Grant set the pen down on his desk and
blew across the surface of the page to dry the ink. He noted, but ignored, the dribble of dark
blue pooling on the stained wood of the desk beneath the pen. He'd never been the sort to pay too much
attention to appearances—which made the work he was forced to do in New Orleans
all the more painful to him.
Sam Grant had lately begun to wonder just how much his country really wanted him. He was sure enough of his own abilities to know that it needed him, but the two weren't, unfortunately, synonymous.
There had been an inquiry in the aftermath of the rout at Harper’s Ferry. Though Grant wasn’t one of those accused of dereliction of duty, his testimony hadn’t made him any friends. The country—or at least the army and the politicians—had wanted some one to have been responsible for the rout; it wasn’t enough that there be something wrong with the system, with the way America responded to military threats. All four generals who’d commanded brigades in Wool’s unfortunate army had been relieved of command. Grant had been sent to the Canadian winter capital, ostensibly as an adjutant to the military secretary of the United States legation. The reality of his new life was that he wrote minutes of other peoples’ meetings, and wrote reports that few read and no one accepted.
The report he’d just finished was a masterpiece of obfuscation and half-truths, exactly the sort of thing they liked to read in Washington these days. He had attempted, in his first draft, to honestly appraise the military potential of the Anglo-Confederate negotiations in New Orleans. He had concluded that the Union would be threatened by just about any outcome, but especially if the treaty resulted in the closure of the Mississippi to Union military traffic.
His conclusions had outraged his superiors, who would be held accountable for the bad news, and so Colonel Van Doncken had made him rewrite the report, rounding off the edges of all its predictions.
Some were calling the coming treaty an
alliance, but Grant doubted that. Great
Britain had only recently recognized the Confederacy as a proper belligerent;
before any alliance could be completed Britain would have to sign a treaty
acknowledging the existence of the Confederate States of America as a sovereign
state. That, though, would be bad
enough. The next step following
recognition by Great Britain would be recognition by the other Powers,
following which there would surely be an offer by Great Britain, France, and
the Holy Roman Empire to mediate a settlement of the war. And that would mean the irrevocable sundering
of the Union. Or war between the Union
and Great Britain, with all the uncertainty and even disaster that promised—for
all sides.
Grant had put none of this into his final report. Instead, he had simply written that he doubted the negotiations would lead to a formal alliance—yet. That would make Van Doncken happy, however much it increased the risk that the Union would generate some new foolishness—stupidity—as a result. The Van Donckens of the world never worried much about that, only about protecting their own backsides.
I need a drink, he thought.
There had of course been no question of his including in the report even a hint of what might happen should the Canadians discover what Major Brown and Captain Connell were up to.
The two spies—officially they were, like himself, assistants to Van Doncken, but everything about them screamed “espionage” to Grant—had arrived just before last Christmas, about six weeks after Grant’s own purgatory had begun. They had immediately begun a course of actions that seemed to revolve around bribery, theft, and even break-ins. After four months’ exposure to their disgraceful behavior, Grant wished the spies would leave and take their schemes with them. He understood the need for espionage, but to him that meant discerning an enemy’s plans for battle, or his strategic aims. Skulking about the capital city of a non-belligerent, and spying on the negotiations of diplomats, was not the way to fight a war.
Of course, sitting in a hot, humid cupboard of an office in a hot, humid house in a hot, humid city and scratching out fictions that nobody would ever read was no way to fight a war either. The respite provided by winter was nearly over; the Canadians and their British overlords would soon begin the journey north, to Upper Canada and Kingston, the summer capital. Ambassador Bancroft and Colonel Van Doncken would go north with them—but Grant and his fellow junior staff members would be left behind, to suffer through the miserable weather and the risk of disease that even the British hadn’t been able to eradicate from this tropical city.
He reached for the decanter and poured himself a glass of Colonel Van Doncken's whiskey. At that moment the door to the office banged open. "Jesus Christ, Grant, are you drinking again?" It was Connell. A second later, Major Brown was in the office as well. The room was small enough that there really wasn't room for more than two of them, and Grant felt the temperature going up.
"You're a disgrace to your uniform, Grant," Brown said.
"In fact, you're just a disgrace period," Connell added.
"Get yourself out of that chair," Brown said, “and leave the whiskey behind. We're wanted up in Mr. Bancroft's office."
Grant automatically collected a sheaf of paper and a pencil as he got up. He was never invited to participate in these meetings; he existed only to take notes when it was considered the subject was too sensitive for the embassy’s civilian staff.
I belong in the field, he thought, not acting the part of a confidential secretary. He was going to be twenty-nine next month, and Colonel Van Doncken had made it clear to him that after Harper’s Ferry he’d die a captain.
I’d be happy to die a captain, he thought, if I could die leading a company in the field. At least dead I could rejoin Julia. He’d only started drinking two years ago, when the fever had taken his wife. Being by himself in a frontier post in the Everglades had bored him beyond hope; he’d taken to the bottle mostly to fill the empty space Julia had left. He’d stopped drinking the instant he got his brigade command. Now they were all convinced he was good for nothing but note-taking, and the bottle was one of the few friends he had.
The colonel and the ambassador wanted to talk about Brown's and Connell's activities amongst the waste-baskets of the Cabildo. “We need something positive to report to Washington,” Van Doncken said without explanation or introduction as soon as his subordinates were seated. “What have you arranged through your contacts in this city? Can you get an informer inside the Cabildo?”
“We are not at all sure that this is a decent course of action,” Bancroft added. “So if you cannot promise results, it may be better to drop this scheme before you are found out.” Bancroft was one of those sour-faced New England Yankees, his only qualification his abolitionism; it had been thought that he’d be a suitable ambassador given the British and Canadian attitude toward slavery. Grant doubted whether Bancroft’s feelings about Negroes mattered as much to the locals as did his irritating and condescending piety. He was pretty certain, too, that Bancroft’s use of the word “we” actually encompassed no-one beyond himself.
“We’ll get you your secrets, Mister Minister,” Brown said. “But me and Connell have plans beyond that. If our friends live up to their promises, we could sink this whole treaty before it gets itself signed.” He smiled the bland smile of the utter, mindless fanatic. Brown was another abolitionist, and the worst, murderous, kind; he’d been involved with his family in a bloody feud around Alton, Illinois just before the war broke out. There were stories that he’d killed several pro-slavery men, stories Grant now found easy to believe.
“It might be advisable to avoid placing too much trust in the sorts of men who would be willing to sell their access to the Cabildo,” Grant found himself saying. “If they’re willing to compromise their principles for money once, what’s to prevent them from doing so twice and turning against us?”
“Who asked you?” Connell snapped.
“Gentlemen,” Van Doncken said. “That’s enough. Captain Grant, your opinion was not sought. Captain Connell, you should not presume to speak for your superior officer. I assume, Major Brown, that you are aware of the risks you take by involving yourselves—and this office—in actions that would be considered criminal by the British and Canadian authorities. And that you have taken appropriate steps to mitigate those risks. You know that we cannot officially condone any act that would violate local laws.”
“With all due respect, sir,” Brown said. “it may just be necessary to tweak a few British noses if we’re serious about keeping free access to the Mississippi. I’ve heard rumors, from reliable sources, that the Confederates plan an invasion of Illinois this spring or summer, using partisan rangers—what the Mexicans call guerrillas. If the Canadians give the Confederates the freedom of the Mississippi—and deny that freedom to us—this guerrilla action could easily become a full invasion. We know that Johnston and Davis have large forces in northern Tennessee and southern Kentucky.”
“And we know that a number of former filibusters and soldiers of fortune are gathering somewhere north of here,” Connell added. “That is a coincidence I’m not comfortable with. If the Canadians and British take it upon themselves to arm this band, the results could be very bad indeed.”
“I don’t think the existence of a few hundred—what do you call them? guerrillas?—matters all that much in the grand scheme of things,” Van Doncken said. “I’m more concerned about what effects this treaty may or may not have on our plans for Kentucky this summer.”
“Our plans take that into account, sir,” Major Brown said. “We expect to learn a fair amount about what the Confederates know of our plans. Their treaty commission includes a number of officers. Some of them are senior, but of very poor repute.”
“And one of them is well-known to Captain Grant,” Connell said, his voice pious and his countenance serene. “You’ve met Captain Stewart, haven’t you? The ‘hero of Harper’s Ferry’? We’ve learned that he’s on the Confederate staff here.” Now his face twisted into a vicious grin.
Grant resisted all the urges that sprang up. What did any of this matter? He’d done nothing to be ashamed of at Harper’s Ferry; he’d been taken prisoner only after being knocked senseless by one of his own men. More importantly, Van Doncken and the spies were risking an international incident by committing—or colluding in the commission of—criminal acts in the Canadian capital, and for no good that he could see. The Confederates were going to learn about the planned offensive in Kentucky well before it happened anyway; southern Illinois was full of Rebel sympathizers, and an army as big as Worth and Kearny were assembling would have been impossible to hide anyway. All that would be accomplished by this skulduggery would be to drive Britain and Canada further into the Confederate embrace, giving the Union that much more formidable an enemy.
“Well, your worries wouldn’t even exist if we can deal with these treaty negotiations,” Brown said. “Sir,” he added.
“Don’t like this,” Bancroft said. “It’s hardly gentlemanly, is it?” As Brown opened his mouth, perhaps to protest, Bancroft abruptly said, “Don’t want to know about it, either.” For a moment there was no sound beyond the scratch of Grant’s pencil on paper; when he looked up from his notes, Grant saw the other three men looking at the ambassador as though they really believed he might do something definitive, such as giving an explicit order. Instead, Bancroft pushed back his chair. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to go and flatter Lord Byron’s secretary for awhile, in order to find out when the negotiations will begin in earnest.”
Back in his stifling office, Grant looked at the whiskey glass. Beads of condensation dripped down the sides; the rust-colored liquid seemed suddenly repulsive to him. I have placed myself in the service of fools, he thought.
He unlocked a drawer in his desk and drew out two sheets of paper. One sheet bore the coat-of-arms of the Holy Roman Empire, the other the seal of the ambassador of the Republic of Argentina. A nephew of the great Napoleon had last week been elected president of Argentina. Life on the pampas might be interesting.
After reading the letters—how many times in the last few months had he done this? —Grant put them back in their drawer and locked it. Then he got to his feet and buttoned up his tunic. A walk would help clear his head. Perhaps it would also make it easier for him to ignore the allure of the contents of the glass on his desk.
As he left the office, though, he hesitated. He was going to need another bottle of ink to write up the minutes of today’s meeting. Might as well get it now, so it’ll be ready when I get back. As he returned to his office with the bottle, though, he stopped short. Something wasn’t right. I didn’t close the door behind me. Now it was closed, and from behind it he was sure he heard the murmur of voices. He edged closer, his ear close to the wall, until he could just make out the voices.
It was Connell. “You sure you’re comfortable with this fellow, sir? He looks like the sort who’d be happier breaking heads than turning them.”
“What do I care?” That was Major Brown’s voice. “So we have to offer him a few Limeys or Canucks to get what we need. If we can save even one of our soldiers, or free one negro, I’ll consider it a price worth paying. The Union is the last best hope of Earth, Connell. It’s worth sacrificing to preserve it. I’d consider it a price worth paying if it were a hundred Canadians, a thousand British. What are they to our cause?”
Shaken, Grant stepped back, then walked to the side door. As he opened the door he set the ink-bottle down on a small ledge. If it had been the whiskey-glass in his hand, he wouldn’t have put it down.
Chapter One Chapter Two
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