The Southerner: A Romance of the Real Lincoln Part 82

As a matter of fact, in its results, the battle had been a crushing disaster to the South. But Grant had lost fourteen thousand men in the two days' carnage and it was the first great field of death the war had produced. McClellan had not yet met Lee before Richmond. The cry against Grant was furious and practically universal.

Senator Winter, representing the demands of Congress, literally stormed the White House for weeks with the persistent and fierce demand for Grant's removal.

The President shook his head doggedly:

"I can't spare this man--he fights!"

The Senator submitted the proofs that Grant was addicted to the use of strong drink and that he was under the influence of whiskey on the first day of the battle of Shiloh.

In vain Winter stormed and threatened for an hour. The President was adamant.

He didn't know Grant personally. But he had felt the grip of his big personality on the men under his command and he refused to let him go.

He turned to his tormentor at last with a quizzical look in his eye:

"You know, Winter, that reminds me of a little story----"

The Senator threw up both hands with a gesture of rage. He knew what the wily diplomat was up to.

"I won't hear it, sir," he growled. "I won't hear it. You and your stories are sending this country to h.e.l.l--it's not more than a mile from there now!"

The sombre eyes smiled as he slowly said:

"I believe it _is_ just a mile from here to the Senate Chamber!"

The Senator faced him a moment and the two men looked at each other tense, erect, unyielding.

"There may or may not be a grain of truth in your statements, Winter,"

the quiet voice continued, "but your personal animus against Grant is deeper. He is a Democrat married to a Southern woman, and is a slave-holder. You can't be fair to him. I can, I must and I will. I am the President of all the people. The Nation needs this man. I will not allow him to be crushed. You have my last word."

The Senator strode to the door in silence and paused:

"But you haven't mine, sir!"

The tall figure bowed and smiled.

The President found the task a greater one than he had dreamed. So furious was the popular outcry against Grant, so dogged and persistent was the demand for his removal he was compelled to place General Halleck in nominal command of the district in which his army was operating until the popular furor should subside. In this way he had kept Grant as Second in Command at the head of his army, and Vicksburg with thirty-five thousand prisoners was the answer the silent man in the West had sent to his champion and protector in the White House.

The thrilling message had come at an opportune moment. The new commander of the army of the Potomac had defeated General Lee at Gettysburg and for an hour his name was on every lip. The President and the Nation had taken it for granted that he would hurl his eighty-two thousand men on Lee's army hemmed in by the impa.s.sable Potomac.

So sure of this was Stanton that he declared to the President:

"If a single regiment of Lee's army ever gets back into Virginia in an organized condition it will prove that I am totally unfit to be Secretary of War."

Once more the impossible happened. Lee did get back into Virginia, his army marching with quick step and undaunted spirit, ready to fight at any moment his rear guard came in touch with Meade's advancing hosts. He not only crossed the Potomac with his army in perfect fighting form with every gun he carried, but with thousands of fat cattle and four thousand prisoners of war captured on the field of Gettysburg.

The President's day of rejoicing was brief. As Lee withdrew to his old battle ground with his still unconquered lines of grey, the man in the White House saw with aching heart his dream of peace fade into the mists of even a darker night than the one through which his soul had just pa.s.sed.

Slowly but surely the desperate South began to recover from the shock of Gettysburg and Vicksburg and filled once more her thinning battle lines.

General Lee, sorely dissatisfied with himself for his failure to win in Pennsylvania, tendered his resignation to the Richmond Government, asking to be relieved by a younger and abler man. As no such man lived, Jefferson Davis declined his resignation, and he continued his leadership with renewed faith in his genius by every man, woman and child in the South.

General Meade, stung to desperation by the bitter disappointment of the President and the people of the North, also tendered his resignation.

For the moment the President refused to consider it, though his eyes were fixed with growing faith on the silent figure of Grant. One more victory from this stolid fighter and he had found the great commander for which he had sought in vain through blood and tears for more than two years.

The first task to which he must turn his immediate attention was the filling of the depleted ranks of the Northern armies. Volunteering had ceased, the terms of the enlisted men would soon expire, and it was absolutely necessary to enforce a draft for five hundred thousand soldiers.

The President had been warned by the Democratic Party, at present a powerful and aggressive minority in Congress, that such an act of despotism would not be tolerated by a free people.

The President's answer was simple and to the point:

"The South has long since adopted force to fill her ranks. If we are to continue this war and save the Union it is absolutely necessary, and therefore it shall be done."

The great city of New York was the danger point. The Government had been warned of the possibility of a revolution in the metropolis, whose representatives in Congress had demanded the right to secede in the beginning of the war. And yet the warning had not been taken seriously by the War Department. No effort had been made to garrison the city against the possibility of an armed uprising to resist the draft.

Demagogues had been haranguing the people for months, inflaming their minds to the point of madness on the subject of this draft.

On the night before the drawing was ordered in New York the leading speaker had swept the crowd off their feet by the daring words with which he closed his appeal:

"We will resist this attempt of Black Republicans and Abolitionists to force the children of the poor into the ranks they dare not enter. Will you give any more of your sons to be food for vultures on the hills of Virginia? Will you allow them to be torn from your firesides and driven as dumb cattle into the mouths of Southern cannon? If you are slaves, yes,----if you are freemen, no!"

When the lottery wheel began to turn off its fatal names at the Government Draft Office at the corner of Forty-sixth Street and Third Avenue on the morning of July 14th, a sullen, determined mob packed the streets in front of the building. Among them stood hundreds of women whose husbands, sons and brothers were listed on the spinning wheel of black fortune.

Their voices were higher and angrier than the men's:

"This is a rich man's war--but a poor man's fight----"

"Yes, if you've got three hundred dollars you can hire a subst.i.tute from the slums----"

"But if you happen to be a working man, you can stand up and be shot for these cowards and sneaks!"

"Down with the draft!"

"To h.e.l.l with the hirelings and their wheel!"

"Smash it----"

"Burn the building!"

A tough from the East Side waved his hand to the crowd of frenzied men and women:

"Come on, boys,----"

With a single mighty impulse the mob surged toward the doors, and through them. A sound of smashing gla.s.s, blows, curses. A man rushed into the street holding the enrollment books above his head:

"Here are your names, men--the list of white slaves!"

The mob tore the sheets from his grasp and fell on them like hungry wolves. In ten minutes the books were only sc.r.a.ps of paper trampled into the filth of Third Avenue. Wherever a piece could be seen men and women stamped and spit on it.

They smashed the wheel and furniture into kindling wood, piled it in the middle of the room and set fire to it. No policemen or firemen were allowed to approach. Every officer of the law, both civil and military, had been chased and beaten and disappeared.