 The Cavalcade of America presented by DuPont, maker of better things for better living through chemistry. We bring you a story tonight of Anna Ella Carroll, the great unrecognized member of Abraham Lincoln's cabinet, who worked obscurely but decisively for the president and for the principal of his great struggle, Unity in America. Our play was written by Robert Talman for the Cavalcade players. Our star, Agnes Morehead. The orchestra and the original musical score are under the direction of Don Voorhees. DuPont, maker of better things for better living through chemistry, presents Agnes Morehead as Anna Ella Carroll on the Cavalcade of America. The story begins on a warm day in Washington, not many years after the close of the Civil War. In the House of Representatives, a few scattered congressmen are listening to the clerk as he reads what they believe to be a routine bill. There is only one spectator in the gallery, a little old woman. For the relief of A.E. Carroll, and for acknowledgement of services performed during the recent Civil War, said services described in the report of the House Military Affairs Committee, appended here too. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Speaker, in the interest of speedier German, I suggest we dispense with the reading in the report. It is so ordered. Mr. Speaker. Yes, Mr. Bragg. Mr. Speaker, Senator Stanton has sponsored this bill in the Senate, because most anxious that this bill be passed. Senator Stanton was Abraham Lincoln, Secretary of War, in a position to know the facts. What are the facts? Mainly the facts of A.E. Carroll, the petitioner in this bill, with actually, though not in name, a member of the Cabinet of Abraham Lincoln. I don't believe it. A secret cabinet member. Why, next you'll be telling us there was a phantom general as well, riding at the head of a ghostly army. He'll be trying to make us believe that... Mr. Speaker, I don't believe the gentleman needs to go on. The hour is late. The air is very humid. Let us recess. The chair hears no objection. The house is recessed until tomorrow at 12 noon. Why don't you go home, A.E. Carroll? They're not coming back today. They don't know you're the phantom general. Phantom general. What's that, ma'am? Oh, I'm sorry. I... I don't mean to disturb you, ma'am, but I've got to clear the gallery. Yes. They won't be back today. Yes, of course. I was just leaving. I felt a bit faint for a moment. This heat... Oh, you take my arm, ma'am. I'll see you get out, all right? Thank you. You're very kind. Can you get home all right? You think? Yes. Yes, I'll be myself again soon, I'm sure. My hotel is quite near here. Hurry, A.E. Carroll. It's getting late. No, mustn't take a carriage. There isn't much money left, you know. It's raining, but you've walked in the rain before. There's Pennsylvania Avenue, the top of the hill. Phantom general. Strange, he's saying that. That hurt, didn't it? Don't think of it now. Here's your street, the third gaslight. Here's the hotel, the carpet, shabby, old. Wait, you haven't the key. Better stop at the desk. Hey, ma'am. No mail for A.E. Carroll? No, still no mail, ma'am. Oh, thank you. I seem to have gotten rather wet. You'd be so kind as to send Mrs. Kelly around. I think she's waiting for you, ma'am. Oh, thank you. And about the bill, I'll see Mr. Collins in the morning. I'll tell him. Up one flight through a musty corridor. A stingy old hotel. Pause now before the door. The key in the locker. Miss Carroll, you sit down and let me help you off with these wet shoes. Oh, thank you kindly, Mrs. Kelly. How did the debate go in Congress today? They were talking about a Phantom general. Oh, so it's Phantoms now and the taxpayers' money. There now. Get up. We'll get this wet thing off you. Oh, thank you. Ah, nice warm room. Isn't that better? Yeah, it's wonderful, Mrs. Kelly. And before you go, if you do just one more thing... Get you a little trunk from under the bed. Yes, please. There you are, Miss Carroll. And if you need anything else, just call me. Thank you. Phantom general. That's you, isn't it, eh, Carroll? And this little chest with its gold clasp. That's all that's left, isn't it? Open it up. What's that on top? A locket with a miniature of love forever. From John to Anne. You don't want to look at that, do you, eh, E. Carroll? You're the Phantom general. Put it aside quickly. Look at this letter. My dear lady begins. And it's signed A. Lincoln. And here's one from Tom Scott. Does he remember... Does he remember that day in 1861 when he went to the White House to... Tom, this pamphlet by A. E. Carroll, this reply to John Breckenridge, gives me a means of saving Maryland for the union. But, Mr. President... For a month, I've had the Attorney General looking for a way to deal with traitors He couldn't find it. Well, here it is. One A. E. Carroll. Tom, I must have Carroll in my cabinet. Who is he, anyway? Well, that is... I'm not certain it'd be entirely... You mean he's got a better job? No, that is not exactly, Mr. President. Tom, what's the matter with you? I asked you a question. Who is this A. E. Carroll? Well, I scarcely believe you'll find the name listed in any of the bar associations, Mr. President, as a matter of fact... He's not a member of the bar. Who cares? Tom, I tell you, this A. E. Carroll must be in my cabinet. You get hold of him. Send him in to see me. Right away. Anna Ella Carroll. Mr. President? Well, I... Mr. Carroll, I... This is indeed a pleasure. Your surprise, Mr. President? Frankly, I am. You're disappointed? Well, not because you're a woman, Miss Carroll. You seem to have overcome that handicap quite nicely. I, uh... I refer, of course, to the splendid legal worker your reply to John Breckenridge. John Breckenridge and I have been acquainted for a long time, Mr. President. I've had some practice in answering his arguments. And some experience in law is well I gather. Yes, I was secretary to my father when he was governor of Maryland. An old Charles Carroll, I'm proud to say so, Mr. President. I knew it. A document such as this should have to come straight from the Fountainhead of the Republic. Precious few of old Charles Carroll's descendants think as I do, I'm afraid. One like you is enough, Miss Carroll. No, Mr. President, one is not enough. That declaration Charles Carroll helped to frame begins... We the people hold these truths to be self-evident. The people still do, even in the South. If they didn't, if I didn't believe they still do, I wouldn't have come here to see you. You were right about your own state of Maryland, Miss Carroll. But what are we going to do about those other people who don't hold those truths to be self-evident? I think, Mr. President, to some men, law is not a matter of protection and convenience, but a sort of religion. Give them a gospel of wartime law according to the legal saints of the early republic. Then they will cease to shout tyrants every time you act to save the Union. Remember what happened to Moses when he tried that, Miss Carroll? Moses made the mistake of submitting the laws himself. He should have had them presented by a sensible member of the opposition. Would you be willing to write such a work, Miss Carroll? I'd be willing to try. I'm going to make you an offer. It may sound strange to you at first, but I want you to consider it very carefully. Yes, Mr. President. I want to offer you a job in my cabinet. But no woman has ever held such a position, Mr. President. It's never been necessary before, Miss Carroll. Of course, you understand that it would have to remain a deep, dark secret. Naturally, Mr. President. Well, what about it? Mr. President, I accept. Sergeant, Sergeant. Yes, Mr. President. Step outside and bring in Captain Evans. No way, Mr. President. Captain Evans. I hope you like this fellow. Yes, Mr. President. Come on in, Captain Evans. I want you to meet the newest member of my cabinet, Miss Anne Carroll. Captain? Miss Carroll, Captain Evans. Captain Evans will be your military aide, Miss Carroll. I'm sure Captain Evans and I shall get on splendidly. Pleased to meet you, ma'am. How do you do? Remember, Captain Evans, you will treat Miss Carroll if she had the rank of a major general. The photograph of Lincoln, the way he looked that first year of the war, A.E. Carroll. Remember? And here's Hiram Evans in the uniform of the Army Intelligence. It was he who made your job something more than cabinet member, author of Lincoln's authority on wartime law. Remember that day in the old mercantile library in St. Louis? You went there to do research. Just make yourself at home, Miss Carroll. Any books you want that don't seem to be on the shelves, just let me know. Well, thank you, Mr. Johnson. As a matter of fact, you can help me a great deal today. Captain Evans has urgent business elsewhere. Isn't that so, Captain Evans? Oh, yes, yes. I'll call for you at 4.30, Miss Carroll. Thank you, Captain. So long, Miss Carroll. So long, Mr. Johnson. Hmm. Talks like a Texan, that chap. How clever of you to have guessed it. He's trying to locate relatives here in St. Louis so he can get back to his regiment in Texas. Well, I thought you were both Northerners. Well, you wouldn't tell on us, would you, Mr. Johnson? Oh, no. No, no. Well, my brother's one of the biggest generals on the Confederate side. General Johnson? Mm-hmm. Oh, I might have known. You both have that firm jaw and those steely gray eyes. Now, many folks notice the resemblance. I'm flattered that you do, ma'am. What a pity. All those fine, talented young men like your brother throwing their lives away in a lost cause. How big your pardon, ma'am. I deplore it. I deeply deplore it. But our south hasn't got a chance of winning, Mr. Johnson. While already General Fremont is building gun boats to float down the Mississippi. Those gun boats? What a joke, Miss Carroll. While the Mississippi's bristling with force, they won't get the mixed birds. Your brother might have quite a large force then. Not as large as people think. Oh. But he's got a bluff, Miss Carroll. While he's even got Jeff Davis' fool how many men he really has. Are you sure? I know, I know. Look, look on this map here. I wouldn't tell this to anybody but you, Miss Carroll. Yes. But I know just how he's got his columns arranged so as to fool them. There's more there than there really are. Now, here's the Tennessee River. Here's the Cumberland. Well, you've got the whole formation marked on here. Every detail. That's my hobby, keeping track of my brother. Well, oh. Well, if I could only show this map to Captain Evans, it would cheer him so much to know that things are going so well for our men. Well, take it along, Miss Carroll. Well, I... But don't lose it. Oh, no, I won't. This ever fell into the hands of General Grant or General Halock? It'd be just too bad. Indeed it would. Duck, Miss Carroll, duck. You're falling close, aren't you? Yes. I should never have let you come so close to the front lines. Captain, there's a lull we'd better run for. No, Miss Carroll, wait. Miss Carroll. Hurry, Captain. Miss Carroll, come back before it's too late. We must save our breath, Captain. We're running straight into the line of fire. Captain Evans, please. Stop here, Miss Carroll. Keep down. Yeah. We're protected now by this head. You can see General Halock's headquarters just ahead. The sentry's coming up. Better call to him, Captain. It's all right, Sentry. Here. Here are papers. Oh, from the president. All right, you can pass. Read the way, Captain Evans. Tennessee River, indeed. You're raving, sir. If I may say so, General Grant, you'll reap the liquor as well. That's my business, General Halock. If I may say so, you're wasting precious time. It would be obvious to any child if the Mississippi flows the wrong way. Don't vote for that. Wait here, Captain Evans. Don't vote for that. Wait here, Captain Evans. I want to hear this. As you say, ma'am. Tennessee? As I was saying, General Halock, Tennessee flows north from the very heart of the south. Furthermore, Johnson's Army. What about Johnson's Army, General? Oh, Miss Carroll, I've been expecting you. Excuse us. Military matters, you know. Very heated. I'm very much interested in military matters. Oh, are you, ma'am? This is General Grant, Miss Carroll. I'm honored. General Grant, I'm interested in what you were saying about the Tennessee because I've just returned from a trip up there. You mean to say you've been into the enemy territory? Oh, I was quite safe, I can assure you. I was piloted up by Captain Scott, General Grant's old pilot, I believe. Fine old man. I'm sorry to lose him. He knows every island, every shoal, every eddy in that river, and the Cumberland as well. I know the Mississippi, that's certain. He says it's followed to take gunboats down it. General Grant, we cannot take the testimony of a drunken flatboat pilot where the fate of the nation is at stake. You don't have to, General Halock. What do you mean, ma'am? Abraham Lincoln once floated a bunch of hogs down the Mississippi on a raft. He knows the river too. I think he'll agree with Captain Scott. You appear to know the President rather well, ma'am. Well, the President has confided in me that he's none too well pleased with the results of this Western campaign, General Halock. What is the President's idea, ma'am? He believes we need more daring generalships. In fact, he asked me to report on any men who seem to have out of the ordinary ideas and abilities. Well, I trust you are well pleased with what you've seen here, Miss Calock. Oh, General Halock, what a question. But tell me, General Grant was saying something about the Tennessee River and the possibility of a Cumberland offensive. Yes, General Halock and I are in disagreement with the wisdom of that. Does General Halock know that Johnston has less than the third of the Army he's reputed to have? Impossible. Are you sure of your information? Yes, and if you move quickly, you can end the war before the year is out. Take gunboats up to Tennessee, cut the railroad bridge, and then you'll have stopped the Confederate food supply. What? I haven't the authority. Then get it. General Grant, I have some maps and notes here, which I wish you'd have copied and sent on to General McClellan in Washington. Well, Miss Carol, you misunderstand my position. I'm not in command here, you know. Naturally. I merely thought you and General Halock, of course, might be interested in looking over this material. I'll say goodbye to you gentlemen now. I must get back to Washington. I've found what I was looking for. Listen to them out there, Miss Carol. Celebrating McClellan's victories. Your victories. And we can tell them the truth. But God willing, they shall know the truth when this war is mercifully ended. There is a way to end it quickly, Mr. President. If only General McClellan would have them strike for Vicksburg now before the enemy recovers. I know, I know, but McClellan is adamant. And how can I change the high command at a time like this? Is McClellan afraid that General Grant will rise in favor, Mr. President? General Grant? Surely you knew it was General Grant and not General Halock who carried out the Tennessee campaign, Mr. President. I know General Grant held the lines, yes, but McClellan said that... That Grant drinks? Yes, that's true, I'm afraid. But he can take Vicksburg. Are you sure of that, Miss Carol? I am. By the way, you didn't by any chance find out what brand of whiskey Grant drinks did you? General, the one who held the lines and where you just sat, a phantom general, A.E. Carol, pick up that letter there. The official looking one. Oh yes, that's from Stanton who didn't he? Stanton knew about Vicksburg and the Cumberland, how you cleared a path for Sherman through Georgia to the sea, planned it all sitting right here, in this bare hotel room. And when victory finally came, the President... Thank God, Stanton, it's all over at last. We must tell the people now. We must tell them who won those battles. Mr. President, what would be the effect on a war-worn nation of learning that their fate has been in the hands of a civilian and a woman at that? I suppose you're right. But before I leave this office, Stanton, if I leave, Anne Carol will have public recognition. Well, that secret died with Abraham Lincoln. Didn't it, Anne? You don't like being called Anne, do you, A.E. Carol? Stanton General? Whose is the picture in the locket inscribed, Love Forever from John to Anne? Isn't that John Breckenridge, who was Vice President of the United States and afterwards fought with the Confederates? You don't want to remember that, do you? You go back to the picture of Grant. That day, he came to see you here. That's a very pretty chime to that clock, Miss Carol. You know, that little China clock is all I have left of what was once my home. Kingsford Hall. Our plantation in Maryland. You've never even been back to see it? Yes, once. It nearly broke my heart. The house wanted paint, and many grows were in rangs with gunny sacks around their feet in place of shoes. They didn't even know they were free. Or if they did, they didn't know what to do about it. Yes, we destroyed a very beautiful way of life, General Grant. You must have had many friends on the Confederate side. Isn't that a picture of John Breckenridge there? John Breckenridge? We were very close, John and I, for years. But there was a difference between us too deep to reconcile. Tell me, Miss Carol. Is your own fortune entirely gone? Fortune? I never had any fortune. If I'd been willing to sell my slaves to the Yankee traders, I'd have had something. No, I worked and made a living for them and myself. I used to give legal advice over teacups and then shock my clients by asking for a fee. A lady, it seems, should work for nothing. I don't wonder your empire. What did you never get any reward for your work in Lincoln's cabinet? Yes, I earned the friendship of the greatest man who ever lived. Abraham Lincoln. The hotel in Washington, B.C. An old lady puts her treasures back into a little humpback trunk and shoves it under the brass bedstead. She looks about the bare room that is now her only home. Military maps decorate the wall. On the mantelpiece ticks a lovely china clock, relic of a proud past. She sighs and blows out the lamp. So our story ends. And the cavalcade players, for their performance of the story of that little-known member of Abraham Lincoln's cabinet, Anna Ella Carroll, who died officially unrecognized for her great work in preserving the union of these states. And now DuPont brings you news of chemistry at work in our world. This is the time of year when women say, John, I want you just to look at that hallway and husbands wish they could take long trips to Alaska, painting time. I'm going through it at my house right now. My wife holds a dinky strip of color about one inch square against the wall, and then I say, yes, but will it look that way when they paint the whole room? Well, in answer to that question, I have good news. To make redecorating easier, DuPont paint experts have worked out a sure-fire color selector that shows you exactly how your house will look with new paint inside or out before you paint it. Here's how it works. The color selector is arranged in the form of a book which you can see at your DuPont paint dealers or your contractor will bring it to your home. In the selector are pictures of houses, all sorts of houses, from a Cape Cod cottage to the Mediterranean style that's popular in Southern California. But here's the trick. The pictures are printed on transparent cellophane cellulose film. Suppose you would like to see how your house would look painted, say, in white. You place one of the transparent pictures of a house like yours over the sheet painted white, and there you have it, your white house. How would it look if you painted the shutters blue? You place a blue painted sheet underneath the body color, and there is a completely styled white house with royal blue shutters. To style the interior of your house, you simply glance through the book until you find the picture of a living room or a bedroom like yours, not just the furniture and draperies, but with the walls and other paintable surfaces left transparent. You place this picture over a sheet painted with the color you have in mind, and there is the way your room will look when the painters have finished. Among the colors offered by the color selector is a new group of a special interest to friends of cavalcade. Eleven beautiful shades have been named the cavalcade of America colors. The story behind them is an interesting one. In colonial times in America, paint was a luxury. Only a very few people could afford to paint their houses inside or out. But the people who could afford it used paint with exquisite taste. The colors they chose for the paneling and trim in their homes were much like our pastel tints, but darker with a rich smoky quality. Powder blues and apple greens and so on. You can still see them in museums. More beautiful than ever, if anything, because they've aged. For years, paint chemists have been trying to recapture these charming old colonial colors, and at last, they've succeeded. These are the new cavalcade colors. The color selector not only shows exactly how they will look, but gives your painter the formulas for achieving them. Anyone who is planning to redecorate, especially anyone with early American furniture and draperies, will find them authentic and handsome. Whatever brings beauty and harmony to our daily surroundings, you paint chemists do not hesitate to include on the long list of better things for better living through chemistry. And now the star of next week's program, John McIntyre of the cavalcade players. Our play is about Andrew Jackson. Not the well-known story of old Hickory in the White House, but Jackson as a young man, a fighting lawyer in the wilderness. When bringing law and order to the frontiers meant justice with a hard right, we hope you'll join us for this story on next week's cavalcade of America. Cavalcade gratefully acknowledges its obligation for new material, which appeared in Marjorie Barstow Greenby's book My Dear Lady, recently published by Whittlesea House. On the cavalcade of America, your announcer is Clayton Collier, sending best wishes from Dupont. This is the National Broadcasting Company.