"The Executive Mansion,Washington, April 17, 1861.Sir:The President bids me say that he would like to have you come to Washington at once and bring your son Tom with you.Respectfully,John Hay,Assistant Private Secretary."
"The Executive Mansion,Washington, April 17, 1861.
Sir:
The President bids me say that he would like to have you come to Washington at once and bring your son Tom with you.
Respectfully,
John Hay,Assistant Private Secretary."
Tom and his father started at once, as the President bade them. At Jersey City, they found the train they had expected to take had been pre-empted by the Sixth Massachusetts, a crack militia regiment of the Old Bay State, which was hurrying to Washington in the hope of getting there before the rebels did. The cars were crammed with soldiers. A sentry stood at every door. No civilian need apply for passage. However, a civilian with a letter from Lincoln's secretary bidding him also hurry to Washington was in a class by himself. With the help of an officer, the father and son ran theblockade of bayonets and started southward, the only civilians upon the train. It was packed to suffocation with soldiers. Mr. Strong sat with the regimental officers, but he let Tom roam at will from car to car. How the boy enjoyed it. The shining gun-barrels fascinated him. He joined a group of merry men, who hailed him with a shout:
"Here's the youngest recruit of all."
"Are you really going to shoot rebels?" asked Tom.
"If we must," said Jack Saltonstall, breaking the silence the question brought, "but I hope it won't come to that."
"The war will be over in three months," Gordon Abbott prophesied.
"Pooh, it will never begin,—and I'm sorry for that," said Jim Casey, "I'd like to have some real fighting."
Within about three hours, Jim Casey was to see fighting and was to die for his country. The beginning of bloodshed in our Civil War was in the streets of Baltimore on April 19, 1861, justeighty-six years to a day from the beginning of bloodshed in our Revolution on Lexington Common. Massachusetts and British blood in 1775; Massachusetts and Maryland blood in 1861.
When the long train stopped at the wooden car-shed which was then the Baltimore station, the regiment left the cars, fell into line and started to march the mile or so of cobblestone streets to the other station where the train for Washington awaited it. The line of march was through as bad a slum as an American city could then show. Grog-shops swarmed in it and about every grog-shop swarmed the toughs of Baltimore. They were known locally as "plug-uglies." Like the New York "Bowery boys" of that time, they affected a sort of uniform, black dress trousers thrust into boot-tops and red flannel shirts. Far too poor to own slaves themselves, they had gathered here to fight the slave-owners' battles, to keep the Massachusetts troops from "polluting the soil of Maryland," as their leaders put it, really to keep them from saving Washington.
A roar of jeers and taunts and insults hailed the head of the marching column. Tom was startled by it. He turned to his father. The two were walking side by side, in the center of the column, between two companies of the militia. He found his father had already turned to him.
"Keep close to me, Tom," said Mr. Strong.
The storm of words that beat upon them increased. At the next corner, stones took the place of words. The mob surged alongside the soldiers, swearing, stoning, striking, finally stabbing and shooting. The Sixth Massachusetts showed admirable self-restraint, which the "plug-uglies" thought was cowardice. They pressed closer. With a mighty rush, five thousand rioters broke the line of the thousand troops. The latter were forced into small groups, many of them without an officer. Each group had to act for itself. Tom and his father found themselves part of a tiny force of about twenty men, beset upon every side by desperadoes now mad with liquor and with the lustof killing. Jack Saltonstall took command by common consent. Calmly he faced hundreds of rioters.
"Forward, march!"
As he uttered the words, he pitched forward, shot through the chest. A giant "plug-ugly" bellowed with triumph over his successful shot, yelled "kill 'em all!" and led the mob upon them. But Mr. Strong had snatched Saltonstall's gun as it fell from his nerveless hands, had leveled and aimed it, and had shouted "fire!" to willing ears. A score of guns rang out. The mob-leader whirled about and dropped. Half-a-dozen other "plug-uglies" lay about him. This section of the mob broke and ran. Some of them fired as they ran, and Jim Casey's life went out of him.
"Take this gun, Tom," said Mr. Strong.
The boy took it, reloading it as he marched, while his sturdy father lifted the wounded Saltonstall from the stony street and staggered forward with the body in his arms. Casey and two other men were dead. Their bodies had tobe left to the fury of the mob. Saltonstall lived to fight to the end. As the survivors of the twenty pressed forward, the mob behind followed them up. Bullets whizzed unpleasantly near. Twice, at Mr. Strong's command, the men faced about and fired a volley. In both these volleys, Tom's gun played its part. He had hunted before, but never such big game as men. The joy of battle possessed him. Since it was apparently a case of "kill or be killed," he shot to kill. Whether he did kill, he never knew. The two volleys checked two threatening rushes of the rioters and enabled Mr. Strong to bring what was left of the gallant little band safely to the railroad station. An hour later the Sixth Massachusetts was in Washington. During that hour Tom had been violently sick upon the train. He was new to this trade of man-killing.
At Washington, once vacant spaces were soon filled with camps. Soldiers poured in on every train. Orderlies were galloping about. Artillery surrounded the Capitol. And from itsdome Tom saw a Confederate flag, the Stars-and-Bars, flying defiantly in nearby Alexandria.
Those were dark days. There were Confederate forces within a few miles of the White House. Sumter surrendered April 15th. Virginia seceded on the 17th. Harper's Ferry fell into Southern hands on the 18th. The Sixth Massachusetts had fought its way through Baltimore on the 19th. Robert E. Lee resigned his commission in our army on the 20th and left Arlington for Richmond, taking with him a long train of army and navy officers whose loyal support, now lost forever, had seemed a national necessity. Lincoln spent many an hour in his private office, searching with a telescope the reaches of the Potomac, over which the troop-laden transports were expected. Once, when he thought he was alone, John Hay heard him call out "with irrepressible anguish": "Why don't they come? Why don't they come?" In public he gave no sign of the anxiety that was eating up his heart. He had the nerve to jest about it. The Sixth Massachusetts, the SeventhNew York, and a Rhode Island detachment had all hurried to save Washington from the capture that threatened. When the Massachusetts men won the race and marched proudly by the White House, Lincoln said to some of their officers: "I begin to believe there is no North. The Seventh Regiment is a myth. Rhode Island is another. You are the only real thing." They were very real, those men of Massachusetts, and they were the vanguard of the real army that was to be.
Charles Francis Adams—Mr. Strong Goes to Russia—Tom Goes to Live in the White House—Bull Run—"Stonewall" Jackson—Geo. B. McClellan—Tom Strong, Second Lieutenant, U. S. A.—The Battle of the "Merrimac" and the "Monitor."
Charles Francis Adams—Mr. Strong Goes to Russia—Tom Goes to Live in the White House—Bull Run—"Stonewall" Jackson—Geo. B. McClellan—Tom Strong, Second Lieutenant, U. S. A.—The Battle of the "Merrimac" and the "Monitor."
A few days passed before the President had time to see Mr. Strong and Tom. When they were finally ushered into his working-room, they found there, already interviewing Lincoln, the hawk-nosed and hawk-eyed Secretary of State, William H. Seward of New York, scholar, statesman, and gentleman, and a short, grizzled man, the worthy inheritor of a great tradition. He was Charles Francis Adams of Boston, son and grandson of two Presidents of the United States. He had been appointed Minister to England, just then the most important foreignappointment in the world. What England was to do or not do might spell victory or defeat for the Union. Mr. Adams had come to receive his final instructions for his all-important work. And this is what happened.
Shabby and uncouth, Lincoln faced his two well-dressed visitors, nodding casually to the two New Yorkers as they entered at what should have been a great moment.
"I came to thank you for my appointment," said Adams, "and to ask you——"
"Oh, that's all right," replied Lincoln, "thank Seward. He's the man that put you in." He stretched out his legs and arms, and sighed a deep sigh of relief. "By the way, Governor," he added, turning to Seward, "I've this morning decided that Chicago post-office appointment. Well, good-by."
And that was all the instruction the Minister to Great Britain had from the President of the United States. Even in those supreme days, the rush of office-seekers, the struggle for the spoils, the mad looting of the public offices for partisanpurposes, was monopolizing the time and absorbing the mind of our greatest President. There is a story that one man who asked him to appoint him Minister to England, after taking an hour of his time, ended the interview by asking him for a pair of old boots. Civil Service Reform has since gone far to stop this scandal and sin, but much of it still remains. Today you can fight for the best interests of our beloved country by fighting the spoils system in city, state, and nation.
Adams, amazed, followed Secretary Seward out of the little room. Then Lincoln turned to the father and son.
Tom had more time to look at him now. He saw a tall man with a thin, muscular, big nose, with heavy eyebrows above deep-set eyes and below a square, bulging forehead, and with a mass of black hair. The face was dark and sallow. The firm lips relaxed as he looked down upon the boy. A beautiful smile overflowed them. A beautiful friendliness shone from the deep-set eyes.
"So this is another Tom Strong," he said. "Howdy, Tommy?"
The boy smiled back, for the welcoming smile was irresistible. He put his little hand into Lincoln's great paw, hardened and roughened by a youth of strenuous toil. The President squeezed his hand. Tom was happy.
"You're to go to Russia, Strong," Mr. Lincoln said to the father. "England and France threaten to combine against us. You must get Russia to hold them back. We'll have a regular Minister there, but I'm going to depend upon you. See Governor Seward. He'll tell you all about it. Will you take Mrs. Strong with you?"
"Most certainly."
"Well, I s'posed you would. And how about Tom here?"
Tom's heart beat quick. What was coming now?
"Mrs. Strong must decide that. I suppose he had better keep on with his school in New York."
"Why not let him come to school in Washington?" asked Lincoln. "In the school of the world? You see," he added, while that irresistible smile again softened the firm outlines of his big man's mouth, "you see I've taken a sort of fancy to your boy Tom. S'pose you give him to me while you're away. There are things he can do for his country."
It was perhaps only a whim, but the whims of a President count. A month later, Mr. and Mrs. Strong started for St. Petersburg and Tom reported at the White House. He was welcomed by John Hay, a delightful young man of twenty-three, one of the President's two private secretaries. The welcome lacked warmth.
"You're to sleep in a room in the attic," said Hay, "and I believe you're to eat with Mr. Nicolay and me. I haven't an idea what you're to do and between you and me and the bedpost I don't believe the Ancient has an idea either. Perhaps there won't be anything. Wait a while and see."
The Ancient—this was a nickname his secretarieshad given him—had a very distinct idea, which he had not seen fit to tell his zealous young secretary. Tom found the waiting not unpleasant. He had a good many unimportant things to do. "Tad" Lincoln, though younger, was a good playmate. The White House staff was kind to him. Even Hay found it difficult not to like him. Then there was the sensation of being at the center of things, big things. He saw men whose names were household words. Half a dozen times he lunched with the President's family, a plain meal with plain folks. Even the dinners at the White House, except the state dinners, were frugal and plain. Lincoln drank little or no wine. He never used tobacco. This was something of a miracle in the case of a man from the West, for in those days, particularly in the unconventional West, practically every man both smoked and chewed tobacco. The filthy spittoon was everywhere conspicuous. We fiercely resented the tales told our English cousins, first by Mrs. Trollope and then by Charles Dickens, about our tobacco-chewing,but the resentment was so fierce because the tales were so true. Those were dirty days. In 1860 there were few bathrooms except in our largest cities. Those that existed were mostly new. In 1789, when the present Government of the United States came into being, in New York City, there was not one bathroom in the whole town.
At these family luncheons, Tom was apt to become conscious that Lincoln's eyes were bent beneath their shaggy eyebrows full upon him. There was nothing unkind in the glance, but the boy felt it go straight through him. He wondered what it all meant. Why was he not given more work to do? Had he been weighed and found wanting? He waited in suspense a good many months.
The early months of waiting were not merry months. In July, 1861, the first battle of Bull Run had been fought and had been lost. Our troops ran nearly thirty miles. Telegram after telegram brought news of disgrace and defeat to the White House. In the afternoon Lincolnwent to see Gen. Winfield S. Scott, then commander-in-chief of our armies. The fat old general was taking his afternoon nap. Awakened with difficulty, he gurgled that everything would come out well. Then he fell asleep again. Before six o'clock it was known that everything had turned out most badly. Washington itself was threatened by the Confederate pursuit. Lincoln had no sleep that night. The gray dawn found him at his desk, still receiving dispatches, still giving orders. When he left the desk, Washington was safe.
It was at the beginning of the battle of Bull Run, when the Confederates came near running away but did not do so because the Union troops ran first, that "Stonewall" Jackson got his famous nickname. The brigade of another Southern soldier, Gen. Bernard Bee, was wavering and falling back. Its commander, trying to hearten his men, called out to them: "Look! there's Jackson standing like a stone wall!" The men looked, rallied, and went on fighting. It may have been that one thing of Jackson's examplethat turned the tide at Bull Run, gave the battle to the South, and prolonged the war by at least two years. Stonewall Jackson's soldiers were called foot-cavalry, because under his inspiring leadership they made marches which would have been a credit to mounted men. It was his specialty to be where it was impossible for him to be, by all the ordinary rules of war. He was a thunderbolt in attack, a stone wall in defense.
In November of that sad year of 1861, the President made another noteworthy call upon the then commander-in-chief, Gen. George B. McClellan. President and Secretary of State, escorted by young Hay and younger Tom, called upon the General at the latter's house, in the evening. They were told he was out, but would return soon, so they waited. McClellan did return and was told of his patient visitors. He walked by the open door of the room where they were seated and went upstairs. Half an hour later Lincoln sent a servant to tell him againthat they were there. Word came back that General McClellan had gone to bed. John Hay's diary justly speaks of "this unparalleled insolence of epaulettes." As the three men and the boy walked back to the White House, Hay said:
"It was an insolent rebuff. Something should be done about it."
Lincoln's almost godlike patience, however, had not been worn out.
"It is better," the great man answered, "at this time not to be making a point of etiquette and personal dignity."
The President, however, stopped calling upon the pompous General. After that experience, he always sent word to McClellan to call upon him.
One day, at the close of a family luncheon, the President said to Tom: "Come upstairs with me."
In the little private office, Lincoln took off his coat and waistcoat with a sigh of relief andlounged into his chair. He bade Tom take a chair nearby. Then he looked at the boy for a moment, while his wonderful smile overflowed his strong lips.
"I've been studying you a bit, Tom. I think you'll do. Now I'll tell you what I want you to do."
The smile died quite away.
"Are you sure you can keep still when you ought to keep still? Balaam's ass isn't the only ass that ever talked. Most asses talk—and always at the wrong time."
"The last thing Father told me," Tom answered, "was never to say anything to anybody 'less I was sure you'd want me to say it."
"Your father is a wise man, my boy. Pray God he does what I hope he will in Russia."
The serious face grew still more serious. The long figure slouching in the chair straightened and stiffened. The sloping shoulders seemed to broaden, as if to bear steadfastly a weight thatwould have crushed most men. The dark eyes gleamed with a solemn hope. Tom longed to ask what his father was to try to do, but he was not silly enough to put his thought into words. Another good-by counsel his father had given him was never to ask the President a question, unless he had to do so. There was silence for a moment. Then Lincoln spoke again:
"You're to carry dispatches for me, Tom. This may take you into the enemy's country sometimes. If you were captured and were a civilian, it might go hard with you. So I've had you commissioned as a second lieutenant. If you should slip into a fight occasionally I wouldn't blame you much. Mr. Stanton, the Secretary of War, kicked about it. He said he didn't believe in giving commissions to babies. I told him you could almost speak plain and could go 'round without a nurse. Finally he gave in. I haven't much influence with this Administration"—here Tom looked puzzled until the President smiled over his own jest—"butI did get you the commission. Here it is."
He laid the precious parchment on the desk, put on his spectacles, took up his quill pen, and wrote at the foot of it
Autograph A. Lincoln
The boy's heart thrilled and throbbed. He had never dreamed of such an opportunity and such an honor. He was an officer of the Union. He was to carry dispatches for the President of the United States. His hand shook a little as he took the commission, reverently.
"You've been detailed for special service, Tom. Stanton wanted to know whether your special service was to be to play with my boy, Tad. Stanton was pretty mad; that's a fact. Well, well, you must do your work so well that he'll get over the blow. You would have thought I was asking him for a brigadier's commission for a girl. Well, well. Being a war messenger is only one of your duties, son. You're to be myscout. Keep your ears and eyes both open, Tom, and your mouth shut. Ever hear the story of what Jonah said to the whale when he got out of him? The whale said to Jonah: 'You've given me a terrible stomach-ache.' And Jonah said: 'That's what you got because you didn't have sense enough to keep your mouth shut.' But remember, Tom, to go scouting in the right way. What I want is the truth. It's a hard thing for a President to get. I don't want tittle-tattle, evil gossip, idle talk. When I was in Congress, there was a fine old fellow in the House from Florida. I remember he said once that the Florida wolf was 'a mean critter that'd go snoopin' 'round twenty miles a night ruther than not do a mischief.' Don't be a wolf, Tom,—but don't be a lamb either, with the wool pulled over your eyes and ears. Here's your first job. This envelope"—Lincoln took from the desk a sealed envelope, not addressed, and handed it to the boy—"this envelope is for the commander of the 'Cumberland,' in Hampton Roads. This War Department pass willcarry you anywhere. When Stanton signed it, he asked me whether he was to spend a whole day signing things for you to play with. Mrs. Lincoln has had a uniform made for you, on the sly. I rather think you'll find it in your room, Tom. You'd better start tomorrow."
"Mayn't I start this afternoon, Mr. President?"
"Good for you. Of course you may. I'll say good-by to the folks for you. God bless you, son."
Lincoln waved a kindly farewell as Tom, with drumbeats in his young heart, gave a fair imitation of an officer's salute—and strode out of the room with what he meant to be a manly step. Once outside, the step changed to a run. He flew along the halls and up the stairs to the attic. He burst into his room. On his narrow bed lay his new uniform. Mrs. Lincoln, kindly housewife that she was, had done her part in the little conspiracy for the benefit of the boy who was Tad Lincoln's beloved playmate. She had herself smuggled an old suit of Tom's to atailor, who had made from its measure the resplendent new blue uniform that now greeted Tom's enraptured eyes.
That afternoon, Lieutenant Tom Strong left the White House for Hampton Roads. A swift dispatch boat carried him there. He reached the flagship on a lovely, peaceful, spring day, and delivered his dispatches. The boat that had taken him there was to take him back the next morning. He was glad to have a night on a warship. It was a new experience. And his father had told him that experience was the best teacher in the world. The beautiful lines of the frigate were a joy to see. Her spick and span cleanliness, the trim and trig sailors and marines, the rows of polished cannon that thrust their grim mouths out of the portholes, these things delighted him. He was standing on the quarter-deck with Lieutenant Morris, almost wishing he could exchange his brand-new lieutenancy in the army for one in the navy, when from the Norfolk navy yard a rocket flared up into the air.
"What is that, sir?" asked Tom. "Is it a signal to you?"
"I fancy it is," Morris answered, "but it isn't meant to be. That's a rebel rocket. You know we lost the navy-yard early in the war and we haven't got it back—yet. That rocket went up from there. The Secesh are up to some deviltry. They've been signaling a good bit of late. I wish they'd come out and give us a chance at them. Hampton Roads is dull as ditchwater, with not a thing happening."
The gallant lieutenant yawned prodigiously. He little knew what terrible things were to happen on the morrow. That rocket meant that the rebel ram, the "Merrimac," the first iron-clad vessel that ever went into action, was to sail down Hampton Roads, where nothing ever happened, the next morning and was to make many things happen. The Confederates had converted the old Union frigate, the "Merrimac," into a new, strange, and monstrous thing. They had placed a battery of cannon of a size never before mounted on shipboard uponher deck, close to the water-line; they had built over the battery a framework of stout timbers, covered with armor rolled from rails, and they had put a cast-iron bow upon this marine marvel. A wooden ship was a mere toy to her.
The next morning came—it was March 8, 1862—and the "Merrimac" came. As she emerged from distance and mist, our scout-boats came racing to the "Cumberland" with news of the danger that was fast nearing her. The news was a tonic to officers and to men. Here at last was something to fight. Here at last was something to do. They were all weary of having the flagship lie, week after week,
"As idle as a painted shipUpon a painted ocean."
"As idle as a painted shipUpon a painted ocean."
The men sprang to quarters with a joyful cheer. The officers were at their posts. The gun-crews waited impatiently for the order to fire. And Tom, again upon the quarter-deck, thrilled with the thrill of all about him, was glad to know that the dispatch boat would not sail until that afternoonand that he could see the fight. Everyone around him was sure of victory. The foe was soon to be sunk. The Stars-and-Bars, now flying so impudently at her stern, was to be hung up as a trophy in the ward-room of the "Cumberland." It never was.
The ram steered straight for the flagship. She did not fire a shot, though the flagship's cannon roared. A tongue of fire blazed from every porthole of the starboard side, towards which she came, silently and swiftly. Behind every tongue of fire there rushed a cannon-ball. Many a ball hit the "Merrimac." A wooden ship would have been blown to bits by the concentrated fury of the cannonade. Alas! the cannon-balls glanced from her armored sides "like peas from a pop-gun." They rattled like hail upon her and did her no more hurt than hail-stones would have done. She came on like an irresistible Fate. There had been shouts of savage joy below decks when the first order to fire had echoed through them. A burst of wild cheering from the gun-crews had almostdrowned the first thunder of the guns. There were no shouts or cheers now. Sharp orders pierced the clangor of artillery.
"Stand by to board!"
The marines formed quickly at the starboard bow of the "Cumberland." Then at last the guns of the "Merrimac" spoke. She was close upon her prey now. The sound of her first volley was the voice of doom. Her great cannon sent masses of iron through and through the pitiful wooden walls that had dared to stand up against walls of iron. The shrieks of wounded men, of men screaming their mangled lives away, rolled up to the quarter-deck. A messenger dashed up there.
"Half the gun-crew officers are dead. Send us others!"
"Go below," said Lieutenant Morris, turning to two young midshipmen who stood near Tom, "keep the guns manned."
The two middies bounded below and Tom bounded down with them. There was no hope of victory now, but the fight must be fought toa finish. If the cannon could still be served, a lucky shot might strike the foe in a vital part, might disable her engines, might carry away her steering-gear, might—there was a long chapter of possible accidents to the "Merrimac" that might still save the "Cumberland" from what seemed to be her sure destruction. As the three boys raced down to the gun-deck, they saw a fearful scene. Dead and wounded men lay everywhere. The sawdust that in those days used to be strewn about, before entering action, in order to soak up the blood of the men who fell and keep the decks from growing slippery with it, had soaked up all it could, but there were thin red trickles flowing along the deck. Two or three of the cannon had been dismounted. Crushed masses that had been human flesh lay beneath them. A dying officer half raised himself to give one last command and fell back dead before he could speak. The men were standing to their task as American sailors are wont to do, but like all men they needed leaders. Three leaders came. The two middies and Tomtook command of these officerless cannon. The other two boys knew their work and did it. Tom knew that it was his business to keep his cannon at work and he did it. He repeated, mechanically:
"Load! Fire! Load! Fire!"
His men responded to the command. The cannon roared once, twice. Then there came a sickening shock. The rebel ram drove its iron prow home through the side of the "Cumberland." The good ship reeled far over under the deadly blow, righted herself, but began to sink. Her race was run. The black bulk of the "Merrimac" was just opposite the porthole of the gun Tom was handling. There was a last order. With the lips of their muzzles wet with the engulfing sea, the cannon of the "Cumberland" roared their last defiance of death. Down went the ship. The sea about her was black with wreckage and with struggling men. Boats from other ships and from the shore darted among them, picking them up. The dispatch boat that had brought Tom down was busy withthat good work. The "Merrimac" could have sunk her without effort, but of course the Confederates never dreamed of making the effort. Americans do not fire at drowning men. When Tom jumped into the water, as the ship sank beneath him, he swam to a shattered spar and clutched it. But other men who could not swim clutched at it too. It threatened to sink with their added weight and carry them down with it. So the boy, thoroughly at home in the water, let go, turned upon his back, floated with his nose just above the surface, and waited for the help that was at hand. A boat-hook caught his trousers at the waist-band. He was pulled up to the deck of the dispatch boat. It was not quite the way in which he had expected to board her. From her bridge, with the deck below him crowded with the rescued sailors of the "Cumberland," he saw the second sad act of that day's tragedy.
The "Merrimac" had backed away, after that terrible thrust of her iron ram, until she was free from the ship she had destroyed. Then shelaid her course for the "Congress," invincible yesterday, today helplessly weak in the face of this new terror of the seas. The "Congress" fought to the last gasp, but that last gasp came all too soon. Raked fore and aft by her adversary's guns, unable to fire a single effective shot in reply, she ran upon a shoal while trying to escape from being rammed and lay there, no longer a fighting machine, but a mere target for her foe. Her captain could not hope to save his ship. The only thing he could do was to save the lives of such of his crew as were still alive. And there was but one way to do that. The "Congress" surrendered. The Stars-and-Stripes fluttered down from her masthead. In place of the flag of the free, the Stars-and-Bars, symbol of slavery, flew above the surrendered ship. The "Cumberland," going down with her flag, had had the better fate of the two.
The "Merrimac," justly satisfied with her day's work and with the toll she had taken of the Union squadron, steamed proudly back to Norfolk, to repair the slight damages she hadsuffered and to make ready to complete her conquest on the morrow. Three Union ships still lay in Hampton Roads, great frigates, the finest of their kind then afloat, perfectly appointed, fully manned,—and as useless as though they had been the toy-boats of a child. The "Minnesota," now the flagship, signaled Captain Lawrence's stirring slogan: "Don't give up the ship!" It might have been called a bit of useless bravery, but no bravery is useless. At least the officers and men of the three doomed ships would fight for the flag until they died. It was just possible that one of the three might so maneuver that she would strike the foe amidships and sink with her to a glorious death.
That night the wild anxiety at Hampton Roads was more than echoed at New York and Washington. The wires had told the terrible tale of the "Merrimac." It was thought she could go straight to New York, sink all the shipping there, command the city and levy tribute upon it. Lincoln's Secretary of theNavy, Gideon Welles of Connecticut, wrote in his diary that night: "The most frightened man on that gloomy day was the Secretary of War. He was at times almost frantic.... He ran from room to room, sat down and jumped up after writing a few words, swung his arms, and scolded and raved." Hay records that "Stanton was fearfully stampeded. He said they would capture our fleet, take Fort Monroe, be in Washington before night."
Without consulting the Secretary of the Navy, Stanton had some fifty canal-boats loaded with stone and sent them to be sunk on Kettle Bottom Shoals, in the Potomac, to keep the "Merrimac" from reaching Washington. The canal-boats reached the Shoals, but the order to sink them was countermanded by cooler heads. They were left in a long row, tied up to the river bank.
The three doomed ships at Hampton Roads soon knew that at nine o'clock of that fateful night there had steamed in from the ocean aUnion iron-clad. Her coming, however, brought scant comfort.
"What is she like?" asked the first captain to hear the news.
"Like? She's like a cheese-box on a raft."
THE BATTLE OF THE MONITOR AND THE MERRIMACTHE BATTLE OF THE "MONITOR" AND THE "MERRIMAC"
It was not a bad description. She was the "Monitor," an unknown boat of an unknown type that day, and on the morrow the most famous fighting craft that ever sailed the seas. She was born of the brain of a Swedish-American, Capt. John Ericsson, whose statue stands in Battery Park, the southern tip of themetropolis, looking down to the ocean he saved for freedom's cause.
Lieut. A. L. Worden, commanding the "Monitor," was soon in consultation with the other commanders. They scarcely tried to disguise their belief that he had merely brought another predestined victim. His ship was tiny, compared with the "Merrimac." She was not built to ram, as was her terrible antagonist. Her guns were of a greater caliber, to be sure, than any wooden ship mounted, but there were but two of them and they could be brought to bear only by revolving the "Monitor's" turret,—a newfangled device in everyday use now, but then unknown and consequently despised. Men either fear or despise the unknown. They are usually wrong in doing either. The council of captains agreed upon a plan for the next day's fight. The plan was based upon the theory that the "Monitor" would be speedily sunk. Nevertheless, she was to face the foe first of all.
Again the next morning came and again there came the rebel ram. Decked out in flags as iffor a festival, proudly certain of victory, the "Merrimac" steamed down Hampton Roads. The cheese-box on a raft steamed out to meet her. It was David confronting Goliath. Goliath had fourteen guns and David had two. The iron-clads came nearer and the most famous sea-duel ever fought began. Tom saw it all from the bridge of the "Minnesota." Both vessels fired and fired again, without result. Their armor defied even the big guns they carried. Then the "Merrimac" tried to bring her deadly ram into play. The "Monitor" dodged into shoal water, hoping her foe would follow her and run aground. The "Merrimac" did not fall into the trap. On the contrary, she left her adversary and made a headlong course for the helpless "Minnesota." On board the latter, drums beat to quarters, shrill whistles gave orders, and the great ship moved forward to what seemed certain destruction. But the "Monitor" slipped away from the shoals and made after the "Merrimac," firing her guns as rapidly as her creaking turret could turn. The"Merrimac" faced about, bound this time to make short work of this wretched little gnat that was seeking to sting her. This time the two came to close grips. Each tried to ram the other down. Each struck the other, but struck a glancing blow. They lay almost alongside and pounded each other with their giant guns. A missile from the "Monitor" came through a porthole of the "Merrimac," breaking a cannon and dealing death and destruction within her iron sides. She turned and ran for safety to the shelter of the Confederate batteries at Norfolk. The "Monitor" lay almost unharmed upon the gentle waves of Hampton Roads, the ungainly master of the seas. The "Merrimac" never dared again to try conclusions with her stout little rival. She stayed at her moorings until she was blown up there just before the Union forces captured Norfolk. The Union blockade was never broken. The "Monitor" survived the fight only to founder later in "the graveyard of ships," off Cape Hatteras.
The wires had told the story of the famousfight before Tom reached Washington, but he was the first eye-witness of it to reach there and he had to tell the tale many and many a time. His first auditors were Lincoln and Secretary Welles. The dispatch boat that carried him back put him on board the President's boat, south of Kettle Bottom Shoals, on the Potomac, in obedience to orders signaled to it. When he had finished his story, there was silence for a moment. The boy saw Lincoln's lips move, perhaps in prayer, perhaps in thanksgiving. Then the grave face relaxed and the pathetic eyes twinkled with humor. The President laid his hand upon the Secretary's arm and pointed to a long line of stone-laden canal-boats that bordered the bank.
"There's Stanton's navy," said Lincoln.
Tom Goes West—Wilkes Booth Hunts Him—Dr. Hans Rolf Saves Him—He Delivers Dispatches to General Grant.
Tom Goes West—Wilkes Booth Hunts Him—Dr. Hans Rolf Saves Him—He Delivers Dispatches to General Grant.
At the end of the next month, April, 1862, Admiral Farragut gallantly forced open the closed mouth of the Mississippi. He took his wooden ships into action against forts and iron-clad gunboats and captured New Orleans. Within fifteen months thereafter, the North was in practical control of the whole Mississippi. By July, 1863, the Confederacy had been split into two parts, east and west of the "Father of Waters." That was the poetic Indian name of the Mississippi. Farragut's fleet began the driving of the wedge. Grant's army drove it home. When the driving home had just begun, Tom, to his intense delight, was sent West with dispatches for Grant. He left on an hour's notice.
ADMIRAL FARRAGUTADMIRAL FARRAGUT
During that hour, a colored servant employed in the White House, whose heart was blacker than his sooty skin, had left the mansion, had sought a tumble-down tenement in the slums,and had found there a vulture of a man, very white as to face, very black as to the masses of hair that fell to his shoulders.
"Dat dar boy Strong, he's dun sure goin'," said the darkey, "wid papers fur dat General Grant out West."
"How do you know?"
"Coz I listened to de door, when dey-uns wuz a-talkin'."
"He'll have to go West by Baltimore," mused the white man. "The next train leaves in half an hour. I can make it. Here, Reub, here's your pay."
He took a five-dollar gold piece from his pocket. The negro clutched at it. Then what was left of his conscience stirred within him. He said, pleadingly, hesitatingly:
"Massa, you knows I'se doin' dis coz old Massa told me to. You ain't a-goin' to hurt dat boy Strong, is you? He's a nice boy. Eberybody lubs him up dar."
"What is it to you, confound you!" snarled the man, "whether I hurt him or not? What'sa boy's life to winning the war? You keep on doing what old Massa told you to do, or I'll cut your black heart out."
With a savage gesture, he thrust the trembling negro out of the dingy room. With savage haste, he packed his scanty belongings. With a pistol in his hip pocket, with a bowie-knife slung over his left breast beneath his waistcoat, with a vial of chloroform in his valise, Wilkes Booth left Washington on the trail of Tom Strong.
Hunter and hunted were in the same car. Tom little dreamed that a few seats behind him sat a deadly foe, who would stick at nothing to get the precious papers he carried. Washington swarmed with Confederate spies. The face of everybody at the White House was well known to every spy. The hunter did not have to guess where the hunted sat.
General Grant had begun his career of victory in the West. It was all-important to the Confederacy to know where his next blow was tobe aimed. The papers in the scout's possession would tell that great secret. Wilkes Booth meant to have those papers soon. As the train bumped over the rough iron rails, towards Baltimore, Booth went to the forward end of the car for a glass of water and as he walked back along the aisle with a slow, lounging step, he stopped where Tom sat and held out his hand, saying:
"How do you do, Mr. Strong? I'm Mr. Barnard. I have had the pleasure of seeing you about the White House sometimes, when I have been calling on our great President. Lincoln will crush these accursed rebels soon!"
It was a trifle overdone, a trifle theatrical. Wilkes Booth could never help being theatrical. His greeting was one of the few times Tom had ever been called "Mister." He felt flattered and took the proffered hand willingly, but he searched his memory in vain for any real recollection of the striking face of the man who spoke to him. There was some vague stirring of memory about it, but certainly this had no relation to that happy life at the White House.Something evil was connected with it. Puzzled, he wondered. He had seen Booth under arms at John Brown's scaffold, but he did not remember that.
The alleged Mr. Barnard slipped into the seat beside him and began to talk. He talked well. Little by little, suspicion fell asleep in Tom's mind as his companion told of adventures on sea and land. Booth was trying to seem to talk with very great frankness, in order to lure Tom into a similar frankness about himself. He larded all his talk with protestations of fervent loyalty to the Union. Tom bethought himself of a favorite quotation his father often used from Shakespeare's great play of "Hamlet." The conscience-stricken queen says to Hamlet, her son:
"The lady doth protest too much, methinks."
Wilkes Booth was protesting too much. The drowsy suspicion in Tom's mind stirred again. But he was but a boy and Booth was a man, skilled in all the craft of the stage. Once more his easy, brilliant talk lulled caution to sleep.Tom, questioned so skillfully that he did not know he was being drawn out, little by little told the story of his short life. But the story ended with his saying he was going to Harrisburg "on business." He was still enough on his guard not to admit he was going further than Harrisburg.
"You're pretty young to be on the way to the State Capitol on business," said the skillful actor, hoping to hear more details in answer to the half-implied sneer. But just then Tom remembered what his father had advised: "Never say anything to anybody, unless you are sure the President would wish you to say it." He shut up like a clam. Booth could get nothing more out of him. But he meant to get those dispatches out of him. They were either in the boy's pocket or his valise, probably in his pocket. When he fell asleep, the spy's time would come. So the spy waited.
Darkness came. Two smoky oil-lamps gave such light as they could. The train rumbled on in the night. There were no sleeping carsthen. People slept in their seats, if they slept at all. Booth's tones grew soothing, almost tender. They served as a lullaby. Tom slept. The spy beside him drew a long, triumphant breath. His time had come.
Some time before, he had shifted his traveling-bag to this seat. Now he drew from it, gently, quietly, the little bottle of chloroform and a small sponge, which he saturated with the stupefying drug. Then he slipped his arm under the sleeping boy's head, drew him a little closer to himself, and glanced through the dusky car. Nearly everybody was asleep. Those who were not were trying to go to sleep. No one was watching. Booth pressed the sponge to Tom's nostrils. Tom stirred uneasily. "Sh-sh, Tom," purred the actor, "go to sleep; all's well." The drug soon did its work. The boy was dead to the world for awhile. Only a shock could rouse him.
The shock came. Booth's long, sensitive, skilled fingers—the fingers of a musician—ransacked his coat and waistcoat pockets swiftly, finding nothing. But beneath the waistcoattheir tell-tale touches had detected the longed-for papers. The waistcoat was deftly unbuttoned—it could have been stripped off without arousing the unconscious boy—and a triumphant thrill shot through Booth's black heart as he drew from an inner pocket the long, official envelope that he knew must hold what he had stealthily sought. He was just about to slip it into his own pocket and then to leave his stupefied victim to sleep off the drug while he himself sought safety at the next station, when one of those little things which have big results occurred. The sturdy man who was snoring in the seat behind this one happened to be a surgeon. He was returning from Washington, whither he had gone to operate on a dear friend, a wounded officer. Chloroform had of course been used, but the patient had died under the knife. It had been a terrible experience for the operator. It had made his sleep uneasy. A mere whiff from the sponge Booth had used reached the surgeon's sensitive nostril. It revived the poignant memories of the last few hours. Heawoke with a start that brought him to his feet. And there, just in front of him, he saw by the dim light a boy sunk in stupefied slumber and a man glancing guiltily back as he tried to thrust a stiff and crackling paper into his pocket. The sponge had fallen to the floor, but its fumes, far-spreading now, told to the practiced surgeon a story of foul play. He grabbed the man by the shoulder and awoke most of the travelers, but not Tom, with a stentorian shout: "What are you doing, you scoundrel?"
The scoundrel leaped to his feet, throwing off the doctor's hand, and sprang into the aisle, clutching the long envelope in his left hand, while his right held a revolver. He rushed for the door, pursued by half a dozen men, headed by the doctor. Close pressed, he whirled about and leveled his pistol at his unarmed pursuers. They fell back a pace. He whirled again, stumbled over a bag in the aisle, fell, sprang to his feet once more. A brakeman opened the door. He was hurrying to see what this clamor meant. Wilkes Booth fired at him pointblank. Thebullet missed, but it made the brakeman give way. Booth rushed by him, gained the platform and leaped from the slow train into the sheltering night.
The shock that waked Tom was the sound of the shot. Weak, dizzy, and sick, he knew only that some terrible thing was happening. Instinctively, his hand sought that inner pocket, only to find it empty. Then, indeed, he was wide awake. The horror of his loss burned through his brain. He shouted: "Stop him! Stop thief!" and collapsed again into his seat.
He was in fact a very sick boy. The dose of chloroform that had been given him would have been an overdose for a man. Notwithstanding his awakening, he might have relapsed into sleep and death, had not the skillful surgeon been there to devote himself to him. An antidote was forced down his throat. Willing volunteers, for of course the whole car was now awake in a hurly-burly of question and answer, rubbed life back into him. When he was a bit better, he was kept walking up and down theaisle, while two strong men held him up and his head swayed helplessly from side to side. But the final cure came when the surgeon who had kept catlike watch upon him saw that he could now begin to understand things.
"Here is something of yours," he whispered into the lad's half-unconscious ear. "That scoundrel stole it from you. When he fell, he must have dropped it on the floor. I found it there after he had jumped off the platform."
Tom's hand closed over the fateful envelope. His trembling fingers ran along its edges. It had not been opened. He had not betrayed his trust. A profound thankfulness and joy stirred within him. Within an hour he was practically himself again. Then he poured out his heart in thanks to the sturdy surgeon who had saved not only his life, but his honor. He asked his name and started at his reply:
"Dr. Hans Rolf, of York, Pennsylvania."
"Dr. Hans Rolf," repeated Tom, "but perhaps you are the grandson of the Hans Rolf I've heard about all my life. My father is alwaystelling me of things Hans Rolf did for my grandfather and great-grandfather."
"And what isyourname?" queried the doctor, surprised as may be imagined that this unknown boy should know him so well.
"Tom Strong."
"By the Powers," shouted the hearty doctor, seizing the boy's hand and wringing it as his grandfather used to wring the hand of the Tom Strongs he knew, "By the Powers, next to my own name there's none I know so well as yours. My grandfather never wearied of talking about the two Tom Strongs, father and son. The last day he lived, he told me how your great-grandfather saved his life."
"And you know he saved great-grandfather's, too," answered Tom, "and now you have saved mine."
He looked shyly at his preserver. He was still weak with the after-effects of the drug that had been given him. The Hans Rolf he saw was a bit blurred by the unshed tears through which he saw him.
"Nonsense," said the surgeon, "whatever I've done is just in the day's work. But you must stop at York and rest. I can't let my patient travel just yet, you know. And this may be your last chance to see me at home. I go into the army next month."
However, Tom was not to be persuaded to stop. Duty called him Westward and to the West he went, as fast as the slow trains of those days could carry him. But when Hans Rolf and he parted, a few hours after they had met, they were friends for life.
It took Tom two days to get from Harrisburg to Cairo, the southernmost town in Illinois. It lies at the junction of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. The latter pours a mass of beautiful blue water—the early French explorers named the Ohio "the beautiful river"—into the muddy flood of the Mississippi. For miles below Cairo the blue and yellow streams seem to flow side by side. Then the yellow swallows the blue and the mighty Mississippi rolls its murky way to the Gulf of Mexico. A gunboat took the youngmessenger from Cairo to General Grant's headquarters.