Voices from the Past Part 159

Nothing exhausts me more than death sentences, death warrants, death. Young life is priceless. There are thirty million people involved in this war. Youth must be considered, if we are to survive.

I want to write something about my old friend, the Virginian, Ward Hill Lamon, of Danville days. Hill is my volunteer guardian, spy, Rabelaisian crony, scribe. Time and again he bundles up and sleeps all night in the hall outside my bedroom door, a derringer at hand. He is constantly alarmed I may be a.s.sa.s.sinated. He upbraids me when I ride alone in the White House carriage.

"That stupid coachman can't look after you... I want a dozen or half-dozen cavalrymen to attend you."

Evenings, Hill may appear and size me up, and sing a sad little song or a bobtail-nag melody, thrumming his banjo. Husky, courageous, he befriends me every day.

Breakfasting together, he has a kernel of advice for me, I'm sure.

I have borrowed his hat, borrowed his cloak, but not his boots.

"As President, it is inc.u.mbent on you to look after your own boots and your own umbrellas," he says.

As warden he has problems with both North and South; it aggravates him when he has to confer with me; he wants to be the little eagle. On our frequent visits to the hospitals he is always sympathetic. "Somebody's Wallace,"

he says, remembering one of my stories. Playing his banjo he will sing "Picayune Butler," his southern accent warm and beautiful, delighting the sick and wounded.

Often, late at night, we talk of Danville, circuit friends, horses; he is adept at driving off my melancholia.

"The war is going to end soon," he prophesizes. "It has to end soon...it's hard to get hold of new banjo strings."

The White House

January 5, 1865

So, another year has come into being.

"Many are the hearts that are weary tonight, waiting for the war to cease..."

For days I have been remembering that song. Yesterday, as I rode in the barouche, the melody kept time to the trotting of the horses.

Wind and sun helped, as we rode.

Alone, I was able to commune with nature, able to consider the Potomac, the trees along its banks, the finished dome of the capitol, the monument to George Was.h.i.+ngton. For a while I was able to survey the property, measure it, plan a city layout.

The barouche horses are bays, a young pair, well- trained, handsomely harnessed. My driver is a stalwart from Rhode Island; he says he used to work in a cotton mill; now, he looks forward to a job in a warmer climate.

We talk about the chestnuts and the oaks; for a mill worker he is well-informed about trees; suddenly, our drive is over.

Late

Nightmares occur.

I sit up in bed and recall in vivid detail scenes I have never witnessed, men dying under artillery and rifle fire, tent amputations, men struggling across a muddy, swollen river, a firing squad where men are shot down as I sit in a rocking chair.

I say nothing to anyone about these dreams but they are a weight to my world.

Lately, it is difficult to eat; I forget or refuse my lunch on its tray; coffee helps. I long to get away for a week or ten days.

Sunday

-windy and cool-

A heavy hog to hold, this war.

Sometimes people in Kentucky are loyal to the Union; sometimes not; it depends on whether General Lee has lost or won a battle.

Men find me lacking as the nation's attorney. Some demand that I plot the future. I remember that the pilots on our western rivers steer from point to point-as they call it-setting the course of the boat no farther than they can see. That is how I propose to handle some of the problems set before me.

I seldom forget that it is a momentous thing to be the instrument for the liberation of a race.

I look out of the window, at the statue of Thomas Jefferson on the lawn; it puts me in mind of that lonely bronze figure atop the White House dome, a woman, symbol of liberty, visible for miles-cast by slave labor.

Was Jefferson's statue cast by slaves?

Monday

-windy and cool-

There are something like a thousand deserters every month, Northern men and Southern men. I see them being marched through the city, all kinds, bareheaded, with caps, hats, with bandaged heads, with bandanas, handsome fellows, sickly fellows, wounded men, dirty, most of them in worn-out uniforms-miles of men mixed with leather, steel, horses, guns, wagons, riders, guards.

450,000 widows and mothers have lost their men.

White House

January 10, 1865

How well some officers understand one another, with a hem and a haw, with a nod or lifted hand. They are masters of military deception, just as politicians are masters of ambiguity. The colonels have their lingo; the majors have theirs.

I confront them with a plan of action. They bow over a map. Immediately, I sense that their secret codes are in operation. They guess that I am suspicious; I see that when a lieutenant touches the general's knee. I decline the general's offer of a cigar; he has forgotten I do not smoke. The men light up. Smoke hovers over the map. Brady appears. He wants to take some photographs. Some men sit, some stand. All the time the subtle deceptions continue.

It is my job, as Commander-in-Chief, to ferret out honesty and promote it.

Troops are marching by.

Drums.

There is no room for humor.