1824: The Arkansas War

S EPTEMBER 15, 1824

"I'd really feel a lot better about this if I were going along, Julia," said Richard Johnson. The Kentucky senator's face looked more homely than ever. Downright woebegone, in fact.

"Oh, stop frettin', dear. You can't possibly leave now, with the political situation the way it is." Julia Chinn nodded toward the small cavalry escort waiting patiently near the wagon. "They'll handle any little problem that might come up."

Johnson looked at the cavalrymen, trying to find some comfort in the sight.

Trying:and even succeeding to a considerable degree. Not so much from the sight of a dozen cavalrymen as from their commanding officer. Houston had promised a real military escort if Julia decided to take the girls to Arkansas for their schooling, and he hadn't failed on that promise.

Recognizing inevitability-Julia had remained adamant on the subject for months, never budging at all-Johnson stepped over to the side of the officer's horse and looked up at it.

"Got to say I'm downright astonished to see you here, Zack. Don't usually see a lieutenant colonel in charge of something like this."

Zachary Taylor looked down at him, smiling. A bit to Johnson's relief, the lieutenant colonel's heavy, rough-featured face seemed quite good humored.

"Hell, Dick, why not? Sam asked me to find somebody reliable when I ran into him in Wheeling. I was on my way back to my post in Baton Rouge, in any event. I figured I was more reliable than anybody I could find on short notice, and it really isn't that far out of my way. Besides, I owe you a favor."

In point of fact, coming through western Virginia and northern Kentucky to provide an escort for Julia and the children, instead of just taking a barge down the Ohio, had been considerably out of Taylor's way. But the man was an experienced Indian fighter, so terrain was no great challenge for him.

True, he did owe Johnson a favor, but it hadn't been much, really. Just the sort of minor intervention that a senator often made on behalf of a well-respected and capable military officer. And:

They liked each other. Taylor and Johnson had never been what you could call good friends, but that was probably just because they'd never been able to spend much time together. On those occasions when they had, they'd gotten along quite well.

They had a lot in common. Both were veterans, even though Johnson's soldiering days were over, and both came from wealthy Kentucky families-of Virginian origin, in Taylor's case, now with large plantations over near Louisville. What was more important was that while they didn't see eye to eye on some political issues, Taylor seemed to share Johnson's attitudes on slavery. An economic necessity for the nation, to be sure, but nothing to brag about and much to cause uneasiness. Certainly nothing to proclaim, as Calhoun would, as a "positive good."

Taylor was one of the few members of the slave-owning gentry in Kentucky who'd never seemed to care about Johnson's relationship to Julia. At least, the one time he'd visited Blue Spring Farm, he hadn't blinked an eye at the sight of a black woman presiding over the dinner table. Indeed, he'd been quite gracious to her and the children throughout the visit.

"Take good care of them, Zack," Johnson said quietly, in a half-pleading tone.

"Now, don't you worry yourself none, Dick. I'll see them all the way to the Confederacy myself." To Johnson's relief, Taylor voiced aloud the senator's underlying concern. "If you're worrying some slave-catchers might try to claim they was runaways, I'll set 'em straight right quick."

For a moment, Taylor's thick hand shifted to the sword at his belt. "Right quick," he repeated, almost growling the words. "And God damn John Calhoun, anyway."

There was that, too. Richard Johnson was also famous as the senator who'd fight-at the drop of a hat-any attempt to foist anything that even vaguely resembled an established church on the great American republic. In his pantheon of political virtues, separation of church and state ranked right alongside states' rights and putting an end to debt imprisonment.

Public opinion and custom be damned. Richard Mentor Johnson trusted blasphemers a lot more than he did those pious folk who could always find an excuse in the Bible to do whatever they pleased.

"That's fine, then," he said.

Julia's voice rose up from behind him. "You settle down, Imogene! You too, Adaline! Or I'll smack you both! See if I don't!"

Taylor grinned. "Besides, I won't have to worry none about keeping wayward girls in line. Way more fearsome foes than some sorry slave-catchers."

New Orleans, Louisiana