The Southerner: A Romance of the Real Lincoln Part 63

"John--my G.o.d!"

He made no effort to pick up the fallen bag or in any way return the greeting. He merely paused and stared--deliberately stood and stared as if stupefied by the apparition. In fact, he was so startled by her sudden appearance that for a moment he felt the terror of a drunkard's first hallucination. The thought was momentary. He knew better. He was not drunk. The girl was there all right--the real thing--living, beautiful flesh and blood. For one second's anguish the love of her strangled him. The desire to take her in his arms was all but resistless in its fierce madness. He bit his lips and scowled in her face.

"John--John--dearest," she gasped.

The scowl darkened and he spoke with insulting deliberation: "You have made a mistake. I haven't the honor of your acquaintance."

Before Betty could recover from the horror of his answer he had brushed rudely past her and disappeared in the crowd. She picked up her bag in a stupor of dumb rage and started home. She was too weak for the walk she had hoped to take. She called a hack and scarcely had the strength to climb into the high, old-fashioned seat.

Never in all her life had blind anger so possessed her soul and body. In a moment of tenderness she had offered to forgive and forget. It was all over now. The brute was not worth a tear of regret. She would show him!

Two weeks later John Vaughan stared into the ebony face of a negro who had attached himself to his fortune somewhere in the revelry of the night before. Washington was swarming with these foolish black children who had come in thousands. They had no money and it had not occurred to them that they would need any. Their food and clothes had always been provided and they took no thought for the morrow.

John had forgotten the fact that he had taken the negro in his hack for two hours and finally adopted him as his own.

He sat up, pressed his hand over his aching head and stared into the grinning face:

"And what are you doing here, you imp of the devil?"

Julius laughed and rolled his eyes:

"I'se yo' man. Don't you min' takin' me up in de hack wid you las'

night?"

"What's your name?"

"Julius Caesar, sah."

"Then it's all right! You're the man I'm looking for. You're the man this country's looking for. You're a born fighter----"

"Na, sah, I'se er cook!"

"Sh! Say not so--we're going back to war!"

"All right, sah, I'se gwine wid you."

"I warn you, Julius Caesar, don't do it unless you're in for a fight! I'm going back to fight--to fight to kill. No more red tape and gold braid for me. I'm going now into the jaws of h.e.l.l. I'm going into the ranks as a private."

"Don't make no difference ter me, sah, whar yer go. I'se gwine wid yer.

I kin look atter yer shoes an' cook yer sumfin' good ter eat."

"I warn you, Julius! When they find your torn and mangled body on the field of Death, don't you sit up and blame me!"

"Don't yer worry, sah. Dey ain't gwine fin' me dar, an' ef dey do, dey ain't gwine ter be nuttin' tore er mangled 'bout me, I see ter dat, sah!"

Three weeks later Burnside's army received a stalwart recruit. Few questions were asked. The ranks were melting.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE USURPER

The answer which the country gave the President's Proclamation of Emanc.i.p.ation was a startling one, even to the patient, careful far-seeing man of the people in the White House. For months he had carried the immortal doc.u.ment in his pocket without even allowing his Cabinet to know it had been written. He had patiently borne the abuse of his party leaders and the fierce a.s.saults of Horace Greeley until he believed the time had come that he must strike this blow--a blow which would rouse the South to desperation and unite his enemies in the North.

He had finally issued it with grave fears.

The results were graver than he could foresee. More than once he was compelled to face the issue of its repeal as the only way to forestall a counter revolution in the North.

Desertions from the army became appalling--the number reached frequently as high as two hundred a day and the aggregate over eight thousand a month. His Proclamation had provided for the enlistment of negroes as soldiers. Not only did thousands of men refuse to continue to fight when the issue of Slavery was injected, but other thousands felt that the uniform of the Republic had been dishonored by placing it on the backs of slaves. They refused to wear it longer, and deserted at the risk of their lives.

The Proclamation had united the South and hopelessly divided the North.

How serious this Northern division was destined to become was the problem now of a concern as deep as the size and efficiency of General Lee's army.

The election of the new Congress would put his administration to a supreme fight for existence. If the Democratic Party under its new leader, Clay Van Alen of Ohio, should win it meant a hostile majority in power whose edict could end the war and divide the Union. They had already selected in secret George B. McClellan for their coming standard bearer.

For the first time the question of Union or Disunion was squarely up to the North in an election. And it came at an unlucky moment for the President. The army in the West had ceased to win victories. The Southern army under Lee was still defending Richmond as strongly as ever.

There was no evading the issue at the polls. The Proclamation had committed the President to the bold, far-reaching radical and aggressive policy of the utter destruction of Slavery. The people were asked to choose between Slavery on the one hand and nationality on the other. The two together they could not again have.

The President had staked his life on his faith that the people could be trusted on a square issue of right and wrong.

This time he had underestimated the force of blind pa.s.sions which the h.e.l.l of war had raised.

Maine voted first and cut down her majority for the administration from nineteen thousand to a bare four thousand. The fact was ominous.

Ohio spoke next and Van Alen's ticket against the administration swept the State, returning fourteen Democrats and only five Republicans to Congress.

Indiana, the State in which the President's mother slept, spoke in thunder tones against him, sending eight Democrats and three Republicans. Even the rockribbed Republican stronghold of Pennsylvania was carried by the opposition by a majority of four thousand, reversing Lincoln's former majority of sixty thousand.

In New York the brilliant Democratic leader, Horatio Seymour, was elected Governor on a platform hostile to the administration by more than ten thousand majority. New Jersey turned against him, Michigan reduced his majority from twenty to six thousand. Wisconsin evenly divided its delegates to Congress.

Illinois, the President's own State, gave the most crushing blow of all.

His big majority there was completely reversed and the Democrats carried the State by over seventeen thousand and the Congressional delegates stood eleven to three against him.

And then his Border State Policy, against which the leaders of his party had raged in vain was vindicated in the most startling way. True to his steadfast purpose to hold these States in the Union at all hazards, he had not included them in his Emanc.i.p.ation Proclamation.

One of the reasons for which they had refused his offer of United States bonds in payment for their slaves was they did not believe them worth the paper they were written on. A war costing two million dollars a day was sure to bankrupt the Nation before the end could be seen.

And yet because he had treated them with patience and fairness, with justice and with generosity, the Border States and the new State of West Virginia born of this policy, voted to sustain the President, saved his administration from ruin and gave him another chance to fight for the life of the Union.

It was a close shave. His working majority in Congress was reduced to a narrow margin, the opposition was large, united and fierce in its aggression, but he had been saved from annihilation.

The temper of the men elected to the Legislatures, both State and National, in the great Northern States was astounding.

So serious was the situation in Indiana that Governor Morton hastened to Washington to lay the crisis before the President.

"I'm sorry to have to tell you," the Governor began, "but we must face it. The Democratic politicians of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois now called to power a.s.sume that the rebellion will not be crushed----"