How Few Remain (35 page)

“What are his choices? He can like it or lump it.” Hamilton leaned forward like a hunting dog going on point. “What the devil are those funny-looking things on the gun carriages? Haven’t seen anything like them before.”

“Neither have I. They don’t look like cannon, do they?” Lincoln’s curiosity was piqued. During the War of Secession, he’d taken a keen interest in military inventions of all sort. He was something of an inventor himself, and held a riverboat patent, though nothing had ever come of it. “Rifle barrels sticking out of a brass case …” He shrugged. “My chief hope is that we need not see what destruction they can reap.”

A last company of infantry marched past. Following them came a mounted sergeant who called out in a great voice: “Brigadier General Pope, the military governor of Utah Territory, will speak in Temple Square at three this afternoon. Everyone should hear him, Mormons and Gentiles alike.” He rode on a few yards, then repeated the announcement.

“Military governor, is it?” Lincoln thoughtfully clicked his tongue between his teeth. “No, President Blaine isn’t doing things by half. With that title, General Pope will have the power to bind and to loose, sure enough.” Pope was not the first man to whom he would have entrusted such power, but President Blaine could not have asked his opinion, and would not have if he could.

Juliette Hamilton said, “Someone needs to bring the Mormons into line.” Since that was also true, Lincoln held his peace.

He would have gone to Temple Square alone, but Gabe Hamilton also wanted to hear what Pope had to say. Lincoln hadn’t thought the square could be any more crowded than it had been on the Sunday when he’d gone to the Tabernacle, but discovered he was wrong. Both Mormons and Gentiles were thronging to it to hear John Pope lay down the law.

Pope was ready for any trouble the Mormons might cause, which was likely the best way to keep them from causing trouble. He himself stood on one of the granite blocks that would eventually be raised to the Mormon Temple. The men on the Temple now were not Mormon masons, however; they were bluecoats with Springfields. More riflemen were atop the Tabernacle. Behind Pope, a couple of field guns, probably loaded with case shot, bore on the crowd. In front of him stood one of the unfamiliar brass-cased contraptions.

Hamilton took his watch out of his vest pocket and looked at it. Either it was a little slow or the one Pope was using ran fast, for it showed a couple of minutes before the hour when the military governor of Utah Territory held up his hands for silence. He got it, faster and more completely than he would have anywhere else in the USA: except in matters bearing on their faith
(a large exception
, Lincoln thought), the Mormons obeyed authority.

“Fellow citizens,” Pope boomed, the dusty breeze carrying his words out across Temple Square, “with my arrival here, the government of the United States resumes control over this Territory after the illegal and outrageous attempt on the part of the authorities of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints to extort acquiescence to its immoral creed by impeding the flow of men and goods and messages across the continent. No government sensitive to its right could possibly yield in the face of the threats and intimidation proffered by these so-called authorities.”

Telling Mormons and Gentiles apart by looks or dress was usually impossible. Lincoln had no trouble seeing who was who now. Gentiles cheered and waved their hats. Some of them waved the flags with which they’d greeted the soldiers, too. Mormons stood silent, listening, hardly moving, almost as if they’d been turned to stone.

Pope went on, “Fellow citizens, we are at war: against the Confederate States, against England and lickspittle Canada, against France. In time of war, the leaders of the Mormon Church,
through their deliberate actions, offered aid and comfort to the enemies of the United States by blocking the rail lines and by cutting the telegraph wires. Offering aid and comfort to the enemy in time of war is treason, nothing less.”

“Oh, my,” Gabe Hamilton whispered. “He’s going to hit them hard.”

“He surely is,” Lincoln whispered back.

“By order of President Blaine,” Pope continued, “the former civilian government of Utah Territory is dissolved, it having proved unable to maintain the authority of the U.S. Constitution in this area. Utah being a territory in rebellion against the United States and now returned to the authority thereof by military might”—he gestured up at the riflemen and back toward the cannon—”it is considered to be under military occupation. As military governor, I—”

“Am the new dictator,” Hamilton murmured. Lincoln nodded.

Pope proceeded to prove them both right: “—hereby declare the suspension of the right to obtain a writ of
habeas corpus
. I declare the suspension of the right to trial by jury, Mormons having corrupted the process by repeated false and outrageous verdicts. Justice henceforward shall be by military tribunal.”

“Can he do that?” Hamilton asked.

“Legally, do you mean? Maybe the Supreme Court will say he can’t—years from now,” Lincoln answered. “If this Territory is defined as hostile soil under occupation, though, he may well be able to do as he pleases.”

“Every male citizen of Utah Territory shall be required within the next sixty days to take an oath of loyalty to the government of the United States,” Pope declared. “The oath shall also include a denial that the said male citizen is or shall henceforth be wed to more than one woman at any one time. Perjury pertaining to this section shall be punished with the utmost severity by the aforesaid military tribunals. Polygamy within the boundaries of Utah Territory is from this time forward abolished and prohibited.”

Again, the Gentiles applauded. Again, the Mormons revealed themselves by stonelike silence. Being taller than almost everyone around him, Lincoln could see a considerable part of the crowd. Here and there, two or three or four women, sometimes with children in their arms, stood grouped around one man. What was going through their minds?

Pope said, “Because of its role in instigating and carrying out the rebellion of Utah Territory against the United States, the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints is declared not to be a religion liable to protection under the First Amendment, but a political organization subject to sanctions for its acts. Until further notice, construction of the so-called Mormon Temple is suspended. Public worship at the Mormon Tabernacle and other so-called Mormon churches is also suspended, as are all other public meetings of more than ten persons.

“One last point: any resistance to military authority will be crushed without mercy. Shooting at soldiers and destroying trains, tracks, telegraph lines, or other public necessities of any sort will result in hostages’ being taken. If the guilty parties be not promptly surrendered, the hostages shall be hanged by the neck until dead. Anyone doubting my ability or will to fulfill that promise mistakes me.” General Pope looked out over Temple Square. “Return peaceably to your homes, people of Utah. Obey the legally constituted authority of the military government and all will be well. Disobey only at your peril.”

As Lincoln and Hamilton walked back to the carriage in which they’d come to Temple Square, the Salt Lake City man asked, “Does he mean what he says?”

“I should not care to try to find out the contrary by experiment,” Lincoln answered. “John Pope had a name as a hard man during the War of Secession, and I’ve heard nothing of how he has conducted himself here in the West in the years since to make me believe he’s changed.”

That evening, Lincoln was about to sit down to supper at the Hamilton’s table when someone knocked on the door. Gabe Hamilton went to open it. He called, “An officer to see you, Mr. Lincoln.”

“I’m coming.” Lincoln walked to the door, to find himself facing the short, energetic blond cavalry officer he’d noted in the parade. “What can I do for you, Colonel?”

“George Custer, Fifth Cavalry,” the man said briskly. “I am told, Mr. Lincoln, that you had conversations with Mr. John Taylor, the Mormons’ president.” When Lincoln didn’t deny it, Custer went on, “Do you know his present whereabouts?”

“No,” Lincoln said. “If he’s not at home, or perhaps at the Tabernacle, I have no idea where he might be. Why, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“He is to be arrested for treason, along with the rest of the Mormon leaders,” Custer answered. “We can’t lay hands on him, though. He’s run off, God knows where—I was hoping you might, too. When we catch him, General Pope aims to hang him higher than Haman.”

VIII

General Thomas Jackson peered north across
the
Ohio River through a telescope. “The onslaught cannot now be long delayed,” he said to Brigadier General Peter Turney, who stood by his side. “I thank our heavenly Father for having given us this much time in which to ready Louisville for the storm.”

“The Yankees were slowcoaches in the last war,” Turney answered, his Tennessee twang contrasting with Jackson’s softer Virginia accent. “Doesn’t look like they’ve learned a whole hell of a lot since.”

“For which we should also give thanks to God,” Jackson said, and Turney nodded.

Negro labor gangs in tunics and trousers of coarse, undyed cotton—almost the same color as old-style Confederate uniforms—were still busily digging firing pits and building earthworks and abatis throughout Louisville, but especially down by the waterfront. Without the slaves, the defenses of the city would have been far weaker than they were.

Brigadier General Turney asked, “Sir, is it true what I hear, that President Longstreet’s going to try and manumit the niggers after the war?” Under bushy gray eyebrows, his broad, earnest face was worried.

“It is true, General,” Jackson said, and Turney grimaced. “He feels the effort to be necessary for reasons of state.”

“Reasons of state be damned.” Turney pointed toward a gang marching along with picks and shovels shouldered like rifles. “Without slaves like that bunch there, what in blazes are we supposed to do the next time the Yankees pick a fight with us?”

“I can hope that, even if free, the Negro shall not be equal to the white man, and shall be subject to some form of conscription in time of need.”

“Turn ’em loose and they’ll get uppity—you mark my words,” Turney said. Then (rather to Jackson’s relief, for he agreed with the views the Tennessean expressed) he changed the subject: “Do you think we knocked out enough of their invasion boats to have held them up?”

“I wish I did, but I very much doubt it,” Jackson answered. “Artillery is ideally suited for breaking up an attack once launched, but I fear the science has not advanced to the point where it can preempt one. That day may be coming, but has not yet arrived.”

“We’ll hurt ’em when they do come—whenever that is,” Brigadier General Turney said.

“We shall do more than hurt them, General,” Jackson said. “We shall smash them and wreck any further hopes for the invasion of our country they may have—we shall do that, or I will know the reason why and the men responsible.”

He did not raise his voice or make any histrionic gesture. Nevertheless, before Turney quite realized what he was doing, he gave back a pace from Jackson. The brigadier general laughed nervously. “The men won’t dare lose,” he said. “They’re more afraid of what you’d do to ’em than they are of the damnyankees.”

Jackson considered. “That is as it should be,” he said at last, and swung up onto his horse. Leaving Turney to stare after him, he rode back through Louisville to the headquarters he’d established south of the city, beyond U.S. artillery range.

Even in its present state, with most of the civilian population fled, Louisville struck him as the least distinctively Southern city in the Confederate States. That didn’t spring only from its having been the last town to fall into Confederate hands. Many of the people hereabouts were Yankees by origin or descent, from New York and New England.

And Louisville, like Covington farther east, still looked across the border to the United States, in the same way that Cincinnati, on the other side of the Ohio, looked south to the Confederacy. All three were towns that had grown up trading what the North made for that the South did. That North and South were now two different countries made trade more complicated, but had neither stopped it nor even slowed it much.