in the most professional army in the world—and proud of it. But put simply, bullets win battles. If an enemy fires ten bullets at me in the time it takes me to fire one—he is then as good as ten soldiers. Which means that there are no longer level terms in combat. A hundred against a hundred means my hundred against their thousand. That is an engagement that cannot be won."

"Training is what counts," the Duke said. "That and morale. We have the morale and the training and the resolution to fight and win in every part of the world. This Empire was not built by men of little resolve. We have not lost in the past and we shall always win in the future. This minor setback will be overcome. The enemy will be trounced and we shall be victorious. We lose battles—but we do not lose wars. A temporary setback can lead to a future victory. If the enemy were to plead for peace we might grant it. But only so that we could return in even greater force later. In the end we will triumph."

He stared around angrily waiting for someone to contradict him.

In the silence that followed they welcomed the announcement that Her Majesty had arrived. They turned and bowed her presence to her chair. Queen Victoria was garbed all in black; black gloves and tiny black veil, she mourned and would forever mourn her lost Albert. Since his death she had become more and more unstrung. Her face was puffy and blotchy and she had put on more weight. Members of the court worried about her sanity. She nodded at the Duke of Cambridge.

"I understand that it was you who called this meeting?"

"I did indeed. Matters of policy to discuss, serious ones. But first, if you please, I would like you to hear a personal report on the war that has affected me as no dispatch or written command has. A verbal report by one who has fought in it. Colonel Dupuy."

"Well then, speak up. What of the war, Colonel?"

"I regret, ma'am, that I bring only bad news."

"I am sure of that!" she said shrilly. "There has been too much of this of late, far too much."

"I regret deeply that I must add to your disquiet. Your Majesty's soldiers and matelots have fought most valiantly, I assure you of that. But we are outgunned on land, overwhelmed at sea. I assure Your Majesty that brave men have done their best, courage has not been lacking—but the material of war has..."

His voice was even hoarser and he touched his throat with his fingertips as though in pain. The Queen raised her hand.

"Enough! This man is injured and he should have attention—not an audience before the Queen. Have the colonel helped out, see that he is rested. It hurts Us to see a brave man who has suffered for his country, in this parlous state."

She was silent until the colonel had backed tremorously from the room, then rounded on the Duke.

"You are an imbecile! You brought that man here to embarrass Us, to make some vague and obscure point that completely escapes me? I want you to know that We are not amused."

The Duke of Cambridge was not fazed at all by her anger. "Not obscure, dear cuz, but painfully clear. We are stalemated in this war and appear to be suffering great losses on the Northern Front. I want your Prime Minister and his cabinet to be sure that they understand that fact. And I have even worse news. This colonial war seems to have spread. We have reports that regiments of the Confederacy have joined the Union in attacking our troops."

"That cannot be!" Queen Victoria shouted, her face twisted with anger.

"It is true."

"They cannot be that duplicitous. This war began because of their two wretched diplomats who are still in enemy hands. When we fight to defend them they react in some sly, Yankee way. Are you telling me that they have combined to defeat Our will?"

"They have. Perhaps it was due to a diversional attack we launched in the south of the country—we will never know."

Only silence followed this preposterous statement; none dared to speak. History is written by the powerful. Blandly and easily the Duke spoke on.

"So now that we are acquainted with all the facts we can determine the course of the future."

"My patience is at an end," she shrieked. "Tell me what is going to happen!"

"A decision must be made. A choice is quite simple. Peace—or barring that—a wider war."

The Queen's patience, never very good, was at an end and she was screaming. "You speak of peace after the humiliation We have suffered? You speak of peace with these colonial creatures who killed my dear Albert? Are we, the greatest Empire the world has ever seen, are we to humble ourselves before these backwoods rebels, these murderous swine?"

"We need not be humbled—but we should consider opening negotiations to discuss peace."

"Never! And you gentlemen of the Cabinet, do you hear what I have said?"

Lord Palmerston hesitated before he spoke. "I think that I speak for the others when I say that the Duke raises some strong points..."

"Does he indeed!" The Queen shouted, her voice shrill and angry, her face purple with rage. "But what of the country, what of the people and their desire to teach this upstart nation a lesson that it will never forget? I speak for them when I say that surrender is out of the question. There is such a thing as pride to be considered."

The Duke of Cambridge nodded his head in compliance to her will.

"Of course we will not surrender. But we need more than pride to fight this new kind of war. If we are not to have peace—we must then gird ourselves for a far greater effort. At sea we must have armor-clad ships, on land modern weapons. The Empire must be called on for assistance, for men, for the money that we must have, to build the forces that we must have if, in the end, we are to be victorious."

Lord John Russell forced himself to speak. "Your Majesty, if I may. This is a moment of great decision and all of the facts must be weighed coolly and calmly. I firmly believe that there should be no lasting conflict between Your Majesty's government and that of the United States. We come from common stock, speak the same language. Surely the road to peace must be considered as well as the road to war." He bowed and stepped back.

Gladstone had some knowledge of the sums that were needed for any continuance of the war—as well as the depleted state of the treasury. It was not his place to speak but he looked pleadingly at Palmerston. The Prime Minister nodded grimly.

"Majesty," he said, "we must consider what Lord Russell has said. We must also think of the financial cost of what we are discussing—and it is beyond belief. I believe that all options must be examined. Negotiations for a just peace could be opened, the possibility of apologies might be assumed..."

Her rage had cooled somewhat while the others spoke. In fact her voice was almost toneless now, as though a different person occupied her body. "Far too late for that. We do not consider peace an option at this time. And the possibility of failure does not exist. If the Americans must be taught a lesson let it be a strong one. Confer with my ministers and prepare proposals for this mechanical sort of war that the enemy seems to be fighting. What they can do we British can certainly do better. For is this not the heartland of science and engineering? Where Britain leads the world must perforce follow. If we are seen to bend the knee to this rag-tag wild country we can expect only scorn from the crowned heads of Europe. We shall not submit. Britain and the Empire will only be stronger for this exercise. For centuries we have ruled the waves and so be it into the foreseeable future."

She folded her hands firmly in her lap. Jaw set with grim determination she looked around at the assembled men, challenging them for argument or dissent. The silence lengthened and no one spoke.

"Well then—you are dismissed."

THE SECOND AMERICAN REVOLUTION

The President of the Confederacy and the President of the United States had fallen into the pattern of early morning meetings. It had started by chance, when they wished to prepare a common agenda before a joint Cabinet meeting, had become the habit since then. Jefferson Davis would take his carriage from Willard's Hotel, just down

Pennsylvania Avenue

at 14th, and enter the Mansion to climb the stairs to Abraham Lincoln's office. Nicolay would serve them with coffee, then close the door and stand guardian in the outer office to assure that their privacy was not compromised.

Davis drank some coffee before he spoke. "I have had a very pleasant correspondence from William Mason. He asks me to thank you most profoundly for the special order for their release. He has returned to the bosom of his family, as has John Slidell. Along with the letter was a box of fine Havana cigars."

"You must thank Captain Wilkes, the officer who captured them, for he was the one who reminded me of their incarceration. In the midst of a war begun, ostensibly at their seizure, no one but Wilkes seemed to have remembered them at all," Lincoln said, pushing a sheaf of telegrams across the table. "These arrived a few minutes ago. The counterattack by our forces has begun. Although it is still too early to get details of what is unfolding, I think that I can truthfully say that we can be sure of the outcome. Our fresh troops against their weary ones—and I am sure that we vastly outnumber them as well. They must retreat, or stand and die."

"Or both," Davis said, blowing on his coffee to cool it. "I do perhaps have some pity for the common soldiers who serve such reckless masters. But not enough to wish strongly for any other outcome. Perfidious Albion must be struck a fatal blow that will send her reeling so hard that she will have no choice but sue for peace."

"But not too soon," Lincoln said, raising his hands as though to keep this outcome at bay. "We are both in agreement that while the battles rage this country is united as one. So we must consider once again what will happen after the last guns are silenced. There is someone waiting next door that I would like you to meet. A man of great wisdom whom I have mentioned before. A man who has brought me new ideas, a new dimension that I feel affects our mutual theater of operation. He is the natural philosopher I told you about, the one who is a practitioner in the arcane art of economic theory."

"I know nothing of it."

"Nor did I until he explained. With his aid I feel we can find a way to settle our differences, to bind up our wounds and take this country into a proud and united future."

"If he can do that, why then I do declare that he is a worker of miracles!"

"Perhaps he is. Certainly he values liberty above country for he is, of all things, I might remind you, an Englishman."

Davis did not know what to say, for the arcane matters of finance and economics were beyond him. He was a soldier forced into politics while his only desire was to lead in the field. He only stirred and rose when the gray-haired philosopher came in. Lincoln introduced him to Jefferson Davis, and they spoke politely until Nicolay had gone out and sealed the door. Only then did the President address himself to the problems that faced them.

"You know, Mr. Mill, that your country has now invaded the South just as it did the North?"

"I do. Nor can I understand it nor explain it. I only pray that your conjoined forces can resist these attacks."

"We as well, sir," Lincoln said, then hesitated. His long fingers twisted together just as his thoughts twisted with how much he should reveal. Everything, he finally decided, there was really no choice. If Mill were to aid them, then he must be privy to all their thoughts, their every decision. "The warring sides in our civil war have mutually agreed upon an armistice to enable us to do battle with our mutual enemy. This country is as one again—but we are afraid that this situation will only prevail as long as battle rages. However, I must be frank, and tell you of our fears and hopes for the future, while asking you to reveal to no one what we speak of today."

"You have my word, Mr. President."

"Our thoughts are simple. When this war against the invaders is hopefully won—can we keep the peace that we now enjoy between our recently warring states? And can we, in some way, also find a way to end the dreadful war between the states that now has been suspended?"

"Of course you can." Mill spoke quietly and assuredly, with a frank pleasure and certainty in his words. "If you are strong in your resolve I can point you to the path that will make that peace possible. I shall resist any attempt to lecture you gentlemen, but there are certain facts that I must point out that must be considered in detail. We must remember the past so that we do not repeat it. I come from a Europe that is constrained by its past as your country is not. You will recall that but a few short years ago there were dangerous political stirrings in Europe. She is old and her ideas are old."

He paced the room as he spoke, raising one finger at a time to enumerate the points that he was making.

"At this time the French government was wholly without the spirit of improvement and wrought almost exclusively through the meaner and more selfish impulses of mankind. The French people wanted change and were willing to man the barricades and die for a better future. But what happened? The regime of that fat, middle-class king, Louis Philippe, could not handle the crisis. He fled to England as the working men of Paris rose up as one and raised the Red Flag over the Hôtel de Ville. And what was the response to that? The Paris mobs were put down by the National Guard with ten thousand casualties. Louis Napoleon then ended the SecondRepublic and founded the Second Empire.

"In Belgium the frightened king offered to resign. In the end the government let him stay—and he rewarded them by abolishing the right of assembly. In Germany barricades went up. The troops were then called out and the rebellious citizenry were shot down. Prussia still has no parliament, no freedom of speech or right of assembly, no liberty of the press or trial by jury, no tolerance for any idea that deviates by a hair's breadth from the antiquated notion of the divine right of kings."