Four Years in Rebel Capitals Part 43

Then Richmond, sitting like Rachel in her desolation, waited for the return of her vanquished--heroes still to her. News came of the general parole; and every sound across the river--every cloud of dust at the pontoon bridge--was the signal for a rush to doorstep and porch. Days pa.s.sed and the women--not realizing the great difficulties of transportation--grew impatient to clasp their loved ones once more to their hearts. False outcries were made every hour, only to result in sickening disappointment and suspense. At last the evening of the third day came and, just at dusk, a single horseman turned slowly into deserted Franklin street.

Making no effort to urge his jaded beast, travel-stained and weary himself, he let the reins fall from his hands and his head droop upon his chest. It was some time before any one noticed that he wore the beloved gray--that he was Major B., one of the bravest and most staunch of the n.o.ble youth Richmond had sent out at the first. Like electricity the knowledge ran from house to house--"Tom B. has come! The army is coming!"

Windows, doorsteps and curbstones became alive at the words--each woman had known him from childhood--had known him joyous, and frank, and ever gay. Each longed to ask for husband, son, or brother; but all held back as they saw the dropped head, and felt his sorrow too deep to be disturbed.

At last one fair wife, surrounded by her young children, stepped into the road and spoke. The ice was broken. The soldier was surrounded; fair faces quivering with suspense, looked up to his, as soft voices begged for news of--"somebody's darling;" and tender hands even patted the starved beast that had borne the hero home! The broad chest heaved as it would burst, a great sob shook the stalwart frame, and a huge teardrop rolled down the cheek that had never changed color in the hottest flashes of the fight. And then the st.u.r.dy soldier--conquering his emotion but with no shame for it--told all he could and lightened many a heavy heart. And up to his own door they walked by his side, bareheaded and in the roadway, and there they left him alone to be folded in the embrace of the mother to whom he still was "glorious in the dust."

Next morning a small group of hors.e.m.e.n appeared on the further side of the pontoons. By some strange intuition, it was known that General Lee was among them, and a crowd collected all along the route he would take, silent and bareheaded. There was no excitement, no hurrahing; but, as the great chief pa.s.sed, a deep, loving murmur, greater than these, rose from the very hearts of the crowd. Taking off his hat and simply bowing his head, the man great in adversity pa.s.sed silently to his own door; it closed upon him, and his people had seen him for the last time in his battle harness.

Later others came, by scores and hundreds; many a household was made glad that could not show a crust for dinner; and then for days Franklin street lived again. Once more the beloved gray was everywhere, and once more bright eyes regained a little of their brightness, as they looked upon it.

Then suddenly the reins were tightened. On the morning of the 14th, the news of Lincoln's murder fell like a thunderclap upon victor and vanquished in Richmond. At first the news was not credited; then an indignant denial swelled up from the universal heart, that it was for southern vengeance, or that southern men could have sympathy in so vile an act. The sword and not the dagger was the weapon the South had proved she could use; and through the length and breadth of the conquered land was a universal condemnation of the deed.

But the Federal authorities--whether sincere in their belief, or not--made this the pretext for a thorough change of policy in Richmond.

First came uniform orders, that none of the insignia, or rank marks, of the South should be worn--a measure peculiarly oppressive to men who had but one coat. Then came rules about "congregations of rebels," and three Confederates could not stand a moment on a corner, without dispersion by a provost-guard.

Finally came the news of Johnston's surrender--of the last blow to the cause, now lost indeed. Still this fact had been considered a certain one from the date of Lee's surrender; and it bore none of the crushing weight that had made them refuse to believe in the latter. Confident as all were in General Johnston's ability to do all that man might, they still knew his numerical weakness; that he must ere long be crushed between the upper and nether millstones. So this news was received with a sigh, rather than a groan.

There was a momentary hope that the wise covenant between Generals Johnston and Sherman, as to the basis of the surrender, would be indorsed by the Government; but the result of its refusal and of the final surrender on the 13th--was after all little different from what all had expected. Even the wild and maddened spirits, who refused to accept Lee's cartel, and started to work their way to Johnston, could have had no hope of his final success in their calmer moments.

But Johnston's surrender did not lift the yoke from Richmond, in any degree. Police regulations of the most annoying character were imposed; the fact of a parole bearing any significance was entirely ignored; no sort of grace was shown to its possessor, unless he took the oath; and many men, caught in Richmond at this time and far from home, were reduced to distress and almost starvation by the refusal of transportation.

All this the southern people bore with patience. They submitted to all things but two: they would not take the oath and they would not mix socially with their conquerors. In that respect the line was as rigorously drawn in Richmond, at that time, as ever Venice drew it against the Austrian. Not that any attempt was omitted by the Federals to overcome what they called this "prejudice." There was music in Capitol Square, by the best bands of the army, and the ladies were specially invited by the public prints. Not one went; and the officers listened to their own music in company with numbers of l.u.s.ty black emanc.i.p.ated, who fully felt themselves women and sisters. Next it was given out that the negroes would not be admitted; but then the officers listened alone, and finally gave it up. Failing in public, every effort--short of rudeness and intrusion, which were never resorted to--was made to effect a social lodgment in private. But no Federal uniform ever crossed a rebel threshold, in those days, save on business. The officers occupied parts of many houses; but they were made to feel that the other part, occupied by the household, was private still.

Another infliction, harder to bear, was the well-meant intrusion of old friends from the North. Pleasure parties to Richmond were of constant occurrence; and for the time quite eclipsed in popularity, with the Washington idlers, the inevitable pilgrimage to Mt. Vernon. Gaily dressed and gushing over in the merriment of a party of pleasure, these visitors often sought out their _ante-bellum_ friends; and then and there would condone the crime of rebellion to them--sitting in desolation by the ashes of their household G.o.ds. It is not hard to understand how bitter was proffered forgiveness, to those who never admitted they could have been wrong; and perhaps the soft answer that turneth away wrath, was not always given to such zealously officious friends.

There was little bitterness expressed, however much may have fermented in the hearts of the captured; and, as a general thing, the people were grateful for the moderation of the Yankees, and appreciated the good they had done at the fire. But, deeper than any bitterness could have sunk, was that ingrained feeling that there were two peoples that these could never again mingle in former amity, till oil and water might mix.

The men especially--and with much apparent reason--were utterly hopeless of the future; and, collecting in knots, they would gloomily discuss the prospect of emigration, as if that were the sole good the future held. There can be little doubt that had the ability been theirs, a large majority of the young men of the South would have gone abroad, to seek their fortunes in new paths and under new skies.

Luckily, for their country, the commander at Richmond failed to keep his agreement with the paroled officers; and--after making out rolls of those who would be granted free permission and pa.s.sage to Canada, England or South America--those rolls were suddenly annulled and the whole matter given up. Thus a number of useful, invaluable men who have ever since fought the good fight against that outrage--the imposition of negro dominance over her--were saved to the South.

And that good fight, begun in the natural law of self-preservation, has eventuated to the interests of a common country. For no one who does not intimately understand the character of the negro--his mental and moral, as well as his physical, const.i.tution--can begin to comprehend the sin committed against him, even more than against the white man, by putting him in the false att.i.tude of equality with, or antagonism to, the latter.

No one, who did not move among the negroes, immediately after conquest of the South--and who did not see them with experience-opened eyes--can approach realization of the pernicious workings of that futile attempt.

Writing upon the inner details of the war and its resulting action upon the morale of the southern people, omission can not be made of that large and unfortunate cla.s.s; driven--first by blind fanaticism, later by fear of their own party existence--into abnormal condition by the ultra radicals. The negro rapidly changed; "equality" frittered away what good instincts he had and developed all the worst, innate with him. It changed him from a careless and thriftless, but happy and innocent producer, into a mere consumer, at best; often indeed, into a besotted and criminal idler, subsisting in part upon Nature's generosity in supplying cabbage and fish, in part upon the thoughtlessness of his neighbor in supplying chickens and eggs.

Yet--so powerful is result of habit; on so much foundation of nature is based the Scythian fable--the negroes of the South, immediately succeeding the surrender, used the new greatness thrust upon them with surprising innocence. Laziness, liquor and loud a.s.severations of freedom and equality were its only blessings claimed; and the commission of overt acts, beyond those named, were rare enough to prove the rule of force of habit. Lured from old service for a time, most of them followed not far the gaudy and shining Will-o'-the-Wisp; and almost all--especially the household and personal servants--soon returned to "Ole Mas'r" once more, sadder and wiser for the futile chase after freedom's joys. But, even these were partly spoiled and rendered of far less practical use to themselves, or to their employers.

The "negro question" to-day is made merely a matter of politics, rather than one of political economy. At the date of the Confederacy's death, it is a matter of history.

Gradually--by very slow degrees--people in Richmond--as elsewhere in the South, further removed from victor's contact--began to grow so far accustomed to the chains imposed upon them, that they seemed less unbearably galling. Little by little--forced by the necessities of themselves and of those still dearer--men went to work at new and strange occupations; doing not what they would, but what they could, in the bitter struggle with want for their daily bread. But, spite of earnest resolve and steady exertion,

"There was little to earn and many to keep--"

and every month it seemed to grow harder and harder to make the bare means of life. And not alone did the men work--hard and steadily, early and late. As the women of the South had been the counsellors, the comforters, the very life of the soldiers when the dark hour was threatened; so they proved themselves worthy helpmeets now that it had come.

No privation was too great, no work too unaccustomed for them to undergo. Little hands that had never held even a needle until the war, now wrought laboriously at the varied--sometimes even menial--occupations that the hour demanded. And they worked, as they had borne the war--with never a murmur; with ever a cheering word for the fellow-laborer beside them--with a bright trust in the future and that each one's particular "King should have his own again."

And here the author's task is ended--albeit far from completed; for so little has been told, where there was so much to tell. But, there was no longer a Rebel Capital, to offer its inside view; and what followed the fall--were it not already a twice-told tale--has no place in these pages. Disjointed sketches, these have perchance told some new, or interesting, facts. Certes, they have omitted many more, well worth the telling, noted during those four unparalleled years; but plainly not compressible, within the limits of one volume.

Happily, the trials, the strain, the suffering of those years remain with us, but as a memory. That memory is, to the South, a sacred heritage which unreasoning fanaticism may not dim--which Time, himself, shall not efface. To the North that memory should be cleared of prejudice and bitterness, becoming thus a lesson priceless in worth.

Happily, too, the sober second thought of a common people, aided by the loyalty of the South--to herself and to her plighted faith--has changed into recemented union of pride and of interest, that outlook from the crumbled gates of Richmond, which made her people groan in their hearts:

_Solitudinem faciunt appellantque pacem!_

FINIS.

APPENDIX.

_FIRST AND LAST BLOOD OF THE WAR._

While the battle of Bethel is recorded in the foregoing pages as the first decided fight of the war between the States, it may leave erroneous impression not to note the date of "first blood" really shed in action on southern soil. In the report of the Adjutant-general of the State of Virginia, for 1866, occurs this entry:

J. Q. Marr, graduated July 4, 1846. Lawyer, Member of the Virginia Convention. Entered military service as Captain of Virginia Volunteers, April 1, 1861. Killed at Fairfax Courthouse, Virginia, May 13, 1861. First blood of the war.

Naturally, many conflicting statements as to the last effective shot of the long struggle were made and received as true. The most reliable would appear to be the following, reproduced from a paper printed by the boys of Mr. Denson's school, in the village of Pittsboro, N.C., in 1866:

The accomplished author of that series of interesting papers, "The Last Ninety Days of the War in North Carolina," published in _The Watchman_, New York, states that the last blood of the war was shed near the Atkins plantation, a few miles from Chapel Hill, on the 14th April, 1865. In a later number of the same paper, a member of the First Tennessee Cavalry says that it is a mistake; that companies E and F, of the same regiment to which he belonged, skirmished sharply with the Federals on the 15th, and claims that this was the last blood shed. Both are in error; there was a skirmish near Mt. Zion church, two miles south-east of Pittsboro, North Carolina, between a body of Wheeler's cavalry and a party of Federals, on the 17th of April; two Yankees were wounded, and three others, with several horses, captured. There was other skirmishing in the neighborhood about this time, and as late as the 29th (two days after General Johnston surrendered), a squad of Federal cavalry rode through Pittsboro, firing upon the citizens and returned soldiers, and receiving their fire in return. These men were pursued and overtaken near Haw river, where a skirmish occurred, in which two of the Yankees were killed and two others wounded, one mortally. This Haw river incident is a familiar and well authenticated one and most probably it really showed the last of the long bloodshed.

_WHY NO PURSUIT AFTER MANa.s.sAS._

Attention has frequently been drawn to the restiveness of the entire southern people, under alleged neglect to seize golden opportunities for pressing the enemy, after Confederate successes. Most frequently repeated of all these charges, is that which puts upon the shoulders of Jefferson Davis the onus of delay--and of all resulting evil--after the first victory on Mana.s.sas Plains. This charge receives semi-official sanction, from ex-Vice-President Stephens; for his history of the war plainly a.s.serts that to the President was due "the failure of the Confederate troops to advance after the battle of Mana.s.sas." The following correspondence between the two men most interested in that mooted question may therefore be read with interest by all candid thinkers:

RICHMOND, VA., November 3, 1861.

_General J. E. Johnston, Commanding Department of the Potomac:_

SIR: Reports have been and are being widely circulated to the effect that I prevented General Beauregard from pursuing the enemy after the battle of Mana.s.sas, and had subsequently restrained him from advancing upon Washington City. Though such statements may have been made merely for my injury, and in that view their notice might be postponed to a more convenient season, they have acquired importance from the fact that they have served to create distrust, to excite disappointment, and must embarra.s.s the administration in its further efforts to re-enforce the armies of the Potomac, and generally to provide for the public defense.

For these public considerations, I call upon you as the commanding general, and as a party to all the conferences held by me on the 21st and 22d of July, to say whether I obstructed the pursuit of the enemy after the victory at Mana.s.sas, or have ever objected to an advance or other active operation which it was feasible for the army to undertake?

Very respectfully yours, etc.,

JEFFERSON DAVIS.

HEADQUARTERS, CENTREVILLE, November 10, 1861.