Mrs. Lincoln's Rival Read online

  Kate feared otherwise, and after much delicate cajoling—and at the urging of her father’s successor, Governor Dennison, and a handful of supporters back East—she managed to convince him that he should travel to Washington City to reinforce his support among the congressmen and senators there, and to remind everyone of his national prominence.

  A few weeks before the convention, Kate, her father, Governor Dennison, and his wife boarded a train for Washington City, leaving Nettie forlorn and unhappy at home in the care of an older cousin. After a long, wearying ride spent poring over newspapers and planning a strategy of whom to meet, they arrived at the capital late in the evening and took rooms at the celebrated Willard Hotel on the corner of Fourteenth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, an establishment Kate and her father knew well. A year before, they had been among 1,800 guests at the Willard for an elegant, extravagant farewell dinner and ball in honor of the British ambassador, Lord Napier, who was returning to his native country. How different the purpose for their visit this time, Kate reflected as she settled into her room. She could see the White House from her window, luminous and tantalizing in the moonlight on the other side of Lafayette Square.

  The next morning, Kate and her father embarked upon a program of meetings, receptions, and dinners, a whirlwind of activity that delighted Kate but, not surprisingly, proved to be an uncomfortable exercise in forced affability for her father. Fortunately she was nearly always at his side to ease the flow of conversation, to calm impatient congressmen, to soften her father’s stoic demeanor with her own warmth and charm. For the most part, as the days passed, their efforts seemed to make headway against the current sweeping toward Mr. Seward, but on other occasions, her father stumbled. He tried to convince Benjamin F. Wade, the senior senator from Ohio whose name had been bandied about as a possible presidential nominee, to withdraw his highly improbable bid rather than risk stealing votes away from himself, but was coldly and rudely rebuffed. He courted favor with the influential editor of the New York Tribune, the staunch abolitionist Horace Greeley, who concurred with Mr. Seward on almost every relevant issue but had never forgiven him for blocking his appointment to a state office years before. Rather than giving Father his endorsement, however, Mr. Greeley declared himself for Missouri’s Judge Bates, dumbfounding both father and daughter. “If Greeley’s guiding principle is to promote anyone but Seward,” Father wondered aloud in the carriage on the way back to the Willard, “how could he, an abolition man, choose Bates over me?”

  Kate had no logical explanation to offer him.

  On some occasions, while her father mingled with congressmen elsewhere in the yet-unfinished Capitol, Kate went alone to the Senate gallery, where she watched the debates with intermingled feelings of excitement and dread. The tension in that venerable chamber was more brittle and electric than she remembered, the men’s expressions gloomier, the insults more biting, the debates more vitriolic. Her father had been engaged in the battle against slavery so long that she took for granted the fierce disagreement between the North and the South, but to witness elected representatives from opposing states argue and shout threats, to glimpse the ominous shape of firearms beneath their coats, to hear talk of duels and of war—the new temper of Washington City startled and troubled her.

  The animosity was not confined to the halls of Congress either. It spilled over into the ballrooms and fashionable parlors of the city’s social elite, where for decades a mutual regard for protocol and decorum had enforced civility even when fierce debates waged in the House and Senate. Now the Buchanan administration was in its final year, and no one knew what would replace it, for cracks had begun to appear in the foundation of all they had once accepted as true and immutable.

  Kate had made friends on both sides during her visits to the nation’s capital through the years, and she did her best to navigate this new, unsteady terrain without damaging her father’s prospects by favoring one faction over another, and without abandoning her principles.

  One day, while her father and Governor Dennison were ensconced at a club favored by Republicans and Whigs, Kate called on Miss Harriet Lane at the White House. Though nearly a decade separated them in age, they had become fast friends during one of Kate’s previous visits to the capital, and even after her bachelor uncle’s election to the presidency elevated her to great prominence as his official hostess, Miss Lane had always graciously received Kate whenever she was in Washington.

  Mr. Buchanan, a Democrat of Pennsylvania, had vowed in his inaugural address four years earlier that he would not run for a second term, so Kate’s visit was blessedly free of the inevitable tension that would have come between them were Miss Lane’s uncle and Kate’s father contending for the same post. In the family library on the second floor of the Executive Mansion, Miss Lane embraced Kate as fondly as she would a younger sister, took her by the hand, and led her to the sofa, where she prompted Kate with questions about Columbus, her father’s ambitions, and her opinion about his prospects. Too loyal to confess her doubts even to a trusted friend, Kate touched lightly on his setbacks and instead emphasized recent favorable developments—the resolution of the Ohio Convention naming Father as their first choice; the strong support offered by Joseph Medill, the publisher of the Chicago Tribune; and the promises of various officials they had met during their visit. “But what about you?” Kate asked, clasping Miss Lane’s hand. “I can only imagine how it has been for you these past few months, contending with such unrelenting animosity.”

  Miss Lane, ever self-possessed and dignified, shook her head as if there were no words for her difficulties, lifting a hand and letting it fall to her lap. “Seating arrangements at official events have become something of a geometric puzzle,” she said, smiling at the profound understatement. “I must place everyone with utmost care, paying due deference to rank while keeping foes apart.” Her smile faltered. “Their differences run far deeper than disagreements over a budget or a bill. I don’t see how the North and South will be able to restore any sort of harmony to the country when they can barely sit around the same dinner table without erupting into angry shouts, or proposing duels, or worse.”

  “The country will never know peace as long as slavery exists within its borders,” said Kate.

  “I know that’s what you and your father believe, but we’ve managed nearly a century half-slave and half-free.”

  “I wouldn’t say that we’ve managed particularly well,” Kate countered. “Or, thanks to the Fugitive Slave Law, that we’re even half-free. Even in the North the law compels us to return fugitive slaves to their enslavers.”

  “That law is ignored as often as it is obeyed.”

  “If the Southern slave powers have their way, that will no longer be so.” Kate shook her head, sighing. “No, this confrontation has been awaiting us ever since the founding fathers failed to forbid slavery in the new nation they created. It was and has always been inevitable. I only pray that this confrontation, when it finally breaks, will be a battle of laws and legislation and not one of muskets and cannon.”

  “I hope the same, with all my heart,” said Miss Lane fervently. “The more men talk of war, the easier it becomes to move closer to the edge of that precipice. I confess I don’t envy the man who will take my uncle’s place next year, and I envy only very little the woman who will take mine.”

  “I hope that woman will be myself,” Kate admitted, although Miss Lane surely knew that already. “For my father’s sake, of course, and for the nation’s.”

  Miss Lane smiled. “Not for your own, not even a little?” Then her expression grew somber. “I wish I could promise you my uncle’s support. He admires your father, but he would prefer a conservative Democrat to succeed him. He’ll support the party’s nominee, whomever that shall be.”

  “I understand,” Kate said, “and I promise that I won’t let politics interfere with our friendship.”

  “Neither shall I,” Miss La
ne promised in return.

  There were others in Washington, Kate knew, to whom Miss Lane could not make that promise. Miss Lane was embroiled in a bitter feud with another lady Kate greatly admired, Adele Douglas, wife of the same Stephen Douglas who had defeated Abraham Lincoln in the 1858 Senate race. Although as the president’s niece and official hostess Harriet Lane held the highest rank in society, it was Adele Douglas who was called the Belle of Washington, her invitations that everyone in the capital eagerly awaited, her style that other ladies imitated, and her beauty and elegance that won praise and admiration from all who met her.

  The discord between Miss Lane and Mrs. Douglas originated not in any insult one lady had inflicted upon the other, but rather the longstanding animosity between Miss Lane’s uncle and Mrs. Douglas’s husband, an intense hatred sparked by political attacks and profound disagreements over policy. Each lady knew that Kate was friends with the other, but neither rebuked her for it or demanded that she choose one over the other. For that Kate was grateful, but as much as she liked both women, she found their rivalry petty and pointless. It bewildered her that the otherwise sympathetic Mrs. Douglas would so publicly adopt her husband’s quarrels as her own, and that the dignified Miss Lane would descend to open conflict with anyone. Why two such intelligent, refined women did not instead set aside their mistrust and work together, discreetly, to mitigate the harmful effects of their gentlemen’s disputes, Kate could not understand.

  She called on Mrs. Douglas not long after she visited Miss Lane, and learned that Mrs. Douglas too was alarmed by the splintering of the capital into hostile factions along geographic lines. She shared what she knew of Mr. Lincoln, knowledge gleaned from her husband’s hard-fought Senate campaign and the rhetorical battles that had formed such a significant part of it. Kate passed the information on to her father, who thanked her but noted that Mr. Lincoln would likely figure little or not at all in the upcoming convention. By all accounts Mr. Seward retained his significant lead, and it was he whom her father must pursue and overtake.

  If Mr. Seward considered Father any sort of threat, his behavior toward the Chases during their visit concealed his anxieties entirely. To Kate’s surprise, the senator from New York hosted a dinner party in their honor, a remarkably congenial event considering that all sides—North and South, Conservative and Radical, Democrat and Whig, and Republican and Know-Nothing—were represented in fairly equal numbers. The next evening, a former Ohio congressman held a party to recognize both the former and current governors of his home state, and this gathering too Mr. Seward attended. Nearly sixty years old and slight of build, he nevertheless possessed an imposing presence that somehow made other men seem smaller when they stood near him. His eyes were sharply intelligent above a hawk-like nose; his gaze keen and appraising; his ears, almost comically large; his eyebrows bushy and fading, like his hair, from red to straw. That evening he was as convivial a guest as he had been a host, and afterward Father admitted that the senator had been kinder to him than he had expected. Even Kate could not help enjoying the few conversations they shared, and she laughed despite herself when he jokingly confessed, “I find much comfort in the discovery that Ohio is home to at least three candidates for the presidency, all eminent and excellent men, but each preferring anybody out of Ohio to his two rivals within.”

  On their last night in Washington, Kate and her father met Mr. Seward a third time, at a lavish party for the Ohio contingent hosted by the prominent Blair family at their country estate in Silver Spring, Maryland. It was a delightful evening, though news and rumors from the Democratic National Convention recently opened in Charleston dominated conversation. Mr. Douglas was considered most likely to receive the nomination there, and Kate could well imagine how displeased Miss Lane would be to think that Mrs. Douglas might succeed her.

  For reasons other than her friend’s satisfaction, Kate resolved to do all she could to prevent that from happening.

  The next day, the Chases and Dennisons boarded the train home to Columbus weary but satisfied with the results of their excursion, which in Kate’s estimation had encountered more success than disappointment. If nothing else, her father seemed to have been roused from his complacency. He had discovered for himself that Senator Seward was a formidable opponent whose affairs were well managed by the shrewd Thurlow Weed, that Judge Bates of Missouri was the fortunate beneficiary of Horace Greeley’s endorsement, and that even Mr. Lincoln’s star was on the rise thanks to his astonishingly successful lecture tour.

  Her father had expected to leave Washington with his prospects more secure, but to Kate’s relief, he at last seemed to understand that he must marshal his forces swiftly if he hoped to win the nomination.

  Chapter Three

  * * *

  MAY–SEPTEMBER 1860

  B

  efore the train pulled into the station in Columbus, Kate’s father had already penned numerous letters to supporters from Ohio to New York thanking them for their promises to stand firm for him at the upcoming convention and asking them to rally more out-of-state delegates to his side. With the Democrats too divided and distracted even to choose a nominee at the party’s national convention in Charleston, unity became the watchword among Republicans. In the second week of May, news came from Decatur that the Illinois Republican Convention had not only nominated Mr. Lincoln—dubbing him the “rail candidate for president” and with great fanfare carrying into the hall two fence rails he had supposedly split as a youth—but had passed a resolution stating that “the delegates from this State are instructed to use all honorable means to secure his nomination by the Chicago Convention, and to vote as a unit for him.” No such resolution bound Ohio’s delegates to Father, but he trusted that they would stand unified behind his candidacy if for no other reason than he was the designated choice of the state convention. It was evident that his success depended upon their support. Father knew he would not win the nomination on the first vote—Seward’s stature was too great for that—but delegates from other states might rally to him as an alternative to the front-runner if he survived the first ballot. Everything depended upon a unified vote for Salmon P. Chase from the Ohio delegation—an outcome Father expected but that was hardly guaranteed.

  At the last moment, Father chose his brother Edward as his unofficial representative to the convention; but while Uncle Edward was loyal and true, he was essentially a political novice, lacking political connections, deal-making skills, and access to the back rooms where such deals were made. Father trusted him implicitly, however, and since he intended to follow the established custom of not attending the convention himself, Uncle Edward’s trustworthiness more than compensated for any deficiencies of political savvy.

  Uncle Edward sent a telegram upon his arrival in Chicago on May 15, briefly describing the illuminated city, the crush of delegates traveling to the convention from all corners of the nation, the spectacular displays of skyrockets and nine-pounder brass cannon firing over Lake Michigan, the free-flowing alcohol and brass bands everywhere else. He promised to go early the next day to the Wigwam, the enormous structure of rough pine boards and rafters on the corner of Lake and Market streets built in a rustic imitation of New York’s Crystal Palace expressly for the convention. From there he would telegraph reports as events warranted.

  Thus apprised, Father, Kate, and the rest of the Chase household settled themselves down to what they knew could be a long and apprehensive wait.

  On Wednesday evening, May 16, Uncle Edward telegraphed a single report, frustrating in its brevity: “Preliminaries concluded. Various committees formed. Adjourned till 10 AM tomorrow. All is well.” The following evening, his single telegram was only slightly less taciturn: “Platform favorable to Northern interests adopted. Provision requiring two-thirds vote failed. Simple majority sufficient to nominate. Adjourned till 10 AM tomorrow.”

  “Uncle Edward didn’t say, ‘All is well,’ this time,” Nettie noted.

/>   “That doesn’t mean all is not well,” said Kate, absently stroking her sister’s fine golden curls. “Uncle Edward said all was well yesterday, and since he hasn’t said otherwise, we can assume that is unchanged. If something had gone wrong, he would have told us.”

  But although it escaped Nettie’s notice, something had. The ruling that the nominee could be chosen by a simple majority rather than two-thirds of the votes benefited no candidate but Mr. Seward, who might have commanded a majority of the delegates even before they stepped off the train in Chicago.

  “We’ll know more when he telegraphs again,” said Father resignedly. He opened his Bible, summoned the servants, and brought the household together in the library for their customary evening prayer. The ruling had been made; there was nothing they could do to change it.

  Kate slept poorly that night, but she rose on the morning of the third day of the convention energetic and full of anticipation. She dressed and bounded lightly downstairs to the front sitting room, where the household gathered every morning—family, guests, and servants alike—for Father’s solemn scripture reading. Then the family sat down to breakfast, as if it were an ordinary day, except that the meal was interrupted by the arrival of a telegram from Uncle Edward. “Chase submitted by Cartter to thunderous applause,” he reported. “Others named—Seward Lincoln Dayton Cameron Bates McLean by Corwin. Delano seconded Lincoln. Cannot leave Wigwam now. Will send mssgr to telegraph news.”