[What Might Have Been 01] Alternate Empires Read online

  “Indeed, sir,” said Lee with a little smile.

  “And then you will sweep down to force the evacuation of Richmond. You will coordinate your army’s movements with those of McClellan in the west, and divide the South into helpless fragments. In the meantime, the navy will blockade the ports along the Atlantic, the Gulf Coast, and the Mississippi River.”

  “Your predictions make the difficulties seem not so very daunting, after all.”

  Placide paid no attention to Lee’s skepticism. “The Confederacy’s only true victory will come at Petersburg, and only because of the incompetence of one of your subordinates, General Ambrose Burnside. Finally, on October 17, 1862, P. G. T. Beauregard will surrender the Army of Northern Virginia to you at Dry Pond, Georgia, northeast of Atlanta.”

  “And tell me, sir,” said Lee, “will the Union thereafter be restored?”

  “Yes,” said Placide, “the Union will be restored, but in terrible circumstances.” Placide described to him the fight over Reconciliation, and how the radical Republicans would seek to punish the Southern states. “All that will hold the country together in those furious months will be your strength of will as president,” Placide told him.

  Lee shook his head. “I am certain now that you offer me dreams and not prophecy. I cannot conceive of any circumstance that would persuade me to undertake that office. I have neither the temperament nor the wisdom.”

  “The Democrats will come to you, as a war hero and as a Southerner. You’ll be the natural choice to oversee the process of Reconciliation. Congress will battle you, but your resolve will be as strong as Lincoln’s. You’ll prevent the plundering of the South.”

  “I am glad to hear this, but I wonder why you wish me then to decline the offer that awaits me inside. Would you see the South torn apart in peace to more horrible effect than in war?”

  Placide felt a tremendous sympathy for this man, and he had to fight the urge to tell him all that would happen. In Placide’s own world, Lee would die in 1870. Vice President Salmon P. Chase would then be sworn in, and the long, cruel struggle of the black would resume. Before his death, Lee would prepare a document emancipating all the slaves in the South; but on taking office Chase would find it convenient to set this initiative aside. The issue would still be the self-determination of the states. Chase would let progress on civil rights hang in abeyance rather than antagonize the newly reconstituted Congress. Not until 1878, during the Custer administration, would slavery be officially abolished.

  “Please try to understand,” said Placide, “what seems like victory for you and for the Union will be, for the Negro population, the beginning of a dreadful spiral down into a social and economic abyss.”

  “I’m not certain that I take your meaning, sir,” said Colonel Lee.

  “I mean only that your concern for the slaves will blind you to the long-range effects of what Congress will propose. And after you’ve left the White House”—Placide still could not tell Lee how brief his tenure would be—“your successors will pervert your programs to trap the Negroes in misery. Even in my time, seventy-five years after the Insurrection, many Negroes believe that life as a slave must have been better than what they endure. As wretched as the condition of slavery is, the American Negro of 1938 has little more of freedom or opportunity or hope.”

  Lee was bemused by Placide’s vehemence. “If I entertain your argument, sir, I am left with the feeling that all my actions will be futile, particularly those guided most strongly by my conscience.”

  “Millions of Negroes are forced to live in squalid slums the government calls Liberty Boroughs, segregated from the prosperous white communities,” Placide told him. “We suffer under the Legislated Equality programs, and—”

  Lee raised a hand, cutting him off. “I beg your pardon, sir,” he said. “I am grateful to have your opinion, but I can tarry here no longer.” He gave Placide a nod and strode up to the front door of Blair House.

  Placide didn’t know how effective his appeal had been. He was heartened to see, however, that as Lee turned away, his expression was solemn and thoughtful.

  In his own timeline, Placide had read that Lee, as general-in-chief of the Union Army, resisted the president’s frequent pleas to attack the Confederate units across the Potomac in Virginia. “You must do something soon,” Lincoln demanded late in July 1861. “The army consists to a large degree of ninety-day recruits who volunteered after the attack on Fort Sumter. The period of enlistment has almost expired. When it does, those young men will leave the ranks and go back to their families, unless they are given something to inspire them to remain. You must use them to strike a strong and decisive blow.”

  Lee remained firm. “Our soldiers are simply not ready,” he said. “The volunteers are poorly trained and poorly outfitted. It would be little more than murder to take such an unprepared mob into battle.”

  “A victory would encourage our soldiers and open the way to the capture of Richmond.”

  Lee saw it differently. “A defeat,” he argued, “would open the way for the enemy to capture Washington.”

  As the weeks went by, Lincoln continued to put pressure on Lee to act, even threatening to strip the general-in-chief of his command. But Lee would not be bullied. When the ninety-day period came to an end, most of the recruits reenlisted out of respect and admiration for Lee himself, and not the Federal cause. Lee used the time to deploy his troops with care and precision. He instructed his subordinates to hinder any advance of the Confederate army, but to fall back slowly rather than engage. Finally, on September 1, Lee reported to the president and his Cabinet that he was satisfied. Two weeks later, at Occoquan, Virginia, Lee defeated a numerically superior Confederate force under the command of General Beauregard. Aided by Generals Irwin McDowell and Benjamin Butler, Lee prevented the Southern corps from crossing the Potomac into Maryland and then encircling Washington.

  The Battle of Occoquan was the smashing victory that Lincoln had hoped for. With one stroke, Lee crushed the dreams of the Confederacy. At Occoquan, he seized the offensive and never relinquished it for a moment during the rest of the war. The remainder of the eighteen-month struggle in the east saw little more than Beauregard’s courageous though vain efforts to delay, with his clever skirmishes and retreats, the unavoidable outcome. Inevitably, however, he was to have his most difficult meeting with Lee at Folkston’s Dining Room in Dry Pond. Beauregard, The Napoleon in Gray, was as noble in defeat as Lee was gracious in victory. The two men had been friends when they’d served together in Mexico. They would be friends again when Lee was president and Beauregard governor of Louisiana.

  All of this was.a matter of record, but Placide knew just how easily the record could be erased.

  Placide felt a mixture of hope and anxiety while he waited in the street outside Blair House. If Lee emerged as a Union general, if he became again the Great Traitor, Placide planned to return to T0 and abandon this timeline. He would then have to hit on a more forceful method of persuading Lee—in Universe4. If, however, Placide had read Lee’s expression correctly, then he planned to spend quite some time in Universe3, making short jumps forward through time to follow the course of the Insurrection. With the invincible Robert E. Lee as the defender of the Confederacy’s fortunes, the fate of the South would certainly be different.

  Placide opened to the first page of the journal he intended to keep during his experiment. He wrote his first entry:

  Universe3

  April 18, 1861

  Outside Blair House, Washington

  If things turn out as I hope, I will remain in this newly made world, studying it and perhaps learning something of value to take back with me to T0. I will adopt this alternative timeline as my own, and love these people regardless of their sins, for have I not created them? Perhaps that sounds mad, but there has not yet been time enough to evaluate properly this unlooked-for benefit of my work. But surely I am a god to these people, having called them out of nothing, with the power to send
their history off in whichever direction I choose. The God of Abraham created but the universe of T0, and I have already created two more. How many others will I call into being before I achieve my purpose? General Lee comes now, with the fate of Universe3 in his hands.

  It was September 16, 1861, and the air should have been thick with drifting clouds of gunsmoke, the acrid breath of massed rifles; but the autumn breeze carried only the tang of burning firewood from a farmhouse nearby. There should have been the menacing, booming shocks of the field artillery, and the ragged cries of wounded men; but there was only stillness. The roads near Occoquan, Virginia, should have been jammed with wild-eyed, charging infantry, and the urgent mounted messengers of the generals; but only Thomas Placide disturbed the quiet countryside.

  It was a grim, gloomy day in late summer, and black clouds threatened low overhead. It had not yet begun to rain, but a storm seemed imminent. Thunder cracked and rolled, and Placide grimaced. He did not like to be out in this kind of weather. He was cheered only by the knowledge that he had truly persuaded Robert E. Lee, that a mechanism for the salvation of American blacks had been set in motion. All that now remained was the job of supervision, to make certain that Placide’s careful scheme did not falter as this world’s divergent history unfolded.

  He shook his head. He wouldn’t have guessed that this was the kind of day Lee would choose for his first major test as a general in the Confederate Army. Placide hurried down a rutted, dusty lane, to the white-painted frame farmhouse, hoping to meet someone who could direct him to the battlefield.

  The house was surrounded by a bare yard and a gap-toothed fence. Placide went through the yawning gate and climbed three steps to the porch. He heard nothing from within the house. He rapped loudly. A moment later, a distracted white woman opened the door, gave Placide a critical look, and shut the door again. “Ma’am?” called Placide. “Will you help me, ma’am?”

  The door opened again, and he was looking at a tall, burly, frowning man. “We got nothin’ for you,” said the farmer.

  “I just need some directions from y’all,” said Placide. He reminded himself that once again he needed to behave modestly.

  “Directions we can afford, I guess,” said the farmer.

  Placide nodded gratefully. “I’ve got to find my way to the battle, and quickly.”

  The white man closed one eye and stared at him for a few seconds. “Battle?” he asked.

  “I’ve got news for General Lee.”

  “You his boy?”

  Placide felt a flush of anger, but he stifled it. “No, sir, I’m a free man of color. But I’ve got news for General Lee.”

  “What’s this about a battle? There been no soldiers around here except when they come by in July. On their way to Manassas.”

  “Manassas? Where’s that?”

  The farmer gave him another close look. “Where the battle was. Bull Run. It was Beauregard and Joe Johnston that licked the Yankees at Bull Run. Your boss was busy fetchin’ coffee cups for Jeffy Davis down in Richmond.”

  Placide wondered at how quickly men and events had found their new course. “General Lee is obliged to follow the wishes of President Davis,” he said.

  The farmer gave a derisive laugh. “While Granny Lee was doin’ just that, one Sunday afternoon the blue boys come out of Washington, thinkin’ they was goin’ to whup Beauregard and send him on home. Then Joe Johnston showed up to help him out, and before you know it the damn Yankees are runnin’ ever which way, goin’ back to cry on Lincoln’s shoulder.”

  Placide took all this in. “Well, sir,” he said, “I guess they told me wrong when they said he’d come up here.”

  “Your General Lee ain’t never been within fifty mile of here. As far as I know, he’s somewheres off in the west, diddlin’ around in the mountains.”

  “I thank you, sir. I suppose I’d just better get back to Richmond myself. Someone’s made some kind of mistake.”

  The farmer laughed. “I’m lookin’ right at him.” He turned away and closed the door. Placide found that his hands were clenched into tight fists. He let out his breath slowly and forced himself to relax. He walked back out through the farmer’s gate and headed back the way he’d come. He wanted to get back to the Cage before the heavy rain began.

  Although he hated having to play the role of fool, Placide was elated by the news. He’d prevented the crushing Confederate defeat at Occoquan from occurring in Universe3. There had been a mighty rebel victory that had not happened in Placide’s timeline, and it had happened even without Robert E. Lee. With Lee yet on the verge of fulfilling his destiny, Placide could almost see the glory of the greater victories yet to come. He found himself smiling broadly as the first huge raindrops spatted about him in the dust.

  Universe3

  October 17, 1862

  Dry Pond, Georgia

  For the second time, I’ve come to watch an event that has vanished from history. I suspected that would be the case, yet I jumped here from Occoquan anyway. Hearing the news of the Battle of Bull Run, I was of the opinion that I had wholly altered the course of the Insurrection. It would be unlikely in the extreme that its ending should now fall out just as it had in my own timeline, on the same day, at the same place, and for the same reasons. Still, I had to be certain.

  In the deficient universe of my origin, Beauregard’s surrender took place in the salon of Folkston’s Dining Hall. I was not foolish enough to enter that white establishment by the front door. Rather, I went around to the rear of the building. There I won the sympathy of the kitchen slaves with a glib story of fear and desperation. They kindly gave me a good meal, some clothing more appropriate than my own, and a sum of money in both Confederate scrip and silver.

  Of course, no one here has heard rumors of the approach of a triumphant Union Army. Everyone agrees that the fighting continues far to the north of Maryland, and far to the west of Mississippi. Yaakov was right: I have given this world a fiercer, longer conflict. In Universe3, this is no mere Confederate Insurrection. This is civil war.

  And how is the struggle going? My new friends have caught me up on the thirteen months I missed, jumping here from Occoquan: George McClellan is Lincoln’s general-in-chief. (I am certain he is no Lee, and will hardly present an obstacle to Confederate triumph.) There was a Southern victory at Ball’s Bluff, Virginia, and a battle at Shiloh, in Tennessee, that wasn’t much of a victory for the Federals or much of a defeat for the South. Lee defended Richmond against McClellan, and then, damn it! Lee and Stonewall Jackson beat up the Yankees at Bull Run a second time! That gave Marse Robert confidence to try to invade the North by heading up through Maryland—just as Beauregard tried in my own timeline. And just like Beauregard, Lee was stopped. He was stalled at Antietam Creek because a set of his campaign orders was lost and later discovered by Union soldiers.

  If there is a turn for the worse, and if I must abandon Universe3, I may begin again as I did at Blair House; but this time, I will remove in advance that careless officer at Antietam. “In for a penny, in for a pound.” It was not enough, it seems, to have won Robert E. Lee to my cause. I find that I must continue to supervise and guide this entire war.

  How astonished Dirac and the others will be when I return to T0! I will seem to have aged several years in a single moment.

  How sad I will be to leave a world I am perfecting, to return to a world I can no longer love.

  Placide locked his door and went downstairs to dinner. The Negro rooming house was on Rampart Street, on the edge of the Vieux Carré. Placide had grown up in New Orleans, but that had been in the early years of the twentieth century. Here it was 1864, and the city was very different. There were still steamboats working on the river and bales of cotton piled high on the wharves. He thought that somewhere in this quaint version of New Orleans, his own grandparents were growing up. He could visit them, if he chose to. The idea made him a little queasy.

  A young quadroon woman waved to him. “Monsieur Placide,” she cal
led, “won’t you sit beside me this evening?”

  “I’d be delighted,” he said. Her name was Lisette, and she’d been the mistress of the son of a prosperous businessman who lived above Canal Street in the American Sector. It was common for a young white man of means to select a light-skinned girl like Lisette and establish her in a small house of her own on Rampart or Burgundy streets. It was her misfortune that the boy’s interest had waned, and he no longer supported her. Now she was looking for a new friend—a new white friend. The quadroon beauty disdained forming attachments to black men. When she’d called to Placide, she was just practicing her social graces.

  “You always have so much interesting gossip,” she said.

  Placide sighed and held her chair for her, then seated himself. “I wonder what Mrs. Le Moyne has for us tonight,” he said.

  Mrs. Le Moyne came into the dining room and gave Placide a dour look. “I will serve y’all what I always serve,” she said. “And that is, sir, what little the damn Yankees haven’t taken for themselves or spoiled.”

  Placide rose slightly from his seat and gave her a little bow. “You work miracles, madame,” he said.

  “I’m sure, sir, that you wish I could,” said Mrs. Le Moyne. She went back out into the kitchen.

  “Isn’t she a charmer?” whispered Lisette.

  Another of the tenants sat down across the table from them. He was a surgeon’s assistant in the black community. Placide thought the man always seemed to know too much of everyone else’s business. “Will you be leaving us again soon, Mr. Placide?” he asked.

  “Yes,” said Placide. “Tomorrow.”

  “Where are you going?” asked Lisette. “Don’t the Yankees stop you from traveling?”

  Placide shrugged. “I don’t worry about them.”

  The black man across the table laughed. “Then you must be the only person in New Orleans who doesn’t.”