He broke into a cynical laugh and asked:

"And what will you do?"

Stanton's keen spectacled eyes bored him through in silence as he snapped:

"I may make Abe Lincoln President of the United States."

Evidently another man was entering the Cabinet under the impression that the hands of an impotent Chief Magistrate needed strengthening. The merest glance at this man's burly thick set body, his big leonine head with its shock of heavy black hair, long and curling, his huge grizzly beard and full resolute lips, was enough to convince the most casual observer that he could be a dangerous enemy or a powerful ally.

The President was warned of this appointment, but his confidence was unshaken. His reply was a revelation of personality:

"I have faith in affirmative men like Stanton. They stand between a nation and perdition. He has shown a loyalty to the Union that rose above his own partisan creed of a lifetime. I like that kind of a man."

"He'll run away with the whole concern," was his friend's laconic reply.

The President's big generous mouth moved with a smile:

"Well, we may have to treat him as they sometimes did a Methodist minister I knew out West. He was a mighty man in prayer and exhortation. At times his excitement rose to such threatening heights the elders put brick bats in his pockets to hold him down. We may be obliged to serve Stanton the same way——"

He paused and laughed.

"But I guess we'll let him jump awhile first!"

The men who knew the inner secrets of Stanton's relations to McClellan watched this drama with keen interest. Had he gone into the Cabinet to place the General in supreme power in a moment of crisis? Or had he at heart deserted the Commander with the intention of using the enormous power of the War Department to further a scheme of equal daring for himself? They could only watch the swiftly moving scenes of the war pageant for their answer.

One fact was standing out each day with sharp and clean cut distinctness, a struggle of giants was on beneath the surface. Startling surprise had followed startling surprise during the past months. Men everywhere were asking one another, what next? The air of Washington was foul with the breath of passion and intrigue. Purposes and methods were everywhere assailed. Men high in civil life were believed to be plotting with military conspirators to advance their personal fortunes on the ruins of the Republic.

Around two men were gathering the forces whose clash would decide the destiny of the Nation—the struggle between the supremacy of civil authority in the President, and the war-created strength of the Military Commander represented by McClellan. Could the Republic survive this war within a war?



CHAPTER XII

LOVE AND PRIDE

Betty Winter had found her fierce resolution to blot John Vaughan from her life a difficult one to keep. The first two weeks were not so hard. Every instinct of her pure young girlhood had cried out against the conceit which had imagined her conquest so easy. The memory of his arms about her crushing with cruel force, his hot lips on hers in mad, unasked kisses brought the angry blood mounting to her cheeks. She walked the floor in rage and dropped at last exhausted:

"I could kill him!"

The memory which stung deepest was the terror she had felt in his arms—the sudden fear of the brute quivering in tense muscles and throbbing in passionate kisses. She had thought this man a gentleman. In that flash of self-revealing he was simply a beast. It had unsettled her whole attitude toward life. For the first time she began to suspect the darker side of passion. If this were love, she would have none of it.

Again she resolved for the hundredth time, to banish the last thought of him. If there were no cleaner, more chivalrous men in the world she could live without them. But there were men with holier ideals. Ned Vaughan was one. She drew from the drawer the only letter she had received from him and the last she would probably get in many a day, as he had crossed the dead line of war and was now somewhere in the great silent South. She read it over and over with tender smiles:

"DEAR MISS BETTY;

"I can't disappear behind the battle lines without a last word to you. I just want to tell you that every hour, waking or dreaming, the memory of you is my inspiration. The hardest task is easy because my heart is beating with your name with every stroke. For me the drums throb it, the bugle calls it. I hear it in the tramp of soldiers, the rumble of gun, the beat of horses' hoofs and the rattle of sabre,—for I am fighting my way back, inch by inch, hour by hour, to you, my love!

"You cannot answer this. There will be no more mails from the South—no more mails from the North until I see you again on the Capitol Hill in Washington. There has never been a doubt in my heart that the South shall win—that I shall win. And when I stand before you then it will not be as conqueror, though victorious. I shall bow at your feet your willing slave. And I shall kiss my chains because your dear hands made them. I can expect no answer to this. I ask none. I need none. My love is enough. It's so big and wonderful it makes the world glorious.

"NED."

How sharp and bitter the contrast between the soul of this chivalrous boy and his vain conceited brother! She loathed herself for her blind stupidity. Why had she preferred him? Why—why—why! The very question cut her. It was not because John Vaughan had chosen to cast his lot with her people of the North. Rubbish! She had a sneaking admiration for Ned because he had dared her displeasure in making his choice. There must be something perverse in her somewhere. She could see it now. It must be so or the evil in John Vaughan's character would not have drawn her as a magnet from the first. She hadn't a doubt now that all the stories about his fast life and his contempt for women were true and much more than gossip had dreamed.

He would write a letter of apology, of course, in due season. He was too shrewd a man of the world, too skillful an interpreter of the whims of women to write at once. He was waiting for her to cool—waiting until she should begin to be anxious. It was too transparent. She would give him a surprise when his letter came. The shock would take a little of the conceit out of him. She would return his letter unopened by the next mail.

When four weeks passed without a word the first skirmish between love and pride began. Perhaps she had been unreasonable after all. Was it right to blame a man too harshly for being mad about the woman he loved? In her heart of hearts did she desire any other sort of lover? Tears of vexation came in spite of every effort to maintain her high position. She had to face the plain truth. She didn't desire a cold lover. She wished him to be strong, manly, masterful—yes, masterful, that was it—yet infinitely tender. This man was simply a brute. And yet the memory of his mad embrace and the blind violence of his kisses had become each day more vivid and terrible—terrible because of their fascination. She accepted the fact at last in a burst of bitter tears.

And then came the announcement in the Daily Republican of his return to the city and his attachment to the company of cavalry at McClellan's headquarters. The thought of his presence sent the blood surging in scarlet waves to her face. There was no longer any question in her mind that she had wounded him too deeply for forgiveness. Her dismissal had been so cold, so curt, it had been an accusation of dishonor. She could see it clearly now. He had poured out his confession of utter love in a torrent of mad words and clasped her in his arms without thought or calculation, an act of instinctive resistless impulse. He had justly resented the manner in which she had repulsed him. Yet she had simply followed the impulse of her girlish heart, and she would die sooner than apologize.

She accepted the situation at last with a dull sense of pain and despair, and tried to find consolation in devotion to work in the hospitals which had begun to grow around the army of drilling volunteers.

Events were moving now with swift march, and her championship of the President gave her days of excitement which brought unexpected relief from her gloomy thoughts. She was witnessing the first movements of the National drama from the inside and its passion had stirred her imagination. Her father's growing hatred of Abraham Lincoln left her in no doubt as to whose master hand had guided the assaults on the rear of his distracted administration.

The fall of Cameron, the Secretary of War, had been the work of her father, with scarcely a suggestion from without. The Abolitionist had determined to force Lincoln to free the slaves at once or destroy him and his administration. They also were whispering the name of their chosen dictator who would assume the reins of power on his downfall.

The President was equally clear in his determination not to allow his hand to be forced and lose control of the Border Slave States, whose influence and power were becoming each day more and more essential to the preservation of the Union. He had succeeded in separating the counties of Western Virginia and had created a new State out of them. His policy of conciliation and forbearance was slowly, but surely, welding Kentucky, Missouri and Maryland to the Nation.

Any tinkering at this moment with the question of Slavery would imperil the loyalty of these four States. He held them now and he refused to listen to any man or faction who asked him to loosen that grip.

The true policy of the Radicals, Senator Winter realized, was to fire into the President's back through his generals in the field in an emancipation crusade which would work the North into a frenzy of passion. He had shrewdly calculated the chances, and he did not believe that Lincoln would dare risk his career on a direct order revoking such a proclamation.

General Hunger was the first to accept the mutinous scheme. He issued a proclamation declaring all slaves within the lines of the Union army forever free, and a wave of passionate excitement swept the North. The quiet self-contained man in the White House did not wait to calculate the force of this storm. He revoked Hunter's order before the ink was dry on it.

Again Senator Winter invaded the Executive office:

"You dare, sir," he thundered, "to thus spit in the face of the millions of the loyal North who are pouring their blood and treasure into this war?"

"I do," was the even answer. "I am the President of the United States and as Commander-in-Chief of its Army and Navy I will not be disobeyed by my subordinates on an issue I deem vital to the Nation's existence. If in the fulness of God's time an emancipation proclamation must be issued in order to save the Union, I know my duty and I'll do it without the interference of any of my generals in the field——"

He paused and glanced over the rims of his spectacles with a sudden flash from his deep set eyes:

"Do I make myself clear?"

Winter's face went white with anger as he slowly answered:

"Perfectly. It seems you have learned nothing from the wrath with which your sacrifice of John C. Fremont to appease the slave power was received?"

"So it seems," was the laconic response. "Fremont issued, without consulting me, his famous proclamation last August. I saw your hand, Senator, in that clause 'freeing' the slaves in the State of Missouri."

"And I warn you now," the Senator growled, "that the storm of indignation which met that act was nothing to one that will break about your head to-morrow! The curses of Fremont's soldiers still ring in your ears. The press, the pulpit, the platform and both Houses of Congress gave you a taste of their scorn you will not soon forget. Thousands of sober citizens who had given you their support, whose votes put you in this office, tore your picture down from their walls and trampled it under their feet. For the first time in the history of the Republic the effigy of a living President was burned publicly in the streets of an American city amid the jeers and curses of the men who elected him. Your sacrifice of Fremont has made him the idol of the West. He is to them to-day what Napoleon in exile was to France. This is a Government of the people. Even a President may go too far in daring to override public opinion!"

The giant figure slowly rose and faced his opponent, erect, controlled, dignified:

"But the question is, Senator, who is a better judge of true public opinion, you or I? It remains to be seen. In the meantime I must tell you once more that I am not the representative of a clique, or faction. I am the Chief Magistrate of all the people—I am going to save this Union for them and their children. I hope to live to see the death of Slavery. That is in God's hands. My duty to-day is as clear as the noonday sun. I can't lose the Border Slave States at this stage of the game and save the Union—therefore I must hold them at all hazards. Let the heathen rage and the people imagine vain things if they will——"

"Then it's a waste of breath to talk!" the Senator suddenly shouted.

The rugged head bowed gracefully:

"I thought so from the first—but I've tried to be polite——"

"Good day, sir!"

"Good day, Senator," the President laughed, "come in any time you want to let off steam. It'll make you feel easier and it won't hurt me."

Abraham Lincoln knew the real cause of public irritation and loss of confidence. The outburst of wrath over Fremont was but a symptom. The disease lay deeper. The people had lost confidence in his War Department through the failure of his first Secretary and the inactivity of the army under McClellan. He had applied the remedy to the first cause in the dismissal of Cameron and the appointment of Stanton. It remained to be seen whether he could control his Commanding General, or whether McClellan would control the Government.

The situation was an intolerable one—not only to the people who were sacrificing their blood and money, but to his own inherent sense of honor and justice. He had no right to organize and drill a mighty army to go into winter quarters, drink and play cards, and dance while a victorious foe flaunted their flag within sight of the Capitol.

Besides, the Western division under two obscure Generals, Grant and Sherman, had moved in force in mid-winter and with a mere handful of men compared to the hosts encamped in Washington had captured Fort Henry and Fort Donelson and taken fourteen thousand prisoners. The navy had brilliantly cooeperated on the river, and this fact only made more painful the disgrace of the Confederate blockade of the Capital by its half dozen batteries on the banks of the Potomac.

The President was compelled to test the ugly question of the extent and power of General McClellan's personal support.

He returned from a tour of inspection and stood on the hilltop overlooking McClellan's miles of tents and curling camp fires. He turned to Mrs. Lincoln, who had accompanied him:

"You know what that is?"

"The Army of the Potomac, of course, Father."

"No!" he replied bitterly, "that's only McClellan's body guard—a hundred and eighty thousand."

The General had persistently refused to take any suggestion from his superior as to the movement of his army. Would Lincoln dare to force the issue between them and risk the mutiny of this Grand Army undoubtedly devoted to their brilliant young leader? There were many who believed that if he dared, the result would be a coup d'etat which would place the man on horseback in supreme power.

The moment the President reached the point where he saw that further delay would mean grave peril to the Nation, he acted with a promptness which stunned the glittering military court over which the young Napoleon presided. From the White House, as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy, he issued a military order for the advance of McClellan's forces on Richmond!

The idea of such an order coming from a backwoods lawyer without military training was preposterous. Its audacity for a moment stunned the Commander of all the divisions of the army, but when the excitement had subsided on the day it was done, General McClellan, for the first time, squarely faced the fact that there was a real man in the White House.

The issue was a square one. He must obey that order or march on the Capital with his army, depose the President, and declare a dictatorship.

He decided to move on Richmond. He wrangled over the route he would take, but he moved, when once in motion, with remarkable swiftness.

Within two weeks a magnificent army of one hundred and twenty thousand men, fourteen thousand horses, forty-four batteries with endless trains of wagons, supplies, and pontoon bridges were transported by water two hundred miles to the Virginia Peninsula without the loss of a life.

The day was a glorious one toward the end of March, when Betty stood on the hill above Alexandria and watched, with heavy heart, the magnificent pageant of the embarking army. The spring was unusually early. The grass was already a rich green carpet in the shaded lanes. Jonquils were flaming from every walkway, the violets beginning to lift their blue heads from their dark green leaves and the trees overhead were hanging with tassels behind which showed the clusters of fresh buds bursting into leaf.

The armed host covered hill and plain and stretched out in every direction as far as the eye could reach. Four hundred ships had moved up the river to receive them. Companies and regiments of magnificently equipped soldiers were marching to the throb of drum and the scream of fife. Thousands of cavalrymen, in gay uniforms, their golden yellow shining in the sun, were dashing across a meadow at the foot of the hill. The long lines of infantry stretched from the hills through the streets of Alexandria down to the water's edge. Everywhere the regimental bands were playing martial music.

Somewhere among those marching, cheering, laughing, shouting thousands was the man she loved, leaving without a word.

An awkward private soldier passed with his arm around his sweetheart. Her eyes were red and she leaned close. They were not talking any more. But a few minutes were left and he must go—perhaps to die. Words had ceased to mean anything.

Her heart rose in fierce rebellion against the wall of silence her pride had reared. A group of magnificently equipped young officers passed on horseback. Perhaps of General McClellan's staff! She looked in vain among them for his familiar face. If he passed she would disgrace herself—she felt it with increasing certainty. Why had she come here, anyway? As well tell the truth—in the vague hope of a meeting.

The quick beat of a horse's hoof echoed along the road. She looked and recognized John Vaughan! He was coming straight toward her. Instinctively and resistlessly she moved to meet him.

She waved her hand in an awkward little gesture as if she had tried to stop after beginning the movement. His eye had been quick to see and with a graceful pull on his horse's bridle he had touched the pommel of the saddle, leaped to his feet, cap in hand, and stood trembling before her.

"It's too good to be true!" he exclaimed breathlessly.

She extended her bare hand and he held it without protest. It was trembling violently.

"You were going to leave without an effort to see me?" she asked in low tones.

"I was just debating that problem when I saw you standing by the road," he answered soberly. "I don't think I could have done it. It's several hours before we embark. I was just figuring on how I could reach you in time."

"Really?" she murmured.

"Honestly."

"Well, if you had gone without a word, I couldn't have blamed you"—she paused and bit her lips—"I was very foolish that day."

"It was my fault," he broke in, "all my fault. I was a brute. I realized it too late. I'd have eaten my pride and gone back to see you the day I reached Washington if I had thought it any use. I have never seen such a look in the eyes of a woman as you gave me that day, Miss Betty. If there had been any love in your heart I knew that I had killed it——"

She looked into his eyes with a tender smile:

"I thought you had——"

He pressed her hand tenderly.

"But now?"

"I know that love can't be killed by a kiss."

She stopped suddenly, threw her arms around his neck, and kissed him. He held her close for a moment, murmuring:

"My sweetheart—my darling!"

Through four swift beautiful hours they sat on a log, held each other's hands, and told over and over the old sweet story. Another long, tender embrace and he was gone. She stood on the little wharf, among hundreds of weeping sisters and mothers and sweethearts, and watched his boat drift down the river. He waved his handkerchief to her until the big unfinished dome of the Capitol began to fade on the distant horizon.



CHAPTER XIII

THE SPIRES OF RICHMOND

To meet three great armies converging on Richmond along the James under McClellan, from the North under McDowell, and the West by the Shenandoah Valley, the South had barely fifty-eight thousand men commanded by Joseph E. Johnston and eighteen thousand under Stonewall Jackson.

The Southern people were still suffering from the delusion of Bull Run and had not had time to adjust themselves to the amazing defeats suffered at Fort Henry and Fort Donaldson, to say nothing of the stunning victory of the Monitor in Hampton Roads, which had opened the James to the gates of the Confederate Capital.

Jackson was ordered into the Shenandoah Valley to execute the apparently impossible task of holding in check the armies of Fremont, Milroy, Banks and Shields, and at the same time prevent the force of forty thousand men under McDowell from reaching McClellan. The combined forces of the Federal armies opposed thus to Jackson were eight times greater than his command. And yet, by a series of rapid and terrifying movements which gained for his little army the title of "foot cavalry," he succeeded in defeating, in quick succession, each army in detail.

McDowell was despatched in haste to join Fremont and crush Jackson. And while his army was rushing into the Shenandoah Valley, Jackson withdrew and quietly joined the army before Richmond which moved to meet McClellan.

Little Mac, with his hundred and twenty thousand men, had moved up the Peninsula with deliberate but resistless force, Johnston's army retiring before him without serious battle until the Army of the Potomac lay within sight of the spires of Richmond. Faint, but clear, the breezes brought the far-off sound of her church bells on Sunday morning.

The two great armies at last faced each other for the first clash of giants, McClellan with one hundred and ten thousand men in line, Johnston with seventy thousand Southerners.

John Vaughan rode along the lines of the Federal host on the afternoon of May 30th, to inspect and report to his Commander. Through the opening in the trees the Confederate army could be plainly seen on the other side of the clearing. The Federal scouts had already reported the certainty of an attack.

The Confederates that night lay down on their arms with orders to attack at daylight. Dark clouds had swirled their storm banks over the sky before sunset and the heavens were opened. The rain fell in blinding torrents, until the sluggish little stream of the Chickahominy had become a rushing, widening, treacherous river which threatened to sweep away the last bridge McClellan had constructed.

The Confederate Commander was elated. The army of his enemy was divided by a swollen river. The storm increased until it reached the violence of a hurricane. Through the entire night the lightning flashed and the thunder pealed without ceasing. At times the heavens were livid with blinding, dazzling light. Tents were a mockery. The earth was transformed into a vast morass.

The storm had its compensations for the Northern army though divided. Its frightful severity had so demoralized the Confederates that it was nearly noon before General A. P. Hill moved to the attack.

The entrenched army was ready. The Union pickets lay in the edge of the woods and every soldier in the pits had been under cover for hours awaiting the onset.

With a shout the men in grey leaped from their shelter, pouring their volleys from close charging columns. The rifle balls whistled through the woods, clipping boughs, barking the trees, and hurling the Federal pickets back on their support. In front of the abatis had been planted a battery of four guns. The grey men had fixed their eyes on them. General Naglee saw their purpose and threw his four thousand men into the open field to meet them. Straight into each other's faces their muskets flamed, paused, and flamed again. The Northern men fixed their bayonets, charged, and drove the grey line slowly back into the woods. Here they met a storm of hissing lead that mowed their ranks. They broke quickly and rushed for the cover of their rifle pits.

The grey lines charged, and for three hours the earth trembled beneath the shock of their continued assaults.

Suddenly on the left flank of the Federal army a galling fire was poured from a grey brigade. The movement had been quietly and skillfully executed. At the same moment General Rodes' brigade rushed on their front with resistless force. The officers tried to spike their guns and save them, but were shot down in their tracks to a man. Their guns were lost, and in a moment the men in grey had wheeled them and were pouring a terrible fire on the retreating lines.

The Confederates now charged the Federal centre, and for an hour and a half the fierce conflict raged—charge and countercharge by men of equal courage led by dauntless officers. The Union right wing had already been crumpled in hopeless confusion, the centre had yielded, the left wing alone was holding its own. It looked as if the whole Union army on the South side of the Chickahominy would be wiped out.

At Seven Pines Heintzelman had made a stubborn stand. General Keyes saw a hill between the lines of battle which might save the day if he could reach it in time. He must take men between two battle lines to do so. The Confederate Commander, divining his intention, poured a galling fire into his ranks and began a race with him for the heights. Keyes won the race and formed his line in the nick of time. The tremendous fire poured down from this new position was too much for the assaulting Southern column and it halted.

The Confederate forces had forced the Federal lines back two miles as the river fog and the darkness slowly rose and enveloped the field. General Johnston ordered his men to sleep on the fields and camps they had captured. A minute later he was hurled from his horse by an exploding shell and was borne from the field dangerously wounded. The first day's struggle had ended in reverses for the invading enemy. The Confederates had captured ten guns, six thousand muskets, and five hundred prisoners, besides driving McClellan's forces two miles from the opening battle lines.

Between the two smoke-grimed, desperate armies locked thus in close embrace there could be no truce for burying the fallen or rescuing the wounded. Over the rain-soaked fields and woods for two miles behind the Confederate front lay the dead, the dying, and the wounded, the blue side by side with their foes in grey. Dim fog-ringed lanterns flickered feebly here and there like wounded fireflies over the dark piles on the ground.

The Southern ambulance corps did its best at its new trade. Their long lines of wagons began to creep into Richmond and fill the hospitals. Shivering white-faced women, wives, sweethearts, mothers, sisters were there looking for their own, praying and hoping. All day they had shivered in their rooms at the deep boom of cannon, whose thunder rattled the glass in the windows through which they gazed on the deserted streets. It was the first lesson in real war, this hand to hand grip of the two giants whose struggle must decide the fate of Richmond.

The wagons left their loads and rattled back over the rough cobble stones and out on the muddy roads to the front again. The night would be all too short for their work.

In their field hospital, the surgeons, with bare, bloody arms, were busy with knife and saw. Boys who had faced death in battle without a tremor, now pale and trembling, watched the growing pile of legs and arms. Alone in the darkness beyond the voice or touch of a loved hand they must face this awful thing and hobble through life maimed wrecks. They looked over their shoulders into the murky darkness and envied the silent forms that lay there beyond the reach of pain and despair. All night the grim tragedy of the knife and saw, and the low moans that still came from the darkness of the woods!

Sunday morning, the second day of June, dawned over the battle-scarred earth—an ominous day for the armies of the Republic—for the sun rose on a new figure in command of the men in grey. Robert E. Lee had taken the place of Joseph E. Johnston.

General G. W. Smith, second in command when Johnston fell, had formed his plan of battle, and the new head of the Confederacy, with his high sense of courtesy and justice, permitted his subordinate to direct the conflict for the day.

As the sun rose, red and ominous through the dark pine forest, General Smith quickly advanced his men at Fair Oaks Station, down the railroad, and fell with fury on the men in blue, who crouched behind the embankment. The men were less than fifty yards apart, and muskets blazed in long level sheets of yellow flame. No longer could the ear catch the effect of ripping canvas in the fire of small arms. The roar was endless. For an hour and a half the two blazing lines mowed each other down in their tracks without pause. The grey at last gave way and fell back to the shelter of their woods and gathered reinforcements. The Union lines had been cut to pieces and suddenly ceased firing while their support advanced.

The roaring hell had died into a strange ominous stillness. John Vaughan had just dashed up to the embankment with orders from McClellan to hold this position until Haskin's division arrived. He sprang on the embankment and looked curiously at the long piles of grey bodies lying in an endless row as far as the eye could reach. Over the tree tops, faintly mingling with the low cry of a dying boy of sixteen, came the sweet distant notes of a church bell in Richmond.

"God in heaven—the mockery of it!" he cried.

A great shout swept the blue lines. Hooker's magnificent division of fresh troops swept into view, eager for the fray. They rapidly deployed to the right and left. In front of them lay the open blood-soaked field, and beyond the deep woods bristling with Southern bayonets. The new division leaped into this open field, with a wild shout, their eyes set on the woods. They paused, only to fire, and their double quick became a race.

The Southern batteries followed and tore great holes in their ranks. They closed them with low quick sullen orders sweeping on. They reached the edge of the woods and poured into its friendly shelter. And then above the tops of oak and pine and beech and ash and tangled undergrowth came the soul-piercing roar of two great armies, fearless, daring, scorning death, fighting hand to hand, man to man, for what they believed to be right.

The people in church turned anxious faces toward the sound. Its roar rang above the sob of organ and the chant of choir.

Bayonet clashed on bayonet, as regiment after regiment were locked in close mortal combat. Hour after hour the stubborn unyielding hosts held fast on both sides. The storm weakened and slowly died away. Only the intermittent crack of a rifle here and there broke the stillness.

There was no shout of victory, no sweep of cheering hosts—only silence. The Confederate General in command for the day had lost faith in his battle plan and withdrew his army from the field. The men in blue could move in and camp on the ground they had held the day before if they wished.

But there was something more important to do now than maneuver for position in history. The dead and the dying and wounded crying for water were everywhere—down every sunlit aisle of the forest they lay in heaps. In the open fields they lay faces up, the scorching Southern sun of June beating piteously down in their eyes—the blue and the grey side by side in death as they fought hand to hand in life.

The trenches were opened and they piled the bodies in one on top of the other, where they had fallen. They turned their faces downward, these stalwart, brave American boys that the grave-diggers might not throw the wet dirt into their eyes and mouths. O, aching hearts in far-away homes, at least you were not there to see!

Both armies paused now to gird their loins for the crucial test. General Lee was in the saddle gathering every available man into his ranks for his opening assault on McClellan's host. Jackson was in the Shenandoah Valley holding three armies at bay, defeating them in detail and paralyzing the efficiency of McDowell's forty thousand men at Fredericksburg, by the daring uncertainty of his movements.

The first act of Lee was characteristic of his genius. Wishing to know the exact position of McClellan's forces, and with the further purpose of striking terror into his antagonist's mind for the safety of his lines of communication, he conceived the daring feat of sending a picked body of cavalry under the gallant J. E. B. Stuart completely around the Northern army of one hundred and five thousand men.

On June the 12th, Stuart with twelve hundred troopers, fighting, singing, dare-devil riders to a man, slipped from Lee's lines and started toward Fredericksburg. The first night he bivouacked in the solemn pines of Hanover. At the first streak of dawn the men swung into their saddles in silence.

Turning suddenly to the east he surprised and captured the Federal pickets without a shot. In five minutes he confronted a squadron of Union cavalry. With piercing rebel yell his troopers charged and scattered their foes.

Sweeping on with swift, untiring dash they struck the York River Railroad, which supplied McClellan's army, surprised and captured the company of infantry which guarded Tunstall's Station, cut the wires and attacked a train passing with troops.

Riding without pause through the moonlit night they reached the Chickahominy at daybreak. The stream was out of its banks and could not be forded. They built a bridge, crossed over at dawn, and the following day leaped from their saddles before Lee's headquarters and reported.

A thrill of admiration and dismay swept the ranks of the Northern army and started in Washington a wave of bitter criticism against McClellan. No word of reply reached the world from the little Napoleon. He was busy digging trenches, felling trees and pushing his big guns steadily forward and always behind impregnable works. He was a born engineer and his soul was set on training his great siege guns on the Confederate Capital.

On the 25th of June his advance guard had pressed within five miles of the apparently doomed city. His breastworks bristled from every point of advantage. His army was still divided by the Chickahominy River, but he had so thoroughly bridged its treacherous waters he apparently had no fear of coming results.

On June the 27th Stonewall Jackson had slipped from the Shenandoah Valley, baffling two armies converging on him from different directions, and with a single tiger leap had landed his indomitable little army by Lee's side.

Anticipating his arrival, the Confederate general had hurled Hill's corps against the Union right wing under Porter. Throughout the day of the 26th and until nine o'clock at night the battle raged with unabated fury. The losses on both sides were frightful and neither had gained a victory. But at nine o'clock the Federal Commander ordered his right wing to retreat five miles to Gaines Mill and cover his withdrawal of heavy guns and supplies. They were ordered at all hazards to hold Jackson's fresh troops at bay until this undertaking was well under way. It was a job that called for all his skill in case of defeat. It involved the retreat of an army of one hundred thousand men with their artillery and enormous trains of supplies across the mud-scarred marshy Peninsula. Five thousand wagons loaded to their utmost capacity, their wheels sinking in the springy earth, had to be guarded and transported. His siege guns, so heavy it was impossible to hitch enough horses to move them over roads in which they sank to the hubs, had to be saved. Three thousand cattle were there, to be guarded and driven, and it was more than seventeen miles to the shelter of his gunboats on the James.

During the night his wagon trains and heavy guns were moved across the Chickahominy toward his new base on the James.

The morning of the 27th dawned cool and serene. Under the cover of the night the silent grey army had followed the retiring one in blue. The Southerners lay in the dense wood above Gaines Mill dozing and waiting orders.

A balloon slowly rose from the Federal lines and hung in the scarlet clouds that circled the sun. The signal was given to the artillery that the enemy lay in the deep woods within range and a storm of shot and shell suddenly burst over the heads of the men in grey and the second day's carnage had begun.

For once Jackson, the swift and mysterious, was late in reaching the scene. It was two o'clock when Hill again unsupported hurled his men on the Federal lines in a fierce determined charge. Twenty-six guns of the matchless artillery of McClellan's army threw a stream of shot and shell into his face. Never were guns handled with deadlier power. And back of them the infantry, thrilled at the magnificent spectacle, poured their hail of hissing lead into the approaching staggering lines.

The waves of grey broke and recoiled. A blue pall of impenetrable smoke rolled through the trees and clung to the earth. Under the protection of their great guns the dense lines of blue pushed out into the smoke fog and charged their foe. For two hours the combat raged at close quarters. A division of fresh troops rushed to the Northern line, and Lee observing the movement from his horse on an eminence, ordered a general attack on the entire Union front.

It was a life and death grapple for the mastery. Jackson's corps was now in action. A desperate charge of Hood's division at last broke the Union lines and the grey men swarmed over the Federal breastworks. The lines broke and began to roll back toward the bridges of the Chickahominy. The retreat threatened to become a rout. The twilight was deepening over the field when a shout rose from the tangled masses of blue stragglers by the bridge. Dashing through them came the swift fresh brigades of French and Meager. General Meager, rising from his stirrups in his shirt sleeves, swung his bare sword above his head, hurled his troops against the advancing Confederate line and held it until darkness saved Porter's division from ruin.

McClellan's one hope now was to pull his army out of the deadly swamps in which he had been caught and save it from destruction. He must reach the banks of the James and the shelter of his gunboats before he could stop to breathe. At every step the charging grey lines crashed on his rear guard. Retreating day and night, turning and fighting as a hunted stag, he was struggling only to escape.

That there was no panic, no rout, was a splendid tribute to his organizing and commanding powers. His army was an army at last in fact as well as in name—a compact and terrible fighting machine. The oncoming Confederate hosts learned this to their sorrow again and again in the five terrible days which followed.

On July 1st, McClellan reached the shelter of his gunboats and intrenched himself on the heights of Malvern Hill. On its summit he placed tier after tier of batteries swung in crescent line, commanding every approach. Surmounting those on the highest point he planted seven of his great siege guns. His army surrounded this hill, its left flank resting on the James and covered by his gunboats.

It was late in the afternoon before Lee ordered a general attack. The grey army was floundering in the mud in a vain effort to reach its fleeing enemy in force. At noon they were still burying the dead on the blood-soaked field of Glendale where McClellan's gallant rear guard had stood until the last wagon train had safely arrived at Malvern Hill.

Ned Vaughan's company had been hurried from the West to the defense of Richmond, and reached the field on the night of the 30th, too late for the battle of Glendale, but in time to walk over its scarred soil in the soft moonlight and get his first glimpse of war. He was yet to see a battle.

A group of grey schoolboy comrades were burying one of their number beneath a tall pine in the edge of an old field. He joined the circle and watched them. They dug the grave with their bayonets, tenderly wrapped the body in the battle flag of the South and covered it with their hands. One of them recited a beautiful Psalm from memory, and not a word was spoken as they drew the damp earth up into a mound. A whip-poor-will began his song in the edge of the woods as he passed on.

A few yards further a man in grey was cutting a forked limb into a crutch. Something dark lay huddled on the brown straw. It was a wounded man in blue. The Southerner lifted his enemy, and placed the crutch under him.

"Now, partner," he said cheerfully, "you're all right. You'll find the hospital down there by them lights. They'll look out for ye."

Ned wondered vaguely how he would really feel under his first baptism of fire. He was only a private soldier in this company which had been ordered East. He had resigned from the first he had helped to raise—the ambitions and intrigues of its officers had aroused his disgust and he had taken a place in the ranks of the first company sent to Virginia. He had made up his mind he would wear no signs of rank that were not fairly won on the field of battle.

To-morrow he was going to face it at short range. Everywhere were strewn canteens, knapsacks, broken guns and blankets. He came suddenly on a trench behind which the men in blue had fought from dark to dark. It was full of dead soldiers.

His regiment was up before day to move at dawn. His company had been assigned to a regiment of veterans who had fought at Bull Run and had been in three of the battles before Richmond. Their ranks were thin and the Western boys were given a royal welcome.

The seasoned men were in good humor, the new company serious. Ned was carefully shaving by the flickering light of the camp fire.

"What the divil are you doin' that for?" his Irish messmate asked in amazement.

"You want to know the truth, Haggerty?" Ned drawled.

"That's what I want——"

"We're going into our first battle, aren't we?"

"Praise God, we are!"

"And we may come out a corpse?"

"Yis——"

"I'm going to be a decent one."

"Ah, go'long wid ye—ye bloody young spalpeen—ye're no more afraid than I am!"

"Maybe not, Haggerty, but it's a solemn occasion, and I'm going to look my best."

"Ye'll live ter see many a scrap, me bye!"

"Same to you, old man! But I'm going to be clean for this one, anyhow."

The regiment marched toward Malvern Hill at the first streak of dawn. It was slow work. Always the artillery ahead were sticking in the mud and the halts were interminable.

The new company grew more and more nervous:

"What's up ahead?"

They asked it at every halt the first three hours. And then their disgust became more pronounced.

"What in 'ell's the matter?" Ned groaned.

"Don't worry, Sonny," an old corporal called, "you'll get there in time to see more than you want."

The regiment reached the battle lines at one o'clock. The morning hours had been spent in driving in the skirmishers and feeling the enemy's positions. Lee had given orders for a general charge on a signal yell from Armistead's brigade. He was now waiting the arrival of all his available forces before attacking.

Late in the afternoon General D. H. Hill heard a shout followed by a roar of musketry and immediately ordered his division to charge. No other General seemed to have heard it and the charge was made without support. It was magnificent, but it was not war, it was sheer butchery. No army could have stood before the galling fire of those massed batteries.

Ned's regiment had deployed in a wood on the edge of a wide field at the foot of the hill. Their movement caught the eye of a battery on the heights which opened with six guns squarely on their heads.

The struggling, shattered remnants of a regiment which had been all but annihilated fell back through these woods, stumbling against the waiting men.

Ned saw a soldier with a Minie ball sticking in the centre of his forehead, the blood oozing from the round, clean-cut hole beside the lead. He was walking steadily backward, loading and firing with incredible rapidity. The company halted behind the troops held in reserve, but the man with the ball in his forehead refused to go to the rear. He wouldn't believe that he was seriously hurt. He jokingly asked a comrade to dig the ball out. He did so, and the fellow dropped in his tracks, the blood gushing from the wound in a stream.

The uncanny sight had sickened Ned. He looked at his hand and it was trembling like a leaf.

And this division was charging up that awful hill again. Ned saw a private soldier who belonged to one of its regiments deliberately walk across the field alone and join his comrades as if nothing of importance were going on. And yet the bullets were whistling so thickly that their "Zip! Zip!" on the ground kept the air filled with flying dirt and tufts of grass—a veritable hail of lead through which a sparrow apparently couldn't fly.

The fellow was certainly a fool! No man with a grain of sense would do such a thing alone—maybe with a crowd of cheering men, but only a maniac could do it alone—Ned was sure of that.

A shell smashed through the top of a tree, clipped its trunk in two and down it came with a crash that sent the men scampering.

A solid shot came bounding leisurely down the hill and rolled into the woods. A man just in front put out his foot playfully to stop it and it broke his leg.

The shriek of shell and the whistle of lead increased in terrifying roar each moment and Ned felt a queer sensation in his chest—a sort of shortness of breath. In a moment he was going to bolt for the rear! He felt it in his bones and saw no way to stop it. He lifted his eyes piteously toward the Colonel who sat erect in his saddle stroking the neck of a restless horse with his left hand.

The veteran saw the boy's terror under his trial of fire and his heart went out to him in a wave of fatherly sympathy.

He rode quickly up to Ned:

"Won't you hold my horse's bridle a minute, young man, while I use my glasses?" he asked coolly.

Ned's trembling hand caught the reins as a drowning man a straw. The act steadied his shaking nerves. As the Colonel slowly lowered his glasses Ned cried through chattering teeth:

"D-d-d-on't y-you think—I-I-I—am d-d-doing p-pretty well, C-colonel, f-f-f-for my f-f-ffirst battle?"

The Colonel nodded encouragingly:

"Very well, my boy. It's a nasty situation. You'll make a good soldier."

And then the order to charge!

Across the level field torn by shot and shell, the regiment swept in grey waves. The gaps filled up silently. They started up the hill and met the sleet of hissing death. The hill top blazed streams of yellow flame through the pall of smoke. Men were falling—not one by one, but in platoons and squads, rolling into heaps of grey blood-soaked flesh and rags. The regiment paused, staggered, reeled and rallied.

Haggerty fell just in front of Ned, who was loading and firing with the precision of a machine. If he had a soul—he didn't know it now. The men were ordered to lie down and fire from the ground.

Haggerty caught Ned's eye as it glanced along his musket searching for his foe through the cloud of blue black smoke that veiled the world.

"Roll me around, Bye," the Irishman cried, "and make a fince out of me—I'm done for."

Ned paid no attention to his call, and Haggerty pulled his mangled body down the hill and doubled himself up in front of his friend.

"Keep down behind me, Bye," he moaned. "I'll make a good fort for ye!"

It was useless to protest, he had erected the fort to suit himself and Ned was fighting now behind it. The sight of his dying friend steadied his nerves and sent a thrill of fierce anger like living fire through his veins. His eye searched the hilltop for his foe. The smoke rolled in dark grey sulphurous clouds down the slope and shut out the sky line. He waited and strained his bloodshot eyes to find an opening. It was no use to waste powder shooting at space. He was too deadly angry now for that.

A puff of wind lifted the clouds and the blue men could be seen leaping about their guns. They looked like giants in the smoke fog. Again he fired and loaded, fired and loaded with clock-like, even steady, hand. It was tiresome this ramming an old-fashioned muzzle-loading musket lying flat on the ground. But with each round he was becoming more and more expert in handling the gun. His mouth was black with powder from tearing the paper ends of the cartridges. The sulphurous taste of the powder was in his mouth.

From the centre of the field rose the awful Confederate yell again. A regiment of Georgians, led by Gordon were charging. Waiting again for the smoke to clear in front Ned could see the grey waves spread out and caught the sharp word of command as the daring young officers threw their naked swords toward the sky crying:

"Forward!"

And then they met the storm. From grim, black lips on the hill crest came the answer to their yell—three hundred and forty mighty guns were singing an oratorio of Death and Hell in chorus now from those heights. Half the men seemed to fall at a single crash and still the line closed up and rushed steadily on, firing and loading, firing and loading,—running and staggering, then rallying and pressing on again.

On the right ten thousand men under Hill slipped out into line as if on dress parade—long lines of handsome boyish Southerners. The big guns above saw and found them with terrible accuracy. A wide lane of death was suddenly torn through them before they moved. They closed like clock work and with a cheer swept forward to the support of the men who were dying on the blood-soaked slope.

Ned's heart was thumping now. He felt it coming, that sharp low order from the Colonel before the words rang from his lips. His hour had come for the test—coward or hero it had to be now. It was funny he had ceased to worry. He had entered a new world and this choking, blinding smoke, the steady thunder of guns, the long sheets of orange fire that flashed and flashed and blazed in three rings from the hill, the ripping canvas of musketry fire in volleys, the dull boom of the great guns on the boats below, were simply a part of the routine of the new life. He had lived a generation since dawn. The years that had gone before seemed a dream. The one real thing was Betty's laughing eyes. They were looking at him now from behind that flaming hill. He must pass those guns to reach her. Not a doubt had yet entered his soul that he would do it. Men were falling around him like leaves in autumn, but this had to be. He saw the end. No matter how fierce this battle, McClellan was only fighting to save his army from annihilation. Lee was destroying him.

The order came at last. The Colonel walked along in front of his men with bared head.

"Now, boys,—that battery on the first crest—we've half their men—charge and take those guns!"

The regiment leaped to their feet and started up the hill. They had lost two hundred men in their first sweep. There were six hundred left.

"Hold your fire until I give the word!" the Colonel shouted.

The smoke was hanging low, and they had made two hundred yards before the blue line saw them through the haze. The hill blazed and hissed in their faces. The massed infantry behind the guns found their marks. Men dropped right and left, sank in grey heaps or fell forward on their faces—some were knocked backwards down the slope. Yet without a pause they climbed.

Three hundred yards more and they would be on the guns. And then a sheet of blinding flame from every black-mouthed gun in line double shotted with grape and canister! The regiment was literally knocked to its knees. The men paused as if dazed by the shock. The sharp words of cheer and command from their officers and they rallied. From both flanks poured a murderous hail of bullets—guns to the right, left and front, all screaming, roaring, hissing their call of blood.

The Colonel saw the charge was hopeless and ordered his men to fire and fall back fighting. The grey line began to melt into the smoke mists down the hill and disappeared—all save Ned Vaughan. His eyes were fixed on that battery when the order to fire was given. He fired and charged with fixed bayonet alone. He never paused to see how many men were with him. His mind was set on capturing one of those guns. He reached the breastworks and looked behind him. There was not a man in sight. A blue gunner was ramming a cannon. With a savage leap Ned was on the boy, grabbed him by the neck and rushed down the hill in front of his own gun before the astounded Commander realized what had happened. When he did it was too late to fire. They would tear both men to pieces.

The regiment had rallied in the woods at the edge of the field from which they had first charged.

Ned Vaughan led his prisoner, in bright new uniform of blue, up to the Colonel and reported.

"A prisoner of war, sir!"

The Colonel took off his hat and gazed at the pair:

"Aren't you the boy who held my horse?"

Ned saluted:

"Yes, sir."

"Then in the name of Almighty God, where did you get that man?"

Ned pointed excitedly to the hilltop:

"Right yonder, sir,—there's plenty more of 'em up there!"

The Colonel scratched his head, looked Ned over from head to heel and broke into a laugh.

"Well, I'll be damned," he said at last. "Take him to the rear and report to me to-night. I want to see you."

Ned saluted and hurried to the rear with his prisoner.

The sun was slowly sinking in a sea of blood. The red faded to purple, the purple to grey, the grey into the shadows of night and still the guns were thundering from their heights. It was nine o'clock before they were silent and Lee's torn and mangled army lay down among their dead and wounded to wait the dawn and renew the fight. They had been compelled to breast the most devastating fire to which an assaulting army had been subjected in the history of war. The trees of the woods had been literally torn and mangled as if two cyclones had met and ripped them to pieces.

The men dropped in their tracks to snatch a few hours' sleep.

The low ominous sounds that drifted from the darkness could not be heeded till to-morrow. Here and there a lantern flickered as they picked up a wounded man and carried him to the rear. Only the desperately wounded could be helped. The dead must sleep beneath the stars. The low, pitiful cries for water guided the ambulance corps as they stumbled over the heaps of those past help.

The clouds drew a veil over the stars at midnight and it began to pour down rain before day. The sleeping, worn men woke with muttered oaths and stood against the trees or squatted against their trunks seeking shelter from the flood. As the mists lifted, they looked with grim foreboding but still desperate courage to the heights. Every rampart was deserted. Not one of those three hundred and forty guns remained. McClellan had withdrawn his army under the cover of the night to Harrison's Landing.

It would be difficult to tell whose men were better satisfied.

"Thank God, he's gone from there anyhow!" the men in grey cried with fervor.

Now they could get something to eat, bury their dead and care for all the wounded. McClellan's Peninsula Campaign had ended. His Grand Army had melted from a hundred and ten thousand fighting men in line to eighty-six thousand. The South had lost almost as many.

From the wildest panic into which the advance of his army had thrown Richmond, the Confederate Capital now swung to the opposite extreme of rejoicing for the deliverance, mingled with criticism of their leaders for allowing the Federal army to escape at all.

The gloom in Washington was profound.

An excited General rushed to the White House at two o'clock in the morning, roused the President from his bed and pleaded for the immediate dispatch of a fleet of transports to Harrison's Landing as the only possible way to save the army from annihilation.

The President soothed his fears and sent him home. He was not the man to be thrown into a panic. Yet the incredible thing had happened. His army of more than two hundred thousand men, under able generals, had been hurled back from the gates of Richmond in hopeless, bewildering defeat, and he must begin all over again.

One big ominous fact loomed in tragic menace from the smoke and flame of this campaign—the South had developed two leaders of matchless military genius—Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. It was a fact the President must face and that without fear or favor to any living man in his own army.

He left Washington for the front at once. He must see with his own eyes the condition of the army. He must see McClellan. The demand for his removal was loud and bitter. And fiercest of all those who asked for his head was the iron-willed Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton, his former champion.



CHAPTER XIV

THE RETREAT

John Vaughan had become one of his General's trusted aides. His services during the month's terrific struggle had proven invaluable. The Commander was quick to discern that he was a man of culture and possessed a mind of unusual power. More than once the General had called him to his headquarters to pour into his ears his own grievances against the authorities in Washington. Naturally his mind had been embittered against the man in the White House. The magnetic personality of McClellan had appealed to his imagination from their first meeting.

The General was particularly bitter on the morning the President was expected. His indignation at last broke forth in impassioned words to his sympathetic listener.

The tragic consequence of the impression made in that talk neither man could dream at the moment.

Pacing the floor with the tread of a caged lion McClellan suddenly paused and his fine blue eyes flashed.

"I tell you, Vaughan, the wretches have done their worst. They can't do much more——"

He stopped suddenly and drew from his pocket the copy of a dispatch he had sent to the war office. He read it carefully and looked up with flashing eyes:

"I'll face the President with this dispatch to Stanton in my hands, too. They would have removed me from my command for sending it—if they had dared!"

He slowly repeated its closing words:

"I know that a few thousand more men would have changed this battle from a defeat to a victory. As it is, the Government must not and cannot hold me responsible for the result. I feel too earnestly to-night. I have seen too many dead and wounded comrades to feel otherwise than that the Government has not sustained this army. If you do not do so now, the game is lost. If I save this army now, I tell you plainly that I owe no thanks to you, or to any other person in Washington. You have done your best to sacrifice this army——"

He paused and his square jaws came together firmly.

"And if that be treason, they can make the most of it!"

"I am curious to know how he meets you to-day," John said with a smile.

An orderly announced the arrival of the President and the Commanding General promptly boarded his steamer. In ten minutes the two men were facing each other in the stateroom assigned the Chief Magistrate.

Lincoln's tall, rugged figure met the compact General with the easy generous attitude of a father ready to have it out with a wayward boy. His smile was friendly and the grip of his big hand cordial.

"I am satisfied, sir, that you, your officers and men have done the best you could. All accounts say that better fighting was never done. Ten thousand thanks, in the name of the people for it."

The words were generous, but the commander put in a suggestion for more.

"Never, Mr. President," he said emphatically, "did such a change of base, involving a retrogressive movement under incessant attacks from a vastly more numerous foe partake of so little disaster. When all is known you will see that the movement just completed by this army is unparalleled in the annals of war. We have preserved our trains, our guns, our material, and, above all, our honor."

"Rest assured, General," the quiet voice responded, "the heroism and skill of yourself, officers and men, is and forever will be appreciated."

The President returned to Washington profoundly puzzled as to his duty. He was alarmed at the display of self esteem which his defeated General had naively made, and his loyalty was boldly and opened questioned by his advisers, and yet he was loath to remove him from command. Down in his square, honest heart he felt that with all his faults, McClellan was a man of worth, that he had never been thoroughly whipped in a single battle and that he hadn't had a fair trial.

Any other man in power than Abraham Lincoln would have removed him instantly on the receipt of his insolent and insulting dispatch. Instead, the President had gone to see him with an open mind. He returned determined to strengthen his military council by the addition of an expert in Washington as his Commander-in-Chief.

He called to this post Henry W. Halleck. Although McClellan had waived the crown of such power aside with lofty words of unselfish patriotism, he received the announcement of Halleck's promotion and his subordination with sullen rage.

"In this thing," he wrote his wife, "the President and those around him have acted so as to make the matter as offensive as possible to me."

And yet against every demand that McClellan should be removed from command the President was obdurate. Again and again his friends urged:

"McClellan is playing for the Presidency."

The tall man merely nodded:

"All right. Let him. I am perfectly willing that he shall have it if he will only put an end to this war."

But if the President refused to remove him from command, Halleck and Stanton managed quickly to strip him of half his army by detaching and sending it to join the new army of General Pope. McClellan, with the remainder of his men, had been sent by transport back to Alexandria. General John Pope was summoned from the West to take command of the new "Army of Virginia," composed of the divisions of Fremont, Banks and McDowell, and the detached portion of McClellan's men.

All eyes were now centred on the new Commander. The West had only seen success—Fort Henry, Fort Donelson, Pea Ridge, Shiloh, and Island No. 10.

The new General on the day he began his advance against Lee and Jackson issued an address to his army which sent a chill to the heart of the President.

"I have come to you from the West," he proclaimed, "where we have always seen the backs of our enemies—from an army whose business has been to seek the adversary and beat him when found. I desire you to dismiss from your minds certain phrases which I am sorry to find much in vogue among you. I hear constantly of 'lines of retreat' and 'bases of supplies.' Let us discard such ideas. Let us look before us, not behind. From to-day my headquarters will be in the saddle."

Every man in the Army of the Potomac which McClellan had created and fought with such fierce and terrible, if unsuccessful power, resented this address as an insult. McClellan himself was furious. For some reason only part of the forces from his army which were detached ever reached Pope, and those who did were not enthusiastic. It was expecting too much of human nature to believe that they could be.

The outlook for the coming battle was ominous.



CHAPTER XV

TANGLED THREADS

Betty Winter received a telegram from John Vaughan announcing his arrival at Alexandria with McClellan on the last day of August. Her heart gave a bound of joy. She could see him to-morrow. It had been five years instead of five months since she had stood on that little pier and watched him float away into the mists of the river! All life before the revelation which love had brought was now a shadowy memory. Only love was real. His letters had been her life. They hadn't come as often as she had wished. She demanded his whole heart. There could be no compromise. It must be all, all or nothing.

She tried to sleep and couldn't. Her brain was on fire.

"I must sleep and look my best!" she laughed softly, buried her face in the pillow and laughed again for joy. How could she sleep with her lover standing there alive and strong with his arms clasping her to his heart!

She rose at daylight and threw open her window. The air was crisp with the breath of fall. She watched the sun rise in solemn glory. A division of cavalry dashed by, the horses' hoofs ringing sharply on the cobble stones, sabres clashing. Behind them came another and another, and in a distant street she heard the rumble of big guns, the crack of their drivers' whips and the sharp cries of the men urging the horses to a run.

Something unusual was on foot. The sun was barely up and the whole city seemed quivering with excitement.

She dressed hurriedly, snatched a bite of toast and drank a cup of coffee. In twenty minutes she entered the White House to get her pass to the front. She wouldn't go to the War Department. Stanton was rude and might refuse. The hour was absurd, but she knew that the President rose at daylight and that he would see her at any hour.

She found him seated at his desk alone pretending to eat an egg and drink his coffee from the tray that had been placed before him. His dishevelled hair, haggard look and the pallor of his sorrowful face showed only too plainly that he had not slept.

"You have bad news, Mr. President?" Betty gasped.

He rose, took her hand and led her to a seat.

"Not yet, dear, but I'm expecting it."

"We lost the battle yesterday?" she eagerly asked.

"Apparently not. You may read that. I trust you implicitly."

He handed her the dispatch he had received from General Pope after the first day's fight at Manassas. Betty read it quickly:

"We fought a terrific battle here yesterday with the combined forces of the enemy, which lasted with continuous fury from daylight until dark, by which time the enemy was driven from the field which we now occupy. The enemy is still in our front, but badly used up. We lost not less than eight thousand men killed and wounded, but from the appearance of the field the enemy lost two to one. The news has just reached me from the front that the enemy is retreating toward the mountains."

Betty looked up surprised:

"Isn't that good news?"

"Nothing to brag about. It's the last sentence that worries me——"

"But that seems the best!"

"It might be but for the fact that Jackson is leading that retreat toward the mountains! I've an idea that he will turn up to-day on Pope's rear with Lee's whole army on his heels. Jackson is in the habit of appearing where he's least expected——"

He paused, paced the floor a moment in silence and threw his long arms suddenly upward in a hopeless gesture:

"If God would only give me such a man to lead our armies!"

"Is General McClellan at Alexandria to-day?" Betty suddenly asked.

"I'm wondering myself. He should be on that field with every soldier under his command."

"I've come to ask you for a pass to Alexandria——"

"Then my worst fears are confirmed!" he broke in excitedly. "Your sweetheart's on McClellan's staff—his men will never reach the field in time!"

He dropped into a chair, hurriedly wrote the pass and handed it to Betty.

"God bless you, child. See me when you get back and tell me all you learn of McClellan and his men to-day. The very worst is suspected——"

"You mean?"

"That this delay and deliberate trifling with the most urgent and positive orders is little short of treason. Unless his men reach Pope to-day and fight, the Capital may be threatened to-morrow."

"Surely!" Betty protested.

"It's just as I tell you, child, but I'll hope for the best. Be eyes and ears for me to-day and you may help me."

The agony of his face and the deep note of tragedy in his voice had taken the joy out of her heart. She threw the feeling off with an effort.

"What has it all to do with my love!" she cried with a toss of her pretty head as she sprang into the saddle for the gallop to Alexandria.

The cool, bracing air of this first day of September, 1862, was like wine. The dew was yet heavy on the tall grass by the roadside and a song was singing in her heart that made all other music dumb.

John had dismounted and was standing beside the road, the horse's bridle hanging on his arm in the very position he had stood and looked into her soul that day.

She leaped to the ground without waiting for his help and sprang into his arms.

"I like you better with that bronzed look—you're handsomer than ever," she sighed at last.

His answer was another kiss, to which he added:

"No amount of sunburn could make you any prettier, dear—you've been perfect from the first."

"Your General is here?" Betty asked.

"Yes."

"And you can give me the whole day?"

"Every hour—the General is my friend."

The moment was too sweet to allow any shadow to cloud it. The girl yielded to its spell without reserve. They mounted and rode side by side over the hills. And the man poured into her ears the unspoken things he had felt and longed to say in the lonely nights of camp and field. The girl confessed the pain and the longing of her waiting.

They mounted the crest of a hill and the breeze from the southwest brought the sullen boom of a cannon.

Instinctively they drew rein.

"The battle has begun again," John said casually.

"It stirs your blood, doesn't it?" she whispered.

A frown darkened his brow:

"Not to-day."

The girl looked with quick surprise.

"You don't mean it?"

"Certainly. Why get excited when you know the end before it begins."

"You know it?"

"Yes."

"Victory?"

He laughed cynically:

"Victory for a pompous braggart who could write that address to an army reflecting on the men who fought Lee and Jackson before Richmond with such desperate courage?"

"You are sure of defeat then?"

"Absolutely."

Betty looked at him with a flush of angry excitement:

"General McClellan is counting on Pope's defeat to-day?"

"Yes."

"Then it's true that he is not really trying to help him?"

"Why should he wish to sacrifice his brave men under the leadership of a fool?"

"He is, in fact, defying the orders of the President, isn't he?"

"You might say that if you strain a point," John admitted.

Again the long roar of guns boomed on the Western horizon, louder, clearer. The dull echoes became continuous now, and the quickening breeze brought the faint din from the vast field of death whose blazing smoke covered lines stretched over seven miles.

"Boom-boom-boom, boom!—boom! boom!"

Again they drew rein and listened.

John's brow wrinkled and his right ear was thrown slightly forward.

"Those are our big guns," he said with a smile. "The Confederate artillery can't compare with ours—their infantry is a terror—stark, dead game fighters——"

"Boom—Boom!——Boom! Boom! Boom!"

"How do you know those are our guns?" Betty asked with a shiver.

"The rebels have none so large. They'll have some to-night."

Again an angry flush mounted her cheeks:

"You wish them to be captured?"

"It will be a wholesome lesson."

Betty leaned closer and grasped his hand with trembling eagerness.

"O John—John, dear, this is madness! General McClellan has been accused of treason already—this surely is the basest betrayal of his country——"

The man shook his head stubbornly:

"No—it's the highest patriotism. My Commander is brave enough to dare the authorities at Washington for the good of his country. The sooner this farce under Pope ends the better—no man of second rate ability can win against the great Generals of the South."

The girl's keen brown eyes looked steadily into his and her lips trembled.

"I call it treachery—the betrayal of his country for his selfish ambitions! I'm surprised that you sympathize with him."

John frowned, was silent and then turned to her with a smile:

"Let's not talk about it, dear. The day's too beautiful. We're alone together. This is not your battle—nor mine—it's Pope's—let him fight it out. I love you—that's all I want to think about to-day."

The golden brown curls were slowly shaken:

"It is your battle and it's mine—O John dear, I'm heartsick over it! The President's anguish clouded the morning for me, but the thought of you made me forget. Now I'm scared. You've surprised and shocked me."

"Nonsense, dear!" he pleaded.

She looked at him with quick, eager yearning.

"You love me?" she asked.

"Can you doubt it?"

"With every beat of your heart?"

"Yes."

"Will you do something for me?" she begged.

"What is it?"

"Just for me, because I ask it, John, and you love me?"

"If I can."

"I want you to resign immediately from McClellan's staff, report at the War Department and let the President give you new duties——"

The man shot her a look of angry amazement:

"You can't mean this?"

Again the soft, warm hand that had slipped its glove grasped his. He could feel her slim, little fingers tremble. She had turned very pale:

"I'm in dead earnest. I love you, dear, with my whole heart, and it's my love that asks this. I can't think of you betraying a solemn trust. The very thought of it cuts me to the quick. If this is true, General McClellan should be court-martialed."

The man's square jaws closed with a snap:

"Let them try it if they dare——"

"The President will dare if he believes it his duty."

"Then he'll hear something from the hundred and fifty thousand soldiers who have served under McClellan."

The little hand pressed harder.

"Won't you, for my sake, dear,—just because I'm your sweetheart and you love me?"

The stalwart figure suddenly stiffened:

"And you could respect a man who would do a thing like that?"

"For my sake?—Yes."

"No, you think you could. But you couldn't. No woman can really love a poltroon or a coward."

"I'm not asking you to do a cowardly thing——"

"To desert my leader in a crisis?"

"To wash your hands of treachery and selfish ambitions."

"But it's not true," he retorted. "You mustn't say that. McClellan's a leader of genius—brave, true, manly, patriotic."

"I've a nobler ideal of patriotism——"

"Your blundering backwoodsman in the White House?"

"Yes. He has but one thought—that the Union shall be saved. He has no other ambition. If McClellan succeeds, he rejoices. If he fails, he is heartbroken. I know that he has defended him against the assaults of his enemies. He has refused to listen to men who assailed his loyalty and patriotism. This generous faith your Chief is betraying to-day. That you defend him is horrible—O John, dear, I can't—I won't let you stay! You must break your connection with this conspiracy of vain ambition. The country is calling now for every true, unselfish man—please!"

He lifted his hand in firm protest:

"And for that very reason I stand firmly by the man I believe destined to save my country."

"You won't change Commanders because I ask it?"

He was silent a moment and a smile played about the corners of his lips:

"Would you change because I asked it?"

"Yes."

"Then come over from Lincoln to McClellan," he laughed.

"And join your group of conspirators—never!"

"Not if I ask it, because I love you?"



Her brown eyes sparkled with anger:

"You'll not find this a joke!"

"That's why I treat it seriously, my dear," was the firm reply. "If I could throw up my position in this war on the sudden impulse of my sweetheart, I'd be ashamed to look a man in the face—and you would despise me!"

"If your Commander succeeds to-day in bringing disaster to our army I'll despise you for aiding him——"

"Let's not discuss it—please, dear!" he begged with a frown.

"As you please," was the cold reply.

They rode on in silence, broken only by the increasing roar of the great guns at Manassas. Betty glanced at the stolid, set face and firm lips. Her anger steadily rose with every throb of Pope's cannon. Each low thunder peal on the horizon now was a cry for help from dying mangled thousands and the man she loved refusing to hear.

Suddenly the picture of his brother flashed before her vision, the high-strung, clean young spirit, chivalrous, daring, fighting for what he knew to be right—right because right is right, and wrong is wrong.

She looked at John Vaughan with a feeling of fierce anger. Between the two men she preferred the enemy who was fighting in the open to win or die. Her soul went out to Ned in a wave of tender admiration. Her wrath against his brother steadily rose.

Suddenly she drew her rein:

"You need come no further. I'll ride back home alone."

He bit his lips without turning and was silent. She touched her horse with her whip and galloped swiftly toward Washington.

* * * * *

The last day of Pope's brief campaign ended in the overwhelming disaster of the second battle of Bull Run. The sound of his cannon reached McClellan's ears, but the organizer of the Army of the Potomac, though ordered to do so, never joined his rival.

Once more the army of the Union was hurled back on Washington in panic, confusion and appalling disaster. Lee and Jackson had crushed Pope's hosts with a rapidity and case that struck terror to the heart of the Nation. General Pope lost fifteen thousand men in a single battle. Lee and Jackson lost less than half as many.

The storm broke over McClellan's head at Washington on his arrival. Stanton and Halleck and Pope accused him of treachery. The hot heads demanded his arrest and trial by court-martial.

The President shook his head, but sadly added:

"He has acted badly toward Pope. He really wanted him to fail."

And then began the search to find the man once more to weld the shattered army into an efficient fighting force.

Abraham Lincoln asked himself this question with a sense of the deepest and most solemn responsibility. He must answer at the bar of his conscience before God and his country. Again he brushed aside every adviser inside and outside his Cabinet and determined on his choice absolutely alone.

Early on the morning of September 2nd John Vaughan looked from the window of General McClellan's house and saw the giant figure of the President approaching, accompanied by Halleck.

When his aide announced this startling fact, the General coolly said:

"It means my arrest, no doubt. I'm ready. Let them come."

The President was not kept waiting this time. His General was there to receive him.

The rugged face was pale and drawn.

"General McClellan," he began without ceremony, "I have come to ask you to take command of all the returning troops for the defense of Washington."

The short, stalwart figure of the General suddenly straightened, his blue eyes flashed with amazement and then softened into a misty expression. He bowed with dignity and quietly said:

"I accept the position, sir."

"I need not repeat," the President went on, "that I disapprove some things you have done. I have made this plain to you. I do this because I believe it's best for our country. I assume its full responsibility and I expect great things of you."

The President bowed and left the astonished General and his still more astonished aide gazing after his long swinging legs returning to the White House.

He had done the most unpopular act of his entire administration. His decision had defied the fiercest popular hostility. He faced a storm of denunciation which would have appalled a less simple and masterful man. The Cabinet meeting which followed the startling news was practically a riot. He listened to all his excited Ministers had to say with patience. When they had spoken their last word of bitter disapproval he quietly rose and ended the tumultuous session with two or three sentences which none could answer:

"There is no one in the army who can man these fortifications and lick these troops of ours into shape half as well as he can. McClellan is a great engineer—of the stationary type, perhaps. But we must use the tools we have! If he cannot fight himself, at least he excels in making others ready to fight."

He waited for an answer and none came. He had not only averted a Cabinet crisis but his remorseless common sense and his unswerving adherence to what he saw was best had strengthened his authority over all his councillors.

When the rest had gone he turned to the young man who knew him best, his Secretary, John Nicolay, and gripped his arm with a big hand which was trembling:

"The most painful duty of my official life, Boy! There has been a design, a purpose in breaking down Pope without regard to the consequences to the country that is atrocious. It's shocking to see and know this, but there is no remedy at present. McClellan has the army with him and I must use him."



CHAPTER XVI

THE CHALLENGE

"One war at a time," the President said to his Secretary of State when he proposed a foreign fight. He must now strangle Northern public opinion to enforce this principle.

Captain Wilkes had overhauled the British Steamer Trent on the high seas, searched her and taken the Confederate Commissioners Mason and Slidell by force from her decks.

The people of the North were mad with joy over the daring act. Congress, swept off its feet by the wave of popular hysteria, proclaimed Wilkes a hero and voted their thanks. The President did not move with current opinion. He had formed the habit in boyhood of thinking for himself, and had never allowed himself to take his cues for action from second-hand suggestions. From the first he raised the question of Wilkes' right to stop the vessel of a friendly nation on the high seas, search her and take her passengers prisoners by force of arms.

The backwoods lawyer questioned, too, the right of a naval officer to turn his quarter-deck into a court and decide questions of international law offhand. He raised the point at once whether these men thus captured might not be white elephants on the hands of the Government. Moreover he reminded his Cabinet that we had fought England once for daring to do precisely this thing.

Great Britain promptly drew her sword and made ready for war.

Queen Victoria's Government not only demanded that the return of these passengers be made at once with an apology, but did it in a way so offensive that a less balanced man in power would have lost his head and committed the fatal blunder.

The tall, quiet Chief Magistrate was equal to the occasion. Great Britain had ordered her navy on a war footing, dispatched eight thousand troops to Canada to strike by land as well as sea, allowing us but seven days in which to comply with all her demands or hand Lord Lyons his passports.

The President immediately dictated a reply which forced her Prime Minister to accept it and achieved for the Nation the establishment of a principle for which we had fought in vain in 1812.

He ordered the prisoners returned and an apology expressed. His apology was a two-edged sword thrust which Great Britain was compelled to take with a groan.

"In 1812," the President said, "the United States fought because you claimed the right to stop our vessels on the high seas, search them and take by force British subjects found thereon. Our country in making this surrender, adheres to the ancient principle for which we contended and we are glad to find that Her Majesty's Government in demanding this surrender thereby renounces an error and accepts our position."

Lord Palmerston made a wry face, but was compelled to accept the surrender, and with it seal his own humiliation as a beaten diplomat. War with England at this moment would have meant unparalleled disaster. France had ambitions in Mexico and she was bound in friendship to England. The two great Nations of Europe would have been hurled against our divided country with the immediate recognition of the Confederacy.

The President forced this return of the prisoners and apparent surrender to Great Britain in the face of the blindest and most furious outbursts of popular rage.

Gilbert Winter rose in the Senate and in thunderous oratory voiced the well-nigh unanimous feeling of the millions of the North of all parties and factions:

"I warn the administration against this dastardly and cowardly surrender to a foreign foe! The voice of the people demand that we stand firm on our dignity as a Sovereign Nation. If the President and his Cabinet refuse to listen they will find themselves engulfed in a fire that will consume them like stubble. They will find themselves helpless before a power that will hurl them from their places!"

The President was still under the cloud of public wrath over this affair when the crisis of the problem of emancipation became acute. The gradual growth of the number of his bitter foes in Washington he had seen with deep distress. And yet it was inevitable. No man in his position could administer the great office whose power he was wielding without fear or favor and not make enemies. And now both friend and foe were closing in on him with a well-nigh resistless demand for emancipation.

Hour after hour he sat patiently in his office receiving these impassioned delegations.

Old Edward was standing at the door again smiling and washing his hands:

"A delegation of editors, presenting Mr. Horace Greeley's 'Prayer of Twenty Millions.'"

The patient eyes were lifted front his desk, and the strong mouth firmly pressed:

"Let them in."

The President rose in his easy, careless manner:

"I'm glad to see you, gentlemen. You are the leaders of public opinion. The people rule this country and I am their servant. What is it?"

The Chairman of the Committee stepped forward and gravely handed him an engrossed copy of Greeley's famous editorial, "The Prayer of Twenty Millions," demanding the immediate issue of a proclamation of emancipation.

The Chairman bowed and spoke in earnest tones:

"As the representatives of millions of readers we present this 'Prayer' with our endorsement and the request that you act. In particular we call your attention to these paragraphs:

"'A great portion of those who brought about your election and all those who desire the unqualified suppression of the rebellion, are sorely disappointed, pained and surprised by the policy you seem to be pursuing with regard to the slaves of rebels. I write to set before you succinctly and unmistakably what we require, what we have a right to expect and of what we complain.

"'We think you are unduly influenced by the counsels, the representations and the menaces of certain fossil politicians from the Border Slave States, knowing as you do, that the loyal citizens of these States do not expect that Slavery shall be upheld, to the prejudice of the Union.

"'We complain that the Union cause has suffered and is now suffering immensely from the mistaken course which you are pursuing and persistently cling to, in defense of slavery. We complain that the confiscation act which you approved is being wantonly and wholly disregarded by your Generals, apparently with your knowledge and consent.

"'The seeming subserviency of your policy to the slave holding, slave upholding interest is the perplexity and the despair of statesmen of all parties. Whether you will choose to listen to their admonishment or wait for your verdict through future history, or at the bar of God, I do not know. I can only hope.'"

The President's sombre eyes met his with a penetrating flash and rested on Senator Winter who remained in the background. He took the paper, laid it carefully on his desk, threw his right leg across the corner of the long table in easy, friendly attitude and began his reply persuasively:

"The editor of the Tribune, gentleman, if on my side, is equal to an army of a hundred thousand men in the field. I've known this from the first. Against me he throws this army in the rear and fires into my back. My grievance is that his Prayer which you have made yours is being used for ammunition in this rear attack. It should have been presented to me first, if it were a genuine prayer. I have read it carefully. It is full of blunders of fact and reasoning, but it fairly expresses the discontent in the minds of many. Its unfair assumptions will poison millions of readers against me——"

He paused, opened a drawer in his desk, took from it a sheet of paper on which he had written in firm, clear hand a brief message in reply, and turned to his petitioners:

"And therefore, gentlemen, I have written a few words in answer to this attack. I ask you to give it the same wide hearing you have accorded the assault. I'll read it to you:

"'Dear Sir:—I have just read yours of the 19th instant addressed to myself through the New York Tribune.

"'If there be in it any statements or assumptions of fact, which I know to be erroneous, I do not now and here controvert them.

"'If there be any influences which I believe to be falsely drawn, I do not now and here argue against them.

"'If there be perceptible in it an impatient and dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to an old friend, whose heart I have always supposed to be right.

"'As to the policy I seem to be pursuing, as you say, I have not meant to leave anyone in doubt. I would save the Union. I would save it in the shortest way under the Constitution.

"'The sooner the National authority can be restored, the nearer the Union will be,—the Union as it was.

"'If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save Slavery, I do not agree with them.

"'If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time destroy Slavery, I do not agree with them.

"'My paramount object is to save the Union, and not either to save or destroy Slavery.

"'If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it. And if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it. And if I could save it by freeing some, and leaving others alone, I would also do that.

"'What I do about Slavery and the colored race I do because I believe it helps to save the Union, and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.

"'I shall do less whenever I believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more, whenever I believe doing more will help the cause.

"'I shall try to correct errors, when shown to be errors, and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.

"'I have stated my purpose, according to my view of official duty, and I intend no modification of my oft expressed personal wish, that all men everywhere could be free.'"

A moment of death-like stillness followed the reading. The members of the committee had unconsciously pressed nearer. Some of them stood with shining eyes gazing at the rugged, towering figure as if drawn by a magnet. The stark earnestness and simplicity of his defense had found their hearts. The daring of it fairly took their breath.

Senator Winter turned to his nearest neighbor and growled:

"Bah! The trouble is Lincoln's a Southerner—born in the poisoned slave atmosphere of the South. He grew up in Southern Indiana and Illinois. His neighbors there were settlers from the South. He has never breathed anything but Southern air and ideals. It's in his blood. Only a man born in the South could have written that document——"