The Victim: A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis Part 74

She blushed and drew it gently away.

"Please--not that now--"

"Why--not now?"

He asked the question in tones so low they were almost a gasp. He felt his doom in the way she had withdrawn her hand.

"Because--" she hesitated just a moment to strike the blow she knew would hurt so pitifully and then went on firmly, "I've met my fate, d.i.c.k--and pledged him my heart."

The Captain lifted his shoulders with a little movement of soldierly pride, held himself firmly, mastered the first rush of despair and then spoke with a.s.sumed indifference:

"Socola?"

Jennie smiled faintly.

"Yes."

He rose awkwardly and started to the door. Jennie placed her hand on his wounded arm with a gesture of pathetic protest.

"d.i.c.k!"

"I can't help it, I must go--"

"Not like this!"

"I can't smile and lie to you. It means too much. I hate that man. He's a scoundrel, if G.o.d ever made one--"

Jennie's hand slipped from his arm.

"That will do now--not another word--"

"I beg your pardon, Jennie," he stammered. "I didn't think what I was saying, honey. It just popped out because it was inside. You'll forgive me?"

The anger died in her eyes and she took his outstretched hand.

"Of course, I understand--and I'm sorry. I appreciate the love you've given me. I wish in my heart I could have returned it. You deserve it--"

The Captain lifted his left hand.

"No pity, please. I'm man enough to fight--and I'm going to fight.

You're not yet _Signora_ Socola--"

The girl laughed.

"That's more like a soldier!"

"We'll be friends anyhow, Jennie?"

"Always."

The Captain left the Senator's house with a grim smile playing about his strong mouth. He had made up his mind to fight for love and country on the same base. He would ask for his transfer to the Secret Service of the Confederacy.

CHAPTER x.x.xII

THE PATH OF GLORY

Jefferson Davis had created the most compact and terrible engine of war set in motion since Napoleon founded the Empire of France. It had been done under conditions of incredible difficulty, but it had been done.

The smashing of McClellan's army brought to the North the painful realization of this fact. Abraham Lincoln must call for another half million soldiers and no man could foresee the end.

Davis had begun in April, 1861, without an a.r.s.enal, laboratory or powder mill of any capacity, and with no foundry or rolling mill for iron except the little Tredegar works in Richmond.

He had supplied them.

Hara.s.sed by an army of half a million men in blue led by able generals and throttled by a cable of steel which the navy had drawn about his coast line, he had done this work and at the same time held his own defiantly and successfully. Crippled by a depreciated currency, a.s.saulted daily by a powerful conspiracy of sore-head politicians and quarreling generals, strangled by a blockade that deprived him of nearly all means of foreign aid--he had still succeeded in raising the needed money. Unable to use the labor of slaves except in the unskilled work of farms, hampered by lack of transportation even of food for the army, with no stock of war material on hand,--steel, copper, leather or iron with which to build his establishments--yet with quiet persistence he set himself to solve these problems and succeeded.

He had created, apparently out of nothing, foundries and rolling mills at Selma, Richmond, Atlanta and Macon, smelting works at Petersburg, a chemical laboratory at Charlotte, a powder mill superior to any of the United States and unsurpa.s.sed by any in Europe,--a mighty chain of a.r.s.enals, armories, and laboratories equal in their capacity and appointments to the best of those in the North, stretching link by link from Virginia to Alabama.

He established artificial niter beds at Richmond, Columbus, Charleston, Savannah, Mobile and Selma of sufficient capacity to supply the niter needed in the powder mills.

Mines for iron, lead and copper were opened and operated. Manufactories for the production of sulphuric and nitric acid were established and successfully operated.

Minor articles were supplied by devices. .h.i.therto unheard of in the equipment of armies. Leather was scarce and its supply impossible in the quant.i.ties demanded.

Knapsacks were abolished and haversacks of cloth made by patriotic women with their needles took their places. The scant supply of leather was divided between the makers of shoes for the soldiers and saddles and harness for the horses. Shoes for the soldiers were the prime necessity.

To save leather the waist and cartridge-box belts were made of heavy cotton cloth st.i.tched in three or four thicknesses. Bridle reins were made of cotton in the same way. Cartridge boxes were finally made thus--with a single piece of leather for the flap. Even saddle skirts for the cavalry were made of heavy cotton strongly st.i.tched.

Men to work the meager tanneries were exempt from military services and transportation for hides and leather supplies was free.

A fishery was established on the Cape Fear River in North Carolina from which oil was manufactured. Every wayside blacksmith shop was utilized as a government factory for the production of horseshoes for the cavalry.

To meet the demands for articles of prime necessity which could not be made in the South, a line of blockade runners was established between the port of Wilmington, North Carolina, and Bermuda. Vessels capable of storing in their hold six hundred bales of cotton were purchased in England and put into this service. They were long, low, narrow craft built for speed. They could show their heels to any ship of the United States Navy. Painted a pale grayish-blue color, and lying low on the water they were sighted with difficulty in the day and they carried no lights at night. The moment one was trapped and sunk by the blockading fleet, another was ready to take her place.

Depots and stores were established and drawn on by these fleet ships both at Na.s.sau and Havana.

By the fall of 1862, through the port of Wilmington, from the a.r.s.enals at Richmond and Fayetteville, and from the victorious fields of Mana.s.sas and the Seven Days' Battle around Richmond, sufficient arms had been obtained to equip two hundred thousand soldiers and supply their batteries with serviceable artillery.

On April 16, 1862, Davis asked of his Congress that every white man in the South between the ages of 18 and 35 be called to the colors and all short term volunteer contracts annulled. The law was promptly pa.s.sed in spite of the conspirators who fought him at every turn. Camps of instruction were established in every State, and a commandant sent from Richmond to take charge of the new levies.

Solidity was thus given to the military system of the Confederacy and its organization centralized and freed from the bickerings of State politicians.

With her loins thus girded for the conflict the South entered the second phase of the war--the path of glory from the shattered army of McClellan on the James to Hooker's crushed and bleeding lines at Chancellorsville.

The fiercest clamor for the removal of McClellan from his command swept the North. The position of the Northern General was one of peculiar weakness politically. He was an avowed Democrat. His head had been turned by flattery and he had at one time dallied with the idea of deposing Abraham Lincoln by the a.s.sumption of a military dictatorship.

Lincoln knew this. The demand for his removal would have swayed a President of less balance.