How Few Remain by Harry Turtledove Read Free Book Online Page B

you as we hammered out the terms under which each side should withdraw from the territory of the other.”
    “Yes, I remember that,” Jackson said. “I never claimed to be any sort of diplomatist, and General Lee was not one to assign a man to a place in which he did not fit.” Jackson saw that as a small barb aimed at Longstreet, who was so slippery, he might have ended up a Black Republican had he lived in the United States rather than the Confederacy. Being slippery, though, Longstreet probably took it as a compliment. Jackson asked the next question: “What of it, sir?”
    “This of it: every last Yankee officer with whom I spoke swore up and down on a stack of Bibles as tall as he was that Lincoln never would have given up the fight if he’d only been fighting against us,” Longstreet said. “The man was a fanatic—still is a fanatic, going up and down in the USA like Satan in the book of Job, stirring up trouble wherever he travels. The only thing that convinced him the United States were licked—the
only
thing, General—was the intervention of England and France on our behalf. Absent that, he aimed to keep on no matter what we did.”
    “He would have done better had he had generals as convinced of the righteousness of his cause as he was himself,” Jackson remarked. “As well for us he did not.”
    “As well for us indeed.” Longstreet nodded his big, leonine head. “That, however, is not the point. The point is that the English and French, by virtue of the service they rendered us, and by virtue of the services they may render us in the future, have a strong and definite claim upon our attention.”
    “Wait.” Jackson had not lied when he said he was no diplomat; he needed a while to fathom matters that were immediately obvious to a man like Longstreet. But, as in his days of teaching optics, acoustics, and astronomy at the Virginia Military Institute, unrelenting study let him work out what he did not grasp at once. “You are saying, Your Excellency, are you not, that we are still beholden to our allies and must take their wishes into account in formulating our policy?”
    “Yes, I am saying that. I wish I weren’t, but I am,” Longstreet replied. Jackson started to say something; the president held up a hand to stop him. “Now you wait, sir, until you have answered this question: does the prospect of taking on the United States over the Mexican provinces alone and unaided have any great appeal to you?”
    “It could be done,” Jackson said at once.
    “I do not deny that for an instant, but it is not the question I put to you,” Longstreet said. “What I asked was, has the prospect any great appeal to you? Would you sooner we war against the USA by ourselves, or in the company of two leading European powers?”
    “The latter, certainly,” Jackson admitted. “The United States have always outweighed us. We have more men and far more factories now than I ever dreamt we should, but they continue tooutweigh us. If ever they found leaders and morale to match their resources, they would become a formidable foe.”
    “This is also my view of the situation.” Longstreet drummed his fingers on the desk in front of him. “And Blaine, like Lincoln, has no sense of moderation when it comes to our country. If he so chooses, as I think he may, he can whip them up into a frenzy against us in short order. This concerns me. What also concerns me is the price London and Paris have put on a renewal of their alliance with us. The necessity for weighing one of those concerns against the other is the reason I asked to see you here today.”
    “A price for continued friendship? What price could the British and French require for doing what is obviously in their interest anyhow?” By asking the question, he proved his want of diplomacy to Longstreet and, a moment later, to himself. “Oh,” he said. “They intend to try to lever us into abandoning our peculiar institution.”
    “There you have it,