Colonel Alfred von Schlieffen had heard that the British government designated diplomatic service in Washington, D.C., a hardship position on account of the abominable climate of the capital of the United States. He didn"t know for a fact that that was true. If it wasn"t, though, it should have been. The weather had already got hotter and muggier than it ever did in Berlin, and May was only a bit more than half done. Kaiser Wilhelm I"s military attache in the United States ran a finger under the tight collar of his blue Prussian uniform to try to let in some air. That helped little, if at all.
Sweating, Schlieffen stepped onto the black cast-iron balcony outside his office. He startled a pigeon on the rail. It flew away, wings flapping noisily. Schlieffen reckoned that a victory of sorts. Too many pigeon droppings streaked the dark red brick of the German ministry.
Against the humidity and heat, though, he won nothing. No breeze stirred the air; it was as hot outside as back in the office. Horses and buggies and wagons rattled up and down Ma.s.sachusetts Avenue. The street was paved with bricks, so they didn"t raise great choking clouds of dust as they might have done, but the racket of iron-shod hooves and iron tires on the paving was terrible.
That racket drove whatever thoughts Schlieffen had had clean out of his head. For a man so intensely intellectual, that could not be borne. He went back inside, closing the French doors behind him. As the air was so still, he made the office no hotter, and, since they were almost all gla.s.s, he hardly made it dimmer.
Above his desk hung three framed portraits. A Catholic might have thought them images of a secular Trinity. That had never occurred to Schlieffen, a devout Hutterite. To him, they were merely the most important men in his life: ascetic-looking Field Marshal von Moltke, whose victories over Denmark, Austria, and France had made Prussian-led Germany a nation; plump, imperious Chancellor von Bismarck, whose diplomacy had made von Moltke"s victories possible; and, above them both, the Kaiser, bald now, his fringe of hair, mustache, and fuzzy side whiskers white, his chest full of well-earned medals, for he had been a formidable soldier in his own right before succeeding his brother as King of Prussia.
Whenever Schlieffen thought of the Kaiser"s soldierly career, he could only marvel, for Wilhelm had first seen action in the Prussian puppet forces that fought under Napoleon"s command when the century was young. "How many men still living can say that?" Schlieffen murmured. And afterwards, Wilhelm had helped guide Prussia"s rise to greatness, had known when to urge his brother to decline the throne of a united Germany after the revolutions of 1848, and had known when to accept it himself a generation later.
From the Kaiser"s portrait, Schlieffen"s eyes fell briefly to the small photograph of a pretty young woman on his desk: the one bit of sentiment he permitted himself in a room otherwise utterly businesslike. Anna had been his cousin as well as, for four wonderful years, his wife. In the nine years since her death in childbed, he"d found it easier to care for the ideal of Germany than for any merely human being.
He inked his pen and wrote the last few sentences of the report he"d been working on. After scrawling his signature at the bottom, he checked his pocket watch: a few minutes past ten. He had a ten-thirty appointment at the War Department.
Precise as always, he signed the daybook in the front hall, noting his departure time to the minute. The guards outside the door saluted as he left the emba.s.sy. He punctiliously returned the courtesy.
He walked half a block southeast on Ma.s.sachusetts, then turned right onto Vermont, which cut diagonally across Washington"s square grid and led straight toward the White House and the War Department building just west of it. Civilians waved to him, mistaking his light blue uniform for one belonging to the U.S. Army. He"d had U.S. soldiers make the same mistake and salute him.
He ignored the misdirected greetings, as he ignored most human contact. Then a fat man on a pony that didn"t seem up to bearing his weight recognized the uniform for what it was. "Hurrah for the Kaiser!" the fellow called, and tipped his hat. Schlieffen acknowledged that with a polite nod. The Kaiser was popular in the United States, not least because his army had beaten the French.
Newsboys hawked papers on every corner. Headlines screamed of coming war. Schlieffen"s glance lifted toward the Arlington Heights on the far side of the Potomac. Buildings screened most of his view of them, but he knew they were there. He also knew the Confederate States had guns mounted on them, and on other high ground along the southern bank of the river. If war came, Washington would suffer.
More soldiers were on the streets than usual, but not many more. Unlike Germany, the United States had no conscription law, relying instead on volunteers to fill out the relatively small professional army once war was declared. That struck Schlieffen as the next thing to insane, even if the Confederacy used the same system. Mobs Mobs, he thought scornfully. Mobs with rifles, that"s what they"ll be Mobs with rifles, that"s what they"ll be.
The War Department was a four-story brick building with a two-story entranceway fronted by half a dozen columns. To Schlieffen"s way of thinking, it would have been adequate for a provincial town, but hardly for a national capital. The Americans had talked for years of building something finer: talked, but spent no money. Still, the soldiers on duty at the entrance were almost as well drilled as the guards in front of the German emba.s.sy.
"Yes, Colonel," one of them said. "The general is expecting you, so you just follow Willie here. He"ll take you to him."
"Thank you," Schlieffen said. The soldier named Willie led him up to the third-floor office where the general-in-chief of the U.S. Army carried out his duties. "Guten Tag, Herr Oberst, " "Guten Tag, Herr Oberst, " said the general"s adjutant, a bright young captain named Saul Berryman. said the general"s adjutant, a bright young captain named Saul Berryman.
"Guten Tag," Schlieffen answered, and then, as he usually did, fell back into English: "How are you today, Captain?" Schlieffen answered, and then, as he usually did, fell back into English: "How are you today, Captain?"
"Ganz gut, danke. Und Sie?" Berryman kept up the German for the same reason Schlieffen spoke English-neither was so fluent speaking the other"s language as he would have liked, and both enjoyed the chance to practice. Berryman kept up the German for the same reason Schlieffen spoke English-neither was so fluent speaking the other"s language as he would have liked, and both enjoyed the chance to practice. "Der General wird Sie sofort sehen." "Der General wird Sie sofort sehen."
"I am glad he will see me at once," Schlieffen said. "He must be very busy, with the crisis in your country."
"Ja, er ist." Just then, the general opened the door to the outer room where Berryman worked. Seeing him, his adjutant returned to English himself: "Go ahead, Colonel." Just then, the general opened the door to the outer room where Berryman worked. Seeing him, his adjutant returned to English himself: "Go ahead, Colonel."
"Yes, always good to see you, Colonel," Major General William Rosecrans echoed. "Come right in."
"Thank you," Schlieffen said, and took a chair across the desk from Rosecrans. The military attache"s nostrils twitched. He"d smelled whiskey on Rosecrans before, but surely at a time like this-He gave a mental shrug.
"Good to see you," Rosecrans repeated, as if he"d forgotten he"d said it the first time. He was somewhere in his early sixties, with graying hair, a fairly neat graying beard, and a nose with a formidable hook in it. His color was very good, but the whiskey might have had something to do with that. He looked shrewd, but, Schlieffen judged, wasn"t truly intelligent; he owed his position mostly to having come out of the War of Secession less disgraced than any other prominent U.S. commander.
"General, I am here to present my respects, and also to convey to you the friendly good wishes of my sovereign, the Kaiser," Schlieffen said.
"Of your suffering Kaiser?" Rosecrans said. "I hope he gets better, with all my heart I do. Germany has always been a country friendly to us, and we"re d.a.m.ned glad of that, believe me, considering the way so many of the other countries in Europe treat us."
Schlieffen gave him a sharp look, or as sharp a look as could come from the military attache"s nondescript, rather pinched features. Rosecrans showed not the slightest hint of embarra.s.sment, nor even that he noticed the glare. Schlieffen concluded the fault lay in his own accented English, which Rosecrans must have innocently misunderstood. Having concluded that, the colonel dismissed the matter from his mind. If no insult had been offered, he could not take offense.
"I would be grateful, General, if you could make arrangements so that, in the event of war between the United States and the Confederate States, you might transport me to one of your armies so that I can observe the fighting and report on it to my government," he said.
"Well, if the war"s not over and done with before you catch up to it, I expect we"ll be able to do that," Rosecrans said. "You"ll have to move sharp, though, because we ought to lick the Rebs in jig time, or Bob"s your uncle."
Although Schlieffen knew he was missing some of that-the English spoken in the United States at times seemed only distantly related to what he"d learned back in Germany-the root meaning remained pretty clear. "You believe you will win so quickly and easily, then?" He did his best to keep the surprise he felt out of his voice.
"Don"t you?" Rosecrans made no effort to hide his own amazement. Very few Americans, as far as Schlieffen could see, had even the least skill in disguising their thoughts and feelings: indeed, they took an odd sort of pride in wearing them on their sleeves. When Schlieffen didn"t answer right away, Rosecrans repeated, "Don"t you, sir? The plain fact of the matter is, they"re afraid. It"s plain in everything they do."
"I am nothing more than an ignorant stranger in your country," Schlieffen said, a stratagem that had often given him good results. "Would you be so kind as to explain to me why you think this is so?"
Rosecrans swelled with self-importance. "It strikes me as an obvious fact, Colonel. The government of the United States told Richmond in no uncertain terms that there would be h.e.l.l to pay if a single Confederate soldier crossed over the Rio Grande. Not a one of "em has done it. Q.E.D."
"Is it not possible that the Confederate soldiers have not yet moved only because their own preparations remain incomplete?" Schlieffen asked.
"Possible, but not likely," Rosecrans said. "They put a large force of regulars into El Paso a couple of weeks ago-that was before we warned "em we wouldn"t stand for any funny business in Chihuahua and Sonora. And since that day, Colonel, since that day, not a one of the stinking sons of b.i.t.c.hes has dared stir his nose out of their barracks. If that doesn"t say they"re afraid of us, I"d like to know what it does say."
Schlieffen thought he"d already told General Rosecrans what it said. To the American, evidently, preparations preparations meant nothing more than moving troops from one place to another. Schlieffen wondered if his own English was at fault again. He didn"t think so. The problem lay in the way Rosecrans-and, presumably, President Blaine-saw the world. meant nothing more than moving troops from one place to another. Schlieffen wondered if his own English was at fault again. He didn"t think so. The problem lay in the way Rosecrans-and, presumably, President Blaine-saw the world.
"If you fight the Confederate States, General, will you fight them alone?" Schlieffen tried to put the concept in a new way, since the first one had met no success.
"Of course we"ll fight "em alone," Rosecrans exclaimed. "They"re the ones who suck up to foreigners, not us." That he was speaking with a foreigner did not cross his mind. His voice took on a petulant tone, almost a whine, that Schlieffen had heard before from other U.S. officers: "If England and France hadn"t stabbed us in the back during the War of Secession, we"d"ve licked the Confederates then, and we wouldn"t have to be worrying about this nonsense now."
"That may be true." Schlieffen felt something close to despair. Rosecrans was not a stupid man; Schlieffen had seen as much. But it was hard to tell whether he was more naive than ignorant or the other way round. "Could your diplomacy not try to keep Great Britain and France from doing in this war what they did in the last, or even more than they did in the last?"
"That"s not my department," Rosecrans said flatly. "If they stay out, they stay out. If they come in, I suppose we"ll deal with "em. Stabbed in the back," he muttered again.
"You have, I trust, made plans for fighting the Confederate States by themselves, for fighting them and Great Britain, for fighting them and France, and for fighting them and both Great Britain and France?" Schlieffen said.
Rosecrans gaped at him. After coughing a couple of times, the American general-in-chief said, "We"ll hit the Rebs a couple of hard licks, then we"ll chase "em, depending on where they try to run. Whatever they try themselves, we"ll beat that back, and ... Are you all right, Colonel?"
"Yes, thank you," Schlieffen answered after a moment. He was briefly ashamed of his own coughing fit-was he an American, to reveal everything that was in his mind? But Rosecrans apparently saw nothing more than that he"d swallowed wrong. As gently as he could, Schlieffen went on, "We have developed in advance more elaborate plans of battle, General. They served us well against the Austrians and later against the French."
"I did enjoy watching the froggies get their ears pinned back," Rosecrans agreed. "But, Colonel, you don"t understand." He spoke with great earnestness: Americans weren"t always right, any more than anyone else was, but they were always sure of themselves. "Can"t just go and plan things here, the way you do on your side of the Atlantic. The land"s too big here, and there aren"t enough people to fill it up. Too much room to maneuver, if you know what I mean, and that"s h.e.l.l on plans."
He had a point-no, he had pan of a point. "We face the same difficulty when we think of war with Russia," Schlieffen said. "There is in Russia even more s.p.a.ce than you have here, though I admit Russia has also more men. But this does not keep us from developing plans. If we can force the foe to respond to what our forces do, the game is ours."
"Maybe," Rosecrans said. "And maybe you"re smarter than the Russians you"d be fighting, too. The next general who"s smarter than Stonewall Jackson hasn"t come down the pike yet, seems to me."
"I do not follow this," Schlieffen said, but then, all at once, he did. His own ancestors must have gone off to fight Napoleon with that same mixture of arrogance and dread. Comparing a backwoods Confederate general to the great Bonaparte, though, struck him as absurd-until he considered that Rosecrans and his ilk were hardly a match for Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, and Blucher.
"But we will lick "em." Suddenly, Rosecrans was full of bluff confidence again. "We outweigh "em two to one, near enough, and that"s plenty to make any general look smarter than he really is-even an old ne"er-do-well like me." The grin he sent Schlieffen had a self-deprecating charm to which the German military attache could not help responding.
And Rosecrans was right. An army with twice the men and guns of its foe went into a war with an enormous advantage. As Voltaire had said, G.o.d was always for the big battalions. Even Frederick the Great, facing odds like those, had been at the end of his tether during the Seven Years" War till the opportune death of the Tsarina and her abrupt replacement by a successor who favored the Prussian king made Russia drop out of the war.
"I repeat the question I asked before," Schlieffen said again: "What will you do if England or France or both of them at once should enter the war on the side of the Confederate States?"
"The best we can," Rosecrans answered. Brave Brave, Schlieffen thought, but not helpful but not helpful. But then the American Army commander looked sly. "Between you, me, and the wall, Colonel, I don"t think it"s going to happen. The reports we"re getting from London and Paris say both governments over there are sick to death of the Confederacy keeping n.i.g.g.e.rs as slaves, and they won"t lift a finger unless the Rebs say they"ll turn "em loose. Now I ask you, sir, what are the odds of that? Biggest reason they fought the war was on account of they were afraid the United States government would make "em do something like that. If they wouldn"t do it for their own kith and kin, why do you think the stubborn b.a.s.t.a.r.ds"ll do it for a pack of foreigners?"
"This may be an important point," Schlieffen said. It was, at any rate, a point interesting enough for him to take it up with Minister von Schlozer when he got back to the brick pile on Ma.s.sachusetts Avenue. He concerned himself with politics as little as he could. Political considerations could of course affect military ones, but the latter were all that fell within his purview. Civilians set policy. He made sure the armed forces could do what the leaders required of them.
Rosecrans said, "If you"ll excuse me, Colonel, I do have a deal to see to here, just on the off chance the Confederates get frisky after all."
"I understand." Schlieffen rose. So did Rosecrans, who came around the desk to shake hands with him again. "One more question, General?" the attache asked. "In case of war, you are rather vulnerable to the foe while here in Washington. What would the signal be for shifting your headquarters up to Philadelphia, which is less likely to come under attack?"
"It had better not," Rosecrans exclaimed. "Soon as the first sh.e.l.l falls, we all pack up stakes and head north. Everything will go smooth as clockwork, I promise you. We aren"t fools, Colonel. We know the Rebs will sh.e.l.l this place."
"Very good," Schlieffen said. As he left the War Department, he wondered whether both of Rosecrans" last two sentences were true.
Black smoke-and showers of sparks-pouring from her twin stacks, the Liberty Bell Liberty Bell steamed down the Mississippi toward St. Louis. When he"d boarded the sternwheeler in Clinton, Illinois, Frederick Dougla.s.s had taken her name as a good omen. With every mile closer to the Confederate States he drew, though, his doubts increased. steamed down the Mississippi toward St. Louis. When he"d boarded the sternwheeler in Clinton, Illinois, Frederick Dougla.s.s had taken her name as a good omen. With every mile closer to the Confederate States he drew, though, his doubts increased.
He stood on the upper deck, watching farms and little towns flow past. He was the only Negro on the upper deck, the deck that housed cabin pa.s.sengers. That did not surprise him. But for one of the men who fed wood to the fire under the Liberty Bell"s Liberty Bell"s boiler, he was the only Negro aboard the steamboat. He was used to that, too. Over the years since the War of Secession, he"d grown very used to being alone. boiler, he was the only Negro aboard the steamboat. He was used to that, too. Over the years since the War of Secession, he"d grown very used to being alone.
"Look," somebody not far away said. "Look at the n.i.g.g.e.r in the fancy suit."
Dougla.s.s turned. He was, he knew, an impressive man, with handsome features whose leonine aspect was enhanced by his silvery beard and mane of hair. That silver, and his slow, deliberate motions, told of his age. He thought he was sixty-four, but might as easily have been sixty-three or sixty-five. Having been born into slavery on Maryland"s Eastern Sh.o.r.e, he had, to put it mildly, not been encouraged to enquire into the details of his arrival on the scene.
Two young white men, both dressed like drummers or cheap confidence men (there sometimes being little difference between the two trades) were gaping at him, their pale eyes wide. "May I help you gentlemen?" he asked, letting only a little irony seep into his deep, rich voice.
Despite his formidable presence, despite the rumbles of oratorical thunder audible in even his briefest, most commonplace utterances, the whites were unabashed. "It"s all right, it"s all right," one of them said, as if soothing a restive child-or a restive horse. "d.i.c.k here and me, we"re from St. Paul, and ain"t neither one of us ever got a good look at a n.i.g.g.e.r before."
"I can see as much," Dougla.s.s said. "I also discern that you have never had occasion to learn how to speak to a Negro, either."
That went right past the two men from St. Paul. They kept on staring, as if he were a caged monkey in a zoo. He"d had that feeling too many times in his life already. Seeing they would would be rude, no matter how unintentionally, he turned his back, set both hands on the rail, and peered out over the Mississippi once more. be rude, no matter how unintentionally, he turned his back, set both hands on the rail, and peered out over the Mississippi once more.
Ain"t neither one of us ever got a good look at a n.i.g.g.e.r before. His fingers clamped down on the white-painted cast iron with painful force. He"d heard that, or variations on it, hundreds of times since the war.
He let out a long sigh punctuated by a couple of short coughs. Before the Southern states left the Union to form their own nation, he had been a spokesman for one man in eight in the United States. Now, ninety percent of the Negroes on the North American continent resided in a foreign country, and most of the white citizens of the USA were just as glad it was so. They might have been gladder yet had the figure been one hundred percent. As often as not, they blamed the relative handful of blacks left in the United States for the breakup of the nation.
And if a Negro, tormented beyond endurance, tried to flee from, say, Confederate Kentucky across the Ohio into the United States and freedom, how was he greeted? With congratulations for his love of liberty and a hearty welcome to a better land? Dougla.s.s" laugh was sour. If a U.S. Navy gunboat didn"t sink his little skiff or raft in midstream, white men with guns and dogs would hunt him down and ship him back over the river to the CSA. Why not? As an inhabitant of a different nation, he had no claim on the United States.
Dougla.s.s laughed again-better that than weeping. Before the war, the Fugitive Slave Act had been a stench in the nostrils of most Northerners. Now, though the law was no longer on the book, slavery having at last become extinct in the USA, fugitive slaves found less sympathy than they had a generation earlier. Did calling them foreigners make such a difference? Evidently.
Not wanting to know whether the two white men had finished their examination of him or whether others, equally curious and equally rude, had taken their place, Dougla.s.s looked ahead. The dark cloud of smoke and haze blowing west across the Mississippi was not a reflection of his mood. It was a reflection of the soft coal St. Louis, like so many Western cities, burned to heat its homes, cook its food, and power the engines of its factories. The Liberty Bell Liberty Bell would be landing before long. would be landing before long.
Past the northern suburb of Baden steamed the sternwheeler. Over there, black roustabouts carried cargo off barges and small steamers. Dougla.s.s warmed to see men of his own color once more, even if those men were doing labor of a sort their brethren still in bondage might have performed at lonely little landing stations along the Confederate-held reaches of the southern Mississippi.
Then across the water came the ingenious curses of the white men who bossed those roustabouts. Dougla.s.s" mouth tightened into a thin, hard line. He"d had curses like those fall on his own head back in the days when he was property, before he became a human being of his own. He"d also known the lash then. That, at least, these bosses, unlike the overseers still plying their trade in the CSA, were forbidden. Perhaps the prohibition made their curses sharper.
Other Negroes floated on the Mississippi in rowboats. Dougla.s.s watched one of them draw a fish into his boat: the day"s supper, or part of it. Blacks and whites both plied larger skiffs, in which they went after the driftwood that always fouled the river. They would not make much money from their gleanings, but none of them, it was likely, would ever make, or expect to make, much money till the end of his days.
St. Louis sprawled for miles along the riverbank. The riverbank had long been its raison d"etre raison d"etre. On the Mississippi, close to the joining of that river with the Missouri and not too far above the joining with the Ohio, it was at the center of a commerce stretching from Minnesota to New Orleans, from the Appalachians to the Rockies. Railroads had only added to its importance. Smoke belching from the stack of its locomotive, a loaded train chugged north. The engineer blew a long blast on his whistle, apparently from nothing more than high spirits.
Not even the rupture of the Union had for long interrupted St. Louis" riverine commerce. Many of the steamers chained up at the landing-stages along the stone-fronted levee-no regular wharves here, not with the Mississippi"s level liable to fluctuate so drastically-were Confederate boats, with names like Vicksburg Vicksburg Belle, New Orleans Lightning, and Albert Sidney Johnston Albert Sidney Johnston. The Stars and Bars fluttered proudly at their steins. As they had in the days before the war, they carried tobacco and cotton and rice and indigo up the river, trading them sometimes for wheat and corn, sometimes for iron ore, and sometimes for the products into which that ore was eventually made. The Confederate States had their own factories these days (some of them, to Dougla.s.s" unending mortification, with Negro slaves as labor), but their demand remained greater than their own industry could meet.
Names were not the only way to tell Confederate steamboats from their U.S. counterparts. None of the boats from the United States posted armed guards on deck to keep parts of their crews from escaping. The welcome newly fled blacks would receive in St. Louis was no warmer than anywhere else in the United States, but that did not keep some from trying their luck.
To Dougla.s.s" mingled pride and chagrin, the Liberty Bell Liberty Bell pulled in alongside one of those Confederate boats, an immense sidewheeler emblazoned with the name pulled in alongside one of those Confederate boats, an immense sidewheeler emblazoned with the name N.B. Forrest N.B. Forrest. The escaped slave wondered how his brethren still trapped felt about sailing in a vessel named for a dealer in human flesh who had also proved a successful officer in the war.
One of the guards aboard the Forrest Forrest, looking over to watch the Liberty Bell Liberty Bell tie up at the landing-stage, saw Dougla.s.s standing at the upper-deck rail. He gaped at the spectacle of a colored man there rather than on the main deck, where the poor and the engine crew spread their blankets. Dougla.s.s sent an unpleasant smile his way. The guard was close enough to recognize it as unpleasant. He scowled back, then spat a brown stream of tobacco juice into the equally brown Mississippi. tie up at the landing-stage, saw Dougla.s.s standing at the upper-deck rail. He gaped at the spectacle of a colored man there rather than on the main deck, where the poor and the engine crew spread their blankets. Dougla.s.s sent an unpleasant smile his way. The guard was close enough to recognize it as unpleasant. He scowled back, then spat a brown stream of tobacco juice into the equally brown Mississippi.
Berthed on the opposite side of the Liberty Bell Liberty Bell from the Confederate steamboat was the USS from the Confederate steamboat was the USS Shiloh Shiloh, one of a number of river monitors that made St. Louis their home port. The gunboat"s dark iron armor plating and starkly functional design made a sharp contrast to the N.B. Forrest"s N.B. Forrest"s gaudy paint and gilding and gloriously rococo woodwork. gaudy paint and gilding and gloriously rococo woodwork.
Among the crowd waiting at the top of the gently sloping levee for the Liberty Bell Liberty Bell to disembark her pa.s.sengers was a small knot of black men in clothes much like Dougla.s.s": undoubtedly the clergymen he was to meet. He hurried back to his cabin to retrieve his carpetbags. He carried them to the gangplank himself. Though porters-immigrants from Eastern Europe, many of them-were eager enough to a.s.sist the whites traveling with him, they were more often than not reluctant to serve a Negro. to disembark her pa.s.sengers was a small knot of black men in clothes much like Dougla.s.s": undoubtedly the clergymen he was to meet. He hurried back to his cabin to retrieve his carpetbags. He carried them to the gangplank himself. Though porters-immigrants from Eastern Europe, many of them-were eager enough to a.s.sist the whites traveling with him, they were more often than not reluctant to serve a Negro. How quickly they learn the ways of the land to which they came seeking freedom How quickly they learn the ways of the land to which they came seeking freedom, Dougla.s.s thought with a bitterness now dull with scar tissue but no less true and real on account of that.
The ministers, by contrast, were eager to relieve him of his burdens. "Thank you, Deacon Younger," he said as he shook hands with them. "Thank you, Mr. Towler. Good to see you gentlemen-and you, too, of course, Mr. Ba.s.s; I don"t mean to forget you-again. It"s been four or five years since I last had the pleasure, has it not?"
"Fo" years, Mistuh Dougla.s.s," Deacon Daniel Younger answered. "It sho" enough is a pleasure to set eyes on you again, suh, I tell you truthfully." Like his colleagues, Younger was a man of education. He wrote well, as Dougla.s.s knew. His grammar and vocabulary were first rate. But he, like Towler and Ba.s.s, retained most of the intonations of slavery in his speech.
Dougla.s.s" own Negro accent was much less p.r.o.nounced; as a boy, he"d learned white ways of speaking from his master"s daughter. Over the years, he had seen many times how that made people both white and black take him more seriously. He found it useful and unfortunate at the same time.
"Come on to the carriage wid us," Washington Towler said. "We"ll take you over to the Planter"s Hotel on Fo"th Street. They know you"re a-comin", and they will be ready fo" you." By that, he meant the hotel wouldn"t make a fuss about having a Negro use one of its rooms for a few days. Dougla.s.s, of course, was not just any Negro, either, but as close to a famous Negro as the United States boasted.
The Reverend Henry Ba.s.s drove the buggy. He was younger than his two colleagues, both of whom were not far from Dougla.s.s" age. He said, "Don"t know what all the excitement of the past few weeks will do to your crowds, Mistuh Dougla.s.s. What has yo" experience been in the other towns where you were?"
"It would be hard to state a general rule," Dougla.s.s answered. "Some people-by which I mean white people, of course-"
"Oh, of course," Ba.s.s said. He and the other two ministers rolled their eyes at the never-ending indignities of living on sufferance.
"Some people, I say," Dougla.s.s resumed, "take the threat of renewed war as a chance to punish the Confederate States, which works to our advantage. Others, though, continue to make the Negro the scapegoat for the dissolution of the Union, and because of that discount every word I say."
"You will see a deal o" dat last here, I am afraid." Deacon Daniel Younger"s broad shoulders-the man was built like a barrel-moved up and down as he sighed. "During the war, there were plenty who fought"-he p.r.o.nounced it fit fit, as did many, black and white, in the West and in the CSA-"to make Missouri a Confederate state. They have made up their minds to be part o" de Union now, but they are still not easy about it."
"I remember how Kentucky fell after Lincoln pulled troops east-too little, too late-to try to halt Lee"s army," Dougla.s.s said. "I remember the talk about part.i.tioning Missouri, too, on the order of what was done with Virginia and West Virginia. I thank G.o.d you were preserved entire for the United States."
"We praise Him every day," Washington Towler said. "Without His help, we should still be slaves ourselves." Henry Ba.s.s pulled up in front of the Planter"s Hotel. Towler pointed to the entrance. "They bought and sold us, Mr. Dougla.s.s, right there, even in the days after the war, till emanc.i.p.ation finally became de law of de land."
The Planter"s Hotel had a Southern look to it even now. Its arches were of a style old-fashioned in the USA, incised into the facade rather than raised in relief from it. Some of the men going in and out wore the white linen suiting common in the warm, muggy South, too, and spoke with drawls: traders up from New Orleans and Memphis, Dougla.s.s supposed. They stared at his companions and him as if a nightmare had come to life before their eyes-and so, Dougla.s.s hoped, one had.
He took his bags and went into the hotel. As he had on the steamboat, he carried them himself. Maybe the white porters a.s.sumed that, despite his clothes, he was a servant. Or maybe, and more likely, they just refused to lower themselves, as they saw it, by serving one of the Negroes who had served their kind for so many long, sorrowful years.
"I am Frederick Dougla.s.s," he said when he reached the front desk. "A room has been reserved in my name."
He waited for the clerk to shuffle through papers. The fellow lifted up his eyes now and again to stare at Dougla.s.s" dark countenance. What followed was as inevitable as night following day. "I"m sorry, s-" The clerk could not bring himself to say sir sir to a Negro. He started again: "I"m sorry, but I don"t find that reservation." to a Negro. He started again: "I"m sorry, but I don"t find that reservation."
"Young man," Dougla.s.s said coldly, "if you do not find it by the time I count ten, I promise you this hotel will be a stench in the nostrils of the entire United States by a week from Tuesday, when my next newspaper column goes out over the wires. Your superiors will not thank you for that. I commence: one, two, three ..."
How the clerk stared! And how quickly the missing reservation appeared, as if by magic. Thoroughly cowed, the clerk even browbeat a white bellboy into taking Dougla.s.s" carpetbags from him and carrying them to the room. It was one of the smaller, darker rooms in the hotel, but Dougla.s.s had expected nothing better than that. Daniel Younger and his friends had probably been able to book no better.
After supper-which he ate at a table surrounded by empty ones-Henry Ba.s.s came by to take him to the Merchants" Exchange, where he would speak. St. Louis was a handsome city of gray limestone and a sandstone almost as red as brick, though soot dimmed its color on many buildings. The Merchants" Exchange proved to take up the whole block between Chestnut and Pine on Third Street. "We"ve got plenty of room for a good house, Mr. Dougla.s.s," Ba.s.s said. "President Tilden was nominated in the Grand Hall back in "76, he was."
But, when Dougla.s.s went into the hall, he was sadly disappointed. Plainly, every Negro in and around St. Louis who could afford a ticket was there. Somber-suited black men and their wives in fancy dresses filled to overflowing the seats allotted to them. Dougla.s.s had long prided himself, though, on his reputation for being able to speak to whites as well as blacks. Tonight, it failed him. The bright gaslights shone down on great empty rows of chairs, with here and there a clump of people.
He went ahead with his address; as a professional, he had no other choice. He sounded his familiar themes: tolerance, education, enlightenment, progress, the appropriateness of giving all their due for what they could do, not for the color of their skins. He drew rapturous applause from the Negroes in the hall, and got a polite hearing from the whites.
It could have been worse. He knew that. He"d started riots with his speeches now and again, sometimes meaning to, sometimes not. Tonight, he would have welcomed a riot in place of the near-indifference his white audience showed him. When U.S. whites had nothing else on their minds, they were sometimes willing to listen to tales of the Negro"s plight and ways by which it might be alleviated. When they were distracted, they might as well have forgotten the USA still held any Negroes.
Once it was finally over, he stood down from the podium. To his surprise, one of the people who came up to speak with him was a gray-bearded white man, a former Army officer whom Dougla.s.s, after a bit, recognized from years gone by. "You must not take it to heart, sir," he said with touching sincerity. "Do remember, our present concern over the Confederate States is also, in its way, concern for your people."