"Guides, pioneers (with oakum, turpentine and torpedoes), signal officer, quarter master, commissary, scouts, and picket men in rebel uniform—remain on the north bank and move down with the force on the south bank. If communications can be kept up without giving an alarm it must be done. Everything depends upon a surprise, and no one must be allowed to pass ahead of this column. All mills must be burned and the canal destroyed. Keep the force on the southern side posted of any important movementof the enemy, and in case of danger some of the scouts must swim the river and bring us information. We must try to secure the bridge to the city (one mile below Belle Isle) and release the prisoners at the same time. If we do not succeed they must then dash down, and we will try to carry the bridge from each side. The bridges once secured, and the prisoners loosed and over the river, the bridges will be secured and the city destroyed—"
"Guides, pioneers (with oakum, turpentine and torpedoes), signal officer, quarter master, commissary, scouts, and picket men in rebel uniform—remain on the north bank and move down with the force on the south bank. If communications can be kept up without giving an alarm it must be done. Everything depends upon a surprise, and no one must be allowed to pass ahead of this column. All mills must be burned and the canal destroyed. Keep the force on the southern side posted of any important movementof the enemy, and in case of danger some of the scouts must swim the river and bring us information. We must try to secure the bridge to the city (one mile below Belle Isle) and release the prisoners at the same time. If we do not succeed they must then dash down, and we will try to carry the bridge from each side. The bridges once secured, and the prisoners loosed and over the river, the bridges will be secured and the city destroyed—"
Jennie paused and lifted her eyes burning with feverish light.
"Merciful God! How? With oakum and turpentine. A city of one hundred thousand inhabitants, under the cover of darkness—men, women and children, the aged, the poor, the helpless!"
Socola made no answer. A thoughtful dreamy look masked his handsome features.
Jennie read the next sentence from the Dahlgren paper in high quivering tones:
"The men must be kept together and well in hand, and once in the city, it must be destroyed andJeff Davis and his Cabinetkilled—"
"The men must be kept together and well in hand, and once in the city, it must be destroyed andJeff Davis and his Cabinetkilled—"
The girl paused and fixed her gaze on Socola.
"The man who planned that raid came with the willful and deliberate murder of unarmed men in his soul. The man who helped him inside is equally guilty of his crime—"
She resumed her reading without waiting for reply.
"Prisoners will go along with combustible material. The officer must use his discretion about the time of assisting us. Pioneers must be prepared to construct a bridge or destroy one. They must have plenty of oakum and turpentine for burning, which will be rolled in soaked balls, and given to the men to burn when we get into the city—"
"Prisoners will go along with combustible material. The officer must use his discretion about the time of assisting us. Pioneers must be prepared to construct a bridge or destroy one. They must have plenty of oakum and turpentine for burning, which will be rolled in soaked balls, and given to the men to burn when we get into the city—"
Socola lifted his hand.
"Please, dear—these instructions are not mine. I do not excuse or palliate them. The daring youngster who conceived this paid the penalty with his life. It's all that any of us can give for his country. There's something that interests me now far more than this sensation—far more than the mere fact that my true business here has been discovered by you and my life forfeited to your Government—"
"And that is?"
"That the woman I love can deliver me to death—"
"You doubt it?"
"I had not believed it possible."
"I'll show you."
Jennie stepped to the door and pulled the old-fashioned bell-cord.
A servant appeared.
In strained tones the girl said:
"Go to Captain Welford's office and ask him to come here immediately with two soldiers—"
"Yassam—"
The negro bowed and hurried from the house, and Jennie sat down in silence beside the door.
Socola confronted her, his hands gripped in nervous agony behind his back, his slender figure erect, his breath coming in deep excited draughts.
"You think that I'll submit to my fate without a fight?"
"You've got to submit. Your escape from Richmond is a physical impossibility—"
He searched the depths of her heart.
"I was not thinking of my body just then. I have no desire to live if you can hand me to my executioner—"
He paused and a sob came from the girl's distracted soul.
He moved a step closer.
"I'm not afraid to die—you must know that—I'm not a coward—"
"No. I couldn't have loved a coward!"
"The thing I can't endure is that you, the woman to whom I have surrendered my soul, should judge me worthy of death. Come, my own, this is madness. We must see each other as God sees now. You must realize that only the highest and noblest motive could have sent a man of my character and training on such a mission. We differ in our political views for the moment—even as you differ from the older brother whom you love and respect—"
"I am not responsible for my brother's acts. I am for yours—"
"Nonsense, dear heart. My work was ordained of God from the beginning. It was fate. Nothing could have stopped me. I came under a mighty impulse of love for my country—bigger than the North or the South. God sent me. You have helped me. But if you had not I would still have succeeded. Can't you forget for the moment the details of this blood-stained struggle—the maimed lad with his crutches strapped to his saddle, lost in the black storm night in the country of his enemies and shot to pieces—the mad scheme his impulsive brain had dreamed of wiping your Capital from the earth and leading fifteen thousand shouting prisoners back into freedom and life—surely he paid for his madness. Forget that I have deceived you, and see the vision of which I dream—a purified and redeemed Nation—united forever—no North, no South—no East, no West—the inheritance of our children and all the children of the world's oppressed! I am fighting for you and yours as well as my own. The South is mine. I love its beautiful mountains and plains—its rivers and shining seas—Oh, my love, can't you see this divine vision of the future? The Union must be saved. The stars in their courses fight itsbattles. Nothing is surer in the calendar of time than that the day is swiftly coming when the old flag your fathers first flung to the breeze will be again lifted from your Capitol building. You can't put me out of your life as a criminal worthy of death! I won't have it. I am yours and you are mine. I am not pleading for my life. I'm pleading for something bigger and sweeter than life. I'm pleading for my love. I can laugh at death. I can't endure that you put me out of your heart—"
Jennie rose with determination, walked to the window and laughed hysterically.
"Well, I'm going to put you out. Captain Welford and his men are coming. They've just turned the corner!"
The man's figure slowly straightened, and his eyes closed in resignation.
"Then it's God's will and my work is done."
With a sudden cry Jennie threw herself in his arms.
"Forgive me, dear Lord. I can't do this hideous thing! It's my duly, but I can't. My darling—my own! You shall not die. I was mad. Forgive me! Forgive me! My own—"
"Halt!"
The sharp command of the Captain rang outside the door.
"Get into this room—quick—" the girl cried, pushing Socola into the adjoining room and slamming the door as Dick entered the hall.
She faced the Captain with a smile.
"It's all right, now, Dick. I thought I had discovered an important secret. It was a mistake—"
The Captain smiled.
"You don't mind my looking about the house?"
"Searchingthe house?"
"Just the lower floor?"
"I do mind it. How dare you suggest such a thing, sir—"
"Because I've made a guess at the truth. You discovered important evidence incriminating Socola. Your first impulse was to do your duty—you weakened at the last moment—"
"Absurd!" she gasped.
"I happened to hear a door slam as I entered. I'll have to look around a little."
He started to the door behind which Socola had taken refuge. Jennie confronted him.
"You can't go in there—"
"It's no use, Jennie—I'm going to search that room—the whole house if necessary."
"Why?"
"I know that Socola is here—"
"And if he is?"
"I'll arrest him—"
"On what charge?"
"He is a Federal spy and you know it—"
"You can't prove it."
"I've found the evidence. I have searched his rooms—"
"Searched hisrooms?"
"Your servant told me that he was here. I leaped to a conclusion, forced his door and found this—"
He thrust a well-thumbed copy of the cipher code of the Federal Secret Service into her hand.
"You—you—can't execute him, Dick," Jennie sobbed.
"I will."
"You can't. I love him. He can do no more harm here."
"He's done enough. His life belongs to the South—"
She placed her trembling hand on his arm.
"You are sure that deep down in your heart there's not another motive?"
"No matter how many motives—one is enough. I have the evidence on which to send him to the gallows—"
The girl's head drooped.
"And I gave it to you—God have mercy!"
The tears began to stream down her checks. Dick moved uneasily and looked the other way.
"I've got to do it," he repeated stubbornly.
Her voice was the merest whisper when she spoke.
"You're not going to arrest him, Dick. He will leave Richmond never to enter the South again. I'll pledge my life on his promise. His death can do us no good. It can do you no good—I—I—couldn't live and know that I had killed the man I love—"
"You haven't killed him. He has forfeited his life a thousand times in his work as a spy."
"I sent for you. I caused his betrayal. I shall be responsible if he dies—"
Again the little head drooped in pitiful suffering. She lifted it at last with a smile.
"Dick, you're too big and generous for low revenge. You hate this man. But you love me. I know that. I'm proud and grateful for it. I appeal to the best that's in you. Save my life and his—"
"You couldn't live if he should die, Jennie?" the man asked tenderly.
"Not if he should die in this way—"
The Captain struggled and hesitated.
Again her hand touched his arm.
"I ask the big divine thing of you, Dick?"
"It's hard. I've won and you take my triumph from me. For two years I've given body and soul to the task of unmasking this man."
"I'm asking his life—and mine—" the pleading voice repeated.
"I'll give him up on one condition—"
"What?"
The Captain held her gaze in silence a moment.
"That you send him back to the North and put him out of your life forever!"
Jennie laughed softly through her tears.
"You big, generous, foolish boy—you might have left that to me—"
"All right," he hastened to agree. "I'll leave it to you. Forgive me. I can't deny you anything—"
"You're a glorious lover, Dick!" she cried tenderly. "Why didn't I love you?"
"I don't know, honey," he replied chokingly. "We just love because we must—there's no rhyme or reason to it—"
He paused and laughed.
"Well, it's all over now, Jennie. I've given him back to you—good-by—"
She grasped his hand and held it firmly.
"Don't you dare say good-by to me, sir—you've got to love me, too—as long as I live—my first sweetheart—brave, generous, kind—"
She drew his blond head low and kissed him.
He looked at her through dimmed eyes and slowly said:
"That makes life worth living, Jennie."
He turned and quickly left the house.
She heard his low orders to his men and watched them pass up the street with their rifles on their shoulders.
She opened the door and Socola entered, his face deathlike in its pallor.
"Why did he stay so long?"
"He has searched your room and found your cipher code—"
"And you have saved my life?"
"It was I who put it in peril—"
"No—I gave my life in willing sacrifice when the war began—"
"You are to leave," Jennie went on evenly—"leave at once—"
"Of course—"
"And give me your solemn parole—never again during this war to fight the South—"
"It is your right to demand it. I agree."
She gently took his hand.
"I know that I can trust you now—" She paused and looked wistfully into his face. "One last long look into your dear eyes—"
"Not the last—"
"One last kiss—"
She drew his lips down to hers.
"One last moment in your arms." She clung to him desperately and freed herself with quick resolution.
"And now you must go—from Richmond—from the South and out of my life forever—"
"You can't mean this!" he protested bitterly.
"I do," was the firm answer. "Good-by."
He pressed her hand and shook his head.
"I refuse to say it—"
"You must."
"No—"
"It is the end—"
"It is only the beginning."
With a look of tenderness he left her standing in the doorway, the hunger of eternity in her brown eyes.
The raid of Dahlgren and Kilpatrick had sent a thrill of horror through Richmond. The people had suddenly waked to the realization of what it meant to hold fifteen thousand desperate prisoners in their city with a handful of soldiers to guard them.
The discovery on the young leader's body of the remarkable papers of instructions to burn the city and murder the Confederate President and his Cabinet produced a sharp discussion between Jefferson Davis and his councilors.
Not only did the people of Richmond demand that such methods of warfare be met by retaliation of the most drastic kind but the Cabinet now joined in this demand. Hundreds of prisoners had been captured both from Dahlgren's and Kilpatrick's division.
It was urged on Davis with the most dogged determination that these prisoners—in view of the character of their instructions to burn a city crowded with unarmed men, women and children and murder in cold blood the civil officers of the Confederate Government—should be treated as felons and executed by hanging.
The President had refused on every occasion to lend his power to brutal measures of retaliation. This time his Cabinet was persistent and in dead earnest in their purpose to force his hand.
Davis faced his angry council with unruffled spirit.
"I understand your feelings, gentlemen," he said evenly. "You have had a narrow escape. The South does not use such methods of warfare. Nor will I permit our Government to fall to such level by an act of retaliation. The prisoners we hold are soldiers of the enemy's army. Their business is to obey orders—not plan campaigns—"
"We have captured officers also," Benjamin interrupted.
"Subordinate officers are not morally responsible for the plans of their superiors."
No argument could move the Confederate Chieftain. He was adamant to all appeals for harsh treatment. Even Lee had at last found it impossible to maintain discipline in his army unless he prevented the review of his court martial by Davis. The President was never known to sign the death warrant of a Confederate soldier. Lincoln was a man of equally tender heart and yet the Northern President did sign the death warrants of more than two hundred Union soldiers during his administration.
The only action Davis would permit was the removal of the fifteen thousand prisoners further south to places of safety where such raids would be impossible. The prisons of Richmond were emptied and the stockades at Salisbury and Andersonville over-crowded with these men.
Davis renewed his urgent appeal to the Federal Government for the exchange of these men. His request was treated with discourtesy and steadily refused. When the hot climate of Georgia caused the high death rate at Andersonville he released thousands of those men without exchange and notified the Washington Government to send transportation for them to Savannah.
Lincoln had given Grant a free hand in assuming the command of all the armies of the Union. But he watched his cruel policy of refusal to exchange prisoners with increasing anguish. In every way possible, without directly opposing his commanding general, the big-hearted President at Washington managed to smuggle Southern prisoners back into the South unknown to Grant and take an equal number of Union soldiers home.
A crowd of Southern boys from the prison at Elmira, New York, were announced to arrive in Richmond on the morning train from Fredericksburg. Among them Jennie expected her brother Jimmie who had been captured in battle six months ago. She hurried to the station to meet them.
A great crowd had gathered. A row of coffins was placed on the ground at the end of the long platform awaiting the train going south. A dozen men were sitting on those rude caskets smoking, talking, laughing, their feet drawn up tailor-fashion to keep them out of the mud.
With a shiver the girl hurried to the other gate.
Her eager eyes searched in vain among the ragged wretches who shambled from the cars. A man from Baton Rouge, whom she failed to recognize, lifted his faded hat and handed her a letter.
She read it through her tears and hurried to the Confederate White House to show it to the President. Davis scanned the scrawl with indignant sympathy:
"Dear Little Sis:"This is the last message I shall ever send. Before it can reach you I shall be dead—for which I'll thank God. I'm sorry now I didn't take my chances with the other fellows, bribe the guard and escape from Camp Douglas in Chicago. A lot of the boys did it. Somehow I couldn't stoop. Maybe the fear of the degrading punishment they gave McGoffin, the son of the Governor of Kentucky, when he failed, influenced me, weak and despondent as I was. They hung him by the thumbs to make him confess the name of hisaccomplices. He refused to speak and they left him hanging until the balls of his thumbs both burst open and he fainted."The last month at Camp Douglas was noted for scant rations. Hunger was the prevailing epidemic. At one end of our barracks was the kitchen, and by the door stood a barrel into which was thrown beef bones and slops. I saw a starving boy fish out one of these bones and begin to gnaw it. A guard discovered him. He snatched the bone from the prisoner's hand, cocked his pistol, pressed it to his head and ordered him to his all-fours and made him bark for the bone he held above him—"We expected better treatment when transferred to Elmira. But I've lost hope. I'm too weak to ever pull up again. I've made friends with a guard who has given me the list of the men who have died here in the five months since we came. In the first four months out of five thousand and twenty-seven men held here, one thousand three hundred and eleven died—six and one-half per cent a month—"
"Dear Little Sis:
"This is the last message I shall ever send. Before it can reach you I shall be dead—for which I'll thank God. I'm sorry now I didn't take my chances with the other fellows, bribe the guard and escape from Camp Douglas in Chicago. A lot of the boys did it. Somehow I couldn't stoop. Maybe the fear of the degrading punishment they gave McGoffin, the son of the Governor of Kentucky, when he failed, influenced me, weak and despondent as I was. They hung him by the thumbs to make him confess the name of hisaccomplices. He refused to speak and they left him hanging until the balls of his thumbs both burst open and he fainted.
"The last month at Camp Douglas was noted for scant rations. Hunger was the prevailing epidemic. At one end of our barracks was the kitchen, and by the door stood a barrel into which was thrown beef bones and slops. I saw a starving boy fish out one of these bones and begin to gnaw it. A guard discovered him. He snatched the bone from the prisoner's hand, cocked his pistol, pressed it to his head and ordered him to his all-fours and made him bark for the bone he held above him—
"We expected better treatment when transferred to Elmira. But I've lost hope. I'm too weak to ever pull up again. I've made friends with a guard who has given me the list of the men who have died here in the five months since we came. In the first four months out of five thousand and twenty-seven men held here, one thousand three hundred and eleven died—six and one-half per cent a month—"
Davis paused and shook his head—
"The highest rate we have ever known at Salisbury or Andersonville during those spring months was three per cent!"
He finished the last line in quivering tones.
"There's not a chance on earth that I'll live to see you again. See the President and beg him for God's sake to save as many of the boys as he can. With a heart full of love."Jimmie."
"There's not a chance on earth that I'll live to see you again. See the President and beg him for God's sake to save as many of the boys as he can. With a heart full of love.
"Jimmie."
The President took both of Jennie's hands in his.
"I need not tell you, my dear, that I have done and am doing my level best. The policy of the new Federal Commander is to refuse all offers of exchange. You understand my position?"
"Perfectly," was the sorrowful answer. "I only came as a duty to bear his dying message—"
"Express to your father and mother my deepest sympathy."
With a gentle pressure of the Chieftain's hand the girl answered:
"I need not tell you I appreciate it—"
The President watched her go with a look of helpless anguish. His troubles for the moment had only begun. The returned prisoners had marched in a body to his office to thank their Chief for his sympathy and help and asked him to say something to them.
Jennie paused and stared in a dazed way into the poor shrunken faces. When the President appeared every ragged hat was in the air and they cheered with all the might of the strength that was left in them. The girl burst into tears. These men, so forlorn, so dried up with a strange, half-animal, hunted look in their eyes—others restless and wild-looking—others calmly vacant in their stare as if they had been dead for years!
A poor mother was rushing in and out among them hunting for her son.
"He was coming with you boys, you know!" she cried.
She stopped suddenly and laughed at her own anxiety and confusion.
"He's here somewhere—I just can't find him—help me, men!"
She hadn't spoken his name, in her eager search for his loved face. She kept lifting the cloth from a basket of provisions which she had cooked that morning.
"I've got his breakfast here—poor boy—I expect he's hungry."
She had lost all consciousness of the crowd now. She was talking to herself, trying to keep her courage up.
The President looked into the emaciated faces before him and lifted his long arm in solemn salutation.
"Soldiers of the South:"I thank you from the bottom of my heart for this tribute of your loyalty. You were offered your freedom in prison at any moment if you would take the oath and forswear your allegiance to the South. You deliberately chose the living death to the betrayal of your faith. I stand with uncovered head before you. I am proud to be the Chief Executive of such men!"
"Soldiers of the South:
"I thank you from the bottom of my heart for this tribute of your loyalty. You were offered your freedom in prison at any moment if you would take the oath and forswear your allegiance to the South. You deliberately chose the living death to the betrayal of your faith. I stand with uncovered head before you. I am proud to be the Chief Executive of such men!"
Again they cheered.
The old mother with her basket was searching again for her boy.
Jennie slipped an arm gently around her and led her away.
On the day Lee left Richmond for the front to meet Grant's invading host, the Confederate President was in agony over a letter from General Winder portraying the want and suffering among the prisoners confined at Andersonville.
"If we could only get them across the Mississippi," Davis cried, "where beef and supplies of all kind are abundant—but what can we do for them here?"
"Our men are in the same fix," Lee answered quickly, "except that they're free. These sufferings are the result of our necessity, not of our policy. Do not distress yourself."
The South was entering now the darkest hours of her want. The market price of food was beyond the reach of the poor or even the moderately well-to-do. Turkeys sold for $60 each. Flour was $300 a barrel, corn meal $50 a bushel. Boots were $200 a pair. A man's coat cost $350—his trousers $100. He could get along without a vest. Wood was $50 a cord. It took $1,800 tobuy $100 in gold.
In the midst of this universal suffering the yellow journals of the South, led by the RichmondExaminer, made the most bitter and determined assaults on Davis to force him to a policy of retaliation on Northern prisoners.
"Hoist the black flag!" shrieked theExaminer. "Retaliate on these Yankee prisoners for the starvation and abuse of our men in the North—a land teeming with plenty." The President was held up to the scorn and curses of the Southern people because with quiet dignity he refused to lower the standard of his Government to a policy of revenge on helpless soldiers in his power.
To a Committee of the Confederate Congress who waited on him with these insane demands he answered with scorn:
"You dare ask me to torture helpless prisoners of war! I will resign my office at the call of my country. But no people have the right to demand such deeds at my hands!"
In answer to this brave, humane stand of the Southern President theExaminerhad the unspeakable effrontery to accuse him of clemency to his captives that he might curry favor with the North and shield himself if the South should fail.
No characteristic of Davis was more marked than his regard for the weak, the helpless and the captive. His final answer to his assailants was to repeat with emphasis his orders to General Winder to see to it that the same rations issued to Confederate soldiers in the field should be given to all prisoners of war, though taken from a starving army and people.
Enraged by the defeat of their mad schemes, the conspirators drew together now to depose Davis and set up a military dictatorship.
When Grant crossed the Rapidan with his army of one hundred forty-one thousand one hundred and sixty men Lee faced him with sixty-four thousand. The problem of saving Richmond from the tremendous force under the personal command of the most successful general of the North was not the only danger which threatened the Confederate Capital. Butler was pressing from the Peninsula with forty thousand men along the line of McClellan's old march, supported again by the navy.
Jefferson Davis knew the task before Lee to be a gigantic one yet he did not believe that Grant would succeed in reaching Richmond.
The moment the Federal general crossed the Rapidan and threw his army into the tangled forest of the Wilderness, Lee sprang from the jungles at his throat.
Battle followed battle in swift and terrible succession. At Cold Harbor thirty days later the climax came. Grant lost ten thousand men in twenty minutes. The Northern general had set out to hammer Lee to death by steady, remorseless pounding. At the end of a month he had lost more than sixty thousand men and Lee's army was as strong as when the fight began.
Grant's campaign to take Richmond was the bloodiest and most tragic failure in the history of war. The North in bitter anguish demanded his removal from command. Lincoln stubbornly refused to interfere with his bulldogfighter. He sent him word to hold on and chew and choke.
As Grant in his whirl of blood approached the old battle grounds of McClellan, Davis rode out daily to confer with Lee. He was never more cheerful—never surer of the safety of his Capital. His faith in God and the certainty that he would in the end give victory to a cause so just and holy grew in strength with the report from each glorious field. No doubt of the right or justice of his cause ever entered his mind. Day and night he repeated the lines of his favorite hymn:
"I'll strengthen thee, help thee and cause thee to stand,Upheld by my righteous omnipotent hand."
Again and again he said to his wife half in soliloquy, half in exalted prayer:
"We can conquer a peace against the world in arms and keep the rights of freemen if we are worthy of the privilege!"
The spirit which animated the patriotic soldiers who followed their commander in this bloody campaign was in every way as high as that which inspired their President.
Jennie spent an hour each day ministering to the sick prisoners who had returned from the North and were unable to go further than Richmond. It was her service of love for Jimmie's friends and comrades.
A poor fellow was dying of the want he had endured in prison. He lifted his dimmed eyes to hers:
"Will you write to my wife for me, Miss?"
"Yes—yes—I will."
"And give her my love—"
He paused for breath and fumbled in his pocket.
"I've a letter from her here—read it before you write. Our little girl had malaria. She tried willow tea and everything she could think of for the chills. The doctor said nothin' but quinine could save her. She couldn't get it, the blockade was too tight, and so our baby died—and now I'm dyin' and my poor starvin' girl will have nothin' to comfort her—but—"
He gasped and lifted himself on his elbow.
"If our folks can just quit free men, it's all right. It's all right!"
The women and children of Richmond were suffering now for food. The Thirteenth Virginia regiment sent Billy Barton into the city with a contribution for their relief.
Billy delivered it to Jennie with more than a boy's pride. There was something bigger in the quiet announcement he made.
"Here's one day's rations from the regiment, sis," he said—"all our flour, pork, bacon and meal. The boys are fasting to-day. It's their love offering to those we've left at home—"
Jennie kissed him.
"It's beautiful of you and your men, boy. Give my love to them all and tell them I'm proud to be their countrywoman—"
"And they're proud of their country and their General, too—maybe you wouldn't believe it—but every regiment in Lee's army has reënlisted for the war."
She seized Billy's hand.
"Come with me—I want you to see the President and tell him what your regiment has done. It'll help him."
As they approached the White House a long, piercing scream came through the open windows.
"What on earth?" Jennie exclaimed.
"An accident of some kind," the boy answered, seizing her arm and hurrying forward. Every window and door of the big lonely house set apart on its hill swung wide open, the lights streaming through them, the wind blowingthe curtains through the windows. The lights blazed even in the third story.
Mrs. Burton Harrison, the wife of the President's Secretary, met them at the door, her eyes red with weeping.
She pressed Jennie's hand.
"Little Joe has been killed—"
"Mrs. Davis' beautiful boy—impossible!"
"He climbed over the bannisters and fell to the brick pavement and died a few minutes after his mother reached his side—"
The girl could make no answer. She had come on a sudden impulse to cheer the lonely leader of her people. Perhaps his need in this dark hour had called her. She thought of Socola's story of his mother's vision and wondered with a sudden pang of self-pity where the man she loved was to-night.
This beautiful child, named in honor of his favorite brother, was the greatest joy of the badgered soul of the Confederate leader.
Suddenly his white face appeared at the head of the stairs. A courier had come from the battlefield with an important dispatch. Grant and Lee were locked in their death grapple in the Wilderness. He would try even in this solemn hour to do his whole duty.
He passed the sympathetic group murmuring a sentence whose pathos brought the tears again to Jennie's eyes.
"Not my will, O Lord, but thine—thine—thine!"
He took the dispatch from the courier's hand and held it open for some time, staring at it with fixed gaze.
He searched the courier's face and asked pathetically:
"Will you tell me, my friend, what is in it—I—I—cannot read—"
The courier read the message in low tones. A great battle was joined. The fate of a nation hung on its issue. The stricken man drew from his pocket a tiny gold pencil and tried to write an answer—stopped suddenly and pressed his hand on his heart.
Billy sprang to his side and seized the dispatch:
"I'll take the message to General Cooper—Mr. President—"
The white face turned to the young soldier and looked at him pitifully:
"Thank you, my son—thank you—it is best—I must have this hour with our little boy—leave me with my dead!"
Jennie stayed to help the stricken home.
She took little Jeff in her arms to rock him to sleep. He drew her head down and whispered:
"Miss Jennie, I got to Joe first after he fell. I knelt down beside him and said all the prayers I know—but God wouldn't wake him!"
The girl drew the child close and kissed the reddened eyes. Over her head beat the steady tramp of the father's feet, back and forth, back and forth, a wounded lion in his cage. The windows and doors were still wide open, the curtains waving wan and ghostlike from their hangings.
Two days later she followed the funeral procession to the cemetery—thousands of children, each child with a green bough or bunch of flowers to pile on the red mound.
A beautiful girl pushed her way to Jennie's side and lifted a handful of snowdrops.
"Please put these on little Joe," she said wistfully. "I knew him so well."
With a sob the child turned and fled. Jennie never learned her name. She turned to the grave again, her gaze fixed on the striking figure of the grief-stricken father, bareheaded, straight as an arrow, his fine face silhouetted against the shining Southern sky. The mother stood back amid the shadows, in her somber wrappings, her tall figure drooped in pitiful grief.
The leader turned quickly from his personal sorrows to those of his country, his indomitable courage rising to greater heights as dangers thickened.
Two weeks later General Sheridan attempted what Dahlgren tried and failed to accomplish.
The President hurried from his office to his home, seized his pistols, mounted his horse and rode out to join Generals Gracie and Ransom who were placing their skeleton brigades to repulse the attack.
The crack of rifles could be distinctly heard from the Executive Mansion.
The mother called her children to prayers. As little Jeff knelt he raised his chubby face and said with solemn earnestness:
"You had better have my pony saddled, and let me go out and help father—we can pray afterwards!"
In driving Sheridan's cavalry back from Richmond General Stuart fell at Yellow Tavern mortally wounded—the bravest of the brave—a full Major General who had won immortal fame at thirty-one years of age. His beautiful wife, the daughter of a Union General, Philip St. George Cooke, could not reach his bedside before he breathed his last.
The President reverently entered the death chamber and stood for fifteen minutes holding the hand of his brilliant young commander.
They told him that he could not live to see his wife.
"I should have liked to have seen her," he said gently, "but God's will be done."
The doctor felt his fast fading pulse.
"Doctor, I suppose I'm going fast now," Stuart said. "It will soon be over. I hope I have fulfilled my duty to my country and my God—"
"Your end is near, General Stuart," the doctor responded softly.
"All right," was the even answer. "I'll end my little affairs down here. To Mrs. Robert E. Lee I give my gold spurs, in eternal memory of the love I bear my glorious Chief. To my staff, my horses—"
He paused and turned to the heavier officer who stood with bowed head.
"You take the larger one—he'll carry you better. To my son I leave my sword—"
He was silent a moment and then said with an effort:
"Now I want you to sing for me the song I love best:
"'Rock of ages cleft for meLet me hide myself in thee'"—
With his fast-failing breath he joined in the song, turned and murmured:
"I'm going fast now—God's will be done—"
So passed the greatest cavalry leader our country has produced—a man whose joyous life was one long feast of good will toward his fellow men.
In spite of all losses, in spite of four years of frightful carnage, in spite of the loss of the Mississippi, the States of Louisiana and Tennessee, the Confederacy was in sight of victory.
Lee had baffled Grant's great army at every turn and now held him securely at bay before Petersburg. The North was mortally tired of the bloody struggle. The party which demanded peace was greater than any political division—it included thousands of the best men in the party of Abraham Lincoln.
The nomination of General McClellan for President on a platform declaring the war a failure and demanding that it end was a foregone conclusion. Jefferson Davis knew this from inside information his friends had sent from every section of the North.
The Confederacy had only to hold its lines intact until the first Monday in November and the Northern voters would end the war.
The one point of mortal danger to the South lay in the mental structure of Joseph E. Johnston, the man whom Davis had been persuaded, against his better judgment, to appoint to the command of one of the greatest armies the Confederacy had ever put into the field.
Johnston had been sent to Dalton, Georgia, and placed in command of sixty-eight thousand picked Confederate soldiers with which to attack and drive Sherman out of the lower South.
Lee with sixty-four thousand had defeated Grant's one hundred and forty thousand. Richmond was safe, and the North was besieging Washington with an army of heart-broken mothers and fathers who demanded Grant's removal.
No effort was spared by Davis to enable Johnston to stay Sherman's advance and assume the offensive. The whole military strength of the South and West was pressed forward to him. His commissary and ordnance departments were the best in the Confederacy. His troops were eager to advance and retrieve the disaster at Missionary Ridge—the first and only case of panic and cowardice that had marred the brilliant record of the Confederacy.
The position of Johnston's army was one of commanding strength. Long mountain ranges, with few and difficult passes, made it next to impossible for Sherman toturn his flank or dislodge him by direct attack. Sherman depended for his supplies on a single line of railroad from Nashville.
Davis confidently believed that Johnston could crush Sherman in the first pitched battle and render his position untenable.
And then began the most remarkable series of retreats recorded in the history of war.
Without a blow and without waiting for an attack, Johnston suddenly withdrew from his trenches at Dalton and ran eighteen miles into the interior of Georgia. He stopped at Resaca in a strong position on a peninsula formed by the junction of two rivers fortified by rifle pits and earthworks.
He gave this up and ran thirteen miles further into Georgia to Adairsville. Not liking the looks of Adairsville he struck camp and ran to Cassville seventeen miles.
He then declared he would fight Sherman at Kingston. Sherman failing to divide his army, as Johnston had supposed he would, he changed his mind and ran beyond Etowah. He next retreated to Alatoona. Here Sherman spread out his army, threatened Marietta and Johnston ran again.
On July fifth he ran from Kenesaw Mountain and took refuge behind the Chattahoochee River.
From Dalton to Resaca, from Resaca to Adairsville, from Adairsville to Alatoona (involving the loss of Kingston and Rome with their mills, foundries and military stores), from Alatoona to Kenesaw, from Kenesaw to the Chattahoochee and then tumbled into the trenches before Atlanta.
Retreat had followed retreat for two months and a half over one hundred and fifty miles to the gates of Atlanta without a single pitched battle!
Davis watched this tragedy unfold its appalling scenes with increasing bitterness, disappointment and alarm.
The demand for Johnston's removal was overwhelming in the State of Georgia whose gate city was now besieged by Sherman. The people of the whole South had watched this retreat of a hundred and fifty miles into their territory with sickening hearts.
Again Johnston began his nagging and complaining to the Richmond authorities. His most important message was an accusation of disloyalty against Joseph E. Brown. He telegraphed in blunt plain English:
"The Governor of Georgia refuses me provisions and the use of his roads."
Brown answered:
"The roads are open to him and in capital condition. I have furnished him abundantly with provisions."
The President of the Confederacy now faced the most dangerous and tragic decision of his entire administration. The removal of Johnston from his command before Sherman's victorious army in the heart of Georgia could be justified only on the grounds of the sternest necessity. The Commanding General not only had the backing of his powerful junta in Richmond who were now busy with their conspiracy to establish a dictatorship and oust the President from his office, but he was immensely popular with his army. His care for his soldiers was fatherly. His painful efforts to save their lives, even at the cost of the loss of his country, were duly appreciated by the leaders of opinion in the army. Johnston had the power to draw and hold the good will of the men who surrounded him. He had the power, too, of infecting his men with his likes and dislikes. His hatred of Davis had been for three years the one mania of his sulking mind.
To remove him from command in such a crisis was to challenge a mutiny in his army which might lead to serious results. Yet if he should continue to retreat, and back out of Atlanta without a fight as he had backed out of every position for the one hundred and fifty miles from Dalton, the results would be still more appalling.
The loss of Atlanta at this moment meant the defeat of the peace party of the North, and the reëlection of Lincoln. If Lincoln should be elected it was inconceivable that the South could continue the unequal struggle for four years more.
If Johnston would only hold his trenches and save Atlanta for a few days the South would win. Lee could hold Grant indefinitely.
The thought which appalled Davis was the suspicion which now amounted to a practical certainty that his retreating General would evacuate Atlanta as he had threatened to abandon Richmond when confronted by McClellan, and had abandoned Vicksburg without a blow.
He must know this with absolute certainty before yielding to the demand for his removal. That no possible mistake could be made, he dispatched his Chief of Staff, General Braxton Bragg, to Atlanta for conference with Johnston and make a personal report.
Bragg reported that Johnston was arranging to abandon Atlanta without a battle and the President promptly removed him from command and appointed Hood in his place.
When Hood assumed command of the disgruntled army, it was too late to save Atlanta. Had Johnston delivered battle with his full force at Dalton, Sherman might have been crushed as Rosecrans was overwhelmed at Chickamauga.
Hood's army was driven back into their trenches. Sherman threw his hosts under cover of night on a wide flanking movement and Atlanta fell.
Under the mighty impulse of this news Lincoln was reëlected, the peace party of the North defeated and the doom of the Confederacy sealed.
The conspirators who had complained most bitterly of Davis for the appointment of Lee to the command of the army before Richmond when McClellan was thundering at its gates, now succeeded in passing through the Confederate Congress a bill to create a military dictatorship which they offered to the man for whose promotion they had condemned the President.
Lee treated this attempt to strike the Confederate Chieftain over his head with the contempt it deserved. Davis laughed at his enemies by the most complete acceptance of their plans.
His answer to Senator Barton's committee was explicit.
"I have absolute confidence in General Lee's patriotism and military genius. I will gladly coöperate with Congress in any plan to place him in supreme command."
Lee refused to accept the responsibility except with the advice and direction of the President, and the conspiracy ended in a fiasco.
From the moment Sherman's army pierced the heart of the South the Confederate President saw with clear vision that the cause of Southern independence was lost. Lee's army must slowly starve. His one supreme purpose now was to fight to the last ditch for better terms than unconditional surrender which would mean the loss of billions in property and the possible enfranchisement of a million slaves.
That Lincoln was intensely anxious to stop the shedding of blood he knew from more than one authentic source. It was rumored that the Northern President was willing to consider compensation for the slaves. An army of a hundred thousand determined Southern soldiers led by an indomitable general could fight indefinitely. That it was of the utmost importance to the life of the South to secure a surrender which would forbid the enfranchisement of the slaves and the degradation of an electorate to their level, Davis saw with clear vision. From the North now came overtures of peace. Francis P. Blair asked for permission to visit Richmond.
Blair proposed to end the war by uniting the armies of the North and South for an advance on Mexico to maintain the Monroe Doctrine against the new Emperor whom Europe had set upon a throne in the Western Hemisphere.
The Confederate President received his proposals with courtesy.
"I have tried in vain, Mr. Blair," he said gravely, "to open negotiations with Washington. How can the first step be taken?"
"Mr. Lincoln, I am sure, will receive commissioners—though he would give me no assurance on that point. We must stop this deluge of blood. I cherish the hope that the pride and honor of the Southern States will suffer no shock in the adjustment."
The result of this meeting was the appointment by Davis of three Commissioners to meet the representatives of the United States. Alexander H. Stephens, R. M. T. Hunter and Judge John A. Campbell were sent to this important conference. For some unknown reason they were halted at Fortress Monroe and not allowed to proceed to Washington. A change had been suddenly produced in the attitude of the National Government. Whether it was due to the talk of the men in Richmondwho were trying to depose Davis or whether it was due to the fall of Fort Fisher and the closing of the port of Wilmington, the last artery which connected the Confederacy with the outside world, could not be known.
The Confederate Commissioners were met by Abraham Lincoln himself and his Secretary of State, William H. Seward, in Hampton Roads. The National Government demanded in effect, unconditional surrender.
Davis used the indignant surprise with which this startling announcement was received in Richmond and the South to rouse the people to a last desperate effort to save the country from the deluge which the Radical wing of the Northern Congress had now threatened—the confiscation of the property of the whites and the enfranchisement of the negro race. In his judgment this could only be done by forcing the National Government through a prolongation of the war to pledge the South some measure of protection before they should lay down their arms.
Mass meetings were held and the people called to defend their cause with their last drop of blood. The President made a speech that night to a crowd in the Metropolitan Hall on Franklin Street in Richmond which swept them into a frenzy of patriotic passion. Even his bitterest enemy, the editor of theExaminer, was spellbound by his eloquence.
When he first appeared on the speakers' stand and lifted his tall thin figure, gazing over the crowd with glittering eye, a tremendous cheer swept the assembly. In that moment, he was the incarnate Soul of the South. The Chieftain of the men who wore the gray in this hour of solemn trial, stood before them with countenance like the lightning. Cheer on cheer rose and fell with throbbing passion.
A smile of strange prophetic sweetness lighted his pale haggard face. The ovation he received was the sure promise to his tired soul that when the passions and prejudices, the agony and madness of war had passed the people would understand all he had tried to do in their service. In that moment of divine illumination he saw his place in the hearts of his countrymen and was content.
He spoke with even restrained flow of words, with a mastery of himself and his audience that is the mark of the orator of the highest genius. His gestures were few. His low, vibrant, musical voice found the heart of his farthest listener. He swayed them with indescribable passion.
Into the faces of the foe who had demanded unconditional surrender he hurled the defiance of an unconquered and unconquerable soul. He closed with an historical illustration which lifted his audience to the highest reach of emotion. Kossuth had abandoned Hungary with an army of thirty thousand men in the field. The friends of liberty had never forgiven nor could forgive this betrayal.
"What shall we say," he cried, "of the disgrace beneath which we should be buried if we surrender with an army in the field more numerous than that with which Napoleon achieved the glory of France, an army standing among its homesteads, an army in which each individual is superior in warlike quality to the individual who opposes him!"
When the tumult and applause had died away did he realize in the secret places of his heart that the spirit of the South had been broken by the terrible experiences of four years of blood and fire and death? His iron will gave no sign. To him the manhood of the Southern soldier was unconquerable, his courage dauntless forever.
Six months after Sherman's sword had pierced the heart of the South from Atlanta, Lee's army in the trenches before Petersburg had reached the end of their endurance. Lee wired Davis that his thin line could hold back Grant's hosts but a few days and that Richmond must fall. His men were living on parched corn.
The President hurried to the White House and slipped his arm around his wife.
"You must leave the city, my dear."
"Please let me stay with you," she pleaded.
"Impossible," he answered firmly. "My headquarters must be in the saddle. Your presence here could only grieve and distress me. You can take care of our babies. I know you wish to help and comfort me. You can do this in but one way—go and take the children to a place of safety—"
He paused, overcome with emotion.
"If I live," he continued slowly, "you can come to me when the struggle is over, but I do not expect to survive the destruction of our liberties."
He drew his small hoard of gold from his pocket, removed a five-dollar piece for himself, and gave it all to his wife together with the Confederate money he had on hand.
"You must take only your clothing," he said after a moment's silence. "The flour and supplies in your pantry must be left. The people are in want."
He had arranged for his family to settle in North Carolina. The day before his wife left, he gave her a pistol and taught her trembling hands to load, aim and fire it.
"The danger will be," he warned, "that you may full into the hands of lawless bands of deserters from both armies who are even now pillaging and burning. You can at least, if you must, force your assailants to kill you. If you cannot remain undisturbed in your own land make forthe coast of Florida and take a ship for a foreign country."
Their hearts dumb with despair, his wife and children boarded the train—or the thing that once had been a train—the roof of the cars leaked and the engine wheezed and moved with great distress.
The stern face of the Southern leader was set in his hour of trial. He felt that he might never again look on the faces of those he loved. His little girl clung convulsively to his neck in agonizing prayer that she might stay. The boy begged and pleaded with tears raining down his chubby face.
Just outside of Richmond the engine broke down and the heartsick family sat in the dismal day-coach all night. Sleepers had not been invented. They were twelve hours getting to Danville—a week on the way to Charlotte.
The reign of terror had already begun.
The President's wife avoided seeing people lest they should be compromised when the invading army should sweep over the State.
They found everything packed up in the house that had been rented, but Weill, the big-hearted Jew who was the agent, sent their meals from his house for a week, refusing every suggestion of pay. He offered his own purse or any other service he could render.
When Burton Harrison had seen them safely established in Charlotte he returned at once to his duties with the President in Richmond.
On the beautiful Sunday morning of April 2, 1865, a messenger hurriedly entered St. Paul's Church, walked to the President's pew and handed him a slip of paper. He rose and quietly left.
Not a rumor had reached the city of Lee's broken lines. In fact a false rumor had been published of a great victory which his starving army had achieved the day before.
The report of the evacuation of Richmond fell on incredulous ears. The streets were unusually quiet. Beyond the James the fresh green of the spring clothed the fields in radiant beauty. The rumble of no artillery disturbed the quiet. Scarcely a vehicle of any kind could be seen. The church bells were still ringing their call to the house of God.
The straight military figure entered the Executive office. A wagon dashed down Main Street and backed up in front of the Custom House door. Boxes were hurried from the President's office and loaded into it.
A low hum and clatter began to rise from the streets. The news of disaster and evacuation spread like lightning and disorder grew. The streets were crowded with fugitives making their way to the depot—pale women with disheveled hair and tear-stained faces leading barefooted children who were crying in vague terror of something they could not understand. Wagons were backed to the doors of every department of the Confederate Government. As fast as they could be loaded they were driven to the Danville depot.
All was confusion and turmoil. Important officers were not to be seen and when they were found would answer no questions. Here and there groups of mean-visaged loafers began to gather with ominous looks toward the houses of the better class.
The halls of the silent Capitol building were deserted—a single footfall echoed with hollow sound.
The Municipal Council gathered in a dingy little room to consider the surrender of the city. Mayor Mayo dashed in and out with the latest information he could get from the War Department. He was slightly incoherent in his excitement, but he was full of pluck and chewed tobacco defiantly. He announced that the last hope was gone and that he would maintain order with two regiments of militia.
He gave orders to destroy every drop of liquor in the stores, saloons and warehouses and establish a patrol.
The militia slipped through the fingers of their officers and in a few hours the city was without a government. Disorder, pillage, shouts, revelry and confusion were the order of the night. Black masses of men swayed and surged through the dimly-lighted streets, smashing into stores and warehouses at will. Some of them were carrying out the Mayor's orders to destroy the liquor. Others decided that the best way to destroy it was to drink it. The gutters ran with liquor and the fumes filled the air.
To the rear guard of Lee's army under Ewell was left the task of blowing up the vessels in the James, and destroying the bridges across the river. The thunder of exploding mines and torpedoes now shook the earth. The ships were blown to atoms and the wharves fired.
In vain the Mayor protested against the firing of the great warehouses. Orders were orders, and the soldiers obeyed. The warehouses were fired, the sparks leaped to the surrounding buildings and the city was in flames.
As day dawned a black pall of smoke obscured the heavens. The sun's rays lighted the banks of rolling smoke with lurid glare. The roar of the conflagration now drowned all other sounds.
The upper part of Main Street was choked with pillagers—men with drays, some with bags, some rolling their stolen barrels painfully up the hills.
A small squadron of Federal cavalry rode calmly into the wild scene. General Weitzel, in command of the two divisions of Grant's army on the north side, had sent in forty Massachusetts troopers to investigate conditions.
At the corner of Eleventh Street they broke into a trot for the Square and planted their guidons on the Capitol of the Confederacy.
Long before this advance guard could be seen in the distance the old flag of the Union had been flung from the top of the house on Church Hill. Foreseeing the fall of the city Miss Van Lew had sent to the Federal Commander for a flag. Through his scouts he had sent it. As Weitzel's two grand divisions swung into Main Street this piece of bunting eighteen feet long and nine feet wide waved from the Van Lew mansion on the hill above them.
Stretching from the Exchange Hotel to the slopes of Church Hill, down the hill, through the valley, and up the ascent swept this gorgeous array of the triumphant army, its bayonets gleaming in the sunlight, every standard, battle flag and guidon streaming in the sky, every band playing, swords flashing, and shout after shout rolling from end to end of the line.
To the roar of the flames, the throb of drum, the scream of fife, the crash of martial music, and the shouts of marching hosts, was added now the deep thunder of exploding shells in the burning arsenals.
A regiment of negro cavalry swept by the Exchange Hotel and as they turned the corner drew their sabers with a savage shout.
An old Virginian with white locks standing in the doorway of the hotel gazed on these negro troops a moment, threw his hands on high, and solemnly cried:
"Blow, Gabriel! Blow your trumpet—for God's sake blow!"
For hours the fire raged unchecked—burned until the entire business section of the city lay a smoldering heap of ashes. Crowds of men, women and children crowded the Capitol Square fighting with smoke and flying cinders fora breath of fresh air. Piles of furniture lay heaped on its greensward. Terror-stricken, weeping women had dragged it from their homes. In improvised tents made of broken tables and chairs covered with sheets and bedding hundreds of homeless women and children huddled.
As night fell the pitiful reaction came from the turmoil and excitement of the day. The quiet of a great desolation brooded over the smoking ruins.
In the rich and powerful North millions were mad with joy. In New York twenty thousand people gathered in Union Square and sang the Doxology.
Jennie Barton was in Richmond through it all and yet the tragedy made no impression on her heart or mind. A greater event absorbed her.
Dick Welford had hurried to Lee's army on the day following Socola's departure from Richmond. He wanted to fight once more. Through all the whirlwind of death and blood from the first crash with Grant in the Wilderness to his vain assaults on Petersburg he had fought without a scratch. His life was charmed. And then in the first day of the final struggle which broke the lines of Lee's starving army he fell, leading his men in a glorious charge. He reached the hospital in Richmond the day before the city's evacuation.
Jennie had watched by his bedside every hour since his arrival. But few words passed between them. She let him hold her hand for hours in silence, always looking, looking and smiling his deathless love.
He had not spoken Socola's name nor had she.
"It's funny, Jennie," he said at last, "I don't hate him any more—"
The girl's head drooped and the tears streamed down her checks.
"Please, Dick—don't—"
"Yes," he insisted, "I want to talk about it and you must hear me—won't you?"
"Of course, if you wish it," she answered tenderly.
"You see I don't hate these Yankee soldiers any more—anyhow. I saw too many of them die from the Wilderness to Petersburg—brave manly fellows. The fire of battle has burned the hate out of me. Now I just want you to be happy, Jennie dear, that's all—good-by—"
His hand slipped from hers and in a moment his spirit had passed.