Eagle's Cry

Book 0: The American Story

by David Nevin

Genres: Biographical

Synopsis

French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, whose thirst for power cannot be quenched, has gained control of New Orleans, a move that gives him potential mastery of the Mississippi River Valley.

A country as strong as France could stop America’s free-trade market from growing along the great waterway. American businesses have begun to thrive on the Mississippi, including that of the widow of Danny Mobry, a shipping tycoon and one of the most sought-after women in New Orleans and Washington.

As France forces the young nation’s hand economically and politically, there is a movement in the Northeast to turn toward England. Such a move could bring those states back under the colonial yoke they just shook off. Suddenly the United States is a global nation, as the greatest minds and visionaries of a young America struggle to hold it all together.

A Blackstone Audio production.

Release date: April 1, 2010

Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

Print pages: 448

Sample

1
Mount Veronon, Virginia, December 1799

On the night of December 11, 1799, Gen. George Washington, retired now from the presidency of the United States for more than two years, sixty-seven years old and feeling older, saw a large, misty ring around the moon that hung over Mount Vernon.
"Coming on snow, General," Bill Lee said. They were on the front lawn. The big white house that stood for so much in Washington's life gleamed in the pale light. Bill was the general's manservant, huge, black, devoted, crippled in body now and hung on the bottle as well, but he'd seen the general through the war and all that had followed. His speech was blurred by the loss of his teeth, providing another bond; Washington's teeth were gone, his dentures painful, his speech necessarily careful. Which was all right—measured speech added to his gravity.
"Maybe not," Washington said. Billy would be free with a lifetime income to support him when the general was gone. He was a good man and loyal, but you didn't look to him for decisions.
In the morning the mercury stood at thirty-three, wind from the northeast wet and clammy, clouds hanging low.
"Don't look good, General," Billy said. They were in the stable, grooms saddling their mounts.
"You stay back, Billy—sit by the fire."
"Nah, suh. You go, I go."
"Well, I've never let a little weather stop me."
"Yes, suh, but—"
"I know—I'm older now. But that doesn't mean I'll roll over and die when I see snow. Now that's enough talk."
"Yes, suh."
They rode out of the barn. Temperature down, wind brisk, it was chill. He thought of the fire crackling in his study, quills sharpened and waiting on the gleaming desk. But he had rounds to make, fields and herds to examine, walls to check and foremen to query. That heifer in the far barn with the sore in her mouth, how was she doing? Hands expected to see the master as soldiers expected to see the general; you couldn't sit in your tent all day and pretend to be a leader. Presently it began to snow.
"I done told you I smelled snow," Billy said.
"That you did, Billy."
The snow eased into steady rain. He drew his greatcoat collar closer. He didn't want to see the day when rain could drive him from duty. But the balm he normally drew from the very sight of his land was lacking today. George Cabot's letter had disturbed him deeply and he'd scarcely slept, lying there listening to Martha's gentle breathing with awful visions of his country in trouble flashing in his mind. They were still there.
Listen to George up in Boston and it seemed the nation the general had nurtured was sinking in a tide of venom. Federalists attacking Democrats, Democrats snarling at Federalists. Damn all political parties anyway, shattering the American ideal! Of course, George did see things in extremes, but here he was talking of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison as handmaidens of the devil. The general knew that no more decent man than Jimmy Madison had ever walked, let alone one smarter, but George saw all Democrats as Beelzebub's minions. The blind conviction of his hatred told the story. Still, it wasn't just Federalists—Democrats were haters too.
He sighed, slouching in his saddle. The thing was—but then he saw a sagging fence. Better have Henderson get those posts reset immediately. He swung down and lifted the post straight, kicking dirt in around it. When he remounted he felt rather surprisingly winded. He was older, granted, but worse, he felt old; the word sweeping by him, the country troubled. But what had kept him awake much of the night was George's echo of a call that came more and more often: Come back, take command again, hold us together again lest we fly into fragments. But that was ridiculous, his time was past; John Adams was president now. Rescue us, show us the way, make us do right—they sounded like children acting up while the schoolmaster was out back relieving himself!
At the far barn Norris had set a fire, and Washington warmed his hands before turning to the heifer. She was standing, a good sign; he forced open her jaw and ran an experienced finger along its lower side. Yes, the canker was definitely shrinking. She rolled her eyes and bawled when he let her go. More of the blue ointment, he told Norris; keep after it.
Riding on, rain slanting against his face, he mulled over the nation's divisions. Hold us together, Cabot mewing like a pussycat.
"Why in the devil does everyone look to me?" He glared at Billy. "Answer me that!"
Billy had a chaw tucked in his cheek. He spat a brown gout to clear for speech. "Why, General," he said, "'cause you knows what to do. Most folks don't know diddledum, but you got your head fixed on right. Most…well, look at me, hungering after the rum when I know it tears me up. But you…"
Well, it had been a rhetorical question anyway. He turned his horse to the path. But Billy was right; he'd always known what to do. Holding them together—the army, the country, the people—been successful too, until the rise of opposing political parties divided Americans who once had been a single people. At the start we were all together, in war, in striking a new Constitution, in firming the nation's place in the world.
His horse stumbled and he rose automatically in the stirrups. But once the new nation was on its feet, his own cabinet had split, young Alexander Hamilton, his favorite, really, off like a greyhound toward a future he could see more clearly than anyone else. And his other favorite, little Jimmy Madison, turned suddenly rabid in support of Mr. Jefferson, a man with whom the general had known from the beginning he would never be close. Tom and Jimmy had dug in their heels over a radically different vision.
He hadn't seen the split coming. They'd had problems and Alex had offered solutions. Tom and Jimmy saw dangers ahead, but Alex's solutions were immediate and real. But, now, looking back, what if Tom and Jimmy had been right all along? Alex was a near genius in finance, handsome, elegant, loyal—Washington felt him a sort of son. But that didn't mean he was always right. Sometimes ambition betrayed him, the hungers of a poor boy who has risen too fast, the arrogance of a mind that raced beyond other. But genius wasn't all the mattered. Heart mattered too.
A sudden image of Jefferson popped into his mind, tall, elegant of manner, rusty hair graying, head thrown back in that characteristic way when a thought struck him, saying, "Above all, trust the honest heart of the common man." The honest heart. Now that, George Washington well knew, was the plain truth.
Another memory…a column of his men, must have been in 'seventy-nine or maybe 'eighty, in there somewhere, the war settling into a terrible grind, the British locked into New York and Boston and holding hard. It was near dusk and he'd called a small attack and come out to watch the column go by, lean, hungry-looking men with rifles in hand, near empty haversacks slung, battered hats drooping over stern faces, rags tied around shoes that rotted on their feet. Marching out to fight, knowing that some wouldn't return, knowing that before the night was out they might be running in retreat before superior British numbers. The whole trick was to go in and hit hard, sting the enemy, throw him off balance, keep him on edge, and then slip away to fight him another day. It would be a long time before those men slept.
He'd stood and watched them pass, and as they went by they'd nodded. Nodded! "Evening, Ginral." "Evening, sir." "How do, Ginral?" They would salute on the parade ground, but here it was one soldier to another, one citizen to another, men with honest hearts marching to war. Evening, Ginral.
His eyes blurred for a moment. He blinked rapidly. The rain slanted harder, occasionally flaking into snow; he should go back, he supposed. Yes, he was older now and intimations that he wouldn't live indefinitely were coming with disconcerting frequency. But he wasn't gone yet, and until then…
He knew why George Cabot's importuning disturbed him—it stirred the old call of leadership. He'd always been a leader. Born poor but of solid family, he'd molded himself so. Leading his men into combat for the British back in the French and Indian War—he'd been just a boy then, God, he'd been green, he'd had so much to learn. But some of his strength was the capacity to learn while holding poise and equilibrium. He'd made mistakes and sometimes they'd cost lives, but he never was flummoxed, never let his distress show, and he learned. His power wasn't in brilliant schemes nor seeing deeper than anyone else could see but rather in the capacity to grasp the whole, make the parts work, calm passions, hold control when things wanted to go out of control.
But now? Martha said sixty-seven wasn't old, but age is measured in more than years. It had been a long road…
He was home well before dinner at three, half hour at least.
"George!" Martha cried. "Didn't you take shelter? Look at you—you're all wet."
He frowned; he wasn't really wet.
"Flakes of snow in your hair! Oh, George! Your inner coat is damp too. Go and change; get something dry—"
All this maternal fussing! He couldn't help the iron in his voice, "That will do, madam." He was ready for dinner now. Actually he did feel a bit of a chill, but it was a little late now to mention the tickle in his chest. He took a long sip of claret and felt the act of swallowing, not a good sign.
After dinner, ignoring a half-dozen new letter, he read the papers aloud and soon had Martha laughing over his comments. As concession to that tickle in his chest he went to bed early and in the morning decided not to go out. There was the new mail and swallowing his tea had been, yes, difficult. Why not cosset himself? After all, he wasn't as young…
Letters full of fear and foreboding from Fisher Ames and Timothy Pickering and Oliver Wolcott and one from Colonel Hamilton picking poor John Adams apart. John was having a troubled presidency, attacked by his own party as well as by Democrats and taking it hard. And why shouldn't he? The general himself took criticism like a bee-stung horse, and what was wrong with that? A man who'd molded himself into a leader wasn't likely to sit around with a smile as folks savaged him. And the Democratic papers had made brutal personal attacks in his last years in office, and if he could lay hands on a few of the worst editors he'd give them a taste of the horsewhip…except that that would be beneath his dignity.
When Cullie brought tea he asked her to add a little honey to ease his throat and say nothing to Mrs. Washington. A dull ache lay at the center of his chest. He sat by his window gazing over his grounds where three inches of snow had fallen overnight. He loved this place. As he studied it, he felt decision forming: those trees yonder did, after all, mar the view and should be cut. It was always his way, study as long as needed, then unshakeable decision and prompt action. He'd walk out later and mark the trees. Thus he had run army and country.
The letters echoed Cabot's call—come back, come back. It was a cry of anguish, but it was the wrong prescription. There was no gong back, there never was.
On the other hand, that didn't mean there was nothing he could do. A leader must find his own way to lead. The problem was our divisions, the fear we would break apart or come to civil war. He shut his eyes, listening to the fire crackle, and it came to him that this new division of the parties really was but a metaphor for a struggle for the nation's soul. Who are we? What kind of country do we want? Maybe that query had been in the wings from the beginning and we'd been too busy winning independence and getting onto our feet to notice. Maybe it was maturity that brought it before us, lingering immaturity that made dealing with it so difficult.
But what could he do? A leader must rise above problems, see deeper and understand more than others. Parties seduced men into dogmatism—your way comes to seem the right way and then the only way and then the sanctified way, and opposition becomes first aberration, then evil, then treason. How to lift his people above that? He must find the kernal of truth, grasp it whole, turn it like a gem to the light, and make his people see as broadly as did he. He could do that—call for a big public dinner, let people know he had something to say. When he had everyone's attention, give them a talk or even a metaphorical toast that would guide quarreling men back to sanity.
But what would he actually say? He must be very careful, must think it all through as he once and done in war, for he knew he would get just one chance and then the force of his words would be gone. Think it through, ruminate across the years, see what they had wrought…and where they'd failed. He sighed, adjusted the chair's bolster at his neck, and let his mind drift back to the war where it all had begun. He'd been an ignorant Virginia farmer—he could see that now—and had learned about the varied country and its immensely varied people with not a few pratfalls. But his men stayed with him, they taught him, and he learned, and they went to war together…
He'd never found decision difficult, but now with thousands of men awaiting his orders and a skilled army prepared to destroy him, he faced overwhelming detail. Everything—weather, food supplies, clothing and blankets, shoes, wagon stock and the animals to draw them, stocks of powder and ball, and when he could expect replenishment, how many ill or wounded and hence how many effectives, how to force feuding generals to work together, how to meld Virginia and Massachusetts troops into units, scout reports on terrain and the enemy…
Stunning detail, long lists, piles of reports on his camp desk, he reading and trying to remember. Soon he began writing summaries, just extended lists at first, but the very process of writing produced such order, logic, and coherence that lists turned into essays. His pen scratched steadily down sheet after sheet of foolscap as the candle guttered on his desk and his camp bed remained smooth and untouched. Step by step the mass of information became a solid whole, and then, simply and clearly, decision took care to itself.
Was today so different? He felt the same confusion and clashes, same omnipresent sense of danger, the old calls to leadership renewed. How to respond? Surely as he had before-think it through, write it out—or, at least, think it out. Suddenly he was more content that he'd been in weeks: yes, review all that had happened till he knew the answers.
Martha leaned on the back of his chair. She put her hands on his throat. They were warm and he sighed. "You're not well, are you?" It was a statement and he didn't deny it.
"A cold," he said. "I'll shake it off."
"I knew you took a chill. I'm mix the medicine."
"No—you know I never take anything for a cold. Let it go as it came, without help."
"But, George, you're not as—"
"I know." He raised a hand. "Ask Cullie for more tea." There was a limit to just how much he would cosset himself. He was busy now…go back to the start, when things were simple. They had fought for eight fierce years; eyes shut, he let images of war roll in his mind. He had never seriously doubted they would win, and finally the British saw the reality and went home.
Ah, that November day in eighty-three! He'd grouped his troops just above New Your City while the last British soldiers boarded ships off the Battery. Then, his big warhorse, Nelson, prancing under him—Old Nelson felt as proud as he did—he led the boys in. People lined the streets in awestruck silence and then burst into a stunning roar. Hats flew in the air, women rushed forward with hothouse flowers in thick bunches, Henry Knox's cannon on the heights opened in wild salute…
Flowery welcome speeches said no one but General Washington could have held it all together and made independence work. That was fair enough. He had a clear sense of himself: solid, strong, able, self-contained, intelligent—but, mind you, not brilliant, not even clever, never scheming, not the most rapid man in thought, not intellectual, not a wide reader, his real interests agricultural, all qualities that meant he understood his men and they understood him.
He knew himself very well. Slow to decide but unshakeable when he did; profound judgment proved over the years. He'd held them together, the boys suffering through winter after winter, gathering themselves for another awful forced march to another slashing attack and quick retreat—the men of the Revolution, great men, gallant, loyal, dangerous men with the taste of independence in their mouths.
Marched into New York to the boom of cannon and at four that very afternoon he summoned his senior officers to Fraunce's Tavern not far from the Battery. Looking at their familiar faces, lined now where once they had been smooth and young, he felt the tears start. Grew worse as he took each in hard embrace, whispering thanks and farewell and Godspeed. An hour later he was crossing the Hudson, heading south. It was over.
King George III, who had his odd moments but was nobody's fool, was reputed to have said that if General Washington gave up power now the American would be the great man of the eighteenth century. Well, he could have justified hanging on. Many men so urged, brimming with reasons, the country staggering out of the disciplinary grip of war, a weak and quarreling Congress, states that viewed themselves as separate powers, European nations looking upon us as a hawk looks on goslings. Men tried to push duty on him, told him, he owed them a ruling hand. He remembered being infuriated one day, close to knocking the man down.…now he couldn't remember who it was.…
But it was clear he could have been king, and the thought about it. Power is sweet; he knew that who doubts that hasn't tasted it or is a liar. But he gave it up and went south in a great rattling coach with four horses that Simon Simcoe of Camden had loaned him, cheering crowds and cannon salutes and children with hothouse flowers all the way. The darling of the people. Tendered his commission to Congress with a graceful speech, tears standing in his eyes. Then he was free.…Mount Vernon and Martha awaited.
Even now, he remembered his contentment. He had been true to himself. He was a man of probity, above the slashing swords of ambition and desire and hence all sides could turn to him.
Meanwhile, he must mark those trees. He summoned Billy with the axe, wrapped a scarf around his neck in deference to a throat that now was worse than sore, and walked out, boots growing damp in three inches of snow.
"General," Billy said, "you look like something the cat drug in. You better stay inside."
"I'll manage," he said. He was very tired. Suddenly it seemed quite intolerable that people should call on him again—just too much!
Billy was holding the axe close to the head. "Show me which trees. I'll blaze 'em."
"I'll do it!"
"Suh—"
"Damn you, Billy, shut your mouth!" He was in a fury, hands shaking. He snatched the axe. Billy started at him, dismayed but not cowed. It struck Washington that he must be sicker than he thought.…
"All right," he said at last. He touched Billy on the shoulder. "Maybe I'm not so well after all." It wasn't quite an apology. He passed over the axe. "You do the rest."
The pain in his chest expanded. He began to shiver, overtaken by a chill despite his coat. They walked back to the house in silence. He was searching for something to say to Billy when the big man said, "You'll feel better tomorrow, General. You don't mind my saying it, you'll find a dollop of corn would go good right now."
The general smiled. "I believe you're right, Billy."
Inside, he asked Cullie to lace his tea with whiskey. He pulled off his boots and put slippered feet toward the fire before Martha could admonish him. His pipe had a foul taste, not a good sign. He was surprisingly tired, and he put his head back in the big blue chair, eyes shut, remembering.…
Home from war he'd seen immediately that a tottering confederation under a toothless Congress with no chief of state must fail. He remembered his surprise that it came as a surprise. There was just no focusing authority to hold states together. So he'd put into motion the steps upon steps that led to forming a new government.
There was a heat wave in Philadelphia that summer of 1787. Dancing on burning cobblestones and shedding coats in the stifling chamber reminded them of their common humanity, he felt, inducing humility. They met in the State House, in the same room where years before he had accepted command, and seated themselves at the same little tables covered in green baize. He took his place on a small dais between two dormant fireplaces faced with marble. He scarcely spoke; he was a commander, not an orator.
And he watched them unfold a miracle.
He jerked awake. Martha was standing over him, her hand on his forehead. She gave him a cup of thick pea soup that slid down his aching throat and said he must go to bed. In the bedroom she helped him disrobe. He made her face the wall when he pulled on his nightshirt—modesty holds to the end—and then sank into the feathers, exhausted. He let her spoon the potion of emetic, James powder and Peruvian bark, into his mouth.
"George," she said, "I forbid you to be ill." She sat on the edge of the bed and wiped his face. He brought her hand to his lips. She was about now with jowls and double chin that accentuated her pointed nose, and her beauty of long ago had not faded but changed, gone inside, evident as ever through her eyes. She'd been a widow when he'd married her and well-to-do, not a small matter, and perhaps for both of them it had been as much arrangement as passion. He had known passions; now he wanted solidity, a woman how could manage a home and complete a life. And over forty-one years respect had deepened into profound love, and he was never quite so content as when she was near.
He lay there, drifting and dreaming and wondering, back in Philadelphia again listening to them build a new nation. They would have a president, and soon he saw they expected him to take the post and give it shape. Good enough. Sliding toward sleep, his breathing very shallow, ignoring the fire in his throat, he saw that this was why finding the way was so important. In Philadelphia they had created a form in which free men could live in peace, granting the rights of others while retaining their own. It was a noble document and it should live forever.
Indeed, it was proving itself out at just this moment of George Cabot's terror, when Alexander Hamilton was doing his best to crush the Democrats. Jimmy Madison had overcome the great pitfall of democracy, how to have majority rule while still preserving the rights of the minority. He'd crafted an intricate balance of powers between the three branches: Freedom within limits—divided legislature with staggered terms, each branch forced to yield to the others, two-thirds to impeach, three-fifths to limit debate.…
The general supposed Jimmy felt fully estranged from him now. Madison had left the Congress and was rusticating at his estate in Virginia, a great waste. Suddenly wistful, he thought how good it would be to see Jimmy again, see him walk in and flash that shy smile and hear his soft voice laying out logic in that building-block way of his.
And the general would say, my boy, you saved yourself and your people with that wonderful document. For as things had worked out, now wonderful Democrats had become an angry minority that couldn't be silenced no matter how the Federalists tried. Good…as much as the general admired Hamilton he didn't like to think of a man with Alex's instincts ruling without limits. Wouldn't be much different from that young devil Napoleon, now shattering the old orders in Europe, probably forevermore. Not that shattering the old orders was bad—open 'em up and let in air and light. But we needed to Napoleons in America.
Lying quietly on his side, swallowing only when he must, he searched those early days for hints of the trouble that was to come. Well, getting started had been the easy part. He'd been elected in an atmosphere of good humor. Hamilton as secretary of the treasury and Jefferson as secretary of state would be the key cabinet figures. Jimmy Madison was a congressman from Virginia and became the general's leading advisor.
Alike in their powerful minds, Jimmy and Alex were startlingly different in every other way: Hamilton handsome, vivid, swift of thoughts, clever to a fault, dashing with women; Madison modest, retiring, thoughtful, stimulating in quiet conversation, but downright dull in social situations. You never saw him with a woman in those days. But when he did stir himself to look at a woman, lo and behold, he chose the gorgeous Widow Todd, her husband swept away in the great yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia.
Miss Dolley was as charming as she was beautiful, and when she began appearing on Jimmy Madison's arm the whole town took note and some of the racier lads made book on whether the would have the nerve to follow through. The general loved to dance with Miss Dolley—he danced with all the women, of course, a champion of the minuet, but she was special. Martha turned matchmarker: Had Jimmy spoken? She said Dolley looked ready to cry as she shook her head. Martha marched to Jimmy: This young woman was a prize and he'd better be sensible. The general was dubious about interfering in matters of the heart, but Martha pished him to silence and the proved right, for the wedding followed and they seemed supremely happy. That was in the easy days, dancing with Dolley before things turned harsh.
He was less familiar with Jefferson, who was just back from six years as ambassador to France under the old government. They'd gotten off to a poor start when Jefferson had delayed accepting the appointment. Took a couple of months to get a yes out of him, and the general heard that Jimmy had had to make a hard case to persuade him. Jefferson had wanted to sit on that mountaintop he called Monticello—a pretentious name, really, not that that was any of the general's business—but it was his business that a man would hesitate when asked to serve at a crucial time. It embarrassed Jimmy; he and Jefferson were the closest of friends.
John Adams was vice president. Fussy, good-hearted, honest, more proud of himself than any man needed to be, John was always ready to talk himself into trouble. He proposed the most god-awful kingly forms you could imagine what a thirteen-word title for the president, his most exalted etc. etc. The general never did get it really straight, but he cut right through the uproar—his title would be president of the United States and the direct address would be Mr. President and that was that! It had held so far; he hoped it would hold forever. A good start for a democracy…but then, thinking about it, he saw that the incident had foretold the divisions of the future.
He snapped awake and knew instantly that he was much worse. His throat was aflame, his breathing labored. All at once breath stopped! Plugged! As if a hand clutched his throat. Strangling, he raised himself with a hoarse cry. Martha sat up, sleeping cap askew, horror in her eyes. He stretched an imploring hand toward her and then miraculously his passages opened and he took a rasping breath.
"I'll go for help," she said, throwing back the covers. "We'll call Mr. Rawlins."
He stopped her. Rawlins took care of the people down to the quarters and was expert with lancet and cup. Washington knew he needed bleeding, he could feel the evil humors in his veins, but if he let Martha wander the cold house she'd be as sick as he was. He viewed this as pragmatic: Bleeding could wait and he would need her before this was over. Yet he also had an odd sense that nothing really mattered. The suspicion that he was approaching the end was growing. They would call the doctors, but everyone knew that past a certain point doctors were helpless. He'd many times contemplated dying, doubtless everyone had, but never as an immediate prospect. Yet somehow he found the possibility not unduly disturbing.
He turned on his side and Martha held his hand in both of hers. He found that he could breathe through his nose and his throat eased a little and he slid into sleep. When he awakened he was dizzy, head whirling, and he lay very still, listening to Martha breathe. She was awake and he knew she was frightened, but there was nothing more he could say to her. He felt he was chasing something, a fragment forgotten, left undone. His mind dipped and whirled. A duty…
With an effort he remembered…he must put together a message and it must be exactly right. Recall their early enthusiasm. They were new and highly experimental, the only democracy in the world, moving on trial and error and struggling for balance. Now they must reclaim that focus. Somehow.
He lay in the dark taking careful, shallow breaths, afraid his throat would close again, asking himself if that original focus and really been so strong, since it faded when they faced real issues. It all began there, factions, clashing ambitions, rage bordering into hatred—still, he knew now that parties wouldn't go away because it was no accident that they had arisen. They represented the great philosophical schism breaking not on personalities but on opposite answers to that question, what kind of a country were we to be? He began to shiver and a cough tore his throat. Tears in his eyes, he tried to hold to his task…as soon they came to real things the question opened.
At the time he'd had no idea that the break was at hand. He wondered: