Uncle Daniel's Story Of "Tom" Anderson Part 47

"Uncle Daniel, what became of Aunt Martha?" inquired Maj. Clymer.

"Poor old woman, she lived with Seraine and me for about three years after her return, when she sickened and died. When she spoke on any subject she would finally get to those murders. They preyed upon her mind constantly, and I think hastened her death."

"How strange that all who were connected with your household during the war should have had such a fate!"

"Yes, my friends, it has been the one unaccountable mystery in my life.

Poor old Joseph Dent died in the same year, and I was left almost alone.

My dear Jennie, a few years ago, married Mr. Wilson, and I came to live with them in Oakland. Seraine went to her father and mother in Michigan.

They are both alive and she remains with them. Her son Harvey--named for his uncle, my youngest son, who was murdered at the battle of the Gaps, if you remember--is now in Chicago working as one of the cash-boys in a dry-goods store. I thought, as he was the last link in our family, that the Government owed it to us to send him to the West Point Military Academy, but I could not get him into the school. The member from here was not favorable, inasmuch as he was an anti-war Democrat during the rebellion. Harvey is making his own living now and I hope he may have a bright future. He often comes to see us. Poor Seraine; when the boy could not get into West Point, it almost broke her heart. She said to me:

"'Father, how shallow is this world. You, his grandfather, lost seven sons, six in the army. This boy's father was starved near unto death in Pine Forest Prison. I, his mother, risked my life in going through the rebel lines to obtain his release. He was murdered by one of the conspirators; and now we are forgotten. No one cares what we suffered during and since the war. My son cannot even have the poor privilege of being educated by the Government, when the sons of nearly every rebel General who tried to destroy the Union are now under the guardianship of the Government, being educated either at West Point for the army, or at Annapolis for the navy.'"

Dr. Adams said: "This is hard; it is uncharitable, and shows a great want of the proper grat.i.tude that should be due under the circ.u.mstances."

Col. Bush said: "What does the Government or people care for those who made the sacrifices? We are so far away from the war now in s.p.a.ce of time, that we are not only forgotten, but regarded as pests in society.

Are the people not grumbling about what has been done for the soldiers?

Do they not complain about our pensions? A few years more, however, and all of us cripples, one-armed and one-legged and those who are wholly armless and legless, will have pa.s.sed away out of sight. The recognition now is not to the victors, but to the vanquished. If you wish to be respected by a certain cla.s.s, North or South, only make it appear that you headed a band of marauders during the war, dealing death to Union men and destroying their property, and you will be invited to agricultural shows, to the lecture halls, and upon the stump; and if still living in the South, you will either be sent to the United States Senate, made Governor, or sent on some foreign mission."

"Uncle Daniel, what became of Thomlinson and Carey, the Canadian conspirators," inquired Inglesby.

"They are both dead, and many of their co-workers also. There has been a very great mortality among the leaders of the rebellion. That is to say, the older men--those who were somewhat advanced in years when it began."

"Are many of the Northern men of whom you have spoken in your narratives as rebel sympathizers, Knights of the Golden Circle, or Sons of Liberty, still living?"

"Yes, they were generally young or middle-aged men, and with few exceptions are still living, and are, almost without an exception, in some official position--some of them in the highest and most honorable in our Nation."

"This could not have occurred in any other Government than ours, and is pa.s.sing strange," said Dr. Adams.

"Yes, that is true; but do you not remember my mentioning the fact that Hibbard, who was connected with one of the rebel prisons during the war, came North last Fall to teach us our duty? I also said that probably he would be sent abroad to impress some foreign country with our Christian civilization."

"Yes, I well remember what you said."

"Well, I see by the papers that he has been appointed to a Foreign Mission. I also see that a man of great brutality, who is said to have been connected with one of the prisons in Richmond, has been put in charge of all appointments in the greatest Department of the Government--the Treasury."

"Are these things so? Can it be possible?"

"Yes, these are truths. This is merely testing us in order to see how much the people will bear; and they seem to bear these things without a murmur. The next will be stronger. If the people of the South see that they are sustained in this by the people of the large cities North, on account of a fear that they may lose Southern trade, what may they not demand? Certainly, very soon nothing less than Vice-President will be accepted, and the same people who sustain these things now will cry out that this is right!"

"It does look so. I have been studying this question since you have been reciting your experiences and giving the views of yourself and others, and am now prepared to agree that greed is at the bottom of all this. This same greed is one of the several dangers that threaten our country's inst.i.tutions to-day. It causes crimes and wrongs to be overlooked, and in many cases defended, in order to gain influence with the people who are determined by any means in their power to control the Government."

"Yes; and see the progress they are making in this direction. As I have said, there is not a man, with but very few exceptions, North, who denounced the war and those who were engaged in prosecuting it, who is not in some official position. Turn to the South. So far as they are concerned it may seem natural for them to select from their own cla.s.s; but why should the North fall in with them? You have given, in your answer to me, the only reasonable answer--that of greed and gain; but to see this great change in the minds of the people in so short a time is strange indeed. Twenty years ago they were thundering at the very gates of our Capital. To-day they control the country. There is not a man, save the President of the Southern Confederacy and a very few of the leaders in the war made to destroy our Government, who is not now in some honorable position if he wishes to be. We find them representing us in the first-cla.s.s missions abroad, in the second-cla.s.s and in the third-cla.s.s; and there not being high places enough of this kind, that the world may know the Confederacy has been recognized fully by our people since its downfall, those who were in high positions under it now take to the Consulships and are accepting them as rapidly as can well be done.

"You find your Cabinet largely represented by their leading men, and many of your Auditors, your a.s.sistant Secretaries, Bureau officers, etc., are of them. This not being satisfactory, all the other appointments South are made up of those men to the exclusion of every one who was a Union man before, during, or since the war. The Government not furnishing places enough, all the State, county, and city offices South are filled in the same manner by this same cla.s.s. This still does not satisfy, and all men sent to the United States Senate or to the House of Representatives from the South, with only one or two exceptions, are of the same cla.s.s. In fact all of Jeff. Davis's Cabinet, his Senate and House of Representatives, and his Generals that are living, and who desire, are holding official positions of some kind.

What does this argue? Does it not notify us who have made sacrifices for this Union that our services are no longer desired, and that we are waste material, of no further use for any purpose?

"Who could have believed, while the war was going on, that this state of things could ever have existed? Suppose this picture had been held up before my seven dead sons when they entered the service. Suppose they could have seen their mother's dream realized--all in their graves beside their mother, and their father living on the charities of a grandchild, laughed at in the streets by young men when speaking of the wrongs inflicted by the rebellion, and told that this is of the past--how many of them do you suppose would have gone right up to the enemy's guns and been shot down in their young manhood?

"Suppose Gen. Tom Anderson could have seen a howling mob murdering his family and no punishment for the murderers; would he have risked his life hunting up the Knights of the Golden Circle and chancing it in battle, as he did, for his country, that the rebels might control it, and that, too, through the influence of the North, whose all was at stake, and whose fortunes were saved and protected by such men as he? I doubt if patriotism would have gone so far. Can you find me the patriot to-day that, deep down in his heart, likes this condition of things?"

"Yes; but Uncle Daniel, these men are not rebels now. They are Democrats," said Maj. Clymer.

"Yes, true; but they are no more Democrats now than they were then, and they were no less Democrats then than they are now. But I should not say more; I have had trouble enough. Why should I grieve for the condition of things which were not expected? I and mine have paid dearly for this lesson. I hope it may never fall to the lot of any one else to pa.s.s through such an experience. I shall see but little more trouble. May G.o.d forgive all and protect the right."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Death of Uncle Daniel 456]

Uncle Daniel here ceased speaking and sank back in his chair. His granddaughter came into the room. Seeing him, she screamed and fell upon his neck. We moved quickly to him. He was dead.

THE END.