Before Pope could lead his fresh men to an attack the vanguard of Lee's army was in sight and the general who had just issued his flaming proclamation took to his heels and fled across the Rappahannock where he called frantically for the divisions of McClellan's army which had not yet joined him.

While Lee threatened Pope's front by repeated feints at different points along the river, he dispatched Jackson's corps of twenty-five thousand "foot cavalry" on a wide flanking movement through the Blue Ridge to turn the Federal right, destroy his stores at Manassas Junction and attack him in the rear before his reenforcements could arrive.

With swiftness Jackson executed the brilliant movement. Within twenty-four hours his men had made the wide swing through the low mountain ranges and crouched between Pope's army and the Federal Capital. To a man of less courage and coolness this position would have been one of tragic danger. Should Pope suddenly turn from Lee's pretended attacks and spring on Jackson he might be crushed between two columns. Franklin and Sumner's corps were at Alexandria to reenforce his lines.

Jackson had marched into the jaws of death and yet he not only showed no fear, he made a complete circuit of Pope's army, struck his storehouses at Manassas Junction and captured them before the Federal Commander dreamed that an army was in his rear. Eight pieces of artillery and three hundred prisoners were among the spoils. Fifty thousand pounds of bacon, a thousand barrels of beef, two thousand barrels of pork, two thousand barrels of flour, and vast quantities of quartermaster's stores also fell into his hands.

Jackson took what he could transport and burned the rest.

Pope rushed now in frantic haste to destroy Jackson before Lee's army could reach him.

Jackson was too quick for the eloquent commander. He slipped past his opponent and took a strong position west of the turnpike from Warrenton where he could easily unite with Longstreet's advancing corps.

Pope attempted to turn Jackson's left with a division of his army and the wily Southerner fell on his moving columns with sudden savage energy, fought until nine o'clock at night and drove him back with heavy loss.

When Pope moved to the attack next day at two o'clock Longstreet had reached Jackson's side. The attack failed and his men fell back through pools of blood. The Federal Commander was still sending pompous messages to Washington announcing his marvelous achievements while his army had steadily retreated from Culpeper Court House beyond the Rappahannock, back to Manassas where the first battle of the war was fought.

At dawn on August 30, the high spirited troops of the South were under arms standing with clinched muskets within a few hundred yards of the pickets of Pope. Their far flung battle line stretched for five miles from Sudley Springs on the left to the Warrenton road and on obliquely to the southwest.

The artillery opened the action and for eight hours the heavens shook with its roar. At three o'clock in the afternoon Pope determined to hurl the flower of his army against Jackson's corps and smash it. His first division pressed forward and engaged the Confederates at close quarters. A fierce and bloody conflict followed, Jackson's troops refusing to yield an inch. The Federal Commander brought up two reserve lines to support the first but before they could be of any use, Longstreet's artillery was planted to rake them with a murderous fire and they fell back in confusion.

As the reserves retreated Jackson ordered his men to charge and at the same moment Longstreet hurled his division against the Federal center, and the whole Confederate army with piercing yell leaped forward and swept the field as far as the eye could reach.

No sublimer pageant of blood and flame and smoke and shrouded Death ever moved across the earth than that which Lee now witnessed from the hilltop on which he stood. For five miles across the Manassas plains the gray waves rolled, their polished bayonets gleaming in the blazing sun. They swept through the open fields, now lost a moment in the woods, now flashing again in the open. They paused and the artillery dashed to the front, spread their guns in line and roared their call of death to the struggling, fleeing, demoralized army. Another shout and the charging hosts swept on again to a new point of vantage from which to fire. Through clouds of smoke and dust the red tongues of flame from a hundred big-mouthed guns flashed and faded and flashed again.

The charging men slipped on the wet grass where the dead lay thickest. Waves of white curling smoke rose above the tree-tops and hung in dense clouds over the field lighted by the red glare of the sinking sun.

The relief corps could be seen dashing on, with stretchers and ambulances following in the wake of the victorious army.

The hum and roar of the vast field of carnage came now on the ears of the listener—the groans of the wounded and the despairing cry of the dying. And still the living waves of gray-tipped steel rolled on in relentless sweep.

Again the fleeing Federal soldiers choked the waters of Bull Run. Masses of struggling fugitives were pushed from the banks into the water and pressed down. Here and there a wounded man clung to the branch of an overhanging tree until exhausted and sank to rise no more.

The meadows were trampled and red. Hundreds of weak and tired men were ridden down by cavalry and crushed by artillery. On and on rushed the remorseless machine of the Confederacy, crushing, killing, scarring, piling the dead in heaps.

It was ten o'clock that night before the army of Lee halted and Pope's exhausted lines fell into the trenches around Centreville for a few hours' respite. At dawn Jackson was struggling with his tired victorious division to again turn Pope's flank, get into his rear and cut off his retreat.

A cold and drenching rainstorm delayed his march and the rabble that was once Pope's army succeeded in getting into the defenses of Washington.

Davis' army took seven thousand prisoners and picked up more than two thousand wounded soldiers whom their boastful commander had left on the field to die. Thirty pieces of artillery and twenty thousand small arms fell into Lee's hands.

Pope's losses since Jackson first struck his advance guard at Culpeper Court House had been more than twenty thousand men and his army had been driven into Washington so utterly demoralized it was unfit for further service until reorganized under an abler man.

For the moment the North was stunned by the blow. Deceived by Pope's loud dispatches claiming victory for the first two days it was impossible to realize that his shattered and broken army was cowering and bleeding under the shadow of the Federal Capitol.

Even on the night of August thirtieth, with his men lying exhausted at Centreville where they had dropped at ten o'clock when Lee's army had mercifully halted, poor Pope continued to send his marvelous messages to the War Department.

He reported to Halleck:

"The enemy is badly whipped, and we shall do well enough. Do not be uneasy. We will hold our own here. We have delayed the enemy as long as possible without losing the army. We have damaged him heavily, and I think the army entitled to the gratitude of the country."

To this childish twaddle Halleck replied:

"My dear General, you have done nobly!"

Abraham Lincoln, however, realized the truth quickly. He removed Pope and in spite of the threat of his Cabinet to resign called McClellan to reorganize the dispirited army.

The North was in no mood to listen to the bombastic defense of General Pope. They were stunned by the sudden sweep of the Confederate army from the gates of Richmond on June first, to the defenses at Washington within sixty days with the loss of twenty thousand men under McClellan and twenty thousand more under Pope.

The armies of the Union had now been driven back to the point from which they had started on July 16, 1861. It had been necessary to withdraw Burnside's army from eastern North Carolina and the forces of the Union from western Virginia. The war had been transferred to the suburbs of Washington and the Northern people who had confidently expected McClellan to be in Richmond in June were now trembling for the safety of Pennsylvania and Maryland, to say nothing of the possibility of Confederate occupation of the Capital.

An aggressive movement of all the forces of the South under Lee in the East and Bragg and Johnston in the West was ordered.

In spite of the fact that Lee's army could not be properly shod—the supply of army shoes being inadequate and the lack of shoe factories a defect the Confederacy had yet been unable to remedy, the Southern Commander threw his army of barefooted veterans across the Potomac and boldly invaded Maryland on September the fifth.

The appearance of Stonewall Jackson on his entrance into Frederick City, Maryland, was described by a Northern war correspondent in graphic terms:

"Old Stonewall was the observed of all observers. He was dressed in the coarsest kind of homespun, seedy, and dirty at that. He wore an old hat which any Northern beggar would consider an insult to have offered him. In his general appearance he was in no respect to be distinguished from the mongrel barefoot crew who followed his fortunes. I had heard much of the decayed appearance of rebel soldiers,—but such a looking crowd! Ireland in her worst straits could present no parallel, and yet they glory in their shame!"

Lee's army was now fifty miles north of Washington, within striking distance of Baltimore. His strategy had completely puzzled the War Department of the Federal Government. McClellan was equally puzzled. Lincoln and his Cabinet believed Lee's movement into Maryland a feint to draw the army from the defense of the Capital, and, when this was accomplished, by a sudden swoop the Southern Commander would turn and capture the city.

While McClellan was thus halting in tragic indecision one of the unforeseen accidents of war occurred which put him in possession of Lee's plan of campaign and should have led to the annihilation of the Southern army. A copy of the order directing the movement of the Confederates from Frederick, Maryland, was thrown to the ground by a petulant officer to whom it was directed. It fell into the hands of a Federal soldier who hurried to McClellan's headquarters with the fateful document.

Jackson's corps had been sent on one of his famous "foot cavalry" expeditions to sweep the Federal garrison from Martinsburg, surround and capture Harper's Ferry. McClellan at once moved a division of his army to crush the small command Lee had stationed at South Mountain to guard Jackson's movement.

McClellan threw his men against this little division of the Confederates and attempted to force his way to the relief of Harper's Ferry. The battle raged with fury until nine o'clock at night. Their purpose accomplished Lee withdrew them to his new position at Sharpsburg to await the advent of Jackson.

The "foot cavalry" had surrounded Harper's Ferry, assaulted it at dawn and in two hours the garrison surrendered. Thirteen thousand prisoners with their rifles and seventy-three pieces of artillery fell into Jackson's hands. Leaving General A. P. Hill to receive the final surrender of the troops Jackson set out at once for Sharpsburg to join his army with Lee's.

The Southern Commander had but forty thousand men with which to meet McClellan's ninety thousand, but at sunrise on September seventeenth, his batteries opened fire and the bloodiest struggle of the Civil War began. Through the long hours of this eventful day the lines of blue and gray charged and counter-charged across the scarlet field. When darkness fell neither side had yielded. The dead lay in ghastly heaps and the long pitiful wail of the wounded rose to Heaven.

Lee had lost two thousand killed and six thousand wounded. McClellan had lost more than twelve thousand. His army was so terribly shattered by the bloody work, he did not renew the struggle on the following day. Lee waited until night for his assault and learning that reenforcements were on the way to join McClellan's command withdrew across the Potomac.

It was a day later before Lee's movements were sufficiently clear for McClellan to claim a victory.

On September nineteenth, he telegraphed Washington:

"I do not know if the enemy is falling back or recrossing the river. We may safely claim the victory as ours."

Abraham Lincoln hastened to take advantage of McClellan's claim to issue his Emancipation Proclamation. And yet so utter had been the failure of his general to cope with Lee and Jackson, the President of the United States relieved McClellan of his command.

While Lee's invasion had failed of the larger purpose, its moral effect on the North had been tremendous. He carried back into Virginia fourteen thousand prisoners, eighty pieces of artillery and invaluable equipment for his army.

In the meantime the Western army under Bragg had invaded Kentucky, sweeping to the gates of Cincinnati and Louisville and retiring with more than five thousand prisoners, five thousand small arms and ten pieces of artillery.

The gain in territory by the invasion of Maryland and Kentucky had been nothing but the moral effect of these movements had been far reaching. The daring valor of the small Confederate armies fighting against overwhelming odds had stirred the imagination of the world. In the west they had carried their triumphant battle flag from Chattanooga to Cincinnati, and although forced to retire, had shown the world that the conquest at the southwestern territory was a gigantic task which was yet to be seriously undertaken.

The London Times, commenting on these campaigns, declared:

"Whatever may be the fate of the new nationality or its subsequent claims to the respect of mankind, it will assuredly begin its career with a reputation for genius and valor which the most famous nations may envy."

On McClellan's fall he was succeeded by General Burnside who found a magnificently trained army of veteran soldiers at his command. It was now divided into three grand divisions of two corps each, commanded by three generals of tried and proven ability, Sumner, Hooker and Franklin.

Burnside quickly formed and began the execution of an advance against Richmond. He moved his army rapidly down the left bank of the Rappahannock River to Fredericksburg, and ordered pontoon bridges to cross the stream. His army could thus defend Washington while moving in force on the Confederate Capital.

When Burnside led his one hundred and thirteen thousand men across the river and occupied the town of Fredericksburg, Lee and Jackson were ready to receive him. Lee had entrenched on the line of crescent-shaped hills behind the town.

When the new Northern Commander threw his army, with its bands playing and its thousand flags flying, against these hills on the morning of December 13, 1862, he plunged headlong and blindfolded into a death trap.

Charge after charge was repulsed with unparalleled slaughter. Lee's guns were planted to cross fire on each charging line of blue. Burnside's men were mowed down in thousands until their sublime valor won the praise and the pity of their foe.

When night at last drew the veil over the awful scene the shattered masses of the charging army were huddled under the shelter of the houses in Fredericksburg leaving the field piled high with the dead and the wounded. The wounded were freezing to death in the pitiless cold.

Burnside had lost thirteen thousand men—the flower of his troops—the bravest men the North had ever sent into battle.

Jackson's keen eye was quick to see the shambles into which this demoralized army had been pushed. The river behind them could be crossed only on a narrow pontoon bridge. A swift and merciless night attack would either drive the bleeding lines into the freezing river, annihilate or capture the whole army. He urged Lee to this attack. Lee demurred. He could not know the extent of the enemy's losses. It was inconceivable to the Southern Commander that Burnside with his one hundred and thirteen thousand picked soldiers, could be repulsed with such slight losses to the South. Only a small part of the army under his command had been active in the battle and their losses were insignificant in comparison with the records of former struggles. Burnside would renew the attack with redoubled vigor. He refused to move his men from their entrenchments into the open field where they would be exposed to the batteries beyond the river.

Jackson turned his somber blue eyes on Lee:

"Send my corps into Fredericksburg alone to-night. Hold the hills with the rest of the army. I'll do the work."

"You cannot distinguish friend from foe, General Jackson—"

"I'll strip my men to the waist and tie white bands around their right arms."

"In this freezing cold?"

"They'll obey my orders, General Lee—"

"It's too horrible—"

"It's war, sir," was Jackson's reply. "War means fighting—fighting to kill, to destroy—fighting with tooth and nail—"

Lee shook his head. He refused to take the risk. Jackson returned to his headquarters with heavy heart. His chief of medical staff was busy preparing bandages for his men. He had been sure of Lee's consent. He countermanded the order and Burnside's army was saved from annihilation. When the sun rose next morning half his men were safely across the river—and the remainder quickly followed.

Again the North was stunned. Another wave of horror swept its homes as the lists of the dead and wounded were printed.

Burnside resigned his command and "Fighting" Joe Hooker was placed at the head of the Northern troops. Since June first, Lee and Jackson had destroyed four blue armies and driven their commanders from the field,—McClellan twice, John Pope and now Burnside.

The political effects of these brilliant achievements of Davis' army had been paralyzing on the administration of Lincoln. The Proclamation of Emancipation which he had issued immediately after the bloody battle in Maryland had not only fallen flat in the North, it had created a reaction against his policies and the conduct of the war. The November elections had gone against him and his party had been all but wiped out.

The Democrats in New York had reversed a majority of one hundred and seven thousand against them in 1860 and swept the State, electing their entire ticket. The administration was defeated in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois.

The voters of the North not only condemned the administration for declaring the slaves free, but they assaulted the war policy of their Government with savage fury. They condemned the wholesale arrest of thousands of citizens for their political opinions and arraigned the Government for its incompetence in conducting the military operations of an army of more than twice the numbers of the triumphant South.

The Emancipation Proclamation and the victories of Davis' army had not only divided and demoralized the North, they had solidified Southern opinion.

Even Alexander H. Stephens, the Vice-President of the Confederacy, who had been a thorn in the flesh of Davis from the beginning in his advocacy of foolish and impossible measures of compromise now took his position for war to the death. In a fiery speech in North Carolina following Lincoln's proclamation Stephens said:

"As for any reconstruction of the Union—such a thing is impossible—such an idea must not be tolerated for an instant. Reconstruction would not end the war, but would produce a more horrible war than that in which we are now engaged. The only terms on which we can obtain permanent peace is final and complete separation from the North. Rather than submit to anything short of that, let us resolve to die as men worthy of freedom."

A few days after the defeat of Burnside's army at Fredericksburg the South was thrilled by the feat of General McGruder in Galveston harbor. The daring Confederate Commander had seized two little steamers and fitted them up as gun boats by piling cotton on their sides for bulwarks. With these two rafts of cotton cooeperating on the water, his infantry waded out into the waters of Galveston Bay and attacked the Federal fleet with their bare hands.

When the smoke of battle lifted the city of Galveston was in Confederate hands, the fleet had been smashed and scattered and the port opened to commerce. Commodore Renshaw had blown up his flag ship to prevent her falling into McGruder's hands and gone down with her. The garrison surrendered.

Jackson had invented a "foot cavalry." McGruder had supplemented it by a "foot navy."

At Murfreesboro, Tennessee, on the same day General Bragg had engaged the army of Rosecrans and fought one of the bloodiest engagements of the war. Its net results were in favor of the Confederacy in spite of the fact that he permitted Rosecrans to move into Murfreesboro. The Northern army had lost nine thousand men, killed and wounded, and Bragg carried from the field six thousand Federal prisoners, thirty pieces of artillery, sixty thousand stand of small arms, ambulances, mules, horses and an enormous amount of valuable stores.

His own losses had been great but far less than those he inflicted on Rosecrans. He had lost one thousand two hundred and ninety-two killed, seven thousand nine hundred and forty-five wounded and one thousand twenty-seven missing.

At Charleston a fleet of iron-clads on the model of the Monitor had been crushed by the batteries and driven back to sea with heavy loss. The Keokuk was left a stranded wreck in the harbor.

A second attack on Vicksburg had failed under Sherman. A third attack by Grant had been repulsed. Farragut's attack on Port Hudson had failed with the loss of the Richmond.

The Federal Government now put forth its grandest effort to crush at a blow the apparently invincible army of Davis' still lying in its trenches on the heights behind Fredericksburg.

Hooker's army was raised to an effective force of one hundred and thirty thousand and his artillery increased to four hundred guns. Lee had been compelled to detach Longstreet's corps, comprising nearly a third of his army for service in North Carolina. The force under his command was barely fifty thousand.

So great was the superiority of the Northern army Hooker divided his forces for an enveloping movement, each wing of his being still greater than the whole force under Lee.

Sedgwick's corps crossed the river below Fredericksburg and began a flanking movement from the south while Hooker threw the main body across the Rappahannock at three fords seven miles above.

On April thirtieth, he issued an address to his men. His forces were all safely across the river without firing a shot. He had Lee's little army caught in a trap between his two grand divisions.

In his proclamation he boldly announced:

"The operations of the last three days have determined that our enemy must ingloriously fly, or come out from behind their defenses and give us battle on our own ground, where certain destruction awaits him."

His enemy was not slow in coming out from behind his defenses. With quick decision Lee divided his little army by planting ten thousand men under Early on Marye's Heights to stop Sedgwick's division and moved swiftly with the remainder to meet Hooker in the dense woods of the Wilderness near Chancellorsville.

With consummate daring and the strategy of genius he again divided his army. He detached Jackson's corps and sent his "foot cavalry" on a swift wide detour of twenty-odd miles to swing around Hooker's right and strike him in the flank while he pretended an attack in force on his front.

It was nearly sundown when Jackson's tired but eager men saw from the hill top their unsuspecting foe quietly cooking their evening meal.

When the battle clouds lifted at the end of three days of carnage, Hooker's army of one hundred and thirty thousand men had been cut to pieces and flung back across the Rappahannock, leaving seventeen thousand killed and wounded on the field.

In the face of his crushing defeat Hooker issued another address to his army.

He boldly announced from his safe retreat beyond the banks of the river:

"The Major-General commanding tenders to the army his congratulations on its achievements of the last seven days. If it has not accomplished all that was expected the reasons are well known to the army. It is sufficient to say, that they were of a character not to be foreseen or prevented by human sagacity or resources.

"In withdrawing from the south bank of the Rappahannock before delivering a general battle to our adversaries, the army has given renewed evidence of its confidence in itself and its fidelity to the principles it represents.

"Profoundly loyal and conscious of its strength, the Army of the Potomac will give or decline battle whenever its interests or honor may command it.

"By the celerity and secrecy of our movements, our advance and passage of the river was undisputed, and on our withdrawal not a rebel dared to follow us. The events of the last week may well cause the heart of every officer and soldier of the army to swell with pride!"

The heart of the North quickly swelled with such pride that the President was forced to remove General Hooker and appoint General George Meade to his command.

While the South was celebrating the wonderful achievement of their now invincible army, Lee's greatest general lay dying at a little farm house a few miles from the scene of his immortal achievement. Jackson had been accidentally wounded by a volley from his own men fired by his orders.

His wound was not supposed to be fatal and arrangements were made for his removal to Richmond when he was suddenly stricken with pneumonia and rapidly sank. He lifted his eyes to his physician and calmly said:

"If I live, it will be for the best—and if I die, it will be for the best; God knows and directs all things for the best."

His last moments were marked with expressions of his abiding faith in the wisdom and love of the God he had faithfully served.

Yet his spirit was still on the field of battle. In the delirium which preceded death his voice rang in sharp command:

"Tell Major Hawkes to send forward provisions to the men!"

His head sank and a smile lighted his rugged face. In low tender tones be gasped his last words on earth:

"Let us cross over the river and rest under the shade of the trees."

So passed the greatest military genius our race has produced—the man who never met defeat. His loss was mourned not only by the South but by the world. His death extinguished a light on the shores of Time.

The leading London paper said of him:

"That mixture of daring and judgment which is the mark of heaven-born generals distinguished him beyond any man of his age. The blows he struck at the enemy were as terrible and decisive as those of Bonaparte himself."

Thousands followed him in sorrow to the grave. The South was bathed in tears.

Lee realized that he had lost his right arm and yet, undaunted, he marshaled his legions and girded his loins for an invasion of Northern soil.



CHAPTER XXXIII

THE ACCUSATION

Captain Welford had entered the Secret Service of the Confederacy believing firmly that Socola was a Federal spy. He would not make known his suspicions until he had secured evidence on which to demand his arrest.

This evidence he found most difficult to secure. For months he had watched the handsome foreigner with the patience of a hound. He had taken particular pains to hold Jennie's friendship in order to be thrown with Socola on every possible occasion. His men from the Secret Service Department had followed Socola's every movement day and night with no results.

He pretended the most philosophic acceptance of the situation and bantered the lovers with expressions of his surprise that an early marriage had not been announced.

Socola received the Captain's professions of friendship with no sign of suspicion. He read Dick's mind as an open book. He saw through his pretentions and the tragic purpose which underlay his good-natured banter. He knew instinctively that his movements were watched and moved with the utmost caution. For a time he found it impossible to visit the house on Church Hill. Detectives were on his heels the moment he turned his steps to that hill.

The boarding house in which he lived was watched day and night. And yet so carefully had he executed his work the men who were hounding him were completely puzzled. They could not know, of course, that Socola had chosen as his secretary a man in the Department of State. This man he had involved in his conspiracy so completely and hopelessly from the first interview that there was no retreat. He had risked his own life on his judgment of character the day he made his first proposition. But his estimate had proven correct. The fellow blustered and then accepted the bribe and entered with enthusiasm into his service.

Through this clerk the wily director of the Federal Bureau of Information was compelled now to communicate with Miss Van Lew. Socola had secured his services in the nick of time. He had been an old friend of the Van Lew family before the war, their people were distantly related and no suspicion could attach to his visits to her house unless made at an unusual hour.

It was nearly a year from the day he began his watch before Captain Welford succeeded in connecting the stenographer in the Department of State with the woman on Church Hill.

He had been quietly studying "Crazy Bet" for months. From the first he had accused this woman of being a spy. The older men in the Department laughed. Miss Van Lew was the standard joke of the amateurs who entered the Service. The older men all knew that she was a harmless fool whose mind had been unbalanced by her love for negroes and her abolition ideas.

With characteristic stubbornness Dick refused to accept their decision and set about in his own way to watch her. She was in the habit now of making more and more frequent trips to Libby Prison, carrying flowers and delicacies to the Northern prisoners. Dick had observed the use of an old fashioned French platter with an extremely thick bottom. He called the attention of the guard to this platter.

The keen ears of the woman had heard it mentioned. The double bottom at that moment was harmless. The messages she had carried to the prisoners had all been taken from their hiding place and the platter returned to her through the bars.

She hurried home before the guard could make up his mind to examine the contrivance. The next day Dick was on the watch. The Captain whispered to the guard who halted "Crazy Bet" at the door.

"I'll have to examine that thing," he said sharply.

"Take it then!" she said with a foolish laugh.

She slipped the old shawl from around it and suddenly plumped the platter squarely into the guard's hands. The double bottom that day was filled with boiling water.

"Hell fire!" the guard yelled, dropping the platter with a crash.

He blew on his fingers and let her pick it up and pass on.

The woman had fooled the guard completely, but she had not been so successful with Dick. The trick was too smoothly done. No woman with an unbalanced mind would have been capable of it.

With extraordinary care the Captain followed her through the crowded streets and saw her pass Socola in front of the Custom House. No sign of recognition was made by either, but he saw the stenographer stoop and pick up something from the edge of the sidewalk.

He would have thought nothing of such an act had he not been following this woman on whom his suspicions had been fixed. He leaped at once to the truth.

Miss Van Lew had dropped a cypher message and Socola had taken it.

He watched her again the next day, and, suddenly turning the corner of an obscure street, saw Socola speak to her in low quick tones, raising his voice on his appearance to an idle conventional greeting.

He passed them without apparently noticing anything unusual and hurried to his office with his suspicions now a burning certainty. He had only to wait his opportunity to trap his quarry in the possession of a dispatch that would send him to the gallows.

His evidence was not yet sufficient to ask for his arrest. It was sufficient to convince Jennie Barton whose loyalty to the South was so intense she would not walk on the same side of the street with Miss Van Lew.

He rushed to the Barton house.

Jennie saw before he spoke that he bore a message of tragic import.

"What is it, Dick?" she asked under her breath. "Why do you look at me so?"

"Jennie," he began seriously, "you are sure that you love the South?"

"Don't ask me idiotic questions," she answered sternly; "what are you driving at?"

"If I prove to you that the man to whom you have pledged your love is an impostor—"

She lifted her head in a gesture of cold protest.

"I thought we had settled that question."

"But you must listen to me," he went on with calm persistence. "If I prove to you that this man is a Federal spy—"

Jennie broke into a laugh.

"I can't get mad at you—you're such a big clumsy goose—"

"I said if I prove it—"

There was no mistaking the fact that he was in dead earnest.

The girl's face went white and her eyes took on a hard glitter.

"Now, Dick Welford, that you've said it—you've got to prove it—"

The Captain lifted his hand solemnly.

"I'll prove it. You know Miss Van Lew, the old abolitionist on Church Hill?—"

"I don't know that such a creature walks the earth."

"You've heard of her?"

"Yes."

"You know that she is a traitor to her own people?"

"I've heard it."

The Captain paused and looked straight at her with searching gaze.

"I just ran into Socola talking to this woman—"

"Is that all?"

"No."

"What else?"

"Yesterday I saw them pass each other on Main Street. Socola stooped and picked up something from the pavement—"

"Something she dropped?"

"I'm sure of it—"

"But you didn't see her drop it?"

"No—"

"How can you be so absurd!"

"You don't believe what I tell you?"

"But it proves nothing—"

"To me, it's as plain as day—"

"Because you hate him. I'm ashamed of you, Dick."

"Mark my words, I'll prove it before I'm through."

"I'll give you the chance now—that's his knock on the front door—"

"I'd rather not make my accusation to-day—"

"You've made it to me."

"You're a loyal Southern girl. I had the right to make it to you."

The girl laughed.

"And I'll demand of him an explanation—"

Before he could protest Socola walked into the room and grasped Jennie's hand.

"Captain Welford," she laughed, "has just accused you of hobnobbing with the enemy on the streets—what explanation can you offer?"

"Need I explain?" he asked lightly.

"Miss Van Lew is a suspicious character."

"That's my excuse, I fear. She is a character. I've been curious to know if she is really sane. I stopped her on the street and asked her a question. Is it forbidden in Richmond?"

He spoke with easy convincing carelessness.

Jennie smiled.

"Captain Welford evidently thinks so—"

"And you?"

"I am quite satisfied with your explanation—"

Dick took a step closer and faced his enemy.

"Well, I'm not Signor Socola—if that's your name—"

"Dick!" Jennie interrupted angrily.

The Captain ignored the interruption, holding the eye of the man he hated.

"You spoke to that woman in low quick tones—"

"Your imagination is vivid, Captain—"

Dick squared his jaw into Socola's face.

"It's vivid enough to see through you. I'm going to wring your neck before we're through with this thing—"

Jennie thrust her trembling figure between the two men and confronted Dick.



"How dare you insult the man I love in my presence, Dick Welford?"

"Because I love the South better than my life and you do, too, Jennie Barton—"

The girl's eyes flashed with rage.

"Leave this room, sir!"

Dick still faced Socola.

"Get out of this town to-night—or I'll wring your neck, you damned spy!"

"Leave this room, Dick Welford!" Jennie repeated.

The Captain turned and left without even a glance over his broad shoulders.

"I couldn't strike him in your presence, dear," Socola apologized.

"You behaved splendidly. I'm proud of your perfect poise and mastery of yourself. Our Southern men splutter easily."

Socola took her hand and pressed it.

"You don't believe this?"

"I'd sooner doubt my own heart—I'd sooner doubt God—"

"I'll prove to you that I'm worthy of your love," he murmured gently.

He knelt that night and tried to ask God to show him the way. His heart was rising in fierce rebellion at the deception into which he had entrapped himself. And yet never had his country's need been so bitter and the service he was rendering so priceless. He rose at last with face stern and pale. He would fight to the end.



CHAPTER XXXIV

THE TURN OF THE TIDE

The death of Jackson was to Jefferson Davis an appalling disaster. He had never seriously believed the Southern people could win their unequal struggle against the millions of the North backed by their inexhaustible resources until the achievements of Lee and Jackson had introduced a new element into the conflict. So resistless and terrible had become the effective war power of Southern soldiers led by these two men whose minds moved in such harmony with each other and with their Chief in Richmond that the South at last was in sight of success.

The impossible had been accomplished. Anything now seemed possible. Jackson's death had destroyed this new equation of war.

Davis' faith in Jackson was in every way equal to Lee's and Lee but once refused to follow Jackson's lead in his veto on his Lieutenant's plan to annihilate Burnside's army at Fredericksburg.

When the report reached Richmond that Jackson was dying Davis was inconsolable.

The whole evening the President of the Confederacy shut himself in his room—unable to think of anything save the impending calamity. When the end was sure he sent with his own hand the handsomest flag in Richmond in which to wrap his body.

When Davis gazed on the white, cold, rugged features, the tears were streaming down his hollow checks. He bent low and the tears fell on the face of the dead.

When an officer of the Government came to the President's Mansion where the body lay in state to consult him on a matter of importance, the Confederate Chieftain stared at his questioner in a dazed sort of way and remained silent.

Lifting his haggard face at last he said in pathetic tones:

"You must excuse me, my friend, I am staggering from a dreadful blow—I cannot think—"

Three days and nights the endless procession passed the bier and paid their tribute of adoration and love. And when he was borne to his last resting place through the streets of the city, the sidewalks, the windows and the housetops were a throbbing mass of weeping women and men.

Jefferson Davis was perhaps the only man in the South in a position to realize the enormous loss which the Confederacy had sustained in the death of Lee's great lieutenant.

The Southern people who gloried in Jackson's deeds had as yet no real appreciation of the services he had rendered. They could not realize their loss until events should prove that no man could be found to take his place.

The brilliant victory of Chancellorsville, following so closely on Fredericksburg, had lifted the Confederacy to the heights.

In the West the army had held its own. The safety of Vicksburg was not seriously questioned. General Bragg confronted Rosecrans with an army so strong he dared not attack it and yet not strong enough to drive Rosecrans from Tennessee.

Two campaigns were discussed with Davis.

The members of his Cabinet, who regarded the possession of Vicksburg and the continued grip on the Mississippi River vital to the life of the Confederacy, were alarmed at Grant's purpose to fight his way to this stronghold and take it.

They urged that Lee's army be divided and half of it sent immediately to reenforce Bragg. With this force in the West Rosecrans could be crushed and Grant driven from his design of opening the Mississippi.

Lee, flushed with his victories, naturally objected to the weakening of his army by such a division. He proposed a more daring and effective way of relieving Vicksburg.

He would raise his army to eighty-five thousand men, clear Virginia of the enemy and sweep into Pennsylvania, carry the war into the North, forage on its rich fields, capture Harrisburg and march on Washington.

Davis did not wish to risk this invasion of Northern soil. But his situation was peculiar. His relations with Lee had been remarkable for their perfect accord. They had never differed on an essential point of political or military strategy. Davis' pride in Lee's genius was unbounded, his confidence in his judgment perfect.

Lee was absolutely sure that his army raised to eighty-five thousand effective men could go anywhere on the continent and do anything within human power. He had crushed McClellan's army of two hundred thousand with seventy-five thousand men, and driven him from his entrenchments at Richmond down the Peninsula. With sixty thousand he had crushed Pope and hurled his army into the entrenchments at Washington, a bleeding, disorganized mob. With sixty-two thousand he had cut to pieces Burnside's hundred and thirteen thousand. With fifty thousand he had rolled up Hooker's host of one hundred and thirty thousand in a scroll of flame and death and flung them across the Rappahannock.

His fame filled the world. His soldiers worshiped him. At his command they would charge the gates of hell with their bare hands. His soldiers were seasoned veterans in whose prowess he had implicit faith. His faith was not a guess. It was founded on achievements so brilliant there was scarcely room for a doubt.

Lee succeeded in convincing Davis that he could invade the North, live on its rich fields and win a battle which would open the way, not only to save Vicksburg from capture, but secure the peace and independence of the South.

A single great victory on Northern soil with his army threatening Washington would make peace a certainty. Davis was quick to see the logic of Lee's plan. It was reasonable. It was a fair risk. And yet the dangers were so enormous he consented with reluctance.

Reagan, the Western member of his Cabinet, urged with all the eloquence of his loyal soul the importance of holding intact the communications with the territory beyond the Mississippi. He begged and pleaded for the plan to reenforce Bragg and play the safe game with Vicksburg. Davis listened to his advice with the utmost respect and weighed each point with solemn sense of his responsibility.

The one point he made last he tried to drive home in a sharp personal appeal.

"You cannot afford, Mr. President," he urged with vehemence, "to further expose your own people of Mississippi to the ravages of such men as now control the invading army. They have laid your own home waste. The people of Vicksburg are your neighbors. They know you personally. The people of this territory have sent their sons and brothers into Virginia by thousands. There are no soldiers left to defend them—"

The President lifted his thin hand in protest.

"I can't let the personal argument sway me, Reagan. Our own people must endure what is best for the cause. All I wish to know is what is best—your plan or General Lee's."

Lee persuaded him against his personal judgment to consent to the daring scheme of Northern invasion.

So intent was Reagan on the plan of direct relief to Vicksburg that after Lee had begun his preparations for the advance, Davis called a Cabinet meeting and reconsidered the whole question. Reagan pleaded with tears at last for what he knew his Chief felt to be best. Davis weighed for the second time each point with care and again decided that Lee's plan promised the greater end—peace.

The moment his final decision was made Davis at once commissioned Vice President Alexander H. Stephens, who knew Lincoln personally, to go to Washington to make the proposition for an armistice and begin the negotiations for a permanent peace on the day Lee should make good his promise.

The letter with which Stephens started to Washington asked on its face that the President of the United States arrange for an exchange of prisoners which would be prompt and effective and prevent all suffering by Northern men in Southern climates and Southern men in Northern prisons. Davis had asked again and again that all prisoners be exchanged. The Federal War Department had obstructed this exchange until thousands of Northern soldiers crowded the prisons of the South and it was impossible for the Confederate authorities to properly care for them. Medicine had been made contraband of war by the North and the simplest remedies could not be had for the Confederate soldiers or their prisoners. Behind this humane purpose of Stephens' mission lay the bigger proposition, which was a verbal one, to propose peace on Lee's victory on Northern soil.

Lee's army lay on the plains of Culpeper during the beautiful month of May. The vast field was astir with the feverish breath of preparations for the grand march. Trains rushed to the front loaded with munitions of war. New batteries of artillery with the finest equipment ever known were added to his army. The ordnance trains were packed to their capacity. His troops were better equipped than ever before in the history of the war. Every department of the huge, pitiless machine was running like clockwork.

Fifteen thousand cavalry were reviewed at Brandy Station led by Stuart's waving plume—Stuart, the matchless leader who had twice ridden round a hostile army of a hundred thousand men. Crowds of cheering women watched this wonderful pageant and waved their handkerchiefs to the handsome young cavalier as he passed on his magnificent horse draped with garlands of flowers.

It required an entire week to review the cavalry, infantry, and artillery.

On June the first, the advance began.

Ewell's corps, once commanded by Jackson, led the way. They swung rapidly through the Blue Ridge Mountains, into the Valley and suddenly pounced on General Milroy at Winchester. Milroy with a few of his officers escaped through the Confederate lines at night and succeeded in crossing the Potomac at Harper's Ferry. Ewell captured three thousand prisoners, thirty pieces of artillery, a hundred wagons and great stores. Seven hundred more men were taken at Martinsburg.

On June twenty-seventh, the whole of Lee's army was encamped at Chambersburg in Pennsylvania in striking distance of the Capital of the State.

The execution of this march had been a remarkable piece of strategy. He had completely baffled the Northern Commanders, spread terror through the North and precipitated the wildest panic in Washington.

Within twenty-odd days the Southern General had brought his forces from Fredericksburg, Virginia, confronted by an army of one hundred thousand men, through the Blue Ridge, and the Shenandoah Valley into Pennsylvania. He had done this in the face of one of the most powerful and best equipped armies the North had put into the field. He had swept the hostile garrisons at Winchester, Martinsburg and Harper's Ferry into his prisons and camped in Pennsylvania without his progress being once arrested or a serious battle forced upon him. He had cleared Virginia of the army which threatened Richmond and they were rushing breathlessly after him in a desperate effort to save the Capital of Pennsylvania.

So far Lee had made good every prediction on which he had based his plan of campaign.

Davis felt so sure that he would make good his promised victory that he hurriedly dispatched Stephens to Fortress Monroe under a flag of truce and asked for a safe conduct for his Commissioner to Washington.

In alarm the Governors of Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Maryland, and West Virginia called out their militia. Lee was not deterred by their panic. He knew that those raw troops would cut no figure in the swift and terrible drama which was being staged among the ragged crags around Gettysburg. The veteran armies of the North and South would decide the issue. If he won, he would brush aside the militia as so many school boys and march into Washington.

Meade was rushing his army after his antagonist with feverish haste. His advance guard struck Lee before the town of Gettysburg on July first, 1863. A desperate struggle ensued. Neither Meade nor Lee had yet reached the field.

Within a mile of the town the Confederates made a sudden and united charge and smashed the Federal line into atoms. General Reynolds, their Commander, was killed and his army driven headlong into the streets of Gettysburg. Ewell, charging through the town, swept all before him and took five thousand prisoners.

The crowded masses of fugitives, fleeing for their lives, passed out of the town and rushed up the slopes of the hills beyond.

At five o'clock Lee halted his men until the rest of his army should reach the field.

During the night General Meade rallied his disorganized men, poured his fresh troops among them and entrenched his army on the heights where his defeated advance guard had taken refuge.

Had Lee withdrawn the next morning when he scanned those hills which looked down on him through bristling brows of brass and iron the history of the Confederacy might have been longer. It could not have been more illustrious.

His reasons for assault were sound. To his council of war he was explicit.

"I had not intended, gentlemen," he said, "to fight a general battle at such distance from our base, unless attacked by the enemy. We find ourselves confronted by the Federal army. It is difficult to withdraw through the mountains with our large trains. The country is unfavorable for collecting supplies while in the presence of the main body of the enemy as he can restrain our foraging parties by occupying the mountain passes. The battle is in a measure unavoidable. We have won a great victory to-day. We can defeat Meade's army in spite of these hills."

When Lee surveyed the heights of Gettysburg again on the morning of the second of July, he saw that the Northerners held a position of extraordinary power. Yet his men were flushed with victory after victory. They had swept their foe before them in the first encounter as chaff before a storm. They were equal to anything short of a miracle.

He ordered Longstreet to hurl his corps against Cemetery Ridge and drive the enemy from his key position before the entrenchments could be completed.

Longstreet was slow. Jackson would have struck with the rapidity of lightning. On this swift action Lee had counted. The blow should have been delivered before eight o'clock. It was two o'clock in the afternoon before Longstreet made the attack and Meade's position had been made stronger each hour.

From two o'clock until dark the long lines of gray rolled and dashed against the heights and broke in red pools of blood on their rocky slopes.

Three hundred pieces of artillery thundered their message in an Oratorio of Death. The earth shook. Hills and rocks danced and reeled before the excited vision of the onrushing men. For two hours the guns roared and thundered without pause. The shriek of shell, the crash of falling trees, the showers of flying rocks ripped from cliffs by solid shot, the shouts of charging hosts, the splash of bursting shrapnel, the neighing of torn and mangled horses, transformed the green hills of Pennsylvania into a smoke-wreathed, flaming hell. The living lay down that night to sleep with their heads pillowed on the dead.

On this second day Lee's men had gained a slight advantage. They had taken Round Top and held it for two hours. They had at least proven that it could be done. They had driven in the lines on the Federal left. The Southern Commander still believed his men could do the impossible. Longstreet begged his Chief that night to withdraw and choose another field. Lee ordered the third day's fight. On his gray horse he watched Pickett lead his immortal charge and fall back down the hill.

He rode quietly to the front, rallying the broken lines. He made no speech. He uttered no bombast.

He calmly lifted his hand and cried:

"Never mind—boys!"

To his officers he said:

"It's all my fault. We'll talk it over afterward. Let every good man rally now."

His army had never known a panic. The men quietly fell into line and cheered their Commander.

To an English officer on the field Lee quietly said:

"This has been a sad day for us, Colonel—a sad day; but we can't expect always to gain victories."

Lee had lost twenty thousand men and fourteen generals. Meade had lost twenty-three thousand men and seventeen generals. Lee withdrew his army across the swollen Potomac, carrying away his guns and all the prisoners he had taken.

General Meade had saved the North, but Lee's army was still intact, on its old invincible lines in Virginia, sixty-five thousand strong.

The news from Gettysburg crushed the soul of Davis. He had hoped with this battle to end the war, and stop the frightful slaughter of our noblest men, North and South. His Commissioner, Alexander H. Stephens, was halted at Fortress Monroe and sent back to Richmond with an insulting answer.

So bitter was Lee's disappointment that he offered his resignation to Davis.

The President at once wrote a generous letter in which he renewed the expressions of his confidence in the genius of his Commanding General and begged him to guard his precious life from undue exposure.

Gettysburg was but one of the appalling calamities which crushed the hopes of the Confederate Chieftain on this memorable fourth of July, 1863.

On the recovery of Joseph E. Johnston from his wound at Seven Pines he was assigned to the old command of Albert Sidney Johnston in the West. His department included the States of Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and North Carolina.

He entered on the duties of his new and important field—complaining, peevish, sulking.

On the day before his departure Mrs. Davis visited his wife and expressed to General Johnston the earnest wish of her heart for her husband's success.

"I sincerely hope, General," she said cordially, "that your campaign will be brilliant and successful."

The General pursed the hard lines of his mouth.

"I might succeed if I had Lee's chances with the army of Northern Virginia."

From the moment Johnston reached his field he began to quarrel with his generals and complain to the Government at Richmond. He made no serious effort to unite his forces for the defense of Vicksburg and continuously wrote and telegraphed to the War Department that his authority was inadequate to really command so extended a territory. He made no effort to throw the twenty-four thousand men he commanded into a juncture with Pemberton who was struggling valiantly against Grant's fifty thousand closing in on the doomed city.

On May eighteenth, Johnston sent a courier to Pemberton and advised him to evacuate Vicksburg without a fight! Pemberton held a council of war and refused to give up the Mississippi River without a struggle. Johnston sat down in his tent and left him to his fate.

Grant closed in on Vicksburg and the struggle began. Pemberton could not believe that Johnston would not march to his relief.

Women and children stood by their homes amid the roar of guns and the bursting of shells. Caves were dug in the hills and they took refuge under the ground.

A shell burst before a group of children hurrying from their homes to the hills. The dirt thrown up from the explosion knocked three little fellows down, but luckily no bones were broken. They jumped up, brushed their clothes, wiped the dirt from their eyes, and hurried on without a whimper.

When the dark days of starvation came, the women nursed the sick and wounded, lived on mule and horse meat and parched corn.

Johnston continued to send telegrams to the War Department saying he needed more troops and didn't know where to get them. Yet he was in absolute command of all the troops in his department and could order them to march at a moment's notice in any direction he wished. He hesitated and continued to send telegrams and write letters for more explicit instructions.

He got them finally in a direct peremptory order from the War Department.

On June fifteenth, he telegraphed his Government:

"I consider saving Vicksburg hopeless."

Davis ordered his Secretary of War to reply immediately in unmistakable language:

"Your telegram grieves and alarms us, Vicksburg must not be lost without a struggle. The interest and honor of the Confederacy forbid it. I rely on you to avert this loss. If better resource does not offer you must hazard attack. It may be made in concert with the garrison, if practicable, but otherwise without. By day or night as you think best."

The Secretary of War, brooding in anxiety over the possibility of Johnston's timidity in the crisis, again telegraphed him six days later:

"Only my convictions of almost imperative necessity for action induced the official dispatch I have sent you. On every ground I have great deference to your judgment and military genius, but I feel it right to share, if need be to take the responsibility and leave you free to follow the most desperate course the occasion may demand. Rely upon it, the eyes and hopes of the whole Confederacy are upon you, with the full confidence that you will act, and with the sentiment that it were better to fail nobly daring, than through prudence even to be inactive. I rely on you for all possible to save Vicksburg."

On June twenty-seventh, Grant telegraphed Washington:

"Joe Johnston has postponed his attack until he can receive ten thousand reenforcements from Bragg's army. They are expected early next week. I feel strong enough against this increase and do not despair of having Vicksburg before they arrive."

Pemberton's army held Vicksburg practically without food for forty-seven days. His brave men were exposed to blistering suns and drenching rains and confined to their trenches through every hour of the night. They had reached the limit of human endurance and were now physically too weak to attempt a sortie. Johnston still sat in his tent writing letters and telegrams to Richmond.

Pemberton surrendered his garrison to General Grant on July fourth, and the Mississippi was opened to the Federal fleet from its mouth to its source.

Grant telegraphed to Washington:

"The enemy surrendered this morning, General Sherman will face immediately on Johnston and drive him from the State."

But the great letter writer did not wait for Sherman to face him. He immediately abandoned the Capital of Mississippi and retreated into the interior.

In the fall of Vicksburg, the Confederacy had suffered a most appalling calamity—not only had the Mississippi River been opened to the Federal gunboats, but Grant had captured twenty-four thousand prisoners of war, including three Major Generals and nine Brigadiers, ninety pieces of artillery and forty thousand small arms.

The Johnston clique at Richmond made this disaster the occasion of fierce assaults on Jefferson Davis and fresh complaints of the treatment of their favorite General. The dogged persistence with which this group of soreheads proclaimed the infallibility of the genius of the weakest and most ineffective general of the Confederacy was phenomenal. The more miserable Johnston's failures the louder these men shouted his praises. The yellow journals of the South continued to praise this sulking old man until half the people of the Confederacy were hoodwinked into believing in his greatness.

The results of this Johnston delusion were destined to bear fatal fruit in the hour of the South's supreme trial.



CHAPTER XXXV

SUSPICION

Jennie Barton had refused to listen to Captain Welford's accusation of treachery against her lover but the seed of suspicion had been planted. It grew with such rapidity her peace of mind was utterly destroyed.

In vain she put the ugly thought aside.

"It's impossible!" she murmured a hundred times only to come back to the idea that would not down.

Night after night she tossed on her pillow unable to sleep. The longer she faced the problem of Socola's character and antecedents the more probable became the truth of Dick's suspicions. She had made his present position in the State Department possible.

Again her love rose in rebellion. "It's a lie—a lie!" she sobbed. "I won't believe it. Dick's crazy jealousy's at the bottom of it all—"

Why had Socola buried himself in the Department of State so completely since the scene with Dick? His calls had been brief. Their relations had been strained in spite of her honest effort to put them back on the old footing.

He gave as his excuse for not calling oftener the enormous pressure of work which the crisis of the invasion of Pennsylvania had brought to his office. The excuse was valid. But perfect love would find a way. It should need no excuse.

There was something wrong. She realized it now with increasing agony. Unable to endure the strain she sent for Socola.

Their meeting was awkward. She made no effort to apologize or smooth things over. Her attitude was instinctive. She gave her feelings full rein.

She fixed on him a steady searching gaze.

"It's useless for me to try to pretend, my love. There's something wrong between us."

"Your mind has been poisoned," was the quick, serious answer. "Thoughts are things. They have the power to kill or give life. A poisonous idea has been planted in your soul. It's killing your love for me. I feel it—and I'm helpless."

"You can cast it out," she answered tenderly.

"How?"

"Tell me frankly and honestly the whole story of your life—"

"You believe me an impostor?"

"I love you—"

"And that is not enough?"

"No. Make suspicion impossible. You can do this—if you are innocent as I believe you are—"

She paused and a sob caught her voice.

"Oh, my love, it's killing me—I can neither eat nor sleep. Show me that such a thing is impossible—"

He took her hand.

"How foolish, my own, to ask this of me—we love right or wrong. Love is the fulfillment of the law. You call me here to cross-examine me—"

"No—no—dear heart—just to have you soothe my fears and make me laugh again—"

"But how is it possible—once this thought has found its way into your mind? If I am a spy, as your Captain Welford says, it is my business to deceive the enemy. I couldn't tell the truth and live in Richmond. I would swing from the nearest limb if I should be discovered—"

Jennie covered her face with her hands:

"Don't—don't—please—"

"Can't you see how useless such a question?"

"You can't convince me?" she asked pathetically.

"I won't try," he said firmly. "You must trust me because you love me. Nothing I could say could convince you—"

He paused and held her hands in a desperate clasp—

"Trust me, dear—I promise in good time to convince you that I am all your heart has told you—"

"You must convince me now—or I'll die," she sobbed.

"You're asking the impossible—"

He stroked her hand with tender touch, rose and led her to the door.

"You'll try to trust me?"

There was an unreal sound in her voice as Jennie slowly replied:

"Yes—I'll try."

Socola hurried to the house on Church Hill and dispatched a courier on a mission of tragic importance. Kilpatrick and Dahlgren were preparing to capture Richmond by a daring raid of three thousand cavalrymen.

Jennie watched him go with the determination to know the truth at all hazards.



CHAPTER XXXVI

THE FATAL DEED

The battle of Gettysburg and the disaster of the fall of Vicksburg once more gave to the Johnston junta in the Confederate Congress their opportunity to harass the President.

Their power for evil had been greatly diminished by the pressure of the swiftly moving tragedy of the war.

The appearance of this Congress was curiously plain and uninteresting. With the exception of J. L. M. Curry of Alabama and Barksdale of Mississippi there was not a man among them of constructive ability as a statesman. Foote of Tennessee was noted for his high-flown English, his endless harangues and his elaborate historical illustrations. Had his ability been equal to the intensity of his hatred for Davis he would have been a dangerous man to the administration. James Lyons of Virginia stood six feet three in his stockings, had fine, even, white teeth, and was considered the handsomest man in the assembly.

Yancey, the fierce, uncompromising agitator of secession, was too violent to command the influence to which his genius entitled him.

Senator Barton, fierce, impatient, bombastic, had long ago exhausted the vocabulary of invective and could only repeat himself in descending anti-climax.

Hill of Georgia was a young man of ability who gave promise of greater things under more favorable conditions.

The real business of this Congress was transacted in secret executive sessions. When the public was admitted, the people of Richmond generally looked on with contempt. They sneeringly referred to them as "the College Debating Society, on Capitol Hill."

The surroundings of their halls added to the impression of inefficiency—dingy, dirty and utterly lacking in the luxuries which the mind associates with the exercise of sovereign power.

The Senate was forced to find quarters in the third story of the "State House." There was no gallery and the spectators were separated from the members by an improvised railing. The only difference noticeable between the Senators and the spectators was that the members had seats and the listeners and loafers had standing room only behind the rail.

The House of Representatives had a better chamber. But its walls were bare of ornament or paintings, its chairs were uncushioned, its desks dingy and slashed with pocket knives. Its members sat with their heels in the air and their bodies sprawled in every conceivable attitude of ugly indifference.

The heart and brains of the South were on the field of battle—her noblest sons destined to sleep in unmarked graves.

The scenes of personal violence which disgraced the sittings of this nondescript body of law makers did much to relieve the President of the burden of their hostility.

Foote of Tennessee provoked an encounter with Judge Dargan of Alabama which came near a tragic ending. The Judge was an old man of eccentric dress, much given to talking to himself—particularly as he wandered about the streets of Richmond. The gallery of the House loved him from the first for his funny habit of scratching his arm when the itch of eloquence attacked him. And he always addressed the Speaker as "Mr. Cheerman." They loved him particularly for that. The eccentric Judge had a peculiarly fierce antipathy to Foote. Words of defiance had passed between them on more than one occasion. The House was in secret night session. The Judge was speaking.

Foote sitting near, glanced up at his enemy and muttered:

"Damned old scoundrel—"

The Judge's gray head suddenly lifted, he snatched a bowie knife from his pocket and dashed for the man who had insulted him.

From every direction rose the shouts and cries of the excited House.

"Stop him!"

"Hold him!"

"Great God!"

"Judge—Judge!"

The wildest uproar followed. Half a dozen members threw themselves on the old man, dragged him to the floor, pinned him down and wrested the knife from his grasp.

When the eloquent gentleman from Tennessee saw that his assailant was disarmed and safely guarded by six stalwart men he struck an attitude, expanded his chest, smote it with both hands and exclaimed with melodramatic gusto:

"I defy the steel of the assassin!"

The House burst into shouts of uncontrollable laughter, and adjourned for the night.

Another scene of more tragic violence occurred in the Senate—a hand to hand fight between William L. Yancey and Ben Hill. The Senator from Georgia threw his antagonist across a desk, held him there in a grip of steel and pounded his face until dragged away by friends. Yancey's spine was wrenched in the struggle, and it was rumored that this injury caused his death. It possibly hastened the end already sure from age, disease and careless living.

Committees from this assembly of law makers who attempted to instruct the conscientious, hard-working man of genius the Southern people had made their President found little comfort in their efforts.

Davis received them with punctilious ceremony. His manners were always those of a gentleman—but he never allowed them to return to their onerous work in the Debating Society without a clear idea of his views. They were never expressed with violence. But the ice sometimes formed on the window panes if he stood near while talking.

A Congressional Committee were demanding the restoration of Beauregard to command.

"General Beauregard asked me to relieve him, gentlemen—"

"Only on furlough for illness," interrupted the Chairman.

"And you have forced him into retirement!" added a member.

The President rose, walked to the window, gazed out on the crowded street for a moment and turned, suddenly confronting his tormentors. He spoke with quiet dignity, weighing each word with cold precision:

"If the whole world asked me to restore General Beauregard to the command which I have given to Braxton Bragg, I would refuse." He resumed his seat and the Committee retired to Senator Barton's house where they found a sympathetic ear.

Bragg was preparing to fight one of the greatest battles of the war. At Chickamauga, the "River of Death," he encountered Rosecrans. At the end of two days of carnage the Union army was totally routed, right, left, and center and hurled back from Georgia into Chattanooga. Polk's wing captured twenty-eight pieces of artillery and Longstreet's twenty-one. Eight thousand prisoners of war were taken, fifteen thousand stand of arms and forty regimental colors.

Rosecrans' army of eighty thousand men was literally cut to pieces by Bragg's fifty thousand Southerners. No more brilliant achievement of military genius illumines history. Chickamauga was in every way as desperate a battle as Arcola—and in all Napoleon's Italian campaigns nothing more daring and wonderful was accomplished by the Man of Destiny.

Bragg had justified the faith of Davis. Rosecrans was hemmed in in Chattanooga, his supplies cut off and his army facing starvation when he was relieved of his command, Thomas succeeding him. Grant was hurried to Chattanooga with two army corps to raise the siege.

With his reenforcements Grant raised the siege, surprised and defeated Bragg's army which had been weakened by the detachment of Longstreet's corps for a movement on Knoxville.

Bragg withdrew his army again into Georgia and resigned his command. The stern, irritable Confederate fighter was disgusted with the constant attacks on him by peanut politicians and refused to hear Davis' plea that he remain at the head of the Western army. The President called him to Richmond and made him his Chief of Staff.

The disaster to the Confederacy at Chattanooga which gave General Grant supreme command of the Union forces, brought to the Johnston junta at Richmond its opportunity to once more press their favorite to the front. Since his Vicksburg fiasco the President had isolated him. Davis resisted this appointment with deep foreboding of its possible disaster to the South.

In the midst of this bitter struggle over the selection of a Western Field Commander, the President of the Confederacy received the first and only recognition of his Government accorded by any European power.

His early education at the St. Thomas Monastery had given the Southern leader a lofty opinion of the Roman Catholic Church. Davis had always seen in the members of this faith in America friends who could not be alienated from the oppressed.

Failing to receive recognition from the great powers of Europe, he dispatched his diplomatic representative to Rome with a carefully worded letter to the Pope in which he expressed his gratitude to Pius IX for his efforts in behalf of peace. The Pope had urged his bishops in New Orleans and New York to strive to end the war.

The Vatican received the Confederate diplomat with every mark of courtesy and every expression of respect accorded the most powerful nations of the world. The Dominican friars had not forgotten the wistful, eager boy they had taught, and loved in Kentucky.

The Pope replied to this communication in an official letter which virtually recognized the Confederacy—both in his capacity as a temporal sovereign and as the head of the Roman Catholic Church.

The President read this letter with renewed hope of favorable action abroad.

"ILLUSTRIOUS AND HONORABLE PRESIDENT:

"Salutation:

"We have just received with all suitable welcome the persons sent by you to place in our hands your letter dated twenty-third of September last.

"Not slight was the pleasure we experienced when we learned from those persons and the letter, with what feelings of joy and gratitude you were animated, illustrious and honorable President, as soon as you were informed of our letters to our venerable brother John, Archbishop of New York, and John, Archbishop of New Orleans, dated the eighteenth of October of last year, and in which we have with all our strength excited and exhorted these venerable brothers, that in their episcopal piety and solicitude, they should endeavor, with the most ardent zeal, and in our name, to bring about the end of the fatal civil war which has broken out in those countries, in order that the American people may obtain peace and concord, and dwell charitably together.

"It is particularly agreeable to us to see that you, illustrious and honorable President, and your good people, are animated with the same desire of peace and tranquillity which we have in our letters inculcated upon our venerable brothers. May it please God at the same time to make the other people of America and their ruler, reflecting seriously how terrible is civil war, and what calamities it engenders, listen to the inspiration of a calm spirit, and adopt resolutely the part of peace.

"As for us, we shall not cease to offer up the most fervent prayers to God Almighty that He may pour out upon all the people of America the Spirit and peace and charity, and that He will stop the great evils which afflict them. We at the same time beseech the God of pity to shed abroad upon you the light of His countenance and attach you to us by a perfect friendship.

"Given at Rome, at St. Peter's, the third of December, 1863, of our Pontificate 18.

"(Signed) Pius IX."

The dark hour was swiftly approaching when the South and her leader would need the prayers of all God's saints.

Failing to persuade Bragg to reconsider his resignation, Davis appointed General Hardee as his successor to command the Western army. Hardee declared the responsibility was more than he could assume.

Under the urgent necessity of driving the Union army back from its position at Chattanooga and heartsick with eternal wrangling of the opposition, Davis reluctantly ordered Joseph E. Johnston personally to assume command of the Army of Tennessee—and the fatal deed was done.



CHAPTER XXXVII

THE RAIDERS

In February, 1864, both North and South were straining every nerve for the last act of the grand drama of blood and tears. The Presidential election would be held in November to choose a successor to Abraham Lincoln. At this moment Lincoln was the most unpopular, the most reviled, the most misunderstood and the most abused man who had ever served as President of the United States. The opposition to him inside his own party was fierce, malignant, vindictive and would stop short of nothing to encompass his defeat in their nominating convention. They had not hesitated even to accuse his wife of treason.

Military success and military success alone could save the administration at Washington. George B. McClellan, the most popular general of the Union army, was already slated to oppose Lincoln on a platform demanding peace.

If the South could hold her own until the first Monday in November, the opposition to the war in the North would crush the administration and peace would be had at the price of Southern independence.

No man in America understood the tense situation more clearly than Jefferson Davis. His agents in the North kept him personally informed of every movement of the political chess board. Personally he had never believed in the possibility of the South winning in a conflict of arms since the death of Jackson had been given its full significance in the battle of Gettysburg. He had however believed in the possibility of the party of the North which stood for the old Constitution winning an election on the issue of a bloody and unsuccessful war and, on their winning, that he could open negotiations for peace and gain every point for which the war had been fought. It all depended on the battles of the coming spring and summer.

Grant, the new Commander-in-Chief of the armies of the Union, had been given a free hand with unlimited resources of men and money. He was now directing the movements of nearly a million soldiers in blue.

Sherman was drilling under his orders an army of a hundred thousand with which to march into Georgia—while Grant himself would direct the movement of a quarter of a million men in his invasion of Virginia.

The Confederate President saw at once that Lee's army must be raised to its highest point of efficiency and that it was of equal importance that Joseph E. Johnston should be given as many or more men with which to oppose Sherman.

To allow for Johnston's feeble strategy, Davis sent him 68,000 soldiers to Dalton, Georgia, to meet Sherman's 100,000 and gave Lee 64,000 with which to oppose Grant's 150,000 threatening to cross the Rapidan and move directly on Richmond.

Socola had informed the War Department at Washington that the Confederate Capital had been stripped of any semblance of an effective garrison to fill the ranks of Lee and Johnston.

General Judson Kilpatrick was authorized to select three thousand picked cavalry, dash suddenly on Richmond, capture it and release the 15,000 Union prisoners confined in its walls and stockades.

These prisoners Grant steadily refused to receive in exchange. In vain Davis besought the Federal Government to take them home in return for an equal number of Confederate prisoners who were freezing and dying in the North.

Grant's logic was inexorable. Every Confederate prisoner exchanged and sent back home meant a recruit to Lee's army. It was cruel to leave his men to languish in beleaguered Richmond whose citizens were rioting in the streets for bread, but he figured these prisoners as soldiers dying in battle. The Confederate Government had no medicine for them. The blockade was drawn so tight scarcely an ounce of medicine could be obtained for the Confederate army. Davis offered the Washington Government to let their own surgeons come to Richmond and carry medicine and food to their prisoners. His request was refused.

The only thing Grant conceded was his consent to Kilpatrick's attempt to free and arm these 15,000 prisoners and loose them with fire and sword in the streets of the Confederate Capital.

Little did the men, women and children of Richmond dream that they were lying down each night to sleep on the thin crust of a volcano.

Captain Welford in the pursuit of Socola and Miss Van Lew had found that the woman on Church Hill persisted in her visits to the prisons. Libby, which contained a number of Union officers of rank, was her favorite.

On the last day of February his patient watch was rewarded. He had placed a spy in Libby disguised as a captive Union soldier.

This man had sent the Captain an urgent message to communicate with him at once. Within thirty minutes Welford confronted him in the guardroom of the prison.

The Captain spoke in sharp nervous tones:

"Well?"

"I've something big—"

He paused and glanced about the room.

"Go on!"

"There's a plot on foot inside to escape—"

"Of course. They're always plotting to escape—we've no real prison system—no discipline. Hundreds have escaped already. It's nothing new—"

"This is new," the spy went on eagerly, "They let me into their councils last night. There's going to be a big raid on Richmond—the men inside are going to fight their way out, arm themselves and burn the city. When they get the signal from the outside they'll batter down the walls and rush through—"

"Batter down the walls?"

"Yes, sir—"

"How?"

"They've loosed two big rafters and have them ready to use as battering rams—"

"You're sure of this?"

"Sure's God's in heaven. Go in and see for yourself—"

Captain Welford gave a low whistle.

"This is big news. There are enough prisoners in Richmond to make an army corps—eleven hundred in here—twenty-five hundred at Crew and Pemberton's—at Belle Isle and the other stockades at least fifteen thousand in all. They are guarded by a handful of men. If they realize their power, they can batter their way out in five minutes and sweep the city with blood and fire—"

He stopped suddenly, drew a deep breath and turned again to the man.

"That'll do for you here. Take a little rest. You'd as well go back into a lion's den when they find out that I know. They'd spot you sure and tear you limb from limb."

The spy saluted.

"Report to me a week from to-day at the office. You've earned a vacation."

The man saluted again and passed quickly out.

Captain Welford asked the Superintendent to call his prisoners together.

"I have something to say to them."

A thousand silent men in blue were gathered in the assembly room of the old warehouse.

Captain Welford boldly entered the place carrying a box in his hand. He placed it on the floor, sprang on it and lifted his hand over the crowd:

"I've an announcement to make, gentlemen," he began quietly amid a silence that was death like. "The Department which I represent has learned that you are planning to batter down the walls and join a force of raiders who are on the way to capture Richmond—"

He paused and a murmur of smothered despair, inarticulate, bitter, crept through the crowd.

"To forestall this little scheme, I have planted a thousand pounds of powder under this building. I have mined every other prison. The first one of you that lifts his finger to escape gives the signal that will blow you into Eternity—"

Dick stepped from the box and made his way out without another word. He could feel the wild heart beat of baffled hope as they followed him to the door with despairing eyes.

A murmur of sickening rage swept the prison. An ominous silence fell where hope had beat high.

The same strategic announcement was made in every prison in Richmond. No mines had been laid. But the story served its purpose. Fifteen thousand men were bound hand and foot by fear. Three hundred soldiers guarded them successfully. Not a finger was lifted to help their bold rescuers who were already dashing toward the city.

Colonel Ulric Dahlgren was crossing the James above Richmond to strike from the south side, while General Kilpatrick led the attack direct from the north, Dahlgren crossed the river at Ely's Ford, passed in the rear of Lee's army, captured a Confederate court martial in session, but missed a park of sixty-eight pieces of artillery which had been left unguarded.

When they again reached the James at Davis' Mill, where a ford was supposed to be, none could be found. Stanton had sent from Washington a negro guide. They accused the negro of treachery and hung him from the nearest limb without the formality of a drumhead court martial.

At dawn on March first, Bradley Johnson's cavalry, guarding Lee's flank, struck one of Kilpatrick's parties and drove them in on the main body. They pursued Kilpatrick's men through Ashland and down to the outer defenses of Richmond.

Hero the raiders dismounted their twenty-five hundred men and prepared to attack the entrenchments. Wade Hampton immediately moved out to meet him. Bradley Johnson's Marylanders drew up in Kilpatrick's rear at the same moment, and captured five men bearing dispatches from Dahlgren. He would attack on the rear at sunset. He asked Kilpatrick to strike at the same moment.

Johnson boldly charged Kilpatrick's rear with his handful of men and drove him headlong down the Peninsula to the York River. The Confederate leader had but seventy-five men and two pieces of artillery but he hung on Kilpatrick's division of twenty-five hundred and captured a hundred and forty prisoners.

Dahlgren at night with but four hundred men boldly attacked the defenses on the north side of the city. He was met by a company of Richmond boys under eighteen years of age. The youngsters gave such good account of themselves that he withdrew from the field, leaving forty of his men dead and wounded.

In his retreat down the Peninsula, he failed to find Kilpatrick's division. His command was cut to pieces and captured and Dahlgren himself killed.

The part which Socola had played in this raid was successfully accomplished without a hitch. He was compelled to answer the drum which called every clerk of his Department to arms for the defense of the city. In the darkness he succeeded in pressing into Dahlgren's lines and on his retreat made his way back to his place in the ranks of the Confederates.

It was a little thing which betrayed him after the real danger was past and brought him face to face with Jennie Barton.



CHAPTER XXXVIII

THE DISCOVERY

From the moment Captain Welford had discovered the plot of the prisoners to cooeperate with Kilpatrick and Dahlgren he was morally sure that Miss Van Lew had been their messenger. He was equally sure that Socola had been one of her accomplices.

On the day of the announcement of his powder plant to the prisoners he set a guard to watch the house on Church Hill, and report to him the moment "Crazy Bet" should emerge.

Within two hours he received the message that she was on her way down town with her market basket swinging on her arm. Dick knew that this woman could not recognize him personally. He was only distantly related to the Welfords of Richmond.

Miss Van Lew was in a nervous agony to deliver her dispatch to Kilpatrick, warning him that the purpose of the raid had been discovered and that he must act with the utmost caution. She had no scout at hand and Kilpatrick's was expected every moment at her rendezvous near the market.

Dick turned the corner, circled a block, and met her. She was childishly swinging the basket on her arm and humming a song. She smiled vacantly into his face. He caught the look of shrewd intelligence and saw through her masquerade. A single word from her lips now would send her to the gallows and certainly lead to Socola's arrest.

The Captain was certain that she carried dispatches on her person at that moment. If he could only induce her to drop them, the trick would be turned.

He turned, retraced his steps, overtook her and whispered as he passed:

"Your trusted messenger—"

She paid no attention. There was not the slightest recognition—no surprise—no inquiry. Her thin face was a mask of death.

Was this man Kilpatrick's scout? Or was he a Secret Service man on her trail? The questions seethed through her excited soul. Her life hung on the answer. It was a question of judgment of character and personality. The man was a stranger. But the need was terrible. Should she take the chance?

She quickened her pace and passed Dick.

Again she heard him whisper:

"Your messenger is here. I am going through to-night."

In her hand clasped tight was her dispatch torn into strips and each strip rolled into a tiny ball. Should she commence to drop them one by one?

Perplexed, she stopped and glanced back suddenly into Dick's face. Her decision was instantaneous. The subtle sixth sense had revealed in a flash of his eager eyes her mortal danger. She turned into a side street and hurried home.

The Captain was again baffled by a woman's wit. His disappointment was keen. He had hoped to prove his accusation to Jennie Barton before the sun set. She had ceased to fight his suspicions of Socola. His name was not mentioned. She was watching her lover with more desperate earnestness even than he.