New York_ The Novel - Edward Rutherfurd [227]
It was Mayor Fernando Wood, however, who issued New York’s most striking threat. If Lincoln wanted war with the South, and the ruination of the city, then New York should consider another option.
“We should secede from the Union ourselves,” he announced.
“New York City leave the United States? Is he mad?” cried Hetty.
“Not entirely,” said Frank.
A free city; a duty-free port: the idea wasn’t new. Great European cities like Hamburg and Frankfurt had operated like independent states since the Middle Ages. The merchants of New York spent several weeks considering its feasibility, and it was actually the Confederacy in the South which had brought discussions to an end, with the move they made in March: the Southern ports would drop their customs duties.
“They’ll cut us out,” Frank announced grimly to his family, “and trade with Britain direct.”
There was nothing you could do after that. Reluctantly, New York City fell into line behind Lincoln. The next month, when Confederates fired upon Fort Sumter, the Civil War had officially begun. Either the South’s insurrection must be put down, argued Lincoln, or the Union of states built by the Founding Fathers would be lost. The Union must be preserved.
Since good manners can preserve a marriage, and he still felt affection for her, Frank Master did his best to be polite, and tried to avoid saying things that would upset his wife. For Hetty, however, the issue was more difficult. She loved Frank, but what does a woman do when her husband looks every day at a great evil and, for all his politeness, doesn’t seem to give a damn? Nor did it help that, when the war began, it proved that he had been right about the South seceding, and he could not help saying, “I told you so.” By the time the Civil War was in its first year, though their personal union endured, Frank and Hetty no longer looked at maps together or discussed the future. And in the evenings, where once they had often liked to sit on a sofa side by side, they would quietly take an armchair each, and read. Manners covered, but could not put out, the slow fire of their anger.
And sometimes, even manners failed.
Today, by throwing their son and the draft in her face, he’d deliberately annoyed her.
“You hate this war because you think only of profit,” Hetty said coldly.
“Actually,” he countered calmly, “this war has made me richer.”
He and many others. Partly it was luck. For after a few terrible months in 1861, when trade with the South had collapsed, fate had handed New York an unexpected bonus. The British grain harvest had failed—just as the Midwest had enjoyed a bumper crop. Massive quantities of wheat had flowed through the city, bound for England. The Hudson railroad and the dear old Erie Canal had proved their value a hundred times over. The city’s grain trade had been booming ever since, along with cattle, sugar and Pennsylvania oil for kerosene.
But, chiefly, Frank Master had discovered what his ancestors from the previous century could have told him: war was good for business. The army’s needs were huge. The city’s ironworks were at capacity, fitting warships and ironclads; Brooks Brothers were turning out uniforms by the thousand. And beyond that, wartime governments needed stupendous funds. Wall Street was making a fortune floating government bonds. Even the stock market was booming.
Hetty ignored his remark, and went on the attack again.
“Your slave-owning friends are going to lose.”
Was she right? Probably. Even after the wavering states like Virginia had thrown