The winter of 1838 was the coldest in living memory. Navigation on the Upper Mississippi closed on December 12, when the ice floes made safe passage impossible, and did not reopen again until March 27. In the meantime, steamboat owners huddled by their fireplaces, counted their losses amid the ever-worsening nationwide Panic, and hoped desperately they’d still be afloat when the ice finally cleared.
Fortunately, I’d been able to engineer a sale of the War Eagle shortly before the close of navigation, so Judge Speed was spared the agony of being one of those ship owners brooding by their hearths. The new owner drove a tough bargain, but eventually I achieved a price sufficient to allow my father to pay off most of his loans to the banks of Louisville. In exchange for extricating him from his personal financial panic, I got Judge Speed to agree he would not take on further debt without consulting me. A page had turned in my relationship with my once all-powerful father, and Farmington had—for the time being, at least—been saved.
Others were not so lucky. Winter struck especially hard the unfortunate inmates confined to the unheated cells of the Illinois State Prison, perched on the Alton cliffs above the Mississippi. Many were laid low by illness, and seven of the twenty-nine men who’d been confined at the start of the season did not live to see the river reopen. One day in late February, the Sangamo Journal reported that one of the deceased inmates was a former river captain by the name of Pound.
Martha and I spent the winter together in Springfield, tending to the counter of my general store during the days and trying to make each other laugh beside a roaring fire in the great fireplace in the back room of the store during the long and dark evenings. Whenever I got cross, I threatened to send her home to our parents, but I was further and further away from making good on the threat. The simple truth, which she knew as well as I, is that we needed each other too much to be apart.
Meanwhile, the legislature was not in session that winter—it met only every other December in those days—and Lincoln was generally around Sangamon County as well. He tended to the routine business of his law practice, drawing up a complaint for a larceny case one day, writing out a declaration and praecipe on another, taking the deposition of a complaining witness on yet another. The circuit was finished until springtime, and he was in the nature of a regular town lawyer.
Yet the events in Alton weighed heavily on Lincoln’s mind, and he often mused about them as we lay beside each other in our bed those cold winter nights. In late January, he was motivated to organize his thoughts and speak publicly about them. It would not be for the last time.
I did some thinking those long winter nights as well. Sometimes as I stared at the roaring fire in the back room of the store, I thought I could hear the crack of Telesphore’s whip and the screams of the helpless boy tied up among the pegs. I still believed that the notion of immediate emancipation for all was folly. But I recognized the fortitude shown by Sary and Captain Limus, by Sary’s brothers and Newton, and the courage shown by Lovejoy and Pound and others who risked their lives so that strangers could breathe the air as free men.
Finally, when all hope seemed lost, spring came. The snows melted and the ice thawed. Word reached us in Springfield that navigation on the Mississippi would soon reopen. And I made one more trip to Alton, as I had a final debt to pay.
I had promised the new owner of the War Eagle that I would steam on the maiden voyage of the new year. The ship had started its first run of the season farther north, near the Des Moines Rapids, so it had a full complement of passengers aboard by the time it reached me. As the ship glided with the current toward where I awaited it on the Alton levee, bathed in the soft light of the early April evening, it felt like a prodigal friend, coming home at last.
I went on board and smelled the familiar wood and brass and carpeting, and it was as if I’d never left. I went straight to the salon. I was greeted there by a tableau at once as familiar as the back of my hand and at the same time bracingly new.
The new owner of the War Eagle sat on a modest chair just inside the door to the salon, her knitting work in her hands. I leaned down and kissed Nanny Mae’s weathered cheek; she patted the top of my head familiarly. I knew she planned to spend most of the season at her perch in the Franklin House, monitoring the river and all persons traveling along it. But like me, she would not have missed this maiden steaming. And I suspected that if any escaping bondsmen from the hot southern states were able to find their way to freedom in the cold north during the coming year, at least they would not lack for knit woolen jerseys to keep them warm.
The new captain of the War Eagle stood proudly by Nanny Mae’s side, his face crisscrossed with scars, his hair newly tidy and slicked back, and what I had to imagine was the largest captain’s coat ever fashioned draping his body with grace. I shook Hector’s enormous hand and wished him every good fortune on his new posting. I had no doubt, I told him, he would do Captain Pound proud.
A tall, light-skinned Negro woman with a brown headband stood not far from Hector, her eyes darting around the room, keeping a careful eye on the entire scene. There was a thin chain around her neck from which dangled a single golden ring. She did not acknowledge me, even when I looked in her direction.
As I moved into the room, I saw many other familiar faces. Devol sat behind his slim Regency desk, shuffling and dealing his cards while affecting a shabby modesty regarding his meager skills. A dozen players clustered around the table and tried to best the hated miscreant. Off to the side sat a glum-looking fellow wearing a battered straw hat. It took me a moment to recognize him as Willie, the long-lost fool, and I only did when he looked over at me and winked.
At the far end of the room, Gentry stood by his bar stand, ready to pour out a measure of liquid courage to anyone in need. I caught his eye and nodded a greeting. An actress—a different one this year—was displayed becomingly on the couch, talking with apparent great interest and wide eyes to a balding traveler in a coat that had seen better days. Meanwhile, that same traveler was being drawn by an artist in a charcoal-smudged coat standing before an easel. One glance at the portrait made it clear the artist lacked his predecessor’s skill.
“Is this your first time aboard a steamship too?” came an eager voice from beside me. Turning, I saw a fresh-faced youth with an expensive, newly stitched frockcoat and a shiny black top hat that had surely been taken out of the hatter’s box for the first time that very morning.
“Joshua Speed of Springfield,” I said, extending my hand.
“Joseph Brady of Des Moines,” he said, pumping mine excitedly.
“Where are you headed, Brady?” I asked.
“I’m steaming all the way down to New Orleans,” said Brady. “I’m establishing a fur store with my father. We’ve done so well up in the Iowa District of the Wisconsin Territory, trapping and trading with the local tribes, that we think we can expand our business. Why not go to the biggest, most fashionable city in the West, we figure?”
“Why not?” I echoed approvingly.
“I’m going to set up the business: lease a proper building to display our wares, set up arrangements with stitchers and hatters, establish commercial relationships with the leading banks. When it comes harvest time, my father will ship his pelts downriver to me, and we’ll be in business. We aim to be the leading source of fur hats in New Orleans by the end of the year.”
“It’s a bold plan. I wish you the best of luck.”
“Thank you kindly,” he replied, pumping my hand again.
We stood in companionable silence and watched the players in front of us. Cheers and groans followed one after the other. The pile of coins in front of Devol ebbed and flowed. Not much was yet being won or lost.
“What do you think?” asked Brady after a bit.
“About what?”
“About that damned gambler. He looks a lazy, awkward type. I must have played seven thousand hands of cards against Red Jim last winter. I won nine out of ten of them if I won a single one. There’s not a man in the district whose face I can’t read or whose cards I can’t best.”
“You sound very practiced at the tables.”
“I imagine that poor fellow hasn’t seen the likes of me,” Brady boasted.
“Could be,” I murmured.
Brady’s face gradually broke into a broad smile, and his thin chest swelled inside his brand-new suit.
“I reckon you’re right, Mr. Speed.” He nodded confidently and reached a hand into his pocket. “I think I’ll have a go.”