Path: rQdQ!sn-xit-01!supernews.com!feeder.qis.net!europa.netcrusader.net!152.163.239.129!portc01.blue.aol.com!audrey04.news.aol.com!not-for-mail From: congyoglas@aol.comgentboss (President Chester A. Arthur) Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if Subject: Darling Julia: Pt. 1 NNTP-Posting-Host: ladder05.news.aol.com X-Admin: news@aol.com Date: 04 Nov 2000 04:37:55 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Message-ID: <20001103233755.03246.00000843@ng-md1.aol.com> Xref: rQdQ soc.history.what-if:273334 ((OOC: Yes, in many ways, it's an American Civil War TL. What of it? =D )) May 30, 1854 Camp Center Kansas Territory Lieutenant Ulysses and Julia Grant watched as their son Frederick tore around their small rooms, with the eager energy of any four-year old on his birthday, and smiled at each other. "He is so handsome," whispered Julia, "just like his father..." She settled comfortably into the chair her husband made for her last Christmas, enjoying comfortably domesticity for a moment. "No, he is beautiful like his mother," whispered Ulysses back, reaching over and taking her hand. "He is the greatest gift you have ever given me, darling." Ulysses was suddenly very, very glad he was where he was, here in Kansas. "And once my promotion comes through, and I'm a captain, I will be able to take care of you right." Julia hesitated for a moment, her Missouri accent thickening, and then said, "I'm not worried about the money, darling, it's the...I read the papers. I know what they're saying about the Kansas-Nebraska Act that President Pierce signed, all the people that will be pouring in here, the abolitionists and the fire-eaters...what if there's fighting? What if the Army has to stop them?" Grant smiled slightly, supportively, and put his arms around his wife, and murmured in her ear. "I did survive Mexico to come back and marry you, surely I can survive Kansas with you, however bad it gets...: ------- 1. In OTL, Ulysses Grant was assigned to the Pacific coast along with his regiment, the Fourth Infantry. Seperated from his wife by extreme distance, he began drinking, and eventually resigned from the Army. In this TL, the Fourth Infantry is assigned to man the forts of Kansas... Oh, and thanks to Kris Overstreet for the TL idea! =) President Chester A. Arthur, who likes fruit Path: rQdQ!sn-xit-03!supernews.com!europa.netcrusader.net!152.163.239.131!portc03.blue.aol.com!audrey04.news.aol.com!not-for-mail From: congyoglas@aol.comgentboss (President Chester A. Arthur) Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if Subject: Darling Julia Pt. 2 NNTP-Posting-Host: ladder07.news.aol.com X-Admin: news@aol.com Date: 05 Nov 2000 04:38:15 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Message-ID: <20001104233815.21611.00001493@ng-fi1.aol.com> Xref: rQdQ soc.history.what-if:273820 Late 1854-Early 1856 As tensions grew and grew in the Kansas Territory, Captain Ulysses S. Grant busied himself with military preparedness. In his spare time, he reads military history and tactics; Alexander, Wellington, Henry IV, Hardee, Caeser, and the rest. While on duty, Grant drills and drills his company. Though he is a hard commander, he is a fair one, his lieutenants work as hard as his privates. When Grant has moved past Hardee, he moves into his own realms. Grant's Company C goes on long marches through the countryside, practices volley-fire and independant firing from cover, and soon is probably the most professional company in the United States Army. A quartermaster during the Mexican War, Grant constantly reads reports on the new armaments of the US Army. In 1855, after frequent letters to the National Armory, he manages to arm his company with the newly-issued Model 1855 Percussion Rifles before virtually any other unit in the Army. Grant's company soon becomes the elite company of the Regiment, the one the higher-ranking officers show off to government or higher-level Army visitors. If the Indians seem restless, Company C goes out. If Free Staters or Missouri men need to see the might of the US Army...Company C goes out. In December of 1855, it is Grant's company who assists Governor Geary in preventing the Wakorum War from spreading into a territory-wide conflict. Surprisingly, Grant's is not one of the units sent to disperse and arrest the free-state Topeka Legislature, as Company C is on a peace-keeping mission in the far western reaches of the territory. Grant's unit actually spends most of late 1855 and early 1856 far out of the way, at the post of Ft. Atkinson. With his new second in command Henry Heth, Grant and his company police their small portion of the Sante Fe Trail. Grant actually paints several landscapes of the passing wagon trains in this time-frame. While highly competent, Grant would have remained a minor artist of the trail, without his later fame. In May of 1856, Grant is ordered back to Camp Center, now rebuilt as Ft. Riley. Quite happy to get back to some semblance of civilization, Grant sends Julia and Frederick by the state to Riley, choosing to march his company back overland. And so it is that early in May 21, 1856, Ulysses S. Grant's Company C is marching into Lawrence, Kansas... President Chester A. Arthur, who is the very model of a 19th century brigadier general Path: rQdQ!sn-xit-02!sn-xit-03!supernews.com!europa.netcrusader.net!152.163.239.129!portc01.blue.aol.com!audrey05.news.aol.com!not-for-mail From: congyoglas@aol.comgentboss (President Chester A. Arthur) Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if Subject: Darling Julia Pt. 3 NNTP-Posting-Host: ladder06.news.aol.com X-Admin: news@aol.com Date: 06 Nov 2000 18:51:18 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Message-ID: <20001106135118.29203.00000063@ng-cs1.aol.com> Xref: rQdQ soc.history.what-if:274580 Sometimes, history is made by accident. The simplest things can change everything. Such was the Battle of Lawrence (May 21-22, 1856), the defining moment of Bleeding Kansas. If U.S. Grant had deployed scouts, instead of his attempt at straight night marching, his company would have well avoided the six-hundred man posse encamped on Mount Oread, just outside of Lawrence. Grant was, of course, not looking for a fight, and neither were any of his men. If the posse, under the command of David Rice Atchinson, Deputy Sheriff Fain, and Sheriff Jones, had had any outriders at all, they would have encountered the leading elements of Grant's 103 men, and they would have had the sense not fire on US Army soldiers. While they _were_ looking for a fight, they weren't looking for one with the United States itself. They did, after all, have somewhat legal warrants to carry out the business they had planned. But no one did, and so no one was quite prepared when the leading squad of Grant's company stumbled on the perimeter guards of Fain's posse, in the pre-dawn hours of May 21, 1856. The picket, Mr. Bruce C. Ash of St. Louis, had been drinking most of the night, and had just awoken with a splitting headache when Sergeant James R. Campbell of New York City stumbled over him. Ash cried out, "Free Staters! Free Staters!" and shot Campbell in the chest. It was exactly 3 AM, according to the post-battle testimony of Henry Heth, who had checked his watch by a match. Just as they'd been trained, Campbell's squad returned fire, the massed fire of twelve rifled muskets killing every guard in the small guardhouse the posse had built. Now everyone knew what was happening, the cries and the gunshots had awakened the entire camp, and Grant's company was in quick motion. Thanks to better organization, Company C drew up faster than the "Law and Order" men could organize a counter-attack. No one quite knew what was happening, it was dark and everyone was tired. Grant's men thought they had run into a particularly organized band of cattle-rustlers who happened to be from Missouri, Fain's posse thought the Lawrence inhabitants had organized a pre-emptive strike. In the first 30 minutes of the battle, the two sides exchanged musket fire up and down the hill, with gradually more and more Law and Order men falling as the Army arrived in full force. By now five soldiers had fallen dead, eight more wounded, many by their own friendly fire. Nine Law and Order men were dead, and many more wounded, mostly by friendly fire. As the posse hastily reaimed their small artillery piece, Deputy Sheriff William Fain organized a counter-attack; and one hundred men, a full sixth of the posse, charged down into the teeth of the Army muskets...just as the by-now fully assembled company fired a volley upwards. By sheer mischance, a hail of bullets tore into Fain and two of his assistants, and the newly-disorganized attack was blunted beyond all hope of repair. The two groups fought hand to hand, with the Law and Order men barely noticing the Army uniforms, until they were finally driven back up the hill. By now Sheriff Jones was dead, shot through the chest by a panicky Missourian who mistook him for an attacking Free Stater. A reasonable portion of the men were simply fighting with each other, or chasing imaginary Free Staters on the other side of the hill. Command had fallen to former Senator David Rice Atchison, who was drunk. Not that it mattered, he gave a good speech, and he did successfully organize two more failed attacks against the Army position, all of them increasingly bloody. Their artillery fell out of the battle when one cannon fell from its carriage and crushed the wheels of another. As the dawn rose, twelve soldiers were dead, with another twenty wounded. The company was low on ammunition, and Captain Grant gave the order to pull back to Lawrence, this band of rustlers would need a regiment to stop them, or more. Up on the hill, Senator Atchison had approximately twice that many dead and wounded, a result of poor orginization and firepower, despite their numbers. Exhausted, Grant's men took refuge in the Free State Hotel, where Grant hastily organized a town militia to back up his seventy effectives...just in time for Atchison's four hundred men to smash into the town. Atchison testified later that he knew full well this was a US Army unit, but..."We thought the Army had turned against us, Pierce had listened to the devilish whisper of the Free Staters and the Abolitionsits. If they wanted a war, well, we'd give them one..." President Chester A. Arthur, who is the very model of a 19th century brigadier general Path: rQdQ!sn-xit-03!supernews.com!europa.netcrusader.net!152.163.239.131!portc03.blue.aol.com!audrey04.news.aol.com!not-for-mail From: congyoglas@aol.comgentboss (President Chester A. Arthur) Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if Subject: Darling Julia Pt. 4 NNTP-Posting-Host: ladder05.news.aol.com X-Admin: news@aol.com Date: 10 Nov 2000 20:06:34 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Message-ID: <20001110150634.12384.00001922@ng-md1.aol.com> Xref: rQdQ soc.history.what-if:276560 By noon of May 22, 1856, the Battle of Lawrence was over. Companies B and D of the Fourth Infanty had marched all day to get to Lawrence, and their massed musket fire had dispersed the three hundred or so surviving members of Atchison's posse. Of the 103 men of Company C, thirty-six are dead, killed in the bitter house to house fighting of the town. Another sixty are wounded, some severely, including First Lieutenant Henry Heth, who will eventually lose his wounded arm. Captain Ulysses S. Grant is the only uninjured officer. Companies B and D sustained four dead and twelve wounded. Of the six hundred or so men of the Law and Order posse, eighty-five are dead, many killed by the Army reinforcements, others by friendly fire in the wild melee on Mount Oread on the morning of May 21. Another hundred and ten are wounded, including former Senator David Rice Atchison, his left hand sliced off by an Army officer's saber when the newspaper building was stormed on the afternoon of the 21st. Many more are missing, having headed for the hills. Of the citizens of Lawrence, thirty-three are dead, and fifty wounded, mostly the young men who volunteered for the town militia. Of the men who Atchison's people had come to arrest, all but a few give themselves up immediately to Major Philip Matheson of the Fourth Infantry. They want there to be no question as to _their_ legality. As for Atchison and Grant...Matheson throws up his hands and arrests them both. Atchison for attacking the US Army, Grant for interfering with a law enforcement officer in the application of his duty. Both head for Washington, and trial... President Chester A. Arthur, who is the very model of a 19th century brigadier general Path: rQdQ!sn-xit-03!supernews.com!europa.netcrusader.net!152.163.239.129!portc01.blue.aol.com!audrey05.news.aol.com!not-for-mail From: congyoglas@aol.comgentboss (President Chester A. Arthur) Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if Subject: Darling Julia Pt. Five NNTP-Posting-Host: ladder06.news.aol.com X-Admin: news@aol.com Date: 10 Nov 2000 20:36:46 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Message-ID: <20001110153646.10894.00001838@ng-md1.aol.com> Xref: rQdQ soc.history.what-if:276574 Word of Lawrence sweeps across the Kansas Territory like a brushfire, burning away the old and bringing in the new. Pro-slavery mobs attack soldiers all over the territory, raiding Army posts, vowing to "strike first, while we have hands to strike." Atchison is a cult hero now, and his military escort back to St. Louis (Matheson rescinded his orders when he really realized the distance involved) is increased in size to two and a half companies after several attempts to free him. Despite the pro-slavery sentiments of many of the Army officers, they cannot allow themselves or their men to be attacked, and for a week, at least, the US Army blasts the slavers to smithereens. By the time new orders have arrived from President Pierce, ordering the Army to keep defensive ground only, and the Law and Order men have calmed down, hundreds are dead across the Territory. Many flee north, into Nebraska, and south, into the Indian Territory, only to be chased out again, mostly dead. As for U.S. Grant, he manages to make it to St. Louis safely on June 2, where he finally, joyfully, is reunited with his wife and son. The commander of his escort, First Lieutenant Philip Sheridan, simply marches around every town en route, camping near rivers and in remote hills. Grant's court-martial is to begin in July, while Atchison's civilian trial is to begin in the middle of that same month. President Chester A. Arthur, who is the very model of a 19th century brigadier general Subject: Darling Julia Pt. 6 Date: 22 Jan 2001 18:22:20 GMT From: congyoglas@aol.comgentboss (President Chester A. Arthur) Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if Darling Julia Pt. 6 June-July 1856 St. Louis, Missouri Captain Ulysses S. Grant sat on the small bed he shared with his wife and watched the sentries pace nearby. From the inside, the officer's quarters he, Julia, and Frederick lived in seemed the duplicate of the kind they'd lived in before his promotion to Captain. (And in fact, they were a recently-vacanted Lieutenant's quarters.) From the outside, of course, one could see the heavy locks on the doors and the platoon of infantry guarding it. It was so hard on his son, he knew, to be kept in almost a cage, shunned by the local children for what his father had done. "Still, house arrest is more than fair," he said aloud after some thought, "Atchison has the same in his hotel, after all. Of course, he doesn't have half so many guarding him, there've been no threats on his life..." Julia stirred next to him, and he was torn from his thoughts to lightly stroke her hair, and whisper soft, soothing words. After a moment, she drifted back into deeper sleep. This was hard on her, too, she came from a Southern family. Half her sisters-in-law were already calling him an abolitionist; one, he knew, had even whispered of divorce. "I'm _not_ an abolitionist," he said quietly, tightly, "I'm not..." Slavery was a bad idea, yes, and he'd freed the slaves he'd gotten from his marriage with Julia as soon as he could. But to free them all, by fiat? Never. He'd always voted Democrat and always would, and had no intention of voting for that stuffed shirt Fremont the Republicans had nominated two weeks earlier. "Not that I'm entirely comfortable with the Democrats this election," he whispered wryly. He'd heard rumors of what had happened at the Democratic convention; Douglas' supporters being nearly driven from the hall three times by roaming Southerners calling them "crypto-Abos! Crypto-Abos! Remember Atchison!"; the Senator from Kentucky rejected soudly as Vice-President because he was too soft on the "nigger lovers"...Plus, Quitman, a war hero, would help sooth soldiers and their families who were in arms about the "massacre of our boys in blue." Not that there were any viable other parties; not since the Know-Nothings had flown apart, one half nominating a pro-Southerner and another a pro-Northern candidate...after a long time, Grant decided that politics was not for him, not now, not ever. He'd turned down Wendell Phillips' offer to find him an attorney, just as he'd turned down the quiet suggestion by the Pierce administration that he plead guilty and accept a short stay in prison...after all, it wasn't as if he could trust either Philipps or Pierce. "I am a soldier," he whispered softly, "and I am innocent..." His trial began the week later. Chester A. Arthur, not a fan of Babylon 5, Becoming 2, or Citizen Kane Subject: Darling Julia Pt. 7 Date: 23 Jan 2001 21:23:17 GMT From: congyoglas@aol.comgentboss (President Chester A. Arthur) Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if July-August 1856 St. Louis, Missouri Ulysses Grant watched as Culver, his attorney slowly demolish a "Law and Order" man named Stephen Jackson. He enjoyed the sight, a lot, though he knew it wasn't at all right to derive pleasure from another man's pain. It wasn't so much satisfaction at hearing Jackson admit that he'd heard no warning shots given by their pickets before the arrival of Grant's troops; it was watching George Culver work. Sometimes he'd batter prosecution witnesses with facts until they broke, sometimes he'd pry them loose from their lies and compel their surrender. Grant liked that style, a lot. But not Culver himself; the New York lawyer had far too much of the big city about him. Grant preferred Culver's co-counsel, a young man from his firm in New York. While the bewhiskered bachelor also liked the city life, he was a small-town boy from Vermont as Grant was from Ohio. They were quite the contrast, though, the nattily dressed lawyer of twenty-seven and the questionably dressed soldier almost a decade his senior. At that thought, Grant glanced over at his escort, a young lieutenant of the cavalry. Bold, dashing, looking like a hero from a romantic ballad, Grant knew full well that Lieutenant Stuart's sympathies were fully with the prosecution, but also that the young man would do his duty, if ever some madman decided to act on one of the many, many threats Grant had recieved since the whole sordid affair began. He'd taken to just burning unfamiliar mail; he could see the way it hurt Julia to see her home reject her and her family, especially now that she was pregnant again. Of course, thought Grant ruefully as Jackson left the witness box, it was bound to get far more stressful for all of them in the next few days. On break from his trial was coming the star witness for the prosecution: David Rice Atchison, come to tell the world of the abolitionist army... --------------- And, of course, double-plus-good bonuses to anyone who can figure out the name of Grant's junior defense attorney. =) Chester A. Arthur, not a fan of Babylon 5, Becoming 2, or Citizen Kane Subject: Darling Julia Pt. 8 Date: 25 Jan 2001 03:46:31 GMT From: congyoglas@aol.comgentboss (President Chester A. Arthur) Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if Darling Julia Pt. 8 August-September 1856 St. Louis Ulysses Grant could hear distantly the chant of "Eighty-five! Eighty-five!" coming from the mob of at least that number outside the fort's gates. Culver had managed to keep Atchison down, to force the former Senator to admit he'd fired knowingly on the United States Army. That had helped in the courtroom a great deal; even old General Twiggs, who Grant had judged to be the most hostile to his case, had scowled blackly at Atchison and muttered something that had looked like "Treason!" Then, of course, Atchison had proudly walked out of the courtmartial chambers and announced to the pro-conviction crowd how he'd stood up for "not just the right of states and territories to choose how they shall be governed, but for the right of every American to live his life without fear of the chains and bullets of an abolitionist government!" The mobs had been roaming the streets of St. Louis ever since, singing "We'll Hang Sam Grant From A Sour-Apple Tree!" and other such ditties. As Grant held his wife's hand at prayer over supper, Chet Arthur and George Culver to one side of the table and the reluctant Lieutenant Stuart alone on the other, he wondered what songs were being sung outside of David Rice Atchison's window, and how well his wife slept at night. She was only four months along in her expectancy, but both, in private, made graveyard jokes about "the confinement" beginning early. After all, ever since St. Louis had exploded into the riots, neither had been able to leave the confines of the fort without at least a company to guard them. They were only getting a meal that wasn't Army rations today because Culver had bought the turkey out of his own pocket. Just as Grant picked up the slightly tarnished silver (the only set his family owned), there was a knock at the door. He shot a glance at Lieutenant Stuart, as they hadn't been expecting company, and the young Virginian idly laid his hand on his saber and called out, "Password?" Instead of "Monroe", the assembled group in the cabin heard, "I don't know it, sir, but Corporal O'Neill, he's hurt real bad, I don't-" Stuart sighed as the family relaxed, and rose from the table, walking to the house door. "Just call for Lieutenant Winthrop, he'll get the guard out-" the cavalryman interrupted. An instant later, the door exploded inward. J.E.B Stuart had been near to the door, so near that he stopped it with his face when it burst open. The delay as it bounced off him and he staggered back with a broken nose gave Ulysses time to grab Julia and pull her under the table, where they were joined a moment later by the figure of Chet Arthur. He had no pistol, of course, so he clutched the long carving knife in his hand, determined to protect his family as he heard the sounds of a struggle, a shot, an abortive scream, and then a loud thunk, as of metal into bone. The trio stayed down there for an agonizing moment, shooting horrified looks at each other, wondering who was next, Grant and Julia glad indeed that Frederick was asleep upstairs, out of danger, as booted footfalls grew closer, and closer. They were so keyed up, in fact, that Grant came within an instant of leaping upwards and gutting Lieutenant Stuart like a fish before the other man called out painfully, "Captain, Miz Grant, Mr...Arthur..." a brief flash of contempt for the lawyer before saying, "The assasin is...no more," in deference to the presence of an embarrasado lady, "but his bullet struck home in Mr. Culver." ----------------- 'Nother challenge-Who's the failed assasin? Drifter from Ohio; pro-slavery in OTL. Given to violence. And it's not Ruffin. Chester A. Arthur, not a fan of Babylon 5, Becoming 2, or Citizen Kane Subject: Darling Julia Pt. 9 Date: 25 Jan 2001 22:47:54 GMT From: congyoglas@aol.comgentboss (President Chester A. Arthur) Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if Darling Julia Pt. 9 September-October 1856 St. Louis Ulysses S. Grant watched from the dock as the prosecuting attorney began closing his remarks, unable to restrain a hint of nervousness from blooming forth inside him. The Virginia colonel had been very skilled indeed, booming about the abuse of the uniform to fire upon a United States Senator and territorial lawmen arresting wanted agitators, and how he would have arrested Grant for treason if he could. Grant retained faith in the honesty and integrity of the judges, but the colonel's speech had been so skillfully given that even he had wondered briefly at his guilt...and then dismissed it. No, no, whatever momentary doubts he might have; he had done everything right, he had defended his men and the town of Lawerence. He would do the exact same thing again..."I wish I could see Julia from here, though." he whispered sotto voice. The wooden prisoner's dock was up far too high for him to see her during his trial. The Colonel sat down, and Grant's own lawyer rose to take his case. "I have recieved many letters from all the great minds of our nation," said Chester Arthur, boldy facing the assembled panel of one general, a colonel, and a major. "telling me how to prosecute the defense of Captain Grant since the cowardly assasination of my superior Mr. Culver." The young advocate raised one and made to read it: "Say Atchison's warrant was false, that Kansas is a free state!" He raised another. "Say Grant fought for the freedom of free white labor!" And another. "And finally, say he fought for the freedom of the Negro." Arthur crumpled the completely blank pieces of paper and dropped them in a wastebin by his side of the lawyer's table. (They'd gotten no such telegrams, of course.) Grant, like the rest of the audience, watched Arthur intently, the twenty-six year old lawyer had managed to prosecute the case well enough since the death of his superior; he'd heard at least one cry of "Hang Atchison!" during the testimony of Henry Heth. "General, Colonel, Major...this case is not about the freedom of Kansas. This case is not about free white labor, or the emancipation of the Negro. This case is whether or not the United States Army is the Army of the Mexican Republic." As the crowd gave a gasp and General Twiggs banged his gavel angrily, Arthur spoke louder; "Is the United States Army a neutral enforcer of the laws, or is it a politician's plaything? Shall it show favor to one group for its politics and shun another? Shall it stand helplessly by as it is _deliberately_ attacked because its foe has political clout in the capital? Never! This is the land of George Washington, not Agustin Iturbide, of Sam Houston, not Santa Anna..." - Washington, D.C. Three weeks later. Chief Jusice Roger Taney of the United States Supreme Court pulled aside the black curtains of his stagecoach long enough to take in the lynched effigy of a US Army officer before closing them with a shudder. He turned to his fellow Justice; Nelson, the last on his list to speak to. "I am surprised McLean and Curtis went along with the plan," said the younger man dryly, "I imagined they would have taken the oppurtunity to persuade more of us to their side." "No," said the old man, "they had the sense to see their candidate may gain from it." Taney, who had been a Democrat since there had been such a party, shuddered at the political gains the Republicans might make from the decision he'd come to since the Grant verdict; since most of the Mississippi Valley, and even here in Washington, had exploded into rioting. "But it can't be helped," he said to Nelson after explaining his decision. "I will not see my United States fall into anarchy because the abolitionists whip disreputable elements in the South into a frenzy over slavery; not over that elderly catamite who calls himself a candidate!" Taney's shout sent him into a burst of coughing for a moment, and his colleague gripped his arm and offered him water. The old Justice emptied the flask before continiuing. "Releasing the decision would cool the fires, let the fools who talk of secession realize their own madness, or at least let their followers realize the same. I have the consent of the other seven Justices to announce the verdict before the election...have I yours?" -------- Comments? Arthur's speech sound 19th century? Taney's decision plausible? Chester A. Arthur, not a fan of Babylon 5, Becoming 2, or Citizen Kane Subject: Darling Julia Pt. 10 Date: 27 Jan 2001 03:36:27 GMT From: congyoglas@aol.comgentboss (President Chester A. Arthur) Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if Darling Julia Pt. 10 October-November 1856 Fort Abercrombie, Dakotas "It's not a bad place, compared to where we were before." said Julia Grant, as she and her husband walked about the small officer's quarters, shutting the window against the chill of the prairie night. "At least here we know Frederick may go to the school without fear of being beaten, and there are no mobs calling for our heads in the streets every night..." "They're calling for more heads than ours now, especially since Senator Atchison was acquitted and they had to find new targets," said Grant wryly as they locked the doors, front and back. "Justice Taney, Fremont, Mr. Buchanan...one can hardly be a man of politics today without having been burned in effigy, whether a Democrat in Boston or a Republican in Charleston..." He took her hand as they walked up the stairs together, admiring a form that still entranced him, even after nearly ten years of marriage. "Perhaps Mr. Buchanan will be able to calm things down; his majority was strong." Julia, keen to her husband's behavior, laughed and fluttered her eyelashes teasingly at him, letting her accent thicken. "Why, Captain Grant, I do believe your eyes are not on politics at all, but are instead upon the form of your wife!" She laid an affectionate hand on his arm, and they laughed together. - A while later, the couple lay together, thinking about all that had happened to them in the past few months. "Pierce made good what he said." Ulysses whispered after a moment. "He said he would make sure we were in a place where we'd never see an abolitionist, a slaver, a Negro, or much of anyone, ever again. And here we are..." Julia laid her hand on his. "Here we are, yes.", she said, with conviction. "We're together as a family, we four, you, myself, Frederick, and the baby to come. And whatever happens, we shall be together." ------- Comments? Subject: Darling Julia Pt. 11 Date: 30 Jan 2001 04:03:08 GMT From: congyoglas@aol.comgentboss (President Chester A. Arthur) Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if Darling Julia Pt. 11 Late 1856-mid 1858 Time passed slowly in the Dakotas. The sun rose, the sun set, pioneer wagon trains passed by on the long road to Oregon and the "Great American Desert." For Sam Grant and his family, it was an empty, rather unpleasant time. While the birth of his daughter Elizabeth on February 4, 1857 cheered him greatly (his own letters to his parents and the letters home of men at the fort speak of a happy man who strode about the fort with an infant in his arms, showing her all the marvels of the dusky fortification), it was the only highlight. The Battle of Lawerence had convinced Grant of two things; rifles must be rapid fire, perhaps repeating, and fortications were the key to battle. After all, only his company's possesion of modern rifles and their digging into the fortified buildings of the town had let them stave off the much larger opposing force. Grant wrote dozens of letters Colonel Ripley, to the head of the Armaments Board, Secretary of War Breckenridge, and even President Buchanan, but all to no avail. Grant's thoughts were, after all, not at all in synch with American military doctrine of single-shot fire being the best to preserve ammunition and make bullets more accurate, or attack above fortification...after all, attack had worked wonders in Mexico! Coupled with Grant's notorious status in the War Department after the Lawerence incident, his letters were as a mole digging at a mountain. His men got the same rifles as everyone else, they got the same allowances for fortifications as everyone else. Also, his career was dead. His letters requesting transfer weren't ignored, they simply went unanswered. While men like Winfield Scott, the commander of the US Army, were sympathetic to his cause, the rest of the main officers of the Southern-dominated army were not, and so he languished in Dakota, month after month, drilling and redrilling his men, sending them in experimental battles in the rough country, finding what worked and didn't, the bottle, despite the presence of his family, an ever-growing temptation. Then, in the hot summer of 1858, a funny thing happened. The Vice-President died, 59 years old, a veteran of the Mexican War, of an ailment picked up at President Buchanan's inauguration... ------ Chester A. Arthur, not a fan of Babylon 5, Becoming 2, or Citizen Kane Subject: Darling Julia Pt. 12 Date: 01 Feb 2001 00:26:57 GMT From: congyoglas@aol.comgentboss (President Chester A. Arthur) Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if Darling Julia Pt. 12 August 1858-September 1858 Harper's Ferry, Virginia It was a dark and stormy night. All Grant could see out the window of the large guardhouse was a beagle, snooping around the latrines outside the arsenal. "The abolitionist conspirators must be frightened off by our bold American soldiers." he commented to J.E.B. Stuart, dryly parroting Nathan B. Forrest, the front-runner for the Tennessee Senate. "More likely the rain," said Stuart archly, "if there were any to begin with. Never did trust a spy, more likely they're just stirrin' up trouble for us, or even coming in somewhere else..." Grant chuckled and sat at the small table in the center of the room, where Stuart followed him. They weren't neglecting their duties; there was a section of infantry and one of cavalry at all the firing positions, as there were in all the new guardhouses hastily thrown up around the arsenal in the past few months. The two men sat in content silence for a moment before Grant asked, "Do you believe there wasn't a plot, then, really?" He himself was sure there wasn't; while he trusted abolitionists not much more than he trusted the average Southern slave-owner, but in his experience, their particular brand of mischeif involved agitation and pamphleteering, as opposed to the Southerners, who were more inclined to just shoot you than call you an instrument of the Devil. "I believe," said Stuart, after a moment's thought, "that we cannot trust the word of a traitor. If the man who passed on intelligence about this raid was a liar, then he was a traitor to his country and race for stirring up such trouble. If he was sincere, well, then, he was a traitor to his own cause, however benighted, a traitor to the men who he gave his trust! And I despise all traitors!" Grant nodded in agreement. "You are perhaps the most loyal man I know...will Colonel Lee be returning soon?" The theoretical commander of the Harpers Ferry arsenal and the man who Stuart served as aide-de-camp had been gone most of the day, scouting positions. Stuart never did get a chance to reply. Chester A. Arthur, not a fan of Babylon 5, Becoming 2, or Citizen Kane, and who likes Dogget better than Mulder. Subject: Darling Julia Pt. 13 Date: 02 Feb 2001 00:42:17 GMT From: congyoglas@aol.comgentboss (President Chester A. Arthur) Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if Darling Julia Pt. 13 March, 1859 Sam Grant hated fancy-dress balls. Not that he got invited to many, of course, being a minor functionary in the War Department ensured that; but he had a right to loathe them anyway. His military idol, the late Zachary Taylor, had had a horror of fancy uniforms, thinking them a hallmark of a fool, often appearing in a rumpled private's uniform while commanding half the American armies in Mexico; and Grant was convinced the old general was right. Dressing in spit and polish, dressed to the nines, felt so wrong... "You, on the other hand, are marvelous in fancy clothes," he said with a smile at Julia as they spun around the dance floor together, after explaining what he'd been thinking. Julia was marvelous; he hadn't seen her happier since they'd been assigned to Kansas. Frederick was happily ensconced in the local schools, Elizabeth was a darling angel, and Julia was back in a Southern town again. "You sound just like Chet," she said with a laugh. "Good man that he is, he'd flatter a tree if it suited his fancy..." Their friend's gentlemanly wit and flirtatiousness had been dimmed neither by his marriage to Miss Ellen Herndon in December, or by his election to the New York state legislature in November. "So, Sam, tell me, of all these Congressmen and Senators about us, do any of them ever visit the department?" Grant looked around the room for a moment before answering. "Halleck, the one from California, often stops by to talk to General Sumner, or did before he went out to Texas...I hear Lee's his deputy out there." He looked again, past the junior Senator from Illinois, who looked to be dancing in the worst way. "And Forrest," he said rather neutrally of the new Senator from Tennessee, the man who had called for his execution while a private citizen in Memphis... Chester A. Arthur, not a fan of Babylon 5, Becoming 2, or Citizen Kane, and who likes Dogget better than Mulder. Subject: Darling Julia, Finis Date: 06 Mar 2001 04:49:12 GMT From: congyoglas@aol.comgentboss (President Chester A. Arthur) Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if May 1, 1864 Petersburg, Virginia "They've broken through, by God, they've broken through," cried the young staff officer as he crashed into the field headquarters of the VI Corps, Army of the Potomac, and all but threw himself at the feet of Major General Ulysses S. Grant. "General Ellsworth reports that Shaw's brigade has captured the standards of a dozen regiments in the Crater, and that Josh Chamberlain's wedged his boys between Gordon and Polk and won't be budged for love or money!" The corps commander moved quickly, grabbing a staff rider by the sleeve. "Ride to General Lyon," Grant said shortly, "and tell him to send in his division now, with everything he's got! Early will be off balance with Hardee's corps cut in half, now's the time to hit them!" He sent another. "And tell...oh, hell, I'm scared to tell General Sickles," he said, referring to the commander of the Army of the Potomac, "but tell him to hit the Rebs hard, all up and down the line, send in everything! By God, Pleasants will win the Medal of Honor for this..." As he went about the business of ordering his Corps forward into the hole blasted into the Confederate trenches, with nothing between them and Richmond but some fleeing graybacks, he wondered idly if this would do it, if this would finally end the war that had killed so many of his countrymen on both sides. George Thomas had taken Charleston the month before, and Bill Sherman had broken John Hood outside Houston the day before, securing the whole Trans-Mississippi. It had been a long war, too, the firing on Ft. Pickens in '61, the bloody battles outside Washington when Ambrose Burnside broke at Manassas, the slow campaign to push the Rebels back, the crushing of Bragg outside of Vicksburg by Thomas in July of '62, countered by the bloody stalemate of Chambersburg a month later...and then the tide had begun to turn in earnest, Reynolds stopped Lee cold in the Wilderness while Thomas slowly hammered Cleburne back into the sea, culminating in the decisive victory outside of Atlanta on July 3, 1863, the same day as Gettysburg. He remembered Gettysburg well, he thought, as he mounted his dusky brown horse, the same color as Virgina fields, and began leading his whole corps forward against the Confederates, aiming right for the smoking hole in the center of Hardee's corps. It had been like this, right at the the end, when he'd led his division slam on into the hole in Jackson's lines, he'd seen Jackson himself fall, run right into the guns of the First Minnesota when they'd charged his headquarters...but all that was over. The war was coming to an end. Home beckoned. President Chester A. Arthur, who's always invading the UK...