The Victim: A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis Part 94

To remove him from command in such a crisis was to challenge a mutiny in his army which might lead to serious results. Yet if he should continue to retreat, and back out of Atlanta without a fight as he had backed out of every position for the one hundred and fifty miles from Dalton, the results would be still more appalling.

The loss of Atlanta at this moment meant the defeat of the peace party of the North, and the reelection of Lincoln. If Lincoln should be elected it was inconceivable that the South could continue the unequal struggle for four years more.

If Johnston would only hold his trenches and save Atlanta for a few days the South would win. Lee could hold Grant indefinitely.

The thought which appalled Davis was the suspicion which now amounted to a practical certainty that his retreating General would evacuate Atlanta as he had threatened to abandon Richmond when confronted by McClellan, and had abandoned Vicksburg without a blow.

He must know this with absolute certainty before yielding to the demand for his removal. That no possible mistake could be made, he dispatched his Chief of Staff, General Braxton Bragg, to Atlanta for conference with Johnston and make a personal report.

Bragg reported that Johnston was arranging to abandon Atlanta without a battle and the President promptly removed him from command and appointed Hood in his place.

When Hood a.s.sumed command of the disgruntled army, it was too late to save Atlanta. Had Johnston delivered battle with his full force at Dalton, Sherman might have been crushed as Rosecrans was overwhelmed at Chickamauga.

Hood's army was driven back into their trenches. Sherman threw his hosts under cover of night on a wide flanking movement and Atlanta fell.

Under the mighty impulse of this news Lincoln was reelected, the peace party of the North defeated and the doom of the Confederacy sealed.

CHAPTER XLI

THE FALL OF RICHMOND

The conspirators who had complained most bitterly of Davis for the appointment of Lee to the command of the army before Richmond when McClellan was thundering at its gates, now succeeded in pa.s.sing through the Confederate Congress a bill to create a military dictatorship which they offered to the man for whose promotion they had condemned the President.

Lee treated this attempt to strike the Confederate Chieftain over his head with the contempt it deserved. Davis laughed at his enemies by the most complete acceptance of their plans.

His answer to Senator Barton's committee was explicit.

"I have absolute confidence in General Lee's patriotism and military genius. I will gladly cooperate with Congress in any plan to place him in supreme command."

Lee refused to accept the responsibility except with the advice and direction of the President, and the conspiracy ended in a fiasco.

From the moment Sherman's army pierced the heart of the South the Confederate President saw with clear vision that the cause of Southern independence was lost. Lee's army must slowly starve. His one supreme purpose now was to fight to the last ditch for better terms than unconditional surrender which would mean the loss of billions in property and the possible enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of a million slaves.

That Lincoln was intensely anxious to stop the shedding of blood he knew from more than one authentic source. It was rumored that the Northern President was willing to consider compensation for the slaves. An army of a hundred thousand determined Southern soldiers led by an indomitable general could fight indefinitely. That it was of the utmost importance to the life of the South to secure a surrender which would forbid the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of the slaves and the degradation of an electorate to their level, Davis saw with clear vision. From the North now came overtures of peace. Francis P. Blair asked for permission to visit Richmond.

Blair proposed to end the war by uniting the armies of the North and South for an advance on Mexico to maintain the Monroe Doctrine against the new Emperor whom Europe had set upon a throne in the Western Hemisphere.

The Confederate President received his proposals with courtesy.

"I have tried in vain, Mr. Blair," he said gravely, "to open negotiations with Washington. How can the first step be taken?"

"Mr. Lincoln, I am sure, will receive commissioners--though he would give me no a.s.surance on that point. We must stop this deluge of blood. I cherish the hope that the pride and honor of the Southern States will suffer no shock in the adjustment."

The result of this meeting was the appointment by Davis of three Commissioners to meet the representatives of the United States.

Alexander H. Stephens, R. M. T. Hunter and Judge John A. Campbell were sent to this important conference. For some unknown reason they were halted at Fortress Monroe and not allowed to proceed to Washington. A change had been suddenly produced in the att.i.tude of the National Government. Whether it was due to the talk of the men in Richmond who were trying to depose Davis or whether it was due to the fall of Fort Fisher and the closing of the port of Wilmington, the last artery which connected the Confederacy with the outside world, could not be known.

The Confederate Commissioners were met by Abraham Lincoln himself and his Secretary of State, William H. Seward, in Hampton Roads. The National Government demanded in effect, unconditional surrender.

Davis used the indignant surprise with which this startling announcement was received in Richmond and the South to rouse the people to a last desperate effort to save the country from the deluge which the Radical wing of the Northern Congress had now threatened--the confiscation of the property of the whites and the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of the negro race. In his judgment this could only be done by forcing the National Government through a prolongation of the war to pledge the South some measure of protection before they should lay down their arms.

Ma.s.s meetings were held and the people called to defend their cause with their last drop of blood. The President made a speech that night to a crowd in the Metropolitan Hall on Franklin Street in Richmond which swept them into a frenzy of patriotic pa.s.sion. Even his bitterest enemy, the editor of the _Examiner_, was spellbound by his eloquence.

When he first appeared on the speakers' stand and lifted his tall thin figure, gazing over the crowd with glittering eye, a tremendous cheer swept the a.s.sembly. In that moment, he was the incarnate Soul of the South. The Chieftain of the men who wore the gray in this hour of solemn trial, stood before them with countenance like the lightning. Cheer on cheer rose and fell with throbbing pa.s.sion.

A smile of strange prophetic sweetness lighted his pale haggard face.

The ovation he received was the sure promise to his tired soul that when the pa.s.sions and prejudices, the agony and madness of war had pa.s.sed the people would understand all he had tried to do in their service. In that moment of divine illumination he saw his place in the hearts of his countrymen and was content.

He spoke with even restrained flow of words, with a mastery of himself and his audience that is the mark of the orator of the highest genius.

His gestures were few. His low, vibrant, musical voice found the heart of his farthest listener. He swayed them with indescribable pa.s.sion.

Into the faces of the foe who had demanded unconditional surrender he hurled the defiance of an unconquered and unconquerable soul. He closed with an historical ill.u.s.tration which lifted his audience to the highest reach of emotion. Kossuth had abandoned Hungary with an army of thirty thousand men in the field. The friends of liberty had never forgiven nor could forgive this betrayal.

"What shall we say," he cried, "of the disgrace beneath which we should be buried if we surrender with an army in the field more numerous than that with which Napoleon achieved the glory of France, an army standing among its homesteads, an army in which each individual is superior in warlike quality to the individual who opposes him!"

When the tumult and applause had died away did he realize in the secret places of his heart that the spirit of the South had been broken by the terrible experiences of four years of blood and fire and death? His iron will gave no sign. To him the manhood of the Southern soldier was unconquerable, his courage dauntless forever.

Six months after Sherman's sword had pierced the heart of the South from Atlanta, Lee's army in the trenches before Petersburg had reached the end of their endurance. Lee wired Davis that his thin line could hold back Grant's hosts but a few days and that Richmond must fall. His men were living on parched corn.

The President hurried to the White House and slipped his arm around his wife.

"You must leave the city, my dear."

"Please let me stay with you," she pleaded.

"Impossible," he answered firmly. "My headquarters must be in the saddle. Your presence here could only grieve and distress me. You can take care of our babies. I know you wish to help and comfort me. You can do this in but one way--go and take the children to a place of safety--"

He paused, overcome with emotion.

"If I live," he continued slowly, "you can come to me when the struggle is over, but I do not expect to survive the destruction of our liberties."

He drew his small h.o.a.rd of gold from his pocket, removed a five-dollar piece for himself, and gave it all to his wife together with the Confederate money he had on hand.

"You must take only your clothing," he said after a moment's silence.

"The flour and supplies in your pantry must be left. The people are in want."

He had arranged for his family to settle in North Carolina. The day before his wife left, he gave her a pistol and taught her trembling hands to load, aim and fire it.

"The danger will be," he warned, "that you may full into the hands of lawless bands of deserters from both armies who are even now pillaging and burning. You can at least, if you must, force your a.s.sailants to kill you. If you cannot remain undisturbed in your own land make for the coast of Florida and take a ship for a foreign country."

Their hearts dumb with despair, his wife and children boarded the train--or the thing that once had been a train--the roof of the cars leaked and the engine wheezed and moved with great distress.

The stern face of the Southern leader was set in his hour of trial. He felt that he might never again look on the faces of those he loved. His little girl clung convulsively to his neck in agonizing prayer that she might stay. The boy begged and pleaded with tears raining down his chubby face.

Just outside of Richmond the engine broke down and the heartsick family sat in the dismal day-coach all night. Sleepers had not been invented.

They were twelve hours getting to Danville--a week on the way to Charlotte.