It was a close shave. His working majority in Congress was reduced to a narrow margin, the opposition was large, united and fierce in its aggression, but he had been saved from annihilation.

The temper of the men elected to the Legislatures, both State and National, in the great Northern States was astounding.

So serious was the situation in Indiana that Governor Morton hastened to Washington to lay the crisis before the President.

"I'm sorry to have to tell you," the Governor began, "but we must face it. The Democratic politicians of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois now called to power assume that the rebellion will not be crushed——"

"And therefore?"

"That their interests are antagonistic to New England and in harmony with the South. Another three months like the last six and we are lost, sir—hopelessly lost!"

"Is it as bad as that Governor?" the sad even voice asked.

A smile flickered across the stern, fine face of the war Governor:

"If you think me a pessimist remember that Van Alen their leader, has just presided over a Democratic jubilee meeting in Ohio which was swept again and again by cheers for Jefferson Davis—curses and jeers for the Abolitionists. His speech has been put in the form of a leaflet which is being mailed in thousands to our soldiers at the front——"

"You know that to be a fact?" the President asked sharply.

"The fact is notorious, sir. It will be disputed by no one. The outlook is black. Meeting after meeting is being held in Indiana demanding peace at any price, with the recognition of the Southern Confederacy—and, mark you, what is still more significant the formation of a Northwestern Confederacy with its possible Capital at your home town of Springfield, Illinois——"

"No, no!" the President groaned.

"Your last call for three hundred thousand volunteers," the Governor went on, "as you well know was an utter failure. Only eighty-six thousand men have been raised under it. I was compelled to use a draft to secure the number I did in Indiana. It is useless to call for more volunteers anywhere——"

"Then we'll have to use the draft," was the firm response.

"If we can enforce it!" the Governor warned. "A meeting has just been held in my State in which resolutions were unanimously passed demanding that the war cease, denouncing the attempt to use the power to draft men, declaring that our volunteers had been induced to enter the army under the false declaration that war was waged solely to maintain the Constitution and to restore the Union——"

"And so it is!" the President interrupted.

"Until you issued your Proclamation, freeing the slaves——"

"But only as a war measure to weaken the South, give us the victory and restore the Constitution!"

"They refuse to hear your interpretation; they make their own. Van Alen boldly declares that ninety-nine men out of every hundred whom he represents in Congress breathe no other prayer than to have an end of this hellish war. When news of victory comes, there is no rejoicing. When news of our defeat comes there is no sorrow——"

"Is that statement really true?" the sorrowful lips asked.

"Of the majority who elected him, yes. In the Northwest, distrust and despair are strangling the hearts of the people. More and more we hear the traitorous talk of arraying ourselves against New England and forming a Confederacy of our own. More than two thousand six hundred deserters have been arrested within a few weeks in Indiana. It generally requires an armed detail. Most of the deserters, true to the oath of the order of the Knights of the Golden Circle, desert with their arms——"

"Is it possible?"

"And in one case seventeen of these fortified themselves in a log cabin with outside paling and ditch for protection, and were maintained by their neighbors. Two hundred armed men in Rush County resisted the arrest of deserters. I was compelled to send infantry by special train to take their ringleaders. Southern Indiana is ripe for Revolution.

"I have positive information that the incoming Democratic Legislature of my State is in quick touch with the ones gathering in Illinois and Ohio. In Illinois, your own State, they have already drafted the resolutions demanding an armistice and a convention of all the States to agree to an adjustment of the war. It is certain to pass the Illinois House.

"My own Legislature has put this resolution into a more daring and dangerous form. They propose boldly and at once to acknowledge the Southern Confederacy and demand that the Northwest dissolve all further relations with New England. When they have passed this measure in Indiana, they expect Ohio and Illinois to follow suit.

"Their secret order which covers my State with a network of lodges, whose purpose is the withdrawal of the Northwestern States from the Union, has obtained a foothold in the army camps inside the city of Washington itself——"

The President rose with quick, nervous energy and paced the floor. He stopped suddenly in front of Morton, his deep set eyes burning a steady flame:

"And what do you propose?"

"I haven't decided yet. I have the best of reasons to believe that the first thing my Legislature will do when it convenes is to pass a resolution refusing to receive any message from me as Governor of the State!"

"Will they dare?"

"I'm sure of it. It will be composed of men sworn to oppose to the bitter end any prosecution of this war. They intend to recognize the Southern Confederacy, and dissolve their own Federal relation with the United States. It may be necessary, sir——" he paused and fixed the President with compelling eyes, "—-it may be necessary to suspend the civil government in the North in order to save the Union!"

The President lifted his big hand in a gesture of despair:

"God save us from that!"

"I came here to tell you just this," the Governor gravely concluded. "If the crisis comes and I must use force I expect you to back me——"

Two big rugged hands grasped the one outstretched:

"God bless you, Governor Morton,—we've got to save the Union, and we're going to do it! Since the day I came into this office I have fought to uphold the supremacy of the civil law. My enemies may force me to use despotic powers to crush it for larger ends!——But I hope not. I hope not. God knows I have no vain ambitions. I have no desire to use such power——"

The Governor left him gazing dreamily over the river toward Virginia a great new sorrow clouding his soul.



CHAPTER XXIV

THE CONSPIRACY

Lord Lyons, the British Minister, was using smooth words to the Secretary of State. Mr. Seward, our wily snuff dipper, was fully his equal in expressions of polite friendship. What he meant to say, of course, was that he could plunge a poisoned dagger into the British Lion with the utmost pleasure. What he said was:

"I am pleased to hear from your lordship the expressions of good will from her Gracious Majesty's Government."

"I am sorry to say, however," the Minister hastened to add, "that the Proclamation of Emancipation was not received by the best people of England as favorably as we had hoped."

"And why not?" Seward politely asked.

"Seeing that it could have no effect in really freeing the slaves until the South is conquered it appeared to be merely an attempt to excite a servile insurrection."

The Secretary lifted his eyebrows, took another dip of snuff, and softly inquired:

"And may I ask of your lordship whether this would not have been even more true in the earlier days of the war than now?"

"Undoubtedly."

"And yet I understand that her Gracious Majesty's Government was cold toward us because we had failed to take such high moral grounds at once in the beginning of the war?"

His lordship lifted his hands in polite admission of the facts.

"The trouble you see is," he went on softly, "Europe begins to feel that the division of sentiment in the North will prove a fatal weakness to the administration in so grave a crisis. Unfortunately, from our point of view, of course, your Government is a democracy, the sport of every whim of the demagogue of the hour——"

Seward lifted his eyes with a quick look at his lordship and smiled:

"Allow me to reassure her Gracious Majesty's Government on that point immediately. The administration will find means of preserving the sovereign power the people have entrusted to it. For example, my lord, I can touch the little bell on my right hand and order the arrest without warrant of a citizen of Ohio. I can touch the little bell on my left hand and order the imprisonment of a citizen of New York; and no power on earth except that of the President, can release them. Can the Queen of Great Britain do as much?"

His lordship left apparently reassured.

The tinkle of the little bell on the desk of the Secretary of State which had begun to fill the jails of the North with her leading Democratic citizens did not have the same soothing effect on American lawmakers, however. These arrests were made without warrant and the victim held without charges, the right to bail or trial.

The President had dared to suspend the great writ of habeas corpus which guaranteed to every freeman the right to meet his accuser in open court and answer the charge against him.

The attitude of the bold aggressive opposition was voiced on the floor of the House of Representatives in Washington in no uncertain language by Daniel Voorhees of Indiana, in a speech whose passionate eloquence was only equalled by its reckless daring.

"The present Executive of the Government," he declared, "has usurped the powers of Law and Justice to an extent subversive of republican institutions, and not to be borne by any free people. He has given access to the vaults of prisons but not to the bar of justice. It is a part of the nature of frail men to sin against laws, both human and divine; but God Himself guarantees him a fair trial before punishment. Tyrants alone repudiate the justice of the Almighty. To deny an accused man the right to be heard in his own defense is an echo from the dark ages of brutal despotism. We have in this the most atrocious tyranny that ever feasted on the groans of a captive or banqueted on the tears of the widow and the orphan.

"And yet on this spectacle of shame and horror American citizens now gaze. The great bulwark of human liberty which generations in bloody toil have built against the wicked exercise of unlawful power has been torn away by a parricidal hand. Every man to-day from the proudest in his mansion to the humblest in his cabin—all stand at the mercy of one man, and the fawning minions who crouch before him for pay.

"We hear on every side the old cry of the courtier and the parasite. At every new aggression, at every additional outrage, new advocates rise to defend the source of patronage, wealth and fame—the department of the Executive! Such assistance has always waited on the malignant efforts of tyranny. Nero had his poet laureate, and Seneca wrote a defense even for the murder of his mother. And this dark hour affords us ample evidence that human nature is the same to-day as two thousand years ago."

Such speeches could not be sent broadcast free of charge through the mails without its effect on the minds of thousands. The great political party in opposition to the administration was now arrayed in solid phalanx against the war itself on whose prosecution the existence of the Nation depended.

Again the Radical wing of his party demanded of the President the impossible.

The Abolitionists had given a tardy and lukewarm support in return for the issue of the Proclamation of Emancipation. Their support lasted but a few days. Through their spokesman, Senator Winter, they demanded now the whole loaf. They had received but half of their real program. They asked for a policy of reconstruction in the parts of Louisiana and Tennessee held by the Union army in accordance with their ideas. They demanded the ballot for every slave, the confiscation of the property of the white people of the South and its bestowment upon negroes and camp-followers as fast as the Union army should penetrate into the States in rebellion.

Senator Winter's argument was based on sound reasoning theoretically whatever might be said of its wisdom as a National policy.

"Your Emancipation Proclamation," he declared to the President, "provides for the arming and drilling of negro soldiers to fight for the Republic. If they are good enough to fight they are good enough to vote. The ballot is only another form of the bayonet which we use in time of peace——"

"Correct, Senator," was the calm reply, "if we are to allow the negro race to remain in America in physical contact with ours. But we are not going to do this. No greater calamity could befall our people. Colonization and separation must go hand in hand with the emancipation of these children of Africa. I incorporated this principle in my act of emancipation. I have set my life on the issue of its success. As a matter of theory and abstract right we may grant the suffrage to a few of the more intelligent negroes and the black soldiers we may enroll until they can be removed——"

"Again we deal with a Southerner, Mr. President!" the Senator sneered.

"So be it," was the quiet answer. "I have never held any other views. They were well known before the war. But two years before my election I said in my debate with Douglas:

"'I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way, the social and political equality of the white and black races. I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to inter-marry with white people. I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which, I believe, will forever forbid the two living together on terms of social and political equality."

"Yet," the Senator sneered, "you can change your mind. You said in your Inaugural that you had no intention or right to interfere with the institution of Slavery. You did so just the same."

"As an act of war to save the Union only. But mark you, I have always hated Slavery from principle for the white man's sake as well as the negro's. I am equally determined on principle that the negro race after it is free shall never be absorbed into our social or political life!"

"You'll change your principles or retire to private life!" the old man snapped.

"When I have saved the Union we shall see. Time will indicate the wisdom of my position. I have no longer any ambition except to give the best that's in me to my people."

The breach between the President and the most powerful leaders of his own party was now complete. It was a difference that was fundamental and irreconcilable. They asked him to extend the autocratic power he wielded to preserve the Union in a time of war to a program of revenge and proscription against the South as it should fall before the advancing army. His answer was simple:

"Secession was void from the beginning. The South shall not be laid waste as conquered territory when the Union is restored. They shall return as our brethren to live with us in peace and good will with the curse of Slavery lifted from them and their children. Nor will I permit the absorption of this black blood into our racial stock to degrade our National character. When free, the negro must return to his own."

With fierce, sullen determination the Radical wing of his party organized a secret powerful conspiracy to drive Abraham Lincoln from public life.

Behind this first line of attack stood the Democratic party with its millions of loyal voters now united under George B. McClellan. The Radicals and the Democrats hated each other with a passion second only to their hatred of the President. They agreed to remove him first and then settle their own differences.



CHAPTER XXV

THE TUG OF WAR

Betty Winter, having made up her mind to put John Vaughan out of her life for all time, volunteered for field service as a nurse and by permission of the President joined Burnside's army before Fredericksburg.

The General had brought its effective fighting force to a hundred and thirteen thousand. Lee's army confronted him on the other side of the Rappahannock with seventy-five thousand men. A great battle was impending.

Burnside had reluctantly assumed command. He was a gallant, genial, cultured soldier, a gentleman of the highest type, a pure, unselfish patriot with not a trace of vulgar ambition or self-seeking. He saw the President hounded and badgered by his own party, assaulted and denounced in the bitterest terms by the opposition, and he knew that the remedy could be found only in a fighting, victorious army. A single decisive victory would turn the tide of public opinion, unite the faction-ridden army and thrill the Nation with enthusiasm.

He determined to fight at once and risk his fate as a commander on the issue of victory or defeat. His council of war had voted against an attack on Lee's army in Fredericksburg. Burnside brushed their decision aside as part of the quarrel McClellan has left. Even the men in the ranks were fighting each other daily in these miserable bickerings and intrigues. A victory was the remedy for their troubles, and he made up his mind to fight for it.

The General received Betty with the greatest courtesy:

"You're more than welcome at this moment, Miss Winter. The surgeons won't let you in some of their field hospitals. But there's work to be done preparing our corps for the battle we're going to fight. You'll have plenty to do."

"Thank you, General," she gravely answered.

Burnside read for the second time the gracious letter from the President which Betty presented.

"You're evidently pretty strong with this administration, Miss Betty," he remarked.

"Yes. The patience and wisdom of the President is a hobby of mine."

"Then I'll ask you to review the army with me. You can report to him."

Within an hour they were passing in serried lines before the Commander. Betty watched them march with a thrill of patriotic pride, a hundred and thirteen thousand men, their dark blue uniforms pouring past like the waters of a mighty river, the December sun gleaming on their polished bayonets as on so many icicles flashing on its surface.

Her heart suddenly stood still. There before her marched John Vaughan in the outer line of a regiment, his eyes straight in front, looking neither to the right nor the left. He was a private in the ranks, clean and sober, his face rugged, strong and sun-tanned.

For a moment there was a battle inside that tested her strength. He had not seen her and was oblivious of her existence apparently. But she had noted the regiment under whose flag he marched. It would be easy to find him if she wished.

When the first moment of love-sickness and utter longing passed, she had no desire to see him. The dead could bury its dead. Her love was a thing of the past. The cruel thing in this man's nature she had seen the first day was there still. She saw it with a shudder in his red, half-drunken eyes the day they met in Washington, saw it so plainly, so glaringly, the memory of it could never fade. He was sober and in his right mind now, his cheeks bronzed with the new life of sunshine and open air the army had given. The thing was still there. It spoke in the brute strength of his powerful body as his marching feet struck the ground, in the iron look about his broad shoulders, the careless strength with which he carried his musket as if it were a feather, and above all in the hard cold glint from his shining eyes set straight in front.

She lay awake for hours on the little white cot at the headquarters of the ambulance corps reviewing her life and dropped to sleep at last with a deep sense of gratitude to God that she was free, and could give herself in unselfish devotion to her country. Her last waking thoughts were of Ned Vaughan and the sweet, foolish worship he had laid at her feet. She wondered vaguely if he were in those grey lines beyond the river. Ned Vaughan was there this time—back with his regiment.

Lee, Jackson and Longstreet had known for days that a battle was imminent. Their scouts from over the river had brought positive information. The Confederate leaders had already planned the conflict. Their battle lines circled the hills beyond Fredericksburg, spread out in a crescent, five miles long. Nature had piled these five miles of hills around Fredericksburg as if to build an impregnable fortress. On every crest, concealed behind trees and bushes, the Confederate artillery was in place—its guns trained to sweep the wide plain with a double cross fire, besides sending a storm of shot and shell straight from the centre. Sixty thousand matchless grey infantry crouched among those bushes and lay beside stone walls, in sunken roadways or newly turned trenches.

The great fan-shaped death-trap had been carefully planned and set by a master mind. Only a handful of sharpshooters and a few pieces of artillery had been left in Fredericksburg to dispute the passage of the river and deceive Burnside with a pretense of defending the town.

The Confederate soldier was ragged and his shoes were tied together with strings. His uniform consisted of an old hat or cap usually without a brim, a shirt of striped bed-ticking so brown it seemed woven of the grass. The buttons were of discolored cow's horn. His coat was the color of Virginia dust and mud, and it was out at the elbow. His socks were home-made, knit by loving hands swift and tender in their endless work of love. The socks were the best things he had.

The one spotless thing about him was his musket and the bayonet he carried at his side. His spirits were high.

A barefooted soldier had managed to get home and secure a pair of boots. He started back to his regiment hurrying to be on time for the fight. The new boots hurt him so terribly he couldn't wear them. He passed Ned's regiment with his precious footgear hanging on his arm.

"Hello, Sonny, what command?" Ned cried.

"Company E, 12th Virginia, Mahone's brigade!" he proudly answered.

"Yes, damn you," a soldier drawled from the grass, "and you've pulled your boots off, holdin' 'em in yer hand, ready to run now!"

The laugh ran along the line and the boy hurried on to escape the chaff.

A well-known chaplain rode along a narrow path on the hillside. He was mounted on an old horse whose hip bones protruded like two deadly fangs. A footsore Confederate was hobbling as fast as he could in front of him, glancing back over his shoulder now and then uneasily.

"You needn't be afraid, my friend," the parson called, "I'm not going to run over you."

"I know you ain't," the soldier laughed, "but ef I wuz ter let you pass me, and that thing wuz ter wobble I'll be doggoned ef I wouldn't be gored ter death!"

The preacher reined his steed in with dignity and spoke with wounded pride:

"My friend, this is a better horse than our Lord rode into Jerusalem on!"

The soldier stepped up quickly, opened the animal's mouth and grinned:

"Parson, that's the very same horse!"

A shout rose from the hill in which the preacher joined.

"Dod bam it, did ye ever hear the beat o' that!" shouted a pious fellow who was inventing cuss words that would pass the charge of profanity.

A distinguished citizen of Fredericksburg passed along the lines wearing a tall new silk hat. He didn't get very far before he changed his line of march. A regular fusillade poured on him from the ranks.

"Say, man, is dat a hat er a bee gum?"

"Come down now!"

"Come down outen that hat an' help us with these Yanks!"

"Come down I say—I know you're up there for I can see your legs!"

When the silk hat vanished, a solemn country boy with slight knowledge of books began to discuss the great mysteries of eternity.

Ned had won his unbounded faith and admiration by spelling at the first trial the name of his native village in the Valley of Virginia—McGaheysville. Tom held this fact to be a marvellous intellectual achievement.

"What I want to know, Ned, is this," he drawled, "who started sin in this world, anyhow? What makes a good thing good and what makes a bad thing bad, and who said so first?"

"That's what I'd like to know myself, Tom," Ned gravely answered.

"An' ye don't know?"

"I certainly do not."

"I don't see why any man that can spell like you don't know everything."

He paused, picked up a pebble and threw it at a comrade's foot and laughed to see him jump as from a Minie ball.

"You know, Ned," he went on slowly, "what I think is the prettiest piece of poetry?"

"No—what?"

"Hit's this:

"'The men of high condition That rule affairs of State; Their purpose is ambition, Their practice only hate.'"

"Pretty good, Tom," was the quick reply, "but I think I can beat it with something more hopeful. I got it in Sunday School out in Missouri:

"'The sword and spear, of needless worth, Shall prune the tree and plough the earth; And Peace shall smile from shore to shore And Nations learn to war no more.'"

The country boy's eyes gleamed with eager approval. He had fought for nearly two years and the glory of war was beginning to lose its glamour.

"Say that again, Ned," he pleaded. "Say it again! That's the prettiest thing I ever heard in my life!"

He was silent a moment:

"Yes, I used to think it would be glorious to hear the thunder of guns and the shriek of shells. I've changed my mind. When I hear one of 'em comin' now, I begin to sing to myself the old-fashioned tune I used to hear in the revivals:

"'Hark from the tomb a doleful sound! 'My thoughts in dreadful subjects roll damnation and the dead——'

"I've an idea we're going to sing some o' them old songs on this field pretty soon."

Again Ned thought of John and offered a silent prayer that he might not be in those blue lines that were going to charge into the jaws which Death had opened for them in the valley below.

John Vaughan in his tent beyond the Rappahannock was wasting no energy worrying about the coming battle. Death had ceased to be a matter of personal concern. He had seen so many dead and wounded men as he had ridden over battlefields he had come to take them as a matter of course. He was going into action now for the first time in the ranks as a private soldier and he would see things happen at closer range—that was all. He wished to see them that way. He had reached the point of utter indifference to personal danger and it brought a new consciousness of strength that was inspiring. He had stopped dreaming of the happiness of love after the exhibition he had made of himself before Betty Winter and the brutal insult with which he met her advances. Some girls might forgive it, but not this proud, sensitive, high strung daughter of the snows of New England and the sunlight of France. And so he had resolutely put the thought out of his heart.

Julius had proven himself a valuable servant. He was the best cook in the regiment, and what was still more important, he was the most skillful thief and the most plausible liar in the army. He could defend himself so nobly from the insinuations of the suspicious that they would apologize for the wrong unwittingly done his character. John had not lived so well since he could remember.

"Julius, you're a handy man in war!" he exclaimed after a hearty supper on fried chicken.

"Yassah—I manage ter git 'long, sah."

Julius took up his banjo and began to tune it for an accompaniment to his songs. He had a mellow rhythmical voice that always brought the crowd. He began with his favorite that never failed to please his master. The way he rolled his eyes and sang with his hands and feet and every muscle of his body was the source of unending interest to his Northern audience.

He ran his fingers lightly over the strings and the men threw down their dirty packs of cards and crowded around John's tent. Julius only sang one line at a time and picked his banjo between them to a low wailing sound of his own invention:

"O! far' you well, my Mary Ann; Far' you well, my dear! I've no one left to love me now And little do I care——"

He paused between the stanzas and picked his banjo to a few prose interpolations of his own.

"Dat's what I'm a tellin' ye now, folks—little do I care!"

He knew his master had been crossed in love and he rolled his eyes and nodded his woolly head in triumphant approval. John smiled wanly as he drifted slowly into his next stanza.

"An' ef I had a scoldin' wife I'd whip her sho's yer born, I'd take her down to New Orleans An' trade her off fer corn——"

Julius stopped with a sudden snap and whispered to John:

"Lordy, sah, I clean fergit 'bout dat meetin' at de cullud folks' church, sah, dat dey start up. I promise de preacher ter fetch you, sah—An' ef we gwine ter march ter-morrow, dis here's de las' night sho——"

The concert was adjourned to the log house which an old colored preacher had converted into a church. It was filled to its capacity and John stood in the doorway and heard the most remarkable sermon to which he had ever listened.

The grey-haired old negro was tremendously in earnest. He could neither read nor write but he opened the Bible to comply with the formalities of the occasion and pretended to read his text. He had taken it from his master who was a clergyman. Ephraim invariably chose the same texts but gave his people his own interpretation. It never failed in some element of originality.

The text his master had evidently chosen last were the words:

"And he healeth them of divers diseases."

Old Ephraim's version was a free one. From the open Bible he solemnly read:

"An' he healed 'em of all sorts o' diseases an' even er dat wust o' complaints called de Divers!"

He plunged straight into a fervent exhortation to sinners to flee from the Divers.

"I'm gwine ter tell ye now, chillun," he exclaimed with uplifted arms, "ye don't know nuttin' 'bout no terrible diseases till dat wust er all called de Divers git ye! An' hit's a comin' I tell ye. Hit's gwine ter git ye, too. Ye can flee ter the mountain top, an' hit'll dive right up froo de air an' git ye dar. Ye kin go down inter de bowels er de yearth an' hit'll dive right down dar atter ye. Ye kin take de wings er de mornin' an' fly ter de ends er de yearth—an' de Divers is dar. Dey kin dive anywhar!

"An' what ye gwine ter do when dey git ye? I axe ye dat now? What ye gwine ter do when hit's forever an' eternally too late? Dese doctors roun' here kin cure ye o' de whoopin'-cough—mebbe—I hain't nebber seed 'em eben do dat—but I say, mebbe. Dey kin cure ye o' de measles, mebbe. Er de plumbago or de typhoid er de yaller fever sometimes. But I warns ye now ter flee de wrath dat's ter come when dem Divers git ye! Dey ain't no doctor no good fer dat nowhar—exceptin' ye come ter de Lord. For He heal 'em er all sorts er diseases an' de wust er all de complaints called de Divers!

"Come, humble sinners, in whose breast er thousand thoughts revolve!"

John Vaughan turned away with a smile and a tear.

"In God's name," he murmured thoughtfully, "what's to become of these four million black children of the tropic jungles if we win now and set them free! Their fathers and mothers were but yesterday eating human flesh in naked savagery."

He walked slowly back to his tent through the solemn starlit night. The new moon, a silver thread, hung over the tree tops. He thought of that dusky grey-haired child of four thousand years of ignorance and helplessness and the tragic role he had played in the history of our people. And for the first time faced the question of the still more tragic role he might play in the future.

"I'm fighting to free him and the millions like him," he mused. "What am I going to do with him?"

The longer he thought the blacker and more insoluble became this question, and yet he was going into battle to-morrow to fight his own brother to the death on this issue. True the problem of national existence was at stake, but this black problem of the possible degradation of our racial stock and our national character still lay back of it unsolved and possibly insoluble.

The red flash of a picket's gun on the shore of the river and the quick answer from the other side brought his dreaming to a sudden stop before the sterner fact of the swiftly approaching battle.

He snatched but a few hours sleep before his regiment was up and on the march to the water's edge. A dense grey fog hung over the river and obscured the town. The bridge builders swung their pontoons into the water and soon the sound of timbers falling into place could be heard with the splash of the anchors and the low quick commands of the officers.

The grey sharpshooters, concealed on the other shore, began to fire across the water through the fog. The sound was strangely magnified. The single crack of a musket seemed as loud as a cannon.

The work went quickly. The bullets flew wide of the mark. The fog suddenly lifted and a steady fusillade from the men hidden in the hills of Fredericksburg began to pick off the bridge builders with cruel accuracy. At times every man was down. New men were rushed to take their places and they fell.

The signal was given to the artillery and a hundred and forty-seven great guns suddenly began to sweep the doomed town. Houses crumpled like egg-shells and fires began to blaze.

The sharpshooters fell back. The bridges were laid and the grand army of a hundred and thirteen thousand began to pour across. The caissons, with their huge black, rifled-barrel guns rumbling along the resounding boards in a continuous roar like distant thunder.

On the southern shore the deep mud cut hills put every team to the test of its strength and the utmost skill of their drivers. Hundreds of men were in the mud at the wheels and still they would stick.

And then the patient heavens above heard the voices of army teamsters in plain and ornamental swearing! Such profanity was probably never heard on this earth before and it may well be hoped will not be heard again.

The driver whose wheels had stuck, cracked his whip first and yelled. He yelled again and cracked his whip. And then he began to swear, loudly, and angrily at first and then in lower, steadier, more polite terms—but always in an unending nerve-racking torrent.

He cursed his mules individually by name and the whole team collectively, and consigned it to the lowest depth of the deepest hell and then the devil for not providing a deeper one. Each trait of each mule, good and bad, he named without fear or favor and damned each alike with equal emphasis. He named each part of each mule's anatomy and damned it individually and as a whole, with full bill of particulars.

He swore in every key in the whole gamut of sound and last of all he damned himself for his utter inability to express anything he really felt.

The last big gun up the hill and the infantry poured into the town of Fredericksburg, halting in regiments and brigades in its streets. Only a few shots had been exchanged with the men in grey. They had withdrawn to the heights a mile beyond. The assault had been a mere parade. Many of the inhabitants had fled in terror at the approach of the men in blue. Some of the lower types of soldiers in the Northern army broke into these deserted houses and began to rob and pillage.

Julius "found" many delicacies lying about on lawns and in various unheard-of places. His master never pressed him with rude questions when his zeal bore such good results for their table.

Ned Vaughan had been very much amused at an old woman who had been driven from her home by marauders. She had piled such goods and chattels as she could handle into an ox cart and drove past the grey battle lines, hurrying as fast as she could Southward. Her wrinkled old face beamed with joy at the sight of their burnished muskets and her eyes flashed with the gleam of an Amazon as she shouted:

"Give it to the damned rascals, boys! Give 'em one fer me—one fer me and don't you forget it!"

Far down the line she could be heard delivering her fierce exhortation. The men smiled and answered her good-naturedly. The day of wrath and death had dawned. It was too solemn an hour for boastful words.

For two days the grand army in blue poured across the river and spread out through the town of Fredericksburg. The fateful morning of the 13th of December, 1862, dawned in another heavy fog. Its grey mantle of mystery shrouded the town, clung wet and heavy to the ground in the silent valley before the crescent-shaped hills and veiled the face of their heights.

Under the cover of this fog the long waves of blue spread out in the edge of the valley and took their places in battle line. The grey men in the brown grass on the hills crouched behind their ditches and stone walls, gripped their guns and waited for the foe to walk into the trap their commanders had set.

An unseen hand slowly lifted the misty curtain and the sun burst on the scene. The valley lay like the smooth ground of some vast arena prepared for a pageant and back of it rose the silent hills, tier on tier like the seats of a mighty amphitheatre. But the men crouching on those seats were not spectators—they were the grimmest actors in the tragedy.

For a moment it was a spectacle merely—the grandest display of the pageantry of war ever made on a field of death.

Franklin's division suddenly wheeled into position for its united assault on the right.

Ned Vaughan, from his lair on the hill, could see the officers in their magnificent new uniforms, their swords flashing as they led their men. A hundred thousand bayonets were gleaming in the sparkling December sun. Magnificent horses in rich tasselled trappings were plunging and prancing with the excitement of marching hosts, some of them keeping time to the throb of regimental bands.

The bands were playing now, all of them, a band for every thousand men, the shrill scream of their bugles and the roar of their drums sending a mighty chorus into the heavens that echoed ominously against the silent hills.

And flags, flags, flags, were streaming in billowy waves of red, white and blue, as far as the eye could reach!

"Isn't that pretty, boys!" Ned sighed admiringly.

Tom lifted his solemn eyes from the grass.

"Lord, Lord, look at them new warm clothes, an' my elbows a-freezin' in this cold wind!"

"Ain't it a picture?"

"What a pity to spile it!"

A ripple of admiration ran along the crouching lines as fingers softly felt for the triggers of their guns.

A quick order from John Vaughan's Colonel sent their battery of artillery rattling and bounding into position. The cannoneers sprang to their mounts. A handsome young fellow missed his foothold and fell beneath the wheels. The big iron tire crushed his neck and the blood from his mouth splashed into John's face. The men on the guns didn't turn their heads to look back. Their eyes were searching the brown hills before them.

The long roll beat from a thousand drums, the call of the buglers rang over the valley—and then the strange, solemn silence that comes before the shock—the moment when cowards collapse and the brave falter.

John Vaughan's soul rose in a fierce challenge to fate. If he died it was well; if he lived it was the same. He had ceased to care.

At exactly eight-thirty, General Meade hurled his division, supported by Doubleday and Gibbon, against Jackson's weakest point, the right of the Confederate lines. Their aim was to seize an opposing hill. The curving lines of grey were silent until the charging hosts were well advanced in deadly range and then the brown hills flamed and roared in front and on their flanks.

The blue lines were mowed down in swaths as though the giant figure of Death had suddenly swung his scythe from the fog banks in the sky.

Again and again came those awful volleys of musketry and artillery cross-firing on the rushing lines. The men staggered and recovered, reformed and charged again over the dead bodies of their comrades carrying the crest for a moment. They captured a flag and a handful of prisoners only to be driven back down the hill with losses more frightful in retreat than when they breasted the storm.

In the centre the tragedy was repeated with results even more terrible. As the charging lines fell back, staggering, bleeding and cut to pieces, fresh brigades threw down their knapsacks, fixed their bayonets and charged through their own melting ranks into the jaws of Death to fall back in their turn.

With a mighty shout the blue line swept across the railroad, took the ditches at the point of the bayonet and captured two hundred grey prisoners. But only for a moment. From the supporting line rang the rebel yell and they were hurled back, shattered and cut to pieces. These retreats were veritable shambles of slaughter. The curved lines on the hills raking them with their deadly accurate cross-fire.

John Vaughan's regiment leaped to the support of the falling blue waves.

A wounded soldier had propped himself against a stone and smiled as the cheering men swept by. He could rest a while now.

A battery of artillery suddenly blazed from the hill-crest and his Colonel threw his command flat on their stomachs until the storm should slacken. John heard the shrill deadly swish of the big shots passing two feet above.

He lifted his eyes to the hill and a frightened pigeon suddenly swooped straight down toward his head. He ducked quickly, sure he had escaped a cannon ball until the laugh of the man at his side told of his mistake.

They rose to charge. The knapsack of the man who had laughed was struck by a ball and a deck of cards sent flying ten feet in the air.

"Deal me a winning hand!" John shouted.

A shot cut the sword belt of the first lieutenant, left him uninjured, glanced and killed the captain. The lieutenant picked up his sword, took his captain's place and led the charge.

Men were falling on the right and left and John Vaughan loaded and fired with steady, dogged nerve without a scratch.

Four times the blue billows had dashed against the hills only to fall back in red confusion. The din and roar were indescribable. The color-bearer of the regiment confused by conflicting orders paused and asked for instructions. The Colonel, mistaking his act for retreat, tore the colors from his hand and gave them to another man. The boy burst into tears. The new color-bearer had scarcely lifted the flag above his head when he fell. The disgraced soldier snatched the tottering flagstaff and, lifting it on high, dashed up the hill ahead of his line of battle.

The men were ducking their heads low beneath the fierce hail of lead and staggering blindly.

John saw this boy waving his flag and shaking his fist back at the halting line. He was not a hundred feet from the Confederate trenches.

"Come on there!" he shouted. "Damn it, what's the matter with you?"

Ned Vaughan and his grey men behind the little mound of red dirt were watching this drama with flashing eyes. Beside him crouched a boy whose early piety had marked him for the ministry. But he had wandered from the fold in the stress of army life. Ned heard his voice now in low, eager prayer:

"O Lord, drive 'em back! Drive 'em back, O Lord!"

He fired his musket down the hill and prayed harder:

"Lord, drive 'em back! I've sinned and come short, but drive 'em, O Lord!"

He paused and whispered to Ned as he reached for another cartridge:

"Are they comin' or goin'?"

"Coming!"

Again he prayed with fervor:

"Drive 'em back, Lord Goddermighty, we're weak and you're strong—help us now! Drive 'em—just this time, O Lord, and you can have me—I'll be good!"

He paused for breath and turned to Ned:

"Now look!—Comin' or goin'?"

"That follow with the flag cussin' the men has dropped——"

"Thank God!"

"Another's lifted it——"

"Lord, save us!"

"Why don't you lie down, ye damn fool," Tom shouted. "I'm huggin' the ground so close now I don't want a piece of paper under me, and if there's got to be a piece I don't want no writin' on it!"

"Now look, are they comin'?" the pious boy gasped.

Ned made no answer. His wide set eyes were staring at the man who had caught that color-bearer in his arms and was carrying him to the rear.

It was John Vaughan!

His lips were moving now in silent prayer and his sword hung limp in his hands.

Through chattering teeth he cried:

"Don't shoot that fellow carrying his friend down the hill, boys!"

"They're runnin' now?" the pious one asked.

"It isn't war—it's a massacre!" Ned sighed.

The man of prayer leaped on the ditch bank suddenly and shook his fist defiantly.

"Come back here, you damned cowards!" he yelled. "Come back and we'll whip hell out o' you!"

Slowly the shattered regiment fell back down the bloody slope, stumbling over their dead and wounded. The dim smoke-bound valley was a slaughter pen. Where magnificent lines of blue had marched with flashing bayonets and streaming banners at eight o'clock, the dead lay in mangled heaps, and the wounded huddled among them slowly freezing to death.

John saw a magnificent gun a heap of junk with four dead horses and every cannoneer on the ground dead or freezing where they fell. A single shell had done the work. Riderless horses galloped wildly over the field, shying at the grim piles of dark blue bodies, sniffing the blood and neighing pitifully.

Twelve hundred men in his regiment had charged up that hill. But two hundred and fifty came down.

From the steeple of the Court House in Fredericksburg General Couch, in command of the Second Corps, stood with his glasses on this frightful scene. He whispered to Howard by his side:

"The whole plain is covered with our men fallen and falling—I've never seen anything like it!"

He paused, his lips quivering as he gasped:

"O my God! see them falling—poor fellows, falling—falling!"

He signalled Burnside for reinforcements.

General Sumner's division on the Union right had charged into the deadliest trap of all.

Down the road toward the foot of Marye's Heights his magnificent army swept at double quick. The Confederate batteries had been specially trained to rake this road from three directions, right, and left flank and centre.

Steadily, stoically the men in blue pressed into this narrow way in silence and met the flaming torrent from three directions. Rushing on over the bodies of their fallen comrades the thinning ranks reached the old stone wall at the foot of the hill. General Cobb lay concealed behind it with three thousand infantry. The low quick order ran along his line:

"Fire!"

Straight into the faces of the heroic Union soldiers flashed a level blinding flame from three thousand muskets, slaying, crushing, tearing to pieces the proud army of an hour ago. A thousand men in blue fell in five minutes. The ground was piled with their bodies until it was impossible to charge over them effectively.

For a moment a cloud of smoke pitifully drew a soft grey veil over the awful scene while the men who were left fell back in straggling broken groups.

Five times the Union hosts had charged those terrible brown hills and five times they had been rolled back in red waves of blood.

Late in the day a fierce bitter wind was blowing from the north. There was yet time to turn defeat into victory. The desperate Union Commander ordered the sixth charge.

The men in blue pulled their hats down low as if to shut out the pelting hail of lead and iron and without a murmur charged once more into the mouth of hell. The winds had frozen stiff the bodies of their dead. The advancing blue lines snatched these dead men from the ground, carried them in front, stacked them in long piles for bulwarks, and fought behind them with the desperation of madmen. There was no escape. The keen eyes of the Confederate Commanders had planted their right and left flanking lines to pour death into these ranks no matter how high their corpses were piled. The crescent hill blazed and roared with unceasing fury. Only the darkness was kind at last.

And then the men in blue planted the frozen bodies of their comrades along the outer battle line as dummy sentinels, and under cover of the night began to slip back through Fredericksburg and across the silver mirror of the Rappahannock to their old camp, shattered, broken, crushed.

It was four o'clock in the morning before John Vaughan's regiment would give up the search for their desperately wounded. Only the strongest could endure that bitter cold. Through the long, desolate hours the pitiful cries of the wounded men rang through the black, freezing night, and few hands stirred to save them. A great army was fighting to save its flags and guns and reach the shelter beyond the river.

Amid the few flickering lanterns could be heard the greetings of friends in subdued tones as they clasped hands:

"Is that you, old boy?"

"God bless you—yes—I'm glad to see you!"

A dying man in blue was pitifully calling for water somewhere, in the darkness in front of Ned Vaughan's ditch. He took his canteen, got a lantern and went to find him. It might be John. If not, no matter, he was some other fellow's brother.

As the light fell on his drawn face Ned murmured:

"Thank God!"

He pressed the canteen to his lips and held his head in his lap. It was only too plain from the steel look out of the eyes that his minutes were numbered. He moved and turned his dying face up to Ned:

"Why is it you always whip us, Johnny?"

He paused for breath:

"I wonder—every battle I've been in we've been defeated—why—why—why, O God, why——"

His head drooped and he was still.

Ned wondered if some waiting loved one on the shores of eternity had given him the answer. He wrapped him tenderly in his blanket and left him at rest at last.

As he turned toward his lines the unmistakable wail of a baby came faintly through the darkness—a wee voice, the half smothered cry sounding as if it were nestling in a mother's arms. He followed the sound until his lantern flashed in the wild eyes of a young woman who had fled from her home in terror during the battle and was hugging her baby frantically in her arms.

Ned led her gently to an officer's quarters and made her comfortable.

The glory of war was fast fading from his imagination. A grim spectre was slowly taking its place.

John's shattered regiment lay down on the field with the rear guard at four o'clock to snatch an hour's sleep, their heads pillowed on the bodies of the dead. The cold moderated and a light mantle of snow fell softly just before day and covered the field, the living and the dead. When the reveille sounded at dawn, the bugler looked with awe at the thousands of white shrouded figures and wondered which would stir at his note. The living slowly rose as from the dead and shook their white shrouds. Thousands lay still, cold and immovable to await the archangel's mightier call at the last.

Beyond the river, through the long night, Burnside, wild with anguish, had paced the floor of his tent. Again and again he threw his arms in a gesture of despair toward the freezing blood-stained field:

"Oh, those men—those men over there! I'm thinking of them all the time——"

As the rear guard turned from the field at sunrise, John Vaughan looked back across the valley of Death and saw the ragged brown and grey figures shivering in the cold, as they swarmed down from the hills and began to shake the frost from the new, warm clothes they were stripping from the dead.



CHAPTER XXVI

THE REST HOUR

For two terrible days and nights Betty Winter saw the endless line of ambulances creep from the field of Fredericksburg. Some of these men lay on the frozen ground for forty-eight hours before relief came. Many of the wounded might have lived but for the frightful exposure to cold which followed the battle. They died in hundreds.

Thousands were placed on the train for Washington and so great was the pitiful suffering among them Betty left with the first load. There would be more work in the hospitals there than in Burnside's camp. It would be many a day before his shattered army could be ready again to give battle.

The worst trouble with it was not the bleeding gap torn through its ranks by Lee's shot and shell. Not only was its body wounded, its soul was crushed. Its commanding generals were divided into warring factions, the rank and file of its stern fighting men discouraged.

Again an epidemic of desertions broke out and ten thousand men were lost in a single month.

Burnside assumed the full responsibility for the disaster and asked to be relieved of his command. The third Union General had gone down before Lee—McClellan, Pope and Burnside.

The President, heartsick but undismayed, called to the head of the army the most promising general in sight, Joseph Hooker, popularly known as "Fighting Joe Hooker." There was inspiration to the thoughtless in the name, yet the Chief had misgivings.

On sending him the appointment he wrote his new general a remarkable letter:

"GENERAL:

"I have placed you at the head of the Army of the Potomac. Of course, I have done this upon what appears to me to be sufficient reasons; and yet I think it best for you to know that there are some things in regard to which I am not quite satisfied with you.

"I believe you to be a brave and skillful soldier—which of course I like. I also believe you do not mix politics with your profession—in which you are right. You have confidence in yourself—which is a valuable if not indispensable quality. You are ambitious—which within reasonable bounds does good rather than harm; but I think that during General Burnside's command of the army you have taken counsel of your ambition and thwarted him as much as you could, in which you did a great wrong to the country, and to a most meritorious and honorable brother officer.

"I have heard in such a way as to believe of you recently saying that both the army and the Government needed a dictator. Of course it was not for this, but in spite of it, that I gave you the command. Only those generals who gain successes can set up as dictators.

"What I now ask of you is military success, and I will risk the dictatorship.

"The Government will support you to the utmost of its ability—which is neither more nor less than it has done and will do for all commanders. I much fear that the spirit which you have aided to infuse into the army of criticising their commander and withholding confidence from him, will now turn upon you. I shall assist you as far as I can to put it down. Neither you nor Napoleon, if he were alive again, could get any good out of an army while such a spirit prevails in it.

"And now beware of rashness—but with energy and sleepless vigilance go forward and give us victories."

While Hooker lay in winter quarters reorganizing his army his picket lines in speaking distance with those of his opponent across the river, the President bent his strong shoulders to the task of cheering the fainting spirits of the people. On his shaggy head was heaped the blame of all the sorrows, the failures and the agony of the ever deepening tragedy of war. Deeper and deeper into his rugged kindly face were cut the lines of life and death, and darker grew the shadows through which his sensitive lonely soul was called to walk.

And yet, through it all, there glowed with stronger radiance the charm of his quaint genius and his magnetic personality—tragic, homely, gentle, humorous, honest, merciful, wise, laughable and lovable.

He found time to run down to Hampton Roads with Gideon Welles, his loyal Secretary of the Navy, to inspect the ships assembled there. He saw a narrow door bound with iron.

"What is that?" he asked sharply.

"Oh, that is the sweat box," the Secretary replied, "used for insubordinate seamen——"

"Oh," the rugged giant exclaimed, "how do you work it?"

"The man to be punished is put inside and steam heat is turned on. It brings him to terms quickly."

The tall figure bent curiously examining the contrivance:

"And we apply this to thousands of brave American seamen every year?"

"Undoubtedly."

"Let me try it and see what it's like."

It was useless to protest. He had already taken off his tall silk hat and there was a look of quiet determination in his hazel-grey eyes.

He stepped quickly into the enclosure, which he found to be about three feet in length and about the same in width. His tall figure of six feet four was practically telescoped.

"Close your door now and turn on the steam," he ordered. "I'll give you the signal when I've had enough."

The door was closed and the steam turned on.

He stood it three minutes and gave the signal of release.

He stepped out, stretched his long legs, and breathed deeply. He mopped his brow and there was fire in his sombre eyes as he turned to Welles:

"Mr. Secretary, I want every one of those things dumped into the sea. Never again allow it to be found on a vessel flying the American flag!"

In an hour every sailor in the harbor had heard the news. The old salts who had felt its shame and agony lifted their caps and stood with bared heads, cheering and crying as he passed.

One by one, every country of Europe heard the news and the sweat box ceased to be an instrument of discipline on every sea of the civilized world.

Seated at his desk in the White House, he received daily the great and the humble, and no man or woman came and left without a patient hearing. There were over thirty thousand cases of trial and condemnations by court-martial every year now—only a small portion with the death penalty attached—but all had the right to appeal. They were not slow in finding the road to the loving heart.

Stanton, worn out by vain protests against his pardons, sent Attorney General Bates at last.

The great lawyer was very stern as he faced his Chief:

"I regret to say it, Mr. President, but you are not fit to be trusted with the pardoning power, sir!"

A smile played about the corner of the big kindly mouth as he glanced over his spectacles at his Attorney General:

"It's my private opinion, Bates, that you're just as pigeon-hearted as I am!"

Judge Advocate General Holt was sent to labor with him and insist that he enforce the law imposing the death penalty.

"Your reasons are good, Holt," he answered kindly, "but I can't promise to do it. You see, so many of my boys have to be shot anyhow. I don't want to add another one to that lot if I can help it——"

He paused and went on whimsically:

"I don't see how it's going to make a man better to shoot him, anyhow—give them another trial."

In spite of all Holt's protests he steadfastly refused to sanction any death warrant against a man for cowardice under fire. "Many a man," he calmly argued, "who honestly tries to do his duty is overcome by fear greater than his will—I'm not at all sure how I'd act if Minie balls were whistling and those big shells shrieking in my ears. How can a poor man help it if his legs just carry him away?"

All these he marked "leg cases," put them in a separate pigeon hole and always suspended their sentence.

He would smile gently as he filed each death warrant away:

"It would frighten that poor devil too terribly to shoot him. They shan't do it."

On one he wrote:

"Let him fight again—maybe the enemy will shoot him—I won't."

Betty Winter came with two cases. The first was a mother to plead for her boy sentenced to die for sleeping at his post on guard.

"You see, sir," the mother pleaded, "he'd been on watch once that night and had done his duty faithfully. He volunteered to take a sick comrade's place. He was so tired he fell asleep. He was always a big-hearted, generous boy—you won't let them shoot him?"

"No, I won't," was the quick response.

The mother laughed aloud through her tears and threw her arms around Betty's neck.

The President bent over the paper and wrote across its back:

"Pardoned. This life is too precious to be lost."

Betty waited until the crowd had passed out and he was alone with Colonel Nicolay. She hurried to his desk with her second case which she had kept outside in the corridor until the time to enter.

A young mother walked timidly in, smiling apologetically. She carried a three-months-old baby in her arms. She was evidently not in mourning, though her eyes were red from weeping.

"What's the matter now?" the President laughed, nodding to Betty.

"Tell him," she whispered.

"If you please, sir," the woman began timidly, "we ain't been married but a little over a year. My husband has never seen the baby. He's in the army. I couldn't stand it any longer, so I come down to Washington to get a pass to take the baby to him. But they wouldn't let me have it. I've been wandering 'round the streets all day crying till I met this sweet young lady and she brought me to you, sir——"

The President turned to his secretary:

"Let's send her down!"

The Colonel smiled and shook his head:

"The strictest orders have been given to allow no more women to go to the front——"

The big gentle hand stroked the shaggy beard.

"Well, I'll tell you what we can do," he cried joyfully, "give her husband a leave of absence and let him come to see them here!"

The secretary left at once for the Adjutant General's office and the President turned to the laughing young mother, who was trying to thank Betty through her tears:

"And where are you stopping, Madam?"

"Nowhere yet, sir. I went straight from the depot to the War Department and then walked about blind with crying eyes until I came here."

"All right then, we'll fix that. I'll give Miss Betty an order to take you and your baby to her hospital and care for you until your husband comes and he can stay there a week with you——"

The mother's voice wouldn't work. She tried to speak her thanks and could only laugh.

The big hand pressed Betty's as she left:

"Thank you for bringing her, little girl, things like that rest me."

The hour was swiftly coming when he was going to need all the strength that rest could bring body and soul. His enemies were sleepless. The press inspired by Senator Winter had begun to strike below the belt.



CHAPTER XXVII

DEEPENING SHADOWS

Again the eyes of the Nation were fixed on the Army of the Potomac and its new General. The President went down to his headquarters at Falmouth Heights opposite Fredericksburg to review his army of a hundred and thirty thousand men.

Riding up to Hooker's headquarters through the beautiful spring morning his weary figure was lifted with new hope as he breathed the perfume of the flowers and blooming hedgerows.

The driver only worried him for the moment. He was swearing eloquently at his team in the pride of his heart at the honor of hauling the Chief Magistrate of the Nation. He swore both plain and ornamental oaths with equal unction.

The President endured it a while in amused silence. He was deeply annoyed, but too much of a gentleman to hurt his patriotic driver's feelings.

At last he observed:

"I see you are an Episcopalian, driver."

The man turned in surprise:

"Oh, no, sir, I'm Methodist."

"Is it possible?"

"Yes, sir, Methodist—why, sir?"

A whimsical smile played about the big kindly mouth:

"I thought you must be an Episcopalian because you swear exactly like Mr. Seward, and he's a churchwarden!"

A deep silence fell on the sweet spring air. The driver glanced over his shoulder with a sheepish grin, and cracked his whip without an oath:

"G'long there, boys!"

As the serried lines of blue, with bayonets flashing in the warming sun of April, marched past the tall giant on horseback, they were in fine spirits. They cheered the President with rousing enthusiasm.

John Vaughan did not join. He marched past with eyes straight in front.

The President hurried back to Washington to keep his vigil from his window overlooking the Potomac, and Hooker began the execution of his skillful plan of attack. On the day his advance began he had one hundred and thirty thousand men and four hundred and forty-eight great guns in seven grand divisions. Lee, still lying on the crescent hills behind Fredericksburg, had sixty-two thousand men and one hundred and seventy guns. He had detached Longstreet's corps for service in Tennessee.

The Federal Commander was absolutely sure that he could throw the flower of this magnificent army across the river seven miles above Fredericksburg, get into Lee's rear, hurl the remainder of his forces across the river as Burnside had done, and crush the grey army like an egg shell. It was well planned, but in war the unexpected often happens.

Again the unexpected thing turned up in the shape of the strange, dusty figure on his little sorrel horse.

The night before Hooker moved, Julius met with an accident which delayed John's supper. He was just approaching the camp after a successful stroll over the surrounding territory, carrying on his back a sheep he meant to cook for the coming march. A rude and unsympathetic guard arrested him. Julius was greatly grieved at his unkind remarks.

"Lordy, man, you ought not ter say things lak dat ter me! I nebber steal nutting in my life. I wasn't even foragin' dis time——"

"The hell you weren't!"

"Na, sah. I wasn't even foragin'. I know dat de General done issue dem orders agin hit, an' I quit long ergo——"

"This sheep looks like it——"

"Dat sheep?"

"That's what I said, you black thief!"

"Say, man, don't talk lak dat ter me—you sho hurts my feelin's. I nebber stole dat sheep. I nebber go atter de sheep, an' I weren't studyin' 'bout no animals. I was des walkin' long de road past a man's house whar dis here big, devilish-lookin' old sheep come er runnin' right at me wid his head down—an' I lammed him wid er stick ter save my life, sah. An' den when he fell, I knowed hit wuz er pity ter leave him dar ter spile, an' so I des nachelly had ter fetch him inter de camp ter save him. Man, you sho is rude ter talk dat way."

The guard was obdurate until Julius began to describe how he cooked roast mutton. He finally agreed to accept his version of the battle with the sheep as authentic if he would bring him a ten pound roast to test the truth of his conversation.

Julius was still harping on the rudeness of this guard as he fanned the flies off John's table with a sassafras brush at supper.

"I don't know what dey ebber let sech poor white trash ez dat man git in er army for, anyhow!" he exclaimed indignantly.

"We have to take 'em as they come now, Julius. There's going to be a draft this summer. No more volunteers now. Wait till you see the conscripts."

"Dey can't be no wus dan dat man. He warn't no gemman 'tall, sah."

John rose from his hearty supper and strolled along the line of his regiment, recruited again to its full strength of twelve hundred men.

Two fellows who were messmates were scrapping about a question of gravy. One wanted lots of gravy and his meat done brown. The other insisted on having his meat decently cooked, but not swimming in grease. The man in favor of gravy was on duty as cook at this meal and stuck to his own ideas. They suddenly clinched, fell to the ground, rolled over, knocked the pan in the fire and lost both meat and gravy.

John smiled and passed on.

A lieutenant was sitting on a stump holding a letter from his sweetheart to the flickering camp fire. He bent and kissed the signature—the fool! For a moment the old longing surged back through his soul. He wondered if she ever thought of him now. She had loved him once.

He started back to his tent to write her a letter before they broke camp to-morrow morning. Nature was calling in the balmy spring night wind that floated over the waters of the river.

Nature knew naught of war. She was pouring out her heart in budding leaf and blossom in the joy of living.

And then the bitterness of shame and stubborn pride welled up to kill the tender impulse. There were slumbering forces beneath the skin the scenes through which he was passing had called into new life. They were bringing new powers both of mind and body. They added nothing to the gentler, sweeter sources of character. He began to understand how men could feed their ambitions on the bodies of fallen hosts and still smile.

He had felt the brutalizing touch of war. With a cynical laugh he threw off his impulse to write and turned into his blanket dreaming of the red carnival toward which they would march at dawn.

As the sun rose over the new sparkling fields of the South on the morning of the 27th of April, 1863, the great movement began.

The Federal commander ordered Sedgwick's division to cross the Rappahannock below Fredericksburg and deploy in line of battle to deceive Lee as to his real purpose while he secretly marched his main army through the woods seven miles above to throw them on his rear.

As the men stood, thousands banked on thousands, awaiting the order to march, John Vaughan saw, for the first time, the grim procession pass along the lines carrying a condemned deserter, to be shot to death before his former comrades. His hands were tied across his breast with rough knotted rope and he was seated on his coffin.

The War Department had gotten around the tender heart in the White House at last. The desertions had become so terrible in their frequency it was absolutely necessary to make examples of some of these men. The poor devil who sat forlornly on his grim throne riding through the sweet spring morning had no mother or sister or sweetheart to plead his cause.

The men stared in silence as the death cart rumbled along the lines. It halted and the man took his place before the firing squad but a few feet away.

A white cloth was bound over his eyes. The sergeant dealt out the specially prepared round of cartridges—all blank save one, that no soldier might know who did the murder.

In low tones they were ordered to fire straight at the heart of the blindfolded figure. The muskets flashed and the man crumpled in a heap on the soft young grass, the blood pouring from his breast in a bright red pool beside the quivering form.

And then the army moved.

The stratagem of the Commander was executed with skill. But there was an eagle eye back of those hills of Fredericksburg. Lee was not only a great stark fighter, he was a past master in the arts of war. He had divined his opponent's plan from the moment of his first movement.

By April the 30th, Hooker had effected his crossing and slipped into the rear of Lee's left wing. The Southerner had paid little attention to Sedgwick's menace on his front. He left but nine thousand men on Marye's Heights to hold in check this forty thousand, and by a rapid night march suddenly confronted Hooker in the Wilderness before Chancellorsville.

So strong was the Union General's position he issued an exultant order to his army in which he declared:

"The enemy must now flee shamefully or come out of his defences to accept battle on our own ground, to his certain destruction."

The enemy had already slipped out of his defenses before Fredericksburg and at that moment was feeling his way through the tangled vines and undergrowth with sure ominous tread.

The soul of the Confederate leader rose with elation at the prospect before him. In this tangle called the Wilderness, broken only here and there by small, scattered farm houses and fields, the Grand Army of the Republic had more than twice his numbers, and nearly three times as many big guns, but his artillery would be practically useless. It was utterly impossible to use four hundred great guns in such woods. Lee's one hundred and seventy were more than he could handle. It would be a fight between infantry at close range. The Southerner knew that no army of men ever walked the earth who would be the equal, man for man, with these grey veteran dead shots, who were now silently creeping through the undergrowth of their native woods.

On May the 1st, their two lines came into touch and Lee felt of his opponent by driving in his skirmishers in a desultory fire of artillery.

On the morning of May the 2nd, the two armies faced each other at close range.

With Sedgwick's division of forty thousand men now threatening Lee's rear from Fredericksburg, his army thus caught between two mighty lines of blue, Hooker was absolutely sure of victory. The one thing of which he never dreamed was that Lee would dare, in the face of such a death trap, to divide his own small army. And yet this is exactly what the Southerner decided to do contrary to all the rules of military science or the advice of the strange, silent figure on the little sorrel horse.

When Lee, Jackson and Stuart rode along the lines of Hooker's front that fatal May morning, Jackson suddenly reined in his little sorrel and turned his keen blue eyes on his grey-haired Chief:

"There's just one way, General Lee. The front and left are too strong. I can swing my corps in a quick movement to the rear while you attack the front. They will think it a retreat. Out of sight, I'll turn, march for ten miles around their right wing, and smash it from the rear before sundown."

Lee quickly approved the amazing plan of his lieutenant, though it involved the necessity of his holding Hooker's centre and left in check and that his nine thousand men behind the stone wall on Marye's Heights should hold Sedgwick's forty thousand. He believed it could be done until Jackson had completed his march.

He immediately ordered his attack on the centre and left of his enemy. The artillery horses were cropping the tender dew-laden grass with eagerness. They had had no breakfast. The riders sprang to their backs at seven o'clock and they dashed into position.

Lee's guns opened the fateful day. For hours his lines blazed with the steady sullen boom of artillery and rattle of musketry. Hooker's hosts replied in kind.

At noon a shout swept the Federal lines that Lee's army was in retreat. Sickles' division could see the long grey waves hurrying to the rear. They were close enough to note the ragged, dirty, nondescript clothes Jackson's men wore. No man in all the Union hosts doubted for a moment that Lee had seen the hopelessness of his position and was hurrying to save his little army of sixty-two thousand men from being crushed into pulp by the jaws of a hundred and thirty thousand in two grand divisions closing in on him. It was a reasonable supposition—always barring the utterly unexpected—another name for Stonewall Jackson, whom they seemed to have forgotten for the moment.

Sickles, seeing the "retreat," sent a courier flying to Hooker, asking for permission to follow the fugitives with his twenty thousand men. Hooker consented, and Sickles leaped from his entrenchments and set out in mad haste to overtake the flying columns. He got nearly ten miles in the woods away from the battle lines before he realized that the ghostly men in grey had made good their escape. Certainly they had disappeared from view.

It was five o'clock in the afternoon when Jackson's swift, silent marchers began to draw near to the unsuspecting right wing of Hooker's army under the command of General Howard.

Ned Vaughan was in Jackson's skirmish line feeling the way through the tender green foliage of the spring. The days were warm and the leaves far advanced—the woods so dense it was impossible for picket or skirmisher to see more than a hundred yards ahead—at some points not a hundred feet.

The thin, silent line suddenly swept into the little opening of a negro cabin with garden and patch of corn. A kindly old colored woman was standing in the doorway.

She looked into the faces of these eager, slender Southern boys and they were her "children." The meaning of war was real to her only when it meant danger to those she loved.

She ran quickly up to Ned, her eyes dancing with excitement:

"For de Lawd's sake, honey, don't you boys go up dat road no fudder!"

"Why, Mammy?" he asked with a smile.

"Lordy, chile, dey's thousan's, an' thousan's er Yankees des over dat little hill dar—dey'll kill every one er you all!"

"I reckon not, Mammy," Ned called, hurrying on.

She ran after him, still crying:

"For Gawd's sake, come back here, honey—dey kill ye sho!"

She was calling still as Ned disappeared beyond the cabin into the woods redolent now with the blossoms of chinquepin bushes and the rich odors of sweet shrub.

They climbed the little ridge on whose further slope lay an open field, and caught their first view of Howard's unsuspecting division. They halted and sent their couriers flying with the news to Jackson.

Ned looked on the scene with a thrill of exultation and then a sense of deepening pity. The boys in blue had begun to bivouac for the night, their camp fires curling through the young green leaves. The men were seated in groups laughing, talking, joking and playing cards. The horses were busy cropping the young grass.

"God have mercy on them!" Ned exclaimed.

It was nearly six o'clock before Jackson's men had all slipped silently into position behind the dense woods on this little slope—in two long grim battle lines, one behind the other, with columns in support, his horse artillery with their big guns shotted and ready.

Ned saw a slight stir in the doomed camp of blue. The men were standing up now and looking curiously toward those dense woods. A startled flock of quail had swept over their heads flying straight down from the lull crest. A rabbit came scurrying from the same direction—and then another. And then another flock of quail swirled past and pitched among the camp fires, running and darting in terror on the ground.

An officer drew his revolver and potted one for his supper.

The men glanced uneasily toward the woods but could see nothing.

"What'ell ye reckon that means?"

"What ails the poor birds?"

"And the rabbits?"

They were not long in doubt. The sudden shrill note of a bugle rang from the woods and Jackson's yelling grey lines of death swept down on their unprotected rear.

The first regiments in sight were blown into atoms and driven as chaff before a whirlwind. Behind them lay twenty regiments in their trenches pointed the wrong way. The men leaped to their guns and fought desperately to stay the rushing torrent. Beyond them was a ragged gap of a whole mile without a man, left bare by the chase of Sickles' division now ten miles away. Without support the shattered lines were crushed and crumpled and rolled back in confusion. Every regiment was cut to pieces and pushed on top of one another, men, horses, mules, cattle, guns, in a tangled mass of blood and death.

Ned was sent to bring the supporting column to drive them on and on. He mounted a horse and dashed back to the reserve line yelling his call:

"Hurry! Hurry up, men!"

"What's the hurry?" growled a grey coat.

"Hurry! Hurry!" Ned shouted. "We've captured fifty pieces of artillery and ten thousand prisoners!"

"Then what'ell's the use er hurryin' us on er empty stomach—but we're a-comin', honey—we're a-comin'!"

The colonel of a regiment snatched his hat off and was getting his men ready for the charge. He waved his hand toward Ned:

"Make that damn-fool get out of the way. I'm going to charge. Now you men listen—listen to me, I say! not to that fellow—listen to me!"

Ned could hear him still talking excitedly to his eager men as he dashed back to the battle line.

General Hooker sat on the porch of the Chancellor House, his headquarters. On the east there was heavy firing where his men were attempting to carry out his orders to flank Lee's retreating army. Sickles' and Pleasanton's cavalry were already in pursuit. By some curious trick of the breeze or atmospheric conditions not a sound had reached him from the direction of his right wing. A staff officer suddenly turned his glasses to the west.

"My God, here they come!"

Before the astounded Commander could leap from the porch to his horse the flying stragglers of his shattered right were pouring into view—men, wagons, ambulances, in utter confusion. Hooker swung his old division under General Berry into line and shouted to his veterans:

"Forward with the bayonet!"

The sturdy division plowed its way through the receding blue waves of panic-stricken men and dashed into the face of the overwhelming hosts.

Major Keenan, in command of the 8th Pennsylvania Cavalry, charged with his gallant five hundred into the face of almost certain death and held the grey lines in check until the artillery of the Third Corps was saved and turned on the advancing Confederates. He fell at the head of his men.

The fighting now became a battle. It was no longer a rout.

Ned saw a lone deaf man in blue standing bareheaded, fighting a whole army so intent on his work he hadn't noticed that his regiment had retreated and left him.

Two men in grey raised their muskets and fired point blank at this man at the same instant. The unconscious hero fell.

"I hit him!" cried one.

"No, I hit him!" said the other.

And they both rushed up and tenderly offered him help.

A grey soldier came hurrying by taking two prisoners to the rear. A cannon ball from the rescued battery cut off his leg and he dropped beside Ned shouting hysterically:

"Pick me up! Pick me up! Why don't you pick me up?"

The blue prisoner looked back in terror at the battery and started to run. A grey soldier stopped them:

"Here! Here! What'ell's the matter with you? Them's your own guns. What are ye tryin' to get away from 'em for?"

Men were falling now at every step.

Ned had advanced a hundred yards further when the boy on his right suddenly threw his hands over his head and his leg full to the ground, cut off by a cannon ball, Ned leaped to his side and caught him in his arms. A look of anguish swept his strong young face as he gasped:

"My poor old mother! O my God, what'll she do now?"

Ned tied his handkerchief around the mangled leg, twisted the knot, and stayed the blood gushing from the severed arteries, and rushed back to his desperate work.

Four horses dashed by his side dragging through the woods a big gun to train on the battery that was plowing through their lines. A solid shot crashed straight through a horse's head, blinding Ned with blood and brains.

He threw his hand to his face and buried it in the hot quivering mass, exclaiming:

"My God, boys, my brains are out!"

"You've got the biggest set I ever saw then!" the Captain said, helping him to clear his eyes.

A shell exploded squarely against the gun carriage, hurling it into junk and piling all four horses on the ground. Their dying cries rang pitifully through the smoke-wreathed woods. One horse lifted his head, placed both fore feet on the ground and tried to rise. His hind legs were only shreds of torn flesh. He neighed a long, quivering, soul-piercing shriek of agony and a merciful officer drew his revolver and killed him.

A cannoneer lay by this horse's side with both his legs hopelessly crushed so high in the thick flesh of the thighs there was no hope. He was moaning horribly. He turned his eyes in agony to the officer who had shot the horse:

"Please, Captain—for the love of God—shoot me, too, I can't live——"

The Captain shook his head.

"Have mercy on me—for Jesus' sake—kill me—you were kind to my horse—can't you do as much for me?"

The Captain turned away in anguish. He couldn't even send for morphine. The South had no more morphine. The blockade's iron hand was on her hospitals now.

Ned fought for half an hour behind a tree. Twice the bullets striking the hark knocked pieces into his eyes. He was sure at least fifty Minie balls struck it.

A bald-headed Colonel rushed by at double quick leading a fresh regiment into action to support them. The hell of battle was not so hot the Southern soldier had lost his sense of humor. They were glad to see this dashing old fighter and they told him so in no uncertain way.

"Hurrah for Baldy!"

"Sick 'em, Baldy—sick 'em——"

"I'll bet on old man Baldy every time——"

"Hurrah for the bald-headed man!"

The Colonel paid no attention to their shouts. The flash of his muskets in the deepening twilight turned the tide in their favor. The big guns had been unlimbered and pulled back deeper into the blue lines.

John Vaughan's line was swung to support the charge of Hooker's old division which first halted the rush of Jackson's men. In the field beyond the Chancellor House stood a huge straw stack. As the regiment rushed by at double quick the Colonel spied a panic-stricken officer crouching in terror behind the pile.

The Colonel slapped him across the shoulders with his sword:

"What sort of a place is this for you, sir?"

Through chattering teeth came the trembling response:

"W-w-hy, m-my God, do you think the bullets can come through?"

The Colonel threw up his hands in rage and pressed on with his men.

A wagon loaded with entrenching tools, on which sat half a dozen negroes rattled by on its way to the rear. A solid shot plumped squarely into the load.

John saw picks, spades, shovels and negroes suddenly fill the air. Every negro lit on his feet and his legs were running when he struck the ground. They reached the tall timber before the last pick fell.

The regiments were going into battle double quick, but they were not going so fast they couldn't laugh.

"Hurry up men!" the Colonel called. "Hurry up, let's get in there and help 'em!"

A moment more and they were in it.

The man beside John threw up both hands and dropped with the dull, unmistakable thud of death—the soldier who has been in battle knows the sickening sound.

They were thrown around the Third Corps battery to protect their guns which had been dragged to a place more securely within the lines. Still their gunners kept falling one by one—falling ominously at the crack of a single gun in the woods. A Confederate sharpshooter had climbed a tree and was picking them off.

A tall Westerner spoke to the Colonel:

"Let me go huntin' for him!"

The Commander nodded and John went with him—why? He asked himself the question before he had taken ten steps through the shadowy underbrush. The answer was plain. He knew the truth at once. The elemental brutal instinct of the hunter had kindled at the flash in that Westerner's eye. It would be a hunt worth while—the game was human.

For five minutes they crept through the bushes hiding from tree to tree in the open spaces. They searched the tops in vain, when suddenly a piece of white oak bark fluttered down from the sky and struck the ground at their feet.