The Crisis Part 92

"Brice," he said, "You'll have my reputation ruined."

"Sherman," said Mr. Lincoln, "you don't want the Major right away, do you? Let him stay around here for a while with me. I think he'll find it interesting." He looked at the general-in-chief, who was smiling just a little bit. "I've got a sneaking notion that Grant's going to do something."

Then they all laughed.

"Certainly, Mr. Lincoln," said my General, "you may have Brice. Be careful he doesn't talk you to death--he's said too much already."

That is how I came to stay.

I have no time now to tell you all that I have seen and heard. I have ridden with the President, and have gone with him on errands of mercy and errands of cheer. I have been almost within sight of what we hope is the last struggle of this frightful war. I have listened to the guns of Five Forks, where Sheridan and Warren bore their own colors in the front of the charge, I was with Mr. Lincoln while the battle of Petersburg was raging, and there were tears in his eyes.

Then came the retreat of Lee and the instant pursuit of Grant, and--Richmond. The quiet General did not so much as turn aside to enter the smoking city he had besieged for so long. But I went there, with the President. And if I had one incident in my life to live over again, I should choose this. As we were going up the river, a disabled steamer lay across the pa.s.sage in the obstruction of piles the Confederates had built. Mr. Lincoln would not wait. There were but a few of us in his party, and we stepped into Admiral Porter's twelve-oared barge and were rowed to Richmond, the smoke of the fires still darkening the sky. We landed within a block of Libby Prison.

With the little guard of ten sailors he marched the mile and a half to General Weitzel's headquarters,--the presidential mansion of the Confederacy. You can imagine our anxiety. I shall remember him always as I saw him that day, a tall, black figure of sorrow, with the high silk hat we have learned to love. Unafraid, his heart rent with pity, he walked unharmed amid such tumult as I have rarely seen. The windows filled, the streets ahead of us became choked, as the word that the President was coming ran on like quick-fire. The mob shouted and pushed. Drunken men reeled against him. The negroes wept aloud and cried hosannas. They pressed upon him that they might touch the hem of his coat, and one threw himself on his knees and kissed the President's feet.

Still he walked on unharmed, past the ashes and the ruins. Not as a conqueror was he come, to march in triumph. Not to destroy, but to heal.

Though there were many times when we had to fight for a path through the crowds, he did not seem to feel the danger.

Was it because he knew that his hour was not yet come?

To-day, on the boat, as we were steaming between the green sh.o.r.es of the Potomac, I overheard him reading to Mr. Sumner:--

"Duncan is in his grave; After life's fitful fever he sleeps well; Treason has done his worst; nor steel, nor poison, Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing, Can touch him further."

WILLARD'S HOTEL, WASHINGTON, April 10, 1865.

I have looked up the pa.s.sage, and have written it in above. It haunts me.

CHAPTER XV. MAN OF SORROW

The train was late--very late. It was Virginia who first caught sight of the new dome of the Capitol through the slanting rain, but she merely pressed her lips together and said nothing. In the dingy brick station of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad more than one person paused to look after them, and a kind-hearted lady who had been in the car kissed the girl good-by.

"You think that you can find your uncle's house, my dear?" she asked, glancing at Virginia with concern. Through all of that long journey she had worn a look apart. "Do you think you can find your uncle's house?"

Virginia started. And then she smiled as she looked at the honest, alert, and squarely built gentleman beside her.

"Captain Brent can, Mrs. Ware," she said. "He can find anything."

Whereupon the kind lady gave the Captain her hand. "You look as if you could, Captain," said she. "Remember, if General Carvel is out of town, you promised to bring her to me."

"Yes, ma'am," said Captain Lige, "and so I shall."

"Kerridge, kerridge! Right dis-a-way! No sah, dat ain't de kerridge you wants. Dat's it, lady, you'se lookin at it. Kerridge, kerridge, kerridge!"

Virginia tried bravely to smile, but she was very near to tears as she stood on the uneven pavement and looked at the scrawny horses standing patiently in the steady downpour. All sorts of people were coming and going, army officers and navy officers and citizens of states and territories, driving up and driving away.

And this was Washington!

She was thinking then of the mult.i.tude who came here with aching hearts,--with heavier hearts than was hers that day. How many of the throng hurrying by would not flee, if they could, back to the peaceful homes they had left? But perhaps those homes were gone now. Destroyed, like her own, by the war. Women with children at their b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and mothers bowed with sorrow, had sought this city in their agony. Young men and old had come hither, striving to keep back the thoughts of dear ones left behind, whom they might never see again. And by the thousands and tens of thousands they had pa.s.sed from here to the places of blood beyond.

"Kerridge, sah! Kerridge!"

"Do you know where General Daniel Carvel lives?"

"Yes, sah, reckon I does. I Street, sah. Jump right in, sah."

Virginia sank back on the stuffy cushions of the rattle-trap, and then sat upright again and stared out of the window at the dismal scene. They were splashing through a sea of mud. Ever since they had left St. Louis, Captain Lige had done his best to cheer her, and he did not intend to desist now.

"This beats all," he cried. "So this is Washington, Why, it don't compare to St. Louis, except we haven't got the White House and the Capitol. Jinny, it would take a scow to get across the street, and we don't have ramshackly stores and n.i.g.g.e.r cabins bang up against fine Houses like that. This is ragged. That's what it is, ragged. We don't have any dirty pickaninnies dodging among the horses in our residence streets. I declare, Jinny, if those aren't pigs!"

Virginia laughed. She could not help it.

"Poor Lige!" she said. "I hope Uncle Daniel has some breakfast for you.

You've had a good deal to put up with on this trip."

"Lordy, Jinny," said the Captain, "I'd put up with a good deal more than this for the sake of going anywhere with you."

"Even to such a doleful place as this?" she sighed.

"This is all right, if the sun'll only come out and dry things up and let us see the green on those trees," he said, "Lordy, how I do love to see the spring green in the sunlight!"

She put out her hand over his.

"Lige," she said, "you know you're just trying to keep up my spirits.

You've been doing that ever since we left home."

"No such thing," he replied with vehemence. "There's nothing for you to be cast down about."

"Oh, but there is!" she cried. "Suppose I can't make your Black Republican President pardon Clarence!"

"Pooh!" said the Captain, squeezing her hand and trying to appear unconcerned. "Your Uncle Daniel knows Mr. Lincoln. He'll have that arranged."

Just then the rattletrap pulled up at the sidewalk, the wheels of the near side in four inches of mud, and the Captain leaped out and spread the umbrella. They were in front of a rather imposing house of brick, flanked on one side by a house just like it, and on the other by a series of dreary vacant lots where the rain had collected in pools. They climbed the steps and rang the bell. In due time the door was opened by a smiling yellow butler in black.

"Does General Carvel live here?"

"Yas, miss, But he ain't to home now. Done gone to New York."

"Oh," faltered Virginia. "Didn't he get my telegram day before yesterday? I sent it to the War Department."

"He's done gone since Sat.u.r.day, miss." And then, evidently impressed by the young lady's looks, he added hospitably, "Kin I do anything fo' you, miss?"

"I'm his niece, Miss Virginia Carvel, and this is Captain Brent."

The yellow butler's face lighted up.