Eric Flint: 1824: The Arkansas War

That was enough to tip Sam's decision over the immediate issue at hand. He held up his tumbler toward one of the slaves waiting on the table. "Some more whiskey, if you would."

As the slave made to comply, Sam gave Johnson a level gaze. "That's my doing. The settlement I made of the Algiers business hurt the general worse than the Treaty of Oothcaloga helped him. No doubt about it, I think."

Now that Sam had said it out loud, Cicero Jones was clearly relieved. "No doubt about it at all," the lawyer echoed.

Across from him, Jack Hartfield shrugged and spread his hands. As portly as the plantation owner was, the expansive gesture did unfortunate things to his tightly buttoned vest.

Adaline managed to keep quiet, but Imogene burst into a giggle. Sam almost did, too, for that matter. The way the button flew from Hartfield and bounced off one of the candlesticks was genuinely comical.

Hartfield himself grinned. But his good cheer didn't keep the girl from her chastisement.

"Imogene!" exclaimed Julia. A hand the color of coffee-with-cream smacked her daughter, leaving a red mark on a cheek whose color wasn't much lighter. "Do that again and you'll finish dinner in your room!"

"Oh, go easy on her, Julia," chuckled the plantation owner. "It was pretty funny. I probably would have laughed myself, 'cept I don't want to think what my wife'll have to say when I get home. I'm afraid I bust a lot of those."

"Don't matter," insisted Julia. She wagged a finger in Imogene's face. "You behave yourself, young lady. You know better than that."

Imogene assumed a properly chastened look. Although Sam didn't miss the angry glare she gave her sister across the table, once Julia looked away. Adaline's face had that insufferably smug look that a twin has whenever her sibling is rightfully punished-and she herself gets away with it.

Again, it was all Sam could do not to laugh. Fortunately, the tumbler arrived and he was able to disguise his amusement with a hefty slug of its contents. A heftier slug than he'd actually intended. It was hard to resist, though. The whiskey served at Blue Spring Farm was the best Sam had had in months. And that was a lot of whiskey back.

Once the humor of his mishap had settled, Hartfield went on with what he'd been about to say. "I don't think it's really fair to blame young Houston. If the general had just kept quiet about the matter, instead of:"

He shrugged. Even more expansively than he had before, now that further damage was impossible. The button that had popped off his vest had been the last survivor.

"That unfortunate speech."

That was something of a euphemism, in Sam's opinion. As much as he admired Andy Jackson, there was no denying the man had a savage streak in his nature that was sometimes as wide as the Mississippi River. If the clash at Algiers had been between any other group of black men-free or slave, it mattered not-and a properly constituted white militia, Andy Jackson would have been among the first to demand loudly that the niggers be put in their place. For that matter, he'd probably have offered to lead the punitive expedition personally.

But those hadn't been just any black men. Those had been the men of the Iron Battalion, led by the same Patrick Driscol, who'd broken the British at the Battle of the Mississippi-the battle that had turned Jackson from a regional into a national figure. If Andy Jackson could be savage about race, he could be even more savage-a lot more savage-when it came to matters of honor, and courage, and cowardice.

Whatever the color of their skin-and their commander's skin was as white as Jackson's own-Old Hickory had a genuine admiration for the Iron Battalion. And, on the reverse side, despised no group of wealthy men in the United States so much as he despised the plantation owners in and around New Orleans who had, in the main, refused to participate in the fight against the invading redcoats. And had done so-to put the icing on the cake-because they feared their own slaves more than they did a foreign enemy.

Jackson had had choice words to say about that Louisiana gentry during the New Orleans campaign in the war against the British. His words spoken in public-and reprinted in most of the newspapers of the nation-the day after the Algiers Incident had been choicer still. Poltroons and criminals applied to rich white men, and the terms stalwart fellows and yeomen defending their rights applied to poor black ones, were all true, to be sure. But they'd caused the general's popularity in the South and the West-theretofore almost unanimous except for Henry Clay and his coterie-to plummet like a stone.

Only so far, of course. Soon enough, the plunging stone had reached the secure ledge of support from the poorer class of the Southwest's voters. For the most part, they'd been no happier with the result of the clash at Algiers than any other white men of the region. On the other hand, as the saying went, it was no skin off their nose. All the more so, since the battle had been precipitated by the lascivious conduct of some of the New Orleans Creoles, whose wealth and Frenchified habits the poor Scots-Irish settlers resented-and a good percentage considered not that much better than niggers anyway.

Still, when all the dust settled, Andy Jackson's popularity in the South and West was no longer as overwhelming as it had been. Clay, of course, had immediately seized the opportunity to continue the Jackson-bashing he'd begun two years earlier over the general's conduct of the Florida campaign. The Speaker of the House had had his own choice words to say on the floor of Congress. He'd even gone to the extreme of offering to lead a punitive expedition to Louisiana himself.

The offer had been as histrionic as it was ridiculous. First, because Henry Clay had no military experience whatsoever-indeed, he routinely dismissed Jackson as a "mere military chieftain," in no way suitable for higher positions in the Republic. Second, because he knew perfectly well that there was no chance at all that President Monroe would appoint him to the position, even in the unlikely event that he authorized such a mission in the first place. Always the Virginia gentleman, James Monroe kept his private feelings to himself. But Sam was his son-in-law, and he knew perfectly well that if Monroe's dislike and distrust of Henry Clay was less savage than Jackson's, it was not an inch shallower.

Ridiculous and histrionic as it might have been, however, Clay's stance had enhanced his own popularity in the region-and the congressman from Kentucky had already been the second most popular figure there, after Jackson. Considerably more popular among the region's gentry.

"Well, it's done now," said the lawyer. No slouch himself when it came to whiskey, Cicero Jones downed his tumbler. "But don't fool yourselves, gentlemen. Henry Clay is now at the front of the pack who'll be running for president, once Monroe's term is up. Quincy Adams is respected by just about everyone-gentlemen, at least-but he's not liked all that much, either. Too cold, too harsh, too caustic-too everything. And, like Calhoun, he's almost a purely regional figure. Adams will take New England just as certainly as Calhoun will take the hard-core South. But that's not enough votes to win, no matter how you slice it."

"There's Crawford," pointed out Senator Johnson. Only a slight twist to his lips indicated his dislike for the secretary of the treasury. The tone of his comment had been neutral and matter-of-fact.

Jones shrugged. "Yes, there's William Crawford. Popular in the South also, of course, being a Georgian. And the nation's well-to-do tend to be fond of him in all regions of the country."

"As they should!" barked Sam. Most of the disgruntlement in his tone, however, came from the state of his tumbler. Once again, not even noticing, he'd managed to drain it dry. And it would be ungracious to ask for another refill so soon. Always the generous host, Johnson still had a badly frayed pocketbook-and that whiskey was expensive.