The following is an excerpt of the upcoming novel “All Quiet Along the Potomac”
by Ryan McCarvill. If you want to be the first to receive news of the novel’s publication,
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Chapter 1
UNHAPPY NEW YEAR

By all accounts, Abraham Lincoln was the saddest looking man that Ben Freeman had ever seen.

Shivering in the cold outside the White House, the editor of Liberty & Union looked in at the president’s soirée through a warped windowpane frosted with ice. Ben kept well away from the window, not wanting to cause a disturbance if some shrill woman cried out at seeing a leering black face through the window.

Even from this distance, Ben saw the sunken, glassy look in Mr. Lincoln’s eyes set within purple hollows of exhaustion. Ben recalled seeing a photograph of the man about a year ago, back when he was still president-elect. Though precious few could have called Lincoln handsome while keeping a straight face, his portrait had shown the clean-shaven, vaguely boyish face of a man in his early fifties, with deep-set eyes that were no less piercing. Now, those same eyes appeared dull and listless, the wrinkles on his face deep and leathered, and his new chinstrap beard — perhaps an attempt at looking the part of dignified statesman — was patchy and scruffy.

The president’s guests looked little better, for even under the gay lights of the chandeliers every face in the crowd wore nervous or mournful expressions, or else they forced false smiles and cheerless laughs, if only to keep up appearances. Indeed, even in the season of the Savior’s birth, there didn’t seem like much to celebrate. The Union was cut in two, with eleven states in open rebellion, and over the course of the past year thousands of men had been killed or hideously wounded on both sides. Hundreds of millions of dollars had been squandered, and not a small amount had been pilfered by corrupt officials in the confused early days of the Rebellion. The empires of Europe, sensing weakness, had turned their greedy eyes upon the American continent. Far from glimpsing a possible end to the war, most observers agreed with dismay that not even its beginning was yet over.

Pinned to the wall behind Lincoln and his wife Mary Todd was a banner of brown and yellow that read 1862. No additions of ‘Welcome’ or ‘Happy New Year’ — just a grim statement of fact for the year about to turn. Ever since the horrible defeat at the Battle of Bull Run last July, the Union’s army had made little to no progress against the Rebellion. The front line was all but frozen, with daily reports offering no news except ‘All quiet along the Potomac.’ 

John Roscoe had once told Ben that the chief executive was supposed to be ‘the best among us.’ But looking at this man Lincoln, and counting the many failures of his embattled administration, Ben wondered if the anti-Lincoln newspapers might actually have it right. How had such an unrefined and undistinguished person risen to command the presidency? Apparently he was a gifted orator, but Ben could see nothing great about him — nothing suggestive of a proud Washington or a principled Adams. Instead this man Lincoln looked tormented, anguished. Defeated, or else as near to it as anyone could stand before surrendering to reality and reason. If the former president, James Buchanan, had watched idly during the United States’ untimely demise during the secession crisis last winter, then this man Lincoln seemed nothing more than the Union’s shabby undertaker.

“You, boy. Get away from there.”

Immediately Ben stepped back from the frosted window. He turned to see a burly guard approaching. The guard was reaching for something concealed within his heavy coat.

Ben bowed his head on instinct. “Just taking a look, sir.”

“G’won, nigger!” the guard shouted. “If I see you creepin round here again, there’ll be hell to pay. G’won!”

Ben saw the glint of a Pinkerton Agency badge behind the wool scarf tied around the man’s neck. The Pinkertons, beyond running a spy network against the Confederacy, also served as the president’s personal bodyguard, and Ben knew from experience that it was best not to trifle with them. Slowly, carefully, he showed his open hands and backed away. When he was a good distance from the guard he turned and trudged across the lawn, his shoes crunching over the sharp crust of snow.

There was a long and disorganized line of people who stood waiting for entry into the White House. While there were some fur-coated elites stepping down from horse-drawn carriages toward the front of the line, most of the expectant partygoers were ordinary folks for whom the term and privileges of ‘dignitary’ did not apply. Indeed, few had any interest in seeing the president himself; rather, most had come to bend the ear of one of the administration’s many deputies and clerks in the hope of securing a government job. After all, what with all the rumors of a military draft, even the lowliest rung on the government ladder was preferable to facing Rebel bullets down in some Virginia swamp.

Ben recognized a pudgy, pasty-faced man in a sealskin cap who waved at him from what looked to be the same place in the lineup where Ben had left him a few minutes earlier.

“We haven’t moved?” Ben asked.

“N-not an inch,” replied Clarence Dinwiddie. He was twenty-five years old, rotund to say the least, and the flaps of his cherry cheeks wiggled every time he fought to control his stuttering speech. “I saw Kate Ch-Chase and s-some other young ladies arrive. They were let in s-straight away, of course. We sh-should do a s-story about Miss Chase, don’t you think? Our readers would eat it up, s-so to sp-speak. She’s the most popular woman in Washington. C-certainly the most beautiful.”

Ben gave a wry laugh. “Sure, why not? The gossip magazines seem to sell enough copies. More than we do, at any rate.” He stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Laws, it’s freezing out here.”

Clarence took off his sealskin cap to reveal a head of thinning hair. “Take my hat, Mr. Freeman.”

“That’s all right, Clarence. And again, you don’t have to call me Mr. Freeman. Just Ben will do. I’m not your employer, remember? We’re business partners.”

Clarence beamed with pride. “I sh-should s-say we are!”

Ben had to smile too. They had only known each other a few months, but Clarence had become a fast friend. The sickly only child of the wealthy Dinwiddie family of Ohio, at the outbreak of war Clarence had left the plush surroundings of his parents’ stately home in Cincinnati to pursue a career as a war correspondent. He came to Washington and was subsequently turned away from every newspaper office he visited until he somehow came to knock upon the door of Liberty & Union at 514 10th Street.

Despite Ben’s admission that the newspaper consisted of nothing more than an old press run by himself and a young boy named Ringo, and that they had no advertisers, precious few readers, and that he could pay no salary — oh, and by the way, the newspaper was run by a black man squatting in the house of a dead United States senator — Clarence wept with joy when Ben offered him a job as assistant editor. It wasn’t long before Ben insisted on letting Clarence stay in one of 514’s empty bedrooms free of charge.

A light snow began to fall over the waiting crowd. Ben studied the faces of the men and women who were closest to the front of the line. He nudged Clarence and began to pick out a few faces of prominent newspaper editors he recognized from portrait sketches in Harper’s Weekly.

“Going inside now is Mr. Bennett of the Herald and Mr. Raymond of the Times. And that there can only be Horace Greeley.”

Mr. Greeley, who wore a white cape and a shaggy mane of snowy white hair, was editor of the New York Tribune, one of the most influential newspapers in the Union. Greeley was an unapologetic abolitionist and his pen was often hostile to Abraham Lincoln, whom he considered weak and ineffectual. And yet, somehow this did not prevent Greeley from attending the president’s parties whenever he was in town.

Ben identified a few other prominent men, but he was careful not to point at any of them. For him and all people like him, pointing at white men was just another unspoken thou shalt not, another universal law that Mama had drilled into his mind since he was a boy.

“Why are they letting in all the other newsmen and not us?” Clarence asked.

“Because nobody knows about us,” Ben said. “Nobody reads the Liberty & Union.”

“That’s not true,” Clarence replied.

Except it was, and Ben knew that truth better than anyone. He had launched his upstart newspaper on a whim during the panic and exhilaration of the Rebel siege of Fort Sumter the spring before. While seeing to John Roscoe’s affairs in Washington following his death, Ben had found an old hand-cranked press in 514’s attic and just started writing, setting, and pressing. With the world turned upside down by the war, the prospective buyer of the townhouse had abandoned the deal. Ben had since turned the place into the L&U’s headquarters. 

What had started as a moment’s compulsion became a constant obsession. Day in and day out Ben worked on the paper. His first issues had been long-winded to say the least, not so much news as opinion pieces, and virtually all of them had ended up in city gutters. Later on Clarence had insisted on tacking the originals to the wall, but Ben had taken them down. He cringed whenever he read his old writings.

“The public doesn’t care about the opinions of a bull negro,” Ben had said at the time.

“S-some might,” Clarence replied. “I’ll bet if s-some men didn’t know it was a negro writing those s-stories, they’d s-sit up and take note.”

And that was when the idea came to Ben. From that moment forward, Clarence Dinwiddie was named editor-in-chief of Liberty & Union. Ben still performed the top job in practice, but the pudgy, well-meaning boy from Cincinnati was now the newspaper’s public face. 

It was a good face too, or rather a good name. Ben was surprised to learn that the mention of Dinwiddie opened quite a few doors in Washington these days, newspaper offices notwithstanding. Much of this openness was due to the lifelong friendship between Clarence’s father and one Salmon P. Chase, the Secretary of the Treasury Department and one of the most powerful Republicans in the government. In Washington, to stand next to a man with the last name Dinwiddie was to be seen. 

Case in point: Ben was about to enter the White House. Tonight would be the night. Once inside, there was no telling whom he might meet. Perhaps he would even shake hands with the president himself.

Few negroes had ever visited the White House — not even Frederick Douglass, the famed orator and former slave who had stolen himself to freedom. Though many pundits like Horace Greeley cajoled the president to meet with Douglass, Mr. Lincoln ignored all such clamor. It seemed the president had no interest in muddying the limited aims of his administration, said aims being the defeat of the Rebellion and the restoration of the Union with the institution of slavery well intact. After all, it was fear of the institution’s demise that had inspired Southerners to secede in the first place. In trying to end the Rebellion, in trying to simply survive, the Lincoln administration would not dare touch a radical cause like the abolition of slavery.

Clarence, being of good Dinwiddie stock, was the true guest of President Lincoln this evening, or perhaps more accurately he was the guest of Secretary Chase. Ben was only here because he was pretending to be Clarence’s manservant. While this arrangement was at least convenient given present circumstances, Ben nevertheless found it difficult to swallow. He had served John Roscoe in a similar capacity most of his life, and he was far past tired of holding the hats of white men while they discussed the future of himself and so many millions like him.

“We may not get into the party at all, the way this line moves,” Ben said. “It’ll be dawn before we get up to the doors.”

Suddenly, from down the hill, a brazen chorus of trumpets sounded.

“MAKE WAY!” a martial voice cried. “Make way for General McClellan!”

A regal company of blue-uniformed dragoons pounded up the snow-covered driveway, their horses splattering frozen mud on the expectant partygoers. Even still, this did not stop the people from cheering wildly at the man at the head of the company.

— On to Richmond! Lead away, General!

— An autograph, dear General? For my son, it is!

— Hail Columbia, and three cheers for Little Mac!

Ben watched as the dragoons thundered past. At their head was the young George McClellan, showing off the two gold stars of a major general that had been sewn into the shoulders and collar of his winter uniform. McClellan’s admirers — there were millions of them all over the Union, outnumbering the president’s admirers by a significant degree — had dubbed McClellan ‘Young Napoleon,’ and certainly the man looked the part. Handsome and barrel-chested, with a vigorous mustache and a hard, bristling gaze, McClellan exuded manly confidence. In many respects McClellan was the polar opposite of the sad, shrunken form of the president that Ben had glimpsed through the White House windows.

After the Union’s disastrous defeat at Bull Run last summer, the president had named McClellan general-in-chief and commander of the Union’s largest army, the Army of the Potomac. Rumors abounded in Washington that McClellan’s rising fame was so mighty that, if he so wished, he could easily wrest power from Lincoln. And here on New Year’s Eve was the earnest-looking Young Napoleon approaching the White House to fervent, almost maniacal applause, as if the true leader of the Republic had finally arrived.

As Ben watched the dragoons ride on to the thrumming tune of Yankee Doodle, he glimpsed a familiar face among their ranks. His jaw dropped open and the night air robbed his breath. Finally, he found his voice again in time to shout—

“JJ!”

A lean, wolfish head snapped to him, its gray-green eyes flashing. Ben saw that handsome, hard-lined face and that incisive gaze that reminded him so much of his mentor and JJ’s father, the late John Roscoe. Ben raised his hand in a hailing gesture, but JJ had already passed on by.

Behind him, a knife-nosed man guffawed. “Uppity nigger. You think Mac and his men gonna pay attention to you? They’d sooner whup you than fight for you.” To cap his statement, the man spat on Ben’s shoes.

Ben’s blood rose hot in his pulsing throat, but he clenched his jaw and kept silent. He was no stranger to remarks like that, but there was no point to rising in anger. No matter who actually started a fight, Ben knew that only one person would be blamed for it.

Just then, he heard the sound of hooves again. Hot horse breath gusted down the back of his neck. Turning, Ben looked up at the great, steaming body of a gray courser. Craning his neck still upward, he looked into the face of JJ Roscoe.

“So it is you,” JJ said from atop the saddle. He dismounted with the grace of a veteran rider and stepped forward with arms stretched open. “Ben Freeman!”
Laughing, Ben strode forward and threw his arms around JJ. They embraced like brothers — because they were brothers, as close as two people could be. The people around them murmured and spoke in low voices. The knife-nosed man said nothing but continued to scowl.

Ben didn’t care what anyone thought. It had been two years since he had last seen JJ, and under circumstances he would sooner not think about.

“You look well,” Ben said.

JJ nodded. He was sporting the sprouts of a McClellan-esque mustache. Now, perhaps remembering where they were (and maybe remembering who he was), JJ broke off from Ben’s embrace and adjusted his uniform. “Well,” he said stiffly. “Now that we’ve dispensed with casual pleasantries. . .”

Ben pushed Clarence forward. “Clarence, this is Lieutenant Jonathan Roscoe.”

“Captain,” JJ corrected.

“Captain,” Ben echoed, impressed. It was not at all surprising that JJ was already rising in the ranks. As the eldest son in the family, both his parents had heaped upon JJ’s shoulders the grave responsibility of achieving great honor and prestige for the Roscoe family. JJ’s ambition was acute, though it had come at the expense of a sense of humor.

“JJ, this is my dear friend Clarence Dinwiddie.” Ben stopped to search for the right words. “Clarence is the, erm. . .he’s the editor-in-chief at the Liberty & Union. That’s my newspaper — a newspaper, I mean. I work there. I work for Mr. Dinwiddie.”

“How interesting,” JJ said, though his tone was skeptical. “I seem to recall in one of your letters you mentioned you were starting a newspaper of your own. I take it that didn’t work out.”

“No,” Ben said, maybe a little too quickly. “I mean, well, it’s a work in progress.” He turned and nudged Clarence to shake JJ’s hand. 

Flustered, Clarence stumbled forward and accidentally stepped on JJ’s polished boots. “A pleasure to make your aq. . .aquain. . .aq-quain—”

“Yes, very nice,” JJ said with a grimace, though he ignored Clarence’s outstretched hand and instead inspected his boots for scuff marks. He looked at Ben once more, his gaze incisive, scrutinizing. “How long have you been in Washington? And what the hell are you doing standing out here anyway? Forgive me for saying, but I wouldn’t think you close to the president.”

Ben shrugged. “Clarence — er, well, Mr. Dinwiddie I mean — holds an official invitation to the president’s levee. An invitation with a plus-one. He thought he would bring me along.”

Looking past JJ, Ben saw McClellan and his dismounted dragoons march up the steps and cut the line to pass inside the White House. Turning to JJ again, Ben said, “Would it be much trouble if you. . .you know, if you. . .”

“If I helped you get inside?” JJ offered, his voice flat and toneless. “My first visit to the Executive Mansion, and you’re asking me to bring along a negro journalist and a human bowling pin?”

Ben and Clarence exchanged a brief, uncertain look.

“Yes,” Ben said.

“But not the bit about the bowling pin,” Clarence added.

JJ looked at Ben and shook his head. “You know, I’m not sure whether to help you or cuff you upside the head.”

Ben laughed at that, but his smile faltered when he realized JJ was actually serious. “Preferably the former,” he said.

“Just tell me what you’re up to,” JJ said. “I should think you outgrew the role of lackey a long time ago, if it ever suited you to begin with. I don’t buy for one minute that you are some kind of manservant to this. . .”—JJ looked Clarence up and down—“whoever this is.”

Ben shrugged. “It’s not the first time I’ve had to play that part. Clarence and I are a team, and a good one at that. Besides, this is Washington, isn’t it? Everybody’s pretending to be something or somebody they’re not.”

“Careful, Ben,” JJ warned. “This rat’s nest of a town has a way of chewing people up, and the idealistic ones are the first to go.”

Ben laughed. “I think I’ll be all right.”

JJ sighed and looked toward the entrance down the line. “I’ll get you to the door. Beyond that, you’re on your own.” With that, JJ turned and stalked toward the entrance, bypassing the entire line of waiting partygoers. Sharing looks of bewilderment, Ben and Clarence moved to catch up.

“There’s a queue,” a man growled as they passed.

“Fuck your queue,” JJ spat.

At the doors of the North Portico, JJ exchanged a few words with the Pinkerton agents. JJ showed a pass and explained he was part of General McClellan’s retinue, and that the two gentlemen with him were his special guests. When Ben stepped forward, the guards blocked his way.

“No niggers.”

“These men are here by General McClellan’s personal request,” JJ lied. He turned to indicate Clarence. “This man here is. . .”

“Clarence D-Dinwiddie, good s-sir.” Clarence lifted his chin and tried his best to appear refined. “I am the editor in chief of the Liberty & Union newspaper, and I—”

“Yeah, yeah, g’won in for God’s sake.” Now the head Pinkerton turned to Ben with a cocked eyebrow. “And what’s your story, thick-lips?”

Ben assumed a folksy accent of the Mayfair flavor. “I’s nobody you care ‘bout, boss,” he said with a humble bow. “I’s Marse Dinwiddie’s servant, boss, meanin he my massa. I’s keepin to Marse Dinwiddie’s side, boss, lookin at nothin and not talkin to nobody. Boss.”

It pained Ben to play a caricature, but a caricature was what men like these Pinkertons before him expected to see. Even still, the man in charge wasn’t convinced.

“I ain’t losin my job for lettin some darkie into the East Room. Rawlins? Take him down to see Mr. Nicolay. Let him decide what’s to be done.”

“Yessir.” A guard stepped forward and stood beside Ben. “This way, boy.”

Ben passed over the threshold and entered a vestibule. With JJ leading, they passed through a set of doors and stepped into a long reception hallway that was crammed with people and choked with cigar smoke. Many gazes turned to Ben and gawked at him, for clearly this was not one of the mansion’s negro servants. Looking left, Ben glimpsed a swollen crowd in the East Room, where the Lincolns stood greeting their guests. In the same room, General McClellan stood in silhouette before a roaring fireplace while answering the vapid questions of patrician politicians with an air of supreme confidence.

Before Ben had time to look at much else, the Pinkerton shoved him to the right while JJ and Clarence stood watching.

“You watch those hands,” JJ growled to the Pinkerton.

The guard sneered back. “I don’t answer to you. Come on, boy.”

“Find Secretary Chase,” Ben said to Clarence. “I’ll find you after.”

The last he saw of Clarence that night was the boy’s wide, frightened eyes following him as he left the hallway and passed through a cordon of more Pinkerton detectives who scowled at him as he was ushered past. He and the Pinkerton ascended a dark staircase to the second floor. Upstairs, the sounds and smells of the party dissipated. The Pinkerton prodded and pushed him the whole way, but Ben chewed his tongue to keep himself from snapping. If he made the wrong move now, this night could end very poorly indeed.

Ben barely registered the halls and little rooms he passed through, but suddenly he found himself in a large, spartan room. The room’s yellow wallpaper was barely visible in the frosty moonlight that seeped through the gaps in heavy, musty curtains, casting the room in a ghostly gloom. Turning around, he saw the Pinkerton closing the door in his face.

“Don’t wander off,” the man said. “I’ll be right outside.”

And with that, the door was shut.

A deep silence reigned. From far across the mansion, Ben could just barely make out the sounds of the party. Someone below was playing country tunes on a banjo and fiddle — fine music to Ben’s taste, and of course the Lincolns’ too, but he wondered what the well-bred Yankee aristocracy would think of such unrefined twanging.

Suddenly Ben realized where he was. He was standing in the White House. He was standing in some dark, dusty room, sure, and maybe that Pinkerton had just locked the door behind him, but he was here in the White House nevertheless.

There was just enough moonlight for Ben to make his way toward a small table in the corner, where sat a kerosene lamp and a box of matches. Once the light was aglow, he took in his surroundings. The walls of the room were lined with chairs, possibly for the many callers and office-seekers who visited the White House each day. Besides being the home and office of the president, the White House was open to the public. Certainly entry could be barred to some — like negroes, for instance — but most citizens had a right to lobby their president, or at least wait in a never-ending line to try.

Four doors led to four offices. Only one of them was open, so Ben picked up the kerosene lamp and decided to poke his nose into the next room. The Pinkerton down at the front entrance had something about seeing a Mr. Nicolay, so perhaps Ben would find him here.

Instead, he found another empty room.

Another kerosene lamp glowed in the far corner of the room, casting its green walls in amber light. A large portrait of Andrew Jackson towered over a cold fireplace flanked by twin bookshelves crammed with volumes. The room was dominated by a huge table surrounded by a dozen or more chairs, and heaped upon the table was a great mess of books and papers, maps and map cases, old letters and telegrams, forgotten teacups and inkpots, and, curiously enough, some scattered children’s toys. A smaller desk, tucked away at the far end of the room, was in a similar state of disarray. It was as if a whirlwind had swept through the place and no one had bothered to clean it up.

“Are you here to see the president?”

Ben almost yelped with fright. Reeling, he turned to the sound of the voice. Sitting quietly in the corner, his boyish face rounded by the glow of the lamp on the desk beside him, was a young man with a pencil and journal in his hands. Somehow, Ben hadn’t marked him when he first entered the room.

“I. . .” Ben faltered, his mind lost for words. “I don’t think the president is expecting me.”

The young man placed his pencil inside his sketchbook and closed it. “A strange place for you to be then. You’re standing in his office.”

Ben took another long look around the room before he faced the young man again. “. . .This is Lincoln’s office?”

“It is indeed.” The man stood up and walked over to Ben with an outstretched hand. “May I ask your name, sir?”

Ben felt an ache in the scar tissue of his right ear, the same one that had been mangled after Percy Claiborne and some other Mayfair boys had descended on him when he was walking home from the quarry alone. Growing up, Mama had often warned Ben to be distrustful of white folks who smiled and treated him in a friendly way. The Roscoes he could trust, but all others might be “wolves in sheepskin.” Too often, as in the case of Ben’s ear, Mama’s warnings were proven right.

But the man standing before Ben now didn’t seem like that sort of person. He was a few years younger than Ben, with boyish cheeks under a coif of blonde hair and the beginnings of a mustache on his upper lip — perhaps another example of emulation of the Young Napoleon. The man’s eyes were bright and intelligent, but Ben detected within them no watchful malice, no hidden cruelty biding its time.

He reached out and shook the young man’s hand. “My name is Benjamin Freeman.”

“John Hay,” the other man said with a smile. “I’m Mr. Lincoln’s secretary. One of his secretaries, at least.”

Ben brightened. “Mr. Hay, is it? I suppose you’re the man I’m to see about entry to the levee downstairs. Perhaps I misheard the guards when they told me your name.”

Hay laughed and shook his head. “That would be Mr. Nicolay they told you about. We’re sometimes confused, even by the president himself. But if you call here often enough, you’ll come to spot the differences between us.” Hay now hesitated as a question formed in his eyes. “If you don’t mind my asking you, Mr. Freeman. Are you. . .are you an abolitionist?”

The question took Ben by surprise. He realized only then that no one had ever asked him that question point blank before. “Yes,” he said at last. “Yes, I am an abolitionist.”

Hay nodded. “And do you know Mr. Douglass?”

Ben smiled. If he had been speaking to any other white man, the question would have likely referred to Stephen Douglas, the great Democratic politician. Ben had met the Little Giant briefly before his death last June. But instinctively, he understood that Hay was referring to the Mr. Douglass with an extra s.

“I don’t know Frederick Douglass personally,” was Ben’s reply. “He’s a personal hero of mine.”

“Mine as well,” Hay said, beaming. He brought up the journal in his hands and opened it. “I drew a picture of him when I saw him speak here in Washington last month. Here it is.”

Ben was astonished at how lifelike the pencil sketch was. The unmistakable figure of Frederick Douglass stood at a church pulpit, his dark beard rooting his jaw and powdery white hair wreathing his weathered face like a lion’s mane. Douglass had his head thrown back and his hand outstretched, as if rallying his audience to action.

“It’s not very good,” Hay said doubtfully. “The shading is, well. . .”

“It’s incredible,” Ben said. He offered the journal back. “You drew that from life?”

Hay nodded and flipped through more pages, which were filled with similar sketches. “I’m not much for crowds and parties,” he said. “I prefer to sit near the back where I can see everyone. And if I see someone especially interesting I draw them, or else I try.” Hay nodded at Ben. “I should think you’d make a fine sketch, Mr. Freeman.”

Ben laughed and shook his head. “A poor subject compared to the likes of Mr. Douglass.”

Without, the closed door of the waiting room burst open, followed by the rush of heavy footsteps. A deep voice, thick with a German accent, called out: “Hay? John Hay. John, I have just heard there is a negro running loose. John—?”

Suddenly there was a red-faced man in the doorway of the president’s office. He had a mop of thinning hair, a dark goatee, and a severe brow that framed a sharp nose and even sharper eyes. Upon seeing Ben, the man’s gaze flared and narrowed. “Wer ist das?” he muttered under his breath.

Hay seemed to know the man in the doorway as well as the answer to his question. “Mr. Nicolay, allow me to introduce Benjamin Freeman. Mr. Freeman, this is Mr. John Nicolay, the president’s chief secretary.”

Ben nodded to the German. “Mr. Nicolay.”

Nicolay’s expression was grim, taut. “You are the negro?”

Ben worked his jaw. “I suppose I am, sir. I was told to see you about possibly gaining entry to the president’s—”

“Impossible.”

Ben stopped short. “. . .I see. May I ask why?”

The question seemed to irritate Nicolay. “There are no negroes permitted except servants of the First Family. You are a servant?”

“No.”

“Then you are not permitted.”

Ben looked from Nicolay to John Hay. “My colleague downstairs has our letter of invitation. Perhaps—”

“Is he a negro?” Nicolay asked.

“No.”

The German sniffed. “Then he is permitted. You are not.”

John Hay cleared his throat. “Mr. Nicolay,” he said softly, “perhaps an exception could be made. Mr. Freeman says he has an invitation. If this colleague he mentions can vouch for him—”

“No exceptions,” Nicolay said. “It is policy. It is tradition.”

Ben considered telling the two secretaries that he was a journalist, but somehow he determined that would not help his case much. As it was, this Mr. Nicolay appeared adamant in his refusal.

With a shrug, Ben said, “Well. Then I suppose I should go.”

“Mr. Hay will see you out,” Nicolay said, passing a meaningful look toward his junior secretary. Then the German turned and quit the room, his shoes thudding along the floorboards. One of the doors adjoining the waiting room opened and slammed shut.

Ben and Hay stood in awkward silence for a long moment.

“You’ll have to forgive him,” Hay said. “Mr. Nicolay’s manner is decidedly. . .abrupt.”

“I can see that,” Ben said.

The young secretary led the way out of the offices and corridors toward the staircase. The Pinkerton guard was gone. Hay descended the steps with Ben following close behind. As the sounds and smells of the New Year’s party filled his senses again, a hot lump of disappointment lodged in Ben’s throat. He knew Washington was a segregated city, and he had always understood the chances of actually gaining entry to a party at the White House were slim to none. Still, part of him had held out hope. Part of him had been so excited at the prospect of walking the same halls as the president. To pass through the doors was perhaps the first step toward recognition, and then a conversation, even a moment where he might be called upon to make himself heard. And perhaps then. . .

In some distant room, perhaps the East Room where the president and the dignitaries were gathered, a great clamor went up as voices started to count:

“Eight. Seven. Six. . .”

Ben and John Hay stood on the main floor amidst a crowd of partygoers. Now everyone was aware of the counting. Idle conversations dangled as the chanting became louder and louder.

“Three. Two. One. . .HAPPY NEW YEAR!”

A great cheer sounded. Lovers kissed and associates shook hands and streamers burst like rockets. There was a smile on most every face — a scant few seconds when it seemed the whole world had surrendered to an innocent happiness. Through this merriment Ben passed, sliding between groups and couples and feeling so much like a creeping shadow. The players in the East Room struck up a yearning rendition of Auld Lang Syne. The music filled Ben’s ears and tears welled in his eyes, though he could not understand why.

Amid the celebrations, Ben found himself back in the vestibule, the cold night air sweeping in as the doors opened for more guests. The Pinkertons shot him silent glares as he passed. Just as he reached the door, John Hay stopped him with another offer of a handshake.

“It was very fine to meet you, Mr. Freeman,” Hay said. “Perhaps we’ll meet again.”

Ben took the man’s hand and shook. “Perhaps we will, Mr. Hay.”

“Happy New Year.” The young man’s smile was sad and heavy with sympathy.

Ben offered his best smile in return, though he knew how pitiful he must look. “You as well, Mr. Hay.”

And with that, Ben passed through the door and stepped out into the chilly night. The lineup of expectant partygoers had stretched even further around the corner of the White House. Ben ignored the many stares and glares directed his way and turned down the carriage path. He thought of JJ and Clarence still inside, and whether they might be looking for him. Perhaps he should have asked John Hay to pass a message to Clarence. But with a heavy sigh, Ben shook all these thoughts from his mind.

Tonight would not be the night after all. What was more, he might never get a chance like this again. The places of the Union’s government were shut to someone like him. He was in the wrong place, at the wrong time, and in the wrong skin. As he trudged back in the direction of 10th Street and home, Ben glanced one final time at the White House. There were so many silhouettes in the glowing, frost-framed windows that he could not tell the president apart from any others.

This rat’s nest of a town has a way of chewing people up, and the idealistic ones are the first to go.

As he mulled over JJ’s words, Ben turned up his collar and bowed his head against the biting winter wind.