The Victim: A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis Part 56

"Even so, if we lose and they win, the cause is lost. Seward is now imprisoning thousands of Northern men who have dared to sympathize with us--"

"An act of infamous tyranny!"

"But if he wins--who will dare to criticise the wisdom of his policy fifty years from to-day? If we lose, who will give us credit for our high ideals of Civil Law in times of war? You have the chance to-day to win. Leap into the saddle and command the obedience of every man, woman and child in the South! Your Congress which a.s.sembles to-day is a weak impossible body of men. They have nothing to do except to make foolish speeches and hatch conspiracies against your administration. We have muzzled them behind closed doors. The remedy is worse than the disease.

The rumors they circulate through the reptile press do more harm than the record of their vapid talk could possibly accomplish. Why tie these millstones around your neck? They came yesterday to demand the head of Albert Sidney Johnston. They are organizing to drive Lee out of the army. They allow no opportunity to pa.s.s to sneer at his position as your chief military adviser since his return from Western Virginia. You know and I know that Albert Sidney Johnston and R. E. Lee are our greatest generals--"

"I'll protect them from the chatter of fools--never fear--"

"To what end if you allow them to break down the faith of our people in their Government? The strong arm, alone, can save us. It's no time to haggle about the forms of law. Your duty is clear. Stop this foolish ceremony of Inauguration to-day and a.s.sume in due time the Dictatorship--"

Davis threw both arms up in a gesture of impatient refusal.

"It's a waste of breath, Benjamin. I'll die first!"

The elastic spirit of the younger man recovered its poise at once and accepted the decision.

With a genial smile he slipped one arm around the tall figure.

"Brave, generous, big-hearted, foolish--my captain! Well, I've done my duty as your chief counselor. Now I'll obey orders--one thing more I must add in warning. Richmond swarms with spies. It will be impossible to defend the Capital on the approach of McClellan's army without a proclamation of martial law."

The President looked up sharply.

"We'll compromise on that. I'll proclaim martial law and suspend the _writ_ in Richmond--"

"And a radius of ten miles."

"All right--I'll do that."

It was the utmost concession the wily minister of State could wring from his Chief. But it was important. The Secretary had his eye on a certain house on Church Hill. It might be necessary to expel its owners.

"By the way," the President added, as his Secretary stood with his hand on the door. "I wrote a recommendation to your new department for the appointment of a young friend of Miss Barton to a position in your office. He's a man of brilliant talents--a foreigner who has cast his fortunes with us. Do what you can for him--"

"I'll remember--" the Secretary nodded and hurried to his office to issue his proclamation of martial law for the city and district of Richmond.

At ten o'clock the rain began to pour in torrents. The streets were flooded. Rushing rivers of muddy water roared over its cobble stones and leaped down its steep hills into the yellow tide of the James.

Every flag drooped and flapped in dismal weeping against its staff. The decorations of the houses and windows outside were ruined. The bunting swayed and sagged in deep curves across the streets, pouring a stream of water from the folds.

At twelve o'clock, the procession formed in the Hall of the Virginia Legislature and marched through the pouring rain to the platform erected around the statue of Washington. In spite of the storm an immense crowd packed the s.p.a.ce around the speaker's stand, presenting the curious spectacle of a sea of umbrellas.

Socola watched this crowd stand patiently in the downpour with a deepening sense of the tragedy it foreshadowed. The people who could set their teeth and go through an inauguration ceremony scheduled in the open air on such a day might be defeated in battle, but the victor would pay his tribute of blood. He had not dared to ask Jennie to accept his escort on such a day and yet they drifted to each other's side by some strange power of attraction.

The scene was weird in its utter depression of all enthusiasm, and yet the sullen purpose which held the people was sublime in its persistence.

An awning covered the speaker's stand and beneath this friendly cover the ceremony was performed down to the last detail.

The President rose and faced his audience under the most trying conditions. Oratory was beyond human effort. He did not attempt it. He read his frank dignified address in simple, clear, musical tones which rang with strange effect over the crowd of drenched men and women. Not a single cheer broke the delivery of his address. He sought in no way to apologize for the disasters which had befallen his people. He faced them bravely and summoned his followers to be equally brave.

The close of his address caught the morbid fancy of Socola with peculiar fascination. Clouds of unusual threatening depths were rolling across the heavens, against which the canopied platform was sharply outlined.

The thin form of the President rose white and ghost-like against this black background of clouds. He was extremely pale, his cheeks hollowed deep, his head bared regardless of the chill mists which beat through the canopy.

His tall figure stood tense, trembling, deathlike--the emblem of sacrificial offering on the altar of his country.

Socola whispered to Jennie:

"Where have I witnessed this scene before?"

"Surely not in America--"

"No"--he mused thoughtfully--"I remember now--on a lonely hill outside Jerusalem the Roman soldiers were crucifying a man on a day like this--that's where I saw it!"

He had scarcely spoken the uncanny words in a low undertone when the speaker closed his address with a remarkable prayer.

Suddenly dropping his ma.n.u.script on the table he lifted his eyes into the darkened heavens and cried with deep pa.s.sion:

"With humble grat.i.tude and adoration, to Thee, O G.o.d, I trustingly commit myself, and prayerfully invoke Thy blessing on my country and its cause!"

CHAPTER XXIV

THE SLEEPING LIONESS

Again the smoke of the navy shadowed the Southern skies. Two expeditions were aiming mortal blows at the lower South.

The Confederacy had concentrated its forces of the upper waters of the Mississippi on Island Number 10 near New Madrid. The work of putting this little Gibraltar in a state of perfect defense had been rushed with all possible haste. New Madrid had been found indefensible and evacuated on March thirteenth.

On the seventeenth, Commodore Foote's fleet steamed into position and the first sh.e.l.l from his guns shrieked its message of death across the island. The gunboats concentrated their fire on the main battery which was located on low ground, almost submerged by the high water and separated from the others by a wide slough. Their gun platforms were covered with water--the men in gray must work their pieces standing half-leg deep in mud and slush. Five iron-clad gunboats led the attack.

Three of them were lashed together in midstream and one lay under the shelter of each sh.o.r.e. Their concentrated fire was terrific. For nine hours they poured a stream of shot and sh.e.l.l on the lone battery with its beaver gunmen.

At three o'clock Captain Rucker in charge of the battery called for reenforcements to relieve his exhausted men. Volunteers rushed to his a.s.sistance and his guns roared until darkness brought them respite. It had been done. A single half-submerged battery exposed to the concentrated fire of a powerful fleet had held them at bay and compelled them to withdraw at nightfall. Rucker fired the last shot as twilight gathered over the yellow waters. His battery had mounted five guns at sunrise. Three of them were dismantled. Two of them still spoke defiance from their mud-soaked beds.

On April the sixth, the fleet reenforced succeeded in slipping past the batteries in a heavy fog. A landing was effected above and below the island in large force, and its surrender was a military necessity.

Foote and Pope captured MacKall, the commander, two brigadier generals, six colonels, a stand of ten thousand arms, two thousand soldiers, seventy pieces of siege artillery, thirty pieces of field artillery, fifty-six thousand solid shot, six transports and a floating battery of sixteen guns.

A cry of anguish came from the heart of the Confederate President. The loss of men was insignificant--the loss of this enormous store of heavy guns and ammunition with no factory as yet capable of manufacturing them was irreparable.

But the cup of his misery was not yet full. The greatest fleet the United States Navy had gathered, was circling the mouth of the Mississippi with its guns pointing toward New Orleans. Gideon Welles had selected for command of this important enterprise the man of destiny, Davis Glasgow Farragut, a Southerner whose loyalty to the Union had never been questioned.

Eighty-two ships answered Farragut's orders in his West Gulf squadron at their rendezvous. His ships were wood, but no braver men ever walked the decks of a floating battery.

In March he managed to crawl across the bar and push his fleet into the mouth of the Mississippi. The _Colorado_ was too deep and was left outside. The _Pensacola_ and the _Mississippi_ he succeeded in dragging through the mud.

His ships inside, the Commander ordered them stripped for the death grapple.

New Orleans had been from the first considered absolutely impregnable to attack from the sea. Forts Jackson and St. Phillip, twenty miles below the city, were each fortifications of the first rank mounting powerful guns which swept the narrow channel of the river from sh.o.r.e to sh.o.r.e.