Monroe wasn’t surprised to learn that Houston understood that much, given his patronage. Unlike many of the nation’s political elite, Monroe was not prone to assuming that Andrew Jackson was either stupid or unsophisticated.
“. . . have to build an army as big as the tsar’s. That’s what the general says, anyway.”
“He’s right,” Monroe grunted. “The idea is grotesque. Opposition to a standing army—certainly a large one—has been one of the tenets of our Republican Party since the beginning.”
“Even the Federalists wouldn’t support it, the general says.”
Monroe nodded. “He’s right again, if for no other reason than simply the enormous cost involved. There’s nothing in the world so hideously expensive, even leaving aside the inevitable waste and corruption that comes with it, as maintaining a large army, even in peacetime.”
Monroe gazed out the window, pondering the intractable problem yet again. Given the impossibility of creating an army large enough to control the settlers, that left . . .
Houston filled in the thought. “Look, Mr. Monroe, what it means in the real world is that it’ll always be the champions of the westerners and southerners, people like General Jackson, who’ll ultimately win. I come from the frontier myself, and I know.”
“Yes,” Monroe sighed. “The government in Washington can proclaim what it will, disavow what it will, denounce what it will, disclaim what it will. Andrew Jackson and men like him will still wield the whip. In the end—like every continental government in North America has done for two centuries—the national authorities will acquiesce to their wishes. Tacitly, if not openly.”
He made a face. “It’s perhaps dishonorable; it’s certainly unpleasant. But it remains a fact. It will become a fact here, once again.”
Monroe studied the captain, while the earnest young officer continued expounding his problem and his first attempts, shaky and uncertain though they seemed, to uncover a solution. As he did, one thing became clear to the man who was now the secretary of state and would, in two years, most likely be the next president of the country. If there was any graceful way to sidestep the problem, it would have to come from frontiersmen themselves. Men like Houston.
There was always this, too, Monroe reminded himself. With a bit of an effort, because he was by no means completely free of the common prejudices and attitudes of the eastern gentry. From a distance, Monroe realized, the people of the western waters seemed nothing but crude and violent frontiersmen. Yet it was also true that, day to day and year to year, they interacted with the native population of the territories in a multitude of ways that were unknown to the East. And if many of those interactions were brutal, many others were not.
Houston was not the first white settler boy to have been adopted by Indians, after all. And Monroe had only to walk down to the chamber of the House to see, gathered around Commodore Barney, still other fruits of that interaction.
That was a beginning, at least. Possibly even a foundation.
“That Lieutenant Ross of yours,” Monroe interrupted. “He’s a coming man among the Cherokee?”
“Yes, sir.” Houston smiled crookedly. “Even though he’s not really much of a warrior. When I introduced him as having ‘distinguished’ himself at the Horseshoe, I was perhaps bending the truth. He was there, yes, and certainly he didn’t conduct himself badly. But John would be the first one to tell you he’s no great shakes in the soldiering business.”
Monroe chuckled. “And how is that a problem? It’s enough that he was there, to establish his bona fides. For the rest, political sagacity is what’s needed here, Captain. Warriors—white or red, either way—won’t come up with an acceptable solution.
“As a strictly military proposition—and you know this as well as I do—the only solution that will ever be found with regard to relations between whites and Indians will be the extermination of the Indians. If it comes to it. But everyone I know would very much like to avoid that extreme.”
That was nothing more than the truth. Attitudes toward the indigenes were often harsh, even among easterners. But Monroe had never known a single prominent and powerful man in the political life of the nation—and he’d known all of them, beginning with George Washington—who hadn’t understood that a policy of exterminating the Indians would destroy the United States as a nation. Destroy it utterly, because it would destroy its soul.
Monroe was a practicing politician, and an experienced one, so he knew full well that governance was often a callous business. But some things were simply too barbarous to consider. To be sure, barbarities aplenty had been committed upon the Indians, but they were neither systematic nor the product of national design. More often than not, they were the result of local clashes, local greed—or that greatest of all sources of social cruelty, simple negligence. It was all too easy for the nation’s authorities to become preoccupied with other matters, while actual policy was determined on the spot by crooked Indian agents or hot-tempered young thugs.
“That’s well said, sir,” Houston stated forcefully, “and a fine sentiment. But I will tell you what else is true—and you know it as well as I do. Any just solution—” He waved an impatient hand. “Oh, let’s not call it that, because no solution will be ‘just.’ Any rational solution, that everyone can live with—that’ll cost money, sir. And plenty of it.”
Monroe grimaced. Houston was speaking no more than the truth, alas. Money would indeed be the choking point—with a Republican administration even more than a Federalist one. Some Republicans had even protested the very favorable Louisiana Purchase, even though it had been negotiated by Republicans. Monroe himself had been one of the two envoys sent to meet with Napoleon, and the purchase had been approved by the recognized founder of American republicanism, Thomas Jefferson. They’d not simply objected to the money involved, either, but had objected on grounds of constitutional principle.
Still . . .
Monroe was startled to hear the sound of a cannon being discharged. “Are they beginning another assault?” he asked.
Houston was already at the window, leaning out and looking to the south. When he brought his head back, he was smiling crookedly again.
“No. It’s just Lieutenant Driscol, taking a gamble. Admiral Cockburn must be on his way back from his evening’s plunder and arson.”
Monroe looked at his watch. “It’s later than I thought, then. I should be returning to the chamber, I think. In the meantime, Captain, I have no ready answers to the problems you’ve raised.”
“Don’t really think there are any, sir.”
“No, I’m afraid there aren’t. But that’s why men like me—and soon, I think, you and your companion John Ross—are kept in business. So let us begin with small steps. First, do me the favor of corresponding regularly, in the future.”
Houston’s eyes widened a little. The captain wasn’t so naïve as all that, then, and he understood that such an invitation, coming from the secretary of state, was tantamount to an offer of patronage. It carried a tremendous amount of influence, at the very least.
Monroe could practically see the wheels turning. If Houston had the ear of both Andrew Jackson and James Monroe . . .
There was no derision in the thought. Monroe himself, as a young man, had sought the same sort of patronage. Sought it, and gotten it—from Washington, Jefferson, and Madison, just to name three. He was where he was today because of it.
Patronage alone was not enough, of course. The corridors of power were littered with the political corpses of once-young men who’d made the mistake of thinking so. Monroe had never made that mistake—and if he thought young Sam Houston might be prone to it, he wouldn’t have extended the offer in the first place. But one of the reasons for Monroe’s political success was that he was a very good judge of men.
“And secondly, Captain . . .”
Monroe hesitated, for a moment, then shrugged. If nothing else, it would be an interesting experience.
“Until this
current affray is over, I think it would be appropriate to have an officer assigned to serve me as an aide. The secretary of war could hardly object to that, under the circumstances.”
He didn’t need to finish the thought. Houston smiled—not crookedly at all, this time—and nodded. “Indeed, sir. And I think you’ll discover that Lieutenant Ross is a very capable young man. John is perfectly fluent with written English as well.”
“Splendid. An illiterate aide would be awkward. We’ll consider it done, then.”
Driscol came into the room then, his expression sour. “I’m afraid we missed him, Captain. The range was just too great, even if we’d had better than a three-pounder.”
That was as good a reminder as any, Monroe thought. Never a good idea to really infuriate the Scots-Irish. Once their bitter hostility was aroused, they were a folk to make Huns look like Christians.
CHAPTER 28
“We’ve found the president!” Colonel George Minor called out, as soon as he entered the tavern where John Armstrong had spent some of the worst hours of his life.
Weary as he was, the secretary of war came to his feet immediately. “Where?”
“He was at Salona, sir.” The colonel came striding over. “Imagine! And here we’ve been looking for him as far afield—”
“Never mind that!” Armstrong snapped. “Is he coming here?” The estate owned by Reverend Maffitt at Salona was but a few miles away.
Colonel Minor’s face grew stiff. “Yes, sir. Of course he’s coming. Be here in less than an hour, I should think.”
Armstrong silently cursed his own abrasive manner. Now he’d offended the commander of the Sixtieth Virginia militia regiment, too.
But he couldn’t bring himself to offer an apology. Minor’s men hadn’t made it to the battle of Bladensburg at all—because Minor had allowed an officious junior clerk at the armory to delay him endlessly with pettifogging accounting procedures before he’d release the arms and munitions the regiment needed. Armstrong’s career was sinking fast, in part because of men like this.
So the secretary swiveled his head and brought the figure of General William Winder into his view. Much the same way a ship of the line brings its guns to bear for a broadside.
Winder had finally tired of planning Houston’s execution, so he’d spent the rest of the night issuing plans and directives that contradicted themselves from one moment to the next. Just as well, though, because the confusion he’d created had kept most of the military units from leaving the area. It was utterly laughable. Armstrong thought Winder might be the first commander in the history of the world who had to keep his army from a headlong rout—even though all of his directives had had precipitous retreat as their sole unvarying element—by confusing them into sheer paralysis.
However that might be, the forces were still at hand. And Armstrong had had enough of Winder. Respect for protocol be damned. Once the president arrived, Armstrong could leave all other matters in his hands and take direct and personal control of the army as the secretary of war.
It was now—Armstrong checked his watch—almost daybreak. If the Capitol was still standing . . .
No way to know that for sure. So rumor had it, but rumor was rumor. Armstrong needed direct and certain confirmation before he could finalize his plans. Unfortunately, on top of everything else, Winder had created such hurly-burly on the part of his subordinates that Armstrong had been forced to enlist a civilian to scout the matter for him.
At that, Armstrong had more confidence in the civilian he’d sent than he did in most of the officers who hovered around Winder. Francis Scott Key, a Georgetown lawyer to whom Armstrong had been introduced by Congressman John Randolph. A solid and reliable man, Key, even if he did fancy himself something of a poet. In the time since the British landing, most of Washington’s population—military and civilian alike—had fluttered about in panic like leaves in the wind. Key, however, had efficiently organized the evacuation of his family and personal possessions, taking them to a place of safety, and then had come back into the city to see what use he might be to the republic. He’d wound up guiding General Smith and his First Columbian Brigade to the battle of Bladensburg, even helped him map deployments.
If the Capitol was still standing . . .
Francis Scott Key hadn’t arrived at his post of observation in sufficient time to witness the British assault on the Capitol, nor its repulsion. But the excited inhabitants of the town house from whose roof he’d been able to watch everything since had described it to him well enough. They’d even possessed a telescope with which he’d been able to examine details of the dramatic aftermath.
So, although he hadn’t been an actual eyewitness, Key was able to write a good report. It helped, of course, that he was a poet, and thus fluent with a pen.
. . . can observe many bodies of British soldiers still strewn about the ground to the east of the Capitol. The attack which occur’d was most clearly injurious to the enemy, & they have now retired from the scene. The battle seems to have settled into an exchange of fire at a distance, which the sturdy walls of our Capitol should withstand readily enough. I think it unlikely the British will renew their efforts before tomorrow at the earliest, & they may have been repulsed entirely.
I am, your obedient servant,
F. Key
The report done, Key handed it to the teenage son of the family who owned the town house. The lad had already agreed to take the message to the secretary of war, since Key didn’t want to leave his post, lest something else occur.
“He should still be at the tavern in Georgetown. It’s located—”
“I know where it is!” cried the boy, and he was already racing off. Whatever reluctance he had to miss any of the action, it was more than offset by the excitement of being directly involved in such momentous events.
His duty done, Key could now indulge himself in his most heartfelt wish—to craft a patriotic poem that would suitably commemorate the dramatic occasion.
Dramatic it was, too, all that a poet could ask for! Fortunately, the light cast by the burning Navy Yard would be enough that he’d be able to see the words he’d be scribbling in his notebook.
Scratching more often than scribbling, he realized with dismay, some time later.
Alas, “Marble Liberty” was a well-nigh impossible phrase to fit into proper verse. For perhaps the hundredth time that night he cursed the soldiery holding the Capitol—yes, yes, gallant fellows, but he had a poem to write—because they hadn’t thought to raise a flag over it to replace the one which had been carried away by a Congreve rocket.
Blast it! Something as simple as that. Key had long ago figured out how he could have fit “star-spangled banner” into the poem.
True enough, the first two lines worked splendidly:
Oh, say can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming?
Excellent meter, which fit the well-known tune of “Anacreon in Heaven” to perfection.
But then what?
Whose broad wings and fierce eyes, through the perilous fight,
In the doorways we watched, were so gallantly . . .
Gallantly what?
Yes, yes, “gleaming” would work—but he’d already used the word in the previous sentence, and he would not give up “twilight’s last gleaming.” No poet in his right mind would.
The cretins! Were there a banner, he could have it streaming. But “streaming eyes” wouldn’t do at all! And “streaming wings” was simply meaningless.
An explosion from the Navy Yard distracted him for a moment. Key glanced back over his shoulder. Another store of munitions must have been set off, although the conflagration on the river to the south was finally starting to burn itself out.
No business of a poet’s, though.
He turned back to the notebook, beginning to despair. From the look of the skies, the first light of dawn was beginning to appear, and a fierce storm was in
the offing. Once that storm broke, poetry would have to seek prosaic shelter.
Perhaps . . .
He was gripped by sudden excitement, and began scribbling hastily again. If he went back and changed . . .
Yes! Forget the eagle entirely. The bird was mostly a scavenger anyway. Concentrate on the statue.
Whose bold gaze and sure brow, through the perilous fight,
At the gates as we watched, were so gallantly standing?
Yes, that’d work! From there . . .
And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
He hadn’t seen that himself, but the inhabitants had described it. Now . . . a bit of fudging . . .
Gave proof through the night that our dame was still there.
He could get away with that, surely. True, the British had stopped the bombardment of the Capitol hours earlier, but they’d fired off an occasional rocket now and then. More for show than anything else, obviously, but that was a pedestrian matter that a poet could safely ignore.
Then . . .
Oh, those mindless soldiers and their imbecile Captain Houston! Key had the perfect closing couplet for the first stanza.
O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
No banner, alas.
Key sighed. Nothing for it—once a poet begins with an image, he has to remain true to the thing, bloody awkward though it be. So . . . a little scratching and scribbling here and there . . .
O say, does she stand still, our belov’d Liberty,