Robert Toombs Part 15

The militia are coming up finely. Twelve hundred of them arrived here this evening, armed and tolerably well equipped. Poor fellows! They are green and raw, undisciplined and badly officered. It keeps us at work day and night to bring order out of this confused ma.s.s, and we have but a poor chance. They march right into the trenches, and are immediately under the enemy's fire all day. We shall trust to a kind Providence alone to preserve them from a great disaster, and make them useful to the army and the country. The pressure is so great that we are compelled to put them to the work of veterans without an hour's preparation. I am doing my utmost to get them in the best possible position. Georgians are all coming up well except the cities.

Speaking of men who try to shirk duty, Mr. Toombs wrote, "Poor creatures! What do they want to live for?"

General Toombs had the task of organizing the recruits and getting them ready for the field. He writes to his wife: "Since I began this letter, the Yankees have begun an attack on a part of our line and I was obliged to ride with General Hood to look after our defenses." General Toombs alludes to General E. C. Walthall of Mississippi, as "a splendid officer and a gentleman." He says: "The enemy are evidently intending to starve us rather than to fight us out. I have, at the request of General Hood, not less than twenty letters to write on that very subject. Sherman sh.e.l.ls the town furiously every day. Not much damage yet."

It has been customary to speak in light terms of the Georgia militia, who, late in the day, took the field to man the defenses when Sherman was marching to the sea. They were frequently made up of old men and boys who had been exempt from the regular service, and these were hurried into action with poor equipment and scant preparation. General Toombs, in a letter written to his wife, July 25, 1864, says:

The militia have behaved with great gallantry. This is sincerely true. They have far exceeded my expectations, and in the fight on Thursday equaled any troops in the line of battle. If they will stand and fight like men, our homes will be saved. G.o.d give them the spirit of men, and all will be well!

In another place he writes:

We have a mixed crowd, a large number of earnest, brave, true men; then all the shirks and skulks in Georgia trying to get from under bullets.

General Toombs commended and endorsed the policy of Governor Brown during his six years' administration of the office from 1857 to 1863.

These two men were warm friends and political allies. When Governor Brown's third term was drawing to a close, he preferred the selection of General Toombs as his successor. But Toombs declined to make the race.

His game now was war, not politics. He preferred the field to the Cabinet. He writes with considerable feeling this letter to his wife:

Whatever fate may befall me, I feel that this is my place, in the field and with the militia, with the men who own the country and who are struggling to preserve it for their children. I am truly thankful to G.o.d for the health he has given me to enable me to perform my part of this work.

He called all the sons of Georgia to come, even to "die together rather than let the Yankee overrun and conquer Georgia." He concludes a letter of appeal:

Better be Where the unconquered Spartans still are free, In their proud charnel of Thermopylae.

General Toombs' last military service, after the fall of Atlanta, was on the 20th of December, 1864, when as adjutant and inspector-general he served in General G. W. Smith's division, Georgia militia, at the siege of Savannah. General d.i.c.k Taylor, in his "Destruction and Reconstruction," gives a very graphic description of General Toombs'

energy. The Georgia militia had left Macon for Savannah, and to avoid capture by the resistless column of Sherman's army, then marching to the sea, was shipped by way of Thomasville. The trains were sometimes slow in moving, and to General Taylor, who was anxious to ma.s.s all forces at Savannah, the delay was galling. When Toombs came up, he "d.a.m.ned the dawdling trainmen, and pretty soon infused his own nervous force into the whole concern. The wheezing engines and freight vans were readily put in motion, and Governor Brown's 'army' started toward Savannah."

News reached General Taylor about that time that the Federal forces at Port Royal were coming up to capture Pocotaligo on the Charleston and Savannah road. This was a dangerous move, as General Taylor was anxious to hold this line for coast defense. He needed reenforcements to hold this point, and at once thought of "Joe Brown's Army." The position of Governor Brown was, however, as General Taylor understood it, that Georgia troops were to be held to guard Georgia soil. This was one of the points in his discussion with Mr. Davis. General Taylor consulted with General Toombs, however, and they arranged to have the Georgia militia "shunted off at a switch near Savannah and transported quietly to Carolina." At Pocotaligo these troops had a lively brush with the Union forces and succeeded in holding the railroad. The Georgians were plucky whether at home or abroad, but General Taylor declared that Toombs enjoyed his part in making them "unconscious patriots."

Sherman's march to the sea was the concluding tragedy of the Civil War.

The State which had been at the forefront of the revolution had become the b.l.o.o.d.y theater of battle. From the Tennessee River to Atlanta, Sherman and Johnston had grappled with deadly fury down the mountain defiles; then Cheatham and Wheeler hara.s.sed him at Macon and united for a final siege of Savannah. The granaries and workshops of the Confederacy were gone when Georgia was devastated--as General Lord Wolseley said, Sherman's invasion was a swordthrust through the vitals of the young nation. Robert Toombs had followed his own idea of meeting the invader as soon as he struck an inch of State soil and fighting him as long as a man remained. From the fruitless defense of Savannah, Toombs hastened to discuss the situation with Governor Brown. He happened to be dining with him that April day when the news came of the surrender at Appomattox. The two men looked at each other intently, when they realized that all was over.

Toombs and Brown had been closely allied since the day that the latter was nominated for Governor in 1857. They had fought campaigns together.

Toombs had sustained Governor Brown's war policy almost to the letter.

Now they shook hands and parted. Henceforth their paths diverged. Days of bitterness put that friendship to an end. Both men worked his course during reconstruction as he saw fit. But political differences deepened almost into personal feud.

General Toombs repaired to his home in Washington and, on the 4th of May, 1865, Jefferson Davis, his Cabinet and staff, having retreated from Richmond to Danville, thence to Greensboro, N. C., and Abbeville, S. C., rode across the country with an armed escort to Washington, Ga. Here, in the old Heard House, the last meeting of the Confederate Cabinet was held. The members separated, and the civil government of the Southern Confederacy pa.s.sed into history. There were present John C.

Breckenridge, Secretary of War; John H. Reagan, Postmaster-General, besides the members of Mr. Davis' staff. The Confederate President was worn and jaded. He looked pale and thin, but was plucky to the last.

After the surrender of Lee and Johnston, he wanted to keep up the warfare in the mountains of Virginia, and in the country west of the Mississippi, but he was finally persuaded that the Confederacy must cease to struggle. On the public square of Washington the little brick house, with its iron rail and its red walls, is still pointed out to the visitor as the spot where the Davis government dissolved. It was a dramatic fate which determined its dissolution at the home of Robert Toombs. He had been present at its birth. His had been one of the leading spirits of the revolution. He had served it in the Cabinet and field, he had been pressed for the position of its chief magistracy, and now in the shadow of his own rooftree its concluding council was held.

General Reagan was a guest of General Toombs during his stay in Washington, as was General St. John and Major Raphael J. Moses, who had been a member of Toombs' staff. In the evening General Toombs called General Reagan into a room by himself and inquired whether the latter needed any money. General Reagan said he had money enough to take him to Texas. Then General Toombs inquired after Mr. Davis, and asked whether he had any money. "I told him no," says General Reagan, "but that I had money enough to take us both West of of the Mississippi, and had told Mr. Davis so. I had no doubt but that he would rely on that." General Toombs then asked if Mr. Davis was well mounted. "I told him yes, that he had his bay horse Kentucky, and that after the surrender General Lee had sent his fine gray Traveler, by his son Robert, around through Lynchburg to Mr. Davis at Greenesboro, N. C." "Well," said General Toombs, with thoughtfulness, "Davis and I had a quarrel once, but that is over now. I am at home and can command money and men, and if Mr.

Davis wants anything, I shall be glad to furnish it." General Toombs added that under terms of the convention between Sherman and Johnston, Mr. Davis was ent.i.tled to go where he pleased between that point and the Chattahoochee River. "I wish you would say to Mr. Davis," said Toombs, in his bluff way, "that, if necessary, I will call my men around me and see him safe to the Chattahoochee at the risk of my life."

On his return to the hotel Mr. Reagan gave General Toombs' message to Mr. Davis, and told the latter of the inquiries and offers. "That is like Toombs," said Mr. Davis. "He was always a whole-souled man."

The four men whom the Washington government wanted to arrest and hold responsible for the war were Toombs, Davis, Slidell, and Howell Cobb.

Their friends understood this perfectly, and each man was urged to make his escape. Jefferson Davis was arrested in Irwin County, Ga., on May 10. He was rapidly making his way to the West, and was trying to reach Texas. How General Toombs finally escaped must be reserved for a more extended recital.

General Toombs and Mr. Davis never met but once after the war. It was unexpected, dramatic. Some years after General Toombs had returned from his long exile, and Mr. Davis was just back from his trip to England, the ex-president visited Lookout Mountain, Tennessee, the guest of the poet Sidney Lanier. He here appeared at his best in the company of sympathetic and admiring friends, and charmed everyone by his polish and learning. The day before Jefferson Davis left, General and Mrs. Toombs arrived at the mountain. Mr. Davis was, at that time, absent on a horseback trip. He was fond of riding, and had gone over to see some of the fine views of the mountain and to inspect the fields where recent battles had raged with so much fury. The hotel was kept by a Northern man who knew nothing of the relations between Mr. Davis and General Toombs, and he believed the thing to do was to put General and Mrs.

Toombs in a vacant room of the cottage occupied by Mr. Davis. It was a small house, with a piazza extending along the front. It so happened that the Toombses, who had just learned of Mr. Davis' presence at the hotel, were sitting on the piazza chatting with friends when Mr. Davis came up. Mr. Davis had also heard of General Toombs' arrival at the hotel, but neither knew that the other was domiciled in the same cottage. To General Toombs the appearance was as if Mr. Davis had come at once to make a cordial call. No one could be more hospitable and polite than Toombs, and this apparent challenge to friendship brought out the best side of his nature. The men met with considerable warmth.

From General Toombs Mr. Davis advanced to Mrs. Toombs. Between these two the meeting was profoundly affecting. He embraced her tenderly. Toombs and Davis had been friends and neighbors years ago in Washington City, and Mr. Davis had been extremely fond of Mr. Toombs' family. The distinguished party soon fell into friendly conversation. Next day Mr.

Davis left Lookout Mountain. He never met Robert Toombs again.

CHAPTER XXIV.

TOOMBS AS A FUGITIVE.

At the conclusion of the war, Secretary Stanton issued specific orders for the arrest of Jefferson Davis, Alexander H. Stephens, and Robert Toombs. Mr. Stephens was arrested quietly at his own home in Crawfordville on the 12th of May, 1865, two days after Mr. Davis had been overtaken. On the same day a squad of soldiers, most of them negroes, reached Washington, Ga. They were commanded by General Wilde, and their orders were to take General Toombs in charge. One of the colored troops marched up town with the photograph of Toombs, which they had procured to identify him, impaled upon his bayonet. General Toombs was, at the time, in his private office at his residence. Hearing the noise in his yard, he walked out of his bas.e.m.e.nt to the corner of his front steps. There he perceived the squad and divined their purpose. "By G.o.d, the bluecoats!" was all he said. Walking quickly through his back lot, he strode across his plantation and disappeared. By this time the guard was clamoring at the front door, and Mrs. Toombs went out to meet them. "Where is General Toombs?" the commander asked. "He is not here,"

the lady answered firmly. A parley ensued, during which Mrs. Toombs managed to detain the men long enough to enable her husband to get out of sight. "Unless General Toombs is produced, I shall burn the house,"

retorted the officer. Mrs. Toombs blanched a little at this, but, biting her lip, she turned on her heel, and coolly replied: "Very well, burn it." Among the listeners to this colloquy was a young man just returned from the Confederate army. He was moved with indignation. He still wore the gray jacket, and was deeply anxious for the Toombs family. He had been a neighbor to them all his life, as had his father before him, and he shared the pride which the village felt for its most distinguished resident.

He was the son of Hon. I. T. Irvin, a prominent public man and lifelong friend of General Toombs. Preparations were made for the threatened fire. General Toombs did not come out. Furniture was moved and papers destroyed, but the young Confederate was soon convinced that the threat was a mere bluff. Relieved on that point, his loyal spirit yearned toward the fugitive. Charles E. Irvin was the name of the young man, and he had seen service in the artillery under Longstreet. Not yet twenty-one years of age, he was fired with ardor and devotion, and had already resolved to aid General Toombs in escaping.

Riding over to a neighbor's house, Mr. J. T. Wingfield, he failed to find his friend, but left word for General Toombs to let him know where to meet him with his horses. That night about two o'clock Lieutenant Irvin got word from General Toombs to bring his horse to Nick Chenault's by seven o'clock in the morning. This was a farm about eighteen miles from Washington, near the Broad River. Here General Toombs mounted his trusted horse and felt at home. It was the famous mare Gray Alice, which had carried him through all his campaigns. He had ridden her during the charges at Antietam, and she had borne him from the fire of the scouts the night he had received his wound. Once more he pressed her into service, and Robert Toombs, for the first time in his life, was a fugitive. This man, who commanded men and had gained his own way by sheer brain and combativeness, fled by stealth from a dreaded enemy. It was a new role for Toombs. His plucky young guide was resolved to accompany him in his flight--it might be to his death; it was all the same to Lieutenant Irvin. Riding swiftly into Elbert County, the two men crossed over to Harrison Landing, a picturesque spot on the Savannah River. Here dwelt an old man, Alexander LeSeur, who led something of a hermit's life. Before the war he had been a "Know-nothing," and had been exposed to Toombs' withering fire upon that cla.s.s of politicians.

LeSeur met the fugitive with a laugh and a friendly oath. "You have been fighting me for forty years," he said, "and now that you are in trouble, I am the first man you seek for protection."

[Ill.u.s.tration: RESIDENCE OF GENERAL B. W. HEARD, WASHINGTON, GA., WHERE JEFFERSON DAVIS HELD LAST MEETING OF CABINET, APRIL, 1865.]

General Toombs had not traveled too fast. The country was swarming with raiders. News of the capture of Davis and Stephens had fired these men with desire to overhaul the great champion of secession. A Federal major, commanding a force of men, put up at Tate's residence, just opposite the hermit's island. While there, a negro from the LeSeur place informed the officer that some prominent man was at the house. "If it ain't Jeff Davis, it is just as big a man," said he. The hint was taken.

The island was surrounded and carefully watched, but when the party went over to capture Toombs, the game was gone.

General Toombs now started out carefully up the Savannah River. In Elbert, he was in the hands of his friends. This county, which had first encouraged the struggles of the young lawyer, which had followed him steadfastly in his political fortunes, which had furnished soldiers for his brigade, now supplied protectors at every step. Before leaving this county he was initiated into a Masonic lodge, and took the first degrees of the order. More than once the signs and symbols of the mystic brotherhood stood him in good stead on this eventful trip. He was afterward a high Mason, and remained to his death a devoted friend of the order.

Continuing his journey alone he stopped at the Tugaloo River in Habersham County, and remained at the house of Colonel Prather until Lieutenant Irvin, whom he had sent back to Washington with letters, could rejoin him with funds and clothing. Here his young companion soon found him, bringing, besides letters from home, some astonishing news.

"General," said Lieutenant Irvin, "what do you think? Your friend General Joseph E. Brown has sold out the State of Georgia, and gone over to the Republican party."

Toombs glared at him savagely.

"For the first time on this trip," says Lieutenant Irvin, "he looked like he wanted to kill me. He brought his fist down heavily upon the table and said: 'By G.o.d, I don't believe it!'

"'Well here it is in black and white.'"

Lieutenant Irvin gave him the paper in which was printed Governor Brown's famous address to the people of Georgia.

"This news," said Lieutenant Irvin, "absolutely sent the old man to bed."

Toombs remained a week at Colonel Prather's, and in the meantime sent Lieutenant Irvin to Savannah with important letters. He desired to escape, if possible, through the port of Savannah. The Savannah friends were not at home, however, and Lieutenant Irvin, bearing these important letters, actually fell into the hands of the enemy.

He was a high-strung, plucky young fellow, and was reproved by a Federal officer for continuing to wear bra.s.s b.u.t.tons. Irvin retorted sharply, and was hurried into prison. Fearing that he would be searched and his papers found, he slipped them to a friend, undetected by the guard.

After remaining in prison for several hours, Lieutenant Irvin was released and censured by the officer, who reminded him that there were bayonets about him.

"Yes," retorted young Irvin, "and brave men always avail themselves of such advantages."

Trudging back from Savannah, Lieutenant Irvin found General Toombs at the Rembert place, near Tallalah Falls. This was a beautiful home in a wild, picturesque country, where Toombs was less liable to capture than in middle Georgia, and where he was less known to the people. General Toombs had already procured the parole papers of Major Luther Martin, of Elbert County, a friend and member of his former command. He traveled under that name, and was so addressed by his young companion all along the route. General Toombs pa.s.sed the time deer-hunting in Habersham. He had the steady hand and fine eye of a sportsman, and he was noted for his horsemanship and endurance.

Returning toward Washington through Elbert County, General Toombs decided to spend a night with Major Martin. Lieutenant Irvin stoutly opposed this and warned him that if the enemy were to look for him anywhere, it would certainly be at Martin's house. Turning down the road, he finally concluded to put up at the house of Colonel W. H.