The Victim: A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis Part 71

"Because the ground is dry, the water good, and we are near our supplies--"

The President's lips trembled with rage.

"And McClellan can now plant his guns within six miles and his soldiers hear our church bells on Sunday--"

"Possibly--"

The President's eye pierced his General.

"Richmond is to be surrendered without a battle?"

"That depends, sir, upon conditions--"

The Confederate Chief suddenly threw his thin hands above his head and faced his stubborn sulking Commander.

"If you are not going to give battle, I'll appoint a man in your place who will--"

Before Johnston could reply the President turned on his heel, waved to Colonel Ives, mounted his horse and dashed into the city.

His Cabinet was called in hasty consultation with General Lee.

Davis turned to his counselors.

"Gentlemen, I have just held a most amazing conference with General Johnston. You were afraid he would fight beyond the Chickahominy. He has crossed the river, left its natural defenses unguarded, and has run all the way to town without pause. I have told him to fight or get out of the saddle. In my judgment he intends to back straight through the city and abandon it without a blow. We must face the situation."

He turned to Lee. The question he was going to put to the man in whom he had supreme confidence would test both his judgment and his character.

On his answer would hang his career. If it should be what the Confederate Chief believed, Lee was the man of destiny and his hour had struck.

"In case Johnston abandons Richmond," the President slowly began, "where in your opinion, General Lee, is the next best line of defense?"

Lee's fine mouth was set for a moment. He spoke at first with deliberation.

"As a military engineer, my answer is simple. The next best line of defense would be at Staten River--but--"

He suddenly leaped to his feet, his eyes streaming with tears.

"Richmond must not be given up--it shall not be given up!"

Davis sprang to his side and clasped Lee's hand.

"So say I, General!"

From that moment the President and his chief military adviser lived on Johnston's battle line, Lee ready at a moment's notice to spring into the saddle and hurl his men against McClellan the moment Johnston should falter.

The Commander was forced to a decision for battle. He could not allow his arch enemy to remove him without a fight.

The retreat across the Chickahominy had given McClellan an enormous advantage which his skillful eye saw at once. He threw two grand divisions of his army across the river and pushed his siege guns up within six miles of Richmond. His engineers immediately built substantial bridges across the stream over which he could move in safety his heaviest guns in any emergency, either for reenforcements or retreat.

He swung his right wing far to the north in a wide circling movement until he was in easy touch with McDowell's forty thousand men at Fredericksburg.

McClellan was within sight of the consummation of his hopes. When this wide movement of his army had been successfully made without an arm lifted to oppose, he climbed a tall tree within sight of Richmond from which he could view the magnificent panorama.

A solid wall of living blue with glittering bayonets and black-fanged batteries of artillery, his army spread for ten miles. Beyond them here and there only he saw patches of crouching gray in the underbrush or crawling through the marshes.

The Northern Commander came down from his perch and threw his arms around his aide:

"We've got them, boy!" he cried enthusiastically. "We've got them!"

It was not to be wondered at that the boastful oratorical Confederate Congress should have taken to their heels. They ran in such haste, the people of Richmond began to laugh and in their laughter took fresh courage.

A paper printed in double leads on its first page a remarkable account of the stampede:

"For fear of accident on the railroad, the stampeded Congress left in a number of the strongest and swiftest of our new ca.n.a.l-boats.

The boats were drawn by mules of established sweetness of temper.

To protect our law-makers from snakes and bullfrogs that infest the line of the ca.n.a.l, General Winder detailed a regiment of ladies to march in advance of the mules, and clear the tow-path of these troublesome pirates. The ladies are ordered to accompany the Confederate Congress to a secluded cave in the mountains of Hepsidan, and leave them there in charge of the children of that vicinity until McClellan thinks proper to let them come forth. The ladies will at once return to the defense of their country."

The President for a brief time was free of his critics.

On May thirty-first, Johnston's army, under the direct eye of Davis and Lee on the field, gave battle to McClellan's left wing--comprising the two grand divisions that had been pushed across the Chickahominy to the environs of Richmond.

The opening attack was delayed by the failure of General Holmes to strike McClellan's rear as planned. A terrific rain storm the night before had flooded a stream and it was impossible for him to cross.

Late in the afternoon Longstreet and Hill hurled their divisions through the thick woods and marshes on McClellan.

Longstreet's men drove before them the clouds of blue skirmishers, plunged into the marshes with water two feet deep and dashed on the fortified lines of the enemy. The Southerners crept through the dense underbrush to the very muzzles of the guns in the redoubts, charged, cleared them, grappling hand to hand with the desperate men who fought like demons.

Line after line was thus carried until at nightfall McClellan's left wing had been pushed back over two miles through swamp and waters red with blood.

The slaughter had been frightful in the few hours in which the battle had raged. On the Confederate left where Johnston commanded in person the Union army held its position until dark, unbroken.

Johnston fell from his horse wounded and Davis on the field immediately appointed General Lee to command.

The appointment of Lee to be Commander-in-Chief not only intensified the hatred of Johnston for the President, it made G. W. Smith, the man who was Johnston's second, his implacable enemy for life. Technically G. W.

Smith would have succeeded to the command of the army had not Davis exercised his power on the field of battle to appoint the man of his choice.

In no act of his long, eventful life did Davis evince such clearness of vision and quick decision, under trying conditions. Lee had failed in Western Virginia and McClellan had out-generaled him, the yellow journals had declared. They called Lee "Old Spade." So intense was the opposition to Lee that Davis had sent him to erect the coast defenses of South Carolina. The Governor of the State protested against the appointment of so incompetent a man to this important work. Davis sent the Governor an emphatic message in reply:

"If Robert E. Lee is not a general I have none to send you."

Davis now called the man whom McClellan had defeated to the supreme command against McClellan at the head of his grand army in sight of the housetops of Richmond. Only a leader of the highest genius could have dared to make such a decision in such a crisis.

Davis made it without a moment's hesitation and in that act of individual will gave to the world the greatest commander of the age.