American Bonaparte

By Mike Manolakes

Frustrated by Abraham Lincoln's reluctance to approve his battle strategy in the American Civil War, General George B. McClellan takes the extraordinary step of marching his army into the nation's capital and placing the President of the United States under arrest. The U.S. Constitution is suspended and Congress is sent home.

Now, ten years later, the United States are still under military rule. Despite a cease fire that has stopped the fighting between the Northern and Southern states, McClellan remains in power, and his government continues to hunt and arrest those who oppose the general's autocratic regime. Spies of the National Intelligence Service are everywhere, seeking out those who wish to restore the old democracy, and the countryside is under the thumb of a mounted military police force called the United States Gendarmerie.

Sylvanus Cadwallader, correspondent for the Chicago Times, is on a personal mission. His brother-in-law, also a newspaper reporter, has disappeared without a trace, and Cadwallader suspects that he may have become a political prisoner of the commanding general's government. His hunt for the truth behind his brother-in-law's disappearance leads him into a web of secrets, intrigue, and danger. Accompanying him on his perilous quest are a disgraced former Union general named Ulysses S. Grant and a writer of unusual stories named Ambrose Bierce. Together they hope to learn the truth behind the man who has set himself up as the American Bonaparte.

AMERICAN BONAPARTE is the first in a series of alternate history novels set in the timeline that is formed when George McClellan takes over the United States government. Famous names from history are used as prominent characters, their lives altered by the consequences of the changed events of the past. The story is a mix of mystery, action, and political intrigue as we explore the world of 1872 in an America that might have been. Later novels in the McClellan Regime series will revisit the alternate timeline at other points in the future as we approach our own time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mike Manolakes
• Release date: Jun 20, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005581961

Mike Manolakes

Mike Manolakes is an author of science fiction, alternate history, and historical fiction. He is also an American Civil War reenactor, actor, director, and retired classroom teacher. He lives in Arizona with his wife Rae and their dogs and cats.

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American Bonaparte

by Mike Manolakes

Copyright 2021 Mike Manolakes

Smashwords Edition

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

EPILOGUE

About the Author

Other books by Mike Manolakes

CHAPTER ONE

FOURTEEN ARRESTED AT ANTI-GOVERNMENT PROTESTS AT DES MOINES; TROOPS RESTORE ORDER

by Sylvanus Cadwallader

Field Correspondent, Chicago Times

April 27, 1872

Eleven men and three women were arrested at the Iowa State House in Des Moines Thursday during the latest protests against the government. This is the third major protest in western state capitals in as many weeks, following similar incidents in Springfield and Madison.

General Philip Kearney, military commander of the Department of the West, reports that order has been restored in the Iowa capital, and that no further outbreak of anti-government sentiment is expected. Army units, including companies belonging to the 4th New Jersey Infantry, are now patrolling sections of Des Moines with orders to detain or incapacitate insurrectionists.

The latest series of protests was sparked by the arrest last week of the governor of Iowa, Cyrus Carpenter, who was elected to the post last November and is now suspected of Lincolnite tendencies. There is no word yet concerning a trial date for Mr. Carpenter, and state officials are awaiting an announcement of a replacement for the office of governor from the government in Washington City.

I took another look at what I had written and frowned. I knew that I had a duty to my readership to be impartial, reporting the facts simply as I saw them, and I needed to leave my own opinions out of the despatch. However, the editorial staff at the Chicago Times, up to and including the publisher of the newspaper, didn’t mind if the news ended up being slanted a certain way — the Times had always been a pro-McClellan publication, ever since the general took control ten years ago. Before that, it had been fiercely anti-Lincoln, a harsh critic of the president’s war policies.

So I knew no one in Chicago would mind if the Times’ favorite field correspondent came down heavily on the side of the government when reporting on the trouble out west. The problem was that I would mind. I didn’t believe that the role of the press was to persuade the people to think a certain way, but instead to present all the facts as fairly and completely as possible, and then let the people make up their own minds. That, as I understood it, was good journalism, but as I have often been told, good journalism doesn’t necessarily sell newspapers. There were seven daily newspapers in Chicago, and every one of them was locked in a battle to see who can win the most readers. Fair and balanced reporting didn’t attract readers as much as a vivid account of soldiers charging at protesters with fixed bayonets would.

That didn’t happen, at least not this time in Des Moines, but that didn’t mean that my editors wouldn’t be overjoyed to print that account if I happened to write it, whether or not it was true.

As for my own opinions, I must confess that they were not as yet fully formed. No one expected, when we heard the news in 1862 that General George B. McClellan had placed Abraham Lincoln under arrest and taken control of the United States government, that such an unexpected situation would persist for long. Surely cooler heads would prevail, the reins of government would go back to the hands of the man elected to hold them, and the army of the Northern states would return to the business of putting down the rebellion of the South. Yet here we were, ten years later, and little had changed. General McClellan remained in power, a dictator in all but name, and the Constitution remained, in the words of the famous phrase, suspended for the duration of the emergency. We continued to look for signs that the emergency was nearing an end, but still it persisted, at least in the eyes of the government, and a rational man would have to conclude that the government had every intention of allowing that emergency to become perpetual.

The nature of the emergency, of course, remained the dissolution of our Union. Lincoln responded to secession by sending the armies and the navies against the forces of the Southern states, leading to bloody battles at Ball’s Bluff, Bull Run, and the western forts in Tennessee. When McClellan took power in February of 1862, he declared a cease-fire, and the Southern states agreed to meet at the negotiating table, in talks that would be arbitrated by the British government. Those talks had continued for ten years, and while McClellan continued to declare that the United States would accept nothing less than the reunification of the nation, the fact remained that the Southern Confederacy had been allowed to exist now for a decade as an independent country, and there seemed little hope that reunification would be achieved through negotiation. But as long as the United States remained sundered, the emergency continued, and the North remained under a military dictatorship.

Was this such a bad thing? The editorial staff of the Times didn’t think so. There was no war. Thousands of men were alive that might have been killed if Lincoln’s war had been allowed to continue. The United States was a smaller place, true — smaller still since California, refusing to accept McClellan’s ascendancy as valid, chose to declare independence instead, and existed now as a free republic on the Pacific — but it remained strong and prosperous, no less an industrial power than before. There were many Americans who were happy to live under McClellan’s rule, and they thought the United States was a better place because he took power.

Not everyone agreed, of course — the protests in the western states that spring were evidence of that. There were those who still proudly called themselves Lincolnites — even though their namesake himself passed away two years ago. Broken by his months of imprisonment in an army stockade after McClellan’s rise to power, the deposed president went home to Springfield, wrote his memoirs, and died peacefully in his sleep one night in 1870.

How did I feel about all this? To be truthful, I could see both sides. Perhaps that was simply my experience as a reporter taking over, but I did not naturally gravitate toward either the side of Lincolnites or toward McClellan and his supporters. I wished to be neutral, doing my best to report the news as fairly and honestly as my abilities allowed.

Yet, in light of recent events, I was finding it hard to maintain my neutrality. It was these events that had necessitated my sudden journey east.

Galena Station, I heard the train conductor call. Coming into Galena, Illinois. As the conductor reached the point in the railroad car aisle closest to me, he turned and said, Anything for the mail pouch, Mr. Cadwallader? I know this is your stop.

One moment. There was no time for any further editing. I took a last quick look at my despatch, then folded it and sealed it. Hastily I scrawled the name of my editor on it, care of the Chicago Times, and handed it to the conductor. Thanks, Jim.

You’re welcome. Perhaps we’ll see you on the return trip.

Perhaps. Certainly I had no idea when I would be back here again, if ever. My stop in Des Moines had been by pure accident; I had been making the tour of forts on the frontier, reporting on preparations for war against the Sioux, when Mary’s letter finally reached me. Immediately my plans changed, and I caught the next eastbound train. It stopped in Des Moines long enough for me to witness the events contained in this day’s despatch, and now the Chicago Times had an exclusive eyewitness report of which no other Chicago paper could boast. The train’s next stop was in Galena, and though my business back east was urgent, there was still time for me to visit an old friend. At least, I hoped we were still friends.

I had visited Galena, Illinois, several times before, and I had always found it to be a charming little village. Nestled among the hills of the northwest corner of the state, the lead mines of Galena had produced most of the lead that comprised the minié balls fired in the recent Civil War. It was only a short walk across the bridge over the Galena River to Main Street, where the hotel where I would stay, the DeSoto House, was located.

After checking into the DeSoto House, I spent a few minutes freshening up in my room, then headed out again. Main Street was a busy place, filled with a multitude of small shops, as well as citizens hurrying to get to where they needed to go — this was late morning on a Monday, after all. Yet it did not take long for me to find my destination, a small leather-goods shop tucked in among many other similar establishments.

As I made my way down the street, I turned to notice a gentleman in a long coat, walking briskly perhaps twenty yards behind me. He was a tall man with a dark mustache, and he looked to be in his mid-twenties. There was little about his appearance that seemed unusual, but still I could not help but notice him, for I was certain that I had seen him as a passenger on the train from Des Moines. Unlike everyone else on the street today, who seemed busy heading toward their destinations, this man seemed to have no other purpose except to follow me. I decided to test this hypothesis, stopping in front of a store window and pretending to view the wares displayed. If the man continued to walk past me, I would know that I was wrong, and I had been suspicious for no reason. But he didn’t continue — he stopped as well, still about twenty yards behind me, and waited for me to continue. I was being followed.

I considered what this might mean. I knew that in addition to the usual agencies of government, McClellan had created a new one, something called the National Intelligence Service. The man who had been placed in charge of the agency was Allan Pinkerton, a former private detective who had been useful to army intelligence during the Civil War. Was it possible that this lean man in the coat was one of Pinkerton’s men, assigned to follow me and report on my activities? This seemed preposterous — I was no one important, merely a newspaper correspondent, and the paper I worked for was known to be friendly to McClellan, too. Yet there was no denying that this man was following me, and while it might be my imagination that he was one of Pinkerton’s spies, there had to be some reason why I was of interest to him.

Regardless of his purpose, I could not afford to waste any more time here, and I resolved to continue on to my destination. Entering the leather-goods shop, I approached the nearest worker and asked if the boss was in. The young man looked up from the leather belt he was cutting and nodded toward the back room. I thanked him and proceeded to go look for my friend.

I found him in a small office, cluttered with ledgers and other documents and filled with cigar smoke. He was seated at a desk, filling in figures in an open ledger before him. There was a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles on his nose that I’d never seen him wear before, as well as a black cigar clamped between his jaws that I’d never seen him without. He glanced up when I entered, returned to his work, then his eyes rose up to finally see me as recognition dawned.

Cadwallader? he exclaimed, grabbing the cigar from his mouth before it fell to the desk. Sylvanus Cadwallader, is that really you?

Hello, Grant, I said, stepping forward and extending my hand. It’s good to see you.

Ulysses S. Grant closed the ledger, rose, and shook my hand warmly. Come in! Sit down! It’s been what, almost ten years?

I took the seat that had been offered to me and studied my friend. He looked different, of course, and it was more than just the changes that ten years’ worth of time would do to the human body. He still wore the familiar reddish-brown beard, but there were threads of silver now in it, and he was stouter than I remembered him. Of course his clothes were different — before I had never seen him out of the dark blue wool of a Union army uniform, and now he wore a shabby brown sack coat, his tie undone at his neck. But there was a sadness in his eyes as well, despite his joy at seeing an old friend, and I could not help but imagine that here was a man who once had an opportunity at greatness, but had let it slip away from him, never to return.

It was October 1862 when I first met Ulysses Grant. At that time my brother-in-law George and I were running a small newspaper in Milwaukee, but I knew an editor at the Chicago Times, and occasionally he would give me an assignment if his other correspondents were unavailable or unsuitable for a particular story. This was about eight months after McClellan took over, and the cease-fire with the Confederates had been holding since March. Something unusual was happening down in Tennessee, close to the cease-fire line. A major general was being court-martialed for dereliction of duty, insubordination, and conduct unbecoming an officer. The Times wanted a reporter on the scene, but it had recently run an article that, uncharacteristically, was highly critical of the McClellan administration, and all of its reporters were currently barred from the area. My friend at the Times asked me if I would go down to Tennessee to cover the court-martial, ostensibly for my own newspaper but letting the Chicago Times post it as well. I agreed, and soon I was in Tennessee to cover the trial of Ulysses S. Grant.

He was on trial for an incident that had happened in early May of that year, when Grant was in command of the Army of the Tennessee, which was occupying a small village on that river called Pittsburg Landing. Grant had begun to make a name for himself earlier that year, capturing two important Confederate forts in the northern part of the state, Fort Henry and Fort Donelson. But just days after the battle of Fort Donelson, McClellan took over the government, and six weeks later, the cease-fire was declared, and the fighting ended. No one knew how long the cease-fire would hold, so the armies of both nations stayed in place, waiting to see what would happen next.

What did happen next was a surprise inspection of the camps in May by Grant’s immediate superior, General Henry Halleck. At first Grant was nowhere to be found, and then, after an exhaustive search, he was discovered lying on the floor of a hotel room in the town of Savannah, Tennessee, thoroughly inebriated. The quantity of empty and half-filled whiskey bottles surrounding him indicated that he had been drinking heavily for several days. Halleck immediately removed him from command and reduced him in rank to captain, the rank he held in the regular army.

The court-martial might have been avoided if Grant had accepted the consequences of his actions gracefully, but Grant had never gotten along with Henry Halleck, and he refused to accept the loss of rank and command. Several of his subordinates, especially his friend General William T. Sherman, backed him up, and to all appearances it seemed that the Army of the Tennessee was still under the command of Ulysses S. Grant. But Halleck protested to McClellan, and McClellan decided that an example needed to be made of the disobedient officer.

Orders were sent to place Grant under arrest, and they were swiftly carried out — Grant was taken away in shackles and placed in a military prison in Memphis. It was there that I first met him, once I had been given permission to interview him. He was awaiting the start of his trial — five general officers were being sent from the eastern theater to form the panel that would judge his guilt or innocence, and the court-martial could not begin until they arrived.

I had no preconceived notions about the man. The facts of the case were well known, but so were his accomplishments in the field — his victories at Forts Henry and Donelson had been the Union’s only two battlefield successes of the war. But Grant consented to talk to me, on the record, and I found him to be affable, though somewhat bewildered concerning the turn of events that had brought him to this unenviable position.

The general explained to me that, contrary to published reports, he was not a habitual drinker. This was later confirmed to me by other individuals who knew Grant well. He only turned to alcohol during long periods of inactivity, and only when he was separated from his wife and family. It was precisely under these conditions, during the extended period of time when his army was encamped on the banks of the Tennessee, with no possibility of action in the foreseeable future, that he embarked on his famous bender that would cost him his rank and his command.

I got to know Grant very well during the days leading up to his court-martial, visiting him daily for as long as the guards would allow me to stay. Soon he was refusing other reporters’ requests for interviews, choosing to give me exclusive access. We had begun the basis of a true friendship, for we both were Ohio natives, of a similar age, and we shared a fondness for good cigars.

It was no secret that General McClellan had hoped for a guilty verdict with maximum punishment, which in this case would be imprisonment for several years. But the commanding general, in far-off Washington City, did not get everything he wanted. The panel of generals who presided over the trial were swayed by the many character references provided by the officers who served under Grant, who all spoke highly of him. In the end, the more serious charges against Grant were dismissed, and he was convicted on only one count of conduct unbecoming. He was dismissed from the army and stripped of his pension, and there was nothing for him to do but go home to Galena and return to work in the leather-goods shop, the business began by his father.

I rode the train with him back to Illinois. More than anything, Grant seemed relieved by the outcome. The war was over, he believed; there was no need for him to remain in uniform. He wanted nothing more than to return to his wife Julia and his young children. He was sorry that his military career had ended with such a black mark upon it, but something similar would have happened sooner or later. Unlike some men, who thirsted for the glory that an illustrious military career might bring them, Grant wanted nothing more than to be forgotten by history. We parted in Galena, promising that we would try to see each other again whenever our lives permitted. But that was ten years ago, and I never saw Ulysses Grant again until this day in 1872.

I thought I’d never see you again, Cad, Grant said. By now we were both puffing on cigars. What brings you to Galena?

I wondered how much I should tell my friend. I knew little about his own political feelings, except that he had good reason to have a grudge against George McClellan. But there seemed little point in concealing the reasons for my travels, especially since enough was known about them for one mysterious stranger to follow my movements.

I’ve told you about my wife’s brother, George? I said. Grant nodded. "His name is George Paul, and he and I were co-owners of the Milwaukee Daily News. We sold the newspaper several years ago, when I went to work for the Chicago Times on a regular basis. George went east and took a position as a correspondent for the New York Times. He’s been very successful there, and recently he’s been assigned to the Times’ Washington bureau."

That is very impressive.

Of course, it means that very often he would be reporting on the news concerning General McClellan, or his underlings, and some of that reporting is not always very flattering. But that’s the way it should be — in these troubled times, it’s good to have a press that is free and often adversarial.

So I’ve heard, Grant said, though there was a tone of disapproval in his voice. During his time as a commander, it was always difficult to keep the war correspondents from communicating more than the enemy should be allowed to hear. And afterwards, after he was drummed out of the army in disgrace, the reporting of the events by other journalists — not me — was often inaccurate and offensive.

Well, to get to the point, I said, "George’s disappeared. No one knows what has become of him. One day three weeks ago he vanished without a trace, leaving