Mrs. Lincoln's Dressmaker (19 page)

Elizabeth too believed he had made no mistake, and that greater freedoms would be forthcoming.

She also believed that very soon, her Contraband Relief Association would be more necessary than ever.

Earlier in September, the First Lady had left Washington to visit New York with Tad. In October, plagued by severe headaches, buffeted by storms of grief, and desiring a sympathetic companion, she asked Elizabeth to join her at the Metropolitan Hotel in Manhattan. Elizabeth eagerly agreed, not only because she had never visited New York and desired very much to see it, but also because the trip would enable her to promote her cause to a new audience. Armed with credentials and letters of recommendation, Elizabeth took the train to Manhattan, settled into the accommodations Mrs. Lincoln had arranged, and, the following morning, told the First Lady about her work.

“This is truly a noble effort,” Mrs. Lincoln declared. She was swathed in mourning black from head to toe and had suffered unpleasant symptoms throughout her travels, but for a moment she seemed restored to her former self, energetic and bustling with plans. “I insist
upon joining your list of subscribers. Will a contribution of two hundred dollars suffice?”

“Why, yes, Mrs. Lincoln,” said Elizabeth, delighted by her generosity. “Thank you very much.”

“It is the very least I can do for all you’ve done for me,” Mrs. Lincoln said, and set about writing to her husband to secure the funds.

During her time in New York, Elizabeth circulated among the colored community, soliciting and acquiring donations to purchase much-needed supplies for the contraband camps. She was introduced to the Reverend Henry Highland Garnet, who led a meeting on behalf of her association at his Shiloh Presbyterian Church. After Elizabeth told the steward of the Metropolitan Hotel about her mission, he promptly raised an impressive sum from among the colored dining room waiters.

When Mrs. Lincoln decided to take a side trip to visit Robert at Harvard, she asked Elizabeth to accompany her, and again she seized the opportunity. In Boston she was introduced to Mr. Wendell Phillips, a lawyer, orator, and abolitionist of such devotion that for years he had refused to taste cane sugar or wear cotton because both were produced by slave labor. He and other Boston philanthropists contributed generously and pledged her their support for her cause. She also met Reverend Leonard A. Grimes, who presided over a mass meeting at the Twelfth Street Baptist Church, where his wife established a Boston branch of the Contraband Relief Association. Reverend Grimes happened to be a friend of Mr. Frederick Douglass, whom Elizabeth had long admired, and he offered to write to the renowned abolitionist and orator on her behalf. From his lecture tour in England, Mr. Douglass not only made a sizable contribution to the association, but he also raised money for them from several English antislavery societies.

Throughout her autumn travels, and with the encouragement and support of Mrs. Lincoln, Elizabeth worked tirelessly to gather donations for contraband relief, ever mindful of her son George’s belief that as freed slaves, they had a special obligation to help deliver others of their
race from bondage. Elizabeth agreed wholeheartedly, but she also believed that their obligation to help those in need endured even after their chains and shackles were removed. They who had already crossed the river into the land of freedom were obliged to turn and offer a hand to those who were taking their first tentative steps upon the shore, and Elizabeth resolved to do exactly that.

O
n the evening of December 31, Elizabeth and Emma went to Union Bethel Church to attend a freedom vigil, just like thousands of other colored folks in hundreds of colored churches all across the North. By sundown every pew was full, and while they waited for the minister to begin, the worshippers prayed, sang, and testified about their experiences as enslaved people. At ten o’clock, the minister stood before the congregation, opened his well-worn Bible, and led them in prayer before preaching a sermon about God, Satan, Mr. Lincoln, and the coming day of eternal freedom. He asked the Lord to bless the New Year’s morning only a few hours away, and to bless the hand of President Lincoln when he held the pen to sign the Emancipation Proclamation. As he celebrated the imminent glorious event, he also spoke of what freedom meant for the people of their race and reminded them of the new responsibilities they must now willingly and cheerfully shoulder. Then, almost as if he believed their white neighbors and leaders of government were among them, he began to address them directly. “Your destiny as white men and ours as black men are one and the same,” he declared. “We are all marching toward the same goal. Give us therefore the same
guarantee of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness that you have enjoyed since the founding of our great nation, and make the very same demands of us to support the government as you make of yourselves.”

A chorus of amens went up from the congregation.

“Give us the vote and give us arms to fight,” the minister said, his voice rising to a shout. “Let us don Union blue and shoulder our rifles. Do not put vulgar prejudice before necessity and national preservation. Do not refuse to receive the very men who have a deeper interest in the defeat of the rebels than any others. Cannot black men wield a sword, fire a gun, march and countermarch, and obey orders like any man?”

The congregation called out that yes, they could, of course they could.

“A man who wants to win a fight doesn’t approach his enemy with one hand tied behind his back,” the minister said. “If your house is on fire, and a black man offers you a bucket of water, do you refuse it? If you are drowning, and a black man reaches out to haul you to shore, do you tread water and hope a white man happens by before you go under, or do you seize that dusky limb and live?”

A roar of approval greeted his words. Elizabeth applauded until her palms stung, the minister’s stirring words lifting her to her feet and sending righteous determination pumping through her veins, as warm and strong as life.

Just before midnight, the minister’s tone changed again. “At this time I want no one to pray standing up with bowed head,” he intoned. “No sister sitting down, with bended neck praying, and no brother kneeling on one knee, because his pants are too tight for him. I want all of us to get down on both knees to thank Almighty God for our freedom and for President Lincoln too.”

Side by side, Elizabeth and Emma knelt. From the corner of her eye, Elizabeth saw Emma’s lips moving in silent prayer. Silence fell over the church, broken from time to time by a worshipper calling out to the Lord for guidance when freedom dawned, just as He had guided them through the dark night of slavery. People called out for the Lord to guide President Lincoln as well.

In reverent silence, Elizabeth echoed those prayers with all her heart.

Despite her late night, Elizabeth rose at her usual hour the next morning and went to the White House to dress Mrs. Lincoln for the annual New Year’s Day reception at eleven o’clock. The First Lady, pale and drawn, had already chosen a black dress and bonnet and was awaiting Elizabeth in her boudoir. “I cannot help but think of all we have passed through since we last welcomed a New Year,” she murmured as Elizabeth buttoned her dress up the back. “Every day from now until spring will mark an unhappy anniversary.”

Elizabeth knew she was thinking in particular of Willie’s death. “When the first anniversary of my son’s passing came, I made sure to keep busy.” In truth, the day that she suffered the worst was not the anniversary of the date he had fallen on the field but rather the day she had received the letter announcing his death. “There’s always so much to do at the contraband camps that I had no trouble finding work enough to occupy my thoughts so I couldn’t dwell upon my grief.”

“Perhaps I should do something of that sort,” said Mrs. Lincoln. “The soldiers always need care and attention, especially those languishing in the military hospitals. They do so seem to like it when I write letters home for them when they cannot write themselves.” She managed a tremulous smile, and she seemed relieved to have a plan. “I shall do as you suggest, Elizabeth, and distract myself with the needs of others. Even if it does not ease my pain, it will at least accomplish some good for the soldiers.”

“I hope it does both,” said Elizabeth.

When Mrs. Lincoln finished dressing, she asked a servant if the president was ready to go downstairs, and she was told that he was in his office, writing. “Still?” she asked, and to Elizabeth she added, “He’s been working on the final draft of that proclamation since last night.”

“The Emancipation Proclamation?” Elizabeth asked, suddenly uneasy. What else could Mrs. Lincoln mean? From the moment the
newspapers had published the preliminary decree, President Lincoln had been bombarded by criticism. Northern Peace Democrats declared that they were not going to fight a war to free slaves, and in the midterm elections, opponents of emancipation made their displeasure known by electing Democratic governors and congressmen. The Democrats worried that despite this apparent rejection of Mr. Lincoln’s policies by the voting populace, he would go ahead regardless and sign the proclamation into law, while abolitionists and radical Republicans worried that he would not. Rumor had it that the president’s cabinet had been urging him to make changes to the document up to the last minute, and that rumor appeared to be true.

Elizabeth could only pray that the changes the president was making—even at that very moment, not very far away—would not cut the heart out of the new law.

Elizabeth left the White House before Mr. Lincoln appeared, passing guests arriving for the reception on her way out. She wished she could have seen the president—not to question him about the proclamation, because he had enough burdens without bearing her inquiries too, but to see if she could discern from his expression whether his revisions meant good or ill for her race.

Instead of turning toward home, she walked to Union Bethel Church, where the vigil continued. Along the way she observed a crowd gathered outside the telegraph office, where the moment a messenger arrived from the White House to confirm that the deed was done, the news would be sent with electric speed to newspaper offices throughout the North. Other men, white and colored alike, clustered near the doorway of a printer’s, where clerks waited to typeset the proclamation as soon as the official phrasing was known. Elizabeth suspected they would be waiting quite a long time. The New Year’s Day reception was by custom a three-hour affair. Mr. Lincoln would stand in the East Room shaking hands and welcoming visitors—foreign diplomats first, then ranking officials, and lastly the public, anyone who wished to come. After shaking all those thousands of hands, it would be a wonder if his own hand was not too worn out to hold a pen.

When Elizabeth arrived at Union Bethel Church, the minister and several of the nearly two dozen members of the congregation keeping vigil broke off their prayers and hurried over to question her. She told them what she knew, which amounted to little more than the expectation that they were in for a lengthy wait. They nodded resignedly and resumed their prayers or hushed conversations, listening to the bells toll the passing hours, glancing up quickly at the sound of the door, settling back down to wait again.