The roar of the Inauguration passed, and Washington was itself again—an old-fashioned Southern town of sixty thousand inhabitants, no longer asleep perhaps, but still aristocratic, skeptical, sneering in its attitude toward the new administration.
Behind the scenes in his Cabinet reigned confusion incredible. The tall dark backwoodsman who presided over these wrangling giants appeared at first to their superior wisdom a dazed spectator.
He had called them because they were indispensable. Now that the issues were to be faced, Mr. Seward, Mr. Chase, Mr. Cameron and Mr. Bates realized that the country lawyer who had won the Presidency over their superior claims knew his weakness and relied on their strength, training, and long experience in public affairs.
Certainly it had not occurred to one of them that his act in calling the greatest men of his party, and the party of opposition as well, into his Cabinet was a deed of such intellectual audacity that it scarcely had a parallel in history.
Mr. Seward, the Secretary of State, had reluctantly consented to enter the Cabinet at the last moment as an act of patriotism to save the country from impending ruin too great for any other man to face. His attitude was a reasonable one. He was the undoubted leader of the triumphant party.
Without a moment's hesitation on the first day of his service as Secretary of State he assumed the position of a Prime Minister, whose duties included a general supervision of all the Departments of Government, as well as a Regent's supervision over the Executive.
Salmon P. Chase, the Secretary of the Treasury, at once took up the gauntlet thrown down by his rival. He not only regarded the President with contempt, but he extended it to the political trickster who dared to assume the airs of Premiership in a Democratic Republic.
To these Cabinet meetings came no voices of comfort from the country. The Abolitionist press, which represented the aggressive conscience of the North, continued to ridicule and denounce the Inaugural address in unmeasured terms.
The simple truth was soon apparent to the sombre eyes of the President. He was facing the gravest problem that ever confronted a statesman without an organized party on which he could depend for support. But two of his Cabinet had any confidence in his ability or genuine loyalty—Gideon Welles, a Northern Democrat, and Montgomery Blair, a Southern aristocrat.
The problem before him was bigger than faction, bigger than party, bigger than Slavery. Could a government founded on the genuine principles of Democracy live? Could such a Union be held together composed of warring sections with vast territories extending over thousands of miles, washed by two oceans extending from the frozen mountains of Canada to the endless summers of the tropics?
If the Southern people should unite in a slave-holding Confederacy, it was not only a question as to whether he could shape an army mighty enough to conquer them, the more urgent and by far the graver problem was whether he could mould into unity the warring factions of the turbulent, passion-torn North. These people who had elected him—could he ever hope to bind them into a solid fighting unit? If their representatives in his Cabinet were truly representatives the task was beyond human power.
And yet the tall, lonely figure calmly faced it without a tremor. In the depths of his cavernous eyes there burned a steady flame but few of the men about him saw, or understood if they saw—that flame was something new in the history of the race—a faith in the common man which dared to give a new valuation to the individual and set new standards for the Democracy of the world. He believed that the heart of the masses of the people North, South, East and West was sound at the core and that as their Chief Magistrate he could ultimately appeal to them over the heads of all traditions—all factions, and all accepted leaders.
He was the most advised man and the worst advised man in history. It became necessary to think for himself or cease to think at all.
General Scott, the venerable hero of Lundy Lane, in command of the army, had suggested as a solution of the turmoil the division of the country into four separate Confederacies and had roughly drawn their outlines!
Horace Greeley had made theTribunethe most powerful newspaper in the history of America. The Republicans throughout the country had been educated by its teachings and held its authority second only to the Word of God. And yet from the moment of Lincoln's election the chief occupation of this powerful paper was to criticize and condemn the measures and policies of the President.
Over and over he repeated the deadly advice to the Nation:
"If the Cotton States shall decide that they can do better out of the Union than in it, we insist on letting them go in peace."
He serenely insisted:
"If eight Southern States, having five millions of people, choose to separate from us, they cannot be permanently withheld from doing so by Federal cannon. The South has as good right to secede from the Union as the Colonies had to secede from Great Britain. If they choose to form an independent Nation they have a clear moral right to do so, and we will do our best to forward their views."
Is it to be wondered at that the Southern people were absolutely clear in their conception of the right to secede if such doctrines were taught in the North by the highest authority within the party which had elected Abraham Lincoln?
If his own party leaders were boldly proclaiming such treason to the Union how could he hope to stem the tide that had set in for its ruin?
The thousands of conservative men North and South who voted for Bell and Everett demanded peace at any price. An orator in New York at a great mass meeting dared to say:
"If a revolution of force is to begin it shall be inaugurated at home! It will be just as brutal to send men to butcher our brothers of the South as it will be to massacre them in the Northern States."
The business interests of the Northern cities were bitterly and unanimously arrayed against any attempt to use force against the South. The city of New York was thoroughly imbued with Secession sentiment, and its Mayor, through Daniel E. Sickles, one of the members of Congress, demanded the establishment of a free and independent Municipal State on the island of Manhattan.
Seward had just written to Charles F. Adams, our minister to England:
"Only an imperial and despotic government could subjugate thoroughly disaffected and insurrectionary members of the State. This Federal Republican country of ours is, of all forms of Government, the very one which is the most unfitted for such a labor."
This letter could only mean one of two things, either that the first member of the Cabinet was a Secessionist and meant to allow the South to go unmolested, or he planned to change our form of Government by acoup d'étatin the crisis and assume the Dictatorship. In either event his attitude boded ill for the new President and his future.
Wendell Phillips, the eloquent friend of Senator Winter, declared in Boston in a public address:
"Here are a series of states who think their peculiar institutions require that they should have a separate government. They have the right to decide that question without appealing to you or me. Standing with the principles of '76 behind us, who can deny them the right? Abraham Lincoln has no right to a soldier in Fort Sumter. There is no longer a Union. You can not go through Massachusetts and recruit men to bombard Charleston or New Orleans. Nothing but madness can provoke a war with the Gulf States."
The last member of his distracted, divided, passion-ridden Cabinet had gone at the close of its first eventful sitting. The dark figure of the President stood beside the window looking over the mirror-like surface of the Potomac to the hills of Virginia.
The shadow of a great sorrow shrouded his face and form. The shoulders drooped. But the light in the depths of his sombre eyes was growing steadily in intensity.
Old Edward, the veteran hallman, appeared at the door with his endless effort to wash his hands without water.
"A young gentleman wishes to see you, sir, a reporter I think—Mr. Ned Vaughan, of theDaily Republican."
Without lifting his eyes from the Virginia hills, the quiet voice said:
"Let him in."
In vain the wily diplomat of the press sought to obtain a declaration of policy on the question of the relief of Fort Sumter. In his easy, friendly way the President made him welcome, but only smiled and slowly shook his head in answer to each pointed question, or laughed aloud at the skillful traps he was invited to enter.
"It's no use, my boy," he said at last, with a weary gesture. "I'm not going to tell you anything to-day——" he paused, and the light suddenly flashed from beneath his shaggy brows, "——except this—you can say to your readers that my course is as plain as a turnpike road. It is marked out by the Constitution. I am in no doubt which way to go. I am going to try to save the Union."
"In short," Ned laughed, "you propose to stand by your Inaugural?"
"That's a pretty good guess, young man! I'm surprised that you paid such close attention to my address."
"Perhaps I had an interpreter?"
"Did you?"
"Yes."
"Who?"
"A very beautiful young woman, Mr. President," Ned answered serenely.
The hazel-grey eyes twinkled:
"What's her name, sir?"
"Miss Betty Winter."
"Not the daughter of that old grizzly bear who's always camping on my trail?"
"The same, sir."
The swarthy face lighted with a radiant smile:
"What did she say about my Inaugural?"
"That it was the utterance of a wise, patient, great man."
Two big hands suddenly closed on Ned's and the tall figure bent low.
"Thank you for telling me that, my boy. It helps me after a hard day!"
"She said many other things, too, sir," Ned added.
"Did she?"
"With enthusiasm."
"Tell her to come to me," the President said slowly. "I want to talk to her."
He paused, turned to his desk and seized a pen:
"I'll send a subpœna for her—that's better."
On one of his cards he quickly wrote:
"My Dear Miss Winter:"You are hereby summoned to immediately appear before the Chief Magistrate to testify concerning grave matters of State.
"My Dear Miss Winter:
"You are hereby summoned to immediately appear before the Chief Magistrate to testify concerning grave matters of State.
A. Lincoln.
He slipped his long arm around Ned's shoulder and walked with him to the door:
"Serve that on her for me, will you, right away?"
With a nod and a smile, the reporter bowed and turned his steps toward the Senator's house.
Ned Vaughan paused with a moment of indecision before the plain, old-fashioned, brick house in which Senator Winter lived on the Capitol Hill. It was a confession of abject weakness to decline her invitation to dinner with his brother and jump at the first chance to butt in before the dinner hour.
Why should he worry? She was too serious and honest to play with any man, to say nothing of an attempt to flirt with two at the same time.
He refused to believe in the seriousness of any impression she had made on his brother's conceited fancy. His light love affairs had become notorious in his set. He was only amusing himself with Betty and she was too simple and pure to understand. Yet to warn her at this stage of the game against his own brother was obviously impossible.
He suddenly turned on his heel:
"I'm a fool. I'll wait till to-morrow!"
He walked rapidly to the corner, stopped abruptly, turned back to the door and rang the bell.
"Anyhow, I'm not a coward!" he muttered.
The pretty Irish maid who opened the door smiled graciously and knowingly. It made him furious. She mistook his rage for blushes and giggled insinuatingly.
"Miss Betty's in the garden, sor; she says to come right out there——"
"What?" Ned gasped.
"Yiss-sor; she saw you come up to the door just now and told me to tell you."
Again the girl giggled and again he flushed with rage.
He found her in the garden, busy with her flowers. The border of tall jonquils were in full bloom, a gorgeous yellow flame leaping from both sides of the narrow walkway which circled the high brick wall covered with a mass of honeysuckle. She held a huge pair of pruning shears, clipping the honeysuckle away from the budding violet beds.
She lifted her laughing brown eyes to his.
"Do help me!" she cried. "This honeysuckle vine is going to cover the whole garden and smother the house itself, I'm afraid."
He took the shears from her pink fingers and felt the thrill of their touch for just a moment.
His eyes lingered on the beautiful picture she made with flushed face and tangled ringlets of golden brown hair falling over forehead and cheeks and white rounded throat. The blue gingham apron was infinitely more becoming than the most elaborate ball costume. It suggested home and the sweet intimacy of comradeship.
"You're lovely in that blue apron, Miss Betty," he said with earnestness.
"Then I'm forgiven for making home folks of you?"
"I'm very happy in it."
"Well, you see I had no choice," she hastened to add. "I just had to finish these flowers before dressing for dinner. I'm expecting that handsome brother of yours directly and I must look my best for him, now mustn't I?"
She smiled into his eyes with such charming audacity he had to laugh.
"Of course, you must!" he agreed, and bent quickly to the task of clearing her violet bed of entangled vines. In ten minutes his strong hand had done the work of an hour for her slender fingers.
"How swiftly and beautifully you work, Ned!" she exclaimed as he rose with face flushed and gazed a moment admiringly on the witchery of her exquisite figure.
"How would you like me for a steady gardener?"
"I hope you're not going to lose your job on your brother's paper?"
"It's possible."
"Why?"
"We don't agree on politics."
"A reporter don't have to agree with an editor. He only obeys orders."
"That's it," Ned answered, with a firm snap of his strong jaw. "I'm not going to take orders from this Government many more days from the present outlook."
Betty looked him straight in the eye in silence and slowly asked:
"You're not really going to join the rebels?"
The slender boyish figure suddenly straightened and his lips quivered:
"Perhaps."
"You can't mean it!" she cried incredulously.
"Would you care?" he asked slowly.
"Very much," was the quick answer. "I should be shocked and disappointed in you. I've never believed for a moment that you meant what you said. I thought you were only debating the question from the Southern side."
"Tell me," Ned broke in, "does your father mean half he says about Lincoln and the South?"
"Every word he says. My father is made of the stuff that kindles martyr fires. He will march to the stake for his principles when the time comes."
"You admire that kind of man?"
"Don't you?"
"Yes. And for that reason I can't understand why you admire a trimmer and a time server."
"You mean?"
"The Rail-splitter in the White House."
"But he's not!" Betty protested. "I can feel the hand of steel beneath his glove—wait and see."
Ned laughed:
"Let Ephraim alone, he's joined to his idols! As our old preacher used to say in Missouri. Your delusion is hopeless. It's well the President is safely married."
Betty's eyes twinkled. Ned paused, blushed, fumbled in his pocket and drew out the card the President had given him to deliver.
"I am ordered by the administration," he gravely continued, "to serve this document on the daughter of Senator Winter."
Betty's eyes danced with amazement as she read the message in the handwriting of the Chief Magistrate.
"He sent this to me?"
"'Good-bye—Ned!' she breathed softly.""'Good-bye—Ned!' she breathed softly."
"Ordered me to serve it on you at once—my excuse for coming at this unseemly hour."
"But why?"
"I gave him a hint of your opinion of his Inaugural. I think it's a case of a drowning man grasping a straw."
"Well, this is splendid!" she exclaimed.
"You take it seriously?"
"It's a great honor."
"And are you going?"
"I'd go to-night if it were possible—to-morrow sure——"
She looked at the card curiously.
"I've a strange presentiment that something wonderful will come of this meeting."
"No doubt of it. When Senator Winter's daughter becomes the champion of the 'Slave Hound of Illinois' there'll be a sensation in the Capital gossip to say nothing of what may happen at home."
"I'll risk what happens at home, Ned! My father has two great passions, the hatred of Slavery and the love of his frivolous daughter. I can twist him around my little finger——"
She paused, snapped her finger and smiled up into his face sweetly:
"Do you doubt it, sir?"
"No," he answered with a frown, dropping his voice to low tender tones. "But would you mind telling me, Miss Betty, why you called me 'Mr. Ned' the other day when I introduced you to John?"
The faintest tinge of red flashed in her cheeks:
"I must have done it unconsciously."
"Please don't do it again. It hurts. You've called me Ned too long to drop it now, don't you think?"
"Yes."
Her eyes twinkled with mischief as she took his hand in parting.
"Good-bye—Ned!" she breathed softly.
And then he did a foolish thing, but the impulse was resistless. He bent low, reverently kissed the tips of her fingers and fled without daring to look back.
When Betty's card was sent in at the White House next morning, a smile lighted the sombre face of the President. He waved his long arms impulsively to his Secretaries and the waiting crowd of Congressmen:
"Clear everybody out for a few minutes, boys; I've an appointment at this hour."
The tall figure bowed with courtly deference over the little hand and his voice was touched with deep feeling:
"I want to thank you personally, Miss Betty, for your kind words about my Inaugural. They helped and cheered me in a trying moment."
"I'm glad," was the smiling answer.
"Tell me everything you said about it?" he urged laughingly.
"I'm afraid Mrs. Lincoln might not like it!" she said demurely.
"We'll risk it. I'm going to take you in to see her in a minute. I want her to know you. Tell me, what else did you say?"
He spoke with the eager wistfulness of a boy. It was only too plain that few messages of good cheer had come to lighten the burden his responsibilities had brought.
A smile touched her eyes with tender sympathy:
"You won't be vain if I tell you exactly what I said, Mr. President?"
"After all the brickbats that have been coming my way?" he laughed. No man could laugh with more genuine hearty enjoyment. His laughter convulsed his whole being for the moment and fairly hypnotized his hearer into sympathy with his mood.
"Out with it, Miss Betty, I need it!" he urged.
"I said, Mr. President, that you were very tender and very strong——" she paused and looked straight into his deep set eyes "——and that a great man had appeared in our history."
He was still for a moment and a mist veiled the light at which she gazed. He took her hand in both his, pressed it gently and murmured:
"Thank you, Miss Betty, I shall try to prove worthy of my little champion."
"I think you do things without trying, Mr. President," she answered.
"And you don't want an office, do you?"
"No."
"You have no favors to ask for your friends, have you?"
"None whatever."
"And you're Senator Winter's daughter?"
"Yes."
"The old grizzly bear! He hates me—but I've always liked him——"
"I hope you'll always like him," Betty quickly broke in.
"Of course I will. I've never cherished resentments. Life's too short, and the office I fill is too big for that. Do you know why I've sent for you?"
Betty smiled:
"To have me flatter you, of course. All men are vain. The greater the man, the greater his vanity."
Again he laughed with every muscle of his face and body.
"Honestly—no, that's not the reason," he said confidentially. "I want you to accept a position in my Cabinet."
"I didn't know that women were admitted?"
"They're not, but I've always been in favor of votes for women and I'm going to make a place for you."
Betty's lips trembled with a smile:
"What's the salary?"
"No salary, save the eternal gratitude of your Chief—will you accept?"
"I'll consider it—what duty?"
He looked steadily into her brown eyes:
"You have very bright, clear eyes, Miss Betty, I can see myself in them now more distinctly than in that mirror over the mantel. I'd like to borrow your eyes now and then to see things with. Will you accept the position?"
"If I can be of service, yes."
"The White House is open to you at all hours, and I shall send for you sometimes when I'm blue and puzzled and want a pair of pure, beautiful, young eyes—you understand?"
Betty extended her hand and her voice trembled:
"You have conferred on me a very great honor, Mr. President."
"For instance now," he said dreamily: "You endorse my Inaugural?"
"I'm sure it was wise, firm, friendly, dignified."
"I couldn't have said less than that I must possess and hold the property of the Government, could I? Well, I must now order a fleet to sail for Charleston Harbor to relieve our fort or allow the men who wear our uniform and fly our flag to die of starvation or surrender. Pretty poor Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy if I do that, am I not? Suppose I send a fleet to provision our men in Fort Sumter, not reinforce it—mind you, merely provisions for the handful of men who are there,—and suppose the Southern troops manning those land batteries open fire on our flag and force Major Anderson to surrender—what would happen in the North?"
He paused and looked at her steadily. The fine young figure suddenly stiffened:
"Every man, woman and child would say fight!"
The big jaws came together with firm precision and his huge fist struck the table:
"That's what I think. And at the same time something else would be happening over there——" His long arm swept toward the hills of Virginia, dark and threatening on the horizon. "The moment that shot crashes against our fort, North Carolina, Virginia, Arkansas, and Tennessee will join the Confederacy, to say nothing of what may happen in Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky and Missouri—all Slave States. The shock will be felt on both sides with precisely opposite effects. Sometimes we must do our duty and leave the rest to God, mustn't we? Yes—of course we must—and now, I've kept you too long, Miss Betty. It's a bargain, isn't it? You accept the position in my Cabinet?"
"Of course, Mr. President,—but if my duties are no heavier than I find them on this occasion, I fear I shall be of little help."
"You've been of the greatest service to me. You've confirmed my decision on a great problem of State. Come now and see Mother and the children. I want you to know them and like them."
He led her quickly into the family apartment and introduced her to Mrs. Lincoln. He found her in the midst of a grave discussion with Lizzie Garland, her colored dressmaker.
"This is old Grizzly's lovely daughter, Miss Betty Winter, Mother. She has joined the administration, stands squarely with us against the world, the flesh, the devil—and her father! I told her you'd give her the keys to the house——"
With a wave of his big hand he was gone.
Mrs. Lincoln's greeting was simple and hearty. In half an hour Betty had found a place in her heart for life, the boys were claiming her as their own, and a train of influences were set in motion destined to make history.
The first month of the new administration passed in a strange peace that proved to be the calm before the storm. On the first day of April, All Fool's Day, Mr. Seward decided to bring to a definite issue the question of supreme authority in the government. That Abraham Lincoln was the nominal President was true, of course. Mr. Seward generously decided to allow him to remain nominally at the head of the Nation and assume himself the full responsibilities of a Dictatorship.
The Secretary of State strolled leisurely into the executive office more careless in dress than usual, the knot of his cravat under his left ear, a huge lighted cigar in his hand. He handed the President a folded sheet of official paper, bowed carelessly and retired.
He had drawn up his proclamation under the title:
SOME THOUGHTS FOR THE PRESIDENT'S CONSIDERATION.
In this remarkable document he proposed to assume the Dictatorship and outlined his policy as director of the Nation's affairs.
He would immediately provoke war with Great Britain, Russia, Spain and France!
The dark-visaged giant adjusted his glasses and read this paper with a smile of incredulous amazement. He wiped his glasses and read it again. And then without consultation with a single human being, and without a moment's hesitation he wrote a brief reply to the great man and his generous offer. There was no bluster, no wrath, no demand for an apology to his insulted dignity, but in the simplest and friendliest and most direct language he informed his Secretary that if a dictator were needed to save the country he would undertake the dangerous and difficult job himself inasmuch as he had been called by the people to be their Commander-in-Chief, and that he expected the coöperation, advice and support ofallthe members of his Cabinet.
He did not even refer to the wild scheme of plunging the country into war with two-thirds of the civilized world. The bare announcement of such a suggestion would have driven the Secretary from public life. The quiet man who presided over the turbulent Cabinet never hinted to one of its members that such a document had reached his hands.
But as the shades of night fell over the Capitol on that first day of April, 1861, there was one distinguished statesman within the city who knew that a real man had been elected President and that he was going to wield the power placed in his hands without a tremor of fear or an instant's hesitation.
It took many months for other members of his Cabinet to learn this—but there was no more trouble with his Secretary of State. He became at once his loyal, earnest and faithful counsellor.
On April the 6th, the fleet was sent to sea under sealed orders to relieve Fort Sumter in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina. The President had been loath to commit the act which must inevitably provoke war—unless the whole movement of Secession in the South was one of political bluff. The highest military authority of the country had advised him that the fort could not be held by any force at present visible, and that its evacuation was inevitable in any event.
His Cabinet, with two exceptions, were against any attempt to relieve it. The sentiment of the people of the North was bitterly opposed to war on the South.
On April the 7th, the fleet was at sea on its way to the Southern coast, its guns shotted, its great battle flags streaming in the wind.
In accordance with the amenities of war the President notified General Beauregard, Commander of the Southern forces in Charleston Harbor, that he had sent his fleet to put provisions into Sumter, but not at present to put in men, arms or ammunition,unless the fort should be attacked.
On the night this message was dispatched Roger A. Pryor, of Virginia, made a speech in Charleston, from the balcony of the Mills Hotel to practically the entire white population of the city. Its message was fierce, direct, electric. It was summed up in a single sentence:
"Strike the first armed blow in defense of Southern rights and within one hour by Shrewsbury clock, old Virginia will stand, her battle flags flying, by your side!"
On the morning of the 11th General Beauregard sent Pryor as a special messenger to Major Anderson demanding the surrender of Fort Sumter, and on his refusal, which was a matter of course, instructed him to go at once to the nearest battery and order its Commander to open fire.
The formalities at Sumter quickly ended, Pryor repaired to Battery Johnson, met the young Captain of artillery in command and presented his order.
With a shout the Captain threw his arms around the messenger and with streaming eyes cried:
"Your wonderful speech last night made this glorious thing possible! You shall have the immortal honor of firing the first gun!"
And then a strange revulsion of fooling—or was it a flash of foreboding from the hell-lit, battle-scorched future! The orator hesitated and turned pale. It was an honor he could not now decline and yet he instinctively shrank from it.
He mopped the perspiration from his brow and looked about in a helpless way. His eye suddenly rested on a grey-haired, stalwart sentinel passing with quick firm tread. He recognized him immediately as a distinguished fellow Virginian, a man of large wealth and uncompromising opinions on Southern rights.
When Virginia had refused to secede, he cursed his countrymen as a set of hesitating cowards, left the State and moved to South Carolina. He had volunteered among the first and carried a musket as a private soldier in spite of his snow-white hairs.
Pryor turned to the Commandant:
"I appreciate, sir, the honor you would do me, but I could not think of taking it from one more worthy than myself. There is the man whose devotion to our cause is greater than mine."
He introduced Edmund Ruffin and gave a brief outline of his career. The boyish Commandant faced him:
"Will you accept the honor of firing the first shot, sir?"
The square jaw closed with a snap:
"By God, I will!"
The old man seized the lanyard and waited for the Captain and messenger to reach the front to witness the effect of the shot.
They had scarcely cleared the enclosure when the first gun of actual civil war thundered its fateful message across the still waters of the beautiful Southern harbor.
They watched the great screaming shell rise into the sky, curve downward and burst with sullen roar squarely over the doomed fort.
The deed was done!
Instantly came the answering cry of fierce, ungovernable wrath from the millions of the North. The four remaining Southern States wheeled into line, flung their battle flags into the sky, and the bloodiest war in the history of the world had begun.
The wave of fiery enthusiasm for the Union which swept the North was precisely what the clear eyes of the President had foreseen. A half million men would have sprung to their arms if there had been any to spring to. The whole country, North, South, East and West was utterly unprepared for war. The regular army of the United States consisted of only sixteen thousand men scattered over a vast territory.
The President called for seventy-five thousand volunteer militiamen for three months' service to restore order in the Southern States. Even this number was more than the War Department could equip before their terms would expire and the President had no authority to call State troops for a longer service.
On the day following the call, Massachusetts started three fully equipped regiments to the front. The first reached Baltimore on the 19th. On their march through the streets to change cars for Washington, they were attacked by a fierce mob and the first battle of the Civil War was fought. The regiment lost four killed and thirty-six wounded and the mob, twelve killed and a great number wounded. Grimed with blood and dirt the troops reached Washington at five o'clock in the afternoon, the first armed rescuers of the Capital. They were quartered in the magnificent Senate Chamber on the Capitol Hill.
The President was immediately confronted by the gravest crisis. The first blood had stained the soil of the only Slave State, which lay between Washington and the loyal North. If Maryland should join the Confederacy it would be impossible to hold the Capital. The city would be surrounded and isolated in hostile territory.
From the first he had believed that the only conceivable way to save the Union was to prevent the Border Slave States of Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri from joining the South. For the moment it seemed that Maryland was lost, and with it the Capital of the Nation. A storm of fury swept through the city of Baltimore and the whole State over the killing of her unarmed citizens by the "Abolition" troops from Massachusetts!
The Mayor of Baltimore sent a committee to the President who declared in the most solemn tones:
"It is not possible for more soldiers to pass through Baltimore unless they fight their way at every step."
And to make sure that the attempt would not be repeated he burned the railroad bridges connecting the North and cut every telegraph wire completely isolating the Capital.
Gilbert Winter, with his cold blue eyes flashing their slumbering fires of hate, stalked into the White House as the Baltimore committee were passing down the steps. Without announcement he confronted the President.
"In the name of the outraged dignity of this Republic," he thundered, "I demand that these traitors be arrested, tried by drumhead court-martial and hanged as spies!"
The patient giant figure lifted a big hand in a gesture of mild protest:
"Hardly, Senator!"
"And what was your answer?"
"I have written the Governor and the Mayor," the quiet voice went on, "that for the future troopsmustbe brought here, but I make no point of bringing them through Baltimore——"
"Indeed!" Winter sneered.
"All I want is to get them here. I have ordered them to march around Baltimore. And in fulfilment of this promise I've sent a regiment back to Philadelphia to come by water——"
"Great God—could cowardice sink to baser crawling!"
The tall man merely smiled—his furious visitor starting for the door, turned and growled:
"It is absolutely useless to discuss this question further?"
"Absolutely, Senator."
"And you will not order our regular troops to take Baltimore immediately at the point of the bayonet?"
"I will not."
"Good day, sir!"
"Good day, Senator."
With a muttered explosion of wrath Gilbert Winter shook the dust of the White House floor from his feet and solemnly promised God it would be many moons before he degraded himself by again entering its portals.
The President had need of all his patience and caution in dealing with Maryland. The next protest demanded that troops should not pass by way of Annapolis or over any other spot of the soil of the State.
He calmly but firmly replied:
"My troops must reach Washington. They can neither fly over the State of Maryland nor burrow under it: therefore, they must cross it, and your people must learn that there is no piece of American soil too good to be pressed by the foot of a loyal soldier on his march to the defense of the Capital and his country."
During these anxious days while the fate of Maryland hung in the balance the Government was given a startling revelation of what it would mean to have Maryland hostile territory.
For a week the President and his Cabinet were in a state of siege. They got no news. They could send none save by courier. The maddest rumors were daily afloat. The President was supposed to be governing a country from which he was completely isolated.
The tension at last became unbearable. The giant figure stood for hours alone before his window in the White House, his sombre hazel-grey eyes fixed on the hills beyond the Potomac. When the silence could no longer be endured the anguish of his heart broke forth in impassioned protest:
"Great God! Why don't they come? Why don't they come! Is our Nation a myth? Is there no North?"
And then the tide turned and the troops poured into the city.
His patient, careful and friendly treatment of the Marylanders quickly proved its wisdom. A reaction in favor of the Union set in and the State remained loyal to the flag. The importance of this fact could not be exaggerated. Without Maryland, Washington could not have been held. And the moment the Capital should fall Europe would recognize the Confederacy.
The saving of Maryland for the Union, in fact, established Washington as the real seat of Government, though it was destined to remain for years but an armed fortress on the frontiers of a new Nation.
The stirring events at Sumter and Baltimore brought more than one family to the grief and horror of brother against brother and father against son.
John Vaughan stood in his room livid with rage confronting Ned on the first day that communication was opened with the outside world.
"You are not going to do this insane thing I tell you, Ned!"
The boyish figure stiffened:
"I am going home to Missouri on the first train out of Washington, raise a company and fight for the South."
The older man's voice dropped to persuasive tones:
"Isn't there something bigger than fighting for a section? Let's stand by the Nation!"
"That's just what I refuse to do. The United States have never been a Nation. This country is a Republic of Republics—not an Empire. The South is going to fight for the right of local self-government and the liberties our fathers won from the tyrants of the old world. The South is right eternally and forever right. The States of this Union have always been sovereign."
"All right—all right," John growled impatiently, "granted, my boy. Still Secession is impossible. A Nation can't jump out of its own skin once it has grown it. This country has become a Nation. Steam and electricity have made it so. Railroads have bound us together in iron bands. Can't you see that?"
"No, I can't. Right is right."
"But if we have actually grown into a mighty united people with one tongue and one ideal is it right to draw the sword to destroy what God has joined together? Silently, swiftly, surely during the past thirty years we have become one people and the love of the Union has become a deathless passion——"
"You've had a poor way of showing it!" Ned sneered.
"Still, boy, it's true. I didn't realize it myself until that fort was fired on and the flag hauled down. And then it came to me in a blinding flash. Old Webster's voice has been hushed in death, but his soul lives in the hearts of our boys. There's hardly one of us who hasn't repeated at school his immortal words. They came back to me with thrilling power the day I read of that shot. They are ringing in my soul to-day——"
John paused and a rapt look crept into his eyes, as he began slowly to repeat the closing words of Webster's speech:
"'When mine eyes shall be turned to behold for the last time the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union; on States dissevered, discordant, belligerent; or a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, with fratricidal blood! Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the gracious ensign of the Republic, now known and honored throughout the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original lustre, not a stripe erased or polluted, not a single star obscured, bearing for its motto no such miserable interrogatory as "What is all this worth?" nor those other words of delusion and folly, "Liberty first and Union afterward," but everywhere, spread all over with living light, blazing in all its ample folds, as they float over the sea and over the land and in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment dear to every American heart—"LibertyandUnion, now and forever, one and inseparable——"'"
He paused, his voice choking with emotion, as he seized Ned's arm:
"O, Boy, Boy, isn't that a greater ideal? That's all the President is asking to-day—to stand by the Union——"
"He is making war on the South!"
"But only as the South is forcing him reluctantly to defend the Union by force. The South is mad. She will come to her senses after the shock of the first skirmish is over. With the Southern members in their places, they have a majority in Congress against the President. He can move neither hand nor foot. What has the South to gain by Secession? They always controlled the Union and can continue to do so if they stand united with their Northern friends. In the end their defeat is as sure as that twenty millions of free white Americans can whip five millions of equal courage and daring. They have everything to lose and nothing to gain. It's madness—it surpasses belief!"
"That's why I'm going to fight for them!" Ned's answer flashed. "They stand for a principle—their equal rights under the Republic their fathers created. They haven't paused to figure on success or failure. Five million freemen have drawn the sword against twenty millions because their rights have been invaded. Might has never yet made right. The South's daring is sublime and, by God, I stand with them!"
His words had the ring of steel in their finality. The two men faced each other for a moment, tense, earnest, defiant.
The younger extended his hand:
"Good-bye, John."
The handsome face of the older brother went suddenly white and he shook his head:
"No. From to-day we are no longer brothers—we can't be friends!"
Ned smiled, waved his hand and from the door firmly answered:
"As you like—from to-day—foes——"
He closed the door and with swift step turned his face toward the house of Senator Winter.
The pretty Irish maid nodded and smiled with such a sympathetic look as she ushered Ned into the cosy back parlor, he wondered if it meant anything. Could she have guessed Betty's secret? She might give him a hint that would lift the fear from his heart.
He smiled back into her laughing eyes and began awkwardly:
"Oh, I say, Peggy——"
She dropped a pretty courtesy:
"Yiss-sor?"
Somehow it wouldn't work. The words refused to come. Love was too big and sweet and sacred. It couldn't be hinted at to a third person. And so he merely stammered:
"Will you—er—please—tell Miss Betty I'm here?"
"Yiss-sor!" Peggy giggled.
He was glad to be rid of her. He drew his handkerchief, mopped the perspiration from his brow and sat down by the open window to wait. His heart was pounding. He looked about the room with vague longing. He had spent many a swift hour of pain and joy in this room. The sight and sound of her had grown into his very life—he couldn't realize how intimately and how hopelessly until this moment of parting perhaps forever.
The portrait of her mother hung over the mantel—a life-size oil painting by a noted French artist, the same brilliant laughing eyes, the same deep golden brown hair, its wayward ringlets playing loosely about her fine forehead and shell-like ears.
Beyond a doubt this pretty mother with the sunshine of France in her blood had known how to flirt in her day—and her beautiful daughter was enough like that picture to have been her twin sister.
On the mantel beneath this portrait sat photographs in solid silver frames, one of Wendell Phillips, one of William Lloyd Garrison and one of John C. Fremont, the first Republican candidate for President. Directly opposite on the wall hung an oil painting of John Brown. Ned caught the flash of the fanatic in the old madman's eye and was startled at the striking resemblance to Senator Winter. He had never thought of it before. Gilbert Winter might have been his brother in the flesh as he undoubtedly was in spirit.
The thought chilled. He looked out the window with a sigh and wondered how far the old tyrant would carry his hatred of the South into his daughter's life. His eye rested for a moment on the row of lilacs in full bloom in the garden and caught the flash of the big new leaves of the magnolia which shadowed the rear wall. The early honeysuckle had begun to blossom on the south side, and the violet beds were a solid mass of gorgeous blue. Through the open window came the rich odor of the long rows of narcissus in full white glory where the jonquils had flamed a month ago.
What a beautiful world to be beaten into a scarred battlefield!
For just a moment the thought wrung the heart of youth and love. It was hard just when the tenderest and sweetest impulses that ever filled his soul wore clamoring for speech, to turn his back on all, say good-bye and go—to war—perhaps to kill his own brother.
And there could be no mistake, war had come. Overhead he caught the steady tramp of Senator Winter's feet, a caged lion walking back and forth with hungry eyes turned toward the South. He could feel his deadly hostility through the very walls.
A battery of artillery suddenly roared through the streets, the dull heavy rattle of its wheels over the cobblestones, and the crack of the driver's whip echoing and reëchoing through the house. Behind it came the steady tramp, tramp, of a regiment of infantry, the loud call of their volunteer officers ringing sharply their orders at the turn of the street. Far off on the Capitol Hill he heard the sharp note of a bugle and the rattle of horses' hoofs. Every hour the raw troops were pouring into the city from the North, the East and the West.
He wondered with a strange catch in his throat what difference this was going to make between him and the girl he loved. There was no longer any question about the love. He marvelled that he had been too stupid to realize it and speak before this shadow had fallen between them. She knew that his sympathies were with the South and he knew with equal certainty she had never believed that he would fight to destroy the Union when the test should come. He dreaded the shock when he must tell her.
His heart grew sick with fear. What chance had he with everything against him—her old, fanatical father who loved her with the tender devotion of his strong manhood—her own blind admiration for the new President, whose coming had brought war—and worst of all he must go and leave John by her side! His brother had given no hint of his real feelings, but his deeds had been more eloquent than words. He had seen Betty every week since the day they had met—sometimes twice. This he knew. There may have been times he didn't know.
All the more reason why he must put the thing to the test. Besides hemustspeak. His hour had struck. His country was calling, and he must go—to meet Death or Glory. The woman he loved must know.
He heard the soft rustle of her dress on the stairs and sprang to his feet. She paused in the doorway a vision of ravishing beauty in full evening dress, her bare arms and exquisite neck and throat gleaming in the shadows.
She smiled graciously, her brown eyes sparkling with the conscious power which youth and beauty can never conceal.
She held out her soft warm hand and his trembling cold fingers grasped it.
"I'm sorry to have kept you, Ned," she began softly, "but I was dressing for the reception at the White House. I promised Mrs. Lincoln to help her."
"I didn't mind the wait, Miss Betty," he answered soberly. "Come into the garden—I can talk better there among your flowers—I never mind waiting for you."
"Why?"
"I've time to dream."
"Before you must wake?" she laughed.
"I'm afraid it's so this time——"
"Why so serious—what's the matter?"
"I'm going to the front."
"So are thousands of brave men, Ned. I've always known you'd go when the test came."
He bit his lips and was silent. It was hard, but he had to say it:
"I am going to fight for the South, Miss Betty."
The silence was painful. She looked steadily into his dark earnest eyes. There was something too big and fine in them to be met with anger or reproach. He was deadly pale and waited breathlessly for her to speak.
"I'm sorry," she breathed softly.
"You know that it costs me something to say this to you," he stammered.
"Yes, I know——"
"But it must be. It's a question of principle—a question that cuts to the bone of a fellow's life and character. A man must be true to what he believes to be right, mustn't he?"
His voice was tender, wistful, pleading. The sweet, young face upturned to his caught his mood:
"Yes, Ned."
"I couldn't be a real man and do less, could I?"
"No—but I'm sorry"—she paused and suddenly asked, "Your brother agrees with you?"
Ned frowned: "Why do you ask that question?"
"Because I was sure that he was on our side——"
"Is that all?"
"And I've always supposed he was a sort of guardian——"
"Only because he has always been my big brother and I've loved and admired him very much. I cried my eyes out the day he left home out in Missouri and came East to college."
"And you're going to fight him?"
"It's possible."
"It's horrible!"
"And yet, men who are not savages could only do such things drawn by the mightiest forces that move a human soul—you must know that, Miss Betty."
"Yes."
"There's only one thing in life that's bigger——"
"And that?"
"Is love. I've held it too high and holy a word to speak lightly. I shall tell but one woman that I love her——"
She looked at him tenderly:
"You glorious, foolish boy!"
Pale and trembling he took her hand, led her to a seat and sank on his knees by her side.
"I love you, Betty!" he gasped. "I've loved you from the moment we met, tenderly, madly, reverently. I've been afraid to touch your hand lately lest you feel the pounding of my heart and know. And now it's come—this hour when I must say I love you and good-bye in the same breath! Be gentle and sweet to me. I'm afraid to ask if you love me. It's too good to be true. I'm not worthy to even touch your little hand—and yet I'm daring to hold it in mine——"
He paused and bowed his head, overcome with emotion.
Betty gently pressed his trembling fingers. Her voice was low.
"I'm proud of your love, Ned. It's very beautiful——"
"But you don't love me?" he groaned.
"Not as you love me."
He looked searchingly and hungrily into her brown eyes:
"Is it John?"
She shook her head slowly and thoughtfully:
"No."
"And it's no one else?"
"No."
"Then I won't take that answer!" he cried with desperate earnestness. "I'm going to win you. I'll love you with a love so big and true I'll make you love me. Everything's against me now. Your father's against me. I'm going to fight your country and your people. You admire the new President. I despise him. The passions of war have separated us, that's all. But I won't give up. The war can't last long. You'll see things in a different way when it ends."
Betty smiled into his pleading eyes:
"How little you know me, Boy! Nothing on this earth could separate me from the man I love——" she paused and breathed quickly "——I'd follow him blindfold to the bottomless pit once I'd given him my heart!"
Ned rose suddenly to his foot and drew Betty with him. His hand now was hot with the passion that fired his soul.
"Then you're worth fighting for. And I'm going to fight—fight for what I believe to be right and fight for you——"
He stopped suddenly and his slender figure straightened:
"I'm coming back to you, Betty!" he said with clear ringing emphasis. "I'm coming back to Washington. I'll be with an army conquering, triumphant, because they are right. There'll be a new President in the White House and I'll win!"
He bowed and reverently kissed the tips of her fingers.
"You glorious boy!" she sighed. "It's beautiful to be loved like that! I'm proud of it—I'll hold my head a little higher with every thought of you——"
"And you'll think of me sometimes when war has separated us?"
"I'll never forget!"
"And remember that I'm fighting my way back to your side?"
A tender smile played about the corners of her eyes and mouth:
"I'll remember."
With a quick, firm movement he turned, passed through the house, and strode toward the iron gate.
He suddenly confronted John entering.
The two brothers faced each other for a moment angrily and awkwardly, and then the anger slowly melted from the younger man's eyes.
"You are taking dinner with Miss Betty to-night?" Ned asked in friendly tones.
"Yes, I'm going with her to the White House," was the cold reply.
"I'm leaving in an hour. Don't you think it's foolish for two brothers who have been what you and I have been to each other to part like this? We may not see one another again."
John hesitated and then slowly slipped his arm around the younger man, holding him in silence. When his voice was steady he said:
"Forgive me, Boy. I was blind with anger. It meant so much to me. But we'll face it. We'll have to fight it out—as God gives us wisdom to see the right——"
Ned's hand found his, and clasped it firmly:
"As God gives us to see the right, John—Good-bye."
"Good-bye, Boy,—it's hard to say it!"
They clung to each other for a moment and slowly drew apart as the shadows of the soft spring night deepened.