PROLOGUE

George Washington was dead, and all of America mourned … except perhaps for my uncle.

In Philadelphia, thousands marched behind an empty hearse. In New York, church bells chimed a sonorous requiem. In Boston, eulogies issued forth from every pulpit and every parlor. But from Alexandria, Virginia, Uncle Hesperus wrote: “Nothin’ better than the death of a demigod to help sell newspapers.”

He expressed this sentiment in a letter inviting me to come and work for him at the Alexandria Gazette. “The southern Drapers,” he wrote, “should not be the only Drapers to benefit from our national sorrow.”

I agreed, though between the Boston and Virginia branches of our family there was little agreement on anything, least of all national matters. But on one thing all Drapers agreed: Uncle Hesperus had known Washington for long enough, and intimately enough, and tempestuously enough, that nothing he said about America’s first icon would surprise anyone, north or south.

So I headed for Virginia. I arrived in Alexandria in the last week of the last year of the last century, determined to learn all that I could about the business of newspapering.

Uncle Hesperus often said that in America, the man who owned the printing presses could protect himself as well as the man who owned the artillery … at least until the shooting started. He would then produce a brace of pistols, set them on his desk, and add that it was best to own both.

I can still recall my surprise at the vibrant presence behind his desk. My uncle was sixty-seven, brother to my father’s father, which made him a great-uncle in fact, but he was no decrepit ancient. Here was a man who had fought Indians on the Monongahela, ridden at the front of the Continental line in the brutal heat at Monmouth, and sown a small empire in the rocky soil of American publishing. Those deeds were ageless, and so, it seemed, was he.

As he rose to greet me, he looked like a whip—long and thin and leathered, sheathed in a brown coat and lighter brown waistcoat that were no more than gradations of color complementing brown hair and tanned skin. As his hand snapped toward me, the rawhide face brightened, and he said, “Twenty-five and you still don’t know what you want to do with yourself?”

“I want to be a writer, sir,” I said eagerly.

He laughed at that. “When a man says he wants to be a writer, before he’s been anything else, he’s sayin’ he doesn’t really know what he wants to be.”

“A harsh judgment, sir,” I said, trying to meet his gaze rather than the tops of my shoes. “I did study the law for a time.”

“The law. A barren desert of wherefore and whereas, of thence, whence, and hence, all in the service of pence. The last thing we need is more lawyers.” He said this as much to the portrait on the wall as to me.

The portrait and the hearth above which it hung were the only elements of warmth in the office—a fine yellow flame jumping on the hearth and a fine yellow dress on the woman in the portrait. The woman I took to be his long-dead wife, Charlotte. The fire, I learned, was stoked high on the last Monday of the month to warm the young woman whose regular visits provided my uncle with one of his favorite forms of entertainment.

And she was even then arriving. My uncle’s eyes brightened at something beyond my shoulder. And I turned to see her standing in the doorframe, head bowed beneath a hood, body shrouded in a dove-gray cape. Without a word from Mr. Stitch, the elderly doorkeep, she stepped into the room.

“So then,” said my uncle, as if he had only moments before sent her on an errand, “is it true?”

The girl cast her eyes toward me.

My uncle told her I was a trusted confidant, a term that surprised me more than it enlightened her. Then he closed the door behind her and told her to sit.

She perched on the sofa by the fireplace and removed her hood. Her face—though pinched by the cold and a curious tension that suggested she was not entirely comfortable with the task before her—was finely structured and symmetrical in all its parts. What, I wondered, was my uncle doing with such a pretty young woman in the middle of the afternoon?

He sat beside her and said, “So … is it true, my dear? Has he been put into the vault?”

This question surprised me, considering the transaction I expected. Her answer, however, was in character with what I took to be her profession: “The whole world knows already, sir, but if you’re payin’ …”

“I knew ’twas true,” said my uncle, “but you’re my eyes and ears at Mount Vernon, darlin’. Till I hear it from you, all news is rumor, all gossip is falsehood.”

The girl extended a hand. “The pay, then, sir.”

My uncle gave her a gold coin; then he formally introduced me to Miss Delilah Smoot, daughter of a Mount Vernon overseer, one of the few white servants at the mansion house, and my uncle’s spy. On the last Monday of each month she came to Alexandria and related all that had happened at Mount Vernon in the previous thirty days … for a price, of course.

That this made her the most unfaithful of domestics did not enter my mind. I was too taken by her beauty, and too intrigued by her story, which began on the day that Washington first took the chill that killed him.

“’Twas the twelfth, a Thursday, I think. General went ridin’ … visitin’ his farms, like always … . It took to snowin’ just after he left. Then the snow went over to rain, hard and cold. When the General come in, ’round three, his hat was drippin’ wet. I asked him if he wanted dry clothes laid out, but he said the greatcoat kept him dry. Well, that greatcoat weighed ten pounds if it weighed a pennyweight, soaked right through.”

“That proves it,” said my uncle.

“Proves what?” said I.

“He didn’t know enough to come in out of the rain.”

“Mr. Draper,” said the girl, “if you want me to keep tellin’ this here story, stop sayin’ mean things and sit quiet.”

My uncle, to my surprise, folded his hands and sat back, as if he knew just how far to irritate a person before bowing to her anger.

And the girl went on: “The General never went out the next day. He had a sore throat and kept near the fire, ’cept when he went out on the piazza to watch the snow swishin’ down. I ’member watchin’ from a window and wonderin’ what a man in his sixty-eighth year thinks when another winter comes on.”

There was a fine bit of empathy.

“What he was thinkin’,” she said, “was how to improve the view, ’cause he went across the lawn and marked half a dozen trees for cuttin’.”

I could see Washington through her eyes, wearing his black greatcoat, gray hair tied at his collar, tricorne piled with snow. I could even see his footprints, the last he would ever leave, on the whitening lawn.

“The General sat up that evenin’ with Mrs. Washington and Tobias Lear, his secretary. They read the papers and talked some, though he didn’t say much with his sore throat. Mr. Lear asked if he’d take somethin’ for it, but he said to let it go as it came. ’Twas what he always said.”

“Had a strong constitution,” said my uncle. “Survived more diseases than a New York rat. Why should a little sore throat do him in?”

“Just afore dawn,” said the girl, “I went to their chamber to lay in a fire, and Mrs. Washington whispered that the General’s throat had closed up. He’d been sick half the night, but he never let her get out of bed to get help, for fear she’d catch cold herself. Then the General tried to speak, and all I could hear was a funny croakin’, like the words was caught in his throat.

“Finally he got it out that he wanted to be bled. Said to fetch Doc Craik—”

“Craik,” grunted my uncle. “As land-hungry as his most famous patient.”

“I’m warnin’ you, Mr. Draper—”

“My dear, do not warn me again,” snapped my uncle. “Just tell your story.” While he knew how far to aggravate a person’s emotions, he could play his own like a fine harpsichordist.

And Miss Delilah heeded his tune. “’Fore the doctor come, I made the General a drink—molasses, warm vinegar, melted butter. A good cure for sore throat, but I feared I killed him with it. He started in to gaggin’, turnin’ blue … Couldn’t get a drop down … Come nigh to stranglin’ ’fore he spit it all up … .”

And so the story went, through the last fifteen hours of Washington’s life.

Dr. Craik arrived, and after examining his old friend, he stepped into the hallway and told Mr. Lear, in a quavering voice, “’Tis the quinsy. Throat infection. Most virulent sort. I fear ’tis mortal.”

But he promised to do all he could. Then he did what every doctor does when in doubt: he bled the patient, to no avail. So he tried Spanish fly, applied to the patient’s throat, in hope that the blisters it raised would draw the infection to the surface. But Washington’s breathing only grew worse. So Craik dosed him with calomel, in hope that the sickness could be purged through the bowels. Still, there was no improvement. So Craik, in his wisdom, took another pint of blood.

More doctors arrived. More opinions were expressed. And their conclusion: do what medical science had taught from the time of Hippocrates: bleed him, blister him, and physic him yet again.

By four-thirty, Washington had been drained all but dry. And yet the inflammation had not been purged through any orifice, natural or man-made.

As night came on, breath came harder and harder for the old General.

“When it looked like nothin’ would help him,” said Delilah, “I heard him whisper to Mr. Lear, ‘I’m just going. You’d better take no more trouble about me but let me go off quietly.’”

“A noble actor,” said my uncle. “Even on his deathbed he was playin’ a role, givin’ the dyin’ hero noble things to say.”

I could not hold my peace. I told my uncle straight out that a man who died bravely deserved respect.

“Of course he died bravely,” answered my uncle. “’Twas expected of him. And he never done but what was expected of him.”

“Doctors wouldn’t let him go quiet, though,” said Miss Delilah. “’Round eight, they blistered his feet and put wheat-plaster poultices on him. But he kept slippin’ … strainin’ to breathe, tossin’ about, askin’ the time, till around ten.”

My uncle said, “About his last words, Delilah … .”

“’Tis well’?”

“That’s what we’ve heard. What did he mean? What was well?”

“’Twas well that Mr. Lear understood the General’s last instructions. He told Lear, ‘Don’t let them put me in the tomb in less than three days.’ Lear said he wouldn’t, and the General said, ‘’Tis well.’”

“So,” said my uncle, “he expected to rise from the dead but didn’t think he’d have the strength to roll the stone back from the tomb.”

“No stone in front of the Washington tomb,” said the girl innocently.

I suggested he might have feared being buried alive. There were stories of men going to their tombs prematurely because of poor doctors or overzealous heirs.

Miss Delilah said: “Oh, he was dead when they buried him. I didn’t see him go, but I was outside his door. I heard his breathin’ get lighter. Then it stopped. After a few seconds, I looked in. Dr. Craik was closin’ the General’s eyes.

“Lady Washington asked, ‘Is he gone?’ Dr. Craik nodded, so sad he couldn’t speak. Lady Washington give out a sob and said, ‘’Tis well, ’tis well. All is over. I have no more trials to pass. I’ll soon follow.’”

“Those words show a sensitive spirit,” said my uncle.

“She’s always been sensitive with me,” said Miss Delilah. “After they brung the General’s body down to the dinin’ room and laid it ’fore the fire, she said she was givin’ me the most sensitive task of the whole sad night.”

“And what would that be?” asked my uncle.

“She took me back to the bedroom and told me to stoke the fire. Then she took two packets of letters from her desk. They was mostly yellowed, and some so old they was crumblin’ ’round the edges. She give me a packet and stood over the fire with the other, and told me to feed the letters into the flames, one by one.”

“One by one?” said my uncle.

“So they’d all burn good. She wanted them all gone, with nothin’ left behind. ‘Let them rise with his spirit,’ is what she said to me.”

“What was in ’em?” My uncle leaned closer. Here was a secret. And a man like my uncle thrived upon secrets. “What was in the letters?”

“Oh, I’m not … I’m not at liberty to say, sir,” she answered.

“Delilah, tell me what was in the letters, or it shall be echoed back to Lady Washington that you visit me monthly, and the benefit of whatever piddlin’ loyalty you’re showin’ now will go up in smoke with the letters.”

Delilah was gripped with an involuntary shiver, as if realizing the degree of her perfidy against the Washingtons. She glanced at me, then at my uncle.

But however great was her guilt, it was not near so strong as my uncle’s charm, or his money. He gently took one of her hands, placed a gold coin in the palm, then closed her fingers over it. “Now, darlin’, what was in the letters that Martha burned?”

She opened her fingers, glanced at the coin, and with no further hesitation, she said, “They was the letters the General sent to her durin’ their life together.”

“Their love letters?” whispered my uncle, with all the awe that a man might muster had he found the true cross. “Their private letters?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you … did you read any?”

“Oh, I never once read their mail, sir. That’d be dishonest.”

At that, I could not stifle a laugh.

And Miss Delilah spoke to me directly for the first time, raising her chin as haughtily as a minister’s daughter passing a whorehouse, “I beg your pardon, sir.”

I might have answered with the truth: that I was subtracting a coin from her treasury for disingenuousness. But as she was quite lovely and I was quite susceptible to loveliness, I put on a soft voice and said, “On the contrary, it is your pardon that I beg, madam.”

“If you beg it,” she decided after a moment, “’tis given.”

My uncle chuckled. “Don’t be tryin’ to impress my nephew with your put-on Virginia airs, Delilah. He’s from Boston. He sees through such things.”

 

 

When she was gone, Hesperus gave me an angry squint. “The daughter of a plantation overseer heaves her breast at you and you’re ready to run off with her?”

“I … I …”

“No matter. Shows you’ve got some of the good Draper blood in you. Time with a servant girl can be time well spent. But never marry one. You want yourself a real lady, like my Charlotte.” He went to the sofa and looked up at the portrait. “So, darlin’, what do you suppose was in those letters?”

For a moment it was as if he actually expected her to speak.

I said, “Perhaps the letters contained terms of endearment … statements of purpose … the things that a man writes to the woman he loves.”

“’Twas a marriage of convenience,” answered my uncle. “But if George did say endearin’ things in his letters, why would Martha burn them?”

“Because they’re private, and so much of their lives has been public that—”

“Maybe she burned them to hide somethin’.”

“There’s no evidence of that. What would she be hiding?”

“That’s what I want you to find out.” And as if stroked suddenly by genius, my uncle sat and scratched out a bank draft. “You have till October first.”

I took the draft and almost staggered. Two hundred and fifty dollars. A small fortune. “Until October first … to do what, Uncle?”

“Find out what was in the letters.”

“But the letters are gone.”

“And before long, so will the truth about old George be gone. Up in smoke. Then Americans’ll believe he truly was a demigod and not what he was.”

“What was that, sir?”

“A man. No more. No less. A man who wrote letters to his wife. And she burned them. Find out why, and you may understand the man. Get started, and I’ll keep you goin’ with three more drafts between now and October.”

“A thousand dollars? That’s serious money, sir.”

“I take this very seriously, son.”

I weighed the draft in my hand. I could not imagine how much heavier a thousand dollars would be. I was not sure I was ready for the responsibility. So I said, “I came here to be a writer, sir, not some kind of snoop.”

“Well, what do you think I want you to do with what you find, boy? Write it all down. Have it finished by October. We’ll publish in time for the caucuses.”

“The presidential caucuses?”

“That’s right, son. I love a fight”—he smacked his hands together—“and this is the grand contest for the soul of a nation. Adams against Jefferson. Federalist against Republican.”

These were our first political parties, born in the 1790s of the family feud that had gone on since the founding of the country.

Federalists believed that a strong central government—hands held firm to the reins of banking, finance, and human frailty—was a necessity if we were to control the mule team of competing interests we had harnessed into a nation. Republicans distrusted the concentration of power. They believed that the future of America lay with the yeoman farmer—an independent, uncomplicated, and altogether mythical creature who drew sustenance from the American earth, and by the simple act of drawing it, gave it back again.

My uncle said, “Adams will invoke the name of Washington, because Washington swallowed all the Federalist foolishness that Adams and Alexander Hamilton poured down his throat. To beat Adams, we’ve got to show Washington with all his warts.”

To beat Adams, I thought, all that was necessary was to show him with all his warts. And the Federalist foolishness, as my uncle so alliteratively put it, had created the stable banking system that allowed him to write out a draft with the knowledge that it would be paid at the bearer’s request. But I didn’t mention any of this. I was imagining the impact that I, Christopher Draper, a simple young scribbler, might make on the 1800 election … if I showed Washington with all his warts.

Still, I had to be honest. I said, “Uncle, I’ve never written anything of substance.”

“Learn by doin’, son. That’s my motto. Learn by doin’.”