1824: The Arkansas War

J ANUARY 14, 1825

He'd spent the time he could, after Uniontown, chewing on his thoughts. He couldn't do more than that, between the rigors of the winter journey and the need to care for his young son. Chester was a help, of course; even more, Andy's nursemaid Dinah and her teenaged daughter Sukey. But there was still plenty to keep Sam occupied.

In Louisville, though, they'd have at least a week's layover. It would be best to forgo overland travel and take a steamboat the rest of the way to Arkansas, since it would be much safer for Andy. The Ohio and the Mississippi were navigable in winter by a captain who knew his business, but the same captain would wait for the best possible weather, also.

Louisville was hospitable, fortunately. Sam hadn't been entirely sure it would be. Kentucky was a border state-and the same state that had produced Richard Mentor Johnson as a senator and Henry Clay as the Speaker of the House.

But, in the end, the state seemed to be swinging the same way as its newly elected governor, Joseph Desha, and the Relief Party for which he was a champion. Whatever private thoughts they might have about the issue of slavery, or the ins and outs of Arkansas Post, their overriding concern was the still deep distress of the state's poorer citizens since the Panic of 1819. Much of the nation might be coming to the conclusion that Henry Clay was a minion of Sam Hill, but Kentucky's Relief Party had come to the conclusion several years earlier that the principal lawyer for the Second Bank of the United States was no "minion" at all. At the very least, he was one of Sam Hill's chief demons. If not the creature himself, which some of the Relief Party's more vocal partisans thought quite likely.

Desha hadn't been sworn into office yet. But it hardly mattered, since the man he was replacing in the governor's office, John Adair, was also a leader of the Relief Party. Like Pennsylvania's former governor Hiester, he'd fought in the Revolution and, years later, had been in command of the Kentuckian forces under Andy Jackson in the New Orleans campaign.

The state capital of Frankfort being nearby, both men came up to visit Sam after learning of his arrival. Theirs was more in the way of a private visit to pay their respects than the sort of public spectacle staged by Hiester and Shulze in Uniontown. Kentucky was a slave state, after all. But they made no attempt to disguise their arrival, either, and the visit itself was most cordial.

Sam remembered Adair, of course, since both of them had fought the British at New Orleans.

Well, Sam had fought them, at any rate. Adair had never had to, beyond the clashes of the first days. The reason he'd never had to was that Sam-along with Patrick Driscol's Iron Battalion, made up almost entirely of black freedmen-had met the British regiments who launched the opening assault on the west bank of the Mississippi. Opening and only assault, because their defeat had been so crushing and complete that General Pakenham had wisely chosen to withdraw from the field at Chalmette rather than launch the assault Adair and his men had been braced for.

So, there was that, too. Now that his brain was starting to work naturally again, Sam was gauging the fact-quite significant, he thought-that most of the men in the United States with real command experience in combat did not share the blithe assumption of Clay and Calhoun that any war with Arkansas would be a trifle. The only outstanding exception that Sam knew about, in fact, was William Henry Harrison-and for that, there was the usual culprit to blame.

Ambition. It didn't matter what Harrison really thought. Like Clay himself, that would be subordinated to his personal goals. Which might make sense, looked at from a narrow and immediate perspective, but which, in the longer run, struck Sam as nothing less than a form of insanity.

"Nice to see you again, General," he said, exchanging a handshake with Adair. "Some whiskey?"

"And you as well, Colonel. Yes, please."

Chester had the drinks poured within seconds. Once the glasses were in everyone's hands, the serious dickering began. That was mostly with Desha, naturally. Adair was essentially there as a wise old man giving advice to his successor.

"-not like to see Kentuckians on the wrong side of the Iron Battalion's bayonets, Joseph; even more, their six-pounders-"

Being the gist of it. Wise old man, indeed.

By the time they left, Sam had the private agreement he wanted. There'd be no Kentucky militia forces sent against Arkansas in the event that man -they might as well have said "traitor" and be done with it-chose to start a war.

He was pleased. Granted, the Kentucky militia wasn't as good as Tennessee's. But it was probably the second best state militia in the country.

"You want the rest of your drink, Mr. Sam?" Chester asked after the two governors had gone. He held up the glass, which was still mostly full.

"No. Just pour it out. No, that'd be a silly waste. Finish it yourself, Chester."

"I don't drink, Mr. Sam. You know that."

A bit surprised-he'd been half lost in thought-Sam stared at him for a moment.

"Oh, that's right. Sorry, I forgot. Give it to Dinah, then."

"She don't-"

Sam threw up his hands. "I'm surrounded by temperance fanatics! Fine. Give it to the dog. Any dog you can find. Tarnation, it's good whiskey."

Chester looked dubious. Sam snorted.

"They're Kentucky dogs hereabouts, Chester. Of course they'll drink whiskey."

"Well. That's true."

After he was gone, Sam checked the time. It'd still be hours before Dinah and Sukey would want his help with little Andy.

Time enough to start. He went over to the writing desk in the hotel room-he'd made sure it had one, when he arrived-and took a seat. Then, settling down with paper and pen, he began working on his first letters to Andrew Jackson and John Quincy Adams.

He'd get his revenge for Maria Hester, sure enough. But it had also finally dawned on him that his father-in-law's advice, unheeded at the time, was undoubtedly correct. It was just as much a form of insanity for a man like himself to seek a different man's form of vengeance as it was for Henry Clay to think he could lead a nation into a war by posturing like Achilles.

Sam knew how to use a gun-cannons, too, and quite well-and would again if he needed to. But there were other weapons he'd learned how to use in the years since New Orleans. If the pen was not mightier than the sword on a battlefield, it was much the mightier weapon on other fronts.

A different man might be satisfied by inflicting as much harm as he possibly could on the likes of Henry Clay and John Calhoun. For which purpose, guns would do nicely.

What a trifling ambition.

Sam scrawled the date at the top of the sheet: January 14, 1825.

Ten years, almost to the day, since he and Patrick Driscol had won the Battle of the Mississippi. He'd been twenty-one years old, then. Now he was thirty-one, and already a widower.

Still, he was a young man. With most of a lifetime left to devote to the conscious and deadly purpose of utterly destroying Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, all other men like them, and everything they stood for.

He wasn't at all sure that he could, of course. But he was positive and certain he could give it a mighty run. Mighty enough that when the time came, in the afterlife, that he saw two trusting eyes again, he wouldn't have to look away with a husband's shame.

1824: TheArkansasWar