Maelstrom, A Civil War Novel

Maelstrom tells the story of the greatest rivalry in American history. Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis led their nations in a must-win fight, and Maelstrom shows how each dealt with the same issues, countered the other’s moves, led their respective governments, and used their political powers to sway the outcome.

Coming soon. In the meantime, here is a sample chapter.

  

Chapter 1

February 27, 1860
New York City

 A young man sat behind a tiny table with spindly legs. He was perfect. The hair on his handsome head had been groomed perfectly. His spotless charcoal suit had been custom-tailored for a perfect fit. The perfect knot in his silk necktie sat exactly between the collar points of his clean white shirt. His manicured right hand rested casually on the sole item on the tabletop, a perfectly centered appointment ledger. When he spoke, his voice modulated in a pleasing accent that bespoke perfect schooling.

“How may I help you?” he asked.

“Abraham Lincoln. I have a sitting this morning.”

The perfect man did not open the appointment book. “Of course, sir. Please take a seat. I will call you when we are ready.”

Lincoln examined the large room. It was bigger than any reception area he had encountered. Rosewood furniture had been arranged so that several conversation groups could gather in relative privacy. Bright tapestries, gold wallpaper, and lace curtains complemented the frescoed ceiling with its huge gilt chandelier. The six-burner gasolier and large windows provided excellent light.

Instead of sitting, Lincoln meandered around the room examining framed photographs. This new science was so popular that there were an estimated three thousand photographers in the United States. None stood with Mathew Brady. The master combined an artist’s eye with the skill of an exceptional craftsman. No one came close to duplicating the life-like value of his photographs.

Lincoln was in New York to speak at the Cooper Union as part of a lecture series by prominent Republicans. He had achieved a measure of national fame in his debates with Stephen Douglas but was still viewed as a minor national character. He meant to add a little sheen to his reputation with this evening’s address and a Mathew Brady photograph.

To make a mark in national politics, a politician had to first seduce New York City. The largest city in the country boasted of having over fifty dailies and an untold number of weeklies, all of which were whisked around the nation by railroads, ships, canals, and roads.

The perfect man signaled that the master was ready.

Lincoln was directed through a cut-glass door and up the stairs to a studio. As he entered, Brady approached with an extended hand and an appraising eye. After introductions, Brady studied him, first up close and then from a distance. Lincoln wore a new suit, shirt, shoes, and top hat, the last of which he carried in his hand. Bemused, he ran splayed fingers through his already disheveled hair, but instead of combing the unruly mop, the unconscious mannerism sent his coarse black hair every which way.

Putting his hand under Lincoln’s chin, Brady asked, “Do you have any preference?”

Laughing, Lincoln answered, “Why, yes. I’d highly appreciate it if you could make this ugly ol’ cuss look as handsome as that Stephen Douglas portrait you display downstairs.”

His joviality proved contagious, and soon Brady and his two assistants were laughing.

 ”I love a challenge,” Brady said. “We shall see what we can do.”

Instead of taking offense, Lincoln laughed uproariously.

Brady picked up a small table and moved it over against a far wall. “Jeffrey, bring over the Greek column.”

The studio was crowded with props and large reflectors. One of the assistants pulled over a wooden screen painted with a Doric column.

Brady stacked several books on the small table and then said, “Let’s move the camera back.”

The polished wood camera with bright brass fittings stood on a sturdy pedestal. Both assistants carefully lifted the awkward apparatus and repositioned it in the middle of the room. “Further,” Brady said. “I want a full-figured portrait.” They dutifully moved the huge camera further back and checked the image through the lens. As they peered through the camera, Brady waved Lincoln to a position between the column prop and the table. After his assistant made a minor adjustment, Brady looked through the camera himself.

“A little more,” he said. “Our subject is tall, and I want to use his height to advantage.”

Lincoln laughed in his infectious manner. “Indeed, let’s make the little giant look elfin.”

“My idea exactly,” said Brady.

After Brady made what seemed like endless adjustments to the camera and the reflectors, he approached Lincoln with a critical eye. “Stand tall,” he ordered. Then he snapped his fingers, and an aide brought over a handful of clothespins. He opened Lincoln’s coat, tucked his shirt carefully into his pants, and then smoothed the surface of his shirt with the flat of his hand. Next, he took the clothespins and pinned his coat and pants from behind to take away most of the wrinkles. Standing back, he surveyed the scene. Looking up at the huge skylight overhead, he made a final adjustment to the reflectors.

“Now take your left hand and touch the books on the table with your fingertips.” Brady again reviewed the scene. “I want you to look stately and commanding. Do you mind if I lift your collar?”

Lincoln chuckled. “So, you want to hide my long neck?”

“Exactly.” Brady lifted his shirt collar to its highest extent and then said, “Now press your lips together.” After a moment of hesitation, he said, “Perfect.”

With that word, the assistant at the camera pulled the lens cover off and counted to himself before replacing it. The photograph had been taken.

 

Abraham Lincoln stepped from the carriage, and his host led him by the elbow down the service stairs. As he was rushed away from the curious onlookers, he noticed that the handsome Cooper Union had been festively lit with dozens of gaslights.

After his appointment to have his photograph taken, he rested in his room before a light meal in the Astor House dining room. The Young Men’s Republican Union had sponsored this lecture series and invited all the prominent Republican candidates to speak. Because it could influence the Republican nominee for president of the United States, this speech to the New York City political class could be the most important of Lincoln’s career. He knew the sponsors thought him a bumpkin with little chance of securing the nomination. New Yorkers demanded an elevated style of speechmaking, and he had a reputation for telling humorous stories. Lincoln intended to surprise those who expected to be entertained with homespun yarns from the bucolic West.

After they had elbowed past workmen backstage, his host indicated with a nod that he should peek around the curtain into the hall. When Lincoln hesitated, he said, “Take a look. You’ve drawn a good crowd. Most of the city’s important Republicans have paid twenty-five cents to hear you speak.”

Lincoln took a quick glance and was disappointed. The hall buzzed with greetings and conversations, but he saw about a quarter of the seats empty. Although a few more people were wandering in, the lecture would not sell out.

“We’ll step onto the stage in about five minutes and sit in those chairs.”

Lincoln saw four chairs lined up on the left side of a centrally positioned podium. He would have preferred to stand. When he sat in a wooden chair, he never knew what to do with his long legs.  

Officials of the Republican Union escorted him on stage, and he watched them unconsciously sit in the line of wooden chairs. He smiled at the thought that they had such a short distance to descend. Lincoln slowly bent at the waist and gradually lowered himself until he felt the reassurance of a solid seat against his buttocks. He pulled his speech out of his coat pocket and held it with folded hands in his lap as he wrapped his huge feet around the front legs of the chair.

As the audience calmed down, Lincoln thought he heard a gasp from some. He had been in front of audiences his entire life. Sometimes he entertained a single individual with his stories and ruminations, and at other times he talked in front of crowds larger than this one. He was familiar with the way people were taken aback by his appearance and irregular movements. He was tall and gangly. His face and angular body were unusual. He walked with a slouch and took each step with the flat of his foot instead of the heel. And he was perpetually disheveled. But he was also intelligent: far more intelligent than most men, and certainly more intelligent than he appeared. This was his greatest asset. He had learned how to use his irregularities to gain an advantage over those who misjudged him.

The windowless Great Hall looked like a church nave with sixteen massive columns and a vaulted ceiling. Red leather swivel chairs rose at a slight incline so that everyone would have a clear view over people in front. His host had informed him that one hundred and sixty-eight gaslights in crystal chandeliers lit the chamber. His eyes went to the mirrors that lined both walls. They bounced light from the gaslights to make the room bright as day. The illumination may have been a modern miracle, but the constant hiss from burners would make it more difficult for people to hear his high-pitched voice.

After an introduction, Lincoln walked to the lectern and laid his papers on the gold-tasseled podium. He started slowly, with his hands clasped behind his back. He was nervous. Why? He discarded the question and returned his attention to the speech.

Lincoln intended to demolish Senator Stephen Douglas in absentia. He conveyed how his old rival, more than any other man, had raised the specter of slavery in the territories. In a Harper’s Weekly article and in numerous speeches, Douglas had enlisted the Founding Fathers on his side of the slavery issue, especially in supporting his argument that the federal government had no authority to restrict slavery in the territories.

Lincoln started by saying he accepted the wisdom of the Founders and then presented a reasoned challenge to Douglas’s assertion that the Founders believed that the Constitution forbade interference with slavery in the territories. He reviewed their voting records and showed that twenty-one of the thirty-nine signers of the Constitution had voted for bills that restricted slavery in territories. Only two had recorded votes that showed opposition to the federal government controlling slavery in the territories.

He had worked hard on this speech. He made sure that his grammar and diction were flawless. Instead of countrified stories, he artfully used nonstop repetition to drive his point and add levity. As he worked through the introductory remarks, Lincoln progressively felt more comfortable and energized. Lincoln started making faces, threw his head, and modulated his voice to captivate the audience. When he mimicked the Douglas stentorian style, he not only succeeded in mocking the little giant but caused his audience to laugh uproariously and stomp their feet with abandon. In fifteen minutes, he captivated the New York City audience and changed their views on the issues and himself.

He had come to the part of the speech where he shifted his criticism away from Douglas and to the South. After listing the supposed grievances of the southern states, he had his audience perched on the edge of their seats to catch every word.

“Meet us, then, on the question of whether our principles wrong your region.

“Do you accept the challenge?

“No!

“Then you must believe that the principles our fathers, who framed the Government under which we live, are so wrong as to demand condemnation without a moment’s consideration.”

The Hall burst into applause. So far, the speech had argued that the United States Constitution allowed the federal government to restrict slavery in the territories. He claimed that the existence of slavery in the territories would decide not only the eventual fate of slavery, but also the fate of the nation. If slavery were allowed in the territories, then the new states would throw the balance of power in the Senate to the slaveholding states. If slavery were restricted, then eventually free states would dominate Congress, and the government could bring this awful chapter to a close.

Lincoln made a tight legal case with skills acquired as a highly successful lawyer, but he elevated the debate above the law: He wanted to elevate it to a moral issue—an issue of right or wrong. He did not believe the federal government had the legal power to eliminate slavery where it existed, but he intended to show that it had the legal authority and the moral responsibility to keep it from spreading to unblemished territory. Lincoln had reached the mid-point of his hour-long address, and he worried that when he shifted from a legal argument to a moral argument, he might lose the audience. He had worked carefully on the transition. Now he would return to the intent of the Founders, but continue to lay hints and take bypaths that would eventually lead to arguing the question based on right or wrong.

Lincoln used his voice and mannerisms to mock Senator Douglas yet again. “Some of you are for the gur-reat pur-rinciple”—his imitation of the bombastic Douglas style elicited the laughter he intended— “that if one man would enslave another, no third man should object, fantastically called Popular Sovereignty.”

The measured shift of laughter to prolonged applause told Lincoln that he had full command of this audience.

“Your plain purpose, then, is to destroy the government, unless you are allowed to construe and enforce the constitution as you please, on all points in dispute between you and us.”

He hesitated. “You will rule or ruin!”

He had to wait for the applause and shouts to subside.

“We hear that you will not abide the election of a Republican president! In that supposed event, you say, you will destroy the Union; and then, you say, the great crime of having destroyed it will be upon us! That is cool. A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear and mutters through his teeth, ‘Stand and deliver, or I shall kill you … and then you will be a murderer!”

“To be sure, what the robber demanded of me—my money—was my own; and I had a clear right to keep it; but it was no more my own than my vote is my own; and the threat of death to me, to extort my money, and the threat of destruction to the Union, to extort my vote, can scarcely be distinguished in principle.”

Lincoln smoothly slid into his concluding argument.

“What will convince slaveholders that we do not threaten their property? This, and this only: cease to call slavery wrong and join them in calling it right! Silence alone will not be tolerated—we must place ourselves avowedly with them. We must suppress all declarations that slavery is wrong, whether made in politics, in presses, in pulpits, or in private. We must arrest and return their fugitive slaves with greedy pleasure. The whole atmosphere must be disinfected from all taint of opposition to slavery before they will cease to believe that all their troubles proceed from us.

“If slavery is right, all words, acts, laws, and constitutions against it are wrong and should be swept away. Holding, as they do, that slavery is morally right and socially elevating, they cannot cease to demand a full national recognition of it as a legal right and a social blessing. If it is right, we cannot justly object to its universality. If it is wrong, they cannot justly insist upon its enlargement. All they ask, we could grant if we thought slavery right. All we ask, they could grant if they thought it wrong. Right and wrong is the precise fact upon which depends the whole controversy.

“Thinking it right, as they do, they are not to blame for desiring its full recognition. Thinking it wrong, as we do, can we yield? Can we cast our votes with their view and against our own? In view of our moral, social, and political responsibilities, can we do this?”

The hall burst with repeated shouts of “No!”

“Let us not grope for some middle ground between right and wrong. Let us not search in vain for a policy of don’t care on a question about which all true men do care. Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the government.”

Prolonged applause kept Lincoln silent for several minutes. He had one more sentence, and he knew how to time it for the greatest impact. He rose up on his toes and delivered the line with all the energy he could muster.

“Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it!”

Lincoln stepped back from the podium, and the Cooper Union Great Hall exploded with noise and motion. Everybody stood. The staid New York audience cheered, clapped, stomped their feet, and many waved handkerchiefs and hats. The raucous approbation continued so long that Lincoln began to feel awkward. He had given hundreds of speeches, many in the East, but this was the most important, and the audience’s reaction told him he had exceeded his own enlarged ambitions.

 

“Magnificent speech, my compliments.”

Lincoln nodded in acknowledgment of the praise. James Briggs, Richard McCormick, and several other members of the Young Men’s Republican Union had escorted him to the Athenaeum Club on Fifth Avenue for dinner. Lincoln had been telling ribald stories for over an hour, and dessert and coffee had just been served.

“An exceptional speech,” said McCormick. “But I thought your argument against the Dred Scott decision was weak.”

Lincoln said, “The Supreme Court isn’t infallible. If policy is irrevocably fixed by the Supreme Court, then the people cease to be their own rulers. A tribunal rules the nation.” Lincoln smiled. “That split decision won’t stand after the next president appoints one or two new justices.”

“You suppose the next president will be a Republican?”

Lincoln shrugged. “If the Democrats nominate Douglas, he’ll run strong in Illinois … and the next president must win Illinois.”

“Do you believe you can win Illinois?” McCormick sounded dubious. “You lost to Douglas in fifty-eight.”

Lincoln chuckled. “Me? My heavens, I think Seward or Chase will capture the nomination. But I would suggest Chicago as a dandy place to hold our convention.  The publicity would put the little giant on the defensive in his home state. If you fellas promote a convention in Chicago, I’ll work my mightiest to put our Illinois delegation firmly behind the best man.”

“And which man might that be?”

“Oh, I know you boys each have a favorite, but the convention is over four months away. Far too early for me to choose which horse to saddle up. I’ll leave you guessing … but remember Chicago. We must win Illinois.”

 

Lincoln limped out of the Athenaeum Club around midnight. He was accompanied by one of the members who had been assigned to escort him to the Astor House, where he had a room on the first floor.

Lincoln had paid two dollars a day for room and board at the famed six-story hotel on Broadway.  Expensive, but the food was good, and the hotel offered indoor plumbing, hot and cold water, furnace heating, gaslights, and a waiter at your beck and call with the pull of a bell. A lobby, smoking room, library, and busy shops dominated the first floor, but a quieter room on an upper floor would’ve cost him two dollars and fifty cents.

He had withdrawn a hundred dollars for the trip, and he had to be careful with funds, especially since he had already spent heavily for new clothes, and his photograph this afternoon had been taken by the most expensive photographer in the nation. The Young Men’s Republican Union would pay him a two-hundred-dollar honorarium, and he roughly calculated that he would break even.

The brisk winter weather felt refreshing. Lincoln guessed the temperature to be a few degrees above freezing. He didn’t smoke and seldom drank alcohol, so he welcomed the clean air and took a deep breath.

“Are you lame, Mr. Lincoln?” his companion asked.

“No, just huge feet and new shoes.” Lincoln tapped his stovetop. “New top hat as well.”

“Very becoming.” He didn’t sound sincere, and Lincoln laughed.

They grabbed a horse-drawn trolley, and Lincoln removed his new hat because of the low ceiling. He carefully held the stovepipe upside down, so his foolscap notes didn’t fall onto the floor. At this late hour, he was surprised to see the trolley half full. Obviously, people in New York kept later hours than the citizens of Springfield.

  When they reached the Astor House, his companion offered to escort him to his room, but Lincoln sent him on his way. He had no intention of going to his room. Lincoln limped across the street, admiring Saint Paul’s Cathedral. His idol, George Washington, had been a member of the church when the nation’s capital was New York City. But this wasn’t his destination. He passed through City Hall Park and entered the Tribune building.

The quiet lobby had only a lone man sitting in a straight-backed chair. “Can I help you, sir?” he asked.

“My name is Abraham Lincoln. I gave an address this evening at the Cooper Union. I’d like to look at the galley proof.”

“Upstairs. Composing room.” He casually waved toward a staircase as if midnight visitors were routine.

When Lincoln opened a door at the top of the stairs, he grinned when he saw the cluttered and noisy room. Men worked everywhere at long typesetting tables as the sound of gas jets hissed above their heads. He just stood there for many minutes until someone approached.

“May I help you?”

“I’m here to offer my assistance.” He pulled the foolscap out of his hat. “This is the address I gave this evening at the Cooper Union.”

Without turning, the man yelled, “Cummings!”

A young man rushed over with an extended hand. “Mr. Lincoln, an honor.” They shook vigorously, and Cummings took him by the elbow and led him to a table down a long line of tables. “We’ve just finished setting your speech. Please, grab one of those chairs and sit beside me.”

“Why, thank you, but I don’t want to interfere.”

“Have you visited any of the other dailies?”

 ”No. I’ve been entertained by my hosts and have just become free. I saw the gaslights in your window and decided I might repay Mr. Horace Greeley a favor.”

“Then the Tribune will have a march on our competition. The only daily to print one of the great speeches of our day, edited by the author himself.”

 Lincoln laughed. “I’m unsure of the greatness, but if you’ll allow me the privilege of reviewing your text, I promise to visit no other newspaper.”

 ”Excellent. Please sit.” He pulled over proof slips, and Lincoln reached into his pocket and withdrew his reading glasses. He had a draft of the speech typeset and distributed copies to four New York papers before the address, but he had made numerous changes and wanted the Tribune edition to be accurate because it was the largest and most influential newspaper in the nation. He carefully compared Cummings’ version against the original he had used at the hall.

After he finished comparing the entire text, he said, “My compliments. You did a fine job.”

“It was difficult. I made notes on the typeset version you gave us, but you diverted from the prepared text. With all the clamorous noise, I feared I had missed many of the changes.”

“You plowed your furrows straight and true, but if you’ll allow me, I do see a few corrections I’d like to make.”

“Please. Tell me and I’ll make the appropriate marks.”

“I’m familiar with editing marks, if you’ll allow.”

Cummings appeared surprised but gestured at him to proceed. At first, he watched carefully, but visibly relaxed once he saw that Lincoln did know how to properly edit a proof.

When Lincoln finished, he said, “If you don’t mind, I’ll wait to see the revised proof.”

“Not at all.” Cummings ran the marked sheets over to a typesetter and returned to his workstation, dodging a fast-moving boy on an errand.

As Cummings settled on his stool, he said, “This will take over an hour. Would you like a place to nap?”

“No, goodness me, I’m far too worked up to sleep.”

Cummings whipped his head left and right, obviously worried about how to entertain someone at this hour. “I… uh, would you care to use the privy?”

“No, I’m fine, but that does remind me of a story…”