The River and the Horsemen by Robert Skimin

Author:Robert Skimin
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-933480-31-2
Publisher: Bunim & Bannigan

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The next evening in Washington, D. C., an event took place that would reach far into Dakota Territory, the lives of the Seventh Cavalry, and those of the Lakota nation. As the setting sun was turning the capital sky purple, Secretary of War William Worth Belknap was shown into President Grant’s study in the White House. Tears filled his eyes, and his usually eloquent speech faltered as the fleshy two-hundred pounder began his confession to the trusting man he faced. “Sir, as you know, it costs a lot of money to entertain at cabinet level in Washington . . .”

The trice-married Princeton lawyer turned Civil War general and cabinet officer told the president that it was his marriages that had, in fact, brought him to this sad point. His voice broke as a tear ran down his cheek. “As you know, my second wife was Carrie Tomlinson, a fine woman who died six years ago from consumption. Without my knowledge, Carrie had worked out a scheme whereby a New York friend, one Caleb Marsh, entered into a contract with the holder of the Fort Sill trading post in Indian territory.”

Belknap stopped and brushed his eyes with a handkerchief “The Indian trading posts are supposedly quite profitable for their operators.”

“Yes,” Grant murmured, “the Democrats and their press are busy pointing that out.”

“As I said,” Belknap went on, steadying himself, “I didn’t know about those arrangements. She just suggested to me that the holder of the contract, a John Evans, be permitted to continue in that capacity—which, of course, I agreed to. But I later learned that Carrie was to receive some six thousand dollars per year from Marsh, who was being paid by Evans. She received only one payment, because she passed away a month after our poor little boy was born. Her sister, Amanda, took the child to care for, and shortly after, Caleb Marsh came to her and told her that the payments would continue with the child as beneficiary. As you know, Mr. President, I was terribly shaken by Carrie’s death, and then a few months later our fine little son died. . . .”

Once more Belknap paused, blotting his eyes and collecting himself. “When Amanda went to Europe, the payments came to me. I don’t know what possessed me, sir, but as I said, it costs a lot of money to entertain in this town, and, well, you know I married Amanda in seventy-two.”

Grant knew very well. The beautiful and curvaceous Amanda, or “Puss” as her friends called her, had become an intimate of his wife, Julia. They shared several activities such as luncheons and charities. To make what he was hearing even more implausible, the Belknaps attended the same Bible class with the Bristows. Secretary of the Treasury Benjamin Bristow, as the self-appointed reformer of the conservative Republicans, considered himself the watchdog in the Cabinet. It sounded like a plot from the worst dime novel.

No, it was more like an Edgar Allan Poe story.

“And Amanda is an expensive woman.

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