The Captain had failed to entrap the wily little woman with her market basket, but through her he struck the trail of the big quarry he had sought for two years. Socola was imperiled by a woman's sentimental whim—this woman with nerves of steel and a heart whose very throb she could control by an indomitable will.

Heartsick over her failure to get through the lines her warning to Kilpatrick, she had felt the responsibility of young Dahlgren's tragic death. Woman-like she determined, at the risk of her life and the life of every man she knew, to send the body of this boy back to his father in the North.

In vain Socola pleaded against this mad undertaking.

The woman's soul had been roused by the pathetic figure of the daring young raider whose crutches were found strapped to his saddle. He had lost a leg but a few months before.

He had been buried at the cross-roads where he fell—the roads from Stevensville and Mantua Ferry. In pity for the sorrow of his distinguished father Davis had ordered the body disinterred and brought into Richmond. It was buried at night in a spot unknown to anyone save the Confederate authorities. Feeling had run so high on the discovery of the purpose of the raiders to burn the city that the Confederate President feared some shocking indignity might be offered the body.

The night Miss Van Lew selected for her enterprise was cold and dark and the rain fell in dismal, continuous drizzle. The grave had been discovered by a negro who saw the soldiers bury the body. It was identified by the missing right leg.

The work was done without interruption or discovery.

Socola placed the body in Rowley's wagon which was filled with young peach trees concealing the casket. The pickets would be deceived by the simple device. Should one of them thrust his bayonet into the depths of those young trees more than one neck would pay the penalty. But they wouldn't. He was sure of it.

At the picket post Rowley sat in stolid indifference while he heard the order to search his wagon. He engaged the guard in conversation. Wagons entered and passed and still he talked lazily to his chosen friend.

The Lieutenant looked from his tent and yelled at last:

"What 'ell's the matter with you—search that man and let him go—"

"It would be a pity to tear up all those fruit trees!" the guard said with a yawn.

"I didn't think you'd bother 'em," Rowley answered indifferently, "but I know a soldier's duty—"

Another wagon dashed up in a hurry. The guard examined him and he passed on.

Again the Lieutenant called:

"Search that man and let him go!"

Rowley's face was a mask of lazy indifference.

The guard glanced at him and spoke in low tones:

"Your face is guarantee enough, partner—go on—"

Socola flanked the picket and joined Rowley. Near Hungary, on the farm of Orrick the German, a grave was hurriedly dug and the casket placed in it. The women helped to heap the dirt in and plant over it one of the peach trees.

Three days later in response to a pitiful appeal from Dahlgren's father, Davis ordered the boy's body sent to Washington. The grave had been robbed. The sensation this created was second only to the raid itself.

It was only too evident to the secret service of the Confederate Government that an organization of Federal spies honeycombed the city. The most desperate and determined efforts were put forth to unearth these conspirators.

Captain Welford had made the discovery that the conspirators who had stolen Dahlgren's body had cut his curling blond hair and dispatched it to Washington. The bearer of this dispatch was a negro. He had been thoroughly searched, but no incriminating papers were found. The Captain had removed a lock of this peculiarly beautiful hair and allowed the messenger of love to go on his way determined to follow him on his return to Richmond and locate his accomplices.

Dick's report of this affair to Jennie had started a train of ideas which again centered her suspicions on Socola. The night this body had been stolen she had sent for her lover in a fit of depression. The rain was pouring in cold, drizzling monotony. Her loneliness had become unbearable.

He was not at home and could not be found. Alarmed and still more depressed she sent her messenger three times. The last call he made was long past midnight.

Her suspicion of his connection with the service of the enemy had become unendurable. She had not seen or heard from him since the effort to find him that night. He was at his desk at work as usual next morning.

She wrote him a note and begged that he call at once. He came within half an hour, a wistful smile lighting his face as he extended his hand:

"I am forgiven for having been born abroad?"

"I have sent for you—"

"I've waited long."

"It's not the first time I've asked you to call," she cried in strained tones.

"No?"

She held his gaze with steady intensity.

"I sent for you the night young Dahlgren's body was stolen—"

"Really?"

"It was raining. I was horribly depressed. I couldn't endure the strain. I meant to surrender utterly and trust you—"

"I didn't get your message—"

"I know that you didn't—where were you?"

"Engaged on important business for the Government—"

"What Government?"

"How can you ask such a question?"

"I do ask it. I sent for you three times—the third time after midnight. It wasn't very modest, perhaps, I was so miserable I didn't care. I just wanted to put my arms around your neck and tell you to love me always—that nothing else mattered—"

"Nothing else does matter, dearest—"

"Yes—it does. It matters whether you have used me to betray my people. Where were you at twelve o'clock night before last?"

"I'd rather not tell you—"

"I demand it—"

A quizzical smile played about Socola's handsome mouth as he faced her frankly.

"I was in a gambling establishment—"

"Whose?"

"Johnnie Worsham's—"

"What were you doing there? You neither drink nor gamble."

Again the dark face smiled.

"I was asked by my Chief to report on the habits of every man in my Department—particularly to report every man who frequents the gambling hells of Richmond—"

Jennie watched him nervously, her hands trembling.

"It's possible of course—"

Her eyes suddenly filled with tears and she threw herself into his arms.

And then it happened—the little thing, trivial and insignificant, that makes and unmakes life.

For a long while no words were spoken. With gentle touch he soothed her trembling body, bending to kiss the waves of rich brown hair.

She pushed him at arm's length at last and looked up smiling.

"I can't help it—I love you!"

"When will you learn that we must trust where we love—"

He stopped suddenly. Her brown eyes were fixed with terror on a single strand of curling blond hair caught on the button of his waistcoat.

"What is it?" he asked in alarm.

She drew the hair from his coat carefully and held it to the light in silence.

"You can't be jealous?"

She looked at him curiously.

"Yes. I have a rival—"

"A rival?"

Her eyes pierced him.

"Your love for the Union! I've suspected you before. You've evaded my questions. Our love has been so big and sweet a thing that you have always stammered and hesitated to tell me a deliberate lie. It's not necessary now. I know. Ulrich Dahlgren is the age of my brother Billy. They used to play together in Washington at Commodore Dahlgren's home and at ours. He had the most peculiarly beautiful blond hair I ever saw on a man. I'd know it anywhere on earth. That strand is his, poor boy! Besides, Dick Welford captured your messenger with that pathetic little bundle on his way to Washington—"

Socola started in spite of his desperate effort at self-control and was about to speak when Jennie lifted her hand.

"Don't, please. It's useless to quibble and argue with me longer. We face each other with souls bare. I don't ask you why you have deceived me. Your business as a Federal spy is to deceive the enemy—"

"You are not my enemy," he interrupted in a sudden burst of passion. "You are my mate! You are mine by all the laws of God and nature. I love you. I worship you. We are not enemies. We never have been—we never shall be. With the last breath I breathe your name shall be on my lips—"

"You may speak your last word soon—"

"What do you mean?"

"I am going to surrender you to the authorities—"

"And you have just been sobbing in my arms—the man you have sworn to love forever?"

"It's the only atonement I can make. Through you I have betrayed my country and my people. I would gladly die in your place. The hard thing will be to do my duty and give you up to the death you have earned."

"You can deliver me to execution?"

"Yes—" was the firm answer. "Listen to this—"

She seized a copy of the morning paper.

"Colonel Dahlgren's instructions to his men. This document was found on his person when shot. There is no question of its genuineness—"

She paused and read in cold hard tones:

"Guides, pioneers (with oakum, turpentine and torpedoes), signal officer, quarter master, commissary, scouts, and picket men in rebel uniform—remain on the north bank and move down with the force on the south bank. If communications can be kept up without giving an alarm it must be done. Everything depends upon a surprise, and no one must be allowed to pass ahead of this column. All mills must be burned and the canal destroyed. Keep the force on the southern side posted of any important movement of the enemy, and in case of danger some of the scouts must swim the river and bring us information. We must try to secure the bridge to the city (one mile below Belle Isle) and release the prisoners at the same time. If we do not succeed they must then dash down, and we will try to carry the bridge from each side. The bridges once secured, and the prisoners loosed and over the river, the bridges will be secured and the city destroyed—"

Jennie paused and lifted her eyes burning with feverish light.

"Merciful God! How? With oakum and turpentine. A city of one hundred thousand inhabitants, under the cover of darkness—men, women and children, the aged, the poor, the helpless!"

Socola made no answer. A thoughtful dreamy look masked his handsome features.

Jennie read the next sentence from the Dahlgren paper in high quivering tones:

"The men must be kept together and well in hand, and once in the city, it must be destroyed and Jeff Davis and his Cabinet killed—"

The girl paused and fixed her gaze on Socola.

"The man who planned that raid came with the willful and deliberate murder of unarmed men in his soul. The man who helped him inside is equally guilty of his crime—"

She resumed her reading without waiting for reply.

"Prisoners will go along with combustible material. The officer must use his discretion about the time of assisting us. Pioneers must be prepared to construct a bridge or destroy one. They must have plenty of oakum and turpentine for burning, which will be rolled in soaked balls, and given to the men to burn when we get into the city—"

Socola lifted his hand.

"Please, dear—these instructions are not mine. I do not excuse or palliate them. The daring youngster who conceived this paid the penalty with his life. It's all that any of us can give for his country. There's something that interests me now far more than this sensation—far more than the mere fact that my true business here has been discovered by you and my life forfeited to your Government—"

"And that is?"

"That the woman I love can deliver me to death—"

"You doubt it?"

"I had not believed it possible."

"I'll show you."

Jennie stepped to the door and pulled the old-fashioned bell-cord.

A servant appeared.

In strained tones the girl said:

"Go to Captain Welford's office and ask him to come here immediately with two soldiers—"

"Yassam—"

The negro bowed and hurried from the house, and Jennie sat down in silence beside the door.

Socola confronted her, his hands gripped in nervous agony behind his back, his slender figure erect, his breath coming in deep excited draughts.

"You think that I'll submit to my fate without a fight?"

"You've got to submit. Your escape from Richmond is a physical impossibility—"

He searched the depths of her heart.

"I was not thinking of my body just then. I have no desire to live if you can hand me to my executioner—"

He paused and a sob came from the girl's distracted soul.

He moved a step closer.

"I'm not afraid to die—you must know that—I'm not a coward—"

"No. I couldn't have loved a coward!"

"The thing I can't endure is that you, the woman to whom I have surrendered my soul, should judge me worthy of death. Come, my own, this is madness. We must see each other as God sees now. You must realize that only the highest and noblest motive could have sent a man of my character and training on such a mission. We differ in our political views for the moment—even as you differ from the older brother whom you love and respect—"

"I am not responsible for my brother's acts. I am for yours—"

"Nonsense, dear heart. My work was ordained of God from the beginning. It was fate. Nothing could have stopped me. I came under a mighty impulse of love for my country—bigger than the North or the South. God sent me. You have helped me. But if you had not I would still have succeeded. Can't you forget for the moment the details of this blood-stained struggle—the maimed lad with his crutches strapped to his saddle, lost in the black storm night in the country of his enemies and shot to pieces—the mad scheme his impulsive brain had dreamed of wiping your Capital from the earth and leading fifteen thousand shouting prisoners back into freedom and life—surely he paid for his madness. Forget that I have deceived you, and see the vision of which I dream—a purified and redeemed Nation—united forever—no North, no South—no East, no West—the inheritance of our children and all the children of the world's oppressed! I am fighting for you and yours as well as my own. The South is mine. I love its beautiful mountains and plains—its rivers and shining seas—Oh, my love, can't you see this divine vision of the future? The Union must be saved. The stars in their courses fight its battles. Nothing is surer in the calendar of time than that the day is swiftly coming when the old flag your fathers first flung to the breeze will be again lifted from your Capitol building. You can't put me out of your life as a criminal worthy of death! I won't have it. I am yours and you are mine. I am not pleading for my life. I'm pleading for something bigger and sweeter than life. I'm pleading for my love. I can laugh at death. I can't endure that you put me out of your heart—"

Jennie rose with determination, walked to the window and laughed hysterically.

"Well, I'm going to put you out. Captain Welford and his men are coming. They've just turned the corner!"

The man's figure slowly straightened, and his eyes closed in resignation.

"Then it's God's will and my work is done."

With a sudden cry Jennie threw herself in his arms.

"Forgive me, dear Lord. I can't do this hideous thing! It's my duly, but I can't. My darling—my own! You shall not die. I was mad. Forgive me! Forgive me! My own—"

"Halt!"

The sharp command of the Captain rang outside the door.

"Get into this room—quick—" the girl cried, pushing Socola into the adjoining room and slamming the door as Dick entered the hall.

She faced the Captain with a smile.

"It's all right, now, Dick. I thought I had discovered an important secret. It was a mistake—"

The Captain smiled.

"You don't mind my looking about the house?"

"Searching the house?"

"Just the lower floor?"

"I do mind it. How dare you suggest such a thing, sir—"

"Because I've made a guess at the truth. You discovered important evidence incriminating Socola. Your first impulse was to do your duty—you weakened at the last moment—"

"Absurd!" she gasped.

"I happened to hear a door slam as I entered. I'll have to look around a little."

He started to the door behind which Socola had taken refuge. Jennie confronted him.

"You can't go in there—"

"It's no use, Jennie—I'm going to search that room—the whole house if necessary."

"Why?"

"I know that Socola is here—"

"And if he is?"

"I'll arrest him—"

"On what charge?"

"He is a Federal spy and you know it—"

"You can't prove it."

"I've found the evidence. I have searched his rooms—"

"Searched his rooms?"

"Your servant told me that he was here. I leaped to a conclusion, forced his door and found this—"

He thrust a well-thumbed copy of the cipher code of the Federal Secret Service into her hand.

"You—you—can't execute him, Dick," Jennie sobbed.

"I will."

"You can't. I love him. He can do no more harm here."

"He's done enough. His life belongs to the South—"

She placed her trembling hand on his arm.

"You are sure that deep down in your heart there's not another motive?"

"No matter how many motives—one is enough. I have the evidence on which to send him to the gallows—"

The girl's head drooped.

"And I gave it to you—God have mercy!"

The tears began to stream down her checks. Dick moved uneasily and looked the other way.

"I've got to do it," he repeated stubbornly.

Her voice was the merest whisper when she spoke.

"You're not going to arrest him, Dick. He will leave Richmond never to enter the South again. I'll pledge my life on his promise. His death can do us no good. It can do you no good—I—I—couldn't live and know that I had killed the man I love—"

"You haven't killed him. He has forfeited his life a thousand times in his work as a spy."

"I sent for you. I caused his betrayal. I shall be responsible if he dies—"

Again the little head drooped in pitiful suffering. She lifted it at last with a smile.

"Dick, you're too big and generous for low revenge. You hate this man. But you love me. I know that. I'm proud and grateful for it. I appeal to the best that's in you. Save my life and his—"

"You couldn't live if he should die, Jennie?" the man asked tenderly.

"Not if he should die in this way—"

The Captain struggled and hesitated.

Again her hand touched his arm.

"I ask the big divine thing of you, Dick?"

"It's hard. I've won and you take my triumph from me. For two years I've given body and soul to the task of unmasking this man."

"I'm asking his life—and mine—" the pleading voice repeated.

"I'll give him up on one condition—"

"What?"

The Captain held her gaze in silence a moment.

"That you send him back to the North and put him out of your life forever!"

Jennie laughed softly through her tears.

"You big, generous, foolish boy—you might have left that to me—"

"All right," he hastened to agree. "I'll leave it to you. Forgive me. I can't deny you anything—"

"You're a glorious lover, Dick!" she cried tenderly. "Why didn't I love you?"

"I don't know, honey," he replied chokingly. "We just love because we must—there's no rhyme or reason to it—"

He paused and laughed.

"Well, it's all over now, Jennie. I've given him back to you—good-by—"

She grasped his hand and held it firmly.

"Don't you dare say good-by to me, sir—you've got to love me, too—as long as I live—my first sweetheart—brave, generous, kind—"

She drew his blond head low and kissed him.

He looked at her through dimmed eyes and slowly said:

"That makes life worth living, Jennie."

He turned and quickly left the house.

She heard his low orders to his men and watched them pass up the street with their rifles on their shoulders.

She opened the door and Socola entered, his face deathlike in its pallor.

"Why did he stay so long?"

"He has searched your room and found your cipher code—"

"And you have saved my life?"

"It was I who put it in peril—"

"No—I gave my life in willing sacrifice when the war began—"

"You are to leave," Jennie went on evenly—"leave at once—"

"Of course—"

"And give me your solemn parole—never again during this war to fight the South—"

"It is your right to demand it. I agree."

She gently took his hand.

"I know that I can trust you now—" She paused and looked wistfully into his face. "One last long look into your dear eyes—"

"Not the last—"

"One last kiss—"

She drew his lips down to hers.

"One last moment in your arms." She clung to him desperately and freed herself with quick resolution.

"And now you must go—from Richmond—from the South and out of my life forever—"

"You can't mean this!" he protested bitterly.

"I do," was the firm answer. "Good-by."

He pressed her hand and shook his head.

"I refuse to say it—"

"You must."

"No—"

"It is the end—"

"It is only the beginning."

With a look of tenderness he left her standing in the doorway, the hunger of eternity in her brown eyes.



CHAPTER XXXIX

THE CONSPIRATORS

The raid of Dahlgren and Kilpatrick had sent a thrill of horror through Richmond. The people had suddenly waked to the realization of what it meant to hold fifteen thousand desperate prisoners in their city with a handful of soldiers to guard them.

The discovery on the young leader's body of the remarkable papers of instructions to burn the city and murder the Confederate President and his Cabinet produced a sharp discussion between Jefferson Davis and his councilors.

Not only did the people of Richmond demand that such methods of warfare be met by retaliation of the most drastic kind but the Cabinet now joined in this demand. Hundreds of prisoners had been captured both from Dahlgren's and Kilpatrick's division.

It was urged on Davis with the most dogged determination that these prisoners—in view of the character of their instructions to burn a city crowded with unarmed men, women and children and murder in cold blood the civil officers of the Confederate Government—should be treated as felons and executed by hanging.

The President had refused on every occasion to lend his power to brutal measures of retaliation. This time his Cabinet was persistent and in dead earnest in their purpose to force his hand.

Davis faced his angry council with unruffled spirit.

"I understand your feelings, gentlemen," he said evenly. "You have had a narrow escape. The South does not use such methods of warfare. Nor will I permit our Government to fall to such level by an act of retaliation. The prisoners we hold are soldiers of the enemy's army. Their business is to obey orders—not plan campaigns—"

"We have captured officers also," Benjamin interrupted.

"Subordinate officers are not morally responsible for the plans of their superiors."

No argument could move the Confederate Chieftain. He was adamant to all appeals for harsh treatment. Even Lee had at last found it impossible to maintain discipline in his army unless he prevented the review of his court martial by Davis. The President was never known to sign the death warrant of a Confederate soldier. Lincoln was a man of equally tender heart and yet the Northern President did sign the death warrants of more than two hundred Union soldiers during his administration.

The only action Davis would permit was the removal of the fifteen thousand prisoners further south to places of safety where such raids would be impossible. The prisons of Richmond were emptied and the stockades at Salisbury and Andersonville over-crowded with these men.

Davis renewed his urgent appeal to the Federal Government for the exchange of these men. His request was treated with discourtesy and steadily refused. When the hot climate of Georgia caused the high death rate at Andersonville he released thousands of those men without exchange and notified the Washington Government to send transportation for them to Savannah.

Lincoln had given Grant a free hand in assuming the command of all the armies of the Union. But he watched his cruel policy of refusal to exchange prisoners with increasing anguish. In every way possible, without directly opposing his commanding general, the big-hearted President at Washington managed to smuggle Southern prisoners back into the South unknown to Grant and take an equal number of Union soldiers home.

A crowd of Southern boys from the prison at Elmira, New York, were announced to arrive in Richmond on the morning train from Fredericksburg. Among them Jennie expected her brother Jimmie who had been captured in battle six months ago. She hurried to the station to meet them.

A great crowd had gathered. A row of coffins was placed on the ground at the end of the long platform awaiting the train going south. A dozen men were sitting on those rude caskets smoking, talking, laughing, their feet drawn up tailor-fashion to keep them out of the mud.

With a shiver the girl hurried to the other gate.

Her eager eyes searched in vain among the ragged wretches who shambled from the cars. A man from Baton Rouge, whom she failed to recognize, lifted his faded hat and handed her a letter.

She read it through her tears and hurried to the Confederate White House to show it to the President. Davis scanned the scrawl with indignant sympathy:

"Dear Little Sis:

"This is the last message I shall ever send. Before it can reach you I shall be dead—for which I'll thank God. I'm sorry now I didn't take my chances with the other fellows, bribe the guard and escape from Camp Douglas in Chicago. A lot of the boys did it. Somehow I couldn't stoop. Maybe the fear of the degrading punishment they gave McGoffin, the son of the Governor of Kentucky, when he failed, influenced me, weak and despondent as I was. They hung him by the thumbs to make him confess the name of his accomplices. He refused to speak and they left him hanging until the balls of his thumbs both burst open and he fainted.

"The last month at Camp Douglas was noted for scant rations. Hunger was the prevailing epidemic. At one end of our barracks was the kitchen, and by the door stood a barrel into which was thrown beef bones and slops. I saw a starving boy fish out one of these bones and begin to gnaw it. A guard discovered him. He snatched the bone from the prisoner's hand, cocked his pistol, pressed it to his head and ordered him to his all-fours and made him bark for the bone he held above him—

"We expected better treatment when transferred to Elmira. But I've lost hope. I'm too weak to ever pull up again. I've made friends with a guard who has given me the list of the men who have died here in the five months since we came. In the first four months out of five thousand and twenty-seven men held here, one thousand three hundred and eleven died—six and one-half per cent a month—"

Davis paused and shook his head—

"The highest rate we have ever known at Salisbury or Andersonville during those spring months was three per cent!"

He finished the last line in quivering tones.

"There's not a chance on earth that I'll live to see you again. See the President and beg him for God's sake to save as many of the boys as he can. With a heart full of love.

"Jimmie."

The President took both of Jennie's hands in his.

"I need not tell you, my dear, that I have done and am doing my level best. The policy of the new Federal Commander is to refuse all offers of exchange. You understand my position?"

"Perfectly," was the sorrowful answer. "I only came as a duty to bear his dying message—"

"Express to your father and mother my deepest sympathy."

With a gentle pressure of the Chieftain's hand the girl answered:

"I need not tell you I appreciate it—"

The President watched her go with a look of helpless anguish. His troubles for the moment had only begun. The returned prisoners had marched in a body to his office to thank their Chief for his sympathy and help and asked him to say something to them.

Jennie paused and stared in a dazed way into the poor shrunken faces. When the President appeared every ragged hat was in the air and they cheered with all the might of the strength that was left in them. The girl burst into tears. These men, so forlorn, so dried up with a strange, half-animal, hunted look in their eyes—others restless and wild-looking—others calmly vacant in their stare as if they had been dead for years!

A poor mother was rushing in and out among them hunting for her son.

"He was coming with you boys, you know!" she cried.

She stopped suddenly and laughed at her own anxiety and confusion.

"He's here somewhere—I just can't find him—help me, men!"

She hadn't spoken his name, in her eager search for his loved face. She kept lifting the cloth from a basket of provisions which she had cooked that morning.

"I've got his breakfast here—poor boy—I expect he's hungry."

She had lost all consciousness of the crowd now.

She was talking to herself, trying to keep her courage up.

The President looked into the emaciated faces before him and lifted his long arm in solemn salutation.

"Soldiers of the South:

"I thank you from the bottom of my heart for this tribute of your loyalty. You were offered your freedom in prison at any moment if you would take the oath and forswear your allegiance to the South. You deliberately chose the living death to the betrayal of your faith. I stand with uncovered head before you. I am proud to be the Chief Executive of such men!"

Again they cheered.

The old mother with her basket was searching again for her boy.

Jennie slipped an arm gently around her and led her away.

On the day Lee left Richmond for the front to meet Grant's invading host, the Confederate President was in agony over a letter from General Winder portraying the want and suffering among the prisoners confined at Andersonville.

"If we could only get them across the Mississippi," Davis cried, "where beef and supplies of all kind are abundant—but what can we do for them here?"

"Our men are in the same fix," Lee answered quickly, "except that they're free. These sufferings are the result of our necessity, not of our policy. Do not distress yourself."

The South was entering now the darkest hours of her want. The market price of food was beyond the reach of the poor or even the moderately well-to-do. Turkeys sold for $60 each. Flour was $300 a barrel, corn meal $50 a bushel. Boots were $200 a pair. A man's coat cost $350—his trousers $100. He could get along without a vest. Wood was $50 a cord. It took $1,800 to buy $100 in gold.

In the midst of this universal suffering the yellow journals of the South, led by the Richmond Examiner, made the most bitter and determined assaults on Davis to force him to a policy of retaliation on Northern prisoners.

"Hoist the black flag!" shrieked the Examiner. "Retaliate on these Yankee prisoners for the starvation and abuse of our men in the North—a land teeming with plenty." The President was held up to the scorn and curses of the Southern people because with quiet dignity he refused to lower the standard of his Government to a policy of revenge on helpless soldiers in his power.

To a Committee of the Confederate Congress who waited on him with these insane demands he answered with scorn:

"You dare ask me to torture helpless prisoners of war! I will resign my office at the call of my country. But no people have the right to demand such deeds at my hands!"

In answer to this brave, humane stand of the Southern President the Examiner had the unspeakable effrontery to accuse him of clemency to his captives that he might curry favor with the North and shield himself if the South should fail.

No characteristic of Davis was more marked than his regard for the weak, the helpless and the captive. His final answer to his assailants was to repeat with emphasis his orders to General Winder to see to it that the same rations issued to Confederate soldiers in the field should be given to all prisoners of war, though taken from a starving army and people.

Enraged by the defeat of their mad schemes, the conspirators drew together now to depose Davis and set up a military dictatorship.



CHAPTER XL

IN SIGHT OF VICTORY

When Grant crossed the Rapidan with his army of one hundred forty-one thousand one hundred and sixty men Lee faced him with sixty-four thousand. The problem of saving Richmond from the tremendous force under the personal command of the most successful general of the North was not the only danger which threatened the Confederate Capital. Butler was pressing from the Peninsula with forty thousand men along the line of McClellan's old march, supported again by the navy.

Jefferson Davis knew the task before Lee to be a gigantic one yet he did not believe that Grant would succeed in reaching Richmond.

The moment the Federal general crossed the Rapidan and threw his army into the tangled forest of the Wilderness, Lee sprang from the jungles at his throat.

Battle followed battle in swift and terrible succession. At Cold Harbor thirty days later the climax came. Grant lost ten thousand men in twenty minutes. The Northern general had set out to hammer Lee to death by steady, remorseless pounding. At the end of a month he had lost more than sixty thousand men and Lee's army was as strong as when the fight began.

Grant's campaign to take Richmond was the bloodiest and most tragic failure in the history of war. The North in bitter anguish demanded his removal from command. Lincoln stubbornly refused to interfere with his bulldog fighter. He sent him word to hold on and chew and choke.

As Grant in his whirl of blood approached the old battle grounds of McClellan, Davis rode out daily to confer with Lee. He was never more cheerful—never surer of the safety of his Capital. His faith in God and the certainty that he would in the end give victory to a cause so just and holy grew in strength with the report from each glorious field. No doubt of the right or justice of his cause ever entered his mind. Day and night he repeated the lines of his favorite hymn:

"I'll strengthen thee, help thee and cause thee to stand, Upheld by my righteous omnipotent hand."

Again and again he said to his wife half in soliloquy, half in exalted prayer:

"We can conquer a peace against the world in arms and keep the rights of freemen if we are worthy of the privilege!"

The spirit which animated the patriotic soldiers who followed their commander in this bloody campaign was in every way as high as that which inspired their President.

Jennie spent an hour each day ministering to the sick prisoners who had returned from the North and were unable to go further than Richmond. It was her service of love for Jimmie's friends and comrades.

A poor fellow was dying of the want he had endured in prison. He lifted his dimmed eyes to hers:

"Will you write to my wife for me, Miss?"

"Yes—yes—I will."

"And give her my love—"

He paused for breath and fumbled in his pocket.

"I've a letter from her here—read it before you write. Our little girl had malaria. She tried willow tea and everything she could think of for the chills. The doctor said nothin' but quinine could save her. She couldn't get it, the blockade was too tight, and so our baby died—and now I'm dyin' and my poor starvin' girl will have nothin' to comfort her—but—"

He gasped and lifted himself on his elbow.

"If our folks can just quit free men, it's all right. It's all right!"

The women and children of Richmond were suffering now for food. The Thirteenth Virginia regiment sent Billy Barton into the city with a contribution for their relief.

Billy delivered it to Jennie with more than a boy's pride. There was something bigger in the quiet announcement he made.

"Here's one day's rations from the regiment, sis," he said—"all our flour, pork, bacon and meal. The boys are fasting to-day. It's their love offering to those we've left at home—"

Jennie kissed him.

"It's beautiful of you and your men, boy. Give my love to them all and tell them I'm proud to be their countrywoman—"

"And they're proud of their country and their General, too—maybe you wouldn't believe it—but every regiment in Lee's army has reenlisted for the war."

She seized Billy's hand.

"Come with me—I want you to see the President and tell him what your regiment has done. It'll help him."

As they approached the White House a long, piercing scream came through the open windows.

"What on earth?" Jennie exclaimed.

"An accident of some kind," the boy answered, seizing her arm and hurrying forward. Every window and door of the big lonely house set apart on its hill swung wide open, the lights streaming through them, the wind blowing the curtains through the windows. The lights blazed even in the third story.

Mrs. Burton Harrison, the wife of the President's Secretary, met them at the door, her eyes red with weeping.

She pressed Jennie's hand.

"Little Joe has been killed—"

"Mrs. Davis' beautiful boy—impossible!"

"He climbed over the bannisters and fell to the brick pavement and died a few minutes after his mother reached his side—"

The girl could make no answer. She had come on a sudden impulse to cheer the lonely leader of her people. Perhaps his need in this dark hour had called her. She thought of Socola's story of his mother's vision and wondered with a sudden pang of self-pity where the man she loved was to-night.

This beautiful child, named in honor of his favorite brother, was the greatest joy of the badgered soul of the Confederate leader.

Suddenly his white face appeared at the head of the stairs. A courier had come from the battlefield with an important dispatch. Grant and Lee were locked in their death grapple in the Wilderness. He would try even in this solemn hour to do his whole duty.

He passed the sympathetic group murmuring a sentence whose pathos brought the tears again to Jennie's eyes.

"Not my will, O Lord, but thine—thine—thine!"

He took the dispatch from the courier's hand and held it open for some time, staring at it with fixed gaze.

He searched the courier's face and asked pathetically:

"Will you tell me, my friend, what is in it—I—I—cannot read—"

The courier read the message in low tones. A great battle was joined. The fate of a nation hung on its issue. The stricken man drew from his pocket a tiny gold pencil and tried to write an answer—stopped suddenly and pressed his hand on his heart.

Billy sprang to his side and seized the dispatch:

"I'll take the message to General Cooper—Mr. President—"

The white face turned to the young soldier and looked at him pitifully:

"Thank you, my son—thank you—it is best—I must have this hour with our little boy—leave me with my dead!"

Jennie stayed to help the stricken home.

She took little Jeff in her arms to rock him to sleep. He drew her head down and whispered:

"Miss Jennie, I got to Joe first after he fell. I knelt down beside him and said all the prayers I know—but God wouldn't wake him!"

The girl drew the child close and kissed the reddened eyes. Over her head beat the steady tramp of the father's feet, back and forth, back and forth, a wounded lion in his cage. The windows and doors were still wide open, the curtains waving wan and ghost-like from their hangings.

Two days later she followed the funeral procession to the cemetery—thousands of children, each child with a green bough or bunch of flowers to pile on the red mound.

A beautiful girl pushed her way to Jennie's side and lifted a handful of snowdrops.

"Please put these on little Joe," she said wistfully. "I knew him so well."

With a sob the child turned and fled. Jennie never learned her name. She turned to the grave again, her gaze fixed on the striking figure of the grief-stricken father, bare-headed, straight as an arrow, his fine face silhouetted against the shining Southern sky. The mother stood back amid the shadows, in her somber wrappings, her tall figure drooped in pitiful grief.

The leader turned quickly from his personal sorrows to those of his country, his indomitable courage rising to greater heights as dangers thickened.

Two weeks later General Sheridan attempted what Dahlgren tried and failed to accomplish.

The President hurried from his office to his home, seized his pistols, mounted his horse and rode out to join Generals Gracie and Ransom who were placing their skeleton brigades to repulse the attack.

The crack of rifles could be distinctly heard from the Executive Mansion.

The mother called her children to prayers. As little Jeff knelt he raised his chubby face and said with solemn earnestness:

"You had better have my pony saddled, and let me go out and help father—we can pray afterwards!"

In driving Sheridan's cavalry back from Richmond General Stuart fell at Yellow Tavern mortally wounded—the bravest of the brave—a full Major General who had won immortal fame at thirty-one years of age. His beautiful wife, the daughter of a Union General, Philip St. George Cooke, could not reach his bedside before he breathed his last.

The President reverently entered the death chamber and stood for fifteen minutes holding the hand of his brilliant young commander.

They told him that he could not live to see his wife.

"I should have liked to have seen her," he said gently, "but God's will be done."

The doctor felt his fast fading pulse.

"Doctor, I suppose I'm going fast now," Stuart said. "It will soon be over. I hope I have fulfilled my duty to my country and my God—"

"Your end is near, General Stuart," the doctor responded softly.

"All right," was the even answer. "I'll end my little affairs down here. To Mrs. Robert E. Lee I give my gold spurs, in eternal memory of the love I bear my glorious Chief. To my staff, my horses—"

He paused and turned to the heavier officer who stood with bowed head.

"You take the larger one—he'll carry you better. To my son I leave my sword—"

He was silent a moment and then said with an effort:

"Now I want you to sing for me the song I love best:

"'Rock of ages cleft for me Let me hide myself in thee'"—

With his fast-failing breath he joined in the song, turned and murmured:

"I'm going fast now—God's will be done—"

So passed the greatest cavalry leader our country has produced—a man whose joyous life was one long feast of good will toward his fellow men.

* * * * *

In spite of all losses, in spite of four years of frightful carnage, in spite of the loss of the Mississippi, the States of Louisiana and Tennessee, the Confederacy was in sight of victory.

Lee had baffled Grant's great army at every turn and now held him securely at bay before Petersburg. The North was mortally tired of the bloody struggle. The party which demanded peace was greater than any political division—it included thousands of the best men in the party of Abraham Lincoln.

The nomination of General McClellan for President on a platform declaring the war a failure and demanding that it end was a foregone conclusion. Jefferson Davis knew this from inside information his friends had sent from every section of the North.

The Confederacy had only to hold its lines intact until the first Monday in November and the Northern voters would end the war.

The one point of mortal danger to the South lay in the mental structure of Joseph E. Johnston, the man whom Davis had been persuaded, against his better judgment, to appoint to the command of one of the greatest armies the Confederacy had ever put into the field.

Johnston had been sent to Dalton, Georgia, and placed in command of sixty-eight thousand picked Confederate soldiers with which to attack and drive Sherman out of the lower South.

Lee with sixty-four thousand had defeated Grant's one hundred and forty thousand. Richmond was safe, and the North was besieging Washington with an army of heart-broken mothers and fathers who demanded Grant's removal.

No effort was spared by Davis to enable Johnston to stay Sherman's advance and assume the offensive. The whole military strength of the South and West was pressed forward to him. His commissary and ordnance departments were the best in the Confederacy. His troops were eager to advance and retrieve the disaster at Missionary Ridge—the first and only case of panic and cowardice that had marred the brilliant record of the Confederacy.

The position of Johnston's army was one of commanding strength. Long mountain ranges, with few and difficult passes, made it next to impossible for Sherman to turn his flank or dislodge him by direct attack. Sherman depended for his supplies on a single line of railroad from Nashville.

Davis confidently believed that Johnston could crush Sherman in the first pitched battle and render his position untenable.

And then began the most remarkable series of retreats recorded in the history of war.

Without a blow and without waiting for an attack, Johnston suddenly withdrew from his trenches at Dalton and ran eighteen miles into the interior of Georgia. He stopped at Resaca in a strong position on a peninsula formed by the junction of two rivers fortified by rifle pits and earthworks.

He gave this up and ran thirteen miles further into Georgia to Adairsville. Not liking the looks of Adairsville he struck camp and ran to Cassville seventeen miles.

He then declared he would fight Sherman at Kingston. Sherman failing to divide his army, as Johnston had supposed he would, he changed his mind and ran beyond Etowah. He next retreated to Alatoona. Here Sherman spread out his army, threatened Marietta and Johnston ran again.

On July fifth he ran from Kenesaw Mountain and took refuge behind the Chattahoochee River.

From Dalton to Resaca, from Resaca to Adairsville, from Adairsville to Alatoona (involving the loss of Kingston and Rome with their mills, foundries and military stores), from Alatoona to Kenesaw, from Kenesaw to the Chattahoochee and then tumbled into the trenches before Atlanta.

Retreat had followed retreat for two months and a half over one hundred and fifty miles to the gates of Atlanta without a single pitched battle!

Davis watched this tragedy unfold its appalling scenes with increasing bitterness, disappointment and alarm.

The demand for Johnston's removal was overwhelming in the State of Georgia whose gate city was now besieged by Sherman. The people of the whole South had watched this retreat of a hundred and fifty miles into their territory with sickening hearts.

Again Johnston began his nagging and complaining to the Richmond authorities. His most important message was an accusation of disloyalty against Joseph E. Brown. He telegraphed in blunt plain English:

"The Governor of Georgia refuses me provisions and the use of his roads."

Brown answered:

"The roads are open to him and in capital condition. I have furnished him abundantly with provisions."

The President of the Confederacy now faced the most dangerous and tragic decision of his entire administration. The removal of Johnston from his command before Sherman's victorious army in the heart of Georgia could be justified only on the grounds of the sternest necessity. The Commanding General not only had the backing of his powerful junta in Richmond who were now busy with their conspiracy to establish a dictatorship and oust the President from his office, but he was immensely popular with his army. His care for his soldiers was fatherly. His painful efforts to save their lives, even at the cost of the loss of his country, were duly appreciated by the leaders of opinion in the army. Johnston had the power to draw and hold the good will of the men who surrounded him. He had the power, too, of infecting his men with his likes and dislikes. His hatred of Davis had been for three years the one mania of his sulking mind.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



CHAPTER XLI

THE FALL OF RICHMOND

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

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

His answer to Senator Barton's committee was explicit.

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

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

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

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

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

The Confederate President received his proposals with courtesy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A smile of strange prophetic sweetness lighted his pale haggard face. The ovation he received was the sure promise to his tired soul that when the passions and prejudices, the agony and madness of war had passed the people would understand all he had tried to do in their service. In that moment of divine illumination he saw his place in the hearts of his countrymen and was content.

He spoke with even restrained flow of words, with a mastery of himself and his audience that is the mark of the orator of the highest genius. His gestures were few. His low, vibrant, musical voice found the heart of his farthest listener. He swayed them with indescribable passion.

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

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

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

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

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

"You must leave the city, my dear."

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

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

He paused, overcome with emotion.

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

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

"You must take only your clothing," he said after a moment's silence. "The flour and supplies in your pantry must be left. The people are in want."

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

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

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

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

Just outside of Richmond the engine broke down and the heartsick family sat in the dismal day-coach all night. Sleepers had not been invented. They were twelve hours getting to Danville—a week on the way to Charlotte.

The reign of terror had already begun.

The President's wife avoided seeing people lest they should be compromised when the invading army should sweep over the State.

They found everything packed up in the house that had been rented, but Weill, the big-hearted Jew who was the agent, sent their meals from his house for a week, refusing every suggestion of pay. He offered his own purse or any other service he could render.

When Burton Harrison had seen them safely established in Charlotte he returned at once to his duties with the President in Richmond.

On the beautiful Sunday morning of April 2, 1865, a messenger hurriedly entered St. Paul's Church, walked to the President's pew and handed him a slip of paper. He rose and quietly left.

Not a rumor had reached the city of Lee's broken lines. In fact a false rumor had been published of a great victory which his starving army had achieved the day before.

The report of the evacuation of Richmond fell on incredulous ears. The streets were unusually quiet. Beyond the James the fresh green of the spring clothed the fields in radiant beauty. The rumble of no artillery disturbed the quiet. Scarcely a vehicle of any kind could be seen. The church bells were still ringing their call to the house of God.

The straight military figure entered the Executive office. A wagon dashed down Main Street and backed up in front of the Custom House door. Boxes were hurried from the President's office and loaded into it.

A low hum and clatter began to rise from the streets. The news of disaster and evacuation spread like lightning and disorder grew. The streets were crowded with fugitives making their way to the depot—pale women with disheveled hair and tear-stained faces leading barefooted children who were crying in vague terror of something they could not understand. Wagons were backed to the doors of every department of the Confederate Government. As fast as they could be loaded they were driven to the Danville depot.

All was confusion and turmoil. Important officers were not to be seen and when they were found would answer no questions. Here and there groups of mean-visaged loafers began to gather with ominous looks toward the houses of the better class.

The halls of the silent Capitol building were deserted—a single footfall echoed with hollow sound.

The Municipal Council gathered in a dingy little room to consider the surrender of the city. Mayor Mayo dashed in and out with the latest information he could get from the War Department. He was slightly incoherent in his excitement, but he was full of pluck and chewed tobacco defiantly. He announced that the last hope was gone and that he would maintain order with two regiments of militia.

He gave orders to destroy every drop of liquor in the stores, saloons and warehouses and establish a patrol.

The militia slipped through the fingers of their officers and in a few hours the city was without a government. Disorder, pillage, shouts, revelry and confusion were the order of the night. Black masses of men swayed and surged through the dimly-lighted streets, smashing into stores and warehouses at will. Some of them were carrying out the Mayor's orders to destroy the liquor. Others decided that the best way to destroy it was to drink it. The gutters ran with liquor and the fumes filled the air.

To the rear guard of Lee's army under Ewell was left the task of blowing up the vessels in the James, and destroying the bridges across the river. The thunder of exploding mines and torpedoes now shook the earth. The ships were blown to atoms and the wharves fired.

In vain the Mayor protested against the firing of the great warehouses. Orders were orders, and the soldiers obeyed. The warehouses were fired, the sparks leaped to the surrounding buildings and the city was in flames.

As day dawned a black pall of smoke obscured the heavens. The sun's rays lighted the banks of rolling smoke with lurid glare. The roar of the conflagration now drowned all other sounds.

The upper part of Main Street was choked with pillagers—men with drays, some with bags, some rolling their stolen barrels painfully up the hills.

A small squadron of Federal cavalry rode calmly into the wild scene. General Weitzel, in command of the two divisions of Grant's army on the north side, had sent in forty Massachusetts troopers to investigate conditions.

At the corner of Eleventh Street they broke into a trot for the Square and planted their guidons on the Capitol of the Confederacy.

Long before this advance guard could be seen in the distance the old flag of the Union had been flung from the top of the house on Church Hill. Foreseeing the fall of the city Miss Van Lew had sent to the Federal Commander for a flag. Through his scouts he had sent it. As Weitzel's two grand divisions swung into Main Street this piece of bunting eighteen feet long and nine feet wide waved from the Van Lew mansion on the hill above them.

Stretching from the Exchange Hotel to the slopes of Church Hill, down the hill, through the valley, and up the ascent swept this gorgeous array of the triumphant army, its bayonets gleaming in the sunlight, every standard, battle flag and guidon streaming in the sky, every band playing, swords flashing, and shout after shout rolling from end to end of the line.

To the roar of the flames, the throb of drum, the scream of fife, the crash of martial music, and the shouts of marching hosts, was added now the deep thunder of exploding shells in the burning arsenals.

A regiment of negro cavalry swept by the Exchange Hotel and as they turned the corner drew their sabers with a savage shout.

An old Virginian with white locks standing in the doorway of the hotel gazed on these negro troops a moment, threw his hands on high, and solemnly cried:

"Blow, Gabriel! Blow your trumpet—for God's sake blow!"

For hours the fire raged unchecked—burned until the entire business section of the city lay a smoldering heap of ashes. Crowds of men, women and children crowded the Capitol Square fighting with smoke and flying cinders for a breath of fresh air. Piles of furniture lay heaped on its greensward. Terror-stricken, weeping women had dragged it from their homes. In improvised tents made of broken tables and chairs covered with sheets and bedding hundreds of homeless women and children huddled.

As night fell the pitiful reaction came from the turmoil and excitement of the day. The quiet of a great desolation brooded over the smoking ruins.

In the rich and powerful North millions were mad with joy. In New York twenty thousand people gathered in Union Square and sang the Doxology.

Jennie Barton was in Richmond through it all and yet the tragedy made no impression on her heart or mind. A greater event absorbed her.

Dick Welford had hurried to Lee's army on the day following Socola's departure from Richmond. He wanted to fight once more. Through all the whirlwind of death and blood from the first crash with Grant in the Wilderness to his vain assaults on Petersburg he had fought without a scratch. His life was charmed. And then in the first day of the final struggle which broke the lines of Lee's starving army he fell, leading his men in a glorious charge. He reached the hospital in Richmond the day before the city's evacuation.

Jennie had watched by his bedside every hour since his arrival. But few words passed between them. She let him hold her hand for hours in silence, always looking, looking and smiling his deathless love.

He had not spoken Socola's name nor had she.

"It's funny, Jennie," he said at last, "I don't hate him any more—"

The girl's head drooped and the tears streamed down her checks.

"Please, Dick—don't—"

"Yes," he insisted, "I want to talk about it and you must hear me—won't you?"

"Of course, if you wish it," she answered tenderly.

"You see I don't hate these Yankee soldiers any more—anyhow. I saw too many of them die from the Wilderness to Petersburg—brave manly fellows. The fire of battle has burned the hate out of me. Now I just want you to be happy, Jennie dear, that's all—good-by—"

His hand slipped from hers and in a moment his spirit had passed.



CHAPTER XLII

THE CAPTURE

At midnight on the day of the evacuation the President and his Cabinet left Richmond for Danville. He still believed that Lee might cut his way through Grant's lines and join his army with Johnston's in North Carolina. Lee had restored Johnston to command of the small army that yet survived in opposition to Sherman. He had hopes that Johnston's personal popularity with the soldiers might in a measure restore their spirits.

The President established his temporary Capital at Danville. G. W. Sutherlin placed his beautiful home at his disposal. Communications with Lee had been cut and the wildest rumors were afloat. Davis wrote his last proclamation urging his people to maintain their courage.

In this remarkable document he said:

"I announce to you, my fellow countrymen, that it is my purpose to maintain your cause with my whole heart and soul. I will never consent to abandon to the enemy one foot of the soil of any of the States of the Confederacy.

"If by stress of numbers, we should be compelled to a temporary withdrawal from the limits of Virginia or any other border State, we will return until the baffled and exhausted enemy shall abandon in despair his endless and impossible task of making slaves of a people resolved to be free.

"Let us, then, not despair, my countrymen, but, relying on God, meet the foe with fresh defiance, and with unconquered and unconquerable hearts."

So Washington spoke to his starving, freezing little army at Valley Forge in the darkest hour of our struggle for independence against Great Britain. With the help of France Washington succeeded at last.

Davis was destined to fail. No friendly foreign power came to his aid. His courage was none the less sublime for this reason.

Lee's skeleton army surrendered to Grant at Appomattox, and Davis hurried to Greensboro where Johnston and Beauregard were encamped with twenty-eight thousand men. Two hundred school girls marched to the house in Danville and cheered him as he left.

Mrs. Sutherlin in the last hour of his stay asked for a moment of his time.

He ushered her into his room with grave courtesy.

"Dear Madam," he began smilingly, "you have risked your home and the safety of your husband to honor me and the South. I thank you for myself and the people. Is there anything I can do to show how much I appreciate it?"

"You have greatly honored us by accepting our hospitality," was the quick cheerful answer. "We shall always be rich in its memory. I have but one favor to ask of you—"

"Name it—"

She drew a bag from a basket and handed it to him.

"Accept this little gift we have saved. It will help you on your journey. It's only a thousand dollars in gold—I wish it were more."

The President's eyes grew dim and he shook his head.

"No—no—dear, dear Mrs. Sutherlin. Your needs will be greater than mine. Besides, I have asked all for the cause—nothing for myself—nothing!"

He left Danville with heart warmed by the smiles and cheers of two hundred beautiful girls and the offer of every dollar a patriotic woman possessed.

He had need of its memory to cheer him at Greensboro. Here he felt for the first time the results of the malignant campaign which Holden's Raleigh Standard had waged against him and his administration. So great was the panic and so bitter the feeling which Holden's sheet had roused that it was impossible for the President and his Cabinet to find accommodations in any hotel or house. He was compelled to camp in a freight car.

It remained for a brave Southern woman to resent this insult to the Chieftain. When Mrs. C. A. L'Hommedieu learned that the President was in town, housed in a freight car and shunned by the citizens, she sent him a note and begged him to make her house his home and to honor her by commanding anything in it and all that she possessed.

The leader was at this moment preparing to leave for Charlotte and had to decline her generous and brave offer. But he was deeply moved. He stopped his work to write her a beautiful letter of thanks.

His interview with Johnston and Beauregard was strained and formal. Johnston's army in its present position in the hands of a resolute and daring commander could have formed a light column of ten thousand cavalry and cut its way through all opposition to the Mississippi River. Knowing the character of his General so well he had small hopes.

After receiving the report of the condition of the army the President called his Cabinet to consider what should be done.

Johnston sat at as great a distance from Davis as the room would permit.

The President reviewed briefly the situation and turned calmly to Johnston:

"General, we should like now to hear your views."

The reply was given with brutal brevity and in tones of unconcealed defiance and hatred.

"Sir," the great retreater blurted out, "my views are that our people are tired of war, feel themselves whipped and will not fight."

A dead silence followed.

The President turned in quiet dignity to Beauregard:

"And what do you say, General Beauregard?"

"I agree with what General Johnston has said," he replied.

There was no appeal from the decision of these two commanders in such an hour. The President dictated a letter to General Sherman suggesting their surrender and outlining the advantageous terms which the Northern Commander accepted.

And then the Confederate Chieftain received a message so amazing he could not at first credit its authority.

A courier from Sherman conveyed the announcement to Johnston that Davis might leave the country on a United States vessel and take whoever and whatever he pleased with him.

The answer of Jefferson Davis was characteristic.

"Please thank General Sherman for his offer and say that I can do no act which will put me under obligations to the Federal Government."

Sherman had asked Lincoln at their last interview whether he should capture Davis or let him go.

A sunny smile overspread the rugged features of the National President:

"That reminds me," he said, "of a temperance lecturer in Illinois. Wet and cold he stopped for the night at a wayside inn. The landlord, noting his condition, asked if he would have a glass of brandy.

"'No—no—' came the quick reply. 'I am a temperance lecturer and do not drink—' he paused and his voice dropped to a whisper—'I would like some water however—and if you should of your own accord, put a little brandy in it unbeknownst to me—why, it will be all right.'"

Sherman was trying to carry out the wishes of the man with the loving heart.

At Charlotte Davis was handed a telegram announcing the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. His thin fate went death white. Handing the telegram to his Secretary, he quietly said:

"I am sorry. We have lost our noblest and best friend in the court of the enemy."

He immediately telegraphed the news to his wife who had fled further south to Abbeville, South Carolina. Mrs. Davis burst into tears on reading the fatal message. Her woman's intuition saw the vision of horror which the tragedy meant to her and to her stricken people.

The President left Charlotte with an escort of a thousand cavalrymen for Abbeville. His journey was slow. The wagons were carrying all that remained of the Confederate Treasury with the money in currency from the Richmond banks which had been entrusted to the care of the Secretary of the Treasury.

Davis stopped at a little cabin on the roadside and asked the lady who stood in the doorway for a drink of water.

She turned to comply with his request.

While he was drinking a baby barely able to walk crawled down the steps and toddled to him.

The mother smiled.

"Is this not President Davis?" she asked tremblingly.

"It is, Madam," he answered with a bow.

She pointed proudly to the child:

"He's named for you!"

The President drew a gold coin from his pocket and handed it to the mother.

"Please keep it for my little namesake and tell him when he is old enough to know."

As he rode away with Reagan, his faithful Postmaster General, he said:

"The last coin I had on earth, Reagan. I wouldn't have had that but for the fact I'd never seen one like it and kept it for luck."

"I reckon the war's about finished us," the General replied.

"Yes," Davis cheerfully answered. "My home is a wreck. Benjamin's and Breckinridge's are in Federal hands. Mallory's fine residence at Pensacola has been burned by the enemy. Your home in Texas has been wrecked and burned—"

He paused and drew from his pocketbook a few Confederate bills.

"That is my estate at the present moment."

He received next day a letter from his wife which greatly cheered him:

"Abbeville, S. C., April 28, 1865.

"My dear old Husband:

"Your very sweet letter reached me safely by Mr. Harrison and was a great relief. I leave here in the morning at 6 o'clock for the wagon train going to Georgia. Washington will be the first place I shall unload at. From there we shall probably go on to Atlanta or thereabouts, and wait a little until we hear something of you. Let me beseech you not to calculate upon seeing me unless I happen to cross your shortest path toward your bourne, be that what it may.

"It is surely not the fate to which you invited me in the brighter days. But you must remember that you did not invite me to a great hero's home but to that of a plain farmer. I have shared all your triumphs, been the only beneficiary of them, now I am claiming the privilege for the first time of being all to you, since these pleasures have passed for me.

"My plans are these, subject to your approval. I think I shall be able to procure funds enough to enable me to put the two eldest to school. I shall go to Florida if possible and from thence go over to Bermuda or Nassau, from thence to England, unless a good school offers elsewhere, and put them to the best school I can find, and then with the two youngest join you in Texas—and that is the prospect which bears me up, to be once more with you if need be—but God loves those who obey Him and I know there is a future for you.

"Here they are all your friends and have the most unbounded confidence in you. Mr. Burt and his wife have urged me to live with them—offered to take the chances of the Yankees with us—begged to have little Maggie—done everything in fact that relatives could do. I shall never forget all their generous devotion to you.

"I have seen a great many men who have gone through—not one has talked fight. A stand cannot be made in this country! Do not be induced to try it. As to the trans-Mississippi, I doubt if at first things will be straight, but the spirit is there, and the daily accretions will be great when the deluded of this side are crushed between the upper and nether millstones. But you have not tried the 'strict construction' fallacy. If we are to require a Constitution, it must be much stretched during our hours of outside pressure if it covers us at all.

"Be careful how you go to Augusta. I get rumors that Brown is going to seize all Government property, and the people are averse and mean to resist with pistols. They are a set of wretches together, and I wish you were safe out of their land. God bless you, keep you. I have wrestled with Him for you. I believe He will restore us to happiness.

"Devotedly,

"Your Wife."

"Kindest regards to Robert, and thanks for faithful conduct. Love to Johnson and John Wood. Maggie sends you her best love."

The President and his party reached Abbeville on May first, only to find that his wife had left for Washington, Georgia.

At Abbeville, in the home of Armistead Burt, Davis called his last Cabinet meeting and council of war.

There were present five brigade commanders, General Braxton Bragg, his Chief-of-Staff, Breckinridge, Benjamin and Reagan of his Cabinet. The indomitable spirit made the last appeal for courage and the continuance of the fight until better terms could be made that might save the South from utter ruin and the shame of possible negro rule.

He faced them with firm resolution, his piercing eye undimmed by calamity.

"The South, gentlemen," he declared, "is in a panic for the moment. We have resources to continue the war. Let those who remain with arms in their hands set the example and others will rally. Let the brave men yet with me renew their determination to fight. Around you reenforcements will gather."

The replies of his discouraged commanders were given in voices that sank to whispers. Each man was called on for his individual opinion.

Slowly and painfully each gave his answer in the negative. The war was hopeless, but they would not disband their men until they had guarded the President to a place of safety.

"No!" Davis answered passionately. "I will listen to no proposition for my safety. I appeal to you for the cause of my country. Stand by it, men—stand by it!"

His appeal was received in silence. His councilors could not agree with him. The proud old man drew his slender body to its full height, lifted his hands and cried pathetically:

"The friends of the South consent to her degradation!"

He attempted to pass from the meeting, his emaciated face white with anger. His step tottered and his body swayed and would have sunk to the floor had not General Breckinridge caught him in his arms and led him from the room.

Benjamin parted from the President when they crossed the Savannah River and he had dropped the Seal of the Confederate Government in the depths of its still, beautiful waters.

"Where are you going?" Reagan asked.

"To the farthest place from the United States," was the quick reply, "if it takes me to China."

He made his way successfully to England and won fame and fortune in the old world.

On hearing that the Federal cavalry were scouring the country, Breckinridge and Reagan proposed that Davis disguise himself in a soldier's clothes, a wool hat and brogan shoes, take one man with him and go to the coast of Florida, ship to Cuba.

His reply was firm:

"I shall not leave Southern soil while a Confederate regiment is on it. Kirby Smith has an army of 25,000 men. He has not surrendered. General Hampton will cut his way across the Mississippi. We can lead an army of 60,000 men on the plains of Texas and fight until we get better terms than unconditional surrender."

Breckinridge was left at Washington to dispose of the small sum yet left in the Treasury and turn over to their agent the money of the Richmond banks.

Robert Toombs lived in Washington. General Reagan called on the distinguished leader.

He invited his guest into his library and closed the door.

"You have money, Reagan?"

"Enough to take me west of the Mississippi—"

"You are well mounted?"

"One of the best horses in the country."

"I am at home," he added generously. "I can command what I want, and if you need anything, I can supply you—"

"Thank you, General," Reagan responded heartily.

Toombs hesitated a moment, and then asked suddenly:

"Has President Davis money?"

"No, but I have enough to take us both across the Mississippi."

"Is Mr. Davis well mounted?"

"He has his fine bay, 'Kentucky,' and General Lee sent him at Greensboro by his son Robert, his gray war horse 'Traveler,' as a present. He has two first class horses."

Again Toombs was silent.

"Mr. Davis and I," he went on thoughtfully, "have had our quarrels. We have none now. I want you to say to him that my men are around me here, and if he desires it I will call them together and see him safely across the Chattahoochee River at the risk of my life—"

"I'll tell him, General Toombs," Reagan cordially responded. "And I appreciate your noble offer. It differs from others who have pretended to be his best friends. They are getting away from him as fast as they can. Some are base enough to malign him to curry favor with the enemy. I've known Jefferson Davis intimately for ten years. The past four years of war I've been with him daily under every condition of victory and defeat, and I swear to you that he's the truest, gentlest, bravest, tenderest, manliest man I have ever known—"

"Let me know," Toombs urged, "if I can serve him in any possible way."

When Reagan delivered the message to the President he responded warmly:

"That's like Toombs. He was always a whole souled man. If it were necessary I should not hesitate to accept his offer."

He was slowly reading his wife's last letters which had been delivered to him by scouts who were still faithful.

They were riding in a wagon with picked Mississippi teamsters twenty miles below Washington:

"All well, with Winnie sweet and smiling. Billy plenty of laughter and talk with the teamsters keeps quiet. Jeff is happy beyond expression. Maggie one and two quite well.

"I have $2,500, something to sell, and have heart and a hopeful one, but above all, my precious only love, a heartful of prayer. May God keep you and have His sword and buckler over you. Do not try to make a stand on this side. It is not in the people. Leave your escort and take another road often. Alabama is full of cavalry, fresh and earnest in pursuit. May God keep you and bring you safe to the arms of

"Your devoted,

"Winnie."

He opened and read another:

"My own precious Banny:

"May God give us both patience against this heavy trial. The soldiers are very unruly and have taken almost all the mules and horses from the camp. Do not try to meet me. I dread the Yankees getting news of you so much. You are the country's only hope and the very best intentions do not advise a stand this side of the river. Why not cut loose from your escort? Go swiftly and alone with the exception of two or three.

"Oh, may God in His goodness keep you safe, my own. Maggie says she has your prayer book safe. May God keep you, my old and only love, as ever, devotedly,

"Your own,

"Winnie."

He had not seen his wife and babies since they left Richmond. The conduct of the soldiers determined his course. He turned to Reagan:

"This move will probably cause me to be captured or killed. You are not bound to go with me—but I must protect my family."

"I go with you, sir—" was the prompt response.

The soldiers were dismissed and the money still remaining in the Treasury divided among them. A picked guard of ten men rode with the fallen Chieftain in search of his loved ones.

They joined Mrs. Davis after a hard ride and found her camp threatened by marauders. He traveled with her two days and, apparently out of danger, she begged him to leave her and make good his escape. He finally agreed to do this and with Reagan, the members of his staff and Burton Harrison, his Secretary, started for the Florida coast.

The day was one of dismal fog and rain and the party lost the way, turning in a circle, and at sunset met Mrs. Davis and her company at the fork of the road near the Ocmulgee River.

The President and staff traveled with his wife next day and made twenty-eight miles. At Irwinsville their presence was betrayed to the Federal cavalry, his camp surrounded by Colonel Pritchard, and the Confederate President and party arrested.

The soldiers plundered his baggage, tore open his wife's trunks and scattered her dresses. In one of these trunks they found a pair of new hoopskirts which Mrs. Davis had bought but never worn. An enterprising newspaper man immediately invented and sent broadcast the story that he had been captured trying to escape in his wife's hoopskirts. His enemies refused to hear any contradiction of this invention. It was too good not to be true. They clung to it long after Colonel Pritchard and every man present had given it the lie.

They had traveled a day's journey toward Macon, the headquarters of General Wilson, when an excited man galloped into the camp waving over his head a printed slip of paper.

"What is it?" Davis asked of his guard.

The guard seized and read the slip and turned to the Confederate Chieftain and his wife.

"Andrew Johnson's proclamation offering a reward of $100,000 for the capture of Jefferson Davis as the murderer of Abraham Lincoln!"

A cry of anguish came from the faithful wife.

The leader touched her shoulder gently.

"Hush, my dear. The miserable scoundrel who wrote that proclamation knew that it is false. He is the one man in the United States who knows that I preferred Abraham Lincoln in the White House to him or any other man the North might elect. Such an accusation must fail—"

The wife was not comforted.

"These men may assassinate you!"

The soldiers crowded about their defenseless prisoner and heaped on him the vilest curses and insults. He made no answer. The far-away look in his eagle eye told them only too plainly that he did not hear.

Colonel Pritchard in his manly way made every effort to protect him from insult. Within a short distance of Macon, the prisoners were halted and their escort drawn up in line on either side of the road. Colonel Pritchard had ridden into Macon for a brigade to escort his captives through the streets of the city.

The soldiers again cursed and jeered. The children climbed into their father's arms, kissed and hugged him tenderly and put their little hands over his ears that he should not hear what they said.

He soothed their fears and comforted them with beautiful lines from the Psalms which he quoted in tones of marvelous sweetness.

General Wilson received his distinguished prisoner with the deference due his rank and character. His guard in silence opened their lines and presented arms as Davis entered the building.



CHAPTER XLIII

THE VICTOR

Socola hurried into Richmond three days after its fall in the desperate hope that he might be of service to Jennie.

He was two days finding her. She had offered her services to Mrs. Hopkins in the Alabama hospital. He sent in his card and she refused to see him. He asked an interview with Mrs. Hopkins and begged her to help. Her motherly heart went out to him in sympathy. His utter misery was so plainly written in his drawn face.

"You're so like my own mother, madame," he pleaded. "I'm an orphan to-day. Our army has conquered, but I have lost. I find myself repeating the old question, what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and forfeit his life? She is my life—I can't—I won't give her up. Tell her she must see me. I will not leave Richmond until I see her. If she leaves, I'll follow her to the ends of the world. Tell her this."

The gentle hand pressed his.

"I'll tell her."

"And try to help me?" he begged.

"All the world loves a lover," the fine thin lips slowly repeated—"yes, I'll try."

At the end of ten minutes she returned alone. Her face gave no hope.

"I'm afraid it's useless. She positively refuses."

"You gave her my message?"

"Yes."

"I'll wait a day and try again—"

"You knew of Captain Welford's death, I suppose?"

Socola started and turned pale.

"No—"

"He died and was buried two days ago near the spot where General Stuart sleeps."

The lover was stunned for a moment. The hidden thought flashed through his mind that she might have married Welford in the reaction over her discovery of his deception. He opened his lips to ask the question and held his peace. It was impossible. She couldn't have done such a thing. He put the idea out of his heart.

"Thank you for the information, dear madame," he answered gravely, turned and left the building.

He walked quickly to his hotel, hired a negro to get him a wreath of roses and meet him at the cemetery gate. He had just placed them on Welford's grave as Jennie suddenly appeared.

She stopped, transfixed in astonishment—her eyes wide with excitement.

He walked slowly to meet her and stood looking into her soul, searching its depths.

"You here?" she gasped—

"Yes. I brought my tribute to a brave and generous foe. He hated me, perhaps—but for your sake he gave me my life—I never hated him—"

"With his last breath he told me that he no longer hated you," she answered dreamily.

"And you cannot forgive?"

"No. Our lives are far apart now. The gulf between us can never be passed."

He smiled tenderly and spoke with vibrant passion.

"I'm going to show you that it can be passed. I'm going to love you with such devotion I'll draw you at last with resistless power—"

"Never—"

She turned quickly and left him gazing wistfully at her slender figure silhouetted against the glow of the sunset.



CHAPTER XLIV

PRISON BARS

The ship which bore the distinguished prisoner from Savannah did not proceed to Washington, but anchored in Hampton Roads at Fortress Monroe.

A little tug puffed up and drew alongside the steamer. She took off Alexander H. Stephens, General Joseph Wheeler and Burton Harrison. Stephens and Wheeler were sent to Fort Warren in Boston Harbor.

The next, day the tug returned.

Little Jeff ran to his mother trembling and sobbing:

"They say they've come for father—beg them to let us go with him!"

Davis stepped quickly forward and returned with an officer.

"It's true," he whispered. "They have come for Clay and me. Try not to weep. These people will gloat over your grief."

Mrs. Davis and Mrs. Clay stood close holding each other's hands in silent sympathy and grim determination to control their emotions. They parted with their husbands in dumb anguish.

As the tug bore the fallen Chieftain from the ship, he bared his head, drew his tall figure to its full height, and, standing between the files of soldiers, gazed on his wife and weeping children until the mists drew their curtain over the solemn scene.

Mrs. Davis' stateroom was entered now by a raiding party headed by Captain Hudson. Her trunks were again forced open and everything taken which the Captain or his men desired—among them all her children's clothes. Jeff seized his little soldier uniform of Confederate gray and ran with it. He managed to hide and save it.

Captain Hudson then demanded the shawl which Davis had thrown over his shoulders on the damp morning when he was captured.

"You have no right to steal my property," his wife replied indignantly. "Peace has been declared. The war is over. This is plain robbery."

Hudson called in another file of soldiers.

"Hand out that shawl or I'll take the last rag you have on earth. I'll pay you for it, if you wish. But I'm going to have it."

Mrs. Davis took the shawl from Mrs. Clay's shoulders and handed it to the brute.

"At least I may get rid of your odious presence," she cried, "by complying with your demand."

Hudson took the shawl with a grin and led his men away. Two of his officers returned in a few minutes and thrust their heads in the stateroom of Mrs. Davis' sister with whom Mrs. Clay was sitting.

"Gentlemen, this is a ladies' stateroom," said the Senator's wife.

One of them threw the door open violently and growled:

"There are no ladies here!"

"I am quite sure," was the sweet reply, "that there are no gentlemen present!"

With an oath they passed on. Little tugs filled with vulgar sightseers steamed around the ship and shouted a continuous stream of insults when one of the Davis party could be seen.

General Nelson A. Miles, the young officer who had been appointed jailer of Jefferson Davis and Clement C. Clay boarded the ship and proceeded without ceremony to give his orders to their wives.

"Will you tell me, General," Mrs. Davis asked, "where my husband is imprisoned and what his treatment is to be?"

"Not a word," was the short reply.

His manner was so abrupt and boorish she did not press for further news.

Miles ventured some on his own account.

"Jeff Davis announced the assassination of Abraham Lincoln the day before it happened. I guess he knew all about it—"

The wife bit her lips and suppressed a sharp answer. Her husband's life was now in this man's hands.

"You are forbidden to buy or read a newspaper," he added curtly, "and your ship will leave this port under sealed orders."

In vain Davis pleaded that his wife and children might be allowed to go to Washington or Richmond where they had acquaintances and friends.

"They will return to Savannah," Miles answered, "by the same ship in which they came and remain in Savannah under military guard."

Jefferson Davis was imprisoned in a casemate of Fortress Monroe, the embrasure of which was closed with a heavy iron grating. The two doors which communicated with the gunner's room were closed with heavy double shutters fastened with crossbars and padlocks. The side openings were sealed with fresh masonry.

Two sentinels with loaded muskets paced the floor without a moment's pause day or night. Two other sentinels and a commissioned officer occupied the gunner's room, the door and window of which were securely fastened. Sentinels were stationed on the parapet overhead whose steady tramp day and night made sleep impossible.

The embrasure opened on the big ditch which surrounds the fort—sixty feet wide and ten feet deep in salt water. Beyond the ditch, on the glacis, was a double line of sentinels and in the casemate rooms on either side of his prison were quartered that part of the guard which was not on post.

To render rest or comfort impossible a lighted lamp was placed within three feet of the prisoner's eyes and kept burning brightly all night. His jailer knew he had but one eye whose sight remained and that he was a chronic sufferer from neuralgia.

His escape from Fortress Monroe was a physical impossibility without one of the extraordinary precautions taken. The purpose of these arrangements could have only been to inflict pain, humiliation and possibly to take his life. He had never been robust since the breakdown of his health on the Western plains. Worn by privation and exposure, approaching sixty years of age, he was in no condition physically to resist disease.