Sitting on the bed in his hotel room,
Stewart gazed at the uniform hanging from the back of the door. As the colors blurred, he asked
himself—again—if he was doing the right thing by his country and that
uniform. Five weeks ago he had stood,
feeling small and awkward as Uncle James had said, “Gentlemen, this is my
nephew Captain Charles Stewart,” to a group of unsmiling men who stared at him
with what looked like predatory hunger.
“This is the young man about whom you’ve heard so much.”
The very day Stewart had been told of his
assignment to the treaty commission, Uncle James had summoned him to this dark,
imposing mansion without saying a word as to why. Worse, the men seemed to be meeting in
secret: the mansion, on the hill just up the street from the Confederate White
House, was mostly dark when he entered it, and Stewart had been convinced that
he was not meant to know what transpired in this place.
"Charles,” said Uncle James, “I'd like
you to meet your host, Senator Preston Brooks.
Congressmen John Floyd, William T. S. Barry and Charles Faulkner,
Senior. And you may already have met
General Hugh Mercer."
Now more nervous, if that were possible,
Charles shook the proffered hands and tried to project calm. Senator Brooks, though young, was one of the
nation's most influential politicians outside the cabinet; his temper was
legendary. And while Stewart hadn't in
fact met General Mercer, he'd certainly heard of the general during the long
months in which Stewart had appealed in vain to return to duty; Mercer was a
high-ranker in the Quartermaster’s Department.
"I'm honored, gentlemen," he said
as the others sat back down. A servant
brought a chair to the table for Stewart.
"I confess, though, that I'm feeling a bit out of my depth
here."
"It’s we who are honored, sir,"
Floyd said. "None of us has done on
a battlefield what you did at Harper's Ferry."
“I’m nothing that much,” he began. His knee ached, the treacherous knee that had
kept him a superfluous clerk rather than the fighting officer he was meant to
be.
"Not true. You're actually the reason for this meeting,
Charles," Uncle James said.
"Here: have a glass of port."
The reason? Me? Pride and uncertainty quarreled within him
and prevented him from speaking, so Stewart concentrated on the drink a servant
placed in front of him. He had never
tried port; mimicking Senator Brooks, he sipped from the small glass. It was a little bitter at first, but then he
could taste fruit and brandy, and a warmth settled nicely in his stomach. This was much better than whiskey, especially
the caliber of whiskey a captain's salary bought.
"We'd like to know about your
appointment at the Executive Mansion this afternoon, son," said Congressman
Faulkner.
Stewart held the port glass to his lips,
trying to keep it steady. Does
this man realize what he's just asked me to do? He carefully set the glass on the table. "Sir, I'm sorry, but I'm not
allowed—"
"This will all be kept between us,
Charles," Uncle James said.
“I’m sorry, Uncle James, but I really cannot
speak.” Stewart pushed back his chair,
unable to suppress a wince as a spasm wracked his knee.
"Sit down, sir,” said Senator
Brooks. There was steel in that voice,
and acid. Definitely
a dangerous man, said Stewart to himself as he dropped back into
his chair.
Then Brooks smiled, and, walking over to
Stewart, clapped a friendly hand on his shoulder. “I’m pleased with you, Captain. You have proven yourself worthy of trust.”
“I don’t understand.”
“What you were doing this afternoon is no
secret to us. We tried to draw you out
in order to see if you could keep a secret.
I’m pleased to see that you can.
Shall I tell you what you were up to?”
Brooks laughed, a thin, sour sound.
Then he described the meeting in such detail that Stewart couldn’t
believe the senator hadn’t been hiding somewhere in the room.
“What did you think of the president?” Brooks
asked. His voice was soft; Stewart
thought he heard sorrow.
“I was shocked, sir. I had no idea he was so unwell.” President Calhoun's hair, once a white
cock's-comb he had worn like a banner, had looked dirty yellow, like old ivory
that had gone too long un-cleaned. It
lay flat against his skull, stuck there by the sweat of the effort he had to
make just to breathe. Stewart had been
horrified; the sight of sudden death on the battlefield hadn't unnerved him
nearly so much as did this slow, consumptive fading.
“This treaty with Canada is the back door to
recognition by Great Britain,” Uncle James said. “Once we have that, the other powers in
Europe will follow.” Stewart had heard
this idea already, but was astonished to hear it coming from his uncle. Uncle James was the possessor of the Stewart
family legacy of opposition to the British crown—and of Arran, the magnificent
estate that was a source of constant envy to Stewart. How could he encourage this? Stewart began to wonder how, exactly he’d
been assigned to the commission. Was
this Uncle James’s doing? “And Charles
will at least be witness to the negotiations.”
"Negotiations!” Brooks practically spat out the word. “How can anyone call it negotiation
when Great Britain sets the rules of the game?" He leaned forward, his
head aimed like a rifle at Stewart.
"But we could change that.
Would you be more inclined to favor a treaty, Captain, if we entered
into it as equals rather than as humble petitioners?"
"As a soldier," said Stewart,
"undoubtedly. As a Stewart, sir,
I'm hard-pressed to think of anything that could encourage me to favor treating
with the English."
"Tell me, Captain," said
Brooks. "What do you know about
Texas?" The room got very quiet.
Stewart looked up from his glass. Whenever anybody talked about Texas these
days, it was mostly in reference to the republic's imminent bankruptcy. "Not a lot, I suppose," he
said. "The country's broke. I read about the scandal where their president was supposed to have been bribed by the English."
"What would you say"—Brooks seemed
to rise up in his chair—"if I told you that that bribery scandal is in
fact still going on? What would you say
if I told you the British are sinking their financial hooks deeper into the
Republic of Texas? And what would you
say if I told you that there are good men there who have asked for our help in
throwing the British out?"
Stewart began to feel a tingle in the pit of
his stomach, and knew that Brooks wasn't asking him these questions as some
sort of rhetorical exercise.
"What are we going to do to Texas?"
he said. "What does this have to do
with me, with the treaty?"
“We aren’t doing anything
to Texas,” said Brooks.
"There is," Floyd said, "a
small force of men, Texas patriots, who have asked us for help in liberating
their country. This force will enter
Texas this year and join up with loyal units of the Texas Army to remove
President Lamar from his office. In the
process they will throw out the British, making
Texas free to join us. With Texas
in the Confederacy, we will be stronger against both the United States and
Great Britain."
“This operation," said Faulkner,
"is the work of Texans. Our
involvement is nothing more than a natural desire on the part of men of the
South to provide aid where it is requested by our brothers in the Lone Star
Republic."
“The question of Texas is of great importance
to the vice president,” Brooks said.
“I see,” Stewart said, though in truth he
hadn’t. He didn’t like being forced to
think about things. That was why he
would infinitely have preferred to be in the field again, facing the
certainties of action.
In the end, it was the promise of an eventual
return to that certainty—to an active regiment—that persuaded him to agree to
play a part in what Uncle James called a noble undertaking. Stewart couldn’t see any nobility in what he
be doing. Using his position in the War
department as a cover, he was to obtain weapons from Canadian sources and turn
them over to a man—so far unnamed—who would deliver them to the Texans. That was all, and he wanted to do more.
* * * *
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