Two elements of my circumstantial evidence were thus vanquished. Quiet and solemn, he appeared abjectly sad. His mood had changed from an energized search and destroy attitude, to pleasant remembrances, to what now seemed to be a morose frame of mind, remembering things sad and lost. Really remembering and reckoning with such matters can be a cause for deep melancholy.
"Friend King and Havana?" he asked, his eyes moistening. He swallowed hard. "William Rufus de Vane King was a brilliant and talented man, a true Democrat in the greatest sense of the word. A strong Unionist, he would have fought as hard as Johnson and longer than I did to save the Federal Union, I suspect. Death claimed him nearly a decade before that testing.
"Perchance you do know that he served in diplomatic missions for our country in Russia, in Naples, and as minister to France? Rufus kept France from interfering in our war with Mexico." No response from me was required. His eyes were now much enlivened. I nodded my head respectfully.
My teacher continued the lesson with vigor. "He was also a hardworking, dutiful, and effective United States Senator for twenty-six years. He presided with firmness and fairness as President Pro Tem of the senate for several years. He occupied the presiding officer's chair during most of the great and stormy debates over extension of slavery. No easy chore, sir. He was a great American, and you would besmirch his character with some allusion to his being a Sodomite! What does that have to with his nobility as a statesman and qualities as a friend? Your obloquy is exceeding unseemly, friend. Your assumptions are petty and mean spirited.
"Perchance you would put that bigoted label on me!" He dropped his shoulders and expelled a tired gasp. "Does it matter?
"Sir, yes, it was thought true of him, but he was never anything to me but an ally in Congress, a refined and faithful friend, and a wise and far seeing statesman. He represented our young republic effectively in the decadent courts of old Europe, and, most importantly, he saw the folly and danger of the fire-eaters and stood up to them. I loved him for his strengths and his gentle, gentle spirit. Make of that whatever your twisted mind will allow!"
In a pained recounting, he said, "Friend Mansfield, you should have been in Cuba that March of 1853. I shudder to remember the scene. Senator King was convalescing at the Ariadne Plantation of John Chartrand near Matanzas, about sixty miles east of Havana. There was nary hope of his recovery.
"Senator King, once a handsome, distinguished man was a pitiful, near empty shell. He was six foot tall but had become like a bent, tortured hollow reed. He coughed every other attempt at getting his breath, bloodying his handkerchief. Consumption is a cruel reaper, sir. A tubercular death is most pitiful." His voice had become soft and his whole bearing revealed abject grief. The testimony he offered was a sorrowful memory of a most sad and grotesque experience. His whole demeanor bore witness to that.