The Impeachment of Abraham Lincoln (60 page)

Butler paused for emphasis. In the chamber, not a sound. “He plowed around the tree?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you took the tree to refer to what?”

Speed objected: the witness could not possibly know what the President’s story referred to, and in any event the President was obviously telling a joke.

Butler glared self-righteously. “Your Honor, the story about the plow immediately followed the discussion of the Congress and the discussion of the Department of the Atlantic. It is the position of the Managers that the subjects are obviously connected. What counsel for the respondent calls a joke might just as well have been an implicit order. He might have been telling Major Clancy that he wanted the military to plow around the Congress.”

“On that point,” rumbled Speed, “the witness’s opinion is irrelevant.”

Chase sustained the objection, but Butler had won the round. He had elicited the story from the unfortunate major, and, in the guise of responding to Speed’s argument, he had put before the Senate the possibility that the President did indeed intend to plow around the Congress.

“The Managers have no further questions for this witness,” said Butler.

The Chief Justice looked to his left. “Cross-examination?”

II

Speed sauntered toward the box. His posture was casual. He wanted it clear to everyone, from the start, that the defense would not be challenging this witness.

“Major, just a few questions.”

“Yes, sir.”

“For clarification.” Speed leaned on the bar, as if he were in a circuit court back in Illinois, not the Senate Chamber. “Major Clancy, where exactly is the Department of the Atlantic located?”

The witness was puzzled. “Sir?”

“The Department of the Atlantic. You just testified about it. Where was it established? Where is it headquartered?”

“Sir, it was never established. It was just an idea.”

“It doesn’t exist?”

“No, sir.”

“There is no Department of the Atlantic?”

“No, sir.”

“There is no military government in Washington?”

“No, sir.”

“I see.” Speed was stern. “You testified that the President discussed with you the feasibility of creating a Department of the Atlantic.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you told him that you thought the action would require the approval of the Congress, is that correct?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And the President seemed not to care what the Congress thought.”

“Yes, sir.”

Speed nodded. “Can you recall his exact words? I’m not sure that the Managers asked you to quote him exactly.”

Major Clancy squinted his eyes comically, as if a furrowed brow might aid his memory. “He said, ‘Sometimes Congress gets a little too involved in military matters for its own good.’ I think those were his words, sir. Or pretty close, anyway.”

“Was that the end of the conversation?”

“Well, he told me that story.”

“The story about the farmer?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And did you take the President’s story as anything other than a joke?”

Now it was Butler’s turn to object, but Chase allowed the question.

“No, sir,” said Clancy. “It was clear to me that the President was joking.”

Speed nodded. His voice remained friendly. “And did the President say anything else about the Department of the Atlantic?”

“He told me he would give it some more thought.”

“Did he tell you to give it more thought as well?”

“No, sir.”

“Did he direct you to create the Department of the Atlantic?”

“No, sir.”

“Not then and not later, either?”

Clancy seemed almost relieved as he answered. “He never brought it up with me again, sir.”

“Did he ever tell you that creating the Department of the Atlantic would not require the consent of the Congress?”

“No, sir.” He cocked his head to the side. “Now that I think of it, I believe he called it an interesting question.”

“The question of whether Congress had to approve.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did the President ever give you any orders regarding the Department of Atlantic? Say, to transmit to Mr. Stanton?”

“Sir, no, sir.”

Speed consulted his notes. Then, rather showily, he sauntered back to the table. He was about to sit when he seemed to recall a point. “Oh, Major. One last thing. When you leave here today, where will you be headed?”

“Sir?”

“When you leave the Capitol building. Where will you go?”

“Oh, uh, I suppose, sir, back to the Mansion.”

“The Executive Mansion?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Where you are the President’s military aide?”

“Yes, sir.”

“So you haven’t lost your assignment or anything like that as a result of your testimony here today?”

“No, sir.”

“Thank you, Major Clancy.”

Speed resumed his seat. The Managers had dragged a snarling cat of a story into the room. Speed had done his best to defang it. But the weighty silence in the chamber as the major stepped down from the stand suggested that the operation had enjoyed only limited success. Clancy’s testimony had done exactly what it was supposed to do, leaving in the atmosphere a whiff of uncertainty over exactly how far the President might be willing to go. All through the war, he had insisted on using his “broader powers” as he saw fit for the benefit of the Union. He had defied courts and Congress alike. The Managers had searched and searched for a way to drive home the dangers of leaving such a man in office. In the unassuming person of Major Clancy, they had evidently found it.

III

“Jonathan, listen,” said Abigail.

They were alone in the office. The temperature had dropped precipitously, and the common room was frigid. They were sitting side by side at the end of the table nearest the grate, where the remnants of the coal fire glowed weakly and provided little warmth. She had a shawl around her shoulders and had threatened to put on a coat. Helping prepare for closing arguments, she had spent the afternoon cataloguing the letters from military officers that the House Managers had introduced as evidence of the President’s perfidy. Now she had open before her a heavy volume of the
Statutes at Large
, the official compilation of the laws of the United States. Her task of the moment was to copy out the citation and the text of each congressional enactment approving, after the fact, one of President Lincoln’s more controversial wartime orders. Evidently, there were more statutes than she had expected, because the stack of notes piled on the blotter kept getting higher.

The coterie had spent two hours after court evaluating how the trial was going, and their conclusions had so depressed the company that nobody had bothered to wake Dan Sickles, who had fallen into what seemed to be a drunken slumber on the sofa in McShane’s office. Major
Clancy’s testimony had been particularly devastating, they all agreed, because his affection for the President was evident. True, the Mangers had misfired with Moorhead and Yardley, but the cumulative effect of the witnesses and the documents—said Dennard—did indeed put their client at serious hazard. In a disheartened spirit, the others had departed, save only Sickles, who slept on in the next room, snoring aggressively, as Abigail chafed under Jonathan’s tender gaze; a gaze she felt even when he was not actually looking at her.

“Jonathan,” she repeated. “About the other night—”

He covered her mouth: one of the few times he had ever touched her. Their eyes mutually widened in surprise, and he dropped his hand.

“I spoke too sharply,” he said now. “You were trying to warn me.”

“And you might be right. For all we know, the reason Chanticleer included the contributors to the Unification Party was in case any were called as witnesses.”

“Yes. Yes. To show bias on cross-examination, should they claim to be loyal supports of Lincoln, testifying reluctantly.” He brightened. “So the names need not be related to the conspiracy at all.”

“But there is another problem.”

She told him about Fielding; and Baker’s talent for knowing when the two were together.

“Impossible. Fielding’s family is for hard money, remember? And the hard-money people seem to be supporting Lincoln. Besides—I know this is old-fashioned of me—but Fielding is a gentleman. He is not underhanded. I have known him all of his life.” He searched for the words. “And you must surely know that Fields is … is fond of you. Very fond.”

She flushed, quite prettily. “Perhaps not Fielding but his family—”

“But his family could not possibly know where to send General Baker. And at the moment, he is the only Bannerman in the city.”

“You are saying it is coincidence.”

“I am saying that his fondness for you would not allow him to … to conspire against you.” Jonathan, plainly having difficulties, was stumbling over the words. “And he is not alone in that … fondness.”

IV

As there are precious moments between two people that can never be retrieved, there are also moments of tension that can never be avoided,
no matter how they try. They had reached one; and neither quite knew how to advance; or retreat.

“Abigail.”

“Yes, Jonathan?”

“I should like to talk to you.”

Oh, no. “We are talking now.”

He could not contain his anxiety, and so stood. After a moment, she followed his example. “No, no, I mean—well, about what has happened these past several weeks, and … and about other things.”

“I am not sure which of the occurrences of the past weeks you mean,” she said, hoping that her ornate circumlocutions would conceal her growing panic.

“This is difficult to say.”

“Then perhaps you should not say it.” His needful gaze was suddenly more than she could stand, and she swung away from him, took up a duster, began to brush the shelves. “We have much to do, Jonathan. Surely this matter, whatever it is, can wait until the trial is done.”

He spoke slowly, as if his words surprised even himself. “I don’t think it can wait, Abigail.” A beat. “Please turn around.”

She did, clutching the duster like a weapon. “What is it, then? What cannot wait a few weeks?”

Jonathan glanced at the door to McShane’s office, but Sickles was snoring as loudly and disgustingly as ever.

“Abigail,” Jonathan began, but those luminous gray eyes, as ever, distracted him from his purpose. Summoning such tatters of self-respect as remained to him, he made a second attempt. “When all of this is over,” Jonathan declared, hand over his heart, “I intend to leave Washington. I shall be returning to Rhode Island, or possibly Massachusetts. My family has interests in both places. With my brother lost in the war, Mother wants me to take a more active role in the firm.” This was the content of the letter that smirking Ellenborough had delivered last month, after no doubt contriving to read and reseal it. Abigail said nothing. Perhaps she did not know that it was her turn to speak. “Things are different at the North,” Jonathan said. “Washington City might be the capital, but it is a Southern town, and we both know it. I do not see that your people will ever be fully happy here.”

“Are you proposing, as Mr. Lincoln did before our leaders dissuaded him, that we accept colonization somewhere in Central Africa?”

“Oh, no, no.” He hastened to correct her misimpression, before he
noticed the ghostly smile dancing around her lips. “You are teasing me,” he said.

“Perhaps,” she allowed, wishing she had resisted the urge. “Pray continue.”

Again Jonathan hesitated. It seemed to him that Sickles’s snore had taken on a deeper timbre. Did that signify that he was waking, or sinking more deeply? Or was Jonathan’s fevered imagination now inventing obstacles to what he meant to declare?

“The North,” he resumed, “is a far better place for the negroes.”

“Which no doubt explains why only a few dozen were lynched in the New York draft riots.”

By now Jonathan Hilliman was of course well aware that this strange woman was smarter than he, and smarter than nearly all the young men he had known at Yale. But this was not mere wordplay. Abigail knew what he was leading up to, and sought to distract him. Emboldened by what he took to be her secret nervousness, Jonathan pressed on. “Abigail. I have never in my twenty-four years met anyone like you. That is the simple truth of the matter. You are a remarkable woman, and, in my experience, unique. I believe that my family would take to you, once they got to know you—”

“Your family!” Her voice seemed faint, or perhaps his hearing was off, for every sound in the room, every creaking board and rattling window, swirled warmly about him. “Jonathan, please.”

“The Hillimans are decent people. No matter what Chanticleer says. Not perfect, but decent. I would like you to meet them, and—”

“That is not possible.”

“You yourself have spoken of your desire to move to the North, Abigail. I am simply suggesting that perhaps we might—”

“Stop, Jonathan. Just stop.” Firmly. “Not another word.”

At first he thought that she meant to reject his suit before it had fairly begun. But her hearing had detected what his had missed. Her eyes were fixed on a point behind his head.

On McShane’s office; and the slouching figure filling the doorway.

“Mr. Sickles,” she murmured. “So good of you to join us.”