Harry Harrison: Stars and Stripes Forever

“Of course. We’ll go now. Thank you for everything, Mr. Parrott — everything.”

The ferry had been held awaiting their arrival. Two carriages were standing on the dock. In the first one the commander of West Point, Lieutenant General Winfield Scott, was waiting to escort them to the hospital. Cameron and his secretaries took the second carriage. There was an embarrassing moment when the President climbed awkwardly through the door of Scott’s carriage.

“How are you, Winfield?”

“As well as might be expected at my age, Mr. Lincoln.”

The former General-in-Chief of the Union Army, who had been replaced by the younger and more energetic McClellan, could not keep a thin bite of anger from his words as he looked grimly at the man who had ordered that replacement. Heroically fat and gray of hair, he had served his country well for many decades and through many wars. He had chosen command of West Point instead of retirement, but well knew that his years of service had effectively ended. And the tall, ungainly man in the ugly tall hat who clambered into the carriage across from him was the power that had engineered that fall.

“Tell me about Ripley,” Lincoln said as the carriage started forward.

“A tragic accident without sense or reason. He was mounted and riding toward the ferry, to join you — or so he informed me. The road he took crosses the railway tracks close to the station. Apparently a train was about to pull out and, as he approached, the driver blew the whistle for departure. The general’s horse was startled and reared up, throwing him from the saddle. He fell on the tracks and was gravely injured. I am no medical man, as you well know, so we will leave it for the head surgeon to explain. He is waiting for you in his office in the hospital.” Scott looked at Lincoln with a very penetrating eye. “How goes the war? I assume that your generals are drawing the ever tighter noose of my anaconda around the Rebels?”

“I sincerely hope so. Though of course the winter weather makes operations most difficult.”

“And gives Little Napoleon another excuse to vacillate.”

His voice was sour, his anger ill-concealed. Since McClellan had replaced him in command of the Army of the Potomac all forward movements had ceased, all attacks had crawled to a stop. Scott’s every word and gesture suggested that if the army were still under his command they would be in Richmond by now. Lincoln would not be drawn into speculation about this.

“Winter is a bad season for soldiering. Ahh, there is the hospital at last.”

“My aide will take you inside.”

Scott was so fat that it took three men to lift him into his carriage; he was certainly not capable of climbing the hospital steps.

“It has been good to see you again, Winfield.”

The general did not respond when the President climbed down and joined the others as they followed the waiting officer into the hospital. The surgeon was an elderly man with a great white beard, which he pulled at abstractedly as he spoke.

“A traumatic blow to the spine, here.” He reached over his shoulder and tapped between his shoulder blades. “The general appears to have landed on his back across the rail track. I estimate that that would be a very strong blow, somewhat like being struck in the spine with a sledgehammer. At least two of the vertebrae appear to be broken — but that is not the cause of the general’s condition. It is his spinal cord that has been crushed, the nerves severed. This causes a paralysis which we are well acquainted with.” He sighed.

“The body is paralyzed, the limbs will not move, and he breathes only with great difficulty. Though it is usually possible to feed patients in this condition, in most cases it is not enough to sustain life.

“Perhaps it is a blessing that patients with this type of injury inevitably die.”

The visit to West Point that had begun so well ended with deep unhappiness. They sat in silence as the train pulled out of the station. Cameron sat with his back to the engine, looking out at the snow-covered countryside streaming by. Lincoln sat opposite him, looking out as well but seeing only the endless problems of this war that assailed him at all times. His secretaries sat across the aisle going through a sheaf of records from the arms factory.

“General Ripley was not the easiest man to get along with,” Lincoln said, long minutes after their train had pulled out of the station. Stanton nodded silent agreement. “But he had an awesome responsibility which he labored at professionally. He told me that he had to supply cartridges and shells for over sixty different types of weapons. That we are fighting, and hopefully winning, this war is in many ways due to his labors. What will happen now?”

“General Ramsay has been his assistant for some time,” the Secretary of War said. Lincoln nodded.

“I met him once. A responsible officer. But is he qualified for this position?”

“More than qualified,” Cameron said. “In my contacts with him at the War Department I have seen all of his reports and have passed them on to you when they were relevant. Please don’t think me to be presumptuous — or to be speaking ill of the dead — but Ramsay is a modern soldier of the modern school.”

“While Ripley was most conservative, as we all know.”

“More than conservative. He looked with great suspicion at any new weapon or invention. He knew what guns were like and how they were used. Knew that wars have been fought and won with these weapons and he was satisfied by that. I don’t believe he liked change of any kind. But you must meet General Ramsay before you decide, Mr. Lincoln. Make your mind up then. I think you will be more than interested in his approach.”

“Talk to my secretary and arrange it then. For tomorrow. This important post shall not remain vacant for an instant longer than is necessary.”

“Mrs. Lincoln said you had no dinner to speak of last night — and that you were to come down to breakfast now.”

Keckley was more than a Negro servant these days; the President could hear a ready echo of his wife’s voice in her words. Mary had originally hired her as a seamstress but that relationship had shifted and changed to an ambiguous but important place in the family.

“I’ll be there in just a minute…”

“She said that you would say that too and I shouldn’t believe it.”

Keckley stood in the open doorway silent and unmoving. Lincoln sighed and stood. “Lead the way. I trust you will take the word of the President that I am right behind you.”

As always the hall was filled with petitioners seeking jobs in the government. Lincoln thrust his way through them, as though wading through an angry sea. If he addressed one he must address them all. Not for the first time he wondered at the long-established policy that allowed anyone — and his brother — easy access to the Presidential Mansion. Of course, America was an egalitarian society. But there were, he was beginning to think, certain demerits in complete openness. He sighed and opened the door to the dining room, closing it behind him with a satisfactory thud.

The table was already laid when he came in; buttermilk cakes with honey, always a family favorite.

“You start with that, Father,” Mary said. There was a thunder of feet as the boys rushed in.

“Paw, Paw!” Tad shouted as he rushed at his father and seized him around the leg. Willie, always more restrained, seated himself at the table.

“Tad — you stop that,” Mary ordered, but was completely ignored. The boy climbed his father as though he were a tree, wrinkling his already wrinkled trousers and jacket in the process. He did not stop until he was perched triumphantly on his father’s shoulder. Lincoln marched twice around the table while Tad screeched with pleasure, before he lowered the boy into his chair. Willie had already poured honey on his cakes and was chewing an immense mouthful.