Four Years in Rebel Capitals Part 37

"Wail, an' now I reck'n I'm loyil, ain't I?"

"Oh, yes! You're all right," carelessly replied the captor.

"An' ef I'm loyil, I'm same as you 'uns?" persisted the lately sworn.

"We're all good Union alike, eh?"

"Oh, yes," the officer humored him. "We're all one now."

"Wail then," rejoined Johnny Reb slowly, "didn't them darned rebs jest geen us h.e.l.l sometimes?"

City Point, on the James river, was the landing for transports with soldiers released from northern prisons, after parole. A bustling, self-important major of United States volunteers was at one time there, in charge. One day a most woe-begone, tattered and emaciated "Johnnie"

sat swinging his shoeless feet from a barrel, awaiting his turn.

"It isn't far to Richmond," suddenly remarked the smart major, to n.o.body in particular.

"Reck'n et's neer onto three thousin' mile," drawled the Confed.

weakly.

"Nonsense! You must be crazy," retorted the officer staring.

"Wail, I ent a-reck'nin' adzact," was the slow reply--"Jest tho't so, kinder."

"Oh! you did? And pray why?"

"Cos et's took'n you'uns nigh onto foore year to git thar from Wash'nton," was the settling retort.

In the provost-marshal's department at Richmond, shortly after surrender, was the neatest and most irrepressible of youths. Never discourteous and often too sympathetic, he was so overcurious as to be what sailors describe as "In everybody's mess and n.o.body's watch." One day a quaint, d.i.c.kensesque old lady stood hesitant in the office doorway. Short, wrinkled and bent with age, she wore a bombazine gown of antique cut--its whilom black red-rusty from time's dye. But "Aunt Sallie" was a character in Henrico county; and noted withal for the sharpest of tongues and a fierce pair of undimmed eyes, which now shone under the dingy-brown poke bonnet. Toward her sallied the flippant young underling, with the greeting:

"Well, madam, what do _you_ wish?"

"What do I wish?" The old lady grew restive and battle-hungry.

"Yes'm! That's what I asked," retorted the youth sharply.

"What do I wish?" slowly repeated the still-rebellious dame. "Well, if you _must_ know, I wish all you Yankees were in ---- h.e.l.l!"

But not all the humor was confined to the governing race; some of its points cropping out sharply here and there, from under the wool of "the oppressed brother"--in-law. One case is recalled of the spoiled body servant of a gallant Carolinian, one of General Wheeler's brigade commanders. His master reproved his speech thus:

"Peter, you rascal! Why don't you speak English, instead of saying 'wah yo' is'?"

"Waffer, Mars' Sam?" queried the negro with an innocent grin. "Yo allus calls de Gen'ral--_Weel_-er?"

Another, close following the occupation, has a spice of higher satire.

A Richmond friend had a petted maid, who--devoted and constant to her mistress, even in those tempting days--still burned with genuine negro curiosity for a sight of everything pertaining to "Mars' Link.u.m's men"--especially for "de skule."

For swift, indeed, were the newcome saints to preach the Evangel of alphabet; and negro schools seemed to have been smuggled in by every army ambulance, so numerously did they spring up in the captured Capital. So, early one day, Clarissa Sophia, the maid of color, donned her very best and, "with shiny morning face," hied her, like anything but a snail, to school. Very brief was her absence; her return reticent, but pouting and with unduly tip-tilted nose. After a time negro love for confidences conquered; and the murder came out.

The school-room had been packed and pervaded with odors--of sanct.i.ty, or otherwise--when a keen-nosed and eager school-marm rose up to exhort her cla.s.s. She began by impressing the great truth that every sister present was "born free and equal;" was "quite as good" as she was.

"Wa' dat yo's sain' now?" interrupted Clarissa Sophia. "Yo' say Ise jess ekal as yo' is?"

"Yes; I said so," was the sharp retort, "and I can prove it!"

"Ho! 'Tain't no need," replied the lately disenthralled. "Reck'n I is, sho' nuff. But does yo' say dat Ise good as missus?--_my_ missus?"

"Certainly you are!" This with asperity.

"Den Ise jess gwine out yere, rite off!" cried Clarissa Sophia, suiting action to word--"Ef Ise good as _my_ missus, I'se goin' ter quit; fur I jess know _she_ ent 'soshiatin' wid no sich wite trash like you is!"

And so--under all skies and among all colors--the war dragged its weary length out; amid sufferings and sacrifices, which may never be recorded; and which were still illumined by the flashes of unquenchable humor--G.o.d's tonic for the heart!

Had every camp contained its Froissart--had every social circle held its Boswell--what a record would there be, for reading by generations yet unborn!

But--when finished, as this cramped and quite unworthy chronicle of random recollections is--then might the reader still quote justly her of Sheba, exclaiming:

"And behold! the one-half of the greatness of thy wisdom was not told me!"

CHAPTER x.x.xIV.

THE BEGINNING OF THE END.

While neither in itself--perhaps not the combination of the two--was final and conclusive, the beginning of the end of the Confederacy may be dated from the loss of Vicksburg and the simultaneous retreat from Gettysburg. For these two disasters made all cla.s.ses consider more deeply, both their inducing causes and the final results that must follow a succession of such crushing blows.

There can be little doubt that a complete victory at Gettysburg, vigorously followed up, would have ended the war; and the generally-accepted belief in the South was that the exhaustive defeat was proportionately bad. The war had been going on two years and a half. Every device had been used to put the whole numerical strength of the country into the field and to utilize its every resource. The South had succeeded to a degree that stupefied the outside world and astonished even herself. But the effort had exhausted, and left her unfit to renew it. Over and again the armies of the East and West had been re-enforced, reorganized and re-equipped--and ever came the heavy, relentless blows of the seemingly-exhaustless power, struggled against so vainly. The South had inflicted heavy loss in men, material and prestige; but she wasted her strength in these blows, while unhappily she could not make them effective by quick repet.i.tion.

The people, too, had lost their early faith in the Government. They had submitted to the most stringent levy of conscription and impressment ever imposed upon a nation. They had willingly left their fields to grow weeds, their children to run wild and perhaps to starve; they had cheerfully divided their last supplies of food with the Government, and had gone to the front steadily and hopefully. But now they could not fail to see that, in some points at least, there had been gross mismanagement. The food for which their families were pinched and almost starved, did not come to the armies. Vast stores of provision and supplies were blocked on the roads, while speculators' ventures pa.s.sed over them. This, the soldiers in the trench and the laborer at the anvil saw equally.

They saw, too, that the Government was divided against itself; for the worse than weak Congress--which had formerly been as a nose of wax in Mr. Davis' fingers--had now turned dead against him. With the stolid obstinacy of stupidity it now refused to see any good in any measure, or in any man, approved by the Executive.

Under the leadership of Mr. Foote--who wasted the precious time of Congress in windy personal diatribes against Mr. Davis and his "pets"--nothing was done to combine and strengthen the rapidly sundering elements of Confederate strength. Long debates on General Pemberton; weighty disquisitions on such grave subjects as the number of pounds of pork on hand when Vicksburg was surrendered; and violent attacks on the whole _past_ course of the administration, occupied the minds of those lawgivers. But at this time there was no single measure originated that proposed to stop the troubles in the future.

Therefore, the people lost confidence in the divided Government; and losing it began to distrust themselves. Suffering so for it, they could not fail to know the terrible strain to which the country had been subjected. They knew that her resources in men and material had been taxed to the limit; that there was no fresh supply of either upon which to draw. This was the forlorn view that greeted them when they looked within. And outside, fresh armies faced and threatened them on every side--increased rather than diminished, and better armed and provided than ever before.

This state of things was too patent not to be seen by the plainest men; and seeing it, those became dispirited who never had doubted before.

And this time, the gloom did not lift; it became a settled and dogged conviction that we were fighting the good fight almost against hope.

Not that this prevented the army and the people from working still, with every nerve strained to its utmost tension; but they worked without the cheery hopefulness of the past.

Fate seemed against them. Had they been Turks they would have said: "It is _kismet_! Allah is great!" As they were only staunch patriots, they reasoned: "It is fearful odds--but we _may_ win." And so solemnly, gloomily--but none the less determined--the South again prepared for the scarcely doubtful strife.

The stringent addenda to the Conscription law--that had come too late--were put into force. All men that could possibly be spared--and whom the trickery of influence could not relieve--were sent to the front; and their places in the Government were filled by the aged, the disabled, and by women. In the Government departments of Richmond--and in their branches further South--the first ladies of the land took position as clerks--driven to it by stress of circ.u.mstances. And now as ever--whether in the a.r.s.enals, the factories, or the accountant's desk--the women of the South performed their labor faithfully, earnestly and well. Those men who could not possibly be spared, were formed into companies for local defense; were regularly drilled, mustered into service, and became in fact regular soldiers, simply detailed to perform other work. When the wild notes of the alarm bell sent their frequent peals over Richmond, and warned of an approaching raid--armorer, butcher and clerk threw down hammer and knife and pen, and seized their muskets to hasten to the rendezvous. Even the shopkeepers and speculators, who seemed conscription-proof, were mustered into some sort of form; driven to make at least a show of resistance to the raid, by which they would suffer more than any others. But it was only a show; and so much more attention was paid in these organizations to filling of the commissary wagon than of the cartridge-box, that the camps of such "melish," in the woods around Richmond, were converted more into a picnic than a defense.

Supplies of war material, of clothing, and of arms, had now become as scarce as men. The constant drain had to be supplied from manufactories, worked under great difficulties; and these now were almost paralyzed by the necessity for their operatives at the front.

Old supplies of iron, coal and ore had been worked up; and obtaining and utilizing fresh ones demanded an amount of labor that could not be spared. The blockade had now become thoroughly effective; and, except a rare venture at some unlooked-for spot upon the coast, no vessel was expected to come safely through the network of ships. Blankets and shoes had almost completely given out; and a large proportion of the army went barefoot and wrapped in rugs given by the ladies of the cities, who cut up their carpets for that purpose.

Yet, in view of all this privation; with a keen sense of their own sacrifices and a growing conviction that they were made in vain, the army kept up in tone and spirits. There was no intention or desire to yield, as long as a blow could be struck for the cause; and the veteran and the "new issue"--as the new conscripts were called in derision of the currency--alike determined to work on as steadily, if not so cheerily, as before.