"Dear Miss Betty:"For one look into your dear eyes I am here. I've tried in vain to meet you. I can't leave without seeing you. I'll wait in the park at the foot of the avenue to-morrow night at dusk. Just one touch of your hand and five minutes near you is all I ask——"
"Dear Miss Betty:
"For one look into your dear eyes I am here. I've tried in vain to meet you. I can't leave without seeing you. I'll wait in the park at the foot of the avenue to-morrow night at dusk. Just one touch of your hand and five minutes near you is all I ask——"
There was no signature needed. She would know. He mailed it and hurried to his appointment.
The boy was prompt. There was no one in sight. Ned hurriedly examined the sheet of paper, verified the known commands and their numbers and, convinced of its genuineness, handed the money to the traitor.
"For God's sake, never speak to me again or recognize me in any way," he begged through chattering teeth. "I got those things from Stanton's desk and copied them."
Ned nodded, placed the precious document in his pocket, and watched the fool hurry with swift feet straight to Joe Hall's place and disappear within.
Betty failed to come at the appointed time and he was heartsick. He would finish his work in six hours to-morrow and he should not lose a moment in passing the Federal lines. The precious figures he had bought were memorized and the paper destroyed. In six hours next day he completed the drawings of the fort on which information had been asked and was ready to leave.
But he had not seen Betty. He tried to go and each effort only led him to the corner from which he watched her house. He lingered until night and waited an hour again in the dark. And still she had not come. And then it slowly dawned on him that she must have realized from the moment she read his message the peril of his position and the danger of his betrayal in their meeting.
He turned with quick, firm tread to pass the Federal lines without delay, and walked into the arms of two secret service men.
Without a word he was manacled and led to prison. The boy he had bribed had been under suspicion since his first visits to Joe Hall's. Stanton had discovered that his desk had been rummaged. Five of his nine Southern comrades had been arrested and he was the sixth. The rage of the Secretary of War had been boundless. He had thrown out a dragnet of detectives and every suspicious character in the city was passing through it or landing in prison.
The men stripped him and searched with the touch of experts every stitch of his clothing, ripped the lining of his coat, opened the soles of his shoes, split the heels and found nothing. He had been ordered to dress and given permission to go, when suddenly the officer conducting the search said:
"Wait!"
Ned stopped in the doorway. It was useless to protest.
"Excuse my persistence, my friend," he said apologetically. "You seem all right and my men have apparently made a mistake, all the same I'm going to examine your mouth——"
Ned's eyes suddenly flashed and his figure unconsciously stiffened.
"I thought so!" the officer laughed.
The door was closed and the guard stepped before it.
And then, with quick sure touch as if he saw the object of his search through the flesh, the detective lifted Ned Vaughan's upper lip and drew from between his lips and teeth the long, thin, delicately folded tinfoil within which lay the tissue drawing of the fort.
The drumhead court-martial which followed was brief and formal. The prisoner refused to give his name or any clue to his identity. He was condemned to be hanged as a spy at noon the next day and locked in a cell in the Old Capitol Prison.
On his way they passed Senator Winter's house. Six hours' delay just to look into her face had cost him his life, but his one hopeless regret now was that he had failed to see her.
Betty Winter read the account of the sensational arrest and death sentence. He had been arrested at the trysting place he had appointed. She dropped the paper with a cry and hurried to the White House. She thanked God for the loving heart that dwelt there.
Without a moment's hesitation the President ordered a suspension of sentence and directed that the papers be sent to him for review.
In vain Stanton raged. He shook his fist in the calm, rugged face at last:
"Dare to interfere with the final execution of this sentence and I shall resign in five minutes after you issue that pardon! I'll stand for some things—but not for this—I warn you!"
"I understand your position, Stanton," was the quiet answer. "And I'll let you know my decision when I've reached it."
With a muttered oath, the Secretary of War left the room.
Betty bent close to his desk and whispered:
"You'll give me three days to get his mother here?"
"Of course I will, child, six days if it's necessary. Get word to her. If I can't save him, she can say good-bye to her boy. That can't hurt anybody, can it?"
With a warm grasp of his hand Betty flew to the telegraph office and three days later she saw for the first time the broken-hearted mother. The resemblance was so startling between the mother and both sons she couldn't resist the impulse to throw her arms around her neck.
"I came alone, dear," the mother said brokenly, "because his father is so bitter. You see we're divided at home, too. I'm with John in his love for the Union—but his father is bitter against the war. It would do no good for him to come. He hates the President and says he's responsible for all the blood and suffering—and so I'm alone—but you'll help me?"
"Yes, I'll help and we'll fight to win."
The mother held her at arms' length a moment:
"How sweet and beautiful you are! How happy I am that you love my John! I'm proud of you. Is John here?"
Betty's face clouded:
"No. I telegraphed him to come. He answered that a great battle was about to be fought and that it was absolutely useless to ask for pardon——"
"But it isn't—is it, dear?"
"No, we'll fight. John doesn't know the President as I do. We'll never give up—you and I—Mother!"
Again they were in each other's arms in silence. The older woman held her close.
And then came the long, hard fight.
The President heard the mother's plea with tender patience and shook his head sorrowfully.
"I'm sorry, dear Madam," he said at last, "to find this case so dangerous and difficult. Our army is approaching a battle. Tremendous issues hang on the results. It looks now as if this battle may end the war. The enemy have as good right to send their brave scouts and spies among us to learn our secrets as we have to send ours to learn theirs. They kill our boys without mercy when captured. I have just asked Jefferson Davis to spare the life of one of the noblest and bravest men I have ever known. He was caught in Richmond on a daring errand for his country. They refused and executed him. How can I face my Secretary of War with such a pardon in my hands?"
The mother's head drooped lower with each sorrowful word and when the voice ceased she fell on her knees, with clasped hands and streaming eyes in a voiceless prayer whose dumb agony found the President's heart more swiftly and terribly than words.
"O my dear little mother, you mustn't do that!" he protested, seizing her hands and lifting her to her feet. "You mustn't kneel to me, I'm not God—I'm just a distracted man praying from hour to hour and day to day for wisdom to do what's right! I can't stand this—you mustn't do such things—they kill me!"
He threw his big hands into the air with a gesture of despair, his face corpse-like in its ashen agony. He took a step from her and leaned against the long table in the centre of the room for support.
Betty whispered something in the mother's ear and led her near again.
"If you'll just give my boy to me alive," she went on in low anguish, "I'll take him home and keep him there and I'll pledge my life that he will never again take up arms against the Union——"
"You can guarantee me that?" he interrupted, holding her gaze.
"I'm sure of it. He's noble, high-spirited, the soul of honor. He was always good and never gave me an hour's sorrow in his life until this war came——"
The long arm suddenly swung toward his Secretary:
"Have the prisoner, Ned Vaughan, brought here immediately. When he comes, Madam, I'll see what can be done."
With a sob of joy the mother leaned against Betty, who took her out into the air until the wagon from the jail should come.
They had led Ned quickly into the President's office before his mother and Betty knew of his arrival. His wrists were circled with handcuffs. The President looked over his spectacles at the irons and spoke sharply:
"Take those things off him——"
The guard hesitated, and the high pitched voice rang with angry authority:
"Take off those handcuffs, I tell you. His mother'll be here in a minute—take 'em off!"
The guard quickly removed the manacles and the President turned to him and his attendants:
"Clear out now. I'll call you when I want you."
Ned bowed:
"Thank you, sir."
"I hope I can do more than that for you, my boy. It all depends on you——"
The mother's cry of joy stopped him short as she walked into the door. With a bound she reached Ned's side, clasped him in her arms and kissed him again and again with the low caressing words that only a mother's lips can breathe. He loosened her hands tenderly:
"I'm glad you came, dear. It's all right. You mustn't worry. This is war, you know."
"But we're going to save you, my darling. The President's going to pardon you. I feel it—I know it. That's why he sent for you. God has heard my prayer."
"I'm afraid you don't understand these things, dear," Ned replied tenderly. "The President can't pardon me—no one understands that better than I do——"
"But he will, darling! He will——"
Ned soothed her and turned to Betty.
"Just a moment, Mother, I wish to speak to Miss Betty."
He took her hand and looked into her face with wistful intensity.
"One long look at the girl of my dreams and I'll wait for you on the other side! This is not the way I told you I would return, is it? But it's war. We must take it as it comes—good-bye—dearest——"
"O Ned, Boy, the President will pardon you if you'll be reasonable. You must, for her sake, if not because I ask it."
"It's sweet of you to try this, dearest, but of course, it's useless. The President must be just."
The tall figure rose and Ned turned to face his desk.
"Young man," he began gently, "you're a soldier of exceptional training and intelligence. You knew the danger and the importance of your mission. You have failed and your life is forfeited to the Nation, but for your mother's sake, because of her love and her anguish and her loyalty, I have decided to trust you and send you home on parole in her custody if you take the oath of allegiance——"
The mother gave a sob of joy.
"I thank you, Mr. President," was the firm reply, "for your generous offer for my mother's sake, but I cannot take your oath. I have sworn allegiance to another Government in the righteousness and justice of whose cause I live and am ready to die——"
"Ned—Ned!" the mother moaned.
"I must, Mother, dear," he firmly went on. "Life is sweet when it's worth living. But man can not live by bread alone. They have only the power to kill my body. You ask me to murder my soul."
He paused and turned to the President, whose eyes were shining with admiration.
"I believe, sir, that I am right and you are wrong. This is war. We must fight it out. I'm a soldier and a soldier's business is to die."
The tall figure suddenly crossed the space that separated them and grasped his hand:
"You're a brave man, Ned Vaughan, the kind of man that saves this world from hell—the kind that makes this Nation great and worth saving whole! I wish I could keep you here—but I can't. You know that—good-bye——"
"Good-bye, sir," was the firm answer.
The mother began to sob piteously until Betty spoke something softly in her ear.
Ned turned, pressed her to his heart, and held her in silence. He took Betty's hand and bent to kiss it.
"You shall not die," she whispered tensely. "I'm going to save you."
She felt the answering pressure and knew that he understood.
Betty held the mother at the door a moment and spoke in low tones:
"I can get permission from the President to delay the execution until his sister may arrive and say good-bye to him in prison the night before the execution. Wait and I'll get it now."
The mother stood and gazed in a stupor of dull despair while Betty pressed to his desk and begged the last favor. It was granted without hesitation.
"'You're a brave man, Ned Vaughan.'""'You're a brave man, Ned Vaughan.'"
The President wrote the order delaying the death for three days and handed her his card on which was written:
"Admit the bearer, the sister of the prisoner, Ned Vaughan, the night before his execution to see him for five minutes.
"Admit the bearer, the sister of the prisoner, Ned Vaughan, the night before his execution to see him for five minutes.
"A. Lincoln."
"I'm sorry, little girl, I couldn't do more foryoursake—but you understand?"
Betty nodded, returned the pressure of his hand and hurriedly left the room.
The hanging was fixed for the following Friday at noon. The pass would admit his sister on Thursday night. Betty had three days in which to work. She drew every dollar of her money and went at her task swiftly, silently, surely, until she reached the guard inside the grim old prison, who held the keys to the death watch.
She couldn't trust the sister with her daring plan. She might lose her nerve. She must impersonate her. It was a dangerous piece of work, but it was not impossible. She had only to pass the inspectors. The guards inside were her friends.
On Thursday night at eight o'clock a carriage drew up at the little red brick house, on whose door flashed the brass plate sign:
Elizabeth Garland, ModisteShe had made an appointment with Mrs. Lincoln's dressmaker and arranged for it at this late hour. She must not be seen leaving her father's house to-night.
She drove rapidly to the Capitol, stopped her carriage at the north end, entered the building through the Senate wing, quickly passed out again, and in a few minutes had presented her pass to the commandant of the Old Capitol Prison.
The woman inspector made the most thorough search and finding nothing suspicious, allowed her to enter the dimly lighted corridor of the death watch.
The turnkey loudly announced:
"The sister of the prisoner, Ned Vaughan!"
She met him face to face in the large cell in which the condemned were allowed to pass their last night on earth. The keen eyes of a guard from the Inspector's office watched her every act and every movement of her body.
Ned stared at her. His heart beat with mad joy. She was going to play his sister's part! He would take her in his arms for the first time and feel the beat of her heart against his and their lips would meet. He laughed at death as he looked into her eyes with the hunger of eternity gleaming in his own.
There could be no hesitation on her part.
She threw both arms around his neck crying:
"Brave, foolish boy!"
He held her close, crushed her with one mad impulse, and slowly relaxed his arms. She would forgive him for this moment of delirium on the brink of the grave, but he must be reasonable.
"I am ready to die, now, dearest," he murmured.
She slowly lifted her lips to his in a long kiss—a kiss that thrilled body and soul—and pressed into his mouth a tiny piece of tissue paper.
She stood holding both his hands for a moment and hesitated, glancing at the guard from the corner of her eye. He was watching with steady stolid business-like stare. She must play her part to the end carefully and boldly.
"I've only this moment just to say good-bye, Boy," she faltered. "I promised not to stay long." Slowly her arms stole round his neck, and the blood rushed to his face in scarlet waves.
"Love has made death glorious, dearest," he breathed tenderly. "God bless you for coming, for all you have done for me, and for all this holy hour means to my soul—you understand."
The tears were streaming down her cheeks now. The plan might fail after all—the gallows was there in the jail yard lifting its stark arms in the lowering sky. She pressed his hands hysterically:
"Yes, yes, I understand."
She turned and hurried to the guard:
"Take me out quickly. I'm going to faint. I can't endure it."
The guard caught her arm, supporting her as she made her way to the street.
In fifteen minutes she had returned to the dressmaker's and from there called another carriage and went home.
The guard had no sooner turned his back than Ned Vaughan quickly opened and read the precious message which gave the plan of escape.
When the sentinel on his corridor was changed at midnight the blond, blue-eyed boy would be his friend and explain.
When he found the rope ladder concealed on the roof it was raining. He fastened it carefully in the shadow of an offset in the outer wall and waited for the appearance of the guard. As he passed the gas lamp post and the flickering light fell on his face he studied it with care. He was stupid and allowed the rain to dash straight into his fat face. It should be easy to reach the shadows by a quick leap when he turned against the rain and reached the length of his beat.
He calculated to a second the time required to make the descent, threw himself swiftly to the end of his rope and dropped to the pavement.
In his eagerness to strike the ground on the run, his foot slipped and he fell. The guard heard and ran back, blinking his stupid eyes through the rain. He found a young sport who had lost his way in the storm.
"I shay, partner," the fallen drunk blubbered. "What'ell's the matter here? Ain't this Joe Hall's place?"
"Not by a dam sight."
"Ah, g'long with yer, f-foolishness—man—and open the door—I'm an old customer—I ain't no secret service man—I'm all right—open her up——"
"Here, here, get up an' move on now, I can't fool with you," the guard growled good-naturedly. He lifted Ned to his feet and helped him to the end of his beat, waved him a jolly good-night, and turned to his steady tramp. The rope was still dangling next morning ten feet above his head.
The sensation that thrilled the War Department was one that made history for the Nation, as well as the individuals concerned, and for some unfortunately who were not concerned.
The day General Lee's army turned toward the north for the Maryland shore, the President, with the eagerness of a boy, hurried to McClellan's house to shake his hand, bid him God's speed and assure him of his earnest support and good wishes.
The absurdity of the ruler of a mighty Nation hurrying on foot to the house of one of his generals never occurred to his mind.
The autocratic power over the lives and future of millions to which he had been called had thrown no shadow of vanity or self pride over his simple life. Responsibility had only made clearer his judgment, strengthened his courage, broadened and deepened his love for his fellow man.
He wished to see his Commanding General and bid him God's speed. The General was busy and he wished to take up but a few minutes of his time. And so without a moment's hesitation he walked to his house accompanied only by Hay, his Assistant Secretary.
On the way he was jubilant with hope:
"We've got them now, Boy—we've got them, and this war must speedily end! Lee will never get into Maryland with fifty thousand effective men. With the river hemming him in on the rear I'll have McClellan on him with a hundred thousand well shod, well fed, well armed and with the finest artillery that ever thundered into battle. We're bound to win."
"If McClellan can whip him, sir?"
"Yes, of course, he's got to do that," was the thoughtful answer. "And you know I believe he'll do it. McClellan's on his mettle now. His army will fight like tigers to show their faith in him. He's vain and ambitious, yes—many great men are. Ambition's a mighty human motive."
"I'm afraid it's bad diplomacy, sir, to go to his house like this—he is vain, you know," the younger man observed with a frown.
"Tut, tut, Boy, it's no time for ceremony. Who cares a copper!"
The clock in the church tower struck ten as Hay sprang up the steps and rang the bell.
"I hope he hasn't gone to bed," the Secretary said.
"At ten o'clock?" the President laughed, "a great general about to march on the most important campaign of his life—hardly."
The straight orderly saluted and ushered them into the elegant reception room—the room so often graced by the Prince de Joinville and the Comte de Paris, of the General's staff.
The orderly sniffed the air in a superior butler style:
"The General has not come in yet, gentlemen."
"We'll wait," was the President's quick response.
They sat in silence and the minutes dragged.
The young Secretary, in rising wrath, looked again and again at the clock.
"Don't be so impatient, John," the quiet, even voice said. "Great bodies move slowly, they say—come here and sit down—I'll tell you a secret. The Cabinet knows it—and you can, too."
He leaned his giant figure forward in his chair and touched an official document which he had drawn from his pocket.
"Great events hang on this battle. I've written out here a challenge to mortal combat for all our foes, North, South, East and West. I'm going to free the slaves if we win this battle and we're sure to win it——"
Hay glanced at the door with a startled look.
"McClellan and I don't agree on this subject and he mightn't fight as well if he knew it. It's a thing of doubtful wisdom at its best to hurl this challenge into the face of my foe. But the time has come and it must be done. We have made no headway in this war, and we must crush the South to end it. If the Copperhead leaders should get control of the Democratic party because of it—well, it means trouble at home. Douglas is dead and the jackal is trying to wear the lion's skin. He may succeed, but then I must risk it. I'll lose some good soldiers from the army but I've got to do it. All I'm waiting for now is a victory on which to launch my thunderbolt——"
A key clicked in the front door and the quick, firm step of McClellan echoed through the hall.
The orderly was reporting his distinguished visitor. They could hear his low words, and the sharp answer.
The General mounted the stairs and entered the front room overhead. He was there, of course, to arrange his toilet. He was a stickler for handsome clothes, spotless linen and the last detail of ceremony.
Again the minutes dragged. The tick of the clock on the mantel rang through the silent room and the face of the younger man grew red with rage.
Unable to endure the insolence of a subordinate toward the great Chieftain, whom he loved with a boy's blind devotion, Hay sprang to his feet:
"Let's go, sir!"
The big hand was quietly raised in a gesture of command and he sank into his seat.
Five minutes more passed and the sound of approaching footsteps were heard quickly, firmly pressed with military precision.
The President nodded:
"You see, my son!"
But instead of the General the handsome figure of his aide, John Vaughan, appeared in the doorway:
"The General begs me to say, Mr. President, that he is too much fatigued to see any one this evening and has retired for the night."
The orderly stepped pompously to the door to usher them out and John Vaughan bowed and returned to his commander.
Hay sprang to his feet livid with rage and spoke to his Chief with boyish indignation.
"You are not going to take this insult from him?"
The tall figure slowly rose and stood in silence.
"Remove him from his command," the younger man pleaded. "For God's sake do it now. Write the order for his removal this minute—give it to me! I'll kick his door open and hand it to him."
The deep set dreamy eyes were turned within as he said in slow intense tones:
"No—I'll hold McClellan's horse for him if he'll give us one victory!"
The struggle opened with disaster for the Union army. Though Lee's plan of campaign fell by accident into McClellan's hands, it was too late to frustrate the first master stroke. Relying on Jackson's swift, bewildering marches, Lee, in hostile territory and confronted by twice his numbers, suddenly divided his army and hurled Jackson's corps against Harper's Ferry. The garrison, after a futile struggle of two days, surrendered twelve thousand five hundred and twenty men and their vast stores of war material.
The contrast between General White, the Federal officer in command who surrendered, and Jackson, his conqueror, was strikingly dramatic. The Union General rode a magnificent black horse, was carefully dressed in shining immaculate uniform—gloves, boots and sword spotless. The Confederate General sat carelessly on his little shaggy sorrel, dusty, travel-stained and carelessly dressed.
The curiosity of the Union army which had surrendered was keen to see the famous fighter. The entire twelve thousand prisoners of war lined the road as Jackson silently rode by.
A voice from the crowd expressed the universal feeling as they gazed:
"Boys, he ain't much for looks, but, by God, if we'd had him we wouldn't have been caught in this trap!"
The first shock of Lee's and McClellan's armies was at South Mountain, where the desperate effort was made to break through and save Harper's Ferry. The attempt failed, though the Union forces won the fight. Lee lost twenty-seven hundred men, killed and wounded and prisoners, and the Federal general, twenty-one hundred.
Lee withdrew to Sharpsburg on the banks of the Antietam to meet Jackson's victorious division sweeping toward him from Harper's Ferry.
On the first day the Confederate commander made a display of force only, awaiting the alignment of Jackson's troops. His men were so poorly shod and clothed they could not be brought into line of battle. When the fateful day of September 17th, 1862, dawned, still and clear and beautiful over the hills of Maryland, more than twenty thousand of Lee's men had fallen by the roadside barefooted and exhausted. When the first roar of McClellan's artillery opened fire in the grey dawn, they hurled their shells against less than thirty-seven thousand men in the Confederate lines. The Union commander had massed eighty-seven thousand tried veterans behind his guns.
The President received the first news of the battle with a thrill of exultation. That Lee's ragged, footsore army hemmed in thus with Antietam Creek on one side and the broad, sweeping Potomac on the other would be crushed and destroyed he could not doubt for a moment.
As the sun rose above the eastern hills a gleaming dull-red ball of blood, the Federal infantry under Hooker swept into action and drove the Confederates from the open field into a dense woods, where they rallied, stood and mowed his men down with deadly aim. Hooker called for aid and General Mansfield rushed his corps into action, falling dead at the head of his men as they deployed in line of battle.
For two hours the sullen conflict raged, blue and grey lines surging in death-locked embrace until the field was strewn with the dead, the dying and the wounded.
Hooker was wounded. Sedgwick's corps swept into the field under a sharp artillery fire and reached the shelter of the woods only to find themselves caught in a trap between two Confederate brigades massed at this point. In the slaughter which followed Sedgwick was wounded and his command was saved from annihilation with the loss of two thousand men.
While this desperate struggle raged in the Union right, the centre was the scene of a still bloodier one. French and Richardson charged the Confederate position with reckless valor. A sunken road lay across the field over which they rushed. For four terrible hours the men in grey held this sunken road until it was piled with their bodies, and when the last charge of the resistless blue lines took it, they found but three hundred living men who had been holding it against the assaults of five thousand—and "Bloody Lane" became immortal in American history.
It was now one o'clock and the men had fought almost continuously since the sun rose. The infantry fire slowly slackened and ceased in the Union right and centre.
Burnside, who held the Union left, was ordered to advance by the capture of the stone bridge over the Antietam. But a single brigade under General Toombs guarding this bridge held an army at bay and it was one o'clock before the bridge was captured.
Burnside now pushed his division up the heights against Sharpsburg to cut Lee's line of retreat. The Confederates held their ground with desperate courage, though outnumbered here three to one. At last the grey lines melted and the men in blue swept triumphantly through the village and on its edge suddenly ran into a line of men clad in their own blue uniform.
They paused in wonder. How had their own men gotten in such a position? They were not left long in doubt. The blue line suddenly blazed with long red waves of flame squarely in their faces. It was Hill's division of Jackson's corps from Harper's Ferry. The ragged men had dressed themselves in good blue suits from the captured Federal storehouse. The shock threw the Union men into confusion and a desperate charge of the strange blue Confederates drove them back through the village, and night fell with its streets still held by Lee's army.
For fourteen hours five hundred pieces of artillery and more than one hundred thousand muskets had thundered and hissed their cries of death. On the hills and valleys lay more than twenty thousand men killed and wounded.
Lee's little army of thirty-seven thousand had been cut to pieces, having lost fourteen thousand. He had but twenty-three thousand left. McClellan had lost twelve thousand, but had seventy-five thousand left. And yet so desperate had been the deadly courage with which the grey tattered army had fought that McClellan lay on his arms for three days.
The day's work had been a drawn battle, but the President's heart was broken as he watched in anguish the withdrawal of Lee's army in safety across the river. It was the last straw. McClellan had been weighed and found wanting. He registered a solemn promise with God that if the great Confederate Commanders succeeded in making good their retreat from this desperate situation he would remove McClellan.
The Confederates withdrew, rallied their shattered forces safely in Virginia, and Jeb Stuart once more rode around the Northern army!
The President issued his Emancipation Proclamation, challenging the South to war to the death, and flung down the gauntlet to his rival, the coming leader of Northern Democracy, George Brinton McClellan, by removing him from command.
John Vaughan saw the blow fall on McClellan's magnificent headquarters in deep amazement. The idol of the army was ordered to turn over his command to General Burnside and the impossible had happened.
Instead of the brilliantcoup d'étatwhich he and the entire staff had predicted, the fallen leader obeyed and took an affectionate leave of his men.
McClellan knew, what his staff could not understand, that for the moment the President was master of the situation. He still held the unbounded confidence of his officers, but the rank and file of his soldiers had become his wondering critics. They believed they had crushed Lee's army at Antietam and yet they lay idle until the skillful Southern Commander had crossed the Potomac, made good his retreat, and once more insulted them by riding around their entire lines. The volunteer American soldier was a good fighter and a good critic of the men who led him. He had his own ideas about how an army should be fought and maneuvered. As the idol of fighting men, McClellan had ceased to threaten the supremacy of the civil law. There was no attempt at the long looked forcoup d'état. It was too late. No one knew this more clearly than McClellan himself.
But his fall was the bitterness of death to the staff who adored him and the generals who believed in him. Burnside, knowing the condition of practical anarchy he must face, declined the command. The President forced him to accept. He took it reluctantly with grim forebodings of failure.
John received his long leave of absence from his Chief and left for Washington the night before the formal farewell. His rage against the bungler who ruled the Nation with autocratic power was fierce and implacable.
His resentment against the woman he loved was scarcely less bitter. It was her triumph, too. She believed in the divine inspiration of the man who sat in the chair of Washington and Jefferson. Great God, could madness reach sublimer folly! She had written him a letter of good wishes and all but asked for a reconciliation before the battle. Love had fought with pride through a night and pride had won. He hadn't answered the letter.
He avoided his newspaper friends and plunged into a round of dissipation. Beneath the grim tragedy of blood in Washington flowed the ever widening and deepening torrent of sensual revelry—of wine and women, song and dance, gambling and intrigue.
The flash of something cruel in his eye which Betty Winter had seen and feared from the first burned now with a steady blaze. For six days and nights he played in Joe Hall's place a desperate game, drinking, drinking always, and winning. Hour after hour he sat at the roulette table, his chin sunk on his breast, his reddened eyes gleaming beneath his heavy black brows, silent, surly, unapproachable.
A reporter from theRepublicanrecognized him and extended his hand:
"Hello, Vaughan!"
John stared at him coldly and resumed his play without a word. At the end of six days he had won more than two thousand dollars from the house, put it in his pocket, and, deaf to the blandishments of smooth, gentlemanly proprietor, pushed his way out into the Avenue.
It was but four o'clock in the afternoon and he was only half drunk. He wandered aimlessly down the street and crossed in the direction of hell's half-acre below the Baltimore depot. His uniform was wrinkled, his boots had not been blacked for a week, his linen was dirty, his hair rumpled, his handsome black moustache stained with drink, but he was hilariously conscious that he had two thousand dollars of Joe Hall's ill-gotten money in his pocket. There was a devil-may-care swing to his walk and a look in his eye that no decent woman would care to see twice.
He ran squarely into Betty Winter in the crowd emerging from the depot. The little bag she was carrying fell from her hands, with a cry of startled anguish:
"John—my God!"
He made no effort to pick up the fallen bag or in any way return the greeting. He merely paused and stared—deliberately stood and stared as if stupefied by the apparition. In fact, he was so startled by her sudden appearance that for a moment he felt the terror of a drunkard's first hallucination. The thought was momentary. He knew better. He was not drunk. The girl was there all right—the real thing—living, beautiful flesh and blood. For one second's anguish the love of her strangled him. The desire to take her in his arms was all but resistless in its fierce madness. He bit his lips and scowled in her face.
"John—John—dearest," she gasped.
The scowl darkened and he spoke with insulting deliberation: "You have made a mistake. I haven't the honor of your acquaintance."
Before Betty could recover from the horror of his answer he had brushed rudely past her and disappeared in the crowd. She picked up her bag in a stupor of dumb rage and started home. She was too weak for the walk she had hoped to take. She called a hack and scarcely had the strength to climb into the high, old-fashioned seat.
Never in all her life had blind anger so possessed her soul and body. In a moment of tenderness she had offered to forgive and forget. It was all over now. The brute was not worth a tear of regret. She would show him!
Two weeks later John Vaughan stared into the ebony face of a negro who had attached himself to his fortune somewhere in the revelry of the night before. Washington was swarming with these foolish black children who had come in thousands. They had no money and it had not occurred to them that they would need any. Their food and clothes had always been provided and they took no thought for the morrow.
John had forgotten the fact that he had taken the negro in his hack for two hours and finally adopted him as his own.
He sat up, pressed his hand over his aching head and stared into the grinning face:
"And what are you doing here, you imp of the devil?"
Julius laughed and rolled his eyes:
"I'se yo' man. Don't you min' takin' me up in de hack wid you las' night?"
"What's your name?"
"Julius Cæsar, sah."
"Then it's all right! You're the man I'm looking for. You're the man this country's looking for. You're a born fighter——"
"Na, sah, I'se er cook!"
"Sh! Say not so—we're going back to war!"
"All right, sah, I'se gwine wid you."
"I warn you, Julius Cæsar, don't do it unless you're in for a fight! I'm going back to fight—to fight to kill. No more red tape and gold braid for me. I'm going now into the jaws of hell. I'm going into the ranks as a private."
"Don't make no difference ter me, sah, whar yer go. I'se gwine wid yer. I kin look atter yer shoes an' cook yer sumfin' good ter eat."
"I warn you, Julius! When they find your torn and mangled body on the field of Death, don't you sit up and blame me!"
"Don't yer worry, sah. Dey ain't gwine fin' me dar, an' ef dey do, dey ain't gwine ter be nuttin' tore er mangled 'bout me, I see ter dat, sah!"
Three weeks later Burnside's army received a stalwart recruit. Few questions were asked. The ranks were melting.
The answer which the country gave the President's Proclamation of Emancipation was a startling one, even to the patient, careful far-seeing man of the people in the White House. For months he had carried the immortal document in his pocket without even allowing his Cabinet to know it had been written. He had patiently borne the abuse of his party leaders and the fierce assaults of Horace Greeley until he believed the time had come that he must strike this blow—a blow which would rouse the South to desperation and unite his enemies in the North. He had finally issued it with grave fears.
The results were graver than he could foresee. More than once he was compelled to face the issue of its repeal as the only way to forestall a counter revolution in the North.
Desertions from the army became appalling—the number reached frequently as high as two hundred a day and the aggregate over eight thousand a month. His Proclamation had provided for the enlistment of negroes as soldiers. Not only did thousands of men refuse to continue to fight when the issue of Slavery was injected, but other thousands felt that the uniform of the Republic had been dishonored by placing it on the backs of slaves. They refused to wear it longer, and deserted at the risk of their lives.
The Proclamation had united the South and hopelessly divided the North. How serious this Northern division was destined to become was the problem now of a concern as deep as the size and efficiency of General Lee's army.
The election of the new Congress would put his administration to a supreme fight for existence. If the Democratic Party under its new leader, Clay Van Alen of Ohio, should win it meant a hostile majority in power whose edict could end the war and divide the Union. They had already selected in secret George B. McClellan for their coming standard bearer.
For the first time the question of Union or Disunion was squarely up to the North in an election. And it came at an unlucky moment for the President. The army in the West had ceased to win victories. The Southern army under Lee was still defending Richmond as strongly as ever.
There was no evading the issue at the polls. The Proclamation had committed the President to the bold, far-reaching radical and aggressive policy of the utter destruction of Slavery. The people were asked to choose between Slavery on the one hand and nationality on the other. The two together they could not again have.
The President had staked his life on his faith that the people could be trusted on a square issue of right and wrong.
This time he had underestimated the force of blind passions which the hell of war had raised.
Maine voted first and cut down her majority for the administration from nineteen thousand to a bare four thousand. The fact was ominous.
Ohio spoke next and Van Alen's ticket against the administration swept the State, returning fourteen Democrats and only five Republicans to Congress.
Indiana, the State in which the President's mother slept, spoke in thunder tones against him, sending eight Democrats and three Republicans. Even the rockribbed Republican stronghold of Pennsylvania was carried by the opposition by a majority of four thousand, reversing Lincoln's former majority of sixty thousand.
In New York the brilliant Democratic leader, Horatio Seymour, was elected Governor on a platform hostile to the administration by more than ten thousand majority. New Jersey turned against him, Michigan reduced his majority from twenty to six thousand. Wisconsin evenly divided its delegates to Congress.
Illinois, the President's own State, gave the most crushing blow of all. His big majority there was completely reversed and the Democrats carried the State by over seventeen thousand and the Congressional delegates stood eleven to three against him.
And then his Border State Policy, against which the leaders of his party had raged in vain was vindicated in the most startling way. True to his steadfast purpose to hold these States in the Union at all hazards, he had not included them in his Emancipation Proclamation.
One of the reasons for which they had refused his offer of United States bonds in payment for their slaves was they did not believe them worth the paper they were written on. A war costing two million dollars a day was sure to bankrupt the Nation before the end could be seen.
And yet because he had treated them with patience and fairness, with justice and with generosity, the Border States and the new State of West Virginia born of this policy, voted to sustain the President, saved his administration from ruin and gave him another chance to fight for the life of the Union.
It was a close shave. His working majority in Congress was reduced to a narrow margin, the opposition was large, united and fierce in its aggression, but he had been saved from annihilation.
The temper of the men elected to the Legislatures, both State and National, in the great Northern States was astounding.
So serious was the situation in Indiana that Governor Morton hastened to Washington to lay the crisis before the President.
"I'm sorry to have to tell you," the Governor began, "but we must face it. The Democratic politicians of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois now called to power assume that the rebellion will not be crushed——"
"And therefore?"
"That their interests are antagonistic to New England and in harmony with the South. Another three months like the last six and we are lost, sir—hopelessly lost!"
"Is it as bad as that Governor?" the sad even voice asked.
A smile flickered across the stern, fine face of the war Governor:
"If you think me a pessimist remember that Van Alen their leader, has just presided over a Democratic jubilee meeting in Ohio which was swept again and again by cheers for Jefferson Davis—curses and jeers for the Abolitionists. His speech has been put in the form of a leaflet which is being mailed in thousands to our soldiers at the front——"
"You know that to be a fact?" the President asked sharply.
"The fact is notorious, sir. It will be disputed by no one. The outlook is black. Meeting after meeting is being held in Indiana demanding peace at any price, with the recognition of the Southern Confederacy—and, mark you, what is still more significant the formation of a Northwestern Confederacy with its possible Capital at your home town of Springfield, Illinois——"
"No, no!" the President groaned.
"Your last call for three hundred thousand volunteers," the Governor went on, "as you well know was an utter failure. Only eighty-six thousand men have been raised under it. I was compelled to use a draft to secure the number I did in Indiana. It is useless to call for more volunteers anywhere——"
"Then we'll have to use the draft," was the firm response.
"If we can enforce it!" the Governor warned. "A meeting has just been held in my State in which resolutions were unanimously passed demanding that the war cease, denouncing the attempt to use the power to draft men, declaring that our volunteers had been induced to enter the army under the false declaration that war was waged solely to maintain the Constitution and to restore the Union——"
"And so it is!" the President interrupted.
"Until you issued your Proclamation, freeing the slaves——"
"But only as a war measure to weaken the South, give us the victory and restore the Constitution!"
"They refuse to hear your interpretation; they make their own. Van Alen boldly declares that ninety-nine men out of every hundred whom he represents in Congress breathe no other prayer than to have an end of this hellish war. When news of victory comes, there is no rejoicing. When news of our defeat comes there is no sorrow——"
"Is that statement really true?" the sorrowful lips asked.
"Of the majority who elected him, yes. In the Northwest, distrust and despair are strangling the hearts of the people. More and more we hear the traitorous talk of arraying ourselves against New England and forming a Confederacy of our own. More than two thousand six hundred deserters have been arrested within a few weeks in Indiana. It generally requires an armed detail. Most of the deserters, true to the oath of the order of the Knights of the Golden Circle, desert with their arms——"
"Is it possible?"
"And in one case seventeen of these fortified themselves in a log cabin with outside paling and ditch for protection, and were maintained by their neighbors. Two hundred armed men in Rush County resisted the arrest of deserters. I was compelled to send infantry by special train to take their ringleaders. Southern Indiana is ripe for Revolution.
"I have positive information that the incoming Democratic Legislature of my State is in quick touch with the ones gathering in Illinois and Ohio. In Illinois, your own State, they have already drafted the resolutions demanding an armistice and a convention of all the States to agree to an adjustment of the war. It is certain to pass the Illinois House.
"My own Legislature has put this resolution into a more daring and dangerous form. They propose boldly and at once to acknowledge the Southern Confederacy and demand that the Northwest dissolve all further relations with New England. When they have passed this measure in Indiana, they expect Ohio and Illinois to follow suit.
"Their secret order which covers my State with a network of lodges, whose purpose is the withdrawal of the Northwestern States from the Union, has obtained a foothold in the army camps inside the city of Washington itself——"
The President rose with quick, nervous energy and paced the floor. He stopped suddenly in front of Morton, his deep set eyes burning a steady flame:
"And what do you propose?"
"I haven't decided yet. I have the best of reasons to believe that the first thing my Legislature will do when it convenes is to pass a resolution refusing to receive any message from me as Governor of the State!"
"Will they dare?"
"I'm sure of it. It will be composed of men sworn to oppose to the bitter end any prosecution of this war. They intend to recognize the Southern Confederacy, and dissolve their own Federal relation with the United States. It may be necessary, sir——" he paused and fixed the President with compelling eyes, "—-it may be necessary to suspend the civil government in the North in order to save the Union!"
The President lifted his big hand in a gesture of despair:
"God save us from that!"
"I came here to tell you just this," the Governor gravely concluded. "If the crisis comes and I must use force I expect you to back me——"
Two big rugged hands grasped the one outstretched:
"God bless you, Governor Morton,—we've got to save the Union, and we're going to do it! Since the day I came into this office I have fought to uphold the supremacy of the civil law. My enemies may force me to use despotic powers to crush it for larger ends!—--But I hope not. I hope not. God knows I have no vain ambitions. I have no desire to use such power——"
The Governor left him gazing dreamily over the river toward Virginia a great new sorrow clouding his soul.
Lord Lyons, the British Minister, was using smooth words to the Secretary of State. Mr. Seward, our wily snuff dipper, was fully his equal in expressions of polite friendship. What he meant to say, of course, was that he could plunge a poisoned dagger into the British Lion with the utmost pleasure. What he said was:
"I am pleased to hear from your lordship the expressions of good will from her Gracious Majesty's Government."
"I am sorry to say, however," the Minister hastened to add, "that the Proclamation of Emancipation was not received by the best people of England as favorably as we had hoped."
"And why not?" Seward politely asked.
"Seeing that it could have no effect in really freeing the slaves until the South is conquered it appeared to be merely an attempt to excite a servile insurrection."
The Secretary lifted his eyebrows, took another dip of snuff, and softly inquired:
"And may I ask of your lordship whether this would not have been even more true in the earlier days of the war than now?"
"Undoubtedly."
"And yet I understand that her Gracious Majesty's Government was cold toward us because we had failed to take such high moral grounds at once in the beginning of the war?"
His lordship lifted his hands in polite admission of the facts.
"The trouble you see is," he went on softly, "Europe begins to feel that the division of sentiment in the North will prove a fatal weakness to the administration in so grave a crisis. Unfortunately, from our point of view, of course, your Government is a democracy, the sport of every whim of the demagogue of the hour——"
Seward lifted his eyes with a quick look at his lordship and smiled:
"Allow me to reassure her Gracious Majesty's Government on that point immediately. The administration will find means of preserving the sovereign power the people have entrusted to it. For example, my lord, I can touch the little bell on my right hand and order the arrest without warrant of a citizen of Ohio. I can touch the little bell on my left hand and order the imprisonment of a citizen of New York; and no power on earth except that of the President, can release them. Can the Queen of Great Britain do as much?"
His lordship left apparently reassured.
The tinkle of the little bell on the desk of the Secretary of State which had begun to fill the jails of the North with her leading Democratic citizens did not have the same soothing effect on American lawmakers, however. These arrests were made without warrant and the victim held without charges, the right to bail or trial.
The President had dared to suspend the greatwrit of habeas corpuswhich guaranteed to every freeman the right to meet his accuser in open court and answer the charge against him.
The attitude of the bold aggressive opposition was voiced on the floor of the House of Representatives in Washington in no uncertain language by Daniel Voorhees of Indiana, in a speech whose passionate eloquence was only equalled by its reckless daring.
"The present Executive of the Government," he declared, "has usurped the powers of Law and Justice to an extent subversive of republican institutions, and not to be borne by any free people. He has given access to the vaults of prisons but not to the bar of justice. It is a part of the nature of frail men to sin against laws, both human and divine; but God Himself guarantees him a fair trial before punishment. Tyrants alone repudiate the justice of the Almighty. To deny an accused man the right to be heard in his own defense is an echo from the dark ages of brutal despotism. We have in this the most atrocious tyranny that ever feasted on the groans of a captive or banqueted on the tears of the widow and the orphan.
"And yet on this spectacle of shame and horror American citizens now gaze. The great bulwark of human liberty which generations in bloody toil have built against the wicked exercise of unlawful power has been torn away by a parricidal hand. Every man to-day from the proudest in his mansion to the humblest in his cabin—all stand at the mercy of one man, and the fawning minions who crouch before him for pay.
"We hear on every side the old cry of the courtier and the parasite. At every new aggression, at every additional outrage, new advocates rise to defend the source of patronage, wealth and fame—the department of the Executive! Such assistance has always waited on the malignant efforts of tyranny. Nero had his poet laureate, and Seneca wrote a defense even for the murder of his mother. And this dark hour affords us ample evidence that human nature is the same to-day as two thousand years ago."
Such speeches could not be sent broadcast free of charge through the mails without its effect on the minds of thousands. The great political party in opposition to the administration was now arrayed in solid phalanx against the war itself on whose prosecution the existence of the Nation depended.
Again the Radical wing of his party demanded of the President the impossible.
The Abolitionists had given a tardy and lukewarm support in return for the issue of the Proclamation of Emancipation. Their support lasted but a few days. Through their spokesman, Senator Winter, they demanded now the whole loaf. They had received but half of their real program. They asked for a policy of reconstruction in the parts of Louisiana and Tennessee held by the Union army in accordance with their ideas. They demanded the ballot for every slave, the confiscation of the property of the white people of the South and its bestowment upon negroes and camp-followers as fast as the Union army should penetrate into the States in rebellion.
Senator Winter's argument was based on sound reasoning theoretically whatever might be said of its wisdom as a National policy.
"Your Emancipation Proclamation," he declared to the President, "provides for the arming and drilling of negro soldiers to fight for the Republic. If they are good enough to fight they are good enough to vote. The ballot is only another form of the bayonet which we use in time of peace——"
"Correct, Senator," was the calm reply, "if we are to allow the negro race to remain in America in physical contact with ours. But we are not going to do this. No greater calamity could befall our people. Colonization and separation must go hand in hand with the emancipation of these children of Africa. I incorporated this principle in my act of emancipation. I have set my life on the issue of its success. As a matter of theory and abstract right we may grant the suffrage to a few of the more intelligent negroes and the black soldiers we may enroll until they can be removed——"
"Again we deal with a Southerner, Mr. President!" the Senator sneered.
"So be it," was the quiet answer. "I have never held any other views. They were well known before the war. But two years before my election I said in my debate with Douglas:
"'I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way, the social and political equality of the white and black races. I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to inter-marry with white people. I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which, I believe, will forever forbid the two living together on terms of social and political equality."
"Yet," the Senator sneered, "you can change your mind. You said in your Inaugural that you had no intention or right to interfere with the institution of Slavery. You did so just the same."
"As an act of war to save the Union only. But mark you, I have always hated Slavery from principle for the white man's sake as well as the negro's. I am equally determinedon principlethat the negro race after it is free shall never be absorbed into our social or political life!"
"You'll change your principles or retire to private life!" the old man snapped.
"When I have saved the Union we shall see. Time will indicate the wisdom of my position. I have no longer any ambition except to give the best that's in me to my people."
The breach between the President and the most powerful leaders of his own party was now complete. It was a difference that was fundamental and irreconcilable. They asked him to extend the autocratic power he wielded to preserve the Union in a time of war to a program of revenge and proscription against the South as it should fall before the advancing army. His answer was simple:
"Secession was void from the beginning. The South shall not be laid waste as conquered territory when the Union is restored. They shall return as our brethren to live with us in peace and good will with the curse of Slavery lifted from them and their children. Nor will I permit the absorption of this black blood into our racial stock to degrade our National character. When free, the negro must return to his own."
With fierce, sullen determination the Radical wing of his party organized a secret powerful conspiracy to drive Abraham Lincoln from public life.
Behind this first line of attack stood the Democratic party with its millions of loyal voters now united under George B. McClellan. The Radicals and the Democrats hated each other with a passion second only to their hatred of the President. They agreed to remove him first and then settle their own differences.