The shorter letter closed with Jephtha saying that fifteen months after the conclusion of hostilities, he still knew nothing of the whereabouts of his two younger sons.
Always a poor correspondent, Matthew had last written his father early in 1865, from Havana. Matt’s skipper, McGill, had been preparing to take his schooner Fair Amanda to one of the last ports still open to the Confederacy—neutral Matamoros, across the Rio Grande from Brownsville, Texas.
That same, final letter from Matt had contained several of the charcoal sketches he’d started making on his own, without formal training, when he was much younger. Jephtha had mailed a drawing to Michael. It was tacked up in the bunk.
He glanced at the sketch now. A sinuous black man, youthful but totally bald, dominated the foreground. He was wearing only a pair of ragged trousers and balancing a metal can on one shoulder.
The black’s other hand was extended, as if he were pleading with someone. His grin was infectious, his eyes merrily sly; the whole figure was bent forward to suggest a subservience that was affected and hence not degrading.
The lines of the figure were echoed in a few strokes suggesting a palm in the extreme background. Between the tree and the black was a smaller figure, a lighter-skinned gentleman in a white suit and wide-brimmed hat. He had a cheroot in his mouth and a small girl in his arms. In contrast to the controlled rigidity of the watcher, the black was all motion and suppleness.
Matt had signed the drawing M. Kent, and lettered a caption:
Jephtha had often mentioned his second son’s total inability to spell.
There’d been no further word of Matt since that final letter. Saddening, Michael thought with another glance at the picture. Not only had Jephtha perhaps lost a son, but possibly the world had lost a young man whose talent might someday have developed to an important level. Michael was no student of art. But he liked the composition of the drawing, the artful balance of line against white space. Matt’s style had a crude vibrancy that, once seen, wasn’t easily forgotten, or confused with another’s work.
The final paragraph of the shorter letter was the saddest of all.
Of Jeremiah I know even less, and fear him dead. Many military records were either destroyed or lost when Davis and his crowd fled Richmond and carried their government into its brief exile. I am sure Jeremiah’s regiment was in the Atlanta theater, and that he was present in the ranks in the autumn of 1864. Beyond that point I have been unable to trace him. I suspect I will never know his fate—nor where he fell in the midst of the chaos attending Sherman’s triumph in Georgia. To go to Fan’s burial with that knowledge weighing on my mind is grievous, indeed. Thankfully, God’s hand is ever present to lighten the burden. Hoping you are well, I remain
Faithfully, Jephtha
iii
Michael turned his attention to the second, thicker envelope. The pages—ten or more, inscribed on both sides—had been written in early August, following Jephtha’s return from Lexington.
There was pain in the very first paragraph. Lexington had reminded Jephtha not only of the rift which had destroyed his family and deprived him of his itinerancy, but of the death of his good friend, General Thomas Jackson, at Chancellorsville. Michael already knew Gideon had been present when Stonewall had been accidentally shot down by men from his own side.
But there was elation in the letter as well.
We were back from Lexington scarcely twenty-four hours when, with the abruptness of a thunderbolt, we received a communication from Matthew—execrable spelling and all!
In almost the final week of the war, his skipper did indeed run his schooner to the mouth of the Rio Grande, forty miles below Matamores. Munitions from the schooner were put aboard the customary lighters for transport up the river. A ferocious squall struck without warning and destroyed every one of the small craft, and drowned McGill and several crewmen. Matthew survived with severe injuries, recovery from which literally required months. We had hardly absorbed the joyous news when, concluding an arduous trip overland from Texas, Matthew himself appeared on our doorstep!
Here Michael was so startled, he inadvertently sucked too hard on the churchwarden and drew smoke into his lungs. He coughed for almost a minute before he was able to resume reading.
My son greeted us as if he had not been away for more than an overnight holiday. He then announced he was sailing for Liverpool, where he is to marry a young woman with whom he fell in love during his initial visit to the British Isles! For the first time since my return to the pulpit, I confess I availed myself of the medicinal bourbon Molly hides in the pantry.
Matt’s surprising liaison came about this way:
While McGill was still skippering a steam blockade runner into Wilmington, the vessel was badly hulled by Federal cruisers, and sank. All hands gained the Carolina shore. Eventually McGill and Matt returned to Bermuda, then traveled to Liverpool to arrange for construction of a second steamer, which McGill financed from profits. The vessel was built at the Birkenhead Ironworks, across the Mersey from the city proper; the very same yard which launched Semmes’ Alabama and several other Confederate raiders.
The young woman to whom Matthew lost his heart is the daughter of a steam fitter employed by the Lairds, proprietors of the Birkenhead Yard. Matthew first saw the girl there. He struck up a conversation with her at a mass meeting held in the city to express support for Lincoln’s emancipation decree. Matthew had gone to the meeting to—as he put it—hear what the other side was saying.
The young woman, I might note, was an ardent foe of the slave system; and Matthew told me in a strangely disarming way that he soon concluded the “other side” was right. I do not think romance alone was responsible for his change of heart. He finally thought the matter through. He still kept on with his seagoing duties out of loyalty to his captain and the cause, however.
The name of the young woman is Miss Dolly Stubbs. If Molly and I may believe the photograph Matt showed us, she is a lovely, lissome girl with blond hair and a face that speaks of good humor, pertness, and determination.
Once Molly and I had recovered from the detonation of Matthew’s “bombshell,” I commented upon my son’s long silences during the war. He looked bewildered and scratched his head in a rather absent fashion. He ignores clocks; he totally lacks a sense of the passage of time.
When I asked what exactly he had done while away for so long, his reply was characteristically vague and breezy. “Why,” he said, “McGill and I ran guns in and we ran cotton out until a boiler explosion sent the second steamer to the bottom off Bermuda.
“Then we went to Cuba and McGill used his last money to purchase a sailing schooner to operate in the Gulf. In between all that I taught the Bermuda nigras and the Cubans and the Liverpool shipyard boys to play our version of baseball, when I wasn’t sketching or falling in love. It was all damn lively. I had very few spare moments in which to write letters.”
No spare moments in almost five years? The most sanguinary struggle in our nation’s history “damn lively?” I must say Matthew is a unique boy!
Gideon and Matthew got along well during the five-day visit. It was altogether a happy reunion; they seem to like one another even after long separation.
But beyond a prompt marriage, I have no notion of what Matt’s future plans may be. Nor does he. Hardy and outgoing, he is apparently content to travel wherever the winds of chance and his romantic alliance may blow. He will never be industrious like Gideon—who, by the way, is still unable to find work. But for the moment, Matt has no need to be industrious. His share of the profits from his various voyages was no small sum. He was handsomely attired in the latest gentleman’s fashions when Gideon’s family, Molly, and I saw him onto the Liverpool steamer.
Once recovered from the excitement of Matt’s visit, I returned to prayerful consideration of a matter much on my mind of late. I have not mentioned it to you before, and it is time I did.
I am no longer a young man, Michael.
I have been giving considerable thought to the disposition of the California money. I would like to use a portion of it to repurchase the Boston publishing house before I die.
Of course I know next to nothing about the book trade, only a little something about newspapering. But I would like to have Kent and Son back in the family, since the company is of small importance to Louis in comparison to the Union, his textile and steel interests.
Louis—need I tell you—has no grasp of the worthy purpose of publishing, nor any interest in it. Kent and Son today is in even worse straits than it was when it was the property of that blackguard Stovall. The firm has, in fact, ceased publication of conventional books altogether. Shifting with the tides of popularity and opportunism, it now issues nothing but cheaply printed fiction weeklies, which may be had for one of those new copper and nickel five-cent pieces the Congress authorized in May.
Even Rose Ludwig’s novels have been stripped of boards and republished in gaudy paper covers. I am thankful Amanda’s dear friend is no longer alive to suffer the degradation of her work by a man solely interested in profit.
Louis obviously hopes to duplicate the success of the Beadle firm by imitating their “nickel novelettes.” To this end, he has discharged poor Dana Hughes, and replaced him with a staff of hacks. Do you wonder I would like to buy out such a pack of rascals?
The decision, of course, belongs to Louis—and I suspect he will turn his back on any overture I might make. I know his hatred of me. Still, imitators usually fail—and should this prove true with Kent and Son, greed might get the better of emotion. One never knows with men such as my esteemed cousin.
So I will watch the situation. I want the firm fully as much as I want my great-grandfather Philip’s sword, his portrait, and the other family artifacts Louis keeps at Kentland with no regard for the tradition or the ideals they symbolize.
I honestly cannot say what I would do with the publishing company if I had it—beyond rehiring Dana Hughes at once. But I still dream of restoring it, along with the aforementioned heirlooms, to—how shall I put it? Clean hands. Honorable hands.
In the event such a purchase is ever possible, I propose to divide the ownership of Kent and Son equally between Gideon, Matthew, and you.
The last word struck Michael like a blow. He started, spilling burning flakes of tobacco on his shirt. One left a hole in the fabric before he batted them out.
Don’t be astonished, Michael. You are more a Kent than Amanda’s own son. Should acquisition of the firm ever become a reality, you would enjoy an additional security you well deserve. I say “additional” for good reason. Jeremiah is clearly gone for all time. Thus I can, in good conscience, transfer his share of the California wealth to you. I have so stipulated in a new will.
?V
“God above!” Michael breathed. His hand shook so badly, he dropped the sheets.
He collected them hastily, then fumbled more time away putting them back in proper order.
Still stunned, he read the last paragraph again. He wasn’t dreaming.
Do not think this a rash act on my part. You were of inestimable value to Amanda. I know she loved you. After her death, it was you who raised Louis, and helped restore me to life when I fled Lexington, turned out of my own house. I owe you a great debt. The family owes you a debt. And you are as much a Kent as I.
Indeed, my vanity even makes me wish your last name could be ours, but that would be an affront to your parents. So you shall be a Kent in all respects except the name.
Michael leaned back and closed his eyes. He tried to assess all Jephtha’s decision could mean to him. How it would change his existence—for it certainly would.
But believing, really believing what he’d just read was still too difficult. He forced his attention back to the letter.
V
The rest was less personal, more philosophical—but no less charged with emotion.
Jephtha turned to the war’s aftermath, mentioned the gratification he’d derived from the Constitution’s thirteenth amendment, ratified only the preceding December. The amendment had forever abolished the institution of black slavery. He’d also been heartened by the passage of certain other pieces of national legislation.
It was a milepost on the march for human liberties when the Congress overturned Johnson’s veto in February, thereby extending the life and enlarging the scope of the Freedman’s Bureau, which can be of continuing service to the Southern Negro. The Radicals say Johnson used the veto to pander to the South’sDemocratic aristocracy. But any man who reads Johnson’s record correctly will know the class he despises most, North or South, is the privileged class. He idolizes men who work their own land, his beloved “mudsills.” The President’s greatest fault, if it can be termed that, is perhaps a too-strict adherence to the Constitution. He felt the Freedman’s Act could not be legal since the eleven Confederate states were not represented in the national legislature and had no voice in the act’s passage.
As you may know, Johnson likewise vetoed Lyman Trumbull’s civil rights bill, which declared that all persons born in the country are automatically citizens, entitled to equal rights and protection under the law. Trumbull introduced the bill to negate the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision. Here, too, the President hewed closely to his interpretation of the Constitution, maintaining that the matters covered by Trumbull’s bill are solely the province of the individual states. He still insists the bill as finally enacted over his veto is another step-—in his words, “a long stride”—to centralization and concentration of legislative power in Washington.
To be doubly sure Johnson’s view would not one day be declared Constitutionally correct by the High Court, many of the same provisions of Trumbull’s bill were introduced into the fourteenth amendment passed in June and now being submitted to the states for ratification.
The struggle between Johnson and the Congress has become a sorry, stained business—carried forward on both sides with mounting acrimony. As Mr. Voorhees, the Democrat, so aptly put it, the actions of Thad Stevens and his Radical Republicans serve notice that the war to restore the Union was an utter failure; the war is over, and yet the Union is rent in twain.
Michael knew what Jephtha meant. The Omaha and St. Louis papers had told him a war of quite a different sort had been under way in the capital almost since the hour the bells tolled Lincoln’s death. Some of the more extreme Republicans had supposedly hailed the assassination as a godsend, assuming the new President would throw Lincoln’s Reconstruction plans into the dustbin and take a harder line.
They’d gotten a shock when Johnson began to implement policies dating all the way back to an 1863 formula for establishing new Southern governments after the war. At that time Lincoln had been willing to grant executive recognition to rebel states in which ten percent of the eligible voters of 1860 took an oath of loyalty and agreed to support emancipation.
No such easy terms would satisfy the Republican extremists any longer. As a result they were at war not only with the President and the Democrats but with the more conservative members of their own party; a fierce and bitter war rooted in a fundamental dispute over the nature of the four-year military struggle.
In the papers, old Thad Stevens, the cynical and vituperative leader of the House’s radical wing, constantly referred to the seceded states as “conquered provinces” whose future condition depended on “the will of the conqueror.”
Johnson’s position, and that of the more moderate Republicans, was simply that the Southern states had never seceded because it was impossible for them to do so under the Constitution. They were still states, to be dealt with accordingly. Jephtha mentioned Stevens.
Though in his seventies, he possesses the unrelenting energy—and savagery—of a man half his age. He busies about Washington with his queer black wig askew and his club foot dragging, never bothering to deny press accounts of his liaison up in Lancaster with his mulatto housekeeper, Lydia Smith. He is aligning hi
s forces for the coming battle to determine whether the President or the Congress shall dictate Reconstruction policy.
Michael’s mouth quirked in distaste as he drew smoke from the pipe, exhaled, and let the fragrance of the tobacco mask some of the fetid smell of the deserted car. Outside he heard a whoop from the direction of Dorn’s wagon. He reminded himself that he owed Christian a visit as soon as he finished reading.
I do not believe Louis has joined the Stevens’ wing from humanitarian motives. He would be the last to welcome freed blacks at his dining table, no matter how much he prates about the wisdom of universal suffrage. I imagine he only sees the potential for power—the deliberate and pitiless manipulation of human beings that could assure Republican supremacy for years to come. No doubt he has allied himself with the cause in order to be on the winning side. The taint has crept even into our family.
Thus the war goes on. Different from the last, but no less furious. You would be appalled by the actions of politicians in both camps as they seek to influence public opinion by enlisting the support of popular war heroes. How ardently both sides court Grant!—though Johnson appears to have him in his pocket for the moment.
Second only to the supreme commander is Custer, the “boy general. “ His chief military talent seems to have been the ability to commit huge numbers of men to slaughter in order to secure commendations for himself and advance his career.
Yet he remains overwhelmingly popular. He was here late in March, attending lavish dinners at the Manhattan Club, and was constantly in the company of Democrats. He himself belonged to the McClellan clique whose political views divided and nearly destroyed the Army of the Potomac for a time, just as surely as did McClellan’s own vacillations and presidential ambitions.