The Victim: A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis Part 36

"Yes. You're just like my brothers."

"Look here now, Jennie," he protested, "don't you go telling me that you'll be a sister to me. I've got a lot of sisters at home and I don't need any more--"

"I didn't mean it that way, d.i.c.k," she responded tenderly. "My brothers are just the finest, bravest men that G.o.d ever made in this world--that's what I meant."

"Don't you like me a little?"

"I almost love you to-night--maybe it's our victory--maybe it's the fear that made me pray for you and the boys on that house top the other night--I don't know--"

"Did you pray for me?" he asked softly.

"Yes--"

"I ought to be satisfied with that, but I'm not--I want you! Won't you be mine?"

She smiled into his eager face in a gentle, whimsical way. A half promise to him was just trembling on her lips when Socola's slender, erect figure suddenly crossed the street. He lifted his hat with a genial bow.

d.i.c.k ground his teeth in a smothered oath, and Jennie spoke abruptly:

"Come--it's late--we must go in."

Through the long night the girl lay awake with the calm, persistent, smiling face of the foreigner looking into the depths of her brown eyes.

CHAPTER XII

A LITTLE CLOUD

The first aggressive act of the President of the Confederacy revealed his alert and far-seeing mind. His keen eye was bent upon the sea, with an instinctive appreciation of the tremendous import of the long Southern coast line.

Without a ship afloat or a single navy yard, by a stroke of his pen he created a fleet destined to sweep the commerce of the North from every sea. His task was to create something out of nothing and how well he did it events swiftly bore their testimony.

The United States Government was the only nation which had refused to join the agreement to abandon the use of letters of marque and reprisal for destroying the unarmed vessels of commerce in time of war. This unfortunate piece of diplomacy gave Jefferson Davis the opportunity to strike his first blow at the power and prestige of the North.

He immediately issued a proclamation offering to issue such letters to any ship that would arm herself and enlist under the ensign of the Confederate navy. The response was quick and the ultimate result the lowering of the flag of the Union from practically every ship of commerce that sailed the ocean.

Gideon Welles conferred with his Chief in Washington and Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation which at the time created scarcely a ripple of excitement. And yet that order was the most important doc.u.ment which came from the White House during the entire four years of the war.

When the test came sixteen captains, thirty-four commanders and one hundred and eleven midshipmen resigned and cast their fortunes with the South. Not one of them attempted to use his position to surrender a ship.

Small as it was, the entire navy of the United States was practically intact. It comprised ninety ships of war--forty-two of them ready for active service. The majority of the vessels ready for war were steam-propelled craft of the latest improved type.

The United States had been one of the first world powers to realize the value of steam and rebuild its navy accordingly. In twenty years, practically a new navy had been constructed, ranking in effective power third only to England and France. Within the past five years, the Government had built the steam frigates, _Merrimac_, _Niagara_, _Colorado_, _Wabash_, _Minnesota_, and _Roanoke_. In addition to these twelve powerful steam sloops of war had been commissioned--the _Hartford_, _Brooklyn_, _Lancaster_, _Richmond_, _Narragansett_, _Dakota_, _Iroquois_, _Wyoming_, and _Seminole_. They were of the highest type of construction and compared favorably with the best ships of the world.

These ships at the opening of the war were widely scattered, but their homeward bound streamers were all fluttering in the sky.

President Lincoln in his proclamation ordered the most remarkable blockade in the history of the world. This doc.u.ment declared three thousand miles of Southern coast, from the Virginia Capes to the Rio Grande, closed to the commerce of the world.

The little fleet boldly sailed on its tremendous mission. The smoke of its funnels made but a tiny smudge on the wide, shining Southern skies.

But with swift and terrible swirl this cloud, no bigger than a man's hand, grew into a storm whose black shadow shrouded the Southland in gloom.

CHAPTER XIII

THE CLOSING OF THE RANKS

A wave of fierce anger swept the North. The fall of Sumter was the one topic on every lip. Men stopped their trade, their work, their play and looked about them for the nearest rallying ground of soldiers.

The President of the United States was quick to seize the favorable moment to call for 75,000 volunteers. That these troops were to fight the Confederacy was not questioned for a moment.

The effect of this proclamation on the South was a political earthquake.

In a single day all differences of opinion were sunk in the common cause. A feeling of profound wonder swept every thoughtful man within the Southern States. To this moment, even a majority of those who favored the policy of secession had done so under the belief that it was the surest way of securing redress of grievances and of bringing the Federal Government back to its original Const.i.tutional principles. Many of them believed, and all of their leaders in authority hoped, that a re-formation of the Union would soon take place in peaceful ways on the basis of the new Const.i.tution proclaimed at Montgomery. Many Northern newspapers, led by the New York _Herald_, had advocated this course. The hope of the majority of the Southern people was steadfast that the Union would thus be continued and strengthened, and made more perfect, as it had been in 1789 after the withdrawal of nine States from the Old Union by the adoption of the Const.i.tution of 1787.

Abraham Lincoln's proclamation shattered all hope of such peaceful adjustment.

Thousands of the best men in Virginia and North Carolina had voted against secession. Not one of them, in the face of this proclamation, would dispute longer with their brethren. Whatever they might think about the expediency of withdrawing from the Union, they were absolutely clear on two points. The President of the United States had no power under the charter of our Government to declare war. Congress only could do that. If the Cotton States were out of the Union, his act was illegal because the usurpation of supreme power. If they were yet in the Union, the raising of an army to invade their homes was a plain violation of the Const.i.tution.

The heart of the South beat as one man. The cause of the war had been suddenly shifted to a broader and deeper foundation about which no possible difference could ever again arise in the Southern States.

The demand for soldiers to invade the South was a bugle call to Southern manhood to fight for their liberties and defend their homes. It gave even to the staunchest Union men of the Old South the overt act of an open breach of the Const.i.tution. From the moment Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a war without the act of Congress, from that moment he became a dictator and a despot who deliberately sought to destroy their liberties.

The cause of the South not only meant the defense of their homes from foreign invasion; it became a holy crusade for the reestablishment of Const.i.tutional freedom.

Virginia immediately seceded from the Union by the vote of the same men who had refused to secede but a few weeks before. The old flag fell from its staff on her Capitol and the new symbol of Southern unity was unfurled in its place. As if by magic the new flag fluttered from every hill, housetop and window, while crowds surged through the streets shouting and waving it aloft. Cannon boomed its advent and cheering thousands saluted it.

A great torchlight parade illumined the streets on April 19. In this procession walked the men who a week ago had marched through Franklin Street waving the old flag of the Union and shouting themselves hoa.r.s.e in their determination to uphold it. They had signed the ordinance of secession with streaming eyes, but they signed it with firm hands, and sent their sons to the muster fields next day.

Augusta County, a Whig and Union center, and Rockingham, an equally strong Democratic Union county, each contributed fifteen hundred soldiers to the new cause. Women not only began to prepare the equipment for their men, but many of them began to arm and practice themselves.

Boys from ten to fourteen were daily drilling. In Petersburg three hundred free negroes offered their services to fight or to ditch and dig.

The bitterness of the answers of the Southern Governors from the Border States yet in the Union amazed the President at Washington.

His demand for troops was refused in tones of scorn and defiance.

Governor Magoffin of Kentucky replied:

"The State will furnish no troops for the wicked purpose of subduing her sister Southern States."

Governor Harris telegraphed from Nashville:

"The State of Tennessee will not furnish a single man for coercion, but fifty thousand if necessary for the defense of her rights."