The Southerner: A Romance of the Real Lincoln Part 48

He was silent a moment and a smile played about the corners of his lips:

"Would you change because I asked it?"

"Yes."

"Then come over from Lincoln to McClellan," he laughed.

"And join your group of conspirators--never!"

"Not if I ask it, because I love you?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Betty glanced at the stolid, set face and firm lips."]

Her brown eyes sparkled with anger:

"You'll not find this a joke!"

"That's why I treat it seriously, my dear," was the firm reply. "If I could throw up my position in this war on the sudden impulse of my sweetheart, I'd be ashamed to look a man in the face--and you would despise me!"

"If your Commander succeeds to-day in bringing disaster to our army I'll despise you for aiding him----"

"Let's not discuss it--please, dear!" he begged with a frown.

"As you please," was the cold reply.

They rode on in silence, broken only by the increasing roar of the great guns at Mana.s.sas. Betty glanced at the stolid, set face and firm lips.

Her anger steadily rose with every throb of Pope's cannon. Each low thunder peal on the horizon now was a cry for help from dying mangled thousands and the man she loved refusing to hear.

Suddenly the picture of his brother flashed before her vision, the high-strung, clean young spirit, chivalrous, daring, fighting for what he knew to be right--right because right is right, and wrong is wrong.

She looked at John Vaughan with a feeling of fierce anger. Between the two men she preferred the enemy who was fighting in the open to win or die. Her soul went out to Ned in a wave of tender admiration. Her wrath against his brother steadily rose.

Suddenly she drew her rein:

"You need come no further. I'll ride back home alone."

He bit his lips without turning and was silent. She touched her horse with her whip and galloped swiftly toward Washington.

The last day of Pope's brief campaign ended in the overwhelming disaster of the second battle of Bull Run. The sound of his cannon reached McClellan's ears, but the organizer of the Army of the Potomac, though ordered to do so, never joined his rival.

Once more the army of the Union was hurled back on Washington in panic, confusion and appalling disaster. Lee and Jackson had crushed Pope's hosts with a rapidity and case that struck terror to the heart of the Nation. General Pope lost fifteen thousand men in a single battle. Lee and Jackson lost less than half as many.

The storm broke over McClellan's head at Washington on his arrival.

Stanton and Halleck and Pope accused him of treachery. The hot heads demanded his arrest and trial by court-martial.

The President shook his head, but sadly added:

"He has acted badly toward Pope. He really wanted him to fail."

And then began the search to find the man once more to weld the shattered army into an efficient fighting force.

Abraham Lincoln asked himself this question with a sense of the deepest and most solemn responsibility. He must answer at the bar of his conscience before G.o.d and his country. Again he brushed aside every adviser inside and outside his Cabinet and determined on his choice absolutely alone.

Early on the morning of September 2nd John Vaughan looked from the window of General McClellan's house and saw the giant figure of the President approaching, accompanied by Halleck.

When his aide announced this startling fact, the General coolly said:

"It means my arrest, no doubt. I'm ready. Let them come."

The President was not kept waiting this time. His General was there to receive him.

The rugged face was pale and drawn.

"General McClellan," he began without ceremony, "I have come to ask you to take command of all the returning troops for the defense of Washington."

The short, stalwart figure of the General suddenly straightened, his blue eyes flashed with amazement and then softened into a misty expression. He bowed with dignity and quietly said:

"I accept the position, sir."

"I need not repeat," the President went on, "that I disapprove some things you have done. I have made this plain to you. I do this because I believe it's best for our country. I a.s.sume its full responsibility and I expect great things of you."

The President bowed and left the astonished General and his still more astonished aide gazing after his long swinging legs returning to the White House.

He had done the most unpopular act of his entire administration. His decision had defied the fiercest popular hostility. He faced a storm of denunciation which would have appalled a less simple and masterful man.

The Cabinet meeting which followed the startling news was practically a riot. He listened to all his excited Ministers had to say with patience. When they had spoken their last word of bitter disapproval he quietly rose and ended the tumultuous session with two or three sentences which none could answer:

"There is no one in the army who can man these fortifications and lick these troops of ours into shape half as well as he can. McClellan is a great engineer--of the stationary type, perhaps. But we must use the tools we have! If he cannot fight himself, at least he excels in making others ready to fight."

He waited for an answer and none came. He had not only averted a Cabinet crisis but his remorseless common sense and his unswerving adherence to what he saw was best had strengthened his authority over all his councillors.

When the rest had gone he turned to the young man who knew him best, his Secretary, John Nicolay, and gripped his arm with a big hand which was trembling:

"The most painful duty of my official life, Boy! There has been a design, a purpose in breaking down Pope without regard to the consequences to the country that is atrocious. It's shocking to see and know this, but there is no remedy at present. McClellan has the army with him and I must use him."

CHAPTER XVI

THE CHALLENGE

"One war at a time," the President said to his Secretary of State when he proposed a foreign fight. He must now strangle Northern public opinion to enforce this principle.

Captain Wilkes had overhauled the British Steamer _Trent_ on the high seas, searched her and taken the Confederate Commissioners Mason and Slidell by force from her decks.

The people of the North were mad with joy over the daring act. Congress, swept off its feet by the wave of popular hysteria, proclaimed Wilkes a hero and voted their thanks. The President did not move with current opinion. He had formed the habit in boyhood of thinking for himself, and had never allowed himself to take his cues for action from second-hand suggestions. From the first he raised the question of Wilkes' right to stop the vessel of a friendly nation on the high seas, search her and take her pa.s.sengers prisoners by force of arms.