Even happily married grandmothers can develop pretty potent crushes. Mine is on a man I’ve never met. Heroic, unselfish, a hater of injustice and lover of liberty. Tall. Handsome, and— luckily for my husband—gone these 130-some years. Elihu Washburne was some kind of guy.
Elihu and I met when my book club read David McCullough’s “The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris.” Mr. Washburne (also Representative/Secretary/Ambassador/Author Washburne) was a Radical Republican abolitionist. He promoted racial equality. He was a diplomat in Paris who, instead of abandoning his post during a a series of chaotic and dangerous uprisings, protected trapped American and German nationals.
In truly radical fashion, he proposed dividing up land from confiscated plantations. Former slaves, he said, should receive compensation for their labor and provided opportunity for economic independence as well as legal freedom.
Elihu was blunt. He was a fiscal tightwad when it came to Congress spending other people’s money. He was loyal to his friends—like Ulysses S. Grant—but refused to participate in the shady and even corrupt dealings of many in Grant’s administration.
I can’t write a fan letter to Elihu but I couldn’t resist name-dropping him into a couple of my books: the Christmas novella “The Lady With the Alligator Case” and soon-to-be-released “Killing Spring.”
I can’t be the only one with a historical crush. Anyone else have a fancy for a delightful (but dead) someone?