1901


CHAPTER FOURTEEN

THE CROWD SURROUNDINGthe White House and lining both sides of Pennsylvania Avenue was large but surprisingly silent. Virtually the only noise to be heard was the hum of normal conversation, punctuated by the occasional sounds of vendors hawking balloons, ice cream, and souvenir pennants. The ice cream sales were far surpassing the rest as people purchased in a vain attempt to ward off the early August heat.

It was as if the crowd, although curious and respectful, did not know quite what to do, how to behave. Roosevelt, sweating profusely in a dark cutaway, had to agree. How were they supposed to react? For that matter, how was he?

The dignitaries assembled with him were equally silent. Congress had argued for two days over whether to give Longstreet the rank of four-star general and finally acquiesced. As Hay had predicted, the opposition came from three sources. First were the hard-core Unionist Northerners who objected to this authority going to someone who had fought against their country. These were a grizzled few, and they quickly gave in. The second group consisted of Southerners who felt that Longstreet had gone too far in being reconstructed, and had committed the heresy of criticizing Lee. These, some as old as Longstreet, were also talked down.

The third opposition group was the most disconcerting. These did not oppose Longstreet. In fact, they thought him a fine, heroic man. What they opposed was the war itself. They saw the change in command as an exercise in futility. The United States had lost and should take its lumps and go on with life in peace and without Cuba, the Philippines, and those other islands. These people were a minority but an increasingly vocal one, and they would bear watching. Couldn’t they see, Roosevelt thought, what would occur to their nation if America lost this war?

His thoughts were interrupted by the sounds of the Marine Band, led again for the day by its ex-conductor, John Philip Sousa, as it started to play from across the street in Lafayette Park. The crowd responded quickly to the sounds of “Stars and Stripes Forever,” and people started to clap hands in cadence. Better, Roosevelt thought, much better. A few minutes later, the crowd started to shift and people craned their necks to see down Pennsylvania Avenue. Longstreet was coming.

First in view were three rows of plume-helmeted cavalry, stretching across the avenue, their sabers drawn and carried in front of their chests. This brought polite cheers and applause. They were followed by two other troops of cavalry in columns of fours trotting slowly down the street.

Behind them came a battalion of infantry, marching in precise steps, their polished bayonets gleaming in the sun. Someone near Roosevelt wondered aloud why the whole lot of them weren’t up fighting the Germans.

There was a pause and the band ceased playing. Now people were truly stretching to see. What they saw was an automobile, an open-top Daimler, with two people in it. One was a uniformed driver and the other an old man beside him.

An automobile? The old rebel was arriving by horseless carriage? Stories of how Miles hated the things had circulated broadly, and the symbolism was not lost. Old Pete, the accepted nickname for Longstreet, was more up to date than Nelson Miles. Now the crowd cheered warmly.

The vehicle pulled up in front of Roosevelt, and a nervous lieutenant offered Longstreet an arm for assistance. Both he and the offer were ignored.

Longstreet stood erect, and those nearby gasped. Few knew that he was more than six feet tall and a powerfully built, handsome man. With his shock of white hair and his long white beard, he looked like a biblical patriarch come to call down divine wrath upon his enemies. The crowd cheered again as he confidently strode the few steps to his president. He was wearing blue—Union blue, federal blue—and four stars glistened on his shoulders. Longstreet stopped and saluted Roosevelt, winking quickly, and the crowd cheered even louder. He turned and saluted the flag waving high on its staff, and the roar from the multitude became tumultuous, causing the hair on men’s necks to stand on end.

Longstreet spoke briefly. He said the United States would fight and that the United States would win. Only a few could hear him, but it didn’t matter; the substance of his message was apparent and the crowd was thrilled.

Finally he turned and saluted the throngs. The cheering, frenetic before, became even louder as women wept and grown men pounded each other on the back. “Pete, Pete!” the chant came and Longstreet held the salute. Sousa’s band was playing again, but no one heard.

Longstreet wheeled and shook hands with Roosevelt, who guided him into the White House along with the few dozen important people who would talk and dine with him at the president’s table.

Inside, while the guests sorted themselves out, Theodore Roosevelt dashed to his private quarters on the second level and tried to compose himself. His face was red and his cheeks were streaked with tears. He could still hear the crowd, not wanting to disperse, singing and shouting while the Marine Band played on. Did he hear “Dixie"? What a triumph!

And to think, he smiled, the only reason he’d held the arrival at the White House instead of the Capitol was to save the old man from having to climb all those steps.

“Who’s that tapping, tapping at my door?”

Patrick laughed, easily recognizing the drawling voice, however slurred it might be. “

’Tis I,” he answered, “and nothing more.”

“Shit,” came another voice from behind the wooden door. “Another goddamn Yankee.” This voice, too, was slightly slurred.

“Enter at your peril,” responded the first voice. Patrick walked into the room, which was on the second floor of a hotel in Hartford, Connecticut. Whatever view the room might have had was irrelevant, because the air was thick with cigar smoke and reeked of alcohol.

Seated about the room in varying states of disarray and disheveled comfort were three of the U.S. Army’s most senior field commanders in the combat theater. Senior in rank was Maj. Gen. William “Baldy” Smith, who, for the time being at least, commanded the entire front. With him were Maj. Gens. Fitzhugh Lee and Joe Wheeler, who, despite the similarity in rank, were Smith’s subordinate division commanders.

Grinning, Patrick presented himself to Smith and announced that he was prepared for duty.

“Well then,” Smith said, pouring himself a drink, “you’re likely the only one in this room who is. Quit being a smart-ass and get yourself a drink.”

Patrick knew when to obey a direct order and poured a couple of inches of whiskey into a glass. “May I ask what the celebration is for, if this is indeed a celebration?”

The diminutive Joe Wheeler cackled. “Well, we sure ain’t celebrating your arrival as our savior. For two months you been Roosevelt’s suck-ass toady and now you’re supposed to get a command! Gawd, there ain’t no justice! What do you want? Miles’s old job?”

Patrick simply smiled. He knew Wheeler’s comments were without malice. “Gentlemen,” he said, raising his glass, “to old Civil War generals.”

“Call it right, goddamnit,” snapped Wheeler. “Where I come from it’s called the War of Northern Aggression.”

“Aw, shit,” groaned Smith. “Can’t you people ever realize you lost the goddamn war?”

“Never.” Lee smiled and shifted his hefty body. Unlike Wheeler, he had allowed himself to gain a great deal of weight and no longer resembled a cavalry leader. “And when will you realize why so many top positions are going to ex-Confederates?”

Patrick took another sip of the whiskey and let the warmth permeate his tired body. Yesterday he had been in Washington. Today, only thirty hours later, he was in Hartford, having bypassed all German activity.

The three old comrades facing Patrick were engaged in a bout of wet reminiscing. Smith had commanded a Union corps at Petersburg at the end of the Civil War; Wheeler and Lee had commanded divisions for the Confederate cause. Thirty-five years later they had found themselves on the same side against a new enemy, Spain. Three years after that they were at it again against Germany.

“To Longstreet,” Patrick said cautiously and raised his glass. The three generals also drank. So much for the appointment being controversial to his new subordinates, he thought. “And why is James Longstreet called ‘Old Pete’?”

Wheeler shrugged. “Beats the hell out of me. He doesn’t have a middle name that I know of. Maybe it was the name of an old horse or a favorite hound.”

The evening continued with the older generals talking and Patrick usually listening. It was a fascinating slice of history, and he desperately wanted to remember it all. They relived battles fought forty years prior and discussed a dozen times since. There had been tragedies as well as triumphs. The man with the biggest burden to bear seemed to be Baldy Smith, who remembered the day in 1864 when he and his corps had stood before a virtually empty Petersburg and balked. He had halted, waiting for reinforcements he didn’t need, and let slip the opportunity to take Petersburg and Richmond. His mistake caused the war to drag on for another bloody year, and it saddened him every time he thought of it.

Finally the effects of Patrick’s trip and the liquor started to take their toll and he became afraid he would fall asleep. He rose and excused himself. The old men bade him good night. They still had several more campaigns to refight.

“Don’t worry, Patrick,” said Smith. “Longstreet will do all right and so will we. We’ll talk about your command tomorrow. If you like challenges, you’ll love this one.”

Wheeler jabbed the air with his hand. “We’re getting Longstreet and a million men.” He dropped his hand and looked confused. “What the hell will we do with a million men?”

Instead of going directly to bed, Patrick walked a bit to clear his head. If he was to report more formally to Smith the next day, he would prefer to not be suffering from an agonizing hangover, although he might be the only senior officer without one.

After a while and feeling more sober, he went to his tent, stripped to his underclothes, and washed up out of a basin as well as he could. Then he lay down on an uncomfortable cot and looked at the stark top of the tent. It was, he decided, a damned hard way to make a living. Here he was, nearing forty and sleeping on a cot in a tent in the middle of an otherwise civilized and respectable city. Of course the war made certain there were no rooms available, and he might have gotten Smith or Wheeler to find him a place, but that would have been imposing. Worse, some poor soul might have gotten bumped, and he didn’t consider that quite fair. What the hell, at least he’d pulled rank and gotten someone to put up the tent.

How long had he been in the army? Counting time at the academy, twenty years. That was enough, he decided. Twenty years and two wars and how many skirmishes against Indians? Was he eligible for a pension? Did it matter? It was time to leave.

He knew he had found his real calling when writing his German report at West Point and lecturing on it. The contacts he’d been making over the years would pay off with a teaching position at one of several universities if returning to West Point was not feasible. More and more he was starting to think that West Point was not the proper place. That left his other two major possibilities: the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, and the University of Detroit, in the center of the city of that name. There was logic to this, since the area was his home and he and his family knew so many people. It also meant he wouldn’t have to sleep on any more cots. Ever.

Yet what sort of life would he have? He was not poor, so there would be no trouble with money, but he was still single. With whom could he share his life? How would he meet a proper companion at his age?

He ran down the list of women he had known and found it depressingly short. Certainly he’d socialized with women, both before the academy and afterward, and enjoyed it. His nomadic military life had made such acquaintances brief, but some had been intense. There had been a particularly splendid relationship with a major’s daughter during a two-week idyll in Southern California. He had considered proposing, but she had dumped him a few weeks later, leaving him with only memories of naked bodies frolicking in the moonlit surf.

But that was more than ten years ago. The woman was now married to some banker and had two children. Probably got fat too. The thought depressed him.

The only woman he knew at all now was Katrina Schuyler, and despite what he had told her, she did frighten him. No, not because of her mind or her opinions, but because she was so rich and sophisticated that she must think him a barbarian bumpkin. Yes, she was attractive, interesting, and polite, and perhaps they really were friends, but how could it ever go farther than that?

He willed himself not to fantasize about life on a college campus with Katrina. She could likely buy her own college if she so wished.

Well, at least Heinz and Molly had hit it off. A short note from Trina had informed him, with equal degrees of shock and amusement, that the two young people had fallen in love. Her words also implied that they were sleeping together.

That, of course, partially explained why his young aide was not in Hartford and why he, as a brigadier general, had to sleep in a tent. Patrick vowed insincerely to teach the young pup a lesson when he finally did show up. What the hell, let them have their joy while they can. Only God knew what might happen to them tomorrow.

Patrick sat up in the cot. Of course. What the hell was he being such a fool for? If such an unlikely pair as Heinz and Molly could find themselves, why couldn’t he and Katrina? The worst that could happen was that she would reject him, and he would be no worse off than he was right now.

Did he love her? He didn’t know. He knew that he enjoyed her company and liked to see her smile, and loved to hear her talk. And hadn’t she kissed him and urged him to return? Once again he could see her face and feel her slender body against his, even if it had been for only the briefest of moments. What had Admiral Nelson said about a good commander being able to do no wrong if he laid his ship alongside that of an enemy? He laughed. Katrina Schuyler was not his enemy, but he certainly wouldn’t mind lying alongside her.

He lay back down and prepared for sleep. Tomorrow would be a long day, what with finding out about the type of unit he would be commanding, but he would try to make arrangements to see Katrina.

And just what did they mean about command being a challenge?