Mrs. Grant and Madame Jule (32 page)

Quite deliberately, she turned and walked away, vowing never to conduct herself as Mrs. Lincoln did, regardless of whatever migraines, tragedies, or troubles befell her.

Before long she found Captain Barnes in the pilothouse. “My good captain,” she began, fighting to modulate her indignation, lowering her voice so that the officers present would not overhear, “Mrs. Lincoln has sent me on a most distasteful errand.”

The captain drew himself up, apprehensive. “Pray continue, madam. I’ve braced myself.”

Quickly, Julia told him what Mrs. Lincoln had said. “I am but the unhappy messenger,” she emphasized. “However . . . I encourage you to avoid Mrs. Lincoln for the rest of the excursion.”

“I can do better than that,” he said, resigned. “When we land at Point of Rocks, I’ll have the captain put me ashore on the other side of the Appomattox. I’ll get a horse from the quartermaster and ride back to City Point.”

Julia thought it a great injustice that a gallant naval officer should be treated so, but Captain Barnes insisted, explaining that he had the greatest sympathy for Mrs. Lincoln. He understood that she was unwell and that the mental strain upon her was so great that it caused her extreme sensitivity to perceived slights. He would not give her another moment’s distress, even if it meant great inconvenience to himself.

Captain Barnes’s kindness and generosity impressed Julia greatly, and when the presidential party disembarked at Point of Rocks, she remained aboard to see him off on the other shore.

The next morning offered the promise of a fresh start, so after breakfast Julia and Jesse called at the
River Queen
to invite Mrs. Lincoln and Tad to go riding. Tad joyfully bounded down the gangplank to join them, but he said his mother was not well and could not come. Nor did she appear the next time Julia attempted to see her, and as rumors sped through headquarters, she soon learned why.

Although the president had treated his wife with the most affectionate solicitude throughout their visit, her behavior had embarrassed him so much that a breach had come between them. Distressed and ashamed, Mrs. Lincoln had fled back to Washington, leaving Mr. Lincoln and Tad behind.

M
ARCH
–A
PRIL
1865

A
s the last days of March passed, the sun warmed the earth, the roads dried, and City Point crackled with a fierce new energy, filling Julia with excitement and apprehension. She knew they were only days away from the launch of the last great offensive—for Ulys seemed certain that it would be the last, deciding the course of the fractured nation once and for all.

Soon after General Sheridan’s cavalry arrived at headquarters, Julia chanced upon him aboard the
River Queen,
his eyes shining with eagerness as he read from a long scroll of office paper. “Ah, General, I see I’ve caught you reading a most interesting document,” she teased. “What is it? It cannot be a love letter. No lady would use that sort of paper to express her affections to a beau.”

He smiled, rolled up the scroll, and tucked it away in his breast pocket. “It is much better than a love letter, madam,” he replied in a conspiratorial whisper. “It is the order of battle your husband wrote for me.”

“It seems to give you great pleasure.”

“It does, madam,” he said firmly. “It is magnificent.”

On the evening of March 27, General Sherman arrived at City Point aboard the
Russia,
a captured Confederate steamer drafted into service for the United States Navy. Julia joined the officers as they gathered around the campfire, where Sherman described in terrible, exhilarating detail the stirring events of his march through Georgia. “I met some people I knew as friends in better days, and they were not ashamed to call upon the ‘Vandal Chief’ that had invaded their lands,” he said. “Otherwise the Southern people regarded my armies as the Romans did the Goths, and the parallel is not unjust.”

It was a grand, glorious epic, but after Sherman had enthralled his audience for nearly an hour, Ulys said, “I’m sorry to break this up, Sherman, but the president is aboard the
River Queen,
and I know he’ll be anxious to see you. Suppose we go and pay him a visit before dinner.”

Sherman immediately rose and the two generals set out for the wharf. Julia knew that there they would be joined by Generals Sheridan and Meade, Admiral Porter, and other officers—a notable gathering to discuss war maneuvers past and present.

It was only after she put Jesse to bed and sat alone with Ulys in the cabin, she at the fireside and he at his desk, that she grew wistful. “Ulys,” she said, “why do you never tell me of your plans? You know you needn’t fear I’d divulge your secrets.”

Ulys looked up from his dispatches and regarded her thoughtfully as he puffed on his cigar. “Would you like to know?”

“Of course I would.”

He pushed back his chair and held out his hand to her. “Then come here.”

She crossed the room, and when she took his hand, he pulled her onto his lap, wrapped his left arm around her, and with his right indicated the map spread upon his desk. “There is the entire field,” he said, sweeping his hand over the Southern states. “Here stands the Army of the Potomac and the Army of the James.” He pointed to West Virginia and Tennessee. “There I’ve placed General George Stoneman with a large body of cavalry to guard the mountain passes.” He rested his palm on the Gulf states. “General Edward Canby is here, and Sherman—” His fingers moved across the map and came to rest upon the eastern coast of Georgia. “Sherman’s forces are here. Now you have the position of all the armies, and you can see that they form a perfect cordon from sea to sea again.”

“Yes,” said Julia, studying the map. “I do see that. What happens next?”

“Well—” Ulys paused for a moment. “I’m going to tighten that cordon until the rebellion is crushed or strangled.”

Julia absorbed this in silence, cold grief welling up within her as from an underground spring.

“Julia?”

She took a deep, shaky breath. “I’m sorry, Ulys, but knowing this, I feel only a terrible, deep, abiding sorrow.”

“Yes, war is always sorrowful.” He kissed her softly on the cheek. “But, Julia, think how dreadful it would be if a cordon like the one I’ve drawn about the South encircled the Union instead.”

She shuddered, imagining it all too well, knowing General Lee would have encircled the North if he had been able.

She knew Ulys had no choice but to draw the cordon tight.

•   •   •

The next morning Captain Barnes took General Sherman aboard the
Bat
and returned him to South Carolina, and General Ord crossed to the southern shore of the James River with three divisions to take his position for the assault. As Generals Meade and Sheridan, too, moved into place, Ulys told Julia something she had long suspected: He had decided to accompany his armies into the field and direct the operations himself.

On the afternoon before Ulys’s departure, when most of the officers had already left headquarters for the field, Julia returned to the cabin after an outing with Jesse to discover Ulys packing up his office. He placed his hands on Julia’s shoulders and fixed her with a look that allowed for no dissent. “I’ve decided that you and Mrs. Rawlins and the children should move aboard the dispatch boat for your safety. If my plans unfold as I hope and expect they will, I’ll return to City Point soon, and we’ll travel together to Washington.”

Julia managed a smile, but her voice trembled. “How very proud I shall be.”

“But if Lee should escape to the mountains—and I’m concerned that he might, if he moves before I’m ready—there’s no telling when this war will end. In that case, you and Jesse must return without me.”

Julia threw back her shoulders and lifted her chin. “I’m certain that the next time I return to Washington, it will be at my victor’s side.”

On the evening of March 29, Mr. Lincoln called on her aboard the
Mary Martin.
The lines of his face seemed deeper, the rings beneath his eyes of a darker hue. She had never seen him look more grave, and she knew the weight of his responsibilities oppressed him.

“When I parted with General Grant at the station, he was looking well and full of hope,” Mr. Lincoln told her kindly, his ineffable compassion bringing light to his careworn face. “I’m confident that his last campaign has begun, and that it will end in victory.”

Julia thanked him and assured him that she shared his confidence—for somehow, despite her grave worries, she knew, in that uncanny way she always did, that Ulys would return to her whole and unharmed.

•   •   •

All those left behind at City Point braced themselves for word from the Petersburg front, for jarring reports of bloody battles, for ambulances full of wounded. Julia; Mary Emma Rawlins, Rawlins’s second wife; and Antoinette Morgan, the wife of Colonel Michael R. Morgan, spent the long, anxious hours waiting for news, minding their children, strolling along the James, speculating in hushed and anxious voices about what their husbands might be doing at that very moment—and praying, silently and fervently, for victory and peace and the deliverance of the men they loved most dearly.

The day after Ulys departed, he telegraphed Julia from Gravelly Run to report that they were well but enduring heavy rains. “The weather is bad for us,” he noted, “but it is reassuring to know that it rains on the enemy as well.”

In the days that followed, he wrote to her frequently, brief notes that were important not so much for what they told her of his military maneuvers—which was very little indeed—but for the assurances they offered that he was alive and well. He sent lengthier reports to the president, who had decided to remain at City Point until the outcome of the offensive could be known, and Mr. Lincoln kindly shared the news with Julia and the other wives.

It was from Mr. Lincoln—radiant, relieved, and beaming—that Julia learned of the fall of Petersburg. After Sheridan’s marvelous victory at Five Forks, Ulys had ordered an assault all along the lines, shattering the rebel defenses and taking the city. By early afternoon, Union scouts reported that the Confederate government was evacuating Richmond. Ulys, telegraphing from his headquarters at the Banks House near the Boydton Plank Road, invited Mr. Lincoln to visit the captured works.

On the morning of April 3, Mr. Lincoln rode out with Tad to meet Ulys at Petersburg and to tour the defeated city. But before Mr. Lincoln and Tad could return with news from Petersburg, other reports came by telegraph from Richmond—word of an event that the people of the North had anxiously awaited for years.

At a quarter past eight o’clock that morning, Union forces under the command of Major General Godfrey Weitzel had entered Richmond.

The Confederate capital had fallen.

•   •   •

Shortly after noon on that bright, sunny Monday, Jule walked to the workshop of Mr. Peter Bryant, a glassblower, to negotiate new terms. For months he had supplied Jule with bottles and jars for her various concoctions in exchange for an ample supply of her burn salve, but her need for more bottles had grown dramatically, in keeping with demand for her products. Although Mr. Bryant had not complained, she knew no one needed that much burn salve, and only kindness restrained him from asking for cash instead.

An assistant sent word of her arrival, and soon he emerged, wiping his brow and smiling. “Good day, Miss Jule,” he greeted her warmly, as he always did. A few months before, Emma, who seemed to know at least one person in every profession, had introduced her to the freeborn craftsman, a widower in his early forties, the father of two children. In that time Jule had come to know that he was quiet and industrious, but kindly and generous too. His eldest son, fifteen and broad shouldered like his father, worked alongside him in the workshop, and his daughter, almost twelve, attended school and wanted to be a teacher.

“Good day, Mr. Bryant,” Jule replied, smiling back.

The workshop was stiflingly warm, so he offered her a chair outside in front of the shop window. He stood nearby, arms folded in front of his chest, gaze keenly interested, as she opened negotiations.

“I’m glad your business is faring so well that you need so much glassware,” he remarked. “I think I can manage a fair price considering the quantity you want.”

The price he named was so low that Jule had to laugh. “Mr. Bryant, I think you’ll lose money on this deal. This is business, not a favor.”

“I know that,” he said, looking a trifle embarrassed. “If you’re worried about me, you can ask around. You might even find a better rate.”

“I doubt that very much.”

He extended a hand. “Then let’s shake on it.”

Her glance took in the old burn scars on his forearm. “Only if you let me include a regular supply of salve in the deal.”

“Agreed.”

They shook hands, and he held hers longer than necessary, perhaps distracted by a sudden, none too distant burst of artillery fire, followed immediately by whistles and cheers and shouts and a cheerful blast on a trumpet.

Jule gently eased her hand free of Mr. Bryant’s. “I wonder what they’re celebrating.”

He glanced up and down the street, frowning curiously as merry crowds began to gather, shouting and laughing for joy. “Another victory for General Grant, I hope.”

Jule rose from her chair and watched, astonished, as people poured from homes and businesses, tossing their hats into the air, embracing and kissing and weeping for joy. Another artillery salute boomed, and as the blacksmith next door burst from his shop, Mr. Bryant called, “What’s happened? What’s the news?”

“What’s the news, you ask?” The blacksmith beamed, tore off his leather apron, and tossed it over his shoulder through the doorway. “Richmond’s fallen—that’s the news!”

As Jule gasped and pressed her hands to her mouth, Mr. Bryant cheered, punched a fist into the air, and then seized her hands and danced her about in a circle. Joy bubbling up within her, she laughed and danced along—and then froze as he seized her by the shoulders and planted a kiss on her lips.

She stared at him numbly.

“Miss—Miss Jule,” he stammered, releasing her. “Please forgive me.”

“It’s all right,” she said shakily. “It’s the excitement. I understand.” She took a step back. “We have a deal, about the bottles, isn’t that so?”

He nodded, shamefaced and utterly miserable. “I didn’t mean to offend—”

“It’s all right,” she repeated, managing a smile. “I take no offense. I’ll see you soon.” She nodded and turned, hurrying away home.

Tears filled her eyes as she made her way through the joyful, raucous, exuberant crowds toward home. It seemed that all of Washington City had joined the celebration spilling into the streets, hearts overflowing with joy, happiness shining in the faces of clerks and drovers and housemaids and waiters, white and colored alike. Already citizens were draping patriotic banners and bunting from their windows, and bands quickly formed on street corners and parks to play spirited marches and merry jigs.

“Jule,” she heard a voice cry out happily, and when she turned, she glimpsed Emma waving frantically from the other side of the street, rising high on tiptoe to be seen over the crowd. A surge of relief swept the troubling kiss to the back of her thoughts, and she quickly wove her way to her friend’s side.

“Oh, Jule, isn’t it glorious?” Emma cried, embracing her.

“Yes,” she replied, truly understanding for the first time. “Oh, Emma, it’s wonderful!”

With Emma and her companions, seamstresses from Mrs. Keckley’s workshop and the renowned dressmaker herself, she joined the celebration, linking arms and singing and laughing and marching through the streets. Crowds gathered outside the homes and offices of various dignitaries and called for them to come out and address them, but of the many who complied, only the few loudest could be heard over the din. An eight-hundred-gun salute shook the city: three hundred booms for the fall of Petersburg, five hundred for Richmond. Many revelers indulged in too much liquor, and Jule was at first amused and then alarmed to observe neighbors she knew to be sober, responsible folk tottering down the streets, singing and proclaiming the glory of President Lincoln, General Grant, and the Union army in loud, slurring voices.