Jennie decided to stick to the house at all hazards until forced to go. She walked down town to the post office in the vain hope a letter might have come through from New Orleans to her grandmother. Soldiers were lounging in the streets in squads of forty and fifty. A crowd was playing cards in the ditch and swearing as they fought the flies. Crowds of soldiers relieved from duty were marching aimlessly along the street. Some were sleeping on the pavements, others sprawled flat on their backs in the sun, heads pillowed in each other's lap.
To her surprise a letter addressed in the familiar handwriting of her brother was handed out at the post office by the young soldier in charge.
The seal had been broken.
Jennie's eyes flashed with rage.
"How dare you open and read my letter, sir!" she cried with indignation.
"I'm sorry, Miss," he answered politely. "We're only soldiers. Our business is to obey orders."
Jennie blushed furiously.
"Of course, I beg your pardon. I wasn't thinking when I spoke."
She read the letter with eager interest:
"Dearest little Sister:
"You must bring grandmother to New Orleans at the earliest possible opportunity. Grandpa can't get out. He is as restless and unhappy as a caged tiger. Do come quickly. If you need money let me know. Hoping soon to see you. With a heart full of love,
"Your big brother,"Roger."
It would be best. Her grandmother would be safe there in any event. Ifour troops again captured New Orleans she would be in the house of the South. If the Federal army still held it, she was at home in her grandson's house.
The wildest rumors were flying thick. No passes would be issued to leave the city on any pretext. Beauregard was reported about to move his army from Corinth to attack Baton Rouge.
The troops were massing for the defense of the city. The Federal cavalry had scoured the country for ten miles in search of guerillas.
Through all the turmoil and confusion of the wildly disordered house Jennie kept repeating the foolish old hymn in soft monotones:
"I hope to die shouting—the Lord will provide!"
General Williams sent a guard to protect the house. A file of six soldiers marched to the gate and their commander saluted:
"Madam, the pickets await your orders."
General Williams had met her brother in New Orleans. His loyalty was enough to mark the beautiful old homestead for protection.
Jennie laughed. It was a funny situation were it not so tragic. Her father and three brothers fighting these men with tooth and nail while an officer saluted and put his soldiers at her command.
Butler's men were arresting the aged citizens of Baton Rouge now. Without charge or warrant they were hustled on the transports, hurried to New Orleans and thrown into jail. Jennie ground her white teeth with rage:
"Oh, to be ruled by such a wretch!"
From the first day he had set foot on the soil of Louisiana Butler had made himself thoroughly loathed. His order reflecting on the character of the women of New Orleans had not only shocked the South, it had roused the indignation of the civilized world.
A proud and sensitive people had no redress.
One of the first six citizens sentenced to prison in Fort Jackson was Dr. Craven, the Methodist minister. A soldier nosing about his house at night had heard the preacher at family prayers. He had asked God's blessing on the cause of the South while kneeling in prayer. When Jennie heard of it, she cried through her tears:
"Show me a dungeon deep enough to keep me from praying for my brothers who are fighting for us!"
The speech of Butler which had gone farthest and sank deepest into the outraged souls of the people of Southern Louisiana was his defiant utterance to Solomon Benjamin on the threat of England to intervene in our struggle:
"Let England or France dare to try it," Butler swore in a towering rage, "and I'll be damned if I don't arm every negro in the South and make them cut the throats of every man, woman and child in it. I'll make them lay this country waste with fire and sword and leave it desolate."
That Butler was capable of using his enormous power as the Military Governor of Louisiana to accomplish this purpose, no one who had any knowledge of the man or his methods doubted for a moment.
On the slightest pretexts he arrested whom he pleased, male and female, and threw them into prison. Aged men who had incurred his displeasure were confined at hard labor with ball and chain. Men were imprisoned in Fort Jackson, whose only offense was the giving of medicine to sick Confederate soldiers. The wife of a former member of Congress was arrested and sent to Ship Island in the Gulf of Mexico. Her only offense was that she laughed at some foolish thing that marked the progress of a funeral procession through the streets of the city.
On his office wall in the St. Charles Hotel Butler had inscribed in huge letters:
"THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A HE AND A SHE ADDER IN THEIR VENOM."
His henchmen were allowed to indulge their rapacity at will. The homes of distinguished men and women were seized on any pretext and turned into disreputable establishments which were run for gain. They appropriated the contents of wine cellars, plundered the wardrobes and dining-rooms of ladies and gentlemen to their hearts' content. Fines were levied and collected in many cases where it could be secured. Those who refused to pay were given the choice of ball and chain. A thriving trade in cotton was opened against the positive orders of the Washington Government. Butler's own brother was the thrifty banker and broker of this corrupt transaction.
Property was "confiscated" right and left, provisions and military stores were exchanged for cotton. The chief of this régime of organized plunder lived in daily fear of assassination. It was said he wore secret armor. He never ventured out except heavily guarded. In his office several pistols lay beside him and the chair on which his visitor was seated was chained to the wall to prevent someone suddenly rising and smashing his brains out.
There were ten thousand soldiers in Baton Rouge now though the anticipated attack of the Confederates had not materialized. Perhaps they had heard of the heavy reënforcements in time. The poor fellows from the cool hills and mountains of the North were dying in hundreds in the blistering July sun of the South. They didn't know how to take care of themselves and their officers didn't seem to care. Butler was a lawyer and a politician first—a general only when the navy had done his work for him.
Jennie saw hundreds of these sick and dying men lying on their backs in the broiling sun, waiting for wagons to carry them to the hospital. One had died absolutely alone without a human being near to notice or to care. The girl's heart was sick with anguish at the sight of scores too weak to lift their hands to fight the ravenous flies swarming in their eyes and mouths. All day and all night Baumstark, the little undertaker, was working with half a dozen aides making coffins.
Day and night they died like dogs with no human help extended. The Catholic priest who had not been arrested as yet, passing among them in search of his own, bent for a moment over a dying soldier and spoke in friendly tones. The poor fellow burst into tears and with his last gasp cried:
"Thank God! I have heardonekind word before I die!"
The Federal pickets were driven in at last, and the guard around the house withdrawn. General Williams insisted that Jennie and her grandmother find a place of refuge more secure than the coming battlefield.
They thanked the General but decided to brave battle at home to the terrors of another flight.
The little band of twenty-five hundred Confederates struck the town like a thunderbolt and fought with desperation against the combined fleet and heavy garrison. They drove the Federals at first in panic to the water's edge and the shelter of the cannon until a Maine regiment barred the way, fighting like demons, and rallied the fleeing mob. When the smoke of battle lifted the gray army had gone with the loss of only sixty-five killed and a hundred and fifty wounded.
The worst calamity which befell Baton Rouge was the death of General Williams, the gentlemanly and considerate Federal commander.
Butler's man who took his place lacked both his soldierly training and his fine scruples as a Christian gentleman. There were no more guards placed around "Rebel" homes.
The marauder came with swift sure tread on the heels of victory.
A squad of officers and men smashed in the front door at Fairview without so much as a knock for signal. To the shivering servant who stood in the hall the leader called:
"Where are the damned secesh women? We know they've hid in here and we'll make them dance for hiding—"
Jennie suddenly appeared in the library door, her face white, her hand concealed in the pocket of her dress.
"There are but two women here, gentlemen," she began steadily—"my grandmother and I. The house is at your mercy—"
The man in front gave a short laugh and advanced on the girl. He stopped short in his tracks at the sight of the glitter of her eye and changed his mind.
"All right, look out for the old hen. We'll let you know when it's time to pick up the pieces."
Jennie returned to the library and slipped her arm about her grandmother's neck standing beside her chair while she set her little jaw firmly and waited for the end.
They rushed the dining-room first and split its sideboard open with axes—fine old carved mahogany pieces so hardened with age, the ax blades chipped from the blows as if striking marble. The china was smashed, chests were laid open with axes, and their contents of silver removed.
They rushed the parlors and stripped them of every ornament. Jennie's piano they dragged into the center of the floor, smashed its ivory keys and split its rosewood case into splinters. An officer slashed the portrait of Mrs. Barton into shreds and hurled the frame on the floor. Every portrait on the walls shared a similar fate.
Upstairs the fun grew wild. Mrs. Barton's beautiful old mahogany armoir whose single door was a fine French mirror was shivered with a blow from a sledge hammer, emptied of every article and the shelves splintered with axes. They broke every bureau and case of drawers, scattered their contents on the floor, selecting what suited their fancy. Every rag of the boys' clothes, the old Colonel's and Senator Barton's were tied in bundles.
They entered Jennie's room, broke every mirror, tore down the rods from the bed and ripped the net into shreds. The desk was split, letters turned out and scattered over the floor. A light sewing machine was sent below for a souvenir. The heavy one was broken with an ax.
From Jennie's bureau they tore a pink flowered muslin, stuck it on a bayonet and paraded the room, the officers striking it with their swords shouting their dull insults:
"I've struck the damned secesh!"
"The proud little hellion!"
"That's the time I cut her!"
One seized her bonnet, put it on, tied the ribbon under his chin and amid the shouts of his half-drunken companions, paraded the house, and wore it into the streets when he left.
When the noise had died away and the house was still at last, Jennie came forth from the little room in which she had taken refuge, leading her grandmother. Hand in hand they viewed the wreck.
The thing that hurt the girl most of all was the ruin of her desk—her letters from Dick Welford, the boys, her father and mother, the diary she had kept with the intimate secrets of her young heart—all had been opened, thumbed and thrown over the floor. The little perfumed notes she had received from her first beaux—invitations to buggy rides, concerts, and parties, and all of them beginning, "Compliments of"—had been profaned by dirty greasy fingers. Some were torn into little bits and scattered over the room, others were ground into the floor by hobnails in heavy boot heels.
Her last letter from Socola was stolen—to be turned over to the commander for inspection no doubt. And then she broke into a foolish laugh. The strain was over. What did it matter—this clutter of goods and chattels on the floor—she was young—it was the morning of life and she had met her fate!
In a sudden rush of emotion she threw her arms around her grandmother's neck and cried:
"Thank the good Lord, grandma, they didn't shoot you!"
The sweet old lady was strangely quiet, and her eyes had a queer set look. She bore the strain without a break until they entered the wreck of the stately parlor. She saw the slashed portrait of the Colonel lying on the floor and sank in a heap beside it without a word or sound.
Jennie succeeded at last in obtaining a pass to New Orleans, consigning the body to Judge Roger Barton. She stepped on board the little steamer absolutely alone. Every servant had gone to the camp of the soldiers or had entered the service of the crowd of marauders who decided to return to Fairview and occupy the house.
Jennie had gone through so much the tired spirit refused to respond to further sensations. She obeyed orders in a dumb mechanical way.
The officers at New Orleans opened her baggage and searched it without ceremony, or the slightest show of interest on her part.
They were administering the "oath" of loyalty to the United States. She would have to turn Yankee to do this last duty of love. She covered her face with her hands and prayed breathlessly for the boys and for the Confederacy while the words of the oath were mumbled by the officer—
"So help you God?"
Jennie's only answer was to close her eyes and pray harder.
"So help you God?" the officer shouted again.
The girl lifted her tear-stained face and nodded, closed her eyes again and prayed.
"Help them, O God,—my brothers Tom and Jimmie and Billy and Dick Welford—and—and the man I love—save them and their cause for Jesus' sake—I don't know what they made me say—I only did it for poor grandpa's sake—I didn't mean it. Forgive me, dear Lord, and save my people!"
The Judge met them with a carriage and hearse. He slipped his strong arm around the girl, drew her close and kissed the waving brown hair again and again.
"Dear little sis—you're at home now," he said softly.
A shiver ran through her figure and she sat bolt upright.
"No, Big Brother," she answered firmly, "I'm not. New Orleans is in the hands of the enemy. I'd set it on fire and wipe it from the face of the earth to-morrow if I could sweep old Ben Butler and his men into the bottomless pitwith its ashes—"
She paused at the look of pain on his face.
"Except you—dear—you're my brother, always my dear Big Brother and I'll love you forever. What you think right is right—for you. You are for the Union, because you believe it's right. I honor you for being true to your convictions—"
"You can never know what it has cost me—Honey—"
She drew him down and kissed him tenderly.
"Yes, I do know—and it's all right—even if you draw your sword and meet us in battle—you're fighting for the right as God shows it to you—but I've just one favor to ask—"
"I'll do anything on earth for you I can—you know that—"
She looked at him steadily a moment in silence and spoke in hard cold tones.
"Get me out of New Orleans inside the Confederate lines—anywhere—a guerilla camp—a swamp—anywhere, you understand. I'll find my way to Richmond—"
He pressed her hand in silence and then softly answered:
"I understand, dear—and I'll arrange it for you. I'll hire a schooner to set you across Lake Pontchartrain."
The old Colonel looked on the face of his dead wife and went to bed. He made no complaints. He asked no questions. The book of life was closed. Within a week he died as peacefully as a child.
Ten days later Jennie had passed the Federal lines and was whirling through the Carolinas, her soul aflame with a new deathless courage.
Jefferson Davis not only refused to remove Albert Sidney Johnston from his command in answer to the clamor of his critics, he wrote his general letters expressing such unbounded confidence in his genius that he inspired him to begin the most brilliant campaign on which the South had yet entered.
Grant, flushed with victory, had encamped his army along the banks of the Tennessee, then at flood and easily navigable for gunboats and transports. The bulldog fighter of Fort Donelson had allowed his maxim of war to lead him into a situation which the eye of Johnston was quick to see.
Grant's famous motto was:
"Never be over anxious about what your enemy is going to do to you; make him anxious about what you are going to do to him."
In accordance with this principle the Union General was busy preparing his Grand Army for a triumphant march into the far South. He was drilling and training his men for their attack on the Confederates at Corinth. His army was not in a position for defense. It was, in fact, strung out into a long line of camps for military instruction, preparing to advance on the foe he had grown to despise.
Sherman's division occupied a position near Shiloh Church. A half mile further was B. M. Prentiss with newly arrived regiments, one of which still had no ammunition. Near the river McClernand was camped behind Sherman and Hurlbert still farther back. Near them lay W. H.L. Wallace's division, and at Crump's Landing, Lew Wallace was stationed with six thousand men.
Grant himself was nine miles down the river at Savannah, a point at which he expected to form a junction with Buell's army approaching from the east.
Grant sat at breakfast on a beautiful Sunday morning quietly sipping his coffee while he planned his conquest of the vast territory which now lay at the mercy of his army the moment the juncture should be effected.
With swift stealthy tread, Johnston was moving through the dense forests of the wild region to the south. His army had been rapidly recruited to approximately forty thousand effective men. Beauregard had been detached from the East and was second in command.
The night before this beautiful spring Sabbath morning the Confederate army had bivouacked within two miles of the Federal front. Johnston had so baffled the scouts and reconnoitering parties of Grant that his presence was not suspected.
In the gray mists of the dawn his divisions silently deployed and formed in line of battle. General Leonidas Polk on the left, Braxton Bragg in the center, William J. Hardee on the right and John C. Breckinridge in reserve.
The men were alert and eager to avenge the defeats of Forts Henry and Donelson. With chuckles of exhilaration they had listened that night to the rolling of the drums in Grant's camps.
A mist from the river valley hung low over the fresh budding trees. With swift elastic tread the gray lines moved forward through the shadows of the dawn.
So complete was the surprise that not a picket was encountered. Not a single company of cavalry guarded the flanks of the sleeping army.
The mists lifted and the sheen of white tents could be seen through the trees.
Only a few of the blue soldiers had risen. They were washing and cooking their morning meal. Some had sat down to eat at generous mess-chests. Thousands were yet soundly sleeping in their tents.
On Prentiss' division from flank to flank with sudden fury the gray host fell. Even the camp sentinels were taken completely by surprise and barely had time to discharge their guns. On their heels rushed the Confederates cheering madly.
Officers and men were killed in their beds and many fled in confusion without their arms. Hildebrand's brigade of Sherman's division was engulfed by the cyclone and swept from existence, appearing no more in the battle.
In vain the broken lines of the Federal camps were formed and reformed. Charge followed charge in swift and terrible succession.
By half past ten o'clock the Confederates had captured and demolished three great military encampments and taken three batteries of artillery. Storehouses and munitions of war in rich profusion were captured at every turn. The demoralized Union army was retreating at every point.
When Grant reached the field, the lines both of attack and defense were lost in confusion. The battle raged in groups. Sometimes mere squads of men surged back and forth over the broken, tangled, blood-soaked arena, now in ravines and swamps, now for a moment emerging into clearings and then buried again in the deep woods.
The stolid Federal commander sat his horse, keen-eyed, vigilant and imperturbable in the storm of ruin. His early efforts counted for little in the blind confusion and turmoil of his crushed army. Lew Wallace had been ordered to the field in post haste. The bridge across Owl Creek, held by Sherman in the morning, was now in the hands of the Confederates. Wallace marched and countermarched his army in a vain effort to reach the field.
At two o'clock Johnston had brought up his reserves and ordered the entire gray army to charge and sweep the field. His fine face flushed with victory, he rose in his saddle, addressed a few eloquent words to Breckinridge's division, placed himself at the head of his army and his sword flashed in the sunlight as he shouted to the line:
"Charge!"
Dick Welford had been detached from Forrest's cavalry on staff duty by his Chief's side. Forrest had been marked by Johnston for promotion for his work at Donelson, and Dick had grown to worship his gallant Commanding General. He had watched his plan of battle grow with boyish pride. He knew his Chief was going to crush the two divisions of Grant's army in detail before they could be united. And he had done it. Such complete and overwhelming victory would lift the South from her slough of despair.
With a shout of triumph he spurred his horse neck to neck with his General.
At two o'clock the blue lines were still rolling back on the river in hopeless confusion, the gray lines cheering and charging and crushing without mercy.
A ball pierced Johnston's right leg. Dick saw his hand drop the rein for an instant and a look of pain sweep his handsome face.
"You're wounded, sir?" he asked.
"It's nothing, boy," he answered, "only a flesh cut—drive—drive—drive them!"
Without pause he rode on and on.
He was riding the white horse of Death—an artery had been cut and his precious life was slowly but surely ebbing away.
He swayed in his saddle and Dick dashed forward:
"General, your wound must be dressed!"
Governor Harris of Tennessee, his aide, observed him at the same moment and spurred his horse to his side.
The General turned his dim eyes to the Governor and gasped:
"I fear I'm mortally wounded—"
He reeled in his saddle and would have fallen had not Dick caught him and tenderly lowered him to the ground.
The brave war Governor of Tennessee received the falling Commander in his arms and helped Dick bear him a short distance from the field into a deep ravine.
Dick took the flask of whiskey from his pocket and pressed it to his lips in vain. A moment and he was dead.
In a passion of grief the boy threw his arms around his beloved Chief and called through his tears and groans:
"My God, General, you can't die—you mustn't die now! Don't you hear the boys shouting? They're driving Grant's army into the river. They've avenged Donelson!—General—for God's sake speak to me—say you won't die—you can't, you can't—Oh, Lord God, save his precious life!—"
No sign or answer came. His breast had ceased to move. The Governor tenderly lifted the grief-stricken boy and sent him with his General's last message.
"Find Beauregard and tell him he is in command of the field. Not a word of the death of the Chief until his victory is complete."
Dick saluted and sprang into the saddle.
"I understand, sir."
"Dick saluted and sprang into the saddle—'I understand, sir'""Dick saluted and sprang into the saddle—'I understand, sir'"
It was late in the afternoon before he located General Beauregard and delivered the fateful news.
The victorious Confederate army had furiously pressed its charge. Johnston's word had passed from command to command.
"Forward—forward—let every order be forward!"
Everything had yielded at last before them. From camp to camp, from rallying point to rallying point the Union hosts had been hurled, division piling on division in wild confusion.
Driven headlong, the broken ranks were thrown in panic on the banks of the river. Thousands crouched in ravines and sought shelter under the steep bluffs of the river banks. Trampling mobs were struggling in vain to board the transports and cross the river. The Federal reserve line had been completely crushed, and the entire army, driven from the field they had held that morning, were huddled in a confused mass of a half mile around the Pittsburg Landing.
The next charge of the Confederates would hurl the whole army into the river or they must surrender.
The gunboats had opened in vain. They were throwing their shells a mile beyond the Confederate lines where they fell harmlessly.
The Confederate division commanders were gathering their hosts for the last charge at sunset. There was yet an hour of daylight in which to end the struggle with the complete annihilation of the Union army. Down under the steep banks of the river's edge the demoralized remnants of the shattered divisions were already stacking their arms to surrender. They had made their last stand.
General Bragg turned to his aide:
"Tell Major Stewart of the twenty-first Alabama to advance and drive the enemy into the river!"
The aide saluted.
"And carry that order along the whole line!"
The aide put spurs to his horse to execute the command, when a courier dashed up from General Beauregard's headquarters.
"Direct me to General Bragg!"
The aide pointed to the General and rode back with Beauregard's courier.
"General Beauregard orders that you cease fighting and rest your men to-night."
Bragg turned his rugged dark face on the messenger with a scowl.
"You have promulgated this order to the army?"
"I have, sir—"
"If you had not, I would not obey it—"
He paused and threw one hand high above his head.
"Our victory has been thrown to the winds!"
The sudden and inexplicable abandonment of this complete and overwhelming success was one of the most remarkable events in the history of modern warfare.
The men bivouacked on the field.
The blunder was fatal and irretrievable. Even while the order was being given to cease firing the advance guard of Buell's army was already approaching the other bank of the river. Twenty-five thousand fresh men under cover of the darkness began to pour their long lines into position to save Grant's shattered ranks.
As night fell another misfortune was on the way to obscure the star of Beauregard. His soldiers, elated with their wonderful victory, broke into disorderly plundering of the captured Federal camps. Except for a few thousand sternly disciplined troops under Bragg's command the whole Southern army suddenly degenerated into a mob of roving plunderers, mad with folly. In the rich stores of the Federal army thousands of gallons of wines and liquors were found. Hundreds of gray soldiers became intoxicated. While scenes of the wildest revelry and disorder were being enacted around the camp fires, Buell's army was silently crossing the river under cover of the night and forming in line of battle for to-morrow's baptism of blood.
Albert Sidney Johnston's body lay cold in death—and the army of the victorious South had no head. Better had there been no second general of full rank in the field. Either of Johnston's division commanders, Bragg, Hardée, Polk or Breckinridge, would have driven Grant's panic-stricken mob into the river within an hour if let alone.
But the little hero of Bull Run of the flower-decked tent halted his men to rest for the night at the very hour of the day when Napoleon ordered his first charge on one of his immortal battlefields.
Beauregard gave his foe ample time for breakfast next morning. The sun was an hour high in the heavens before the battle was joined.
The genius of Johnston had surprised Grant and rolled his army back on the river—never pausing for a moment to give him time to rally his broken ranks.
But when Beauregard leisurely led his disorganized army next morning against Grant's new lines, there was no shock, no surprise—the line was ready. His panic-stricken men had been reorganized and massed in strong defensive position and reënforced by the divisions of Generals Nelson, McCook, Crittenden, and Thomas of Buell's army—twenty-five thousand strong.
Lew Wallace's division had also effected the junction and the Federal front presented a solid wall of fifty-three thousand determined men against whom Beauregard must now throw his little army of thirty thousand effective fighters.
The assault was made with dash and courage. For four hours the battle raged with fury. The shattered regiments that had been surprised and crushed the day before, yielded at one time before the onslaughts of the Confederates. By noon Beauregard had sent into the shambles his last brigade and reserves and shortly afterwards gave his first order to withdraw his army.
Breckinridge's division covered the retreat and there was no attempt at pursuit. Grant was only too glad to save his army. The first great battle of the war had been fought and won by the genius of the South's commander and its results thrown away by the hero of Bull Run.
Never was the wisdom of a great leader more thoroughly vindicated than was Jefferson Davis in the record Albert Sidney Johnston made at Shiloh. The men who had been loudest in demanding his removal stood dumb before the story of his genius.
The death list of this battle sent a shiver of horror through the North and the South. All other battles of the war were but skirmishes to this.
The Confederate losses in killed, wounded and missing were ten thousand six hundred and ninety-nine. At Bull Run the combined armies of Joseph E. Johnston and Beauregard lost but one thousand nine hundred and sixty-four men.
Grant's army lost thirteen thousand one hundred and sixty-two in killed, wounded and prisoners. McDowell at Bull Run had lost but two thousand seven hundred, and yet was removed from his command.
The rage against Grant in the North was unbounded. The demand for his removal was so determined, so universal, so persistent, it was necessary for Abraham Lincoln to bow to it temporarily.
Lincoln positively refused to sacrifice his fighting General for his first error, but sent Halleck into the field as Commander-in-Chief and left Grant in command of his division.
The bulldog fighter of the North learned his lesson at Shiloh. The South never again caught him napping.
Great as the losses were to the North they were as nothing to the disaster which this bloody field brought to the Confederacy. Albert Sidney Johnston alive was equal to an army of a hundred thousand men—dead; his loss was irreparable.
The struggle which Jefferson Davis was making to parry the force of the mortal blows delivered by the United States Navy at last gave promise of startling success.
The fight to establish the right of the Confederacy to arm its allies under letters of marque and reprisal had been won by the Southern President. The first armed vessel sailing under the orders of Davis which was captured by the navy had brought the question to sharp issue. The Washington Government had proclaimed the vessels flying the Confederate flag under letters of marque to be pirates and subject to the treatment of felons.
The Captain and the crew of theSavannahwhen captured had been put in irons and condemned to death as pirates. If the Washington Government could make good this daring assumption, the power of the Confederacy to damage the commerce of the North would be practically destroyed at a blow.
Davis met the crisis with firmness. He selected an equal number of Federal prisoners of war in Richmond and threw them into a dungeon below Libby Prison. He dispatched a letter to Washington whose language could not be misunderstood.
"Dare to execute an officer or sailor of theSavannah, and I will put to death as felons an equal number of Federal officers and men. I have placed them in close confinement and ordered similar treatment to that accorded ourprisoners from the captured vessel."
"Dare to execute an officer or sailor of theSavannah, and I will put to death as felons an equal number of Federal officers and men. I have placed them in close confinement and ordered similar treatment to that accorded ourprisoners from the captured vessel."
Socola received a message summoning him to the house on Church Hill. A courier had arrived from Washington. The Government must know immediately if this threat were idle or genuine. If Jefferson Davis should dare to execute these thirteen officers and men, the administration could not resist the storm of indignant protest which would overwhelm it from the North.
Socola read the cipher dispatch by the dim light of the candle in his attic and turned to Miss Van Lew.
"My information in the State Department is of the most positive kind. The prisoners have been put in the dungeon set apart for condemned felons and they but wait the word of the execution of the men from theSavannah, to be led to certain death. It may be talk. We must know. Apply for permission to visit the condemned men and minister to their comfort—"
"At once," was the prompt response. "I've made friends with Captain Todd, the Commandant of Libby Prison; I'll succeed."
Crazy Bet appeared at Libby Prison next morning with a basket of flowers for the condemned men. Captain Todd humored her mania. Poor old abolition fanatic, she could do no harm. She was too frank and outspoken to be dangerous. Besides, it was a war of brothers. His own sister was the wife of Abraham Lincoln. These condemned men were the best blood of the North. It was a pitiful tragedy.
Miss Van Lew, with a market basket on her arm, watched for Socola's appearance from the office of the Secretary of State. The young clerk was walking slowly down Main Street and turned into an unused narrow road at the foot of the hill.
Crazy Bet, swinging the basket and humming a song, passed him without turning her head.
"It's true," she whispered quickly, "all horribly true. Thirteen of the finest officers of the Union army have been condemned to death the moment the crew of theSavannahare executed—among them Colonel Cochrane of New York and Colonel Paul Revere of Massachusetts. The dispatch must go to-night."
"To-night," was the short answer.
Within an hour Socola's courier was on his way to Washington with a message which unlocked the prison doors of the condemned men on both sides of the line.
Abraham Lincoln stoutly opposed a repetition of the effort to treat Confederate prisoners as outlaws, no matter where taken by land or sea. Davis had established the legality of his letters of marque and reprisal beyond question.
The United States Navy in the first flood of its victories made another false step which brought to the South an hour of brilliant hope. Captain Wilkes overhauled a British steamer carrying the royal mail and took from her decks by force the Commissioners Mason and Slidell whom Davis had dispatched to Europe to plead for the recognition of the Confederacy. The North had gone wild with joy over the act and Congress voted Wilkes the thanks of the nation as its hero.
Great Britain demanded an apology and the restoration of the prisoners, put her navy on a war footing and dispatched a division of her army to Canada to strike the North by land as well as sea.
The hard common sense of Abraham Lincoln rescued the National Government from a delicate and dangerous situation. Lincoln apologized to Great Britain, restored the Confederate Commissioners and returned with redoubled energy to the prosecution of the war. In answer to the shouts of demagogues and the reproaches of both friend and foe, the homely rail-splitter from the West had a simple answer.
"One war at a time."
Jefferson Davis watched this threat of British invasion with breathless intensity. He saw the hope of thus breaking the power of the navy fade with sickening disappointment.
There was one more hope. The hull of theMerrimachad been raised from the bottom of the harbor of Norfolk and the work of transforming her into a giant iron-clad ship capable of carrying a fighting crew of three hundred men had been completed, though her engines were slow.
But the enthusiastic men set to this task by Davis had accomplished wonders. Their reports to him had raised high hopes of a sensation. If this new monster of the sea should succeed single handed in destroying the fleet of six vessels lying in Hampton Roads, the naval warfare of the world would be revolutionized in a day and overtures for peace might be within sight.
The Norfolk newspapers, under instructions from the Confederate Commandant, pronounced the experiment of theMerrimaca stupid and fearful failure. Her engines were useless. Her steering gear wouldn't work. Her armament was so heavy she couldn't be handled. These papers were easily circulated at Newport News and Old Point Comfort among the officers and men of the Federal fleet.
The men who had built the strange craft knew she was anything but a failure. With eager, excited hands her crew finished the last touch of her preparations and with her guns shotted she slowly steamed out of the harbor of Norfolk accompanied by two saucy little improvised gunboats, theBeaufortand theRaleigh.
Her speed was not more than five knots an hour and she steered so badly theBeaufortwas compelled to pull her into the main current of the channel more than once.
The Federal squadron lay off Newport News, theCongressand theCumberlandwell out in the stream, theMinnesota,RoanokeandSt. Lawrencefurther down toward Fortress Monroe. TheCongress,CumberlandandSt. Lawrencemounted one hundred and twenty-four guns, twenty-two of them of nine-inch caliber. Their crews aggregated more than a thousand men.
The new crack steam frigatesMinnesotaandRoanokehad crews of six hundred men each and carried more than eighty guns of nine and eleven-inch caliber. That any single craft afloat would dare attack such a squadron was preposterous.
It was one o'clock before the strange black looking object swung into the channel and turned her nose up stream toward Newport News.
The crews of theCongressand theCumberlandwere lounging on deck enjoying the balmy spring air. It was wash day and the clothes were fluttering in the breeze.
They couldn't make out the foolish-looking thing at first. It looked like the top of a long-hipped roof house that had been sawed off at the eaves and pushed into the water. The two little river steamers that accompanied the raft seemed to be towing it.
"What 'ell, Bill, is that thing?" a sailor asked his mate on theCongress.
Bill scanned the horizon.
"I give it up, sir," he admitted. "I been a sailin' the seas for forty years—but that's one on me!"
A battle signal suddenly flashed from theCumberlandand down came the wash lines.
TheBeaufortwith a single thirty-two-pounder rifle mounted in her bow was steaming alongside the port of the strange craft. A puff of white smoke flared from her single gun and its dull roar waked the still beautiful waters of the Virginia harbor.
TheMerrimacflung her big battle flag into the sky and her tiny escorts dropped down stream to give her free play. TheCongressand theCumberlandwere surprised, but they slipped their anchors in a jiffy, swung their guns in haste and began pouring a storm of shot on the iron sides of the coming foe.
TheMerrimacmoved forward with slow, steady throb as though the shot that rained on her slanting sides were so many pebbles thrown by school boys. She passed theCongressand pointed her ugly prow for theCumberland. The ship poured her broadside squarely into the face of the Merrimac without damage and the bow gun roared an answer that pierced her bulwarks.
Through the thick cloud of heavy smoke that hung low on the water the throbbing monster bore straight down on theCumberland, struck her amidship and sent her to the bottom.
As the gallant ship sank in sickening lurches her brave crew cheered her to her grave and continued firing her useless guns until the waves engulfed the decks. When her keel touched the bottom her flag was still flying from her masthead. She rolled over on her beam's end and carried the flag beneath the waves.
The Confederate mosquito fleet, consisting of the little gunboatsPatrick Henry,TeaserandJamestown, swung down from the river now, ran boldly past the flaming shore batteries and joined in the attack on the Federal squadron.
TheCongresshad set one of her sails and with the aid of a tug was desperately working to reach shoal water before she could be sunk. Her captain succeeded in beaching her directly under the guns of the shore batteries. At four o'clock she gave up the bloody unequal contest andhauled down her colors.
TheMinnesota,RoanokeandSt. Lawrence, in trying to reach the scene of the battle, had all been grounded. TheMinnesotawas still lying helpless in the mud as the sun set and the new monarch of the seas slowly withdrew to Sewell's Point to overhaul her machinery and prepare to finish her work next day.
TheMerrimachad lost twenty-one killed and wounded—among the wounded was her gallant flag officer, Franklin Buchanan. ThePatrick Henryhad lost fourteen, theBeauforteight, theRaleighseven, including two officers.
The Federal squadron had lost two ships and four hundred men.
But by far the greatest loss to the United States Navy was the supremacy of the seas. The power of her fleets had been smashed at a blow. The ugly, black, powder-stained, iron thing lying under the guns of Sewell's Point had won the crown of the world's naval supremacy. The fleets of the United States were practically out of commission while she was afloat. The panic at the North which followed the startling news from Hampton Roads was indescribable. Abraham Lincoln hastily called a Cabinet meeting to consider what action it was necessary to take to meet the now appalling situation. Never before had any man in authority at Washington realized how absolute was their dependence on the United States Navy—how impossible it would be to maintain the Government without its power.
Edwin M. Stanton, the indefatigable Secretary of War, completely lost his nerve at this Cabinet meeting. He paced the floor with quick excited tread, glancing out of the window of the White House toward the waters of the Potomac with undisguised fear.
"I am sure, gentlemen," he said to the Cabinet, "that monster is now on her way to Washington. In my opinion we will have a shell from one of her big guns in the White House before we leave this room!"
Lincoln was profoundly depressed but refused to believe the cause of the Union could thus be completely lost at a single blow from a nondescript, iron raft. Yet it was only too easy to see that the moral effect of this victory would be crushing on public opinion.
The wires to Washington were hot with frantic calls for help. New York was ready to surrender at the first demand. So utter was the demoralization at Fortress Monroe, the one absolutely impregnable fort on the Atlantic coast, that the commander had already determined to surrender in answer to the first shot theMerrimacshould fire.
The preparations for moving McClellan's army to the Virginia Peninsula for the campaign to capture Richmond were suddenly halted. Two hundred thousand men must rest on their arms until this crisis should pass. All orders issued to the Army of the Potomac were now made contingent on the destruction of the iron monster lying in Hampton Roads.
By one of the strangest coincidences in history the United States Navy had completed an experiment in floating iron at precisely the same moment.
While the guns of the battle were yet echoing over the waters of the harbor, this strange little craft, a floating iron cheese box, was slowly steaming into the Virginia capes.
At nine o'clock that night Ericsson'sMonitorwas beside the panic-strickenRoanoke.
When C. S. Bushnell took the model of this strange craft to Washington, he was referred to Commander C. H. Davis by the Naval Board. When Davis had examined it he handed it back to Bushnell with a pitying smile:
"Take the little thing home, and worship it. It would not be idolatry, because it's made in the image of nothing in the heaven above or the earth beneath or in the waters under the earth."
Wiser councils had prevailed, and the floating cheese box was completed and arrived in Hampton Roads in time to put its powers to supreme test.
TheMerrimac'screw ate their breakfast at their leisure and prepared to drive their ugly duckling into the battle line again and finish the work of destroying the battered Federal squadron.
TheMerrimachad fought the battle of the day before under the constant pounding of more than one hundred guns bearing on her iron sides. Her armor was intact. Two of her guns were disabled by having their muzzles shot off. Her nose had been torn off and sank with theCumberland. One anchor, her smoke stacks and steam pipes were shot away. Every scrap of her railing, stanchions, and boat davits had been swept clean. Her flag staff was gone and a boarding pike had been set up in its place.
With stern faces, and absolutely sure of victory, her crew swung her into the stream, crowded on full steam and moved down on theMinnesota.
Close under the ship's side they saw for the first time the cheese box. They had heard of the experiment of her building but knew nothing of her arrival.
Her insignificant size was a surprise and the bigMerrimacdashed at her with a sullen furious growl of her big guns. The game little bulldog swung out from theMinnesotaand made straight for the onrushing monster.
The flotilla of gunboats had been signaled to retire and watch the duel.
From the big eleven-inch guns of theMonitorshot after shot was hurled against the slanting armored walls of theMerrimac.
Broadside after broadside poured from her guns against the iron-clad tower of theMonitor.
TheMerrimac, drawing twenty feet of water, was slow and difficult to handle. The game littleMonitordrew but twelve feet and required no maneuvering. Her tower revolved. She could stand and fight in one spot all day.
The big black hull of theMerrimacbore down on theMonitornow to ram and sink her at a blow. The nimble craft side stepped the avalanche of iron, turned quickly and attempted to jamb her nose into the steering gear of the Southerner—but in vain.
For two solid hours the iron-clads pounded and hammered each other. The shots made no impression on either boat.
Again theMerrimactried to ram her antagonist and run her aground. The nimble foe avoided the blow, though struck a grinding, crushing side-swipe.
The littleMonitornow stuck her nose squarely against the side of theMerrimac, held it there, and fired both her eleven-inch guns against the walls of the Southerner.
The charge of powder was not heavy enough. No harm was done. The impact of the shots had merely forced the sloping sides an inch or two.
The captain of theMerrimacturned to his men in sharp command.
"All hands on deck. Board and capture her!"
The smoke-smeared crew swarmed to the portholes and were just in the act of springing on the decks of theMonitor, when she backed quickly and dropped down stream.
After six hours of thunder in each other's faces theMonitordrew away into the shoal waters guarding theMinnesota.
TheMerrimaccould not follow her in the shallows and at two o'clock turned her prow again toward Sewell's Point.
The battle was a drawn conflict. But the plucky littleMonitorhad won a tremendous moral victory. She had rescued the navy in the nick of time. The Government at Washington once more breathed.
From the heights of rejoicing the South sank again to the bitterness of failure. For twenty-four hours her flag had been mistress of the seas. Jefferson Davis saw the hope of peace fade into the certainty of a struggle for the possession of Richmond.
The way had been cleared. McClellan's two hundred thousand men were rushing on their transports for the Virginia peninsula.
Long before Jennie Barton arrived in Richmond Socola had waked to the realization of the fact that he had been caught in the trap he had set for another. He had laughed at his growing interest in the slender dark little Southerner. He imagined that he had hypnotized himself into the idea that he really liked her. He had kept no account of the number of visits he had made. They were part of his programme. They had grown so swiftly into the habit of his thought and life he had not stopped to question the motive that prompted his zeal in pressing his attentions.
In fact his mind had become so evenly adjusted to hers, his happiness had been so quietly perfect, he had lost sight of the fact that he was pressing his attentions at all.
The day she was suddenly called South and he said good-by with her brown eyes looking so frankly into his he was brought sharply up against the fact that he was in love.
When he took her warm hand in his to press it for the last time, he felt an almost resistless impulse to bend and kiss her. From that moment he realized that he was in love—madly, hopelessly, desperately.
He had left the car and hurried back to his post in the State Department, his heart beating like a trip hammer. It was a novel experience. He had never taken girls seriously before. The last girl on earth he had ever meant to take seriously was this slip of a Southern enthusiast. For a moment he was furious at the certainty of his abject surrender. He lifted his eyes to the big columns of the Confederate Capitol and laughed:
"Come, come, man—common sense—this is a joke! Forget it all. To your work—your country calls!"
Somehow the country refused to issue but one call—the old eternal cry of love. Wherever he turned, Jennie's brown eyes were smiling into his. He looked at the Confederate Capitol to inspire him to deeds of daring and all he could remember was that she was a glorious little rebel with three brothers fighting for the flag that floated there. All he could get out of the supreme emblem of the "Rebellion" was that it was her Capitol andherflag and he loved her.
And then he laughed for sheer joy that love had come into his heart and made the world beautiful. He surrendered himself body and soul to the madness and wonder of it all.
If he could only see his mother and tell her, she could understand. He couldn't talk to the bundle of nerves Miss Van Lew had become. Her eyes burned each day with a deeper and deeper light of fanatical patriotism. He had yielded none of his own enthusiasm. But this secret of his heart was too sweet to be shared by a comrade in arms.
Only God's eye, or the soul of the mother who bore him, could understand what he felt. The realization of his love for Jennie brought a new fear into his heart. His nerve was put daily to supreme test in the dangerous work in which he was engaged. A single mistake would start an investigation sure to end with a rope around his neck. Love had given life a new meaning. The chatter of the squirrels in the Capitol Square was all about their homes and babies in the tree tops. The song of birds in the old flower garden on Church Hill made his heart thump with a joy that was agony. The flowers were just bursting into full bloom and their perfume filled the air with the lazy dreaming of the southern spring.
He must speak his love. His heart would burst with its beating. His mate must know. And she had returned to Richmond with a bitterness against the North that was something new in the development of her character.
The newspapers of Richmond had published an elaborate account of the sacking of her father's house, the smashing of its furniture and theft of its valuables. It had created a profound sensation. There was no mistaking the passion with which she had told this story.
He had laughed at first over the fun of winning the fairest little rebel in the South and carrying his bride away a prize of war, against the combined efforts of his Southern rivals. His love and pride had not doubted for a moment that her heart would yield to the man she loved no matter what uniform he might wear at the end of this war.
He couldn't make up his mind to ask her to marry him until she should know his real name and his true principles.
What would she do if the truth were revealed? His heart fairly stopped its beating at the thought. The fall of Richmond he now regarded as a practical certainty. TheMerrimachad proven a vain hope to the Confederacy.
McClellan was landing his magnificent army on the Peninsula and preparing to sweep all before him. McDowell's forty thousand men were moving on his old line of march straight from Washington. Their two armies would unite before the city and circle it with an invinciblewall of fire and steel. Fremont, Milroy and Banks were sweeping through the valley of the Shenandoah. Their armies would unite, break the connections of the Confederacy at Lynchburg and the South would be crushed.
That this would all be accomplished within thirty days he had the most positive assurances from Washington. So sure was Miss Van Lew of McClellan's triumphant entry into Richmond she had put her house in order for his reception. Her parlor had been scrupulously cleaned. Its blinds were drawn and the room dark, but a flag staff was ready and a Union standard concealed in one of her feather beds. Over the old house on Church Hill the emblem of the Nation would first be flung to the breeze in the conquered Capital of the Confederacy.
The certainty of his discovery in the rush of the Union army into the city was now the nightmare which haunted his imagination.
He could fight the Confederate Government on even terms. He asked no odds. His life was on the hazard. Something more than the life of a Union spy was at stake in his affair with Jennie. Her life and happiness were bound in his. He felt this by an unerring instinct.
If this proud, sensitive, embittered girl should stumble on even a suspicion of the truth, she would tear her heart out of her body if necessary to put him out of her life.
For a moment he was tempted to give up his work and return to the North. It was the one sure way to avoid discovery when Richmond fell. The war over, he would have his even chance with other men when its bitterness had been softened. His work in Richmond was practically done. His men could finish it. The number of soldiers in the Southern armies had been accurately counted and reported to Washington. Why should he risk the happiness of the woman he loved and his own happiness for life by remaining another day?
The thought had no sooner taken shape than he put it out of his mind.
"Bah! I've set my hand to a great task. I'm not a quitter. I'll stand by my guns. No true woman ever loved a coward!"
He would take his chances and tell her his love.
He lifted the old-fashioned brass knocker on Senator Barton's door and banged it with such force he laughed at his own foolish eagerness:
"At least I needn't smash my way in!" he muttered.
"Yassah, des walk right in de parlor, sah," Jennie's maid said, with her teeth shining in a knowing smile.
Senator Barton had recovered from his illness. There could be no doubt about it. He was in the library holding forth in eloquent tones to a group of Confederate Congressmen who made his house their rendezvous. He was enjoying the martyrdom which the outrage on his home and the death of his aged mother and father had brought. He was using it to inveigh with new bitterness against the imbecility of Jefferson Davis and his administration. He held Davis personally responsible for every defeat of the South. He was the one man who had caused the fall of New Orleans, the loss of Fort Donelson and the failure to reap the victory at Shiloh.
"But you must remember, Senator," one of his henchmen mildly protested, "that Davis did save Albert Sidney Johnston to us and that alone made a victory possible."
"And what of it, if he threw it away by appointing a fool second in Command?"
There was a good answer to this—too good for the henchman to dare use it. He had sent Beauregard west to join Albert Sidney Johnston's command because Barton's junta, supporting Joseph E. Johnston against the administration, would no longer tolerate Beauregard in the same camp with their chief. They had demanded a free field for Joseph E. Johnston in the conflict with McClellan or they had threatened his resignation and the disruption of the Confederate army.
The President, sick unto death over the wrangling of these two generals, had separated them and sent Beauregard west where the genius of Albert Sidney Johnston could use his personal popularity, and his own more powerful mind would neutralize in any council of war the little man's feeble generalship.
Socola listened to Barton's fierce, unreasoning invective with a sense of dread. It was impossible to realize that this big-mouthed, bitter, vindictive, ridiculous politician was the father of the gentle girl he loved. There must be something of his power of malignant hatred somewhere in Jennie's nature. He had caught just a glimpse of it in the story she had told the Richmond papers.
She stood in the doorway at last, a smiling vision of modest beauty. Her dress of fine old lace seemed woven of the tender smiles that played about the sensitive mouth.
He sprang to his feet and took her hand, his heart thumping with joy. She felt it tremble and laughed outright.
"So you have returned a fiercer rebel than ever, Miss Jennie?" he said hesitatingly.
He tried to say something purely conventional but it popped out when he opened his mouth—the ugly thought that was gnawing at his happiness.
"Yes," she answered thoughtfully, "I never realized before what it meant to be with my own people. I could have burned New Orleans and laughed at its ruins to have smokedBen Butler out of it—"
"President Davis has proclaimed him an outlaw I see," Socola added.
"If he can only capture and hang him, the people of Louisiana would be perfectly willing to lose all—"
"But your brother, the Judge, is still loyal to the Union—you can't hate him you know?"
Jennie's eyes flashed into Socola's.
Why had he asked the one question that opened the wound in her heart? Perhaps her mind had suggested it. She had scarcely spoken the bitter words before she saw the vision of his serious face and regretted it.
"Strange you should have mentioned my brother's name at the very moment his image was before me," the girl thoughtfully replied.
"Clairvoyance perhaps—"
"You believe in such things?" Jennie asked.
"Yes. My mother leaped from her bed with a scream one night and told me that she had seen my father's spirit, felt him bend over her and touch her lips. He had died at exactly that moment."
"Wonderful, isn't it," Jennie murmured softly, "the vision of love!"
She was dreaming of the moments of her distress in the sacking of her home when the vision of this man's smiling face had suddenly set her to laughing.
"Yes," Socola answered. "I asked you about your older brother because I don't like the idea of you poisoning your beautiful young life with hatred. Such thoughts kill—they can't bring health and strength, Miss Jennie."
"Of course," the girl responded tenderly, "you can see things more calmly. You can't understand how deep the knife has entered our hearts in the South."
"That's just what I do understand. It's that against which I'm warning you. This war can't last always you know. There must be a readjustment—"
"Between the North and South?"
"Of course—"
"Never!"
With sudden emotion she leaped to her feet her little fists clinched. She stood trembling in silence for a moment and her face paled.
"No, Signor," she went on in cold tones. "There can be no readjustment of this war. It's to the death now. I confess myself a rebel body and soul—Confess? I glory in it! I'm proud of being one. I thought my father extravagant at first. Ben Butler has changed my views. The South can't look back now. It's forward—forward—always forward to death—or independence!"
She paused overcome with emotion.
"Yes," she went on in quick tones, "I thank God we're two different tribes! I'm proud of the South and her old-fashioned, out-of-date chivalry. The South respects and honors women. God never made the Southern white man who could issue Butler's orders in New Orleans or insult the heart-broken women who are forced to enter his office with the vile motto he has placed over his desk—"
Socola lifted his hand in gentle smiling protest.
"But you must remember, Miss Jennie, that General Butler is a peculiar individual. He probably does not represent the best that's in New England—"
"God knows I hope not for their sakes," was the answer. "I only wish I could fight in the ranks with our boys. If I can't fight at least I'm going to help our men in other ways. I'll work with my hands as a slave. I'll sew and knit and nurse. I'll breathe my soul into the souls of our men. I sing Dixie when I rise in the morning. I hum it all day. I sing it with my last thoughts as I go tosleep."