Love and War

had a brutal recoil. After he fired three rounds at the targets normally used for testing artillery —  five thick pilings planted ten feet apart in the middle of the Potomac — his shoulder felt as if a mule had kicked it.

He heard a carriage. He was at the end of one of the arsenal piers, so he walked back to see who was arriving. The carriage remained indistinct for some while, moving among trees near the U.S. Penitentiary, which shared the mud flats with the arsenal.

Beneath the hazy pink sky, the carriage finally approached the pierhead. George knew the driver, one of Lincoln's secretaries, William Stoddard. His office stockpiled sample weapons that inventors sent directly to the President in the hope of by-passing Ripley.

Carrying some sort of shoulder gun, the President stepped out of the carriage while Stoddard tied the team to a cleat. In the dusky light Lincoln's pallor looked worse than usual, but he seemed in good humor. He plumped his stovepipe on the ground and nodded to George, who saluted.

'Good evening, Mr. President.'

'Evening, Major — I apologize, but I don't know your name.'

'I do,' Stoddard said. 'Major George Hazard. His brother Stanley works for Mr. Cameron.' Lincoln blinked and appeared to stiffen slightly, suggesting that George's relationship to one, possibly both, men did nothing for his status.

Still, Lincoln remained cordial, explaining, 'It's my habit to go shooting in Treasury Park, although the night police hate the racket. Couldn't go there this evening because there's a baseball game.' He peered at the piece George had been firing. 'What have we here?'

'One of the jaeger rifles we may purchase from the Austrian government, sir.'

'Satisfactory?'

'I'm no small-arms expert, but I would say barely. I'm afraid it's about the best we can get, though.'

'Yes, Mr. Cameron was a mite slow to enter the quadrille, wasn't he? We could substitute this type of weapon' — Lincoln's big-knuckled hand lifted the gun he had brought as if it were light as down — 'but your chief doesn't care for breechloaders, never mind that a scared recruit in the thick of action can have a peck of trouble with a muzzleloader. Maybe he forgets and slips the bullet down in before the powder. Maybe he forgets to pull the rammer, and there she goes, fired off like a spear —'

He puckered his lips and whooshed as he swept his free hand up and out to suggest an arc over the pink-lit river. George studied the breechloader. He could just discern the maker's name on the right lock plate: C. Sharps.

'I also realize that new and even recent are words unwelcome in the brigadier's vocabulary,' Lincoln continued with a smile. 'But I'm reliably informed that breech- loading pieces were known and demonstrated in the time of King Henry the Eighth, so we don't exactly have a brand-new thingamajig, do we now? I favor single-shot breechloaders, and, by Ned, the army's going to have some.'

Stoddard asked George, 'Are there any on order in Europe?'

'I don't believe —'

'There are none,' Lincoln interrupted, sounding more melancholy than irked. Then the thunder blow: 'That is why I recently sent my own buying agent over there with two millions of dollars and free rein. If I can't get satisfaction from Cameron and Company, I shall have to get it another way, I guess.'

Awkward silence. Stoddard cleared his throat. 'Sir, it will be dark soon.'

'Dark. Yes. The hour for dreams — best I get on with shooting.'

'If you'll excuse me, Mr. President —' George feared that he sounded strange; the bad news had dried his mouth.

'Certainly, Major Hazard. Happy to see you down here. I admire men who like to learn all they can. Try to do that myself.'

Lugging the Austrian rifle, George retreated into the gathering night. He mounted his horse and rode up past the brightly lit penitentiary to the sounds of firing from the pier. He felt as if someone had hit him over the head. Cameron and Company was in worse trouble than he had imagined. And he worked for Cameron and Company.

It had pleased Stanley to reject the proposal prepared by his brother. Stanley had a few clear memories of the long, horrible walk back from Manassas — he had none of crying at the roadside; it was Isabel who frequently reminded him of it — but those that remained included one of George pushing and bullying him as if he were some plantation nigger. If he could slight George or make his job more difficult, he now had one more reason for doing so.

Stanley was worried about his position as Cameron's creature. Saloon gossip said the boss's star was already falling. Yet nothing in the department appeared to change. The secretary had spent several days away from his desk, mourning his brother, but after that, it was business — and confusion — as usual.

Important congressmen had begun to inquire orally, by letter, and through press pronouncements about the purchasing methods of the War Department. Lincoln's dispatch of his own man to Europe on a gun-buying trip showed no great faith in them, to say the least. Complaints about shortages of clothing, small arms, and equipment continued to pour in from the camps of instruction. It was stated with increasing openness that Cameron was guilty of mismanagement and that the army, which little McClellan would attempt to whip into fighting trim, had not half of what it needed.

Except for bootees, Stanley could note with self-congratulation. Pennyford was producing in quantity, on schedule. Lashbrook's profit figures, projected out to year-end, staggered Stanley and delighted Isabel, who claimed to have expected the bonanza.

Regrettably, Stanley's personal success couldn't help him weather the departmental crisis. The written and oral demands for information now contained barbs in them. Scandalous shortages. Reported irregularities. If an impropriety was actually alleged, Cameron didn't deny it. He didn't even acknowledge it. One day Stanley overheard two clerks discussing this technique.

'Another sharp letter came in this morning. Treasury this time. Got to admire the way the boss handles them. He stands silent as a stone wall — same as that crazy Jackson at Bull Run.'

'I thought the battle was fought at Manassas,' said the second clerk.

'According to the rebs. According to us, it's Bull Run.'

The other groaned. 'If they start naming battles for places and we start naming them for streams, how the devil will schoolboys figure it out fifty years from now?'

'Who cares? I'm worried about today. Even the boss can't put up a stone wall forever. My advice is, bank your salary and —' He noticed Stanley lingering over a bound volume of contracts. He nudged his companion and both moved away.

The clerks epitomized the desperation beginning to infect the department. Cameron's precarious position was no longer a secret known only to a few. He was in trouble and, by extension, so were his cronies. When Stanley returned to his desk, the thought made it impossible for him to concentrate.

He needed to put distance between himself and his old mentor. How? No answer came to mind. He must discuss the problem with Isabel. He could count on her to know what to do.

That evening, however, she wasn't in a mood to discuss it. He found her seething over a newspaper.

'What's upset you, my dear?'

'Our sweet conniving sister-in-law. She's ingratiating herself with the very people we should be cultivating.'

'Stevens and that lot?' Isabel responded with a fierce nod. 'What's Constance done?'

'Started her abolition work again. She and Kate Chase are to be hostesses at a reception for Martin Delany.' The name meant nothing — further cause for wifely fury. 'Oh, don't be so thick, Stanley. Delany's the nigger doctor who wrote the novel everyone twittered over a couple of years ago. Blake; that was the title. He runs around in African robes, giving lectures.'

Stanley remembered then. Before the war, Delany had promoted the idea of a new African state to which American blacks could, and in his opinion should, emigrate. Delany's scheme called for the blacks to raise cotton in Africa and bankrupt the South through competitive free enterprise.

Stanley picked up the paper, found the announcement of the reception, and read the partial list of guests.