He laid it out straight. The rumors of the French were true; they were coming and we had to get ready for them. Said Nathan Fosby had come to see him.
“No!” Jake Hemphill cried. “Nathan Fosby’s back? Why, I grew up with him. Good man too. In love with Julia Fairchild, Judge Fairchild’s oldest? And she up and married Sam Griswold, the one the bull killed later, remember? And Nathan said his heart was broke and he went down the river and never came back. I’ll be damned.”
“Well, he’s back and he’s rendered us a service,” Jackson said, and took them through Fosby’s story with neat efficiency, senior officer talking to other senior officers.
“Everyone Fosby met—he’d learned passable French—said they were going on to Louisiana and couldn’t wait to get there. Now, gentlemen, I think you’d agree that among soldiers the rumor of the day is usually wrong, but they pretty well know what’s going on. Correct?”
There was a burst of laughter. “Correct,” Colonel Hays said.
“And then consider,” Jackson said, “twenty-five thousand troops to quell natives armed with machetes? Fully equipped artillery units? More on their mind than Santo Domingo, I promise you. And their commander is General Leclerc.”
Coffee had never heard of Leclerc, and from the blank faces he suspected no one else had either.
“Napoleon’s favorite and evidently the very devil of a general officer,” Jackson said. “Those lightning marches that gave Napoleon the Italian campaign, there was Leclerc always in front. And it was Leclerc who led troops into the Chamber of Deputies in what they call 18 Brumaire—the coup that put Napoleon in power. And to top it off, he married the dictator’s sister. You don’t think Napoleon would send such an officer just for a miserable island? More to it than that, gentlemen.”
They were looking at each other, reflecting the surprise
that Coffee felt. How the hell did Jackson know all this when Coffee figured he was pretty well informed and he’d never heard it? It was those newspapers—they came in from all over the country, stack you couldn’t see over on his desk, he’d come off the circuit and spend days poring down those narrow columns. Coffee had been studying Jackson a good while now, and what surprised him most was Jackson’s capacity to surprise him. Just a plain man a lot of the time, interested in what interested everyone else, loved a good cock fight, cheered his horses at Clover Bottom louder than anyone, liked a joke and a glass of whiskey and a pipe, and could gossip with the best of them; and yet he had a quickness of grasp about him and a way of seeing things that other men didn’t see. He’d be thinking way out ahead of you—well, Coffee couldn’t explain it exactly, but this was a worthwhile man. One place he went off the edge though was that temper of his that could right easily get him killed one of these days. Coffee knew Aunt Rachel counted on him to keep the judge on track, and he tried.
“So why is the dictator sending his favorite general? Because, gentlemen, he wants what we’ve got. What we’ve built over these years. Look at us! Look at our own riverfront, half a mile of docks, boatyards, ropewalks, hauling yards, hoists and lifts and more warehouses going up every day. No wonder General Scorsby was called to Louisville; same kind of growth going on there. Cincinnati—I was there three months ago—every time you go it’s like they tore it down and started over, it’s so new looking and big.
“Look at the new glassworks at Knoxville. Gins sprouting all over the country. I’ve got one myself, ginning cotton for twenty neighbors, and I’m small. We’ll have a real road connecting us to Knoxville one of these days soon, and I hear they’re working on the Lexington road now. I’ll warrant we have a hundred thousand population right here in Tennessee, damn near double our statehood figures, and growing every day. They say Kentuck’s over two hundred thousand. Ohio a state now, means at least sixty thousand but probably it’s a hundred. We’re talking half, three-quarters of a million, put
’em all together. And you know what kind of folks they are, hard-driving men out to make their fortunes, willing to risk, willing to fight; they’d have stayed back in Carolina and Virginia and Pennsylvania if they wasn’t. I tell you what you already know, gentlemen, but think about it—we have made this country the garden of the nation and we’ve done it by our hard work.
“So why are they coming here just now? Because we have built it so. Because that dictator of theirs dreams of empire, wants to conquer the world. Such a man looks at us—why? Because in his pride he believes he can have an American empire too, use us to feed his troops while they take over the rest of the world. Oh yes, they’ll squeeze us, allow trade on their own terms, and finally, the way they see it, they’ll take us over, vassals to a French dictator!”
His fist crashed down on the table and dishes jumped. “And by God, we won’t let that happen! We’ll fight!”
Well, they liked the sound of that, Coffee saw: Build our fortunes and defend them like we’ve done from the start. Looking around the table he saw no doubt that the French coming meant war, and he sure never doubted it himself.
Then Jackson was talking military affairs, but at a whole different level from what they expected. Talking inspiration, really, how you made men want to follow and obey, how you could discipline the very men who elected you, the shooting competitions with real prize money he’d like to start, forced marches called suddenly to get the boys used to the idea that military service could ask everything of you and that was its glory, and then he was talking about supply, the obligation to see that men were well armed and well fed and well led if you were going to ask them to follow you into enemy fire … .
“Gentlemen, the French come, and we’ll be on the front lines. Meet ’em on the river or in New Orleans, and we’ll want the rest of the West behind us. We need immediate liaison with military leaders in Kentucky and Ohio; we need to get ready to beat the drum for volunteers in the Carolinas and Virginia and Western Pennsylvania. One of their senators, Jim Ross—Pittsburgh man, Federalist, but a good man
all the same and strong in the militia—I knew him in ninety-eight when I was up there, and we can count on him when the time comes.
“We need to get up to Washington and build a fire under their tails. I wouldn’t want to bet they understand the danger. Let’s see the secretary of war, get chains of supply moving, get eastern gunsmiths busy—God Almighty, American military is using mostly French muskets and we can’t look to France now. All this is well and good, but remember, on the front lines you count most of all on yourself. The U.S. Army’s but a handful, now cut in half, scattered all over creation and led by a scoundrel.”
“Wilkinson’s already sold out to the Spanish,” Weakley cried. “I expect he’s down kissing some French ass right now!”
When the laughter passed, Jackson headed right into the wind. “Gentlemen, I’d like to be your commanding general. I believe I’m the right man at the right time. I believe I have the vision to see what we must do and the energy to do it. You elect me and I promise you you’ll have strong leadership, the kind you and your men can believe in and follow.”
There was a long silence. Then an officer Coffee knew only by his last name, Stone, who lived considerably toward the east, said, “I don’t know, Judge. Sevier, he’s pretty strong in my part of the state. Been a general, made himself a hero at King’s Mountain, just stepped down after six years as governor. You can’t say he don’t show leadership.”
For a moment Coffee feared Jackson’s temper would rise, but then low and even, the judge said, “I don’t say that. I say he’s offering the wrong kind of leadership, yesterday’s leadership. I believe I represent today’s and tomorrow’s. General Sevier led 240 men to King’s Mountain, and they saved the West from the British and they were heroes all. I remember it from my boyhood, how we cheered. But that was then. Now we’re talking thirty, forty, fifty times those numbers. We’re a new country in a new age. General Sevier thinks small and local; I think big and national. He was right for then; I’m right for now.”
No one spoke and at last Colonel Hays stood and shook Jackson’s hand and thanked the others for coming, and thus the die was cast. Next the election. Jackson had done well and Coffee thought he’d carry the West. But what about the East?
They walked out together. Jackson was calm. “We’ll see,” he said.
So the day came and Jackson was fit to be tied. Rachel understood how much he wanted this, but he prided himself that his avid hunger never showed, not even to Jack Coffee. It was as if wanting would shame him, he who’d faced the worst and never flinched. The governor was at Gallatin this week, twenty-odd miles away, and the vote would reach him there. Coffee was there now, standing by to hurry the result over, a mere two-hour ride if you trailed a spare horse.
He was pacing outside, waiting, the day growing late. He ordered the bay mare saddled, mounted, and rode a hundred yards, changed his mind, had the horse stabled, and paced back and forth through Rachel’s garden all banked for winter.
Dear God, he wanted this!
His very gut told him he was a leader. He had an instinct for the thing to do and countless times had swayed men to his bidding. There was a greatness in him, he’d always felt it, but you have to find your way to greatness; it doesn’t just come.
He’d tried the U.S. Congress, the Senate. Hell, he’d never make a legislator, single voice in an echoing chamber, parsing issues down to slender advantage. He’d never be governor, kissing the cheeks of babies and the feet of voters. He liked the court, it was command, but only on the case before him. Anyway, a judge has little future; he would quit before long. The military was the answer. Real command—there a man could have impact. He’d loved the military since boyhood.
And then Sevier slapping him down in ninety-six, that still rankled. Not qualified! Goddamned dog in the manger!
His breath went short at the very thought of it, and it
wasn’t just ambition either. Fosby’s story had confirmed what he already knew, and it made his blood run cold to think of such men in Tennessee. Everything he’d said to the officers was true. Tennessee was the front lines of a war that would come from the south. All that he’d described could be underway now.
He had a sudden burst of nausea and slumped on a bench, head in his hands. He was there when he heard hoofbeats and saw a skinny lad he didn’t know with a second horse on a lead rope.
“Message from Captain Coffee,” the boy bawled, “but I can tell you what it says. Votes seventeen-seventeen with two to General Winchester. One vote still out.”
Winchester? A solid Tennesseean but never in contention. Throwaway votes.
“One vote still out?” Jackson said. “From where?”
“East Tennessee—over in the Smokies, east of Knoxville.”
“Thank you, son,” Jackson said, his voice carefully calm. “Stable your horses and go inside. Mrs. Jackson’ll give you some dinner, and you’ll stay the night.”
He turned and walked away, shoulders sagging. For a moment he thought he would fall and then he straightened—no, he would not bow. But it was the worst possible news. The Smokies—King’s Mountain country, Sevier country—Jackson would get no mountain votes. That delayed last vote was Sevier’s, the tally eighteen-seventeen, Jackson’s chance of glory gone, and Tennessee to face an uncertain future under an uncertain leader.
It was almost dark when Jack came at a lope.
“It’s a tie, Judge,” Jack bellowed. “Seventeen-seventeen.”
“But the last vote?”
“Vote from the Smokies.” Jack was boiling with laughter. “Came in for Winchester. Gave him three. Some son of a bitch over there hates Sevier, wouldn’t vote for his rival but wouldn’t go for him neither so he threw away his vote.”
He swung off the big horse and wrung Jackson’s hand. “Fit me out a couple of fresh horses, grab a couple yourself,
and let’s ride! Governor wants to see you. It’s his call now, you know. He’s holed up in Judge Dalrack’s chambers. Says he’ll wait for you till you get there. Let’s ride!”
Jackson felt as if his heart would burst.
Jackson and the governor were closeted in Dalrack’s paneled chambers; a portrait of Dalrack’s wife hung on the wall, her bossy determination coming magically through the brush strokes.
He had known Archie Roane for years. Archie and David Allison, who had caused such grief before dying in a Philadelphia debtors’ prison, had been partners, working for territorial Governor Blount when Blount had been Jackson’s great friend. Jackson and Archie had been fellow delegates to the statehood convention when they’d rammed Tennessee into the Union whether the Union liked it or not.
Archie was a good fellow, in fact, convivial, relaxed, not unintelligent—a better dinner companion you could hardly find. But—and this was what Jackson had focused on during the long ride in the dark—you didn’t think of courage when you thought of Archie Roane. He’d just sort of slid into office when Sevier stepped down, there being little competition just then.
Now, Archie in Dalrack’s chair at Dalrack’s desk, Jackson in a side chair done in blue leather and brass studs, a glance at Archie’s troubled face told the problem; Archie was going to have to make up his mind and he hated doing that.
They spent maybe ten minutes on polite chat, queries as to their families, recollections of the old territorial days under Governor Blount, and then Jackson put it squarely. “We’ve got a tie here that you must decide, so let me be frank: I’m by far the better candidate.”