“When I opened my eyes, the sun was shining in my face.
“I was lying on a mass of drift-wood, caught by a ledge of rock, jutting out into the river. I had apparently been hurled there, by the force of the current, stunned and bruised; the sunshine had aroused me, bringing me back to that life which was a burden and a mockery.
“And where wasshe? I shuddered as I asked myself that question. Had she been thrown from the boat? Had it been overturned? Was she drowned? I closed my eyes with a shudder which traversed my body, chilling my blood as with the cold hand of death.
“For a moment I thought of throwing myself into the river, and thus ending all my woes. But I was too cowardly.
“I turned toward the shore, groaning; dragged my bruised and aching limbs along the ledge of jagged rocks, through the masses of drift-wood; and finally reached the shore, where I sank down exhausted, and ready to die.
“I will not lengthen out the gloomy picture. At last I rose, looked around, and with bent head and cowering frame, stole away through the woods toward Fonthill. On my way, I passed within two hundred yards ofthe grave—but I dared not go thither. He was dead, doubtless—and he had been slain in fair combat! It was another form that haunted me—the form of a woman—one who had dishonored me—attempted to poison me—a terrible being—but still a woman; and I had—murdered her!
“I reached home an hour or two afterward. Nighthawk was sitting in the library, pale, and haggard, watching for me.
“As I entered, he rose with an exclamation, extending his arms toward me, with an indescribable expression of joy.
“I shrunk back, refusing his hand.
“‘Do not touch that,’ I groaned, ‘there is blood on it!’
“He seized it, and kneeling down, kissed it.
“‘Bloody or not, it isyourhand—the hand of my dear young master!’
“And the honest fellow burst into tears, as he covered my hand with kisses.
“A month afterward, I was in Europe, amid the whirl and noise of Paris. I tried to forget that I was a murderer—but the shadow went with me!”
Mohun had spoken throughout the earlier portions of his narrative in a tone of cynical bitterness. His last words were mingled, however, with weary sighs, and his face wore an expression of the profoundest melancholy.
The burnt-out cigar had fallen from his fingers to the floor; he leaned back languidly in his great arm-chair: with eyes fixed upon the dying fire, he seemed to go back in memory to the terrible scenes just described, living over again all those harsh and conflicting emotions.
“So it ended, Surry,” he said, after a long pause. “Such was the frightful gulf into which the devil and my own passions pushed me, in that month of December, 1856. A hand as irresistible and inexorable as the Greek Necessity had led me step by step to murder—in intent if not in fact—and for years the shadow of the crime which I believed I had committed, made my life wretched. I wandered over Europe, plunged into a thousand scenes of turmoil and excitement—it was all useless—still the shadow went with me. Crime is a terrible companion to have ever at your elbow. TheAtra curaof the poet is nothing to it, friend! It is a fiend which will not be driven away. It grins, and gibbers, and utters its gibes, day and night. Believe me, Surry,—I speak from experience—it is better for this world, as well as the next, to be a boor, a peasant, a clodhopper with a clear conscience, than to hold in your hand the means of all luxury, and so-called enjoyment, and, with it, the consciousness that you are blood guilty under almost any circumstances.
“Some men might have derived comfort from the circumstances ofthatcrime. I could not. They might have said, ‘I was goaded, stung, driven, outraged, tempted beyond my strength, caught in a net of fire, from which there was but one method of exit—to burst out, trampling down every thing.’ Four words silenced all that sophistry—‘She was a woman!’ It was the face of that woman, as I saw it last on that stormy night by the lightning flashes, which drove me to despair. I, the son of the pure gentleman whose portrait is yonder—I, the representative of the Mohuns, a family which had acted in all generations according to the dictates of the loftiest honor—I, had put to death a woman, and that thought spurred me to madness!
“Ofhisdeath I did not think in the same manner. I had slain him in fair combat, body to body—and, however the law of God may stigmatize homicide, there was still that enormous difference. I had played my life against his, as it were—he had lost, and he paid the forfeit. Butthe otherwasmurdered! That fact stared me in the face. She had dishonored me; tricked me; attempted to poison, and then shoot me.Shehad designed to murderme, and had set about her design deliberately, coolly, without provocation, impelled by the lust of gold only. She deserved punishment, but—she was a woman! I had not said ‘Go!’ either, in pointing to the gloomy path to death. I had said ‘Come!’—had meant to die too. I had not shrunk from the torrent in which I had resolved she should be borne away. I had gone into the boat with her; accompanied her on her way; devoted myself, too, to death, at the same moment. But all was useless. I said to myself a thousand times—‘at least they can not say that I was a coward, as well as a murderer. The last of the Mohuns may have blackened his escutcheon with the crime of murder—but at least he did not sparehimself; he faced death with his victim.’ Useless, Surry—all useless! The inexorable Voice with which I fenced, had only one reply—one lunge—‘She was a woman!’ and the words pierced me like a sword-blade!
“Let me end this, but not before I say that the dreadful Voice wasright. As to the combat with Mortimer, I shall express no opinion. You know the facts, and will judge me. But the other act was a deadly crime. Gloss it over as you may, you can never justify murder. Use all the special pleading possible, and the frightful deed is still as black in the eyes of God and man as before. I saw that soon; saw it always; see it to-day; and pray God in his infinite mercy to blot out that crime from his book—to pardon the poor weak creature who was driven to madness, and attempted to commit that deadly sin.
“Well, to end my long history. I remained in Europe until the news from America indicated the approach of war—Nighthawk managing my estate, and remitting me the proceeds at Paris. When I saw that an armed collision was going to take place, I hastened back, reaching Virginia in the winter of 1860. But I did not come to Fonthill. I had a horror of the place. From New York, where I landed, I proceeded to Montgomery, without stopping upon the route; found there a prominent friend of my father who was raising a brigade in the Southwest; was invited by him to aid him; and soon afterward was elected to the command of a company of cavalry by his recommendation. I need only add, that I rose gradually from captain to colonel, which rank I held in 1863, when we first met on the Rappahannock—my regiment having been transferred to a brigade of General Lee’s cavalry.
“You saw me then, and remember my bitterness and melancholy. But you had no opportunity to descry the depth and intensity of those sentiments in me. Suddenly the load was lifted.That womanmade her appearance, as if from the grave, and you must have witnessed my wonder, as my eyes fell upon her. Then, she was not dead after all! I was not a murderer! And to complete the wonder,hewas also alive. A man passing along the bank of the river, as I discovered afterward from Nighthawk, who ferreted out the whole affair—a man named Swartz, a sort of poor farmer and huckster, passing along the Nottoway, on the morning after the storm, had found the woman cast ashore, with the boat overturned near her; and a mile farther, had found Mortimer, not yet dead, in the grave. Succored by Swartz, they had both recovered—had then disappeared. I was to meet them again, and know of their existence only when the chance of war threw us face to face on the field.
“You know the scenes which followed. Mortimer, or Darke, as he now calls himself, confronted me everywhere, andsheseemed to have no object in life but my destruction. You heard her boast in the house near Buckland that she had thrice attempted to assassinate me by means of her tool, the man Swartz. Again, at Warrenton, in the hospital, she came near poniarding me with her own hand. Nighthawk, who had followed me to the field, and become a secret agent of General Stuart, warned me of all this—and one day, gave me information more startling still. And this brings me, my dear Surry, to the last point in my narrative, I now enter upon matter with which you have been personally ‘mixed up.’
“On that night when I attacked Darke in his house in Pennsylvania, Swartz stole a paper from madam—the certificate of her marriage with Mr. Mortimer-Darke, or Darke-Mortimer. The object of Swartz was, to sell the paper to me for a large sum, as he had gotten an inkling of the state of affairs, and my relation with madam. Well, Nighthawk reported this immediately, made an appointment to meet Swartz in the Wilderness, and many times afterward attempted to gain possession of the paper, which Swartz swore was abona fidecertificate of the marriage of these two personsbefore the year1856, when I first met them.
“You, doubtless, understand now, my dear Surry, my great anxiety to gain possession of that paper. Or, if you do not, I have only to state one fact—that will explain all. I am engaged to be married to Miss Conway, and am naturally anxious to have the proof in my possession that I have notone wifeyet living! I knowthat womanwell. She will stop at nothing. The rumor that I am about to become the happy husband of a young lady whom I love, has driven madam nearly frantic, and she has already shown her willingness to stop at nothing, by imprisoning Swartz, and starving him until he produced the stolen paper. Swartz is dead, however; the paper is lost; I and madam are both in hot pursuit of the document. Which will find it, I know not. She, of course, wishes to suppress it—I wish to possess it. Where is it? If you will tell me, friend, I will make you a deed for half my estate! You have been with me to visit that strange woman, Amanda, as a forlorn hope. What will come I know not; but I trust that an all-merciful Providence will not withdraw its hand from me, and now dash all my hopes, at the very moment when the cup is raised to my lips! If so, I will accept all, submissively, as the just punishment of my great crime—a crime, I pray God to pardon me, as the result of mad desperation, and not as a wanton and wilful defiance of His Almighty authority! I have wept tears of blood for that act. I have turned and tossed on my bed, in the dark hours of night, groaning and pleading for pardon. I have bitterly expiated throughout long years, that brief tragedy. I have humbled myself in the dust before the Lord of all worlds, and, falling at the feet of the all-merciful Saviour, besought His divine compassion. I am proud—no man was ever prouder—but I have bowed my forehead to the dust, and if the Almighty now denies me the supreme consolation of this pure girl’s affection,—if loving her as I do, and beloved by her, as I may venture to tell you, friend, I am to see myself thrust back from this future—then, Surry, I will give the last proof of my submission: I will bow down my head, and say ‘Thy will, not mine, Lord, be done!’”
Mohun’s head sank as he uttered the words. To the proud face came an expression of deep solemnity and touching sweetness. The firm lips were relaxed—the piercing eyes had become soft. Mohun was greater in his weakness than he had ever been in his strength.
When an hour afterward we had mounted our horses, and were riding back slowly through the night, I said, looking at him by the dim starlight:—
“This is no longer a gay young cavalryman—a mere thoughtless youth—but a patriot, fit to live or die with Lee!”
The scenes just described took place in the month of November. In December I obtained the priceless boon of a few days’ leave of absence, and paid a visit to Richmond.
There was little there of a cheerful character; all was sombre and lugubrious. In the “doomed city,” as throughout the whole country, all things were going to wreck and ruin. During the summer and autumn, suffering had oppressed the whole community; but now misery clutched the very heartstrings. Society had been convulsed—now, all the landmarks of the past seemed about to disappear in the deluge. Richmond presented the appearance, and lived after the manner, of a besieged city, as General Grant called it. It no longer bore the least likeness to its former peaceful and orderly self. The military police had usurped the functions of the civil, and the change was for the worse. Garroters swarmed the streets of the city after dark. House-breakers everywhere carried on their busy occupation. Nothing was safe from these prowlers of the night; all was fish for their nets. The old clothes in rags and bales; the broken china and worn spoons; the very food, obtained through immense exertions by some father to feed his children—all became the spoil of these night-birds, who were ever on the watch. When you went to make a visit in the evening, you took your hat and cloak with you into the drawing-room, to have them under your eye. When you retired at night, you deposited your watch and purse under your pillow. At the hotels, you never thought of placing your boots outside the door; and the landlords, in the morning, carefully looked to see if the towels, or the blankets of the beds had been stolen. All things were thus unhinged. Misery had let loose upon the community all the outlaws of civilization; the scum and dregs of society had come to the top, and floated on the surface in the sunlight.
The old respectable population of the old respectable city had disappeared, it seemed. The old respectable habitudes had fallen into contempt. Gambling-houses swarmed everywhere; and the military police ignored them. “The very large number of houses,” said a contemporary journal, “on Main and other streets, which have numbers painted in large gilt figures over the door, and illuminated at night, are faro banks. The fact is not known to the public. The very large numbers of flashily dressed young men, with villainous faces, who hang about the street corners in the daytime, are not gamblers, garroters, and plugs, but young men studying for the ministry, and therefore exempt from military duty. This fact is not known to General Winder.” The quiet and orderly city had, in a word, become the haunt of burglars, gamblers, adventurers, blockade-runners. The city, once the resort of the most elegant society in Virginia, had been changed by war and misery into a strange chaotic caravanserai, where you looked with astonishment on the faces going and coming, without knowing in the least “who was who,” or whether your acquaintance was an honest man or a scoundrel. The scoundrels dressed in excellent clothes, and smiled and bowed when you met them; it was nearly the sole means of identifying them, at an epoch, when virtue almost always went in rags.
The era of “social unrealities,” to use the trenchant phrase of Daniel, had come. Even braid on sleeves and collars did not tell you much. Who was the fine-looking Colonel Blank, or the martial General Asterisks? Was he a gentleman or a barber’s boy—an F.F. somewhere, or an exdrayman? The general and colonel dressed richly; lived at the “Spottswood;” scowled on the common people; and talked magnificently. It was only when some young lady linked her destiny to his, that she found herself united to quite a surprising helpmate—discovered that the general or the colonel had issued from the shambles or the gutter.
Better society was not wanting; but it remained largely in the background. Vice was strutting in cloth of gold; virtue was at home mending its rags. Every expedient was resorted to, not so much to keep up appearances as to keep the wolf from the door. Servants were sent around by high-born ladies to sell, anonymously, baskets of their clothes. The silk or velvet of old days was now parted with for bread. On the shelves of the bookstores were valuable private libraries, placed there for sale. In the shops of the silversmiths were seen breastpins, watches, bracelets, pearl and diamond necklaces, which their owners were obliged to part with for bread. “Could we have traced,” says a late writer, “the history of a set of pearls, we should have been told of a fair bride, who had received them from a proud and happy bridegroom; but whose life had been blighted in her youthful happiness by the cruel blast of war—whose young husband was in the service of his country—to whom stark poverty had continued to come, until at last the wedding present from the dear one, went to purchase food and raiment... A richly bound volume of poems, with here and there a faint pencil-marked quotation, told perchance of a lover perished on some bloody field; and the precious token was disposed of, or pawned, when bread was at last needed for some suffering loved one.”
You can see these poor women—can you not, reader? The bride looking at her pearl necklace, with flushed cheeks and eyes full of tears, murmuring:—“Hegave me this—placed it around my neck on my wedding day—and I mustsellit!” You can see too, the fair girl, bending down and dropping tears on the page marked by her dead lover; her bosom heaving, her heart breaking, her lips whispering:—“Hishand touched this—we read this page together—I hear his voice—see his smile—this book brings back all to me—and now, I must go and sell it, to buy bread for my little sister and brother, who are starving!”
That is dolorous, is it not, reader?—and strikes you to the heart. It is not fancy. December, 1864, saw that, and more, in Virginia.
In the streets of Richmond, crowded with uniforms, in spite of the patrols, marching to and fro, and examining “papers,” I met a number of old acquaintances, and saw numerous familiar faces.
The “Spottswood” was the resort of themilitaires, and the moneyed people. Here, captains and colonels were elbowed by messieurs the blockade-runners, and mysterious government employees—employed, as I said on a former occasion, in heaven knows what. The officer stalked by in his braid. The “Trochilus” passed, smiling, in shiny broadcloth. Listen! yonder is the newsboy, shouting, “TheExaminer!”—that is to say, the accurate photograph of this shifting chaos, where nothing seems stationary long enough to have its picture taken.
Among the first to squeeze my hand, with winning smiles and cordial welcome, was my friend Mr. Blocque. He was clad more richly than before; smiled more sweetly than ever; seemed more prosperous, better satisfied, firmer in his conviction than ever that the President and the administration had never committed a fault—that the world of December, 1864, was the best of all possible worlds.
“My dear colonel!” exclaimed Mr. Pangloss-Trochilus,aliasMr. Blocque, “delighted to see you, I assure you! You are well? You will dine with me, to-day? At five precisely? You will find the old company—jolly companions, every one! We meet and talk of the affairs of the country. All is going on well, colonel. Our city is quiet and orderly. The government sees farther than its assailants. It can not explain now, and set itself right in the eyes of the people—that would reveal military secrets to the enemy, you know. I tell my friends in the departments not to mind their assailants. Washington himself was maligned, but he preserved a dignified silence. All is well, colonel! I give you my word, we are all right! I know a thing or two—!” and Mr. Blocque looked mysterious. “I have friends in high quarters, and you can rely on my statement. Lee is going to whip Grant. The people are rallying to the flag. The finances are improving. The resources of the country are untouched. A little patience—only averylittle patience! I tell my friends. Let us only endure trials and hardships with brave hearts. Let us not murmur at dry bread, colonel—let us cheerfully dress in rags—let us deny ourselves every thing, sacrifice every thing to the cause, cast away all superfluities, shoulder our muskets, and fight to the death! Then therecanbe no doubt of the result, colonel—good morning!”
And Mr. Blocque shook my hand cordially, gliding away in his shiny broadcloth, at the moment when Mr. Croker, catching my eye in passing, stopped to speak to me.
“You visit Richmond at an inauspicious moment, colonel,” said Mr. Croker, jingling his watch-seals with dignity. “The country has at last reached a point from which ruin is apparent in no very distant perspective, and when the hearts of the most resolute, in view of the depressing influences of the situation, are well nigh tempted to surrender every anticipation of ultimate success in the great cause which absorbs the energies of the entire country—hem!—at large. The cause of every trouble is so plain, that it would be insulting your good judgment to dwell upon the explanation. The administration has persistently disregarded the wishes of the people, and the best interests of the entire community; and we have at last reached a point where to stand still is as ruinous as to go on—as we are going—to certain destruction and annihilation. Look at the finances, entirely destroyed by the bungling and injudicious course of the honorable Mr. Memminger, who has proceeded upon fallacies which the youngest tyro would disdain to refute. Look at the quartermaster’s department,—the commissary department,—the State department, and the war department, and you will everywhere find the proofs of utter incompetence, leading straight, as I have before remarked, to that ruin which is pending at the present moment over the country. Our society is uprooted, and there is no hope for the country. Blockade-runners, forestallers, stragglers from the army—Good morning, Colonel Desperade; I was just speaking to our friend, Colonel Surry.”
And leaving me in the hands of the tall, smiling, and imposing Colonel Desperade, who was clad in a magnificent uniform, Mr. Croker, forestaller and extortioner, continued his way with dignity toward his counting house.
“This is a very great pleasure, colonel!” exclaimed Colonel Desperade, squeezing my hand with ardor. “Just from the lines, colonel? Any news? We are still keeping Grant off! He will find himself checkmated by our boys in gray! The country was never in better trim for a good hard fight. The immortal Lee is in fine spirits—the government steadily at work—and do you know, my dear Colonel, I am in luck to-day? I am certain to receive my appointment at last, as brigadier-general—”
“Look out, or you’ll be mistaken!” said a sarcastic voice behind us. And Mr. Torpedo, smoking a short and fiery cigar, stalked up and shook hands with me.
“Desperade depends on the war department, and is a ninny for doing so!” said Mr. Torpedo, member of Congress. “The man that depends on Jeff Davis, or his war secretary, is a double-distilled dolt. Jeff thinks he’s a soldier, and apes Napoleon. But you can’t depend on him, Desperade. Look at Johnston! He fooledhim. Look at Beauregard—he envies and fearshim, so he keeps him down. Don’t depend on the President, Desperade, or you’ll be a fool, my friend!”
And Mr. Torpedo walked on, puffing away at the fiery stump of his cigar, and muttering curses against President Davis.
An hour afterward, I was conversing in the rotunda of the capítol, with the high-bred and smiling old cavalier, Judge Conway, and he was saying to me:—
“The times are dark, colonel, I acknowledge that. But all would be well, if we could eradicate abuses and bring out our strength. A fatality, however, seems pursuing us. The blockade-runners drain the country of the little gold which is left in it; the forestallers run up prices, and debase the currency beyond hope; the able-bodied and healthy men who ought to be in the army, swarm in the streets; and the bitter foes of the President poison the public mind, and infuse into it despair. It is this, colonel, not our weakness, which is going to ruin us, if we are ruined!”
On the night before my return to the army, I paid my last visit to John M. Daniel.
Shall I show you a great career, shipwrecked—paint a mighty ship run upon the breakers? The current of our narrative drags us toward passionate and tragic events, but toward few scenes more sombre than that which I witnessed on this night in December, 1864.
I found John M. Daniel in his house on Broad Street, as before; perched still in his high chair of black horse-hair, all alone. His face was thinner; his cheeks more sallow, and now haggard and sunken; his eyes sparkling with gloomy fire, as he half reclined beneath the cluster of globe lamps, depending from the ceiling, and filling the whole apartment with their brilliant light—one of his weaknesses.
He received me with grim cordiality, offered me a cigar, and said:—
“I am glad to see you, colonel, and to offer you one of the last of my stock of Havanas. Wilmington is going soon—then good-bye to blockade goods.”
“You believe Wilmington is going to fall, then?”
“As surely as Savannah.”
“Savannah! You think that? We are more hopeful at Petersburg.”
“Hopeful or not, colonel, I am certain of what I say. Remember my prediction when it is fulfilled. The Yankees are a theatrical people. They take Vicksburg, and win Gettysburg, on their ‘great national anniversary;’ and now they are going to present themselves with a handsome ‘Christmas gift’—that is the city of Savannah.”
He spoke with evident difficulty, and his laboring voice, like his haggard cheeks, showed that he had been ill since I last saw him.
“Savannah captured, or surrendered!” I said, with knit brows. “What will be the result of that?”
“Ruin,” was the curt response.
“Not the loss of a mere town?”
“No; the place itself is nothing. For Sherman to take it will not benefit him much; but it will prove to the country, and the President, that he is irresistible. Then they willhack; and you will see the beginning of the end.”
“That is a gloomy view enough.”
“Yes—every thing is gloomy now. The devil of high-headed obstinacy and incompetence rules affairs. I do not croak in theExaminernewspaper. But we are going straight to the devil.”
As he uttered these words, he placed his hand upon his breast, and closed his eyes, as though he were going to faint.
“What is the matter?” I exclaimed, rising abruptly, and approaching him.
“Nothing!” he replied, in a weak voice; “don’t disturb yourself about me. These fits of faintness come on, now and then, in consequence of an attack of pneumonia which I had lately. Sit down, colonel. You must really pardon me for saying it, but you make me nervous.”
There was nothing in the tone of this singular address to take offence at,—the voice of the speaker was perfectly courteous,—and I resumed my seat.
“We were talking about Sherman,” he said. “They call him Gog, Magog, anti-Christ, I know not what, in the clerical circles of this city!”
His lip curled as he spoke.
“One reverend divine publicly declared the other day, that ‘God had put a hook in Sherman’s nose, and was leading him to his destruction!’ I don’t think it looks much like it!”
The speaker was stopped by a fit of coughing, and when it had subsided, leaned back, faint and exhausted, in his chair.
“The fact is—Sherman—” he said, with difficulty, “seems to have—the hook in—ournose!”
There was something grim and lugubrious in the smile which accompanied the painfully uttered words. A long silence followed them, which was broken by neither of us. At last I raised my head, and said:—
“I find you less hopeful than last summer. At that time you were in good spirits, and the tone of theExaminerwas buoyant.”
“It is hopeful still,” he replied, “but by an effort—from a sentiment of duty. I often write far more cheerfully than I feel, colonel."{1}
{Footnote 1: His words.}
“Your views have changed, I perceive—but you change with the whole country.”
“Yes. A whole century has passed since last August, when you visited me here. One by one, we have lost all that the country could depend on—hope goes last. For myself, I began to doubt when Jackson fell at Chancellorsville, and I have been doubting, more or less, ever since. He wasa dominant man, colonel, fit,if any thing happened, to rise to the head of affairs.{1} Oh! for an hour of Jackson! Oh! for a day of our dead Dundee!”{2}
{Footnote 1: His words.}
{Footnote 2: His words.}
The face of the speaker glowed, and I shall never forget the flash of his dark eye, as he uttered the words, “if any thing happened.” There was a whole volume of menace to President Davis in those words.
“But this is useless!” he went on; “Jackson is dead, and there is none to take his place. So, without leaders, with every sort of incompetence, with obstinacy and stupidity directing the public councils, and shaping the acts of the administration, we are gliding straight into the gulf of destruction.”
I could make no reply. The words of this singular man and profound thinker, affected me dolefully.
“Yes, colonel,” he went on, “the three or four months which have passed since your last visit, have cleared away all mists frommyeyes at least, and put an end to all my dreams—among others, to that project which I spoke of—the purchase and restoration of the family estate of Stafford. It will never be restored by me. Like Randolph, I am the last of my line.”
And with eyes full of a profound melancholy, the speaker gazed into the fire.
“I am passing away with the country,” he added. “The cause is going to fail. I give it three months to end in, and have sent for a prominent senator, who may be able to do something. I intend to say to him, ‘The time has come to make the best terms possible with the enemy,’ and I shall place the columns of theExaminernewspaper at his disposal to advocate that policy."{1}
{Footnote 1: This, I learned afterward, from the Hon. Mr. ——-, was duly done by Mr. Daniel. But it was too late.}
“Is it possible!” I said. “Frankly, I do not think things are so desperate.”
“You are a soldier, and hopeful, colonel. The smoke blinds you.”
“And yet General Lee is said to repudiate negotiations with scorn. He is said to have lately replied to a gentleman who advised them, ‘For myself, I intend to die sword in hand!’”
“General Lee is a soldier—and you know what the song says: ‘A soldier’s business, boys, is to die!’”
I could find no reply to the grim words.
“I tell you the cause is lost, colonel!” with feverish energy, “lost irremediably, at this moment while we are speaking! It is lost from causes which are enough to make the devil laugh, but it is lost all the same! When the day of surrender, and Yankee domination comes—when the gentlemen of the South are placed under the heel of negroes and Yankees—I, for one, wish to die. Happy is the man who shall have gotten into the grave before that day!{1} Blessed will be the woman who has never given suck!{2} Yes, the best thing for me is to die—{3} and I am going to do so. I shall not see thatDies Irae! I shall be in my grave!”
{Footnote 1: His words.}
{Footnote 2: His words.}
{Footnote 3: His words.}
And breathing heavily, the journalist again leaned back in his chair, as though about to faint.
An hour afterward, I terminated my visit, and went out, oppressed and gloomy.
This singular man had made a reluctant convert of me to his own dark views. The cloud which wrapped him, now darkened me—from the black future I saw the lightnings dart already.
His predictions were destined to have a very remarkable fulfilment.
On the 21st of December, a few days after our interview, Sherman telegraphed to Lincoln:—
“I beg to present you, as a Christmas gift, the city of Savannah, with one hundred and fifty guns, and plenty of ammunition, and also about twenty-five thousand bales of cotton.”
In January, Wilmington fell.
Toward the end of the same month, John M. Daniel was a second time seized with pneumonia, and took to his bed, from which he was never again to rise. He would see no one but his physician and a few chosen friends. All other persons were persistently denied admittance to his chamber. Lingering throughout the remainder of the winter, as spring approached, life seemed gradually leaving him. Day by day his pulse grew weaker. You would have said that this man was slowly dying with the cause for which he had fought; that as the life-blood oozed, drop by drop, from the bleeding bosom of the Southern Confederacy, the last pulses of John M. Daniel kept time to the pattering drops.
One morning, at the end of March, his physician came to see him, and found him lying on the outer edge of his bed. Not wishing to disturb him, the physician went to the window to mix a stimulant. All at once a noise attracted his attention, and he turned round. The dying man had, by a great effort, turned completely over, and lay on his back in the middle of the bed, with his eyes closed, and his arms folded on his breast, as though he were praying.
When the physician came to his bedside, he was dead.
It was four days before the fall of Petersburg and Richmond; and he was buried in Hollywood, just in time to escape the tramp of Federal feet around his coffin.
His prophecy and wish were thus fulfilled.{1}
{Footnote 1: These details are strictly accurate.}
When I left Mr. John M. Daniel it was past ten at night, and designing to set out early in the morning for Petersburg, I bent my steps toward home.
The night was not however to pass without adventures of another character.
I was going along Governor Street, picking my way by the light of the few gas-lamps set far apart and burning dimly, when all at once I heard a cry in front, succeeded by the noise of a scuffle, and then by a heavy fall.
Hastening forward I reached the spot, which was not far from the City Hall; and a glance told me all.
A wayfarer had been garroted; that is to say, suddenly attacked while passing along, by one of the night-birds who then infested the streets after dark; seized from behind; throttled, and thrown violently to the ground—the object of the assailant being robbery.
When I reached the spot the robber was still struggling with his victim, who, stretched beneath him on the ground, uttered frightful cries. One hand of the garroter was on his throat, the other was busily rifling his pockets.
I came up just in time to prevent a murder, but not to disappoint the robber. As I appeared he hastily rose, releasing the throat of the unfortunate citizen. I saw a watch gleam in his hand; he bestowed a violent kick on his prostrate victim;—then he disappeared running, and was in an instant lost in the darkness.
I saw that pursuit would be useless; and nobody ever thought, at that period, of attempting to summon the police. I turned to assist the victim, who all at once rose from the ground, uttering groans and cries.
The lamp-light shone upon his face. It was the worthy Mr. Blocque—Mr. Blocque, emitting howls of anguish! Mr. Blocque, shaking his clenched hands, and maligning all created things! Mr. Blocque, devoting, with loud curses and imprecations, the assembled wisdom of the “city fathers,” and the entire police force of the Confederate capital, to the infernal deities!
“I am robbed—murdered!” screamed the little Jewish-looking personage, in a shrill falsetto which resembled the shriek of a furious old woman, “robbed! rifled!—stripped of every thing!—garroted!—my money taken!—I had ten thousand dollars in gold and greenbacks on my person!—not a Confederate note in the whole pack—not one! gold and greenbacks!—two watches!—-I am ruined! I will expose the police! I was going to my house like a quiet citizen! I was harming nobody! and I am to be set on and robbed of my honest earnings by a highwayman—choked, strangled, knocked down, my pockets picked, my money taken—and this in the capital of the Confederacy, under the nose of the police!”
It was a shrill squeak which I heard—something unutterably ludicrous. I could scarce forbear laughing, as I looked at the little blockade-runner, with disordered hair, dirty face, torn clothes, and bleeding nose, uttering curses, and moaning in agony over the loss of his “honest earnings!”
I consoled him in the best manner I could, and asked him if he had lost every thing. That question seemed to arouse him. He felt hastily in his pockets,—and then at the result my eyes opened wide. Thrusting his hand into a secret pocket, he drew forth an enormous roll of greenbacks, and I could see the figures “100” on each of the notes as he ran over them. That bundle alone must have contained several thousands of dollars. But the worthy Mr. Blocque did not seem in the least consoled.
“He gotthe other bundle!” shrieked the victim, still in his wild falsetto; “it was ten thousand dollars—I had just received it this evening—I am robbed!—they are going to murder me!—Where is the police!—murder!”
I laid my hand upon his arm.
“You have lost a very considerable sum,” I said, “but—you may lose more still.”
And I pointed to the roll of bank notes in his hand, with a significant glance. At these words he started.
“You are right, colonel!” he said, hastily; “I may be attacked again! I may be robbed of all—they may finish me! I will get home as quickly as I can! Thank you, colonel! you have saved me from robbery and murder! Come and see me, colonel. Come and dine with me, my dear sir! At five, precisely!”
And Mr. Blocque commenced running wildly toward a place of safety.
In a moment he had disappeared, and I found myself alone—laughing heartily.