Lincoln (57 page)

Lincoln then said that he would like to review the troops; and a dozen orderlies hurried off to send the word to the surrounding camps that the President was coming to inspect them.

Chase and Stanton and Viele rode behind Lincoln through the ruins of the town of Hampton, put to the torch by the retreating rebels. As Lincoln would approach a regiment, lined up for inspection, Chase and Stanton would remain to one side while the President, accompanied by General Wool and the regiment’s commander, would ride past the rows of men in dark, dingy blue uniforms. At the first regiment—in a muddy field outside Hampton—the President appeared awkward and tentative and most, thought Chase, sternly, unmartial. But then, as if Lincoln himself had come to the same conclusion, the President removed his top hat; and when the men got a fair look at the familiar, lean, bearded face of the President, a spontaneous cry went up for “Old Abe” and Chase was both moved and alarmed. If Lincoln could carry the military vote in the next election, he would be electable and if he was electable, he and not Chase would be nominated. Grimly, Chase watched a Lincoln he had not seen before—a smiling and almost youthful war god, cantering past lines of uniformed cheering men.

But Chase’s moment of glory came that night. Aboard the
Miami
, Lincoln and Stanton had studied with Chase a pilot’s map of the Norfolk area. General Wool had suggested that a landing be made close to Sewell’s Point, but Chase had found on the map what looked to be a well-protected place close to the city. “Surely,” said Chase, “this is more practical and the men will be less exposed to fire, if there is any.”

General Wool had finally got word that although Norfolk was being evacuated, no one knew how many troops remained on the other side of the Elizabeth River to guard the Navy Yard. Chase had then gravely measured the distance on the map—held at a distance of one inch from his left eye—from the landing place that he preferred to Norfolk. “Less than nine miles,” he had said. “And there appears to be a good road.”

General Wool continued to look uncommonly aged—and superior. “These pilot maps are never to be relied on when it comes to inland roads.”

“In that case,” Chase had declared, the fierce blood of a hundred generations of Christian warriors now coursing through his large, rejuvenated frame, “let us go ashore
now
, and ascertain the condition of the road, and the principal features of the landing place.”

Before General Wool could object, Lincoln had said, “I see no reason why we shouldn’t at least send a ship’s boat ashore, to scout Mr. Chase’s landing place.”

The
Miami
was now some five hundred yards off the coast. The moon blazed in the sky and had Chase been able to see anything at all with his new and more than usually unsatisfactory spectacles from Franklin’s, he would have been able, quite alone, to determine the state of the shoreline. As it was, a boat was sent to the shore. Then, while Lincoln and Stanton stood beside Chase on the deck—
my
deck, he thought—the ship’s boat suddenly turned back.

“I think they’ve sighted an enemy picket,” said Lincoln, the only one of the three statesmen who could see objects in the distance. At best, Stanton was nearly as blind as Chase. At worst, as now, he was suffering from opthalmia. He had already confided to Chase that he was probably going blind. Chase had quoted Scripture; and Stanton had been, Chase was certain, comforted.

The ship’s boat was now beneath the deck. An officer called up, “We have found an enemy patrol, sir.”

“Come aboard,” said Wool.

“Not so fast,” said Lincoln, peering across the moon-spangled water to the dark tangle of low trees back of the driftwood-strewn beach. “Someone looks to be waving a white flag. And there are colored people coming down to the water.
Unless
, of course, I am hallucinating.”

General Viele now trained a telescope on the shore. “The President is right. We have a welcoming committee. They seem to be colored and as far as I can tell they are all women.

“Then let us go ashore,” said Lincoln. “We shall be well-met by moonlight.”

Stanton’s wheezings began; then ceased. “This could be a trap,” he warned. But Lincoln, backed by Chase, overwhelmed Stanton and Wool; and so the three statesmen got into the tug and were rowed ashore. “After all,” as Lincoln pointed out, “no one is about to open fire on three sedate old lawyers out for a midnight excursion on the waters.”

“More to the point,” said Chase, “no one will know it is us.”

So it proved. The women paid no attention to the three lawyers but they were most attentive to Generals Wool and Viele, and they assured them that they were in favor of the Union, not to mention the abolition
of slavery—their own condition. Yet when General Wool proposed to the women that they be taken across to Fortress Monroe and freedom, they said that they preferred to stay home, and be freed in due course. They did confirm the rumor that the day after Yorktown had fallen, the rebel garrison had begun to abandon the city. But there was still a detachment of troops at the Custom’s House, while no one knew whether or not there were troops at the Navy Yard, where the
Merrimack
was tied up.

Lincoln and Chase strode up and down the beach, while Stanton sat on a piece of driftwood, applying cologne from a pocket flask to his whiskers. “This looks,” said Lincoln, finally, “as good a place as any on the map, Mr. Chase.”

“That is what I thought when I located it on the chart.” Chase wanted the discovery to be remembered always as his.

“Yes, you’ve chosen well. We’ll send the troops ashore first thing tomorrow under”—Lincoln lowered his voice—“the ancient Wool. I am amazed he is still in the service.”

“I should like to go ashore with him.” Chase cast what he hoped looked like an eagle’s eye at where he was fairly certain the road to Norfolk ought to be.

“By all means, General Chase. I’d go with you, too, only Mr. Stanton is already beginning to threaten me with house arrest.”

“Well, sir, you are a conspicuous target,” said Chase, so cocking his one adequate eye that he could make out with some clarity the tall, thin, top-hatted figure beside him, black in the white moonlight. The President was unmistakable—except to the slave-women, who were kindly but ignorant.

The next morning when Chase again set foot on the shore, General Viele and an orderly were waiting for him. “You will want a horse, Mr. Chase? Or a carriage?”

“A horse, General.” Chase had never felt so alert; yet he had not slept all night in his excitement. Was it too late, he wondered, to resign from the Treasury and accept the commission of major-general, in command of the Ohio troops? With a victory or two in the field, and his face on the one-dollar bill, he could take the nomination from Lincoln, assuming that that kindly, modest man would even want to stand in his way. Chase felt a genuine liking for Lincoln on this cool May morning, as he rode toward Norfolk, General Viele at his side and a squad of dragoons behind them. Along the road, the colored people were lined. There were cheers for the Union army; and an occasional homemade Union flag was displayed. There was also sullen silence from the occasional white person glimpsed, and Chase was suddenly aware of what a very large, not to mention
tempting, target he himself presented in his frock coat, surmounted by the second most-famous face in the United States, which included, in his case, the rebel states, where his greenbacks were often used as tender. If shot by a sniper, he could think of no end more worthy of a Christian warrior.

“General Wool has gone on ahead with four regiments,” said Viele.

“I thought there were to be six.” Chase began to wonder whether or not their informants had been accurate. Could it be that there was still a
large
rebel garrison in Norfolk? Could this be a trap?

“I don’t know why the other two regiments were not sent over.” Viele did not think much of Wool. Neither did Chase, when, on the outskirts of Norfolk, they found the bridge, which had looked so integral on the map, newly destroyed. Worse, up ahead, the sound of artillery. “The rebels are still here,” Chase observed, as coolly as possible.

“So it would appear.” Viele reined in his horse. Chase did the same. The dragoons fanned out on either side of them. Over the flat spring countryside, the Union forces were stopped at the river’s edge. Rebel artillery was in place to the east of the town on a low wooded hill, as well as in place beyond the burned-out bridge, where earthworks has been raised and bayonets now gleamed.

“We have been misled.” Chase was conscious of the sun’s heat on his bald head. At that moment two Union generals approached from the direction of the rebel earthworks. They paused to confer, respectfully, with Chase.

One general said that he thought the number of rebels in the works up ahead were few, but that he had counted at least twenty-one major guns, and so, all in all, they had best turn back and consider flanking the works. The other general favored an out-and-out assault. Chase decided that they had best turn back.

On the road, Chase met General Wool at the head of a regiment. As the general conferred in the now dusty roadway, Chase crossed his arms on his chest, as he had seen McClellan do so often. He tried to think of some novelty that would save the day, but as he could think of nothing at all he gravely endorsed General Wool’s plan to send General Viele to Newport News for an additional brigade. Meanwhile, the Union regiments were reassigned; yet all were under General Wool, to whom Chase was now, reluctantly, attached.

As the newly reorganized Union army wheeled back toward Norfolk, fire and smoke appeared from behind the earthworks. A moment later a squad of Union cavalry rode up to report that the rebels had evacuated the earthworks and set fire to the barracks. The Union cavalry had already breached the works.

“Norfolk is ours.” Chase spoke with quiet satisfaction to Wool as, side by side, they rode into the abandoned fortress. The barracks—mere huts for the most part—were already ashes; and the worst of the smoke had been dispelled by a cool west wind. The troops rode through fortifications where the great guns were still in place; loudly, they cheered their victory.

In the distance, the steepled town of Norfolk seemed empty of all life except for a delegation of civilians who were coming toward them. Chase sat very straight astride his horse, aware that he was now surrogate for the Commander-in-Chief. Beneath a tall elm tree a stout white-haired man got out of a closed carriage; and removed his hat to General Wool. “Sir, I am here, as mayor of Norfolk, to surrender to you, peacefully, our city. If I may, I should also like to introduce to you the aldermen, who have come with me; and present you with the key to our city.”

Wool looked at Chase, who nodded and said to the mayor, “I shall receive the key, in the name of the President. I am,” he added, quietly, “Secretary Chase.”

“Well, sir, I ought to have known you from those greenbacks we see every now and again.”

Chase smiled politely; and dismounted. He was stiff in every joint. Beneath a large tree, the mayor, a loquacious Southern gentleman, introduced the city worthies to Chase and Wool. The mayor was careful to make the point that: “Personally, I was for fighting to save the city but the Administration at Richmond decided otherwise, and so we must throw ourselves on your mercy and hope that you will respect property and persons, according to the immemorial laws of the United States.”

Although Chase made a short, decorous speech, he was somewhat amazed that twice during his well-chosen, even compassionate words, Wool had looked at his watch. Chase then accepted a large rusty key, alleged to be that to the city if not to its citizens’ hearts. Then the mayor proposed that they all repair to City Hall. He turned over to Chase and Wool the fine carriage in which he had arrived. “It was used by
our
commanding general,” he said, somewhat bleakly, “until this morning.”

Once inside the carriage, Wool said, “We must find out about the Navy Yard. I think they are trying to delay us while the
Merrimack
escapes.”

“To where? The Union fleet is waiting off Sewell’s Point. The
Monitor
is ready. No, General, the
Merrimack
will not escape. I am certain of that.”

At City Hall, the mayor attempted a second speech to a small, grim crowd of elderly white men and hot-eyed crinolined women but Chase, politely, cut him short. Then Chase appointed General Viele military governor of Norfolk; and ordered the Union flag to be raised over the handsome Custom’s House, a Greek-revival building of considerable
charm. Meanwhile, General Wool ascertained that the Navy Yard was still occupied by rebel troops. “We shall move against the Yard tomorrow,” he said, as he joined Chase and Viele in the mayor’s office.

“The President thinks we have been too slow,” said Viele. “When I was at Newport News, collecting the brigade, he sent for me to come see him at Fortress Monroe. He wanted to know what we were doing back on that side of the water. I told him that I had come across to get the brigade. He wanted to know why all the available regiments had not been sent over in the first place.” Viele looked at Wool, who frowned but did not answer. “I said I did not know, and then he took his hat off his head and threw it on the floor. He was, gentlemen, in one hell of a rage!”

“The President?” Chase was startled. He had never seen Lincoln anything but controlled—phlegmatic and rather listless, if the truth were known.

“Yes, sir. Anyway, he wrote out an order sending all available troops to Norfolk.”

“He will be pleased,” said the old general, “that Norfolk is ours this day. And that the Navy Yard will be ours tomorrow. Now, Mr. Chase, I suggest we avail ourselves of the carriage, and return to the
Miami
, leaving Norfolk in General Viele’s competent hands.”

The moon had begun to fade when Chase found himself in the parlor of the house where the military commander of Fortress Monroe lived—when not moved out by the President. In the parlor, Chase found a familiar uniformed figure, Governor Sprague, who was holding enthralled a group of naval officers. When Sprague saw Chase, he leapt to his feet. “Mr. Chase, sir. It is good to see you. The President’s gone to his room. So has Mr. Stanton, who’s now gone blind. I’m aid to the chief of artillery, with McClellan. I was at Williamsburg. We whipped them. Now McClellan’s moving out. But he’s got to have reinforcements …”