Mobile, Ala. The Gossip Printing Company. 1890 (part 2)

They had, on the contrary, in every instance that came under my ken, gone through that campaign most honorably; had borne the marches, the most trying weather and the greatest straits of hunger, with an elasticity of mind and muscle that had long since astounded and silenced their most active scoffers. Now, in the bitter depths of winter, they went through the dull routine of camp, cheerful and buoyant, at all times ready for their duty, and never grumbling at the wearing strain they felt to be necessity. When I say that in every Confederate camp the best soldiers of that winter were "crack companies" of the gay youths of the cities, I only echo the verdict of old and tried officers. Where all did their duty nobly, comparison were invidious; but the names of "Company F," the Mobile Cadets, the Richmond Blues, and Washington Artillery, stand on the record of those dark days as proof of the statement. Many men from the ranks of these companies had already been promoted to high positions, but they had not yet lost their distinctive characteristics as corps d' élite; and admission to their ranks was as eagerly sought as ever. A strange fact of these companies was frequently stated by surgeons of perfect reliability: their sick reports were much smaller than those of the hardiest mountain organizations. This they attributed to two causes: greater attention to personal cleanliness and to all hygienic precautions; and the exercise of better trained minds and wills keeping them free from the deadly "blue devils." Numbers of them, of course, broke down at once. Many a poor fellow who would have achieved a brilliant future perished mid the mud of Manassas, or slept under the snowy slopes of the western mountains. The practice was kill or cure, but it was in a vast majority of cases, the latter; and men who stood the hardship thrived upon it.

The Marylanders, too, were a marvel of patience. Self-made exiles, not only from the accustomed comforts of home, but cut off from communication with their absent ones and harrowed by vague stones of wrong and violence about them—it would have been natural had they yielded to the combined strain on mind and matter. At midwinter I had occasion to visit Evansport and Acquia creek. It had been bitter cold; a sudden thaw had made the air raw and keen, while my horse went to his girths at every plunge. More than once I had to dismount in mire girth-deep to help him on. Suddenly I came upon a Maryland camp—supports to a battery. Some of the soldiers I had known as the gayest and most petted of ball-room and club; and now they were cutting wood and frying bacon, as if they had never done anything else. Hands that never before felt an ax-helve plied it now as if for life; eyes that were accustomed to look softly into

"The sweetest eyes that ever were,"

in the pauses of a waltz, now peered curiously in the reeking stew-pan. Many of their names recalled the history of days long gone, for their father's fathers had moved in stately pageant down its brightest pages; and blood flowed in their veins blue as the proudest of earth's nobility. They had left affluence, luxury, the caresses of home—and, harder than all, the habits of society—for what?

Was it thoughtlessly to rush foremost in the delirious shock of battle; to carelessly stand unflinchingly where the wing of death flapped darkest over the glare of the fight; to stand knee-deep in Virginia mud, with high boots and rough shirts, and fry moldy bacon over fires of wet brush? Or was it that the old current in their veins bounded hotly when they believed a wrong was doing; that all else—home—luxury—love—life!—faded away before the might of principle?

It was an odd meeting with the crowd that collected about me and anxiously asked the news from Richmond, from abroad, but above all, from home. Bronzed and bearded, their huge boots caked with Potomac mud and rough shirts open at their sunburnt throats; chapped hands and faces grimy with smoke and work, there was yet something about these men that spoke them, at a glance, raised above the herd. John Leech, who so reveled in the "Camps at Cobham," would here have found a companion-piece for the opposition of the picture.

"Hello, old boy! any news from home?" yelled a whiskered sergeant, jumping from a log where he was mending a rent in his pants, and giving me a hand the color of his favorite tan gloves in days lang syne—"Pretty tight work up here, you see, but we manage to keep comfortable!"—God save the mark!

"What do you think Bendann would give for a negative of me?" asked a splendid fellow leaning on an ax, the rapid strokes of which he stilled at my approach—"Not a half bad thing for a fancy ball, eh?" Charles street had no nattier man than the speaker in days gone; and the tailors had found him their pearl beyond price. But Hilberg's best was now replaced by a flannel shirt with many a rent, army pants and a jacket that had been gray, before mud and smoke had brought it near the unity of Joseph's best garment.

"I'd show well at the club—portrait of a gentleman?" he added lightly.

"Pshaw! Look at me! There's a boot for a junior assembly! Wouldn't that make a show on a waxed floor?" and little Charley H. grinned all the way across his fresh, fair face, as he extended a foot protruding from what had been a boot.

"D——l take your dress! Peel those onions, Charley!" cried a baldheaded man from the fire—"Don't your heart rise at the scent of this olla, my boy? Don't it bring back our dinners at the Spanish legation? Stay and dine with us—if Charley ever has those onions done—and you'll feast like a lord-mayor! By the way, last letters from home tell me that Miss Belle's engaged to John Smith. You remember her that night at Mrs. R.'s fancy ball?"

"Wouldn't mind having a bottle of Mrs. R.'s sherry now to tone up these onions," Charley said ruefully. "It would go well with that stew, taken out of a tin cup—eh, cookey?"

"We had lots better at the club," the cook said, thoughtfully stirring the mess on the fire—"It was laid in before you were born, Charley. Those were days, boys—but we'll drink many a bottle of it yet under the stars and bars!"

"That we will, old man! and I'll carry these boots to a junior assembly yet. But I would like a bottle of old Mrs. R.'s to drink now, faute de mieux, to the health of the Baltimore girls—God bless 'em!"

"That I would, too," said the sergeant. "But that's the hard part of it!"—and he stuck his needle viciously through the pants—"I always get savage when I think of our dear women left unpro——"

"No particular one, sergeant? You don't mean Miss Mamie on Charles street, do you? Insatiate archer!" cried Charley.

"Do your cooking, you imp! I mean my dear old mother and my sick sister. D——n this smoke! It will get in a fellow's eyes!"

When Miss Todd gave her picnic in the valley of Jehoshaphat and talked London gossip under the olives, it was an odd picture; it is strange to see the irrepressible English riding hurdles in the Campagna, and talking of ratting in the shadow of the Parthenon, as though within the beloved chimes of Bow; but it was stranger still to see those roughened, grimed men, with soleless boots and pants tattered "as if an imp had worn them," rolling out town-talk and well-known names in such perfectly natural manner.

And this was only a slice from any camp in the service. The gentlemen troops stood hardships better, and bore their troubles and difficulties with lighter hearts, than any of the mixed corps. It is true that few of them were left as organizations at the end of the war.

As the army increased, men of ability and education naturally sifted to higher place; but they wore their spurs after they had won them. They got their commissions when they had been through the baptism of blood and fire, and of mud and drudgery as well. They never flinched. The dreariest march—the shortest rations—the deepest snow and the midnight "long roll"—found them ready and willing. History furnishes no parallel. The bloods of the cavalier wars rode hard and fought long. They went to the battle with the jest upon their lips, and walked gaily to the scaffold if need be. But they not only died as gentlemen—they lived as they died. Their perfumed locks were never draggled in the mire of the camp, and their silken hose never smirched but in the fray. Light songs from dainty lips and brimming goblets from choice flacons were theirs; and they could be merry to-night if they died to-morrow.

The long rapiers of the Regency flashed as keen in the smoke of the fight as the jest had lately rung in the mistress' bower; and how the blasé club man and the lisping dandy of Rotten Row could change to the avenging war god, the annals of the "Light Brigade" can tell.

But these lived as gentlemen. In the blackest hour, when none believed "the king should have his own again;" in the deadliest fray and in the snow-bound trench, they waved the sword of command, and the only equality they had with their men was who should fight the furthest.

But here were gentlemen born—men of worth and wealth, education and fashion—delving side by side with the veriest drudge; fighting as only gentlemen can fight, and then working as gentlemen never worked before!

Delicately bred youths who had never known rougher work than the deux temps, now trudged through blinding snows on post, or slept in blankets stiff with freezing mud; hands that had felt nothing harder than billiard-cue or cricket-bat now wielded ax and shovel as men never wielded them for wages; the epicure of the club mixed a steaming stew of rank bacon and moldy hard-tack and then—ate it!

And all this they did without a murmur, showing an example of steadfast resolution and unyielding pluck to the hardier and tougher soldiers by them; writing on the darkest page of history the clear axiom: Bon sang ne peut mentir!

CHAPTER XVIII.

SOCIETY AT THE CAPITAL.

But while everything was dull and lifeless in the camps of the South, a far different aspect was presented by its Capital. There was a stir and bustle new to quiet Richmond. Congress had brought crowds of attachés and hangers-on; and every department had its scores of dependents. Officers from all quarters came in crowds to spend a short furlough, or to attend to some points of interest to their commands before the bureaux of the War Department. The full hotels showed activity and life unknown to them. Business houses, attracted by the increased demands of trade and the new channels opened by Government necessities, sprang up on all sides; and the stores—though cramped by the blockade—began to brush off their dust and show their best for the new customers. Every branch of industry seemed to receive fresh impetus; and houses that had for years plodded on in moldy obscurity shot, with the rapidity of Jonah's gourd, up to first-class business.

The streets presented a scene of unwonted activity; and Franklin street—the promenade par excellence, vied with "the avenue" in the character and variety of the crowds that thronged its pavement. The majority of the promenaders were officers, their uniforms contrasting brightly with the more quiet dresses around. While many of them were strangers, and the peculiarities of every State showed in the faces that passed in rapid panorama, yet numbers of "Richmond boys" came back for a short holiday; almost every one bringing his laurels and his commission.

My friend, Wyatt, had kept his laughing promise, and showed me a captain's bars. General Breckinridge had found him hiding in the ranks, and had added A.A.G. to his title.

"Knew it, old man!" was his comment—"Virtue must be rewarded—merit, like water, will find its level. Captain Wyatt, A.A.G.—demnition neat, eh? Now, I'll be here a month, and we must do something in the social line. I find the women still industry mad; but the sewing-circles get up small dullabilities—'danceable teas,' as papa Dodd abroad calls them. They're not splendid to a used-up man, like you—not Paris nor yet Washington, but they'll show you our people."

And Wyatt was right. The people of Richmond had at first held up their hands in holy horror at the mere mention of amusement! What! with a war in the land must people enjoy themselves? Never! it would be heartless!

But human nature in Virginia is pretty much like human nature everywhere else; and bad as the war was, people gradually got used to "the situation." They had lost friends—a relation or two was pretty badly marked perhaps—but what glory the tens and hundreds left had gained! There was no fighting now; and the poor fellows in camp would be only too glad to know that their brothers-in-arms were being paid for their toils by the smiles of the fair. The great majority of the strangers, too, were young men who had been recommended to the mercy of the society by these very sufferers in camp.

Gradually these influences worked—the younger and gayer people indulged in the "danceable teas," Wyatt spoke of, after their sewing-circles. Imperceptibly the sewing was left for other times; and by Christmas there was a more constant—if less formal and general—round of gaiety than had been known for years. This brought the citizens and strangers more together, and naturally the result was a long season of more regular parties and unprecedented gaiety. Many still frowned at this, and, as usual, made unhappy Washington the scapegoat—averring that her pernicious example of heartlessness and frivolity had worked the evil.

These rigid Romans staid at home and worked on zealously in their manufacture of warm clothing, deformed socks and impossible gloves for the soldier boys. All honor to them for their constancy, if they thought they were right, and the harmless gaiety wrong; and they fought the good fight, from behind their abatis of knitting needles, only with the innocent weapons of tongue and precept. But human nature and inclination still held their own; and there were many defections from the ranks of the elect, to those of the more practical—and probably equally well-intentioned—pleasure-seekers.

But parties were by no means the only resource for pleasure-lovers. Anything that combined amusement and put dollars in the treasuries of charitable societies became the rage; and here the rigidly virtuous and the non-elect met on neutral ground. Among the amateurs of the city were some who would have taken high rank in any musical circle, and these gave a series of concerts for the benefit of distressed families of the soldiers. The performers were the most fashionable of the society; and, of course, the judgment of their friends—who crowded to overflowing the churches where the concerts were held—was not to be relied on. But critics from New Orleans and all parts of the South declared the performances creditable to any city. After them the audience broke up into little cliques and had the jolliest little suppers the winter produced, with the inevitable "lancers" until the smallest of small hours.

Then, there were charades and tableaux parties; while a few—more ambitious of histrionic fame—got up private theatricals. Altogether, in the gay set, the first winter of the war was one to be written in red letters, for old Richmond rang with a chime of merry laughter that for the time drowned the echo of the summer's fights and the groans of the wayside hospitals.

One unique point in the society of Richmond struck me with a constantly recurring surprise. I could not get accustomed to the undisputed supremacy of the unmarried element that almost entirely composed it. It constantly seemed to me that the young people had seized the society while their elders' heads were turned, and had run away with it for a brief space; and I always looked to see older people come in, with reproof upon their brows, and take charge of it again. But I looked in vain. One day at a dinner, I remarked this to my next neighbor; suggesting that it was only because of the war. She was one of the most charming women the society could boast—scarcely more than a bride, just out of her teens, beautiful, accomplished and very gay.

"Strangers always remark this," she answered; "but it is not the result of the war, or of the influx of strangers, as you suppose. Since I can remember, only unmarried people have been allowed to go to parties by the tyrants of seventeen who control them. We married folks do the requisite amount of visiting and teaing-out; and sometimes even rise in our wrath and come out to dinner. But as for a party—no! As soon as a girl is married, she must make up her mind to pay her bridal visits, dance a few weeks upon sufferance and then fold up her party dresses. No matter how young, how pretty, or how pleasant she may be, the Nemesis pursues her and she must succumb. The pleasant Indian idea of taking old people to the river bank and leaving them for the tide, is overstrictly carried out by our celibate Brahmins. Marriage is our Ganges. Don't you wonder how we ever dare to declare ourselves old enough?"

I did wonder; for it had always been a hobby of mine that a certain amount of the married leaven was necessary in every society to give it tone and stamina. Though the French principle of excluding young ladies from all social intercourse, and giving the patent of society to Madame, may be productive of more harm than good, the converse seems equally objectionable. I can recollect no society in which some of the most pleasant memories do not center around the intercourse with its married portion. Richmond is no exception to the rule. In the South, women marry younger than in the colder states; and it often happens that the very brightest and most attractive points of character do not mature until an age when they have gotten their establishment. The education of the Virginia girl is so very different in all essential points from that of the northerner of the same station, that she is far behind her in self-reliance and aplomb. There is, doubtless, much in native character, but more in early surroundings and the habit of education. The southerner, more languid and emotional, but less self-dependent—even if equally "up in" showier accomplishments—is not formed to shine most at an early stage of her social career. Firmer foothold and more intimate knowledge of its intricacies are necessary to her, before she takes her place as a woman of the world.

Hence, I was much puzzled to account for the patent fact that the better matured of its flowers should be so entirely suppressed, in the Richmond bouquet, by the half-opened buds. These latter, doubtless, gave a charming promise of bloom and fragrance when they came to their full; but too early they left an effect of immaturity and crudity upon the sense of the unaccustomed. Yet Richmond had written over the portals of its society: Who enters here no spouse must leave behind! and the law was of the Medan. A stranger within their gates had no right to cavil at a time-honored custom; but not one could spend a winter week in the good old town, and fail to have this sense of unfinishedness in her society fabric.

The fair daughters of the Capital are second to none in beauty, grace and the higher charm of pure womanhood. Any assembly showed fresh, bright and gentle faces, with constant pretty ones, and an occasional marked beauty. There is a peculiar, lithe grace, normal to the South, that is hard to describe; and, on the whole, even when not beautiful, there is a je ne sais quoi that renders her women very attractive.

The male element at parties ranged from passé beau to the boy with the down still on his cheek—ancient bachelors and young husbands alike had the open sesame. But if a married lady, however young in years or wifehood, passed the forbidden limits by accident—Væ victis!

She was soon made to feel that the sphere of the mated was pantry or nursery—not the ball-room. To stranger dames—if young and lively—justice a little less stern was meted; but even they, after a few offenses, were made to feel how hard is the way of the transgressor.

In a community like Richmond, where every one in the circle had played together in childhood, or was equally intimate, such a state of things might readily obtain. In a larger city, never. It spoke volumes for the purity and simplicity of the society that for years it had gone on thus, and no necessity for any matronage had been felt. But now the case was different—a large promiscuous element of military guests was thrown into it; and it struck all that society must change its primitive habit.

The village custom still prevailed in this—a gentleman could call for a lady—take her in his charge alone and without any chaperone—to a party and bring her back at the "we sma' hours." This was not only well, as long as the "Jeanette and Jenot" state of society prevailed, but it told convincingly the whole story of the honest truth of men and women. But with the sudden influx—when a wolf might so readily have imitated the guise of the lamb—a slight hedge of form could in no manner have intimated a necessity for it. Yet Richmond, in the proud consciousness of her simple purity, disdained all such precautions; and the informalities of the country town obtained in the salons of the nation's Capital.

But parties were not the only hospitalities the wanderers received at the hands of the Virginians. In no state in the country one becomes domesticated so soon as in the Old Dominion. You may come to any of its towns a perfect stranger, but with a name known to one prominent citizen, or fortified with a few letters from the right source, and in a time astonishingly short you find yourself at home. This has been time out of mind Virginian custom; and as Richmond is but a condensation of all that is Virginian, it prevailed here as well. If the stranger did not give himself up to the whirl and yield himself, "rescue or no rescue," to the lance of the unmarried, he could find, behind the chevaux de frise of clashing knitting-needles, the most genial welcome and most whole-souled hospitality.

"Stupid party last night—too full," criticised Wyatt, as he lounged in my room one morning. "You seemed bored, old man, though I saw you with Nell H. Desperate flirt—pretty, too! But take my advice; let her alone. It don't pay to flirt."—The ten years between the captain and myself were to my credit on Time's ledger—"It's all very well to stick up your pennon and ride gaily into the lists to break a lance with all comers. Society cries laissez aller! and her old dowagers shower largesse. Presto! my boy, and you find your back on the grass and your heels in the air. But I've some steady-going cousins I want to introduce you to. Suit you exactly."

Confound the boy! Where did he get that idea? But I was introduced to the "steady-going cousins" and to me now the Richmond of memory begins and ends in their circle. The jovial, pleasant family dinner around the old-time board; the consciousness of ready welcome to the social fireside, or partake of the muffin at eight, or the punch—brewed very near Father Tom's receipt—at midnight. Then the never-to-be-forgotten coterie of the brightest women of the day under the shaded droplight, in the long winter evenings! And none were excluded by the "steady goers" because they had committed matrimony. They did quantities of work that season; baskets of socks, bales of shirts and boxes of gloves, in numbers marvelous to see, went from that quiet circle to warm the frozen hands and feet, keeping watch and ward for them. And the simple words of cheer and love that went with them must have warmed hearts far colder than beat under the rough shirts they sent.

And never did the genial current of talk—sometimes chatty, sometimes brilliant—flag for a moment. The foremost men of government and army were admitted, and I doubt if ever the most ardent of the unmarried—wilting in the lancers, or deliquescing in the deux temps—found very much more genuine enjoyment than the "easy goers," over their distorted socks and impracticable gloves.

They talked of books, events and people, and no doubt gossiped hugely; but though some of the habitués were on the shady side of thirty and were sedately walking in the quiet parts of spinsterhood, I never heard one bitter—far less one scandalous, word!

Ferat qui meruit palmam! Let the green leaves adorn those wonderful women!

But the novelty most remarked in the society of this winter was the household of President Davis. Soon after the Government was firmly established in Richmond, the State of Virginia placed at his disposal a plain but comfortable house; and here—with only the ladies of his family and his private secretary—he lived with the quiet simplicity of a private citizen.

It will hardly be invading her sacra privata to say that the President's lady did everything to remove false ideas that sprung up regarding the social atmosphere of the "Executive Mansion." She was "at home" every evening; and, collecting round her a staff that numbered some of the most noted men and brilliant women both of the stranger and resident society, assured all her varied guests a warm welcome and a pleasant visit. In this circle Mr. Davis would, after the trying business of the day, give himself an hour's relaxation before entering on labors that went far into the night; and favored friends and chance visitors alike here met the man, where they expected the official.

Austere and thoughtful at all times, rarely unbending to show the vein of humor hidden deep under his stern exterior, and having besides "the divinity that doth hedge" even a republican president, Mr. Davis was never calculated for personal popularity. Even in the early days of his career he forced by his higher qualities—rather than sought by the arts of a trickster—the suffrages of his people; and they continued to cast their shells for him, even while they clamored that he was "the Just."

Whatever grave errors reflecting criticisms may lay at his door; whatever share in the ruin of the South, the future historians may ascribe to his unswerving self-will and unvarying faith in his own power—no one who traces his career from West Point to the New Saint Helena—will call them failings of the demagogue.

In these informal receptions of his lady, Mr. Davis said little; listening to the varied flow of talk that showed her equally cognizant and appreciative of social, literary and sterner topics. For the edification of the gayer visitor, she related odd experiences of her public life, with rare power of description and admirable flashes of humor. She discussed the latest book with some of the small littérateurs with whom she was infested; or talked knowingly of the last picture, or the newest opera, faint echoes from which might elude the grim blockaders on the coast.

Mr. Davis spoke little, seeming to find a refreshing element in her talk, that—as she pithily said of some one else—was like tea, that cheers but not inebriates. Occasionally he clinched an argument, or gave a keener point to an idea by a short, strong sentence.

After all had partaken of the cup of tea handed round informally, Mr. Davis retired to his study and once more donned his armor for battle with the giants without and the dwarfs within his territory.

These informal "evenings" began to grow popular with the better class of Virginians, and tended to a much more cordial tone between the citizens and their chief. They were broken by bi-monthly "levees," at which Mr. and Mrs. Davis received "the world and his wife."

But the formal "levee" was a Washington custom and smacked too much of the "old concern" to become very popular, although curiosity to see the man of the hour and to assist at an undress review of the celebrities of the new nation, thronged the parlors each fortnight. A military band was always in attendance; the chiefs of cabinet and bureaux moved about the crowd; and generals—who had already won names to live forever—passed, with small hands resting lightly on their chevrons, and bright eyes speaking most eloquently that old truism about who best deserve the fair.

More than once that winter General Johnston moved through the rooms—followed by all eyes and calling up memories of subtle strategy and hard-won victory. Sometimes the burly form of Longstreet appeared, ever surrounded by those "little people" in whom he delighted; and the blonde beard of Hood—whose name already began to shine with promise of its future brilliance—towered over the throng of leading editors, "senior wranglers" from both houses of Congress, and dancing men wasting their time in the vain effort to talk.

But not only the chosen ten thousand were called. Sturdy artisans, with their best coats and hands scrubbed to the proper point of cleanliness for shaking the President's, were always there. Moneyed men came, with speculation in their eyes, and lobby members trying to throw dust therein; while country visitors—having screwed their courage up to the desperate point of being presented—always dropped Mr. Davis' hand as if its not over-cordial grasp burned them.

But the "levees" on the whole, if odd exhibitions, were at least useful in letting the "dear public" have a little glimpse of the inner workings of the great machine of government. And they proved, even more than the social evenings, the ease of right with which Varina Howell Davis wore her title of "the first lady in the land."

The men of Richmond have spoken for themselves. They wrote the history of their class when they came forward—one and all, to sacrifice ease—affluence—life for the cause they felt to be just. There were some, as I shall hereafter endeavor to show, who were dwellers with them, but were not of them. These did nothing and gave nothing willingly for a cause in which they saw only a speculation. This is not the place to speak of such. They belong not to the goodly company of those who—whatever their weaknesses, or even their errors—proclaimed themselves honest men and chivalric gentlemen.

The young men of the whole South are off-hand and impulsive; either naturally careless in pecuniary matters, or made so by habit. Sowing wild oats is an almost universal piece of farming; and the crop is as luxuriant in the mountains of Virginia as in the overflowed lands of Louisiana.

Perhaps in Richmond they were not now seen from the most advantageous point of view. They were generally young planters from the country, reckless, jovial and prone to the lighter dissipations; or the young business and professional men, who rebounded from the routine of their former lives into a little extra rapidity. One and all—for the eyes they sought would not have looked upon them else—they had gone into the army; had fought and wrought well; and now with little to do, boon companionship and any amount of petting, they were paying for it. The constant strain of excitement produced much dissipation certainly—but it seldom took the reprehensible form of rowdyism and debauch. Some men drank deeply—at dinners, at balls and at bar-rooms; some gambled, as Virginians always had gambled—gaily, recklessly and for ruinous stakes. But find them where you would, there was about the men a careless pervading bonhomie and a natural high tone resistlessly attractive, yet speaking them worthy descendants of the "Golden Horse Shoe Knights."

As yet the influence of the Government was little felt socially. The presence of a large congregation of army men from the various camps had given an impetus to gaiety it would not otherwise have known; but this was all. There was little change in the habits and tone of social intercourse. The black shadow of Washington had not yet begun to spread itself, and its corrupt breath had not yet polluted the atmosphere of the good old town.

The presence of Congress, with its ten thousand followers, would hardly be considered as elevating anywhere. There is an odor of tobacco—of rum—of discredit—of anything but sanctity about the American politician that makes his vicinage unpleasant and unprofitable.

Congress had met in the quiet halls of the Virginia legislature. At first all Richmond flocked thither, crowding galleries and lobbies to see the might and intellect of the new nation in its most august aspect; to be refreshed and strengthened by the full streams that flowed from that powerful but pure and placid fountain; to hear words that would animate the faint and urge the ready to braver and higher deeds.

Perhaps they did not hear all this; for after a little they stopped going, and the might and majesty of the new giant's intellect was left severely to itself. Of the herd of camp-followers who over-flowed the hotels and filled the streets, little note was taken. An occasional curious stare—a semi-occasional inquiry as to who they were—and they passed even up Franklin street without more remark. To the really worthy in government or army, the cordial hand of honest welcome was extended.

The society unvaryingly showed its appreciation of excellence of intellect or character, and such as were known, or found to possess it, were at once received on the footing of old friends. But on the whole, the sentiment of the city was not in favor of the run of the new comers. The leaders of society kept somewhat aloof, and the general population gave them the sidewalk. It was as though a stately and venerable charger, accustomed for years to graze in a comfortable pasture, were suddenly intruded on by an unsteady and vicious drove of bad manners and low degree. The thoroughbred can only condescend to turn away.

Willing as they were to undergo anything for the cause, the Virginians could not have relished the savor of the new importations; nor can one who knows the least of the very unclean nature of our national politics for a moment wonder.

Montgomery had been a condensed and desiccated preparation of the Washington stew, highly flavored with the raciest vices. Richmond enjoyed the same mess, with perhaps an additional kernel or two of that garlic.

CHAPTER XIX.

DAYS OF DEPRESSION.

The proverb that misfortunes never come singly soon became a painful verity in the South; and a terrible reaction began to still the high-beating pulses of her triumph.

The merry echoes of the winter had not yet died away, when it became oppressingly apparent that proper methods had not been taken to meet the steady and persevering preparations of the North. Disaster after disaster followed the arms of the South in close succession; and the spirits of all classes fell to a depth the more profound, from their elevation of previous joyance.

As early as the 29th of the previous August, a naval expedition under Commodore Stringham had, after a short bombardment, reduced the forts at Hatteras Inlet. In the stream of gratulation following Manassas, this small event had been carried out of sight; and even the conquest of Port Royal, South Carolina, by Admiral Dupont's fleet, on the 7th of November, had been looked upon as one of those little mischances that only serve to shade all pictures of general victory.

They were not taken for what they really were—proofs of the entirely defenseless condition of an immense sweep of coast, in the face of the heavy and increasing naval armament of the United States. They were considered reverses merely; inquiry went but little deeper and the lesson they should have taught was lost; while the inexplicable tardiness of the War Department left still more important points equally defenseless.

But the news of General Crittenden's utter defeat at Mill Springs, on the 17th of January—of the disastrous results of his miscalculation, or misguided impetuosity, and of the death of Zollicoffer—came with stunning effect; opening wide the eyes of the whole country to the condition in which apathy, or mismanagement, had left it.

As usual, too, in the popular estimate of a success, or a reverse, the public laid much stress on the death of Zollicoffer, who was a favorite both with them and the army. He was declared uselessly sacrificed, and his commanding general and the Government came in for an equal share of popular condemnation.

Mr. Davis soon afterward relieved Secretary Walker from the duties of the War Office; putting Mr. Benjamin in his seat as temporary incumbent. The latter, as before stated, was known as a shrewd lawyer, of great quickness of perception, high cultivation, and some grasp of mind; but there was little belief among the people that he was fit to control a department demanding decision and independence, combined with intimate knowledge of military matters. Besides Mr. Benjamin personally had become exceedingly unpopular with the masses. Whether this arose from the unaccountable influence he—and he alone—had with his chief, or whether the busy tongues of his private enemies received too ready credence, is hard to say. But so the fact was; and his elevation gave rise to scurrilous attacks, as well as grave forebodings. Both served equally to fix Mr. Davis in the reasons he had believed good enough for his selection.

Suddenly, on the 7th of February, Roanoke Island fell!

Constant as had been the warnings of the press, unremittingly as General Wise had besieged the War Department, and blue as was the mood of the public—the blow still fell like a thunder-clap and shook to the winds the few remaining shreds of hope. General Wise was ill in bed; and the defense—conducted by a militia colonel with less than one thousand raw troops—was but child's play to the immense armada with heaviest metal that Burnside brought against the place.

Roanoke Island was the key to General Huger's position at Norfolk. Its fall opened the Sounds to the enemy and, besides paralyzing Huger's rear communications, cut off more than half his supplies. The defeat was illustrated by great, if unavailing, valor on the part of the untrained garrison; by a plucky and determined fight of the little squadron under Commodore Lynch; and by the brilliant courage and death of Captain O. Jennings Wise—a gallant soldier and noble gentleman, whose popularity was deservedly great.

But, the people felt that a period must be put to these mistakes; and so great was their clamor that a congressional committee investigated the matter; and their report declared that the disaster lay at the door of the War Department. The almost universal unpopularity of the Secretary made this a most acceptable view, even while an effort was made to shift part of the blame to General Huger's shoulders. But wherever the fault, the country could not shake off the gloom that such a succession of misfortunes threw over it.

This feeling was, if possible, increased, and the greatest uneasiness caused in all quarters, by Burnside's capture of Newbern, North Carolina, on the 4th of March. Its defenses had just been completed at heavy cost; but General Branch, with a garrison of some 5,000 men, made a defense that resulted only in complete defeat and the capture of even his field artillery. Here was another point, commanding another supply country of great value to the commissariat, lost to the South. But worse still, its occupation gave the Federals an easy base for striking at the Weldon railroad.

Nowhere was the weakness of the South throughout the war shown more fully than in her utterly inefficient transportation. Here were the demands of the army of Virginia and of a greatly-increased population in and around Richmond, supplied by one artery of communication! Seemingly every energy of the Government should have been turned to utilizing some other channel; but, though the Danville branch to Greensboro'—of only forty miles in length—had been projected more than a year, at this time not one rail had been laid.

It is almost incredible, when we look back, that the Government should have allowed its very existence to depend upon this one line—the Weldon road; running so near a coast in possession of the enemy, and thus liable at any moment to be cut by a raiding party. Yet so it was. The country was kept in a state of feverish anxiety for the safety of this road; and a large body of troops diverted for its defense, that elsewhere might have decided many a doubtful battle-field. Their presence was absolutely necessary; for, had they been withdrawn and the road tapped above Weldon, the Virginia army could not have been supplied ten days through other channels, and would have been obliged to abandon its lines and leave Richmond an easy prey.

Meanwhile the North had collected large and splendidly-equipped armies of western men in Kentucky and Tennessee, under command of Generals Grant and Buell. The new Federal patent, "the Cordon," was about to be applied in earnest. Its coils had already been unpleasantly felt on the Atlantic seaboard; General Butler had "flashed his battle blade"—that was to gleam, afterward, so bright at Fort Fisher and Dutch Gap—and had prepared an invincible armada for the capture of New Orleans; and simultaneously the armies under Buell were to penetrate into Tennessee and divide the systems of communication between Richmond and the South and West.

General Albert Sidney Johnston was sent to meet these preparations, with all the men that could be spared from Western Virginia and the points adjacent to his line of operations. Still his force was very inadequate in numbers and appointment; while to every application for more men, the War Department replied that none could be spared him.

The Federal plan was to advance their armies along the watercourses, simultaneously with their gunboats—light draught constructions prepared expressly for such service; and, penetrating to any possible point, there form depots with water communication to their base. The Tennessee and Cumberland rivers were plainly their highways. The only defenses of these streams were Forts Henry and Donelson—weak works inefficiently garrisoned; for the half million appropriated by Congress for their defense at the eleventh hour could not have been used in time, even had the money been forthcoming from the treasury.

With scarcely a check to their progress, the Federals reduced and passed Fort Henry on the 4th of February, pressing on to Donelson, into and supporting which work, General Johnston had thrown General J. B. Floyd with some ten thousand troops under Pillow and Buckner. After three days' hard fighting, Floyd found the position untenable and further resistance impossible. He, therefore, turned over the command to Buckner—who refused to abandon the part of the garrison that could not escape—and, with General Pillow and some five thousand men, withdrew in the night and made good his escape.

During the siege of Donelson, Johnston evacuated Bowling Green and awaited its issue opposite Nashville. The result being known, it naturally followed that this city—undefended by works of any description and with an army inadequate to its protection—had to be abandoned. The retreat was at once commenced; and it was on that gloomy march that Forrest first made the name that now stands with so few rivals among the cavalry leaders of the world. Commanding a regiment of cavalry from his own section, he seemed as ubiquitous as untiring. Keeping a constant front to the enemy—now here, now there, and ever cool, dauntless and unflinching—he gave invaluable aid in covering the rear of that retreat. About this time, also, John H. Morgan began to make his name known as a partisan chief; and no more thrilling and romantic pages show in the history of the times, than those retailing how he harassed and hurt the Federals while in Nashville.

During the progress of these events on the Tennessee and Cumberland, Richmond had been shaken by alternate spasms of suspense and premature exultation.

Her citizens could scarcely yet realize that the hitherto despised Yankees had been able to march, almost unchecked, into the heart of a territory protected by southern forts, southern troops, and the noblest names in all her bright array. Feeling thus, they still placed some credence in any rumors that came.

One morning, news reached Richmond of a brilliant victory at Donelson, and it was received with wild rejoicing. Next night the War Department issued the stunning bulletin of the fall of Nashville! When this was generally believed, a gloom settled over the Capital, such as no event of the war had yet produced. The revulsion was too sudden and complete to be met by reason, or argument; the depression was too hopeless and despairing to be removed by any declaration of the valor of the defense, of the orderly character of the retreat, or of the far stronger position Johnston had gained by a concentration of his force on a ground of his own choice.

The very name of gunboat began to have a shuddering significance to the popular mind. A vague, shadowy power of evil far beyond that of any floating thing, ancient or modern, was ascribed to it; and the wild panic constantly created in the Federal mind the year before by the dreaded name of "Black Horse," or the mere mention of masked battery—was re-enacted by the South in deferential awe of those floating terrors.

Under this morbid state of gloom, the Government fell into greater and greater disfavor. Without much analytical reasoning, the people felt there must have been a misuse of resources, at least great enough to have prevented such wholesale disaster. Especial odium fell upon the War Department and reacted upon the President for retaining incapable—or, what was the same to them, unpopular—ministers in his council at such vital moment. The press—in many instances filled with gloomy forebodings and learned disquisitions on the I-told-you-so principle, fanned the flame of discontent. Mr. Davis soon found himself, from being the idol of the people, with nearly half the country in open opposition to his views.

At this moment, perhaps, no one act could have encouraged this feeling more than his relieving Floyd and Pillow from command, for abandoning their posts and leaving a junior officer to capitulate in their stead. Certainly the action of these generals at Donelson was somewhat irregular in a strictly military view. But the people argued that they had done all that in them lay; that they had fought nobly until convinced that it was futile; that they had brought off five thousand effective men, who, but for that very irregularity, would have been lost to the army of the West; and, finally, that General Johnston had approved, if not that one act, at least their tried courage and devotion.

Still, Mr. Davis remained firm, and—as was his invariable custom in such cases—took not the least note of the popular discontent. And still the people murmured more loudly, and declared him an autocrat, and his cabinet a bench of imbeciles.

Thus, in a season of gloom pierced by no ray of light; with the enemy, elated by victory, pressing upon contracting frontiers; with discontent and division gnawing at the heart of the cause—the "Permanent Government" was ushered in.

The 22d of February looked dark and dismal enough to depress still more the morbid sensibilities of the people. A deluge of rain flooded the city, rushed through the gutters in small rivers, and drenched the crowds assembled in Capitol Square to witness the inauguration.

In the heaviest burst of the storm, Mr. Davis took the oath of office at the base of the Washington statue; and there was something in his mien—something solemn in the surroundings and the associations of his high place and his past endeavor—that, for the moment, raised him in the eyes of the people, high above party spite and personal prejudice.

An involuntary murmur of admiration, not loud but heart-deep, broke from the crowds who thronged the drenched walks; and every foot of space on the roof, windows and steps of the Capitol. As it died, Mr. Davis spoke to the people.

He told them that the fortunes of the South, clouded and dim as they looked to-day, must yet rise from the might of her united people, to shine out as bright and glorious as to-morrow's sun.

It was singularly characteristic of the man, that even then he made no explanation of the course he had seen fit to take—no excuses for seeming harshness—no pledge of future yielding to any will but his own. The simple words he spoke were wholly impersonal; firm declaration that he would bend the future to his purpose; calm and solemn iteration of abiding faith that a united South, led by him, must be unconquerable.

There was a depth in the hearts of his hearers that discontent could not touch:—that even discontent had not yet chilled. They saw in him the representative man of their choice—headstrong certainly, erring possibly. But they saw also the staunch, inflexible champion of the South, with iron will, active intellect, and honest heart bent steadily and unwearyingly to one purpose; and that purpose the meanest one among them clasped to his heart of hearts!

Then, through the swooping blasts of the storm, came a low, wordless shout, wrenched from their inmost natures, that told, if not of renewed faith in his means, at least of dogged resolution to stand by him, heart and hand, to achieve the common end.

It was a solemn sight, that inauguration.

Men and women left the square with solemn brows and serious voices. There was none of the bustle and pride of a holiday pageant; but there was undoubtedly a genuine resolve to toil on in the hard road and reach the end, or fall by the wayside in the effort.

Having laid out a fixed line of policy, Mr. Davis in no way deviated from it. There were no changes of government measures and no changes of government men, except the elevation of General George W. Randolph to the Secretaryship of War. This gentleman—a clear-headed lawyer, a tried patriot and soldier by education and some experience—was personally very popular with all classes. He was known to possess decision of character and a will as firm as the President's own; and the auguries therefrom were, that in future the chief of the War Office would also be its head. His advent, therefore, was hailed as a new era in military matters.

But Mr. Benjamin, who became daily more unpopular, had been removed from the War Department only to be returned to the portfolio of State, which had been kept open during his incumbency of the former. This promotion was accepted by the Secretary's enemies as at once a reproof to them, and a blow aimed at the popular foreign policy. They boldly averred that, though the foreign affairs of the Government might not call for very decided measures, Mr. Benjamin would not scruple—now that he more than ever had the ear of his chief—to go beyond his own into every branch of the Government, and to insert his own peculiar and subtle sophisms into every recess of the Cabinet.

To do the Secretary justice, he bore the universal attack with most admirable good nature and sang froid. To all appearance, equally secure in his own views and indifferent to public odium, he passed from reverse to reverse with perfectly bland manner and unwearying courtesy; and his rosy, smiling visage impressed all who approached him with vague belief that he had just heard good news, which would be immediately promulgated for public delectation.

The other members of the Cabinet, though not equally unpopular, still failed fully to satisfy the great demands of the people. Two of them were daily arraigned before the tribunal of the press—with what reason, I shall endeavor, hereafter, to show.

Mr. Reagan's administration of the Post-office, while very bad, was possibly as good as any one else could have inaugurated, with the short rolling-stock and cut roads of ill-managed, or unmanaged systems; and the Attorney-General was of so little importance for the moment as to create but little comment.

Thus the permanent government of the struggling South was inaugurated amid low-lowering clouds. Every wind from the North and West threatened to burst them into overwhelming flood; while, within the borders of the nascent Nation, no ray of sunshine yet reflected from behind their somber curtain.

And through the gloom—with no groping hand and with unfaltering tread;—straight to the fixed purport of its own unalterable purpose, strode the great, incarnate Will that could as little bend to clamor, as break under adversity!

CHAPTER XX.

FROM SHILOH TO NEW ORLEANS.

Within two weeks of his inauguration, the strongly hopeful words of President Davis seemed to approach fulfillment, through the crushing victory of the "Merrimac" in Hampton Roads, on the 8th March. There was no doubt of the great success of her first experiment; and the people augured from it a series of brilliant and successful essays upon the water. The late bugbear—gunboats—began to pale before the terrible strength of this modern war-engine; and hopes were cherished that the supremacy afloat—which had been the foundation of the claim of Federal victory—was at an end.

On the 23d of the same month, Jackson—who was steadily working his way to the foremost place in the mighty group of heroes—struck the enemy a heavy blow at Kernstown. His success, if not of great material benefit, was at least cheering from its brilliance and dash.

But the scale, that trembled and seemed about to turn in favor of the South, again went back on receipt of the news of Van Dorn's defeat, on the 7th March, in the trans-Mississippi. Price and his veterans—the pride of the whole people, and the great dependence in the West—had been defeated at Elk Horn. And again the calamity assumed unwonted proportions in the eyes of the people from the death of Generals Ben McCollough and McIntosh—the former a great favorite with Government, army and public.

This news overshadowed the transient gleam from Hampton Roads and Kernstown; plunging the public mind into a slough of despond, in which it was to be sunk deeper and deeper with each successive despatch.

After Nashville, Island No. 10—a small marsh-surrounded knob in the Mississippi river—had been selected by General Beauregard, and fortified with all the appliances of his great engineering skill, until deemed well-nigh impregnable. It was looked upon as the key to the defenses of the river, and of the line of railroad communication between New Orleans and the West with the Capital. In the middle of March the Federal flotilla commenced a furious bombardment of that station; and though a stubborn defense was conducted by its garrison, some boats succeeded in running its batteries on the 6th April. It was then deemed necessary at once to abandon the post, which was done with such precipitate haste that over seventy valuable guns—many of them perfectly uninjured; large amounts of stores, and all of the sick and wounded, fell into the hands of the captors.

On the same day was joined the hardest and bloodiest battle that had to this time drenched the land with the best blood in it.

General Grant, with an army of not less than 45,000 fresh and well-equipped soldiers, had been facing General A. S. Johnston, seeking to amuse him until a junction with Buell could surely crush his small force—not aggregating 30,000 effective men. To frustrate this intent, Johnston advanced to the attack on the plains of Shiloh, depending upon the material of his army, and his disposition of it, to equalize the difference of numbers.

At early dawn on Sunday, the 6th April, General Hardee, commanding the advance of the little army, opened the attack. Though surprised—in many instances unarmed and preparing their morning meal—the Federals flew to arms and made a brave resistance, that failed to stop the onward rush of the southern troops. They were driven from their camp; and the Confederates—flushed with victory, led by Hardee, Bragg and Polk, and animated by the dash and ubiquity of Johnston and Beauregard—followed with a resistless sweep that hurled them, broken and routed, from three successive lines of entrenchments. The Federals fought with courage and tenacity. Broken, they again rallied; and forming into squads in the woods, made desperate bush-fighting.

But the wild rush of the victorious army could not be stopped! On its front line swept!—On, like the crest of an angry billow, crushing resistance from its path and leaving a ghastly wreck under and behind it!

While leading a charge early in the afternoon, General Johnston received a Minié-ball in his leg. Believing it but a flesh wound, he refused to leave the ground; and his falling from his horse, faint with the loss of blood, was the first intimation the staff had of its serious nature; or that his death, which followed almost immediately, could result from so slight a wound.

The loss of their leader was hidden from the men; and they drove the enemy steadily before them, until sunset found his broken and demoralized masses huddled on the river bank, under cover of the gunboats.

Here Grant waited the onset, with almost the certainty of annihilation. But the onset never came; that night Buell crossed upward of 20,000 fresh troops; the broken army of Grant was reformed; Wallace's division of it joined the main body; and next day, after a terrible and disastrous fight, the southrons slowly and sullenly retired from the field they had so nobly won the day before.

A horrid scene that field presented, as foot by foot the fresh thousands of the Federals wrenched it from the shattered and decimated Confederates; the ground furrowed by cannon, strewn with abandoned arms, broken gun-carriages, horses plunging in agony, and the dead and dying in every frightful attitude of torture!

The battle of Shiloh was the bloodiest of the war. The little army of the South had lost near one-third of its whole number; while the Federals had bought back their camp with the loss of not less than 16,000 men.

And, while the bloodiest field, none had so splendidly illustrated the stubborn valor of the men and the brilliant courage of their leaders. Gladden had fallen in the thickest of the fight—the circumstances of his death sending a freshened glow over the bright record he had written at Contreras and Molino del Rey. The names of Bragg, Hardee and Breckinridge were in the mouths of men, who had been held to their bloody work by these bright exemplars. Wherever the bullets were thickest, there the generals were found—forgetful of safety, and ever crying—"Come!"

Governor Harris had done good service as volunteer aid to General Johnston; and Governor George M. Johnson, of Kentucky, had gone into the battle as a private and had sealed his devotion to the cause with his blood. Cheatham and Bushrod Johnson bore bloody marks of the part they took; while Breckinridge, who had already won undying fame, added to his reputation for coolness, daring, and tenacity, by the excellence with which he covered the rear of the army on its retreat to Corinth.

The results of the battle of Shiloh—while they gave fresh cause for national pride—were dispiriting and saddening. It seemed as though the most strenuous efforts to marshal fine armies—and the evacuation of city after city to concentrate troops—were only to result in an indiscriminate killing, and no more; as if the fairest opportunities for a crushing blow to the enemy were ever to be lost by error, or delay.

The death of General Johnston, too—seemingly so unnecessary from the nature of his wound—caused a still deeper depression; and the public voice, which had not hesitated to murmur against him during the eventful weeks before the battle, now rose with universal acclaim to canonize him when dead. It cried out loudly that, had he lived through the day of Shiloh, the result would have been different.

It must be the duty of impartial history to give unbiased judgment on these mooted points; but the popular verdict, at the time, was that Beauregard had wasted the precious moment for giving the coup-de-grace. The pursuit of the Federals stopped at six o'clock; and if, said people and press, he had pushed on for the hour of daylight still left him, nothing could possibly have followed but the annihilation, or capitulation, of Grant's army.

On the other hand, Beauregard's defenders replied that the army was so reduced by the terrible struggle of twelve hours—and more by straggling after the rich spoils of the captured camp—as to render further advance madness. And in addition to this, it was claimed that he relied on the information of a most trusty scout—none other than Colonel John Morgan—that Buell's advance could not possibly reach the river within twenty-four hours. Of course, in that event, it was far better generalship to rest and collect his shattered brigades, and leave the final blow until daylight.

An erroneous impression prevailed in regard to this fight, that Johnston had been goaded into a precipitate and ill-judged attack by the adverse criticisms of a portion of the press. No one who knew aught of that chivalric and true soldier would for an instant have believed he could lend an ear to such considerations, with so vast a stake in view; and the more reasonable theory came to be accepted—that he desired to strike Grant before the heavy columns that Buell was pouring down could join him.

At an events, the sad waste of position and opportunity, and the heavy loss in brilliant effort and valuable lives, caused equal dissatisfaction and gloom. Beauregard's new strategic point commanded a valuable sweep of producing territory, protected the communications, and covered Memphis. Still people were not satisfied; and tongues and pens were busy with the subject, until an event occurred that wrapped the whole country in wondering and paralyzing grief.

On the 26th April New Orleans surrendered to Admiral Farragut!

The Federal fleet had long been hovering about the twin forts at the mouth of the river; and daily telegrams of the progress of the bombardment and of their impregnability had schooled the country into the belief that the city was perfectly secure. Day after day the wires repeated the same story of thousands of shell and nobody hurt, until inquiry ceased to be even anxious; and the people were ready to despise this impotent attempt upon the most important point of the far South.

So secure had the Government been in her defenses, that regiment after regiment had been withdrawn from New Orleans and sent to Corinth, until General Lovell found his command reduced to less than three thousand effective men—and more than half of these local militia and volunteer organizations.

Suddenly came the despatch that the fleet had passed the forts at dawn on the 24th! All was consternation in the city. The confidence had been so great that daily avocations went on as usual; and the news found every one as unprepared for it, as though no enemy had been near.

Confusion ruled the hour. General Lovell reached the city from below; and, feeling that his handful of men could effect nothing and might only offer an excuse for bombardment, he yielded to the desire of the city authorities and withdrew to Camp Moore. He carried with him all the munitions and supplies that were capable of transportation; and held himself ready to return at a moment's notice from the Council.

Meanwhile, the Federal fleet had engaged the Confederate flotilla—consisting of an incomplete iron-clad, a plated tow-boat ram, and eight or ten useless wooden shells—and after a desperate fight had driven them off only to be blown up, one by one, by their own commanders.

The water-batteries then offered no effective resistance. The obstructions had been opened to remove accumulated raft, and could not be closed; and the fleet moved slowly up to seize the rich prize that lay entirely within its grasp.

On the 26th April, the "Hartford" leading the van, it anchored off the city to find it hushed as death and wrapped in the eddying smoke-clouds from fifteen thousand burning bales of cotton. After the first burst of consternation, the people took heart; and even at the sight of the enemy's shipping did not lose all hope. There were no soldiers aboard; Butler's army could not dare the passage of the forts in the shells of transports that contained it; the fleet, cut off as it was from all re-enforcement and supply, could, at worst, only shell the city and retire—again running the gauntlets of the two forts; and then the only loss to the city—for the flotilla in its incomplete state could not have been made effective as a defense—would have been the cotton and the trifling damage done by the shells.

So the people hoped on. A long correspondence, coupled with reiterated threats of bombardment, ensued between Mayor Monroe and Admiral Farragut, relative to the State flag that still floated over the Custom House. Still the city was not in Federal power and there might yet be a chance.

But on the 28th, the news of the fall of the forts in consequence of the surrender of their garrisons—took the last support from the most hopeful. The city yielded utterly; the marines of the "Hartford" landed, took formal possession, raised the stars and stripes over the City Hall; and the emblem of Louisiana's sovereignty went down forever!

Three days after, General Butler landed and took command of the city, for which he had not struck a blow. He stationed his garrison in the public buildings, the hotels, and even in private houses; and then commenced a system of oppression and extortion, that—while it made the blood boil in the veins of every southron—has sent his name to the honest thinkers of the future linked with a notoriety which all history proves to be unique.

The annals of the war are not free from small pilferers and vicious imbeciles; but high above the tableau they form, this warrior has perched himself upon a pinnacle—let us hope—unattainable again!

It is hard to overrate the consequences of the fall of New Orleans. The commercial city and port of the whole South-west—its depot and granary—the key to communication with the trans-Mississippi, and the sentinel over vast tracts of rich and productive territory—her loss was the most stunning blow that had yet been dealt the cause of the South.

It opened the whole length of the Mississippi as a new base for operations against the interior; and gave opportunities for establishing a series of depots, from which the Federal armies—if ever beaten and shattered—could be rapidly and effectively recruited.

Not the least disastrous effect of this blow was its reception by the people. After the first bitter wail went up over the land, inquiry came from every quarter how long this state of things could last. Position after position—fortress after fortress—city after city—declared impregnable by the Government up to the very last moment, fell suddenly and mysteriously; only to expose, when too late, the chain of grievous errors that inseparably linked the catastrophe with the Government.

The public demanded at least an explanation of these things—a candid exposé of the condition to which they were reduced. If told they were battling hopelessly for their frontiers; that the enemy was too strong and the extent of territory too large for sure defense; if told, even, there were grave reason to doubt the ultimate issue—they were yet willing to battle for the hope, and to go uncomplainingly to the front and face the gloomy truth.

But to be buoyed day by day with high-sounding protestations of invincibility, only to see their strongest points dropping, one by one, into the lap of the enemy; to be lulled into security to find, too late, that the Government had deceived them, while it deceived itself; and thus to imbibe a deep distrust of the hands in which their hopes and the future were placed—this was more than they could bear; and "a thick darkness that could be felt" brooded over the land.

But as yet this feeling had not begun in any way to react upon the army. The hardy soldiers had enough to do to keep them busy; and besides had laid up a stock of glorious reminiscences, upon which to fall back when bad news reached them. Only the bare facts of these rapid and terrible blows reached the camps; and stubborn, hard-fisted "Johnny Reb," looked upon them smilingly as reverses to be made up to-morrow, or the next time he caught "Mr. Yank."

To the Louisiana soldiers, the news of the fall of their beautiful city had a far deeper and more bitter import. Some of the business men of New Orleans, who remained in the city, yielded to the promptings of interest and fell to worshipping the brazen calf, the Washington high priest had set up for them. Some refused to degrade themselves and remained to be taught that might is right; and that handcuffs are for the conquered. Others collected what little they could and fled to Europe; while nobler spirits eluded the vigilance of their captors and came by scores into the Confederate camps.

But the women of New Orleans were left behind. They could not come; and against them the Pontiff of Brutality fulminated that bull, which extorted even from the calm and imperturbable British Premier the exclamation—"Infamous!"

The intended insult fell dead before the purity of southern womanhood; but the malignancy that prompted it seared deep into their hearts. Though their defenders were away, the women of New Orleans rose in their majesty of sex; and, "clothed on with chastity," defied the oppressor and called on manhood everywhere to judge between him and them. As

"When the face of Sextus was seen amid the foes"—

in those earlier days when Roman womanhood was roused to defy that elder traducer—

"No women on the housetops

But spat toward him and hiss'd;

No child but scream'd out curses

And shook its little fist!"

And the cry echoed in the hearts of the Louisianians in the battle's front. It mattered not so much to them if the defenses had been neglected; if the proper precautions had not been taken, and their firesides and families sacrificed, while they were battling so nobly far away. They only felt that those dear homes—their wives, and sisters, and sweethearts—were now in the relentless grasp of a hero who burned to war against women.

And deep in their souls they swore a bitter oath to fight in the future, not only for the cause they loved, but for themselves; to strike each blow, nerved by the thought that it was for the redemption of their homes and their loved ones; or, if not for this—for vengeance!

Gradually this spirit inoculated their fellow-soldiers. The bitter feelings of the struggle, strong enough before, became intensified; and in every Confederate camp was brewing a sullen and somber war-cloud, the sudden flashes from which were to strike terror to the heart of the North before that summer was done.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE CONSCRIPTION AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.

In the midst of the gloom, weighing upon the country about the days of Shiloh, the Confederate Congress moved on a point of vital import to its cause. Weak and vacillating as that body had proved; lacking as it was in decision, to force its views on the executive, or to resist popular clamor, backed by brutum fulmen of the press—a moment had come when even the blindest of legislators could not fail to see.

More men, was the cry from every general in the field. With more men, the army of Manassas could have carried the war over the Potomac frontier; perhaps have ended it there. With more men, Nashville would have been saved and Shiloh won. With more men, the enemy, pouring over the daily contracting frontiers, if not checked in their advance, might be restrained from, or chastised for, the brutal and uncivilized warfare that now began to wage, away from all great army centers.

Great as was the need for new blood and new brains, in the council of the nation—still more dire was the need for fresh muscle in its armies. Levies must be raised, or all was lost; and the glories that had wreathed the southern flag, even when it drooped lowest—priceless blood that had been poured as a sacrament to consecrate it—would all be set at naught by the imbecility of the chosen lawgivers of the people. Thus, after a pressure of months from cooler heads in government, the more thoughtful of the people, and the most farsighted of the press, the few live men in Congress wrung from it the "Conscription Act" on the 16th day of April.

The reader may have gained some faint idea of the alacrity with which men of all classes rushed into the ranks; of the steady endeavor and unmurmuring patience with which they bore the toils and dangers of their chosen position; of their unwavering determination to fight the good fight to the end. That the same spirit as genuinely pervaded the masses of the army now, there is little doubt; but the South—instead of husbanding her resources, had slept during these precious months the North utilized to bring a half million of men against her.

Now, when she woke to the plain fact that her existence depended—not only on keeping in the ranks every man already there, but of adding largely to their numbers—it was but natural that the Government's torpor had, in a slight degree, reacted upon its soldiers.

When the Government had assumed more form and regularity with increased proportions and the conviction, forced upon the most obtuse mind, that a struggle was at hand demanding most perfect organization, the looseness of a divided system had become apparent. The laws against any State maintaining a standing army were put into effect; and the combined military power was formally turned over, as a whole, to the Confederate authorities. This change simply meant that complete organizations were accepted as they stood, as soldiers of the Confederacy instead of soldiers of the states; the men were mustered into the Confederate service and the officers had their state commissions replaced by those from the Confederate War Department. From that date, the troops were to look to the central Government for their pay, subsistence, and supplies.

In mustering in, all troops—with only exceptions where their contracts with state governments demanded—were received "for three years of the war." At Montgomery, many admirable organizations had been tendered to the Government for one year; and much discussion had ensued on the subject of their reception. It was then generally believed, even by the longest heads in the Cabinet, that the war would be only a campaign. I have elsewhere alluded to the tenacity with which its supporters clung to this idea; and Mr. Davis was almost alone in his persistent refusal to accept the troops for less than three years, or the war. To the one campaign people he said, very justly, that if the troops were taken for twelve months, and the war were really over in six, here was the Government saddled with the incubus at a standing army, infinitely greater than its needs; and here large bodies of men who might be of incalculable service elsewhere, tied to the vitiating and worse than useless influences of a peace camp. On the other hand, should the war last longer, in its very climax a large body of educated soldiers, just trained to a point of usefulness, would have the right to demand their discharge, when their places would be difficult to fill even with raw levies. There was much dissatisfaction among the one campaign people; but their own argument—that, if received for the war, the troops would get home before their proposed twelve months expired—was unanswerable. Now, when the same arguments were used to enforce the passage of the Conscription Act, the enemies that Mr. Davis had by this time gathered around him, little recked that in their wisdom, they were quoting him.

This transfer to the Confederate Government covered all the troops of the several states, except the militia. This, of course, remained under the authority of their respective governors.

Naturally, with the addition to the force originally contemplated by "the assembled wisdom of the land," the five brigadier-generals allowed by Congress proved totally inadequate. A law had subsequently been forced from them, granting the appointment of five generals—a rank paramount to that of field-marshal in European armies—of the regular army, who were to command volunteers; and allowing the President to appoint such number of brigadiers of volunteers as the necessities of the service demanded.

There had been little hesitancy in the selection of the generals—all of them men who had served with distinction in the army of the United States; and who had promptly left it to cast their lot with the new Government. So little difference could be found in their claims for precedence, that the dates of their old commissions decided it. They were Samuel Cooper, Albert Sidney Johnston, Robert E. Lee, Joseph E. Johnston and Pierre G. T. Beauregard.

These nominations had been received with unanimity by the Senate, and with profound satisfaction by the people. Had fitness and right been consulted equally in other appointments, much priceless blood might have been saved to the South.

Still, at the time, it was believed that the commissions of brigadier of volunteers were conferred upon the most meritorious of the resigned officers; or, where there was reason to hope good results to the service—upon the best of those men the troops had chosen as commanders. Strong pressure was, of course, brought to bear upon the President, regarding these appointments; but the verdict of army and people was that these first selections were made with as much judgment and impartiality as the untried state of the army permitted.

But fifteen months' quiet endurance of hardship, danger and doubt; the universal wail from homes that had never before known, a dark hour, but where unaccustomed toil now fought vainly against misery and disease; a pervading sense of insecurity for any point, and that those homes—broken and saddened as they were—might meet a yet worse fate—all these causes had done their work. Undaunted and unconquered as the men were, the bravest and most steadfast still longed for a sight of the dear faces far away.

The term of service of more than a hundred regiments would expire soon, enlistments had become slow and were not to be stimulated by any inducements legislation could offer. The very danger that had been pointed out in refusing more "twelve months' men" became too imminent to evade.

The soldiers of the South were more anxious than ever to meet the foe. Added to their love for the cause, many now felt bitter personal incentive to fight; and every blow was now struck alike for country and for self. But while panting for the opportunity, they had a vague feeling that they must fight nearer home and—forgetting that the sole protection to their loved ones lay in a union, closer and more organized than ever—each yearned for the hour when he would be free to go and strike for the defense of his own hearthstone.

The intent of the conscription was to put every man in the country, between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five, into the army; restricting "details" from the field within the narrowest limits of absolute necessity. It retained, of course, every man already in the field; and, had its spirit been vigorously carried out, would have more than doubled the army by midsummer.

It provided for the separate enrollment of each state under a "Commandant of Conscripts;" and for collecting new levies at proper points in "Camps of Instruction," under competent officers, that recruits might go to the army prepared in drill and knowledge of camp life for immediate service.

But, the Conscription Act, like all other congressional measures, was saddled with a companion, "Bill of Exemptions." This—while so loosely constructed as almost to nullify all good effect of the law—opened the door to constant clashing of personal and public interests, and to great abuses of the privilege.

It would, of course, have been folly to draw every able-bodied male from districts already so drained of effective population as to have become almost non-producing. Such a course would have put thousands of additional mouths into the ranks, and still further have reduced the straitened means for feeding them. And it would have been equally suicidal to draw from forge and from lathe, those skilled artisans who were day and night laboring to put weapons in the hands of those sent to wield them.

But the "Bill of Exemptions" left possible both of these things, at the same time that it failed to restrain abuses of privileges in certain high quarters. The matter of "details" was, of course, essential; and it was only to be supposed that generals in the field could best judge the value of a man in another position than the front.

But the most objectionable feature to the army was the "Substitute Law," which allowed any one able to buy a man, not subject to the action of conscription, to send him to be shot at in his place. Soldiers who had endured all perils and trials of the war, naturally felt that if they were retained in positions they objected to, those who had been comfortably at home—and in many instances coining that very necessity into fortunes—should be forced at the eleventh hour to come and defend themselves and their possessions. Besides, the class of men who were willing to sell themselves as substitutes were of the very lowest order. All citizens of the South were liable to conscription; and the "exempts" open to purchase, were either strange adventurers, or men over and under age, who—argued the soldiers—if fit for service should come of their own free will.

Veteran troops had a low enough opinion of the "conscript" as a genus; but they failed not to evince, by means more prompt than courteous, their thorough contempt for the "substitute."

These causes produced much discontent, where men would cheerfully have acquiesced in a law essential to the preservation of the fabric they had reared and cemented with their blood. To quell this feeling, a reorganization of the army was effected. A certain time was allowed for any liable man to volunteer and choose his branch of the service and, if practicable, his regiment; and so great was the dread of incurring the odium of conscription, that the skeleton veteran regiments rapidly filled up to a point of efficiency. They were then allowed to choose their own officers by election; and, though this lost to the service many valuable men who had become unpopular, still the army was better satisfied within itself.

The refilled regiments were re-brigaded by states when practicable, a general from a different state being sometimes placed in command; and the whole army was divided into corps, of three divisions each, commanded by a lieutenant-general.

Whatever the weakness of its construction—and the abuses of the exemption and detail power in carrying it out—there can be little doubt that the conscription at this time saved the country from speedy and certain conquest; and credit should be given to the few active workers in the congressional hive who shamed the drones into its passage.

Had the men whose term expired been once permitted to go home, they could never again have been collected; the army would have dwindled into a corporal's guard here and there; the masses the North was pouring down on all sides would have swept the futile resistance before it; and the contest, if kept up at all, would have degenerated into a guerrilla warfare of personal hatred and vengeance, without a semblance of confederation, or nationality.

Once passed, the people of the whole country acquiesced in and approved the conscription, and gave all the aid of their influence to its progress. Here and there a loud-mouthed demagogue would attempt to prejudice the masses against the measure; but scarcely a community failed to frown down such an effort, in the great extremity of the country, as vicious and traitorous. The opposition that the project had met in the administration—from doubt as to its availability—was removed by its very first working. What had been in its inception an unpopular measure, received now the approbation of all classes; and the governors of every state—save one—went to work with hearty good will to aid its carrying out.

This exception was Governor Joseph E. Brown, of Georgia, who entered into a long wrangle with the administration on the constitutional points involved. He denied the right of Congress to pass such an act, and of the Executive to carry it out within the limits of a sovereign state; averred—with much circumlocution and turgid bombast—that such attempt would be an infringement of the State Rights of Georgia, which he could not permit.

Mr. Davis replied in a tone so reasonable, decorous and temperate as to wring unwilling admiration even from his opponents. He pointed out briefly the weak points that rendered the governor's position utterly untenable, ignored the implied warning of resistance to the law; and succinctly stated that he relied upon the patriotism of Georgians to grasp the full meaning of the crisis their executive failed to comprehend; and he closed by stating that the conscription must go on.

Governor Brown found no supporters for his extreme views, even in the anti-administration party. The people felt the imminence of the danger; and here, as in all matters of deep import, they placed the conservation of the cause high above partisan prejudices, or jealousies of cliques. Utterly silenced by the calm dignity and incisive logic of Mr. Davis, and abandoned by the few supporters his defiance of the administration had at first collected around him, Governor Brown was forced to yield; achieving only the conviction that he had the general condemnation of the popular voice.

Once set in motion, the machinery of conscription worked rapidly and somewhat smoothly. The Camps of Instruction in all states not possessed by the enemy filled rapidly, and the class of conscripts on the whole was fairly good. By early summer they began to arrive in Richmond and "Camp Lee"—the station where they were collected—became a point equally of curiosity to the exempt and of dread to the liable.

It was curious to note the prevalence of the various state-traits, showing in the squads of conscripts from time to time passing through the city. The sturdy farmers from the interior, especially those from Virginia, Georgia and Alabama, though lacking the ease and careless carriage of the veteran soldier, had a determined port that spoke for their future usefulness. They were not merry naturally. Called from accustomed avocations and leaving behind them families defenseless and without means of support, they could scarcely have marched gaily, even when willingly, into the Carnival of Death. But they were resolute men, earnest in their love for the South and honest in their wish to serve her—with the musket, if that were better than the plough.

Tall and lank, but long-limbed and muscular, the Georgians had a swinging stride of their own; and, even when the peculiar dialect did not ring out over their ranks, something in their general style gave the idea that these were the men who would one day be fellow-soldiers of the famous "fighting Third."

Ever and anon came a dejected, weary squad with slouching gait and clayey complexions. Speaking little and then with a flat, unintoned drawl that told of the vicinage of "salt marsh;" bearing the seeds of rice-field fevers still in them, and weakly wondering at the novel sights so far from home, the South Carolina conscripts were not a hopeful set of soldiers. As soon as the tread of hostile battalions had echoed on her soil, the sons of the Palmetto State flew to their posts. State regulars went to the coast, picked volunteer corps came to Virginia. None stayed behind but those really needed there by the Government, or that refuse class which had determined to dodge duty, but now failed to dodge "the conscript man." The former were, of course, as much needed now as ever; the latter did not ride into the battle with defiance on their brows, but, on the contrary, seemed looking over their shoulders to find a hole in the mesh that implacable conscription had drawn about them.

Their next neighbors of the Old North State were hardly better in the main, but some men among them seemed not unlike the militia that had fought so well at Roanoke Island. Green and awkward; shrinking away from the chaff of passing regulars; looking a little sheepish for being conscripts, "Zeb Vance's boys" yet proved not unworthy the companionship of the men of Bethel, of Manassas and of Richmond.

At first the border states, or those overrun by the enemy, gave few additions to the conscript camps.

Kentucky, on whose adherence and solid aid to the cause such reliance had been placed in the beginning, had sadly failed to meet it. With the reminiscences of her early chivalry, her romantic warfare of the "Dark and Bloody Ground," and the warlike habits of her men, mingled considerations of the usefulness of her vast resources and her natural points for defense, lying so near the Federal territory. But as the war wore on and the state still wavered, the bent of her people seemed strangely to incline to the northern side. Seeking a neutrality that was clearly impossible, the division in her councils admitted the Federals within her borders. Then, when it was hopeless to do more, the noblest and most honored of her sons left Kentucky and ranged themselves under that banner they had in vain sought to unfurl over her.

Like Maryland, Kentucky had early formed a corps d' élite, called the "State Guard," which numbered many of the best-born and most cultured young men of the state, with headquarters at Louisville. This was commanded by General S. B. Buckner and under the general control of Governor Magoffin. This corps was supposed to represent the feelings of all better citizens in its opposition to the Union cause.

But when the action of political schemers—aided by the designs of a money-loving and interested populace—laid Kentucky, like Maryland, bound hand and foot at the feet of the Federal government; when the Union council of the state strove to disarm or put them in the Union ranks, the soldiers of the "State Guard" left unhesitatingly and joined the army of the South in large numbers.

Late in November, 1861, a convention had met; and, declaring all bonds with the Union dissolved, passed a formal Ordinance of Secession and sent delegates to ask admission from the Richmond Congress. A month later Kentucky was formally declared a member of the Confederacy; but before that time Buckner and Breckinridge had received the commissions, with which they were to win names as proud as any in the bright array of the South; a Kentucky brigade—whose endurance and valiant deeds were to shed a luster on her name that even the acts of her recreant sons could not dim—were in General Johnston's van; some of her ablest and most venerable statesmen had given up honors and home for the privilege of being freemen! All the South knew that the admission of the state was but an empty form—powerless alike to aid their cause, or to wrest her from the firm grasp the Federal government had set upon her.

At the time of the first conscription the few men left in Kentucky, who had the will, could not make their way into Confederate camps; far less could the unwilling be forced to come.

Tennessee, also, had been a source of uneasiness to the Richmond Government from the spread of Union tendencies among a portion of her inhabitants. Though she had been a member of the Confederacy near a year, still the half civilized and mountainous portions of her territory, known as East Tennessee, had done little but annoy the army near it, by petty hostilities and even by a concerted plan for burning all the railroad bridges in that section and thus crippling communications.

Fortunately this scheme had been frustrated, and the half-savage population—for the better class of Tennesseeans were almost unanimous in expression of loyalty to the South—kept in subjection.

But now with her soil overrun by Federal soldiers, and with a Federal fleet in every river, the state could not respond to the call of the South; and, of course, the soldiers she yielded the conscription were from the narrow tracts in Confederate possession only.

One hears much of the "Union feeling" in the South during the war. Immediately on its close, a rank crop of "southern loyalists" had sprung up in many quarters; basking in the rays of the Freedmen's Bureau and plentifully manured with promises and brotherly love by the open-mouthed and close-fisted philanthropy of New England. But like all dunghill products, the life of these was ephemeral. Its root struck no deeper than the refuse the war had left; and during its continuance the genus was so little known that a Carlyle, or a Brownlow, was looked upon with the same curiosity and disgust as a very rare, but a very filthy, exotic.

With the exceptions of portions of Kentucky and Tennessee, no parts of the South were untrue to the government they had accepted.

Florida was called "loyal" and General Finnegan proved with what truth. "Loyal" Missouri has written her record in the blood of Price's ragged heroes. Louisiana, crushed by the iron heel of military power, spoiled of her household gods and insulted in her women's name, still bowed not her proud head to the flag that had thus become hostile.

And the Valley of Virginia! Ploughed by the tramp of invading squadrons—her fair fields laid waste and the sanctity of her every household invaded—alternately the battle-ground of friend and foe—where was her "loyalty?"

Pinched for her daily food, subsidized to-day by the enemy and freely giving to-morrow to their own people—with farming utensils destroyed and barns bursting with grain burned in wanton deviltry—the people of the Valley still held to the allegiance to the flag they loved; and the last note of the southern bugle found as ready echo in their hearts as in the first days of the invasion—

"Their foes had found enchanted ground—

But not a knight asleep!"

In possibly one or two instances, the official reports of invading generals may have been in some slight degree erroneous; newspaper correspondents are not in every instance absolutely infallible; and perhaps it was more grateful to the tender sensibilities of the war party at the North to feel that there were hearts of brothers beating for them in the glare of burning rooftrees, or swelling with still more loyal fervor to the cry of the insulted wife!

But at this day—when the clap-trap of war has died away with the roll of its drums; when reason may in some sort take the place of partisan rage—not one honest and informed thinker in the North believes that "loyal" feeling ever had deep root anywhere among the southern masses; or that "loyal citizens" were as one in ten thousand!

Whole communities may have murmured; there may have been "schism in the council and robbery in the mart;" demagogues may have used wild comparisons and terrible threats about the Government; staunch and fearless newspapers may have boldly exposed its errors and mercilessly lashed its weak or unworthy members; some men may have skulked and dodged from their rightful places in the battle's front!

But, however misplaced the world's verdict may declare their zeal—however great the error for which they fought and suffered and died—no man to-day dare refuse to the southern people the need of their unparalleled constancy!

Even conquered—manacled and gagged by the blind and blood-thirsty faction in power—the southern people held on to the small fragments of rights left them, with brave tenacity. Willing to accept that arbitration to which they had submitted their cause, and ready to suffer with the bright memories of their past, rather than efface them by signing their own degradation.

They were conquered and bound in the flesh, but there was enough of manhood left in the spirit to say—

"Though you conquer us, men of the North, know ye not

What fierce, sullen hatred lurks under the scar?

How loyal to Hapsburg is Venice, I wot!

How dearly the Pole loves 'his father'—the Czar!"

No more singular sight was presented by all the war than the conscript depot at Richmond. The men from the "camps of instruction" in the several states—after a short sojourn to learn the simplest routine of the camp, and often thoroughly untaught in the manual even—were sent here to be in greater readiness when wanted. Such officers as could be spared were put in charge of them, and the cadets of the Virginia Military Institute were employed as drill officers.

Citizens of various states—young, old, honest and vicious alike—the conscripts were crowded together in camp, left to their own devices enough to make them learn to live as soldiers; and put through constant drill and parade to accustom them to the use of arms.

Almost every variety of costume obtained among them. The butternut jacket with blue pants of the Federal soldier, the homespun shirt with the cast-off pants of some lucky officer; and the black broadcloth frock and jauntily-cut pants that some friendly lady had ransacked her absent one's stores to give, all appeared on dress parade; surmounted by every variety of head gear, from the straw hat of many seasons to the woolen night-cap the good "marm" had knitted.

Notwithstanding much work, there was still too much leisure time; and "apple jack" filtered its way through provost guards, and cards, the greasiest and most bethumbed, wiled many an hour for the unwary and verdant.

The lower class of conscripts were almost invariably from the cities—the refuse population of the wharf, bar-room and hotel. Unwilling to volunteer, these gentry skulked behind every excuse to avoid conscription; but when forced off at last, they and the substitutes banded in an unholy brotherhood to make the best of their position.

Ringleaders in every insubordination and every vice they assumed a dégagé, or air of superiority, and fleeced their verdant companions of the very clothes they wore; while they made the impure air of the camps more foul with ribald jest and profane song.

A single glance segregated this element from the quiet country conscripts. The latter were generally gloomy, thinking of the field untilled and the wife and little ones, perhaps, unfed. When they drank "new dip" it was to drown thought, for the fumes of every stew-pan brought back shadowy memories of home and comfort; and when they slept on the damp ground—wrapped in the chance rug, or worn scrap of carpet charity had bestowed—a sad procession marched through their dreams, and sorrowful and starving figures beckoned them from mountain side and hamlet.

Great misery and destitution followed the conscription. Large numbers of men, called from their fields just as they were most needed, cut down greatly the supplies of grain. Almost all who remained at home bought their exemption by giving so large a portion of their product to Government as to reduce civil supplies still more; and these two facts so enhanced the price of food—and so reduced the value of money—that the poorer classes rapidly became destitute of all but the barest means of life. Whether this was the result of inevitable circumstance, or the offspring of mismanagement, in no way affects the fact. Food became very hard to procure even at high prices; and the money to get it was daily more and more monopolized by a grasping few.

The Confederate soldier now had a double share of toil and torture. When the smoke of the fight rolled away, and with it the sustaining glow of battle, thought bore him but grim companionship at the camp fireside; for he saw famine stalk gaunt and pale through what had been his home.

When tidings of want and misery came, he strove to bear them. When he heard of burning and outrage—where naught was left to plunder—who may wonder that he sometimes fled from duty to his country, to that duty more sacred to him of saving his wife and children!

Who does not wonder, rather, in reading the history of those frightful days, that desertions were so few—that untutored human nature could hide in its depths such constancy and devotion to principle!

But, great as were the privation and the suffering caused by the first conscription, they were still to be increased. Through those twin abortions of legislation, the substitute and exemption bills, the results of the first law proved inadequate to fill the gaps of the fatal fights of the summer.

Detail and substitute had done their work, as thoroughly as had the shells of Malvern Hill, the bullets of Sharpsburg, or the raw corn of the retreat to the river.

More men were wanted! At whatever cost in territory, or in suffering, more men must be had. And on the 27th September, Congress passed an act extending the age of conscription from 18 to 45 years. But the exemption and substitute laws remained as effective as ever. True, some feeble moves were made toward narrowing the limits of the former; but while it stood a law in any form, enough could be found to read it in any way. The extension law, while it still further drained the almost exhausted country—and left in its track deeper suffering and destitution, that brought famine from a comparative term into an actual verity—still left in the cities an able-bodied and numerous class; who, if not actually useless, were far more so than the food-producing countrymen sent to the front to take their places.

Yet so blind was the Congress—so impervious to the sharpest teachings of necessity and so deaf to the voice of common sense and reason, that unceasingly upbraided it—that this state of things continued more than a year from the passage of the extension act.

Then, when it was almost too late for human aid to save the cause—when the enemy had not only surrounded the contracted territory on every side, but had penetrated into its very heart—the substitute bill was repealed, and every man in the land between the ages of 18 and 45, declared a Confederate soldier subject to service. Then, too, the abuses of exemption and detail, so often and so clearly pointed out, were looked into and measurably corrected.

Further than this, all boys from 16 to 18, and older men, from 45 to 60, though not conscribed, were formed into reserve "home guards;" and then General Grant wrote to Washington that the cause was won when the Rebels "robbed the cradle and the grave."

But the infantile and the moribund murmured not; and more than once a raid was turned and a sharp skirmish won, when the withered cheek of the octogenarian was next the rosy face of the beardless stripling!

Only one complaint came, and that was heard with grim amusement alike by veteran, by conscript, and by substitute.

The substitute buyers now loudly raised a wail of anguish. Plethoric ledger and overflowing till, alas! must be left; the auctioneer's hammer and the peaceful shears must alike be thrown aside, and the rusty musket grasped instead; soft beds and sweet dreams of to-morrow's profit must be replaced by red mud and the midnight long roll!

It was very bitter; and rising in their wrath, a few of these railed at the perfidy of the Government in breaking a contract; and even employed counsel to prove that in effect they were already in the field.

One ardent speculator even sought the War Department and logically proved that, having sent a substitute, who was virtually himself, and that substitute having been killed, he himself was a dead man, from whom the law could claim no service!

But the Department was now as deaf as the adder of Scripture; and the counsel, let us hope, pleaded not very earnestly. So the substitute buyers—except in the few cases where the long finger of influential patronage could even now intervene—went, as their ill-gotten dollars had gone before.

It is plainly impossible, in limits of a desultory sketch, to give even a faint outline of the conscription. Its ramifications were so great—the stress that caused it so dire, and the weaknesses and abuses that grew out of it so numerous, that a history of them were but a history of the war.

Faithfully and stringently carried out, it might have saved the South. Loosely constructed and open to abuse, it was still the most potent engine the Government had used; and while it failed of its intent, it still for the first time caused the invader to be met by anything approaching the whole strength of the country.

Under its later workings, every man in the South was a soldier; but that consummation, which earlier might have been salvation—came only when the throes of death had already begun to seize her vitals.

CHAPTER XXII.

WAITING FOR THE ORDEAL BY COMBAT.

If any good fruits were to grow from the conscription, the seed had not been planted a moment too soon.

The whole power of the Union was now to be exerted against the South; and the Washington idea plainly was to lay the ax at the very root of the rebellion.

Desultory movement had already begun in the Valley and along the river; but it masked in nowise plain indication of the massing of troops for another, and a greater, "On to Richmond!"

The separate corps of Banks, Fremont and Shields were hovering about the flanks of the devoted Army of Manassas; and the decisive blow was evidently to be aimed at that point. But the clear-sighted and cool-headed tactician at the head of the bulwark of Virginia saw far beyond the blundering war-chess of his antagonist. He prepared to checkmate McClellan's whole combination; and suddenly—after weeks of quiet preparation, of which the country knew no more than the enemy—Manassas was evacuated!

To effect this movement, it was necessary to abandon all the heavy river batteries, guarding the Potomac, at immense loss in guns and material; and to destroy large quantities of commissary stores, for which there was no transportation. But, "Joe Johnston" held the movement to be necessary; and, by this time the South had learned to accept that what he thought must be correct. The great disparity in numbers, and the evident purpose of the Federals to make Richmond the focal point of attack, spoke plainly to that perfect soldier the necessity—coute que coute—of bringing his army within easy striking distance of the Capital.

Stonewall Jackson—with Ewell's and Early's divisions of less than ten thousand men of all arms—was detached to watch the enemy; and the retrograde movement was completed so successfully that McClellan never suspected the evacuation. Two days later, his grand array—"an army with banners," bands braying and new arms glinting in the sun—moved down to the attack; and then, doubtless to his infinite disgust, he found only the smoking and deserted debris of the Confederate camp. The army he had hoped to annihilate was on its steady and orderly march for Richmond.

Immediately, the baffled Federal embarked his entire force and landed it on the Peninsula—formed by the junction of the York and James rivers—in front of Magruder's fortifications. Failing at the front door, McClellan again read Cæsar, and essayed the back entrance.

Magruder's line of defense—a long one, reaching entirely across the Federal advance—was held by a nominal force, not exceeding 7,500 effective men. Had this fact been known to its commander, the "grand army" might easily have swept this handful before it and marched, unopposed, into the Southern Capital. But "Prince John" was a wily and bold soldier; and, while he sent to the rear most urgent statements of his dire need and pressed the government for re-enforcement, he kept his front covered by ceaseless vigilance, constant shifting of his thinned battalions and continued active advance skirmishing. So effective was this as entirely to deceive the enemy. McClellan sat down before him and began to fortify!

Amid the anxiety of that moment and the rapid rush of grave events that followed immediately upon it, the great importance of Magruder's tactics on the Peninsula has largely been lost sight of. That they were simply not to be overestimated, it is tardy justice to state. For, there were scores of occasions in those grim four years, when the cant went out—"We might have ended the war right here!" It was ever coupled with—and nullified by—a large and sonorous "if;" but there is no question but that—had Magruder permitted the tactician in his front to estimate his weakness—the "Seven days' fights" would never have been won, for Richmond would have been lost!

It were impossible to describe accurately the state of public feeling, which now prevailed in the Southern Capital. Absolutely in the dark as to the actual movement and its consequences; knowing only that their cherished stronghold, Manassas, was deserted and its splendid system of river batteries left a spoil; hearing only the gloomiest echoes from the Peninsular advance and ignorant of Johnston's plans—or even of his whereabouts—it was but natural that a gloomy sense of insecurity should have settled down upon the masses, as a pall. A dread oppressed them that the recent dramas of Nashville and New Orleans were to be re-enacted on their own central theater; and, ever barometric, the people let the mercury drop to zero, as they read the indications in one another's faces. Social pleasures lately so frequent—social intercourse almost—were now known no more. The music one heard was the quick tap of the timing drum; the only step thought of, the double quick to the front.

But gradually, the army that had been manœuvering about the Rappahannock began to arrive; and day and night the endless stream of muddy men poured down Main street, in steady tramp for the Peninsula. Grim and bronzed they were, those veterans of Manassas; smeared with the clay of their camp, unwashed, unkempt, unfed; many ragged and some shoeless. But they tramped through Richmond—after their forced march—with cheery aspect that put to flight the doubts and fears of her people. Their bearing electrified the citizens; and for the moment, the rosy clouds of hope again floated above the horizon.

Even the scanty ration the soldiers had become inured to had been reduced by necessities of their rapid march; and that knowledge caused every corps that passed through to receive substantial tokens of the sympathy and good will of the townspeople. Ladies and children thronged the sidewalks, pressing on their defenders everything which the scanty Confederate larder could supply; while, from many of the houses, gloves, socks and comforters rained down upon the worst clad of the companies.

"Johnny Reb" was ever a cheerful animal, with a general spice of sardonic humor. Thus refreshed, inwardly and outwardly, the men would march down the street; answering the waving handkerchiefs at every window with wild cheers, swelling sometimes into the indescribable "rebel yell!" Nor did they spare any amount of good-natured chaff to those luckless stay-at-homes encountered on the streets.

"Come out'r that black coat! I see yer in it!"—"I know ye're a conscrip'. Don't yer want 'er go for a sojer?"—"Yere's yer chance ter git yer substertoot!"—and like shouts, leveled at the head of some unlucky wight, constantly brought roars of laughter from the soldiers and from his not sympathetic friends. Passing one house, a pale, boyish-looking youth was noted at a window with a lady. Both waved handkerchiefs energetically; and the men answered with a yell. But the opportunity was too good to lose.

"Come right along, sonny! The lady'll spare yer! Here's a little muskit fur ye'!"

"All right, boys!" cheerily responded the youth, rising from his seat—"Have you got a leg for me, too?" And Colonel F. stuck the shortest of stumps on the window-sill.

With one impulse the battalion halted; faced to the window, and spontaneously came to "Present!" as the ringing rebel yell rattled the windows of that block. The chord had been touched that the roughest soldier ever felt!

Then came the calm; when the last straggler had marched through to the front and Johnston's junction with Magruder was accomplished. The rosy clouds faded into gray again; and, though the fluttering pulse of Richmond beat a little more steadily, it was not entirely normal. Rumors came from Yorktown of suffering and discontent. Coupled with exaggerations of the really overwhelming force the enemy had massed before it, they proved anything but encouraging. Still, there was no hopelessness; and the preparations, that had by this time become a matter of certainty—stretchers—bandages—lint and coarse, narrow sheets—went steadily on.

The brave women of the city were a constant reproach, in their quiet, unmurmuring industry, to the not infrequently faint-hearted and despondent men. Constantly they worked on, and tried to look cheerfully on the future by the light of the past. No one among them but knew that real and serious danger threatened; no one among them but believed that it would be met as it had been met before—boldly without doubt; triumphantly if God willed!

No need for Virginia's sons to read of the Gracchi, with a thousand Cornelias working cheerily and faithfully on the hard, tough fabrics for them. One day an order came for thirty thousand sand-bags. Never before did needles fly so fast, for who could tell but what that very bag might stand between death and a heart dearer far than aught else on earth. Thirty hours after the order came, the women of Richmond had sent the bags to Yorktown!

At length, after three weeks of trying suspense, filled with every fantastic shape of doubt and dread, came news of the evacuation of Norfolk, the destruction of the iron-clad "Virginia," and of the retreat from the Peninsula. Not appreciating the strategical reasons for these movements, Richmond lost her temporary quiet and again fell to lamenting the dark prospects for the city.

On the 4th of May, the last of the Confederate forces evacuated Yorktown; reluctantly turning their backs on the enemy, to take up the line of march for Richmond.

Next day McClellan's advance pressed on; and overtaking their rear, under Longstreet, began heavy skirmishing to harass it, near Williamsburg. Seeing the necessity of checking too vigorous pursuit, and of teaching the Federals a lesson, Longstreet made a stand; and, after a severe conflict—in which he inflicted much heavier loss than he sustained, besides capturing several field pieces and colors—again took up his march unmolested.

The battle of Williamsburg was the one brilliant episode of that gloomy retreat. Although the main army could not be checked to give him re-enforcement, and his wounded had to be left in the hands of the enemy, Longstreet had gained a decided and effective success. But this one misfortune for the moment dimmed the luster of his achievement in the eyes of the Richmond people; and, perhaps, prevented much of the good effect its decisive character might otherwise have had.

The appearance of the army, after the retreat from Williamsburg, did not tend to cheer the inexpert. First came squads of convalescent sick, barely able to march, who had been sent ahead to save the ambulances for those worse than they. It was a black Sunday afternoon, when those wan and hollow-eyed men limped painfully through the streets on their weary way to Camp Winder Hospital. Weak—mud-encrusted and utterly emaciated—many of them fell by the roadside; while others thankfully accepted the rough transportation of any chance wagon, or cart, that could carry them to the rest they yearned for.

But willing and energetic workers were at hand. Orders were obtained; and carriages returning from church, hotel omnibuses—every wheeled thing upon the streets were impressed for the service of mercy. By late afternoon the wards of Winder Hospital were over-flowing; but negligent, or overworked, commissaries had neglected to provide food, and many of the men—in their exhausted condition—were reported dying of starvation! Few women in Richmond dined that Sabbath. Whole neighborhoods brought their untasted dinners to the chief worker among them; and carriages and carts—loaded with baskets and hampers and bearing a precious freight of loving womanhood—wended their way to the hospital. By night hundreds of poor fellows had eaten such food as they had not dreamed of for months; gentle hands had smoothed their pillows and proffered needed stimulants; and sympathizing voices had bid them be of good cheer, for to-morrow would dawn bright for all.

But were these worn and wretched men a fair sample of the army that was to battle for their dear city against the fresh thousands of McClellan? Oh, God! Had toil and privation done its work so thoroughly; and were these the proud array that had marched to Manassas—the hardened, but gallant host that had gone gaily to Yorktown? Were these the only dependence of their hopes and their cause?

Sad and troubled were the hearts that beat that day, around the wretched cots of the sufferers. But never a hand trembled—never a voice faltered, as those grand women wrought on at their mission of mercy.

After these came a few stragglers and camp followers in hardly better plight; then the wagon trains; and, finally, the army.

The roads were in wretched condition. Spring rains and constant use had churned them into liquid red mud. Hungry and worn, the men struggled through it day after day—bearing their all on their backs, unable to halt for cooking; and frequently stopped to labor on a broken-down battery, or a mired wagon. Discipline naturally relaxed. It was impossible to keep the weary and half-starved men to regular routine. They straggled into Richmond muddy—dispirited—exhausted; and, throwing themselves on cellar doors and sidewalks, slept heavily, regardless of curious starers that collected around every group.

Never had the Southern army appeared half so demoralized; half so unfit to cope with the triumphant and well-appointed brigades pressing close upon it. Had McClellan been at hand, there is little doubt as to what the result would have been; but a few days sufficed to change the appearance of the whole army fabric.

Renewed discipline—that magnetic "touch of the elbow"—attention to the commissariat and the healthy location of their new camping grounds brought the men back to good condition in a time wonderfully short to the lookers-on in the city.

But they were to have little rest. McClellan advanced to the Chickahominy and strongly fortified his position. Johnston fronted him; and though too weak to attack at this moment, it became apparent that the first move in the game for the great stake must be made in a few days. And it was equally plain that it was to be made under the loving eyes of those all fought best for; within hearing of the Cabinet itself!

The details of the campaign of this eventful summer are too well known—and have been too minutely and eloquently described, even were there space—for me to attempt their repetition here.

For a week the armies faced each other, plainly in sight; the shrill notes of "Dixie" mingling with the brazen strains from the Federal bands; and yet no movement was made. Once more Richmond assumed her old activity and became a vast camp. Busy looking officers hastened from point to point; regiments shifting position passed through town every hour; mounted orderlies dashed in all directions and batteries, wagon trains and ambulances rumbled in and out of town by every road. The reflection of the activity around them, and the improved condition of the army—in physique and morale—inspired the people; and they once more began to feel hopeful, if not overconfident.

Still the river was undefended. There was no fort. Only a few water batteries—out of which the men could easily be shelled—and a few useless wooden gunboats protected the water approach to the Capital. Up this the heavy fleet of Federal iron-clads was even now carefully sounding its way. Every means had been taken to wake the Government to the necessity of obstructing the river; but either carelessness, or the confusion consequent on the retreat, had rendered them unavailing. Now at the last moment, every nerve was strained to block the river and to mount a few guns on Drewry's bluff—a promontory eighty feet high, overhanging a narrow channel some nine miles below the city.

On the 15th of May, the iron-clads approached the still unfinished obstructions. There was just time to sink the "Jamestown"—one of the wooden shells that had done such good work under the gallant Barney—in the gap; to send her crew and those of the "Virginia" and "Patrick Henry" to man the three guns mounted on the hill above—when the iron-clads opened fire.

Their cannonade was terrific. It cut through the trees and landed the missiles a mile inland. The roar of the heavy guns, pent and echoed between the high banks, was like continuous thunder, lit by lurid flashes as they belched out 13-inch Shrapnel and scattered ounce balls like hail among the steadfast gunners on the bluff.

But the terrible plunging fire of Captain Farrand's sea-dogs damaged the plating of the armored vessels and kept the wooden ones out of range; while the galling sharp-shooting of Taylor Wood's men, on the banks below, cleared their decks and silenced their guns. Once more the wager of battle was decided for the South; and the ironclads retired badly damaged.

This result was most cheering; but, unlike the early success of the war, it was received with a solemn, wordless thankfulness. Then, when the imminent danger was passed, the Government went rapidly to work to improve the obstruction and strengthen the battery at Drewry's Bluff. This became a permanent fort, admirably planned and armed with navy guns, worked by the seamen of the disused vessels. The Federals stuck to the name they first gave it—Fort Darling—for no reason, perhaps, but because of the tender reminiscences clinging around it.

Then came another season of stillness on the Chickahominy lines, which General McClellan improved to protect his rear communications; and to throw up strong embrasured fortifications along his whole front—indicating his intention to sit down before the city in regular siege; or to fight behind his works.

Meantime, the course of the Government would have inspired anything but confidence, had not the people placed the deepest and most abiding faith in the mettle and truth of their soldiers.

Congress, after weak and more than useless debates on the propriety of the step, precipitately adjourned and ran away from the threatened danger. These wise legislators had read history. They felt that the cackling which saved Rome was but one of the miracles of that philosophic Muse who teaches by experience: and that—as they could not save their city—they had better save themselves.

The Departments were packed in case of necessity for flight; and some of the archives were even put on board canal boats and towed beyond the city. This may have been only a just precaution; but the citizens of Richmond—looking upon its defense as the key to all further resistance—saw in it only acceptance of the worst results; and, when the families of the principal officials and officers fled from the Capital and sought safer homes in North Carolina and Georgia, her people would not accept as the real reason the averred necessity for saving the very small amount of provision they consumed.

But the Legislature of Virginia and the City Council of Richmond met and resolved that they were willing to stand any loss of property and life—even the destruction of the city—before giving it up to the enemy. They waited upon the President and so explained to him. Mr. Davis solemnly announced his resolution to defend the position while a man remained; and to cast his fate with that of a people who could act so bravely.

Still, so doubtful was the issue of the contest held by the lukewarm, or cowardly, few that they hesitated not to express their belief that the war was done; and they stored in secret places quantities of tobacco to be used as currency when the invaders came in!

When the dies iræ really came; and burning Richmond sent similarly hidden store,

"With the smoke of its ashes to poison the gale"—

little was the sympathy borne on the breeze for them, who—living early enough—had shamed the money-changers scourged from the Temple!

CHAPTER XXIII.

AROUND RICHMOND.

In the dead stillness of the afternoon of May 30th, the dull thunder of artillery and the crackling roll of musketry were distinctly heard in every house in Richmond.

Deep and painful suspense filled all hearts; until at night it was known that the enemy had been driven back and badly punished.

The history of "Seven Pines" is familiar to all. Some days previous, General Keyes' division had been thrown across the Chickahominy, for the purpose of feeling the Confederate lines and throwing up works that would secure the Federals that stream. The river, swelled by recent rains, rose so suddenly as to endanger Keyes' communications with his rear; and Johnston determined to attack, while he could thus strike in detail. The miscarriage of part of his plan—by which Huger's troops did not join the attack—and his own wound, by a piece of shell, late in the afternoon, alone prevented Johnston's utter destruction of this Federal corps. As it was, the enemy was driven two miles back of his camp. Heavily re-enforced next day, he resisted and drove back a desperate attack about Fair Oaks.

Now, for the first time, the people of Richmond began to see the realities of war. When the firing began, many ladies were at work for the soldiers in the churches. These flocked to the doors, pale and anxious, but with a steady determination in their faces, vainly looked for in many of the men. Gradually wagons and ambulances began to come in; slowly at first, toward nightfall more rapidly—each one bearing some faint and suffering form. Then, and not till then, those women left their other work and tended the wounded men; giving "the little cup of water" so precious to them, speaking brave words of cheer while their very souls grew sick at the unwonted sight of blood and suffering.

One poor old man, dirty and ragged, lay in a rough, springless cart; his hard, shoeless feet dropping out at its back, and his long, gray beard drenched in the blood that welled from his chest at every jolt. By his side, in the gathering twilight, walked one of Richmond's fairest daughters; her gentle voice smoothing the rough way to the hospital, and her soft hand wiping the damps from his forehead.

And there was no romance in it. He could not be conjured into a fair young knight—old, dirty, vulgar as he was. But he had fought for her—for the fair city she loved better than life—and the gayest rider in all that band were not more a hero to her!

Next morning the usual stillness of Sunday was broken by the renewed rattle of musketry—though farther off and less continuous than the day before; and by the more constant and nearer rumble of ambulance and dead cart. At dawn many of the townspeople had gone in buggies, wagons, and even the huge vans of the express companies, taking with them food and stimulants, to aid the very limited ambulance corps of the army.

All day long the sad procession came in. Here a van with four or five desperately wounded stretched on its floor; now a buggy with a faint and bandaged form resting on the driver; again the jolting coal cart with the still, stiff figure, covered by the blanket and not needing the rigid upturned feet to tell the story. The hospitals were soon overcrowded; huge tobacco warehouses had been hastily fitted up and as hastily filled; while dozens of surgeons, bare-armed and bloody, flitted through them, doing what man might to relieve the fearful havoc man had made.

Women of all ranks and of all ages crowded to them, too; some wan and haggard, seeking with tearless suspense the dear one they knew to have been stricken down; some bearing baskets of stimulants and nourishing food; but one and all eager and willing

"To do for those dear ones what woman

Alone in her pity can do."

The struggle had been brief but bitter. Most of the wounds were above the waist, for the fighting had been among undergrowth and partly against abatis; but the short-range volleys had mowed the men down by ranks. More warerooms and even stores on the Main street were opened, fitted with bunks, and filled with the maimed and suffering.

At all hours, day and night, the passer down Main street would see through the open doors long, even rows of white bunks, each one bearing some form distorted with agony, or calmly passing away; while the tireless surgeon moved from cot to cot. And at the head of each a still, patient form, almost motionless, waved the ceaseless fan or breathed the low promise of the Living Word, to one who trembled on the verge of the Valley of the Shadow of Death.

The war was at the very gates now. These palpable witnesses were too numerous to doubt. But the lips of every gaping wound spoke an eloquent pledge that, while such as these kept watch and ward, the city was safe.

Little by little the hospitals thinned; the slightly wounded went back to duty and the badly hurt began to hobble about. But on every hand were the gaunt, sad forms stretched on the narrow cots over which Life and Death wrestled for the mastery. And still the tireless love of woman watched by them—and still unworded prayers went up that the Destroyer might not prevail.

The stillness that followed "Seven Pines" was not unbroken. The armies were so near together that the least movement of either brought on a collision, and constant skirmishing went on. Not a day but had its miniature battle; and scarce an hour but added to the occupants of the hospitals. As these conflicts most frequently resulted in a Confederate success, they only served to encourage the people, and to bring them to the high pitch necessary for the prolonged note of war that was soon to sound so near them.

Just a month after the repulse of the iron-clads from Drewry's Bluff, the bold and daring "Pamunkey Raid" still further aided in this effect. General J. E. B. Stuart had by his successful conduct of the cavalry, no less than by his personal gallantry, worked his way from the colonelcy he held at Manassas to a major-generalcy of all that arm of the Virginia army. He had gained the confidence of General Lee and the greatest popularity in and out of the army; and, ably seconded by his brigadiers, "Jeb Stuart" was expected to do great deeds in the coming campaign.

Information being desired of the enemy on certain points, he volunteered to obtain it. With the advice and direction of the commanding-general, Stuart started from Richmond; made his reconnaissance; penetrated to the White House on the Pamunkey and burned the depot there; whipped the enemy's cavalry wherever he met them; and, making a complete circuit of the Federal rear, with all his captured men and horses, rode back into the city in triumph.

Whatever may be said of raids in the abstract, this was certainly a most dashing one; and was received with loud acclamation by army and people. The latter were by this time in better spirit to receive encouragement; and, dazzled by its brilliance, rather than weighing its solid advantages, placed this achievement perhaps above the more useful success at Williamsburg.

Then came the news from the Valley.

That wonderful campaign—which far exceeds in strategic power, brilliant dash and great results any other combination of the war—had been fought and won! It has been justly compared, by a competent and eloquent critic, to Napoleon's campaign in Italy; and—paling all his other deeds—it clearly spoke Stonewall Jackson the Napoleon of the South.

Coolly looking back at its details, the thinker even now is struck with respectful wonder.

Hurling his little force against Front Royal; flashing to Winchester and routing Banks; slipping between the close converging lines of Fremont and Shields—just in time to avoid being crushed between them—and bearing with him miles of wagon train and spoils; turning on the pursuing columns of Fremont, driving him back, and then sweeping Shields from his path like chaff—Jackson clears his way and marches on for Richmond!

Still onward, scarcely halting for food or rest—ever on to strike new terror when thought far away; weary, footsore—with scarcely one-half its former number, but flushed with victory and panting for further fame—the little band toils on, passes around Richmond and, just as the opposing cannon begin their last grim argument for her possession, hurl themselves like an Alpine torrent on the flank of the enemy!

The loss in this wonderful campaign was comparatively small, when we consider the rapidity of the movements; the terrible marches and the stubborn fighting against overwhelming numbers.

But there was one place vacant that none could fill. There was one name that brought the cloud to the brow of the giddiest youth, or the tear to the eye of the toughest veteran in those sturdy ranks; one name that stilled the song on the march and hushed the rough gossip of the bivouac to a saddened whisper. Turner Ashby was dead!

True knight—doughty leader—high-hearted gentleman—he had fallen when the fighting was well-nigh over—his devoir nobly done and his name as stainless as the bright blade he ever flashed foremost in the fight!

Chivalric—lion-hearted—strong armed—

"Well they learned, whose hands have slain him,

Braver, knightlier foe

Never fought 'gainst Moor or Paynim—

Rode at Templestowe!"

All the country missed Ashby. But Virginia mourned him most; and among her stricken sons, those hard-handed, ragged heroes of Jackson's Old Guard—who had marched the furthest and fought the hardest following him—were the chiefest mourners. Jackson had reared a noble monument, to be viewed from all the dimmest vistas of the future. But the fair column was shattered near its top; and the laurel leaves that twined it were mingled with evergreen cypress.

Then the strained suspense was broken. On the 26th of June began that memorable series of fights that northern and southern history—voluminous reports of generals and detailed accounts of newspapers, have made familiar to all who care to read of battles.

A. P. Hill's steady attack at Mechanicsville, though at great cost, drove the enemy's right wing back; to be struck next morning on the flank by Jackson and sent, after a sullen and bloody resistance, to the works near Gaines' Mill. Still on the barefooted boys press with resistless rush, leaving dead or mangled brothers and writhing foemen in their gory track! Never pausing to look back, but each successive day driving the enemy at the bayonet's point from works frowning with cannon.

Cold Harbor has told its brilliant story. Frasier's Farm is fought and won!

With ranks fearfully thinned, scant of food and pausing not to rest, the struggling men press on—ever on! Weary and faltering on the march, the first sharp crack of the rifle lights a new fire in every eye; and drinking the hot breath of the battle,

"Stalwart, they court like Anak's sons

The rapture of the fight!"

The tide of the battle swung round and the retreating army of McClellan—fighting steadily by day and retreating noiselessly in the night—fronted from the city which now lay on its left flank.

The Federals were neither demoralized, nor panic struck, as has been sometimes believed; and such an error, while it has bloody refutation in the nameless graves that make the track of these fights precious to the southron—does less than justice to the constancy and enduring valor of the little army that wrung the victory from them at such fearful cost.

Their retreat was orderly and steady. Driven each day from works on which they relied—marking their path with untold destruction of munitions, supplies and even of food on which they depended—the soldiers of the North were well held together; never refusing to turn and face the resistless foe that hurled itself against them, careless alike of cannon and steel, weariness and death!

There can be little doubt now of the consummate tact of McClellan's retreat. It is the bright page in the northern annals of strategy. Beaten each day and driven from his well-chosen strongholds—clearly chosen with a view to such necessities—he still held his army thoroughly in his grasp and carried it off in such order as no Federal force had yet preserved in the face of retreat. Only the resistless impetuosity of the southern troops drove all before them; and though careful analysis may prove in theory that, but for the blunder of a subordinate, Lee could one day have utterly destroyed him, this fact should not detract, in the impartial mind, from the great ability of McClellan which really prevented it.

Still, up to the last bloody day at Malvern Hill, the city lay open to the Federal general had he known the truth. Between him and the coveted prize was a mere handful of men, who could have offered but slight resistance to his overwhelming numbers; the main army of defense was in his front, further away than many points of his retreat; and, had he fully understood the position, a bold and dashing stroke of generalship might have turned the scale, spite of all the red successes of southern arms. More than once in the "Seven Days" a rapid march by the flank would have put McClellan in possession of the Capital and secured him in its strong defenses; from which the wearied troops of Lee could scarcely have ejected him.

But it was not to be. When the shattered and torn Confederates drew off, like lions at bay, from the horrid slopes of Malvern Hill—leaving them drenched with priceless blood and piled thick with near one-third their number—McClellan declined further battle and withdrew his beaten army to the fleet.

He had made a great retreat. But he had lost his great stake.

When the armies lay at Mechanicsville, both were plainly visible from many points in the city. From the Capitol, miles of encampment could be seen, spreading out like a map; and in the dusk the red flash of each gun and the fiery trail of its fatal messenger were painfully distinct. The evening before Hill's advance, the poet-librarian of the Capitol was pointing out the localities to a company of officers and ladies. Among them was a lady who had suffered much in the flesh and been driven from her home for brave exertions in that cause, which was in the end to leave her widowed spirit with no hope on this side of the narrow house. A terrific thunderstorm had just passed over the hostile hosts; but the dense masses of cloud had rolled away to the river, leaving it in deep shadow, while a bright reflection from the sunset wrapped both camps in a veil of mellow light. Not a shot disturbed the still peacefulness of the scene, to give token of the wild work already shaped out for the next week. Suddenly a glorious rainbow shaped itself in the transparent mist over the Confederate camp, spanning it from end to end. The lady pointed it to the poet.

"I hail the omen!" she said. "It is a token of God's promise that yonder flood will not overwhelm us! That His hand will be raised as of old, to hurl it back from His chosen people!"

And when the omen was accomplished and Richmond was safe, the poet sent the lady those classic lines so well-known in the South—"The Battle Rainbow."

Next afternoon the great fight began. The sharp, quick rattle of small arms, and the dull incessant boom of artillery told of hot work even nearer than "Seven Pines." So sharp and clear were the reports that it seemed the fight must be on the very edge of town; and the windows rattled at every discharge.

Almost every man, worthy of the name, was at the front; but the brave and steadfast women of Richmond collected in groups and—while they listened with blanched faces and throbbing hearts—still tried to cheer and comfort each other.

They spoke of the past; of their faith in the flower of the South at that moment battling for them; and they heard the sound of the cannon growing farther and fainter, only to feel more loving trust in those who, under God, had saved them from that chiefest of ills!

Day by day, as the tide of battle surged farther off, it sent into Richmond cheering news that nerved afresh these brave hearts for the horror to come. Gaines' Mill, Cold Harbor and Frasier's Farm rolled back their echoes of triumph; news came of the strait into which McClellan was driven and that one day more must see him a prisoner in the city he had dared—his splendid host swept away and destroyed. Finally the news of Malvern Hill—the wild shout of battle scarce drowning the death-cry—sent a thrill of mingled agony and pride to their very heart's core.

But day by day, as the red tide rolled back, it swept into Richmond terrible fragments of the wreck it had made. Every conveyance that could follow the army, or could be pressed from the almost stripped country around it, bore in from the River Road its load of misery. Manassas had hinted the slaughter of a great fight; Seven Pines had sketched all the hard outlines of the picture; but the Seven Days put in the dismal shadows, with every variation of grotesque horror.

In the dearth of transportation and the hurry of onward movement, many had been left for days with stiffening wounds on the field, or roadside. Others had undergone the loss of limbs at field hospitals; some were bent and distorted in their agony; and again the stiff, set jaw and wide, glassy eye, told that the journey was over before the end was reached.

The chain of regular hospitals and even the temporary one—nearly emptied since Seven Pines—now rapidly filled and overflowed. Private houses swung wide their doors and took in wounded men—brothers alike if gentle-blooded Louisianian, or hard-handed mountainmen—and the women, one and all, wrought as if their energies had never before been taxed or even tested.

But a black shadow had come and brooded deep over Richmond. Half the gentle forms gliding noiselessly among the suffering were draped in black; and many a pale face was saddened with an anguish deeper than furrowed those resting on the coarse pillows around.

The fight was won. The enemy that had for months flaunted his victorious flag in full sight of the Capitol was baffled and beaten. New glories had clustered round the flag of the South; new quarrels and doubts had been sent to the North. Lee, Jackson, Longstreet, the Hills and Hood had added fresh laurels to brows believed to have room for no leaf more. Almost every officer had proved himself worthy of the prayers of such women as the South owned—of that even higher glory of leading such troops as fought to defend them.

But at what awful cost had all this been bought! The slaughter of their nearest and dearest had been terrific: women, the highest and lowliest, met by the cot of the sufferer; and, in the free masonry of love, tended the living and comforted each other for their dead.

But through the brave endeavor of their sacred office, these noble sisters of mercy showed no yielding to the claims of self. Over their own sorrows they rose triumphant—tended the faint—cheered the despondent—filling the place of wife and mother to those who should nevermore see home—even while

"The air is filled with farewells to the dying

And wailings for the dead;

The voice of Rachel for her children crying

Can not be comforted."

CHAPTER XXIV.

ECHO OF SEVEN DAYS, NORTH AND SOUTH.

The result of the "Seven Days" was to produce a profound joyousness in the South, which lightened even those deep shadows from the sorrows that had fallen upon individuals; to raise the spirits of the whole people and to send into every heart that loved the cause a glow of confident pride in the southern soldier—chastened somewhat by present sorrow and tempered, perhaps, by the lessons of the past—that nothing in their after misfortunes could quench.

But while it taught the people this, the victory taught the Government that no energy could be too great—no watchfulness misplaced, in preparing for the heavy blows of the northern government at all times, and at any point, to carry out its pet scheme of reducing the southern Capital.

The blatant triumph that had followed other victories and the secure apathy of the southern government, had alike been swept away by that terrific surge of battle, rolled back harmlessly, only when on the point of overwhelming us; and in their stead came the deep-seated resolve to act in the present, even while they dreamed in the future.

In the North, a hoarse roar of rage went up. The good behavior of their troops and the great ability of their general—unquestioned even by the men who had steadily fought and doggedly driven him before them—were both lost sight of in the wild wail that went up over—the cost!

Millions upon millions had been spent in equipping the grand army—all wasted now in that futile effort to conquer the Rebel Capital—offered as a burnt offering to the avenging War God; and only the blood of its thousands to manure the fields in front of the coveted city!

There was a howl of malediction against the only general so far tried—who had proved himself a tactician in anything but name; and as part of its policy the northern government shamelessly sacrificed McClellan, while it could not but unhesitatingly acknowledge his merit.

Unlike the South, the North throughout the whole war bent its every energy toward concentrating the most useful elements among its many parties. Seeming to bend to the will of each; propitiating all popular elements and utilizing all able ones; listening patiently to the mouthing of demagogues and the vituperation of the press; distributing its contracts so as to make every dollar of patronage tell; and handling the great engine, Wall street, in masterly style—the Washington government simply collected and sifted the varied mass of opinion and material—to form from it a composite amalgam-policy that proved its only salvation. Through every change in that policy—through every gradation of animus that affected the complexion of the war—the masses of the North really believed they were fighting for the Constitution—for the flag, and for the Union!

Whether they were so tightly blindfolded as not yet to see their error, is no question to be discussed here.

No sooner had the howl gone up through the North, against the General who—spite of refused re-enforcements, jealousy and intrigue behind his back, and the terrible enemy before him—had saved his army, than the Government responded to it. Large numbers of men were sent from Harrison's Landing to Acquia Creek; the Federal forces at Warrentown, Alexandria and Fredericksburg were mobilized and strengthened; and the baton of command was wrenched from the hand of McClellan to be placed in that of Major-General John Pope!

The history of this new popular hero, to this time, may be summed up by saying that he had been captain of Topographical Engineers; and that the books of that bureau showed he had prosecuted his labors with perhaps less economy than efficiency.

Rapidly promoted for unknown reasons in the western armies, the public hit upon him as the right man at last; and the complaisant Government said: "Lo! the man is here!" and made him general-in-chief of the Army of Virginia.

From the command of Pope dates a new era in the war. No longer a temperate struggle for authority, it became one for conquest and annihilation. He boldly threw off the mask that had hitherto concealed its uglier features, and commenced a systematic course of pillage and petty plundering—backed by a series of curiously bombastic and windy orders.

Calmly to read these wonderful effusions—dated from "Headquarters in the saddle"—by the light of his real deeds, one could only conceive that General Pope coveted that niche in history filled by Thackeray's O'Grady Gahagan; and that much of his reading had been confined to the pleasant rambles of Gulliver and the doughty deeds of Trenck and Munchausen.

To sober second thought, the sole reason for his advancement might seem his wonderful power as a braggart. He blustered and bragged until the North was bullied into admiration; and his sounding boasts that he had "only seen the backs of his enemies," and that he had "gone to look for the rebel, Jackson"—were really taken to mean what they said. When Pope did at last "find the rebel, Jackson," the hopeful public over the Potomac began to believe that their truculent pet might have simply paraphrased Falstaff, and cried—

"Lying and thieving have blown me up like a bladder!"

For Jackson gave the bladder a single prick, and lo! it collapsed.

Resting his wearied and shattered troops only long enough to get them again into fighting trim, General Lee prepared to check the third great advance upon Manassas. Working on the inner line and being thus better able to concentrate his strength, he left only enough troops around Richmond to delay any advance of McClellan from the Peninsula; and, before the end of July, sent Stonewall Jackson—with Ewell's, A. P. Hill's, and his own old division under General Charles S. Winder, in all about 10,000 men—to frustrate the flatulent designs of the gong-sounding commander, whose Chinese warfare was echoing so loudly from the frontier.

Cautious, rapid and tireless as ever, Jackson advanced into Culpeper county; and on the 9th of August gave the gong-sounder his first lesson on the field of Cedar Mountain. Throwing a portion of his force under Early on the enemy's flank and bringing Ewell and, later, Winder against his front, Jackson forced him from his position after a bloody fight, which the advance of A. P. Hill turned into a complete victory.

Cedar Mountain was a sharp and well-contested fight; but the Confederates inflicted a loss five times their own, held the field, and captured a number of prisoners and guns. General Winder led his troops gallantly to the charge, but just at the moment of collision he was struck and mortally wounded by a shell. And the unstained spirit of the gallant son of Maryland winged its flight, ere the shouts of victory could cheer it on its way!

The Washington government at once ordered the remains of McClellan's army to General Pope; and massing with them Burnside's army at Fredericksburg and the vicinity, strained every nerve to aid his successful advance.

But here we may digress for the moment, to take a bird's-eye view of matters of grave moment passing in distant quarters of the Confederacy.

While victory had perched upon Confederate banners in Virginia, a heavy cloud was gathering over the West; threatening to burst and sweep ruin and destruction over the whole trans-Alleghany region. Not dispirited by the reverses in Virginia, the northern government remitted nothing of its designs upon the West, but rather pushed them toward more rapid completion. These designs were to hold the State of Kentucky by the army under Buell, wrest from the South the possession of Tennessee and Alabama—as a base for attack upon Georgia and cutting through to the seaboard; and to push the army under Grant down through Mississippi to the Gulf. These movements would not only weaken the Confederacy, by diverting so many men, ill to be spared, to watch the various columns; but would, moreover, wrest from it the great grain-producing and cattle-grazing sections from which the armies were mainly fed. Simultaneously with these a heavy force was to be massed under McClernand in Ohio, to sweep down the Mississippi; while the weak show of Confederate force in the states west of the river was to be crushed before it could make head.

Such was the Federal programme; well conceived and backed by every appliance of means, men and material. To meet it we had but a small numerical force to defend an extensive and varied tract; and at the Capital grave fears began to prevail that the overpowering numbers and points of attack would crush the little armies we could muster there.

Nor was the feeling of the people rendered more easy by their confidence in the general to whom the defense of this invaluable section was entrusted. General Braxton Bragg—however causeless and unjust their dictum may have been—had never been popular with the southern masses. They regarded him as a bloodthirsty martinet, and listened too credulously to all silly stories of his weakness and severity that were current, in the army and out. Influenced rather by prejudice than by any real knowledge of the man, they believed him vain, arrogant and weak; denying him credit for whatever real administrative ability that he possessed. The painful result of his command was later emphasized by the pessimists, to justify their incredulity as to his executive powers.

Besides, many people believed that General Bragg was a pet—if not a creature of Mr. Davis; and that he was thrust into a position that others deserved far more, when he succeeded Beauregard in command of the army of the West.

The latter officer had, after the evacuation of Corinth, been compelled to retire by ill health; and Bragg was soon sent to take his place, with the understanding in the minds of the people that Kentucky was to be the theater of active operations, and that a programme of aggression—rather than of defense—was to be carried out, as suggested by Beauregard.

General Bragg entered upon his command with a show of great vigor—falling into General Beauregard's views that a diversion toward Ohio, threatening Cincinnati, would leave the main army free to march upon Louisville before re-enforcements could reach Buell. With this view General Kirby Smith, with all the troops that could be spared—ill clad, badly equipped, and with no commissariat—was pushed forward toward the Ohio. On the 29th of August—while our victorious cannon were still echoing over the field of the second Manassas—he met and defeated the enemy at Richmond; pressed on to Lexington, and thence to a point in easy reach of Cincinnati—at that moment not only the great granary and storehouse of the Federal armies of the West, but their depot and arsenal as well; her wharves crowded with transports, quartermasters' steamers and unfinished gunboats, and her warehouses bursting with commissary and ordnance stores.

When the news of Smith's triumphant march to the very gates of Cincinnati reached Richmond, it was universally believed that the city would be captured, or laid in ashes; and thinking men saw great results in the delay such destruction would cause to the advance of the enemy into the heart of their territory.

Meantime, General Bragg had entered Kentucky from Chattanooga, with an army re-enforced and better equipped than had been seen in that section since the war began. Once more cheering reports came to Richmond that the Confederates were in full march for the enemy; that any moment might bring news of the crushing of Buell before re-enforcements, or fresh supplies, could reach him. Great was the disappointment, therefore, when news really came of the withdrawal of southern troops from before Cincinnati; and that all action of Bragg's forces would be postponed until Smith's junction with him.

Intense anxiety reigned at the Capital, enlivened only by the fitful report of the fight at Munfordville—inflicting heavy loss upon both sides, but not productive of any result; for, after the victory, Bragg allowed Buell to escape from his front and retire at his will toward the Ohio. That a Confederate army, at least equal in all respects, save perhaps numbers, to that of the enemy, should thus allow him to escape was then inexplicable to the people; and, as far as I have learned, it is so still.

There is no critic so censorious as the self-appointed one; no god so inexorable as the people's voice. General Bragg's last hold upon the southern masses—military and civil—was lost now.

The fight at Munfordville occurred on the 17th of September, but it was not until the 4th of the next month that the junction with Smith was effected at Frankfort. Then followed a Federal advance upon that town, which proved a mere diversion; but it produced the effect of deceiving General Bragg and of causing him to divide his forces. Hardee's and Buckner's divisions were sent to Perryville; and they with Cheatham's—who joined them by a forced march—bore the brunt of the battle of Perryville on the 8th of October. Notwithstanding the great disparity of numbers, the vim of the "barefooted boys" prevailed against the veterans of Buell's army, under General G. W. Thomas. They gained a decided advantage over three times their number, but once again what was a mere success might have been a crushing defeat, had Bragg's whole army been massed at Perryville.

It is neither within the scope nor the purpose of this chapter to give more than a bare skeleton of events, or to discuss the delicate points of strategy; but it was a great dash to the hopes of the entire people that what might have been a crushing blow to Buell—freeing three states from Federal occupation—resulted only in the retreat of the Confederates from Kentucky.

For, whatever may have been the cause, or the necessity for the movement, the army was hastily withdrawn. Supplies were burned; disabled carriages and abandoned arms marked the retreat; and the terror-stricken people who had, a few weeks before, dismissed the southern banners with vivas and blessings to certain victory, now saw that same army, to their dismay and sorrow, filing sadly and wearily toward the border.

Almost equally as astonished as their retreating enemy, the Federals pressed on in pursuit, hot and close; and it was only the ability and dash with which General Wheeler covered the retreat of the army—laden as it was with captured arms and munitions, and encumbered with crowds of women and children, who dared not stay behind—that saved it from destruction on that disastrous road from Perryville to Cumberland Gap.

Loud, deep and bitter were the comments of the people when the full news of the Kentucky campaign reached them. Unpopular as the name of Bragg had been before, it was now mentioned often with execration; and the reverses of his universally-condemned favorite reacted upon the popularity of Mr. Davis as well. Without understanding the details of the campaign, and with no patience to listen to the excuses of his few defenders, the public voice was unanimous in denunciation of the plan and conduct of the whole movement; and it arraigned the President for the fault of his inferior, calling him to trial before a jury that daily was becoming more biased and more bitter against him.

Like all the gloomy pages of Confederate history, the Kentucky campaign was illumined by flashes of brilliance, dash and enduring courage, surpassed by no theater of the war. Disastrous as it was in result, it fixed more firmly than ever the high reputation of Kirby Smith; it wreathed the names of Buckner, Hardee, Cheatham and Adams with fresh bays; and it gave to Joseph Wheeler a record that the people of that country will long remember.

In the events first preceding the disaster, too, as well as in his independent raid during July, John H. Morgan had added additional luster to his rising star, that was only to culminate in his exploits of the next year. These were the brighter gleams; but the whole picture was, indeed, a somber one; and there can be no wonder at the people's anger and distrust when they looked upon it. For it showed a vast and rich territory, teeming with those supplies needed most, yielded up to the full uses of the enemy; a people one with the South at heart given over to oppression of an alien soldiery and unable to co-operate with their own long days to come; and across the face of the somber picture was drawn the track of the blood of hundreds of brave men; sacrificed needlessly, the people said—and in a manner stupid, if not barbarous.

A grave injustice had been done the people of Kentucky, because of their conduct during the retreat. Baseless charges of their cowardice and treachery had been bandied about in the mouths of the unreflecting; the many had been made to suffer for the baseness of the few; and the shield of the state had been tarnished because of an inaction her people could not avoid.

Crushed, bound and deserted, as they were—with their only reliance fading away from their eyes, and a bitter and triumphant enemy in hot pursuit at their very doors—it would have been worse than folly—it would have been suicide! had the people on the line of that retreat offered a blatant sympathy. Utterly useless to others it must have been—and even more ruinous to themselves!

And this is the verdict of that Justice who, though slow of foot, fails not to overtake Truth, in her own good time.

CHAPTER XXV.

THE WAR IN THE WEST.

And misfortunes did not come singly, but in battalions.

The trans-Mississippi was so far distant that only broken echoes of its troubles could penetrate the web of hostile armies between it and the Capital. But those echoes were all of gloom. Desultory warfare—with but little real result to either side, and only a steady drain on Confederate resources and men—had waged constantly. A trifling success had been gained at Lone Jack, but it was more than done away with by aggregate losses in bloody guerrilla fighting. Spies, too, had been shot on both sides; but the act that came home to every southern heart was the wanton murder of ten Confederates at Palmyra, by the order of General McNeil, on the flimsy pretext of retaliation. The act, and its attendant cruelties, gained for him in the South the name of "The Butcher;" and its recital found grim response in every southern camp—as each hard hand clasped tighter round the hard musket stock—and there was an answering throb to the cry of Thompson's prompt war song:

"Let this be the watchword of one and of all—

Remember the Butcher, McNeil!"

Meantime, Mississippi had been the scene of new disasters. Vicksburg, the "Queen of the West," still sat unhurt upon her bluffs, smiling defiance to the storm of hostile shot and shell; teaching a lesson of spirit and endurance to which the whole country looked with admiration and emulation. On the 15th of August the iron-clad ram, "Arkansas," had escaped out of the Yazoo river; run the gauntlet of the Federal fleet at Vicksburg and made safe harbor under the town, to aid in its heroic defense.

Twenty days thereafter, General Breckinridge made a most chivalrous and dashing, but equally useless and disastrous, attack upon Baton Rouge. His small force was greatly outnumbered by the garrison, behind heavy works and aided by a heavy fleet of gunboats: and after a splendidly gallant fight, that had but one serious result—he was forced to withdraw. That result was the loss of the ram Arkansas—which went down to co-operate with this movement. Her machinery became deranged, and there was only the choice of surrendering her to the enemy, or of sending her the road that every Confederate iron-clad went sooner, or later—and she was blown up.

But the gloom was only to grow deeper and deeper, with thickening clouds and fewer gleams of light.

After the fight at Iuka, in which that popular darling had been defeated and forced to fall back before superior numbers, Price had combined his army with that of Van Dorn; and on the 3d of October, the latter led them to another wild and Quixotic slaughtering—standing out among the deeds even of that stirring time, in bold relief for brilliant, terrible daring, and fearful slaughter—but hideous in its waste of life for reckless and ill-considered objects. The forces of the enemy at Corinth were in almost impregnable works; and Van Dorn—after worsting them in a hot fight on the 3d, and driving them into these lines, next day attacked the defenses themselves and was driven back. Officers and men behaved with a cool and brilliant daring that savored more of romance than of real war; deeds of personal prowess beyond precedent were done; and the army of Mississippi added another noble page to its record—but written deep and crimson in its best blood.

And another piteous cry was wrung from the hearts of the people to know how long, O, Lord! were these terrible scenes—killings, not battles; and with no result but blood and disaster!—to be re-enacted.

After its retreat from Kentucky, Bragg's army rested for over a month at Murfreesboro, the men recruiting from the fatigues of that exhausting campaign; and enjoying themselves with every species of amusement the town and its kindhearted inhabitants offered—in that careless reaction from disaster that ever characterized "Johnny Reb." There was no fresh defeat to discourage the anxious watchers at a distance; while the lightning dashes of John Morgan, wherever there was an enemy's railroad or wagon train; and the flail-like blows of Forrest, gave both the army and the people breathing space.

But fresh masses of Federals were hovering upon the track of the ill-starred Bragg, threatening to pounce down upon and destroy him—even while he believed so much in their inaction as to think of forcing them into an advance. The Federals now held West and Middle Tennessee, and they only needed control of East Tennessee to have a solid base of operations against Northern Georgia. Once firmly established there, they could either force their way across the state and connect with their Atlantic seaboard fleets; or could cut the sole and long line of railroad winding through the Confederate territory; thus crippling the whole body by tapping its main vital artery, and causing death by depletion. Rosecrans, with an army of between forty and fifty thousand men, was lying in Nashville, watching and waiting the moment for his telling blow.

This was the posture on Christmas, 1862. Three days after the enemy struck—heavily and unexpectedly.

The first intimation General Bragg had of the movement was cavalry skirmishes with his advance. These continued daily, increasing in frequency and severity until the 30th of December, when the contending armies were near enough for General Polk to have a heavy fight with the Federal right.

Next day, the weather being bitter and the driving sleet filling the atmosphere, the general battle was joined. McCowan and Cleburne, under Hardee, charged the Federal's right through a deadly hail of artillery and small arms, that darkened the air as thickly as the sleet—driving him back at the bayonet's point and swinging his front round from his center. The fierce valor of the southern troops and the brilliant dash of their leaders was resistless; and evening fell upon a field, wet with the blood of the South, but clearly a field of victory. Though the Federals fought with desperation, they were so badly hurt that Bragg believed they would fall back that night, in such confusion as to leave them his easy prey.

Morning of the New Year dawned cold, dark and stormy; but the enemy was still in sight, having only taken up a stronger position on a hill and posted his artillery most advantageously. It began to look as if General Bragg's telegram to Richmond of the victory he had gained, might require a postscript; but all that long New Year's day he allowed the enemy time to recuperate and strengthen his position.

It seemed as though another Shiloh was to be re-enacted; a victory wrenched from heavy odds by valor and skill was to be nullified by delay in crushing the enemy, while yet demoralized.

Next day came; and then Breckinridge was sent through a terrific storm of balls and shell, that cut down his gallant boys like grass before the scythe. On, into the Valley of the Shadow they strode; thinned, reeling, broken under that terrible hail—but never blenching. And the crest was won! but the best blood of Kentucky, Louisiana, Tennessee, Florida, Alabama and North Carolina was flooding that horrid field! Over two thousand noble fellows lay stiff, or writhing with fearful wounds—thick upon the path behind the victorious column.

And then—with that fatality that seemed ever to follow the fortunes of the unfortunate general in command—the army fell back!

Broken was the goblet of victory; wasted the wine of life! And it was accepted as but small consolation, by the people who hoped and expected so much—small surcease to the sob of the widow and the moan of the orphan! that "the retreat to Tullahoma was conducted in good order."

And again the public voice rose loud and hoarse and threatening against the general and the President, whose favorite he was declared to be.

But amid the darkening clouds that frowned close and threatening upon him—fearless of the future and heedless of the ominous roar of dissatisfaction far and near—sat the ruling spirit of the storm he had raised. Grim, steady and purposeful, Jefferson Davis worked his busy brain and frail body almost past belief, to redeem the errors of his chosen instruments—seeking no counsel, asking no aid—and day by day losing the confidence of the sand-shifting populace, who had once made him their God! And one act of his now did more than all besides to reassure the public mind.

Joseph E. Johnston was sent to command the armies of the West! Since his wound at "Seven Pines," the Government—from causes unknown to the people—had allowed this brilliant soldier to rust in inactivity; and now, when all of evil that ill-fortune and want of combination could accomplish had been done in the West, he was singled out, and sent forth to reap the harvest so bitterly sown. He was told, in effect, to take the frayed and scattered ends of armies and campaigns and bind them into a firm and resisting chain of strategy; or—to bear the sins of others upon his shoulders and have the finger of History point to him as the man who lost the West! But patriot soldier and true knight as he was—little resentful of the coldness of Government as he was doubtful of his own ability—"Joe Johnston" accepted the test cheerily and went forth to do, or die.

"For the Johnstons have ever borne wings on their spurs,

And their motto a noble distinction confers—

'Ever ready!' for friend, or for foe!"

And this worthy son of noble sires went to clear the Augean Stables of the West; and the God-speed of his own state—swelled into a hearty chorus by the voice of the country—followed him on his knightly errand!

Meantime, Lincoln's famous Proclamation of Emancipation had been promulgated. It made little difference to the people of the South; for it was at that time looked upon as a vaunt as idle as if he had declared the throne of England vacant. Secure in their belief in their right doing, and in the trusty arms and deadly rifles that defended it, the southern masses never dreamed the day would come when that proclamation would be more than the paper upon which it was engrossed. Still, in the general gloom upon them, it was taken as but another augury of the bitter spirit animating their enemies; and of the extent to which it would drive them in this war for the Union and flag.

And so the close of '62 fell dark and dismal upon the distracted country; enlivened only by the sole gleam in Virginia—the repulse of Burnside from Fredericksburg. But even the joy for this triumph was dashed by the precious blood spilled to purchase it; another vent for that steady drain of men, material and endurance—already almost past bearing.

But there was no weak yielding in Government, or in people. Men looked at each other through the gloom, and even as they asked—"Brother, what of the night?"—struck hands in a clasp that meant renewed faith in the cause and renewed determination to prove its right.

Early in the New Year, news reached Richmond of Magruder's amphibious victory, the recapture of Galveston; which town had fallen a prey to the enemy's naval power early in October. On the last night of '62—while the wearied troops of Bragg were sleeping on the bloody field of Murfreesboro—General Magruder, with a mixed command of three regiments of raw infantry, some nineteen pieces of field artillery, and a boarding fleet of four unarmed boats, came down silently to Galveston. The Federal fleet—consisting of the Harriet Lane, the Clifton, the Westfield and the Ossawa—were lying just off the town; covering it with their broadsides and supported by a force of infantry.

Coming suddenly upon them, like shadows through the darkness, Magruder's land force opened a hot fire with field artillery—and aided by the daring boarding of the Lane by Colonel Leon Smith's co-operating water party—captured the former steamer, burned one other, and drove the remaining ones, with their tenders, to sea; where it was impossible to follow them.

This gallant and comparatively bloodless raising of the Galveston blockade was a gleam of hopeful light; especially as it was almost coincident with the first approach to a naval success, by the force of Commodore Ingraham in Charleston Harbor on the 30th of January. The vessels under his command were ill-built, awkward tubs—as will hereafter be seen; but the terrible Brooke gun did its work at long range, and drove the wooden blockading fleet from the harbor for the moment.

This victory, unimportant as it was—for the blockade it claimed to raise was renewed and strengthened within a few days—was cheering; for, said the people, if the Confederates can succeed on the water, surely the star of the South is not really on the wane.

But there was, after the New Year, a sudden stoppage of active movements on both sides. The terrific crash of hostile cannon—the continuous roar of opposing small arms—and the groan of the Federal mixed with the death-cry of the Confederate, were all suddenly stilled. The fearful tornado of war that had swept for many months the once-smiling Southland—leaving its wake only the blackened track of ruin piled thick with stiffened corpses!—was suddenly hushed; as though the evil powers that had raised it must pause to gather fresh strength, before once more driving it in a fiercer and deadlier blast.

In the West, we had lost in the early year the strong position of Arkansas Post with its large accumulation of stores and its garrison of over 3,000 men; but the Queen City still sat defiant and unharmed, the hostile fleet and army having left its fruitless task; and the twin stronghold of Port Hudson showed another row of ugly teeth, into range of which no Federal force seemed yet ready to venture.

On the Atlantic seaboard, too, the prospects, at this time, appeared more cheering. Girt as it was, with one unbroken line of watchful cruisers, with every port apparently sealed by blockade—southern ingenuity and pluck still defied them and ran in precious stores of arms, clothing and medicines. General Beauregard had taken active command of South Carolina and Georgia; and had put the defenses of both coasts—especially of Charleston and Savannah—into such a state of fitness as quite satisfied the Government and made the people of those states calm and confident in his ability to protect them and theirs. General Gustavus W. Smith—the friend and comrade of General Joe Johnston—had, like him, been rewarded for his sacrifices in coming South, and his able exertions afterward, by the coldness and neglect of the Government. But like him, too, he forgot personal wrongs; and, when ordered to North Carolina, threw his whole energy and skill into the works of defense for the coast and for that vital artery of railroad, on which the life of the South depended.

Butler still waged his peculiar warfare upon unarmed men and weak women in the soft nest he had made himself, at New Orleans; but Mobile reared her defiant crest and took into her bosom peaceful vessels laden with stores of priceless utility, only to send them out again—bristling with rifled cannon, fleet-winged and agile, ready to pounce upon the Federal shipping.

In the Middle West, Johnston's presence had acted like oil upon the darkening waters of trouble and despair. There had been no record of fresh disaster, or fresh mismanagement; the troops were recruiting, resting and increasing in numbers and efficiency; the cavalry, mobilized under Van Dorn—at last placed in his proper sphere—had done efficient and harassing, if desultory warfare, upon the enemy's small posts and communications. Pegram—by his effective raid through Kentucky—had shown that her people there were not forgotten by their brothers beyond; and his skillful retreat—laden with heavy droves of cattle and in the face of a superior force—gained him high praise from his superior officers.

And so the people watched and waited—hopeless no longer, but quite recovered from the prostration of the rapid, heavy and continuous blows of the previous autumn. Steadfast and buoyant, as they were ever, the masses of the South once more turned their backs upon past disaster, looking eagerly through the dark cloud for the silver lining they felt must be beyond.

And again, as ever, they turned their eyes toward Virginia—stately and calm amid the shock of battle. And they hoped not in vain; for over her blackened fields—furrowed by shot and shell, drenched with blood of best and bravest, but only more sacred for the precious libation—was again to ring the clarion shout of victory that ever swelled from the lines of Stonewall Jackson!

CHAPTER XXVI.

THE FAILURE IN FINANCE.

When the competent historian shall at last undertake a thoughtful work upon our great struggle, there can be little doubt that he will rank among the primary causes of the Confederacy's dissolution the grave errors of its financial system.

These errors he will find not only in the theory and framework of that system—founded upon a fallacy, but also in the detailed workings of its daily management; and in persistent adherence to a line of policy, each day proved more fatal.

In a previous chapter, allusion has been made to the feeling of conscious superiority, pervading all classes of government and people at the inception of the struggle, at Montgomery. This extended to all classes of the people; and the universal belief in the great dogma of secession—"Cotton is king!"—was doubtless the foundation of that cardboard structure of Confederate finance, which the first rude shock toppled to pieces, and the inexorable breath of demand shriveled into nothingness.

At Montgomery, the promises of ease in money matters were all that could have been asked. The people, everywhere, had come forward with frank, unanimous selflessness. They had faith in the cause—faith in the Government—faith in themselves; and they proved it by their works, giving with lavish hand from their substance. It was felt that the great prosperity of the North had, in a great measure, come from the South; that the looms of New England were fed with southern cotton; that the New York custom house was mainly busied over southern exports; that the soil of the South was, by the alchemy of trade, transmuted annually into three-fifths of the gold in the Federal treasury.

"Egad, sir!—money is our last trouble, sir!" my old friend, the colonel, had cried with enthusiasm. "The country teems with riches—actually teems, sir! with gold. We have only to stretch out our hands to gather it in—more than we want, egad! Men we need, sir!—but money, never!"

And the colonel was right in theory. But that very overweening confidence in her strength proved the South's greatest weakness; and where was needed the strong, nervous grasp of a practical and practiced hand, to seize at once the threads of gold, and weave them into a solid cord of system—weak and shifting fingers were allowed to tangle and confuse them, till each in turn was snapped and rendered worse than worthless. Mr. C. G. Memminger, whom the President elevated to the Treasury Department, was untried and unknown out of his own State; but so great was the confidence of the people in their financial power—so simple did the problem of its development seem to them—that they were trustful and satisfied, until the stern grasp of necessity roughly shook them from their golden dream. And they awoke, like the sleeper of German legend, to find their hands filled with worthless yellow leaves and grains of chaff, where they had dreamed of treasure beyond compare.

Immediately upon his appointment, thoughtful men—who could look a little beyond the rose-colored clouds of the present—had pressed upon Secretary Memminger the necessity for establishing heavy foreign credits, to draw against in case of future need. The currency of the southern banks was comparatively nothing, in view of increased expenditures. The cotton which was gold—food—clothing—everything to the South, with the open ports of the North, would be more worthless than the wampum of the Indians, so soon as the threatened blockade might seal up her ports and exclude the European purchaser. But, on the contrary, if that cotton were bought on the faith of the Government—and planters would willingly have sold their last pound for Confederate bonds; if it were shipped to Europe at once and sold in her market, as circumstances might warrant, the Confederacy would, in effect, have a Treasury Department abroad, with a constantly accruing gold balance. Then it could have paid—without agencies and middlemen beyond number, who were a constant moth in the Treasury—in cash and at reduced prices, for all foreign supplies; those supplies could have been purchased promptly and honestly, and sent in before the blockade demanded a toll of one-half; but above all, the interest and principal of such bonds to the planters could have been paid in coin, and a specie circulation thus been made, instead of the fatal and endless paper issues that rendered Confederate credit a scoff, and weakened the confidence of the southern people in the ability and integrity of that department.

In this sense—and this sense alone—Cotton was king! But the hands that could have lifted him safely upon a throne and made every fiber a golden sinew of war, weakly wrested the scepter from his grasp, and hid him away from the sight and from the very memory of nations.

It was as though the youngest of the nations aped the legendary traditions of the oldest. After the potent and vigorous King Cotton was killed by starvation, Confederate finance treated him as Jewish myth declares dead King Solomon was treated. In his million-acred temple, he stood—cold, white and useless—leaning upon his broken staff; while timorous leadership gaped at his still majesty—

"Awed by the face, and the fear, and the fame

Of the dead king standing there;

For his beard was so white and his eyes so cold,

They left him alone with his crown of gold!"

Had the Government bought—as was urged upon it in the fall of '61—all the cotton in the country, at the then prices, and paid for it in Confederate bonds at six per cent., that cotton—according to calculations of the best cotton men of the South—would have produced in Liverpool, during the next three years, at rapidly-increasing prices, over one thousand millions of dollars in gold! Granting this erroneous, even by one-half, it follows that the immense specie balance thus held, would—after paying all accruing interest—have left such a surplus as to have kept the currency issue of Confederate States' notes merely nominal, and even then have held them at a par valuation.

The soldier, who freely bared his breast to the shock of a hundred battles for his country, his fireside and his little ones, could then have sent his pittance of eleven dollars a month to that fireside, with the consciousness it might buy those dear ones bread at least. But long before the darkest days fell upon the South, his whole month's pay would not buy them one pound of bacon!

Secretary Memminger would seem to have had some theory, or reasons of his own, for refusing to listen to the plain common sense in these suggestions from practical sources. With a strictly agricultural population to supply, he insisted on the issue of Confederate notes in such volume that the supply far exceeded the demand. For, had there been a large manufacturing population actively employed in the South, as there was in the North, the inflation of currency might have been temporarily concealed by its rapid passage from hand to hand. But with no such demand—with only the daily necessities of the household and of the person to relieve—the plethora of these promises to pay naturally resulted, first in sluggishness, then in a complete break-down of the whole system.

Still, from the joyous days of Montgomery, and the triumphant ones after Manassas—through the doubtful pauses of the next winter and the dark days of New Orleans—on to the very Dies iræ—there pervaded government and people a secure belief that the finances of the North would break down, and the war collapse for want of money!

And so tenacious were people and rulers of this ingrained belief, that they cherished it, even while they saw the greenbacks of the Federal Government stand at 25 to 30 per cent. depreciation, while their own Treasury notes dropped rapidly from one hundred to one thousand!

Let us pause for one moment to examine upon what basis this dream was founded, before going into the sad picture of want—demoralization—ruin! into which the errors of its Treasury plunged the southern people.

Accepting the delusive estimate that all the property of the United States, in 1861, represented but one-fifth more than that of the Confederate States; and that over three-fifths of the gold duties were from cotton and cotton fabrics, and products of the South alone, it was easy for the southern eye to see a future of trial, if not of ruin, for the North. Then, too, at the beginning of the war it was reasoned that the northern army of invasion, working on exterior lines, must necessarily be greater far in numbers and in cost, than the army of defense, working on interior lines. Moreover, the vast-proposed blockade, by increasing to a point of anything like efficiency the vessels, armament, and personnel of the United States navy, would cost many millions. Thus, in short, the southern thinker could very readily persuade himself that the annual expenditures of the Federal Government must—even with the strictest economy and best management—run to unprecedented and undreamed-of sums.

The demand for increased appropriations with the very first call of Mr. Lincoln for troops, justified this belief; the budget of '62 to the United States Congress went far beyond all expectation; and the wild waste, extravagance, and robbery that swelled each succeeding estimate, were but more and more proof to the southern thinker, that he must be right. But he had made one grave miscalculation.

Into the woof of delusion which he continued to weave, for enwrapping his own judgment, such reasoner omitted wholly to cross the warp of combined result. He neglected that vastly-important filament—proper and value-enhancing handling of his valuable production; the reality that southern cotton, sugar and rice had become so great a factor in national wealth, mainly through manipulation by northern hands. He did not stop to calculate that—those hands removed and, in addition, the ports of the South herself hermetically sealed—all product, not consumable, must become as valueless as the leaves and dross of the German's dreamer!

The expenses of the North have ever been paid by the South, he reasoned. This sum now withdrawn, it follows that not only will the increased expenses of the North not be paid; but the heavy balance will be efficient in the southern Treasury, to meet our far smaller expenses.

With equal ability in management, this result might have happened; for there is no sort of doubt that depreciation in southern money was, in some regards, reason for appreciation in northern. But while the policy of the southern Treasury was weak, vacillating and destructive, that of the northern was strong, bold and cautious. While Mr. Memminger—instead of utilizing those products which had heretofore been the life-blood of northern finance—allowed the precious moments to pass; and flooded the country with paper, with only future, instead of present and actual, basis of redemption, the northern Secretary struck boldly at the very root of the matter and made each successive disaster to northern arms another link in the strengthening chain of northern credit.

The Union finances did indeed appear desperate. The stoppage of a sure and heavy means of revenue, at the same moment that the spindles of New England stood still for want of food; the increased demand for fabrics and supplies, that had now to be imported; and the vast increase of expenditure, coincident with decrease in revenue, left but had one door open to escape. The North was flooded with greenback promises to pay, issued with one sole basis of redemption—the chance of absolute conquest of a people roused, warlike, and determined to yield nothing save their lives.

To meet this issue and the interest of the vast debt incurred, taxation in the North rapidly increased, until the oppressive burden represented, in one or another shape, near 20 per cent. of the real property of the people!

Besides, the North, unlike ourselves—argued the hopeful southern financier—does not go into the war as a unit. New York, the great money center, is entirely opposed to the war; New England is discontented at the stoppage of her factories and the loss imposed upon her people; and the great West, ever more bound to the South than to the East, by community of interest and of pursuit, must soon see that her only road to salvation is down the great river that has heretofore been the one lung that gave her the breath of life! Will the cute Yankee of New England submit to be ruined, and starved, and taxed in addition? Will the great commercial metropolis let the grass grow in her streets and the vessels rot at her wharves, that once laughed with southern cotton? Will the granary and meat-house of the Union yield all her produce for baseless paper promises and, in addition pay heavy tax to carry on a war, suicidal as she must see it?

Such were the delusions of the South—based, it may be, upon reason, and only delusions because underestimating and despising the great ingenuity of the enemy, and the vast cohesive power of interest!

If the Washington government could not make the war popular, it could at least make it a great money job. If it could not bring it at once to the hearts of its people, it could at least force it directly upon their pockets.

The vast increase in army and navy gave sudden and excitingly novel employment to thousands of men then out of situations; the unprecedented demand for materials of war—arms—munitions—clothing—supplies—turned the North and East into one vast armory and quartermaster's store; while the West was a huge commissary department. Then the Government paid well and promptly, if it did pay in greenbacks. These daily changed hands and nobody stopped to inquire on what the promise to pay was based.

Great contracts were let out to shrewd and skillful moneyed men; these again subdivided became the means of employing thousands of idle hands—while each sub-contractor became a missionary to the mob to preach the gospel of the greenback!

But above all was the shrewdness and finesse with which the bonds were manipulated. The suction once applied, the great engine, Wall street, was pumped dry; and self-preservation made every bondholder a de facto emissary of the Treasury Department.

Banker and baker, soldier and seamstress, were equally interested in the currency. It became greenback or nothing, and the United States used the theory of self-preservation on which to build a substantial edifice of public credit.

These were the hard, real reasons that dissipated at last the dream of the South; that kept the greenback promise of the manufacturing North at little below gold, while the grayback of the producing South went down—down—from two—to ten—twenty—at last, to one thousand dollars for one.

CHAPTER XXVII.

DOLLARS, CENTS, AND LESS.

And now, looking back to the struggling and suffering South, one asks with wonder how these results could have transpired.

Unlike the North, the South went into the struggle with her whole soul and her whole strength. Every man came forward with one accord, willing to work in the way he best might for the cause he held sacred; ready to give his arm, his life, and all he had beside, for the general good. Whole regiments were put into service, armed, uniformed and equipped, without costing the central government one dollar; and in some instances—as of that spotless knight, true gentleman and pure patriot, Wade Hampton—raised by the energy, paid for by the generosity, and led to death itself by the valor of one man!

Corporations came into this general feeling. Railroads put their rolling-stock and their power in the hands of the Government; agreeing, as early as the origin of the Montgomery government, to take their pay at half rates and in government bonds. Banks put their facilities and their circulation, manufacturers their machinery and foundries their material, at public disposition, for the bare cost of existence. Farmers and graziers cheerfully yielded all demanded of them! And how the women wrought—how soft hands that had never worked before plied the ceaseless needle through the tough fabric—how taper fingers packed the boxes for camp, full from self-denial at home—shall shine down all history as the brightest page in story of noble selflessness.

In the deadly hail of hostile batteries; in the sweltering harvest-field of August, and at the saddened and desolate fireside of December, the southern people wrought on—hoped on!

And the result of all this willing sacrifice was greatly to reduce the burdens on the treasury. For reasons before stated the southern army was smaller, and its transportation cost far less, than that of the enemy. Its equipment was far cheaper, and its subsistence for every reason infinitely smaller.

Still, with an outlay per diem scarcely more than one-tenth that of the North—which amounted to near $4,000,000! daily; with the teeming fields and bursting warehouses filled with cotton—a year back, auriferous in every fiber—worthless now; and with a people thus united to act and to aid it, the Southern Treasury continued to flood the country with paper issues, based only on the silver lining of the cloud that hung darker and ever darker over the South.

With one-tenth the population in the field and the rest working for them, there was no real demand for this inordinate issue. One-tenth the volume of currency properly distributed, with a coincident issue of bonds, would have relieved the actual necessities of buyer and seller. But still the wheels worked on—still Treasury notes fluttered out, until every bank and store and till was glutted with them.

Then the results of the inflation came with relentless and rapid pace. With the people still convinced of the inevitable outcome of their united efforts; with the thinkers of the South still evolving their theories of the philosopher's stone to change all this mass of paper into gold; and with the press of the country blatant about the speedy and certain collapse of northern credit; above all, with millions of pounds of cotton rotting in our warehouses—Confederate money, little by little, bought less and less of the necessaries of life.

At first the change was very gradual. In the summer of 1861, persons coming to Richmond from Europe and the North spent their gold as freely as the Treasury notes. Then gold rose to five, ten, fifteen, and finally to forty per cent. premium. There it stuck for a time. But the issues increased in volume, the blockade grew more effective, and misgivings about the Treasury management crept into the minds of the people. Gold went up again, ten per cent. at a jump, until it touched a hundred—then rapidly to a hundred and fifty.

"The whole system looks devilish blue," said Styles Staple, who was curing an ugly wound in his thigh. "I've been writing 'the house' about it, and the Gov. thinks the hour has passed for utilizing the cotton. If that can't be impressed by the Government, the whole bottom will fall out of this thing before many months."

"If it ever passes the two hundred," solemnly quoth the colonel in answer, "egad, sir! 'twill go up like a rocket! Up, sir! egad! clean out of sight!"

I candidly answered that I could not see the end of the inflation.

"I do," Styles growled—"Repudiation!"

"Well, that's no end of a nobby thing!" cried Will Wyatt, who was always bored about anything more serious than the last book, or charging a battery. "Cheerful that, for a fellow's little pile to go up like a rocket, and he not even to get the stick."

"He can have the smoke, however," answered Styles more cheerily, as he hobbled over and gave a $5 note for a dozen cigars.

And this began rapidly to be the tone, everywhere out of trade. A vague feeling of insecurity about the power of the Government to check the onward flood of issue prevailed in all classes. This produced a reckless expenditure for anything tangible and portable. And at last the colonel's prediction was verified; for money touched the two hundred per cent., and went up—up—by the one hundred; until in a time incredibly short—and with such a suddenness that people had no time to be surprised—the Confederate treasury note stood still for a moment, worth twenty to one for gold!

This may be accounted for, in small part, by the scarcity of supplies and the increasing efficiency of the blockade. But it must be remembered that the value of gold remained a constant quantity and the gold dollar in Richmond, note-flooded and blockade-bound, bought more of almost any article than it ever had before.

With a string of active vessels watching every port and cove, to snap up the daring ventures between the island ports and the coast; with a powerful enemy thundering at every point of entrance to southern territory, still the fortunate man who had gold, or who could draw upon Europe, or the North, actually lived much cheaper than in any place beyond the lines! Singular as this statement may appear, it is actual fact. At this moment—before the depreciation of currency became such as to give it no value whatever—board at the best hotels in Richmond was $20 per day—equivalent to $1 in gold, while it was $3 in New York, or Washington; a suit of clothes could be had for $600 or $30 in gold, while in New York it cost from $60 to $80; the best whisky was $25 per gallon—$1.25 in gold, while in the North it was more than double.

Rapidly gold rose in the market, and in the absence of stocks became the only vehicle for financial gambling. From time to time, as a brilliant success would grace Confederate arms, the fall of Treasury credit would be checked. But it was only for the moment—and it went down steadily, rapidly, fatally. And as steadily, as rapidly and as fatally did the Treasury shuttles fly; spinning out the notes, like a whirlwind in autumn. And tighter grew the blockade, and fewer the means of supply. Stocks on hand were long since gone; little came to replace them, and the rich were driven to great straits to live, while the poor almost starved.

Away from the army lines and great centers of cities, the suffering was dreadful; impressments stripped the impoverished people; conscription turned smiling fields into desert wastes; fire and sword ravaged many districts; and the few who could raise the great bundle of paper necessary to buy a meal, scarce knew where to turn in the general desolation, to procure it even then. In the cities, it was a little better; but when beef, pork and butter in Richmond reached $35 per pound; when common cloth was $60 per yard, shoes $200 to $800 per pair, and a barrel of flour worth $1,400, it became a difficult problem to fill one's stomach at any outlay.

And all this time the soldiers and Government employés were being paid on a gold basis. The private received eleven (afterward twenty-one) dollars per month—amounting at the end of 1863 to just fifty-five cents in coin! At the last payments, before the final actions at Petersburg, the pay of a private for one month was thirty-three cents!

Nor were officers of the army and navy better paid. With their rank in the old service guaranteed them, they also received about the same pay, when gold and paper money were of equal value. Later Congress believed it would be a derogation from its dignity to "practically reduce the value of its issues," as one member said, "by raising officers' pay." Thus a lieutenant in the navy, probably of twenty years' experience, and with a family dependent upon him, though debarred from all other labor, received $1,500 per year—equal in gold to the sum of $4.25 per month; while a brigadier, or other higher general, received nearly $8 per month.

These things would provoke a smile, did they not bring with them the memory of the anguished struggle to fight off want that the wives and children of the soldier martyrs made. I have gone into detail further than space, or the reader's patience may warrant; and still, "Behold, the half is not told!"

I would not, if I could, record the bitter miseries of the last dreadful winter—paint the gaunt and ugly outlines of womanhood, squalid, famished, dying—but triumphant still. One case only will tell the tale for all the rest. A poor, fragile creature, still girlish and refined under the pinched and pallid features of starvation, tottered to me one day to beg work.

"It is life or death for me and four young children," she said. "We have eaten nothing to-day; and all last week we lived on three pints of rice!"

Will Wyatt, who was near, made a generous offer of relief. Tears sprang into the woman's eyes as she answered, "You mean kindness, major; but I have never asked charity yet. My husband is at the front; and I only ask a right—to be allowed to work for my children!"

Such were the sufferings, such the spirit of southern women!

When it was too late—when the headlong road to ruin had been more than half-way run—some feeble attempts were made to stay the downward rush. Of course, they were useless—worse than useless, in that they made widespread a feeling of distrust, already deep-seated with reflecting men. The volume of currency had reached such expansion that its value was merely nominal for purposes of subsistence, when the devices of Mr. Memminger to lessen it began to be pressed in earnest.

The people had now begun to see that the whole theory of the Treasury was false; that the moment for utilizing the cotton supply had indeed been lost; and they murmured loud and deep against the Secretary and the President; whom they believed not only retained him in office, but endorsed his destructive policy. Mr. Davis, the people said, was autocratic with his Cabinet, and would have displaced Mr. Memminger summarily, had he not favored that peculiar financial system. Mr. Davis, too, was known to have been hostile to the absorption and exportation by the Government of all the cotton. He had, moreover, recommended against any legislation by Congress to contract the currency and stop the issues. Now, therefore, the inflation and utter inadequacy of the paper money was laid at his door, as well as Mr. Memminger's; and the people, feeling there was no safety for them, began to distrust the good faith of such reckless issue. A system of barter was inaugurated among the country people; and they traded off things only needful for others absolutely essential. They began to feel a dread of taking the notes of the Government, and in many instances refused them utterly. And yet these very people yielded cheerfully to the constantly insolent, and not infrequently illegal, demands of the impressment officers.

In the cities, too, a point had been reached where the promise of the Government to pay was looked upon as a bitter joke. Bonds were constantly refused in business transactions, and only Treasury notes—as a medium of temporary exchange—were accepted.

Then, as a necessary measure, came the imperative order for funding the currency. All the millions of old issues were to be turned into the treasury, by a certain date, and exchanged for bonds. If the unlucky holder could not, or would not, deposit or exchange, he lost thirty-three per cent. of the value of the Government pledge he held. The old issues went rapidly out of sight; but the measure did not appreciably lessen the current medium, while it did very appreciably lessen the confidence in the integrity of the Department.

It is but the first step in repudiation, thought the people. If Government will on any pretext ignore one-third of its obligation, what guarantee have we for the other two? And so, justly or unjustly, the country lost all faith in the money. Men became reckless and paid any price for any article that would keep. Tobacco—as being the most compact and portable—was the favorite investment; but cotton, real estate, merchandise—anything but the paper money, was grasped at with avidity.

It has often been charged that speculators ruined the currency. But, to give the children of the devil their due—we can scarcely think but that the currency made the speculators.

Had the plain system been adopted, by which the currency dollar could have ever approximated to coin, it would have been simply impossible for the holders of supplies to have run prices up to extortionate figures. Not that I would for one instant excuse, or ask any mercy for, those unclean vultures who preyed upon the dead credit of their Government; who grew fat and loathsome while they battened on the miseries of the brave, true men who battled for them in the front ranks of the fight. But while the fault and the shame is theirs, it may not be disguised that the door was not only left open for their base plundering, but in many cases they were urged toward it by the very hands that should have slammed it in their faces.

When we come to consider the question of the blockade, we may, perhaps, see this more clearly. Meantime, in glancing down the past by the light of experience, one can not but marvel at the rapid, yet almost imperceptible, epidemic that fastened incurably upon the people, spreading to all classes and sapping the very foundations of their strength.

In the beginning, as vast crowds poured into Richmond—each man with a little money and anxious to use it to some advantage—trade put on a new and holiday dress. Old shops were spruced up; old stocks, by aid of brushing and additions, were made to appear quite salable and rapidly ran off. The demand made the meat it fed upon, until stores, shops and booths sprang up in all parts of the city and on all the roads leading into it from the camps. Gradually—from causes already noted—supplies became more scarce as money became more plenty. The pinch began to be felt by many who had never known it before; and almost every one, who had any surplus portables, was willing to turn them into money. In this way, those who had anything to sell, for the time, managed to live. But the unfortunates who had only what they needed absolutely, or who were forced to live upon a fixed stipend, that did not increase in any ratio to the decrease of money, suffered terribly.

These were only too ready to take the fever of speculation; and to buy any small lots of anything whatever that might sell again at a profit. This was the class from which the main body of amateur speculators was recruited. One successful venture led to another and gave added means for it. The clerk, or the soldier, who yesterday cleared his hundred on a little turn in whisky, to-morrow might hope to double it—then reinvest his principal and his profits. It was marvelous how values rose over night. One might buy anything, a lot of flour—a line of fruits—a hogshead of molasses, or a case of boots to-day, with almost a certainty of nearly doubling his outlay to-day week.

The ordinary channels of trade became clogged and blocked by its constant increase. Auction houses became the means of brokerage; and their number increased to such an extent that half a dozen red flags at last dotted every block on Main street. And incongruous, indeed, were the mixtures exposed at these sales, as well as in the windows of the smallest shops in Richmond. In the latter, bonnets rested on the sturdy legs of cavalry boots; rolls of ribbon were festooned along the crossed barrel of a rifle and the dingy cotton umbrella; while cartridges, loaves of bread, packages of groceries, gloves, letter paper, packs of cards, prayer-books and canteens, jostled each other in admirable confusion.

At these auctions there was utter want of system. Hogsheads of prime rum would be put up after kegs of spikes; a case of organdies would follow a good cavalry horse; and then might come four second-hand feather-beds and a hundred boarding cutlasses.

But everything soever found a purchaser; some because they were absolutely needed and the buyer dreaded waiting the next week's rise; the majority to sell again in this insane game of money-making.

But varied as were the motives for speculation, the principal ones were breadstuffs and absolute necessities of life; and while the minor speculators—the amateurs—purchased for quick profits—the professional vultures bought for great ones and could afford to wait.

The first class reached into every rank of society; the second were principally Yankee residents—caught in Richmond by the war, or remaining for the sole purpose of making it pay—and a smaller class of the lowest Polish Jews. Ishmaels both, owning no kinship and no country, their sole hope was gain—gain at the cost of reputation and credit themselves—gain even at the cost of torture and starvation to the whole South beside. These it was who could afford to buy in bulk; then aid the rise they knew must come inexorably, by hoarding up great quantities of flour, bacon, beef and salt.

It mattered not for themselves who suffered—who starved. It mattered not if the noble fellows at the front lived on a scant handful of cornmeal per day—if starving men died before the works they were too weak to mount—if ghastly objects in hospital and trench literally perished, while their storehouses burst with food—waiting for a rise!

It is too ugly a picture to dwell upon. Suffice it that the human hyenas of speculation did prey upon the dying South; that they locked up her salt while the men in the trenches perished for it; that thrice they stored the flour the people felt was theirs, in such quantities and for so long, that before their maw for gain was glutted, serious riots of the starving called for the strong hand to interfere. And to the credit of Government and southern soldier, be it said—even in that dark hour, with craving stomach and sickening soul—"Johnny Reb" obeyed his orders and guarded the den of the hyena—from his own hungering children, perhaps!

No weak words of mine may paint the baseness and infamy of the vultures of the market. Only a Doré, with a picture like his Frozen Hell, or Ugolino—might give it faint ideal.

And with the feeling how valueless was the money, came another epidemic—not so widespread, perhaps, as the speculation fever; but equally fatal to those who caught it—the rage for gambling!

Impulsive by nature, living in an atmosphere of constant and increasing artificial excitement, feeling that the money worth little to-day, perhaps, would be worth nothing to-morrow—the men of the South gambled heavily, recklessly and openly. There was no shame—little concealment about it. The money was theirs, they argued, and mighty hardly earned, too. They were cut off from home ties and home amusements; led the life of dumb beasts in camp; and, when they came to town—ho! for "the tiger."

Whether these reasons be valid or not, such they were. And really to the camp-wearied and battle-worn officer, the saloon of the fashionable Richmond "hell" was a thing of beauty. Its luxurious furniture, soft lights, obsequious servants and lavish store of such wines and liquors and cigars as could be had nowhere else in Dixie—these were only part of the inducement. Excitement did the rest, leaving out utterly the vulgar one of possible gain, so rarely did that obtain. But in these faro-banks collected the leading men, resident and alien, of the Capital. Senators, soldiers and the learned professions sat elbow to elbow, round the generous table that offered choicest viands money could procure. In the handsome rooms above they puffed fragrant and real Havanas, while the latest developments of news, strategy and policy were discussed; sometimes ably, sometimes flippantly, but always freshly. Here men who had been riding raids in the mountains of the West; had lain shut up in the water batteries of the Mississippi; or had faced the advance of the many "On-to-Richmonds"—met after long separation. Here the wondering young cadet would look first upon some noted raider, or some gallant brigadier—cool and invincible amid the rattle of Minié-balls, as reckless but conquerable amid the rattle of ivory chips.

So the faro-banks flourished and the gamblers waxed fat like Jeshurun, the ass, and kicked never so boldly at the conscript man. Nor were they all of ignoble memory. There is more than one "sport" in the South to-day, who made warm and real friends of high position from his acts of real generosity then.

Whatever may be the vices of gamblers as a class, many a soldier-boy will bear witness to the exception that proves the rule. One of the "hells" at least was a home for the refugee; and whether the Maryland soldier came dirty, and hungry and ragged from camp, with never a "stamp" in his pocket; whether he came wearied and worn, but "full of greenbacks," from a trip across the lines—the post of honor at the table, the most cordial welcome and most generous glass of wine were ever his.

However the holy may be horrified—however the princely speculator may turn up his keen-scented nose, I here record that, during the four years of dark and bloody war—of pinching want and bitter trial, there was no more generous, free-hearted and delicate aid given to the suffering soldier-boy, than came from the hand of the Baltimore faro-banker.

So in Richmond high and low gambled—some lightly for excitement's sake—some dashingly and brilliantly—a few sullenly and doggedly going in to gain. Few got badly hurt, getting more in equivalent of wines, cigars and jolly dinners than they gave. They looked upon the "hell" as a club—and as such used it freely, spending what they had and whistling over their losses. When they had money to spare they played; when they had no money to spare—or otherwise—they smoked their cigars, drank their toddies and met their friends in chaff and gossip, with no more idea that there was a moral or social wrong than if they had been at the "Manhattan" or the "Pickwick" of to-day.

I do not pretend to defend the habit; but such it was, and such all the men who remember the Capital will recognize it.

Of that other class, who "went in for blood"—some got badly hurt in reputation and in pocket. But the dead cause has buried its dead; and their errors—the result of an overstrained state of society and indubitably of a false money-system—hurt no one but themselves. ß And so, with the enemy thundering at the gates; with the echoed whoo! of the great shells almost sounding in the streets; and with the ill-provided army staggering under the burthen of defense—almost too heavy for it to bear—the finances of the Confederacy went from bad to worse—to nothing!

The cotton that the alchemy of genius, or even of business tact—might have transmuted into gold, rotted useless; or worse, as a bait for the raider. The notes, that might have been a worthy pledge of governmental faith, bore no meaning now upon their face; and the soldier in the trench and the family at the desolate fireside—who might have been comfortably fed and clad—were gnawed with very hunger! And when the people murmured too loudly, a change was made in men, if not in policy.

Even if Mr. Trenholm had the ability, he had no opportunity to prove it. The evil seed had been sown and the bitter fruit had grown apace. Confederate credit was dead!

Even its own people had no more faith in the issues of their government; and they hesitated not—even while they groped on, ever on to the darkness coming faster and faster down upon them—to declare that the cause of their trouble was Mr. Memminger; with the President behind him.

But, though the people saw the mismanagement and felt its cause—though they suffered from it as never nation suffered before—though they spoke always bitterly and often hotly of it; still, in their greatest straits and in their darkest hours, no southern man ever deemed it but mismanagement.

The wildest and most reckless slanderer could never hint that one shred of all the flood of paper was ever diverted from its proper channel by the Secretary; or that he had not worked brain and body to the utmost, in the unequal struggle to subdue the monster he had created.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

ACROSS THE POTOMAC AND BACK.

Of such vast import to the southern cause was Lee's first aggressive campaign in Maryland; so vital was its need believed to be, by the people of the South; so varied and warm was their discussion of it that it may seem proper to give that advance more detailed consideration.

Imperfect and inadequate as such a sketch must be, to the soldier, it may still convey in some sort, the ideas of the southern people upon a momentous question.

Coincident with the evacuation of the Peninsula by the Federals was General Lee's movement, to throw beyond the Rapidan a force sufficient to prevent Pope's passage of that river. After Cedar Mountain, Jackson had disappeared as if the earth had swallowed him up. It was believed in the North that the advance of Pope's masses had cut him off from the main army and locked him up in the Shenandoah Valley; while the South—equally ignorant of his designs and confident of their success—rested on the rumor that he had said:

"Send me more men and no orders!"

Suddenly a beacon flashed into the sky, telling in the flames from the depots at Manassas and Bristow Stations that the famous passage of Thoroughfare Gap had been made—millions of property, stores and rolling-stock given to feed the flames. Jackson was in Pope's rear!

This Confederate corps now fronted toward the main army of Lee, and the bragging Federal found himself between the upper and nether millstones. Still he had little doubt that he could turn upon the small force of Jackson and crush it before Lee could advance to his rescue. Following this plan, and depending also upon the heavy masses Burnside was bringing down to him from Fredericksburg, Pope attacked Jackson in detail at Bristow and at Manassas, with no other effect than to be repulsed heavily in both instances.

The attack, however, warned Jackson of the enemy's purpose and of his own critical position; and, on the night of August 28th, he made a masterly flank movement that put him in possession of the old battle-field of Manassas plains; at the same time opening his communications with Lee's advance.

In all this, General Stuart gave most efficient aid both in beating back heavy attacks of the enemy's cavalry, and in keeping Jackson advised of the course of Pope's retreat—or advance, as it might be called—from Warrenton to Manassas.

By the 29th of August, Longstreet's corps had effected the passage of Thoroughfare Gap and united with Jackson; and on that day these corps engaged with Pope's advance in a terrific fight, lasting from midday till dark—the prelude to the great drama that was next day to deluge the field of Manassas a second time with the blood of friend and foe.

Before daylight next morning, the cannon again woke the wearied and battle-worn ranks, sleeping on their arms on the field they had won; and sent a fresh impulse to the hearts of their brothers, toiling steadily on to join them in the great fight to come. Heavy firing and sharp skirmishing for position filled the forenoon; but then the masses of hostile infantry joined in the shock of battle, more terrible than the one of the year before. The men were more disciplined and hardened on both sides; and the Federal leaders, feeling that their only hope lay in victory now, hurled brigade after brigade against the now vindictive and battle-thirsty Confederates.

Line after line emerges from enveloping clouds of smoke, charging the fronts that Longstreet and Jackson steadily oppose to them. Line after line melts before that inevitable hail, rolling back scattered and impotent as the spume the angry ocean throws against a granite headland!

Broken again and again, the Federals, with desperate gallantry, hurl against the unflinching crescent that pours its ceaseless rain of fire through them; while the great guns behind its center thunder and roll

"In the very glee of war,"

sending death-winged bolts tearing and crushing through them.

Through the carnival of death Hood has sent his Texans and Georgians at a run—their wild yells rending the dull roar of the fight; their bayonets flashing in a jagged line of light like hungry teeth! Jackson has swung gradually round the enemy's right; and Stephen Lee's artillery has advanced from the center—ever tearing and crashing through the Federal ranks, scattering terror and death in its unswerving path!

The slaughter has been terrific. Federal and Southron have fought well and long. Piles of mangled and gory dead lie so mingled that gray and blue are undistinguished. But the wild impetuosity of the "ragged rebels"—nerved by the memories of this field's old glories—toned up by the Seven Days, and delirious with the glow of present victory—sweeps the Federal back and doubles his line. It breaks—fresh regiments pour in with deadly shot and fearful yell; the Federal line melts into confusion—rout! and the Second Manassas is won.

The victory was as complete as that of the year before; an absolute rout was only saved the Federals by falling back to the reserve under Franklin, when the retreat became more orderly, as there was no pursuit.

The solid fruits of the victory were the annihilation of all the plans of the gong-sounder, and the complete destruction of the new "On-to-Richmond;" the capture of over 7,000 prisoners—paroled on the field—and his admitted total loss of 28,000 men.

New glories, too, shone around the names of Lee, Jackson, Longstreet, Hood, Kemper and Jenkins; and the efficient aid and splendid fighting of the cavalry of Stuart, Hampton and Bev Robinson, here proved that arm to have reached its point of highest efficiency.

The heart of the South, still throbbing with triumph after the Seven Days and their bright corollary of Cedar Mountain, went up in one wild throb of joyous thanksgiving. So satisfied were the people of the sagacity of their leaders and the invincible valor of their troops; so carried away were they by the splendid reflection from the glory over Manassas plain—that this time they never even stopped to question why there had been no pursuit; why the broken enemy had not been completely crushed. All they felt was that Virginia was free from the invader. For General Loring, in the Kanawha, had driven the enemy before him and entirely cleared that portion of the state; while on this line he was hastening rapidly back to Washington to meet the expected advance of Lee toward the Capital.

Without resting his army, the latter divided it into three corps, under command of Jackson, Longstreet and A. P. Hill; and moved rapidly toward the accomplishment of that cherished hope of the southern people—an offensive campaign on the enemy's soil.

Jackson passed with his accustomed swiftness to the occupation of the heights commanding Harper's Ferry and to the investment of that position; while the other corps moved to the river at different points, to cut off the re-enforcements the alarmed Federals might send to its rescue. Great was the alarm and intense the excitement at Washington. The sudden turn of the tables—the cold dash to hopes that the bragging of their new hero had raised to fever heat, and the transformation of the crushed rebel into an avenging invader, created equal surprise as panic. Pope summarily dropped from the pinnacle of public favor into disgrace; and McClellan was the only mainstay the Federal Government could fall back on, to check the victorious Lee.

Meanwhile, equal excitement reigned in the Rebel Capital, but it was joyous and triumphant. The people had long panted to see the theater of blood and strife transferred to the prosperous and peaceful fields of their enemy. They had a secure feeling that when these were torn with shell and drenched with carnage; when barns were rifled and crops trampled by hostile feet, the northern people would begin to appreciate the realities of a war they had so far only seen by the roseate light of a partial press. Secure and confident in the army that was to work their oracle, the hope of the South already drew triumphant pictures of defeated armies, harassed states, and a peace dictated from the Federal Capital.

On the 14th of September, D. H. Hill, of Longstreet's corps—stationed at Boonesboro to protect Jackson's flank—was attacked by a heavy force. Heavily outnumbered, Hill fought a dogged and obstinate battle—giving and taking terrific blows, only ceasing when night stopped the fight. It was hard to tell which side had the best of the actual fighting; but the great object was gained and the next day Harper's Ferry, with its heavy garrison and immense supply of arms, stores and munitions, was surrendered to Jackson.

Great was the joy in Richmond when the news of the brilliant fight at Boonesboro—the first passage of arms on Maryland soil—and of the capture of the great arsenal of the North reached her anxious people. It was, they felt, but the presage of the great and substantial triumphs that Lee and his veterans must win. Higher rose their confidence and more secure became their calculations; and the vivid contrast between the ragged, shoeless and incongruous army of the South with the sleek, spruce garrison surrendered to them, only heightened the zest of the victory and the anticipation of those to follow.

But a sudden check was to come to this mid-career of anticipation, and a pall of doubt and dismay was to drape the fair form of Hope, even in her infancy.

Two days after the fall of Harper's Ferry—on the 17th of September—Lee had massed some 35,000 men on the banks of the Antietam, near Sharpsburg—a village ten miles north-east of Harper's Ferry. McClellan, pressing him hard with an army four times his own numbers—composed in part of raw levies and hastily-massed militia, and in part of the veterans of the armies of the Potomac—seemed determined on battle. Trusting in the valor and reliability of his troops, and feeling the weakness of being pressed by an enemy he might chastise, the southern chief calmly awaited the attack—sending couriers to hasten the advance of A. P. Hill, Walker and McLaws, whose divisions had not yet come up.

Ushered in by a heavy attack the evening before—which was heavily repulsed—the morning of the 17th saw one of the bloodiest and most desperate fights in all the horrid records of that war. Hurling his immense masses against the rapidly dwindling Confederate line; only to see them reel back shattered and broken—McClellan strove to crush his adversary by sheer strength. No sooner would one attacking column waver, break, retreat—leaving a writhing and ghastly wake behind it—than a fresh host would hurl against the adamantine line that sunk and shriveled under the resistless fire, but never wavered. In all the fearful carnage of the war—whether resulting in gloom, like that of Corinth, or purchasing brilliant victory with precious blood—men never fought better than did that battle-torn, service-worn handful that had just saved Richmond—broken the glittering, brazen vessel of destruction; and now sent its defiant yell through hostile mountains.

All that valor and endurance could do had been done; and at mid-afternoon the battle seemed well-nigh lost. Just then the missing divisions—some 12,000 men—reached the field. Wearied, unfed and footsore, they were; but the scent of battle rested and refreshed them as they went into the thickest of the fight. But even they could not save the day. Outnumbered and shattered, but unconquered still, the Confederates could not advance from the field they had held at such bitter cost. And when night stopped the aimless carnage, each army, too crippled to renew the fight, withdrew toward its base. McClellan could not pursue; and the Confederates fell back doggedly, sullenly, and recrossed into Virginia.

As usual in the North, a wild howl went up against McClellan. In response to this brutum fulmen, he was promptly removed by Halleck, for not conquering an army that had proved itself invincible!

Bitter indeed was the hour that brought to Richmond the story of Sharpsburg. Flushed with hope, undoubting of triumph, her citizens only listened for the wild cheer that would echo back from conquered Washington. But the sound that reached their ears was the menacing roar from retreating ranks that left near one-third their number stark and ghastly on that grim field, where the Death Angel has so darkly flapped his wings.

Thus ended the first Maryland campaign.

It had given the people their wish; it had carried the gray jackets over the border and stricken the enemy sorely on his own soil. But it had left that soil drenched with the blood of some of the bravest and best; the noble Branch and chivalric Starke had both fallen where their men lay thickest—torn and ghastly on that terrible field.

The details of that field which the Richmond people gathered from the northern papers, deepened their gloom. And through it rose a hoarse whisper, swelling at last into angry query, why had the campaign miscarried? If the army was inadequate in numbers, why had General Lee carried it over that river he had never crossed before, when his own army was better and the enemy less prepared? And if, as stated, the men were ill-provided in munitions and transportation—as they were known to be with clothes and rations—why had Government forced its only bulwark well-nigh to annihilation?

It mattered little, the people said, that the results had been far more disastrous to the North than to the South—both in prestige and loss. The North could far better afford it. What was the killing of a few thousand raw troops, or the destruction of a few thousand stand of arms, compared to the precious cost of holding the field at Sharpsburg?

And gradually these complaints, as in all such cases, answered themselves; and then the vials of southern wrath began to empty over the unfortunate Marylanders, who had not risen to aid their brothers in their sore need. How unjust were these charges will soon be shown.

And so the people murmured to relieve their overfull hearts, until the calm and steady course of the general they had never doubted, quieted them once more.

The outcry in the North resulted in the choice of General A. E. Burnside to command the new invasion; and he was of course hailed as the augur, who was surely this time to read the oracle. Watchful, calm, and steadfast, the Confederate waited, through the months of preparation, to meet the new advance—so disposing part of his force about Winchester as to prevent the favorite Valley-road On-to-Richmond. With a renewed, and splendidly appointed, army, Burnside moved in November toward Fredericksburg; thinking that this time he had really gotten between Lee and Richmond.

What was his disgust to find, when he reached the Rappahannock, that the Confederate army was not all at Winchester, but was before him to dispute his crossing. After some unavailing manœuvers for position, the Federals sat down on the heights of Stafford, opposite Fredericksburg; made works at their leisure; and spread a perfect city of tents and booths over a line of some five miles. Outnumbered as he was, General Lee could do nothing but watch and wait for the crossing that must come, sooner or later; and meantime he chose his line of battle.

Just back of Fredericksburg, stretching some two miles southward, is a semi-circular plain bordered by a range of hills. These stretch from Hamilton's crossing beyond Mayre's Hill on the left; and are covered with dense oak growth and a straggling fringe of pines. On these hills, Lee massed his artillery, to sweep the whole plain where the enemy must form, after his crossing; and arranged his line of battle with A. P. Hill holding the right and Longstreet the left. On the night of December 10th, Stafford Heights opened a furious bombardment of the town, tearing great gaps through the thickest populated quarters.

Into the bitter winter night tender women and young children were driven, shivering with fright and cold, half clad; seeking safety from the screaming shells that chased them everywhere. Under this bombardment, the pioneers commenced their pontoons at three points. The storm of grape and canister was too great to contest the landing, which was effected next day.

As the heavy fog that had obscured the sun cleared away, the regular lines of the Federals advanced to the attack, raked and torn by batteries. Broken, they were formed again, only to be mowed down afresh; while the scream of a thousand shells from Stafford filled the air with a continuous whoo, amid which the rattle of southern musketry sang ever fiercer and swifter. Then dark masses of blue came out of the town and formed for the charge, under a terrific fire from the Washington Artillery on Mayre's Hill. Steadily and fearlessly did Meagher's First Brigade move to the attack. Crowded into the narrow road, swept by the accurate fire of the Louisianians and McLaws' veterans—the head of the column went down, only to be filled by the gallant fellows behind. Into the jaws of death they came, up to the very works—then, with half their number dead and dying about their feet, they broke, the left gave way—and the bloody field was won at all points. The victory was terrible and complete.

But it had cost dear, and the rejoicing in Richmond was tempered with sorrow for the loss of such as Maxcy Gregg, Cobb, and many others, lying cold upon the field of victory.

And with the first feeling of triumph the news brought, came the thought that this time surely the enemy would be pushed—this time he was indeed a prey! Broken and demoralized, with a deep river in his rear that he must cross in pontoons, the people felt that he could surely be destroyed before reaching his Stafford stronghold. But once again, as ever, the shattered and broken legions of Burnside were allowed two days to recover from their demoralization; to pass at leisure, over the trap behind them.

Great was the amaze, bitter the disappointment of the people; and the inquiry how and why this had been done, became universal. But the southern people above every other feeling had now come to cherish a perfect and unquestioning faith in General Lee; and even while they wondered at a policy that invariably left a beaten enemy to recover, and only become stronger—still they questioned with a firm reliance that there must be some reason, invisible to them but good and potent still.

There were no active operations immediately succeeding Fredericksburg. Picket fighting; cavalry skirmishes, severe but fruitless; and temporary raids of the enemy to devastate the country around the rear of their army, and to penetrate into that beyond their lines, occupying the winter and early spring. But there was full leisure for the people to look upon the ugliest features of the war. Fredericksburg was a ruin, riddled with shot and shell, tenanted only by the poorest classes. Her once cheerful and elegant population were ruined and starving refugees in Richmond; the smiling tracts stretching back to the Potomac were one broad, houseless waste—browned by fire, and cut with the winding wagon-roads of the enemy. Constant incursions of his cavalry—for "raiding" had now become a feature of the war—harassed the people, everywhere removed from the immediate army lines. These slaughtered and drove off their cattle, stole and consumed their supplies, burned their barns, and destroyed their farming utensils!—a refinement of barbarity to non-combatants, never before practiced by a civilized race.

Then, too, the news from the West, heretofore sketched, reacted on Richmond; and the gloom in the Capital grew deep and universal. Burnside had, meantime, been dismissed in disgrace for his shameful failure. The inevitable howl had again gone up in the North; then the inevitable result had come. Joseph Hooker was now the coming man—the war-gong was sounded more loudly than ever; the army was re-enforced to greater size than ever; and so equipped that its general proclaimed it the "finest army on the planet." Agog with preparation, and stuffed full with promises of certain success this time, the North forgot the many slips between its lips and the coveted cup of triumph, and waited in secure impatience for the moment when the roads would permit Hooker to advance.

And the South waited, too—not hopefully, nor with the buoyant anticipation of the past, but still with a confidence in its cause and its defenders nowise diminished; with even more fixed determination never to yield, while there were muskets left and hands to grasp them.

At last the movement came. Late in April, Hooker divided his immense army into two columns, one menacing right crossing below Fredericksburg, to hold the troops at that point; the other crossing above, to flank and pass to their rear, combining with the other wing and cutting communication with Richmond. Taking command in person of his right wing—while the left was confided to General Slocum—Hooker rapidly crossed the river, concentrating not less than 60,000 men on the Chancellorsville road, eleven miles above Fredericksburg. Grasping the situation at once, Lee ordered the small force there back to Mine Run, until re-enforced; and then, on the 2d of May, Stonewall Jackson completed that wonderful and painful circuit of the enemy—so brilliant in conception, so successful in result. Late in the afternoon he reached their extreme right and rear, secure and unsuspecting. Never stopping to rest, the Eldest Son of War hurled himself like a thunderbolt on the confident and intrenched enemy—scattering the eleventh corps (Sigel's) like chaff, and hurling them, broken and demoralized, upon their supports. The very key of the enemy's campaign was driven out; and the "one hour more of daylight!" the hero-general prayed for—or the merciful sparing of his priceless life by the God of Battles—would have shown complete defeat, even annihilation, of Hooker's right.

But it was not so written in the Book of Life! A wise dispensation, whose object we may see, removed the best and greatest soldier of the war—sorely stricken by the hands of his own devoted men, in the darkness; the routed enemy was given, by this unequaled misfortune, and by fast falling night, opportunity for partial reorganization.

Hooker's right was turned and doubled upon his center; but he was still strong in numbers, and had the advantage of position and heavy works, abatis and rifle-pits.

Next morning General Lee assaulted in force, all along the line; and after heavy and bloody fighting, drove him from his position at all points. Sedgwick, however, had crossed the river at Fredericksburg, driving the Confederates from the town and carrying Mayre's Hill by assault. This acted as a check to Lee, who was forced to detach McLaws' division to drive Sedgwick back from his own rear. This he successfully accomplished, and—Anderson reaching McLaws just in time—on the 4th of May, the last of the series of the battles of the Rappahannock resulted in complete defeat of Sedgwick.

Still, Hooker was permitted to withdraw his army across the river; but the campaign of the week had been successful in utterly breaking his plans and clearly defeating him in every engagement.

CHAPTER XXIX.

OVER AGAIN, TO GETTYSBURG.

The campaign of the Rappahannock had shown brilliant flashes of strategy and valor. It had proved that a badly-provided army of less than 50,000 Confederates—barefooted, blanketless and half-fed, but properly led—could, even when surrounded and out-flanked, defeat and set at naught 120,000 of the best-appointed troops ever sent against them. It revived, in some degree, the drooping spirits of the people; but a sorrow that rose to agony wrung the heart of the South, when what was earth of her peerless, pure and idolized Jackson was laid in the Capitol, wrapped in the flag he had made immortal.

Shattered and emaciated veterans, noble-browed matrons and pale, delicate maidens gathered around that sacred bier, in the awed hush of a common sorrow, too deep for words. Tears coursed over cheeks that had been bronzed in the fire of battle; sobs rose from hearts that had lost their dearest and nearest without a murmur, save—Thy will be done! And little children were lifted up to look upon what was left of him who would ever be the greatest one of earth to them. And through the coffin-lid, that calm, still face seemed hourly to grow more holy and more radiant; the light of battle faded out from its softening lines and the seal of the God of Peace rested in plain token upon the glorified brow.

Truly did every one who looked upon it feel:

"O, gracious God! not gainless is the loss!

A glorious sunbeam gilds thy sternest frown—

For, while his country staggers 'neath the Cross,

He rises with the Crown!"

And when the funeral procession passed the streets of the Capital, the whole people stood bareheaded and mute. Following the wailing notes of the dirge with unsteady feet, moved the escort of ragged and war-worn soldiers—their tattered banners furled—and every torn dress and dented gun-carriage speaking eloquently of the right they had earned to sorrow for him. It was no mocking pageant. No holiday soldiery, spruce and gay, followed that precious bier—no chattering crowds pointed out the beauties of the sight. Solemn and mourning the escort passed; sad and almost voiceless the people turned away and, going to their homes, sat with their sorrow.

After the Rappahannock fights came a lull of several weeks; and it was early in June when General Lee advanced to force the enemy out of the state. His army had been reorganized and strengthened as much as possible; General R. S. Ewell was chosen successor to Jackson; and to him, Longstreet and A. P. Hill—raised now to a full lieutenant-general—was given command of the three corps.

Diverging from the main line, after some little coquetting for position, Ewell charged Jackson's "foot cavalry" upon Winchester, capturing the town with its heavy depots of stores and munitions; while Hill kept Hooker amused, and Longstreet slowly forged his way toward the river.

Great was the joy of the poor town when it once more welcomed the gray-jackets. From the beginning it had been battle-ground and billet of both armies a dozen times. Tossed from Federal to Confederate possession—a very shuttlecock of war—it had been harassed, robbed and pillaged by the one; drained of the very dregs by free gifts to the other. But the people of Winchester never faltered in their faith; and to-day her noble women go down the roll of heroism and steadfast truth, hand in hand with the noblest ones of our history.

And the joy in Winchester was somewhat reflected at the harassed and eager-watching Capital. Undiminished by the sorrows of the last fall, undimmed by its reverses, still burned the southern desire to plant its victorious flag on hostile soil. It was neither a thirst for vengeance nor an empty boast; rather a yearning for relief—a craving for the rest from blood and battle-shocks that such a campaign would give.

It was with deep satisfaction, then, that Richmond heard that Ewell had crossed the Potomac at Williamsport, pushed on through Hagerstown and, leaving Early at York, had passed to Carlisle; that Longstreet had followed him at Williamsport; and that A. P. Hill had crossed at Shepherdstown and pushed for Chambersburg, reaching there on the 27th of June.

Hooker, falling rapidly back upon Washington—at which point he believed the movement aimed—had been sacrificed, and with more justice than usual, to popular clamor. General Geo. G. Meade replaced him in command, and strained every nerve to collect numbers of men, irrespective of quality—seeming to desire to crush the invasion by weight alone.

Wild was the alarm in the North when the rebel advance had penetrated the heart of Pennsylvania; when York was held by Early and laid under contribution and Harrisburg was threatened by Ewell. The whole North rose in its might. Governors Seymour, of New York, Andrew, of Massachusetts, and Curtin, of Pennsylvania, put their whole militia at the service of the President; the energy at Washington, momentarily paralyzed, soon recovered; and by the last day of the month, Meade had collected an army of near 200,000 men. Many of these were, of course, new levies and raw militia; but near one-half were the veterans of the armies of McClellan, Burnside and Hooker; men who had fought gallantly on southern soil and might be expected to do so on their own.

It seems that Lee's intention was to flank Meade; and leaving him in Maryland, to pass into Pennsylvania, occupy Harrisburg, destroy communications between Washington and the North and reduce Philadelphia.

Such, at least, was the universal belief of the southern people; and so rapidly did their mercurial temperament rise under it, and so great was their reliance in the army that was to accomplish the brilliant campaign, that they looked upon it already as a fixed fact. Now, at last, they felt, we will teach the Yankees what invasion really means. With their Capital leaguered, their President and Cabinet fugitives by water, and their great thoroughfare and second city in our hands, we will dictate our own terms, and end the war.

Such might have been the case, had Gettysburg been won, or had that battle never been fought.

If Lee's intention was to flank Meade and avoid a fight at the outset of the campaign, it was thwarted by the rapid concentration of troops in his front, near Gettysburg. To prevent being struck in detail and secure his communications, Lee was forced to recall Ewell and to concentrate his army. Hill and Longstreet were ordered up from Chambersburg; and by July 1st the opposing armies faced each other; each feeling its way cautiously and knowing that the result of this grapple of the giants must in a great measure decide the war. Meade's defeat would lose Washington, leave the heart of the North open, and demoralize the only army in that section. Lee's defeat, on the other hand, would jeopardy his very existence and probably leave Richmond an easy prey to fresh advance.

But in Richmond none of this was felt; for all that was known of the army was its victorious entry into Pennsylvania; and absurdly exaggerated stories of the dire panic and demoralization of the enemy received perfect credence.

Then the shock came.

On the 1st of July, Hill's advance encountered the enemy under Reynolds; and—after a fierce struggle, in which their general was killed—drove them back into and through the town. Here they were reformed on a semi-circular crest of hills; massing their artillery and holding their position until dark. Their loss was heavier far than Hill's, and the men not in as good fighting trim; but it was very late, and General Lee feared pressing their reserve. Had he known that it was only the advance of Meade, broken and demoralized, that held the crest, he could undoubtedly have carried and occupied it. The fearful battles of the next two days, with their terrific loss of life, doubtless hung on this lost opportunity.

By next morning the enemy had massed the remainder of his army behind these hills, now frowning with two hundred guns and blue with one dense line of soldiery. Under a fearful cannonade, through a hail of bullets that nothing living might stand, Stewart works his way slowly and steadily forward on the enemy's left; driving him from line after line of works and holding every inch gained, by dogged valor and perseverance. Hays and Hoke (of Early's) advance into the ploughing fire of the rifled guns—march steadily on and charge over their own dead and dying, straight for Cemetery Heights. This is the key of the enemy's position. That once gained the day is won; and on the brave fellows go, great gaps tearing through their ranks—answering every fresh shock with a savage yell. Line after line of the enemy gives way before that terrible charge. The breastwork is occupied—they are driven out! Melting under the horrid fire, unfaltering still—the gray-jackets reach the very hill!

Nothing mortal can stand the enfilading fire. They give way—again they charge—they are at the very works! But the fire is too heavy for their thinned ranks to stand; and night falls over the field, illumined by the red flash of cannon—drenched with blood and horrid with carnage of friend and foe. But there is no advantage gained, save a slight advance of Stewart's position on their left.

With the morning of the third day came the conviction that the vital struggle must be made for Cemetery Heights. Lee must win them—and then for victory!

All the artillery was massed upon this point. Then awoke the infernal echoes of such an artillery duel as the war was never to see again. The air was black with flying shot and shell, and their wild whoo! made one continuous song through the sultry noon. Forth from the canopy of smoke and their screen of trees, comes the chosen storming party—Pickett's division of Virginians; supported on the right by Wilcox and on the left by Heth's division under Pettigrew, its own general having been wounded in the head the day before.

Unmindful of the fire-sheeted storm into which they march—down into the Valley of the Shadow of Death stride that devoted band. Now, they emerge into the Emmetsburg road, straight on for the coveted heights. On! never blenching, never faltering—with great gaps crashing through them—filling the places of the dead with the living next to die—On! into the jaws of death goes the forlorn hope! They are at the rise—they reach the crest; and then their batteries are suddenly silent!

Behind them is the ghastly road, furrowed and ploughed by ceaseless shot, slippery with blood and dotted thick with their writhing, bleeding brothers. Behind them is death—defeat! Before them a hundred belching cannon—a dense, dark mass of blue, relieved only by the volleying flash that shakes and rolls along their shattered line! Still up they go! on—ever on! That small Virginia division, shattered, bleeding—and alone reaches the works—fights for one moment and then—has won them!

But there are no supports—Pettigrew has not come up; and the decimated Virginians are literally overwhelmed by the fresh masses poured upon them. Broken, torn, exhausted, they fall back—scattered into terrible death-dealing knots, that fight their way sullenly and terribly home to their own lines!

That charge—unequaled in history—has fearfully crippled the enemy. He can not pursue. But it has failed, and the battle of Gettysburg is over!

That night General Lee fell back toward Hagerstown, turning in his retreat to show front to the enemy that dared not attack. Nine days he stayed on the Maryland shore, waiting the advance that never came; then he recrossed the river, on the night of the 13th, and again fell back to the Rappahannock lines.

The second Maryland campaign had failed!

Into the midst of the general elation in Richmond crashed the wild rumors from the fight. We had driven the enemy through the town; we held the height; we had captured Meade and 40,000 prisoners. Washington was at our mercy; and Lee would dictate terms of peace from Philadelphia!

These were the first wild rumors; eagerly sought and readily credited by the people. They were determined to believe and would see no change of plan in General Lee's forced battle at Gettysburg, instead of on the plains at Harrisburg.

Then over the general joy, creeping none knew whence nor how, but rapidly gaining shape and substance, came a shadow of doubt. Crowds besieged the War Department, anxious, excited, but still hopeful. Then the truth came; tempered by the Government, but wildly exaggerated by northern sources.

Down to zero dropped the spirits of the people; down to a depth of despairing gloom, only the deeper from the height of their previous exultation. The dark cloud from Gettysburg rolled back over Richmond, darkened and made dense a hundred fold in the transit.

The terrible carnage of that field was exaggerated by rumor. Pickett's gallant division was declared annihilated; it was believed that the army had lost 20,000 men; and it was known that such priceless blood as that of Garnett, Pettigrew, Armistead, Pender, Kemper, Semmes and Barksdale had sealed the dreadful defeat.

It only needed what came the next day, to dash the last drop from the cup of hope the people still tried to hold to their lips; and that was the news of the fall of Vicksburg, on the 4th of July.

And out of the thick darkness that settled on the souls of all, came up the groan of inquiry and blame. Why had the campaign failed? they asked. Why had General Lee been forced into battle on ground of the enemy's choosing? Why had he attacked works that only an army like his would have made an effort to take, when he could have flanked the enemy and forced him to fight him on his own terms? Why had the Government—as was alleged—allowed the crucial test of liberty—the crisis campaign of the war—to be undertaken without proper transportation and supplies of ammunition?

And why, above all, had the general they still loved and trusted, spite of their doubts—why had he sent their beloved Virginians unsupported to the shambles? Why had he fought the whole Yankee army with one division?

Such were the murmurs on every side. And though they gradually died away, after the first shock of surprise and grief had passed; still they left a vague feeling behind that all was not well; that grave errors had been committed somewhere. For the southern people could not get over the feeling that there were no odds of numbers and position that could cause defeat to a southern army, properly supplied and properly handled. So, although the murmurs ceased, the conviction did not die with them that the battle of Gettysburg was a grave error; that there had been a useless waste of priceless lives; and that the campaign had been nullified, which else had ended the war.

And unlike other post-disaster conclusions of the southern people, this did not die out. It only became strengthened and fixed, the more light was thrown on the vexed questions and the more they were canvassed. The excuses of the War Department that ammunition had given out, were scornfully rejected. Then, said the people, that was your fault. General Lee could not depend—in a campaign in the heart of an enemy's country and far away from his base—upon his captures. And as to his not intending to fight a pitched battle, how could he calculate upon that, or why then did he fight it; and upon ground of the enemy's choice?

And with the other objections to the conduct of the campaign, came that of the general's treatment of the people of Pennsylvania. It was felt to be an excess of moderation to a people whose armies had not spared the sword, the torch and insult to our unprotected tracts; and it was argued—without a shadow of foundation—that Lee's knightly courtesy to the Dutch dames of Pennsylvania had disgusted his troops.

Those starving and barefooted heroes would have thought it right if their beloved chief had fallen down and worshiped the makers of apple-butter! They felt he could do no wrong; and it was indirect injustice to the gallant dead that dotted Cemetery Hill—and to the no less gallant living ready to march up to those frowning heights again—to intimate that any action of their general would, or could, have made them fight better.

Excessive as was that moderation—ill advised as it might have proved, in case of a long campaign—it could have had no possible effect on the fortunes of the disastrous and brief one just ended.

Equally unjust as that popular folly, was the aspersion upon southern sympathizers in Maryland, that they did not come forth to aid their friends. The part of Maryland through which southern armies passed in both campaigns were sparsely settled, and that with strong Union population. The Marylander of Baltimore and the lower counties—whatever may have been his wishes, was gagged and bound too closely to express, far less carry them out. Baltimore was filled with an armed guard and was, moreover, the passage-way of thousands of troops; the lower counties were watched and guarded. And, moreover, the Confederate army was not practically in Maryland, but from the 20th of June to the 1st of July.

The taunt to the down-trodden Marylanders—oppressed and suffering bravely for conscience sake—we must in justice to ourselves believe only the result of grief and disappointment. Men, like goods, can only be judged "by sample;" and, from the beginning to the end of the war, Maryland may point to Archer, Winder, Elzey, Johnson and many another noble son—unhonored now, or filling, perhaps, a nameless grave—and ask if such men came from among a people who talked but would not act! And so in sorrow, disappointment and bitterness ended the second Maryland campaign.

And with it ended all hopes of carrying the war beyond our own gates in future; happy could we beat it thence, baffled and crushed as ever before.

For the short, sharp raid of General Early—penetrating to the gates of the Capital and with possible capabilities of even entering them—can hardly be considered an organized scheme of invasion. It was rather the spasmodic effort by a sharp, hard blow to loosen the tightening and death-dealing grip upon our throat, and give us time for one long, deep breath before the final tug for life.

CHAPTER XXX.

THE CONFEDERACY AFLOAT.

Measured by the popular test, success, the Confederate States Navy would, perhaps, be accorded little merit. Even cursory examination into the vast difficulties and discouragements with which it contended, will do it prompt justice.

No men who joined the southern service sacrificed more than her navy officers. The very flower of the old service, they had grown gray in their slow promotion to its positions of honor; their families depended for sole support upon the pittance of pay they received. Still they hesitated not a moment to range themselves under the banners their native states had unfurled. Once there, no men labored more faithfully—and efficiently. Subject to misconstruction, to jealousy, to petty annoyances—and later, to the most pinching straits of poverty—they were ever uncomplaining and ever ready.

Many and varied were the calls upon them. They commanded land batteries, trained raw gunners and drilled lubberly conscripts; they were bridge-builders, carpenters, wood-cutters, chemists and colliers; and, at the best, it was hard for the veteran who had, for forty years, trod the deck of a frigate, to be cooped in the contracted limits of a razeed tug, or an armed pilot boat. But once there he made the best of it; and how well he wrought in the new sphere, the names of Hollins, Lynch, Buchanan and Tucker still attest.

At the time the first Army Bill was passed by Congress, a law was also made securing to resigned naval officers the same rank they held in the United States service. But there was scarcely a keel in Confederate waters, and small indeed was the prospect for the future; so these impatient spirits, panting for active work, were put into unsuitable positions at the very outset. Later, a bill was passed for a provisional navy, but there was no fleet for their occupation. The department, therefore, used the discretion given it to confer a few honorary titles, and to appoint a vast number of subordinate officers, for shore duty in its work-shops and navy-yards.

The acceptability of Mr. Mallory to the people, at the outset of his career, has been noted. They believed that his long experience in the committee of naval affairs was guarantee for the important trust confided to him. Moreover, he was known to be relied upon by Mr. Davis as a man of solid intellect, of industry and perseverance. If his knowledge of naval affairs was entirely theoretical, it mattered little so long as he could turn that knowledge to practical account, by the counsel and aid of some of the most efficient of the scientific sailors of the Union.

Mr. Mallory took charge of the Navy Department in March, '61. At this time the question of iron-clads had attention of naval builders on both sides of the Atlantic; and deeming them indispensable to naval warfare, the Secretary's first movement was a strong memoir to Congress, urging immediate and heavy appropriations for their construction at New Orleans and Mobile. With a treasury empty and immovably averse to anything like decisive action, the astute lawgivers of Montgomery hesitated and doubted. The most that could be forced from them were small appropriations for the fitting out of privateers.

The first venture, the "Sumter," was bought, equipped and put into commission at the end of April; and in the course of a few weeks she ran out of New Orleans, in command of Raphael Semmes, and the stars and bars were floating solitary, but defiant, over the seas. The history of her cruise, the terror she spread among the enemy's shipping, and the paralysis she sent to the very heart of his commerce, are too well known to need repetition here. Badly-built craft as she was for such a service, she was still more badly equipped; but so eminently successful was she that both Government and Congress must have been incurably blind, not to put a hundred like her upon every sea where the Union flag could float.

Had one-twentieth the sum frittered away in useless iron-clads, and worse than useless "gunboats," been put into saucy and swift wasps like the "Sumter," their stings must have driven northern commerce from the sea; and the United States ports would have been more effectually blockaded, from a thousand miles at sea, than were those of the southern fleet-bound coast.

It may not be irrelevant here to allude to the finale of the Confederate cruisers; and to recall the most inane farce of all those enacted by the madmen who held power in '66.

In the January of that year, Raphael Semmes was seized and thrown into prison. He was now charged—not with having violated his parole given to General Grant, who was personally and morally responsible for his persecution—not with doing aught but "obeying the laws themselves;" but he was charged with having escaped, the year before, from the custody of a man whose prisoner he was not and had never been—with having broken from a durance that ought to have existed! From incontrovertible testimony, we know that Captain Semmes only raised the white flag, after his vessel began to sink; that he stayed on her deck until she went down beneath him; that no boat came to him from the "Kearsage," and that he was in the water full an hour, before the boat of the "Deerhound" picked him up and carried him aboard that yacht.

But radical hatred, and thirst for vengeance on a disarmed enemy, raised the absurd plea that Semmes became a prisoner of war by raising the white flag; that by so doing he gave a moral parole! and violated it by saving himself from a watery grave and afterward taking up arms again. It is only a proof that the country was a little less mad than the radical leaders, that the unheard-of absurdity of its Navy Department was not sustained by popular opinion. It would have no doubt been chivalric and beautiful in Raphael Semmes to have drowned in the ocean, because the boat of the "Kearsage" would not pick him up after accepting his "moral parole;" but, as he did not see it in that light, and as he was never called upon to surrender by any officer of that ship, he was perfectly free the moment his own deck left him in the waves. The white flag was but a token that he desired to save the lives of his men; and would surrender them and himself, if opportunity were given. But even granting the nonsensical claim that it made him a prisoner—the laws of war demand absolute safety for prisoners; and the fact of the "Kearsage" leaving him to drown was, in itself, a release.

There is no necessity for defense of Captain Semmes' position; but it may be well to record how blind is the hate which still attempts to brand as "Pirate" a regularly-commissioned officer in service, whose long career gained him nothing but respect under the northern—nothing but glory under the southern flag. If Raphael Semmes be a "pirate," then was the northern recognition of belligerents but an active lie! Then was Robert E. Lee a marauder—Wade Hampton but a bushwhacker, and Joseph E. Johnston but a guerrilla!

When the "Sumter" began her work, she was soon followed by the "Florida"—a vessel somewhat better, but still of the same class. Under the dashing and efficient Maffitt, the "Florida," too, wrought daring destruction. Her record, like that of her rival, is too familiar for repetition; as is the later substitution of the "Alabama" for the worn-out "Sumter."

During the long war, these three vessels—and but two of them at one time—were the only cruisers the Confederacy had afloat; until just before its close, the "Shenandoah" went out to strike fresh terror to the heart and pocket of New England. Then, also, that strong-handed and cool-headed amphiboid, Colonel John Taylor Wood, made—with wretched vessels and hastily-chosen crews—most effective raids on the coasting shipping of the Northeast.

One popular error pervades all which has been said or written, on both sides of the line, about the Confederate navy. This is the general title of "privateer," given to all vessels not cooped up in southern harbors. Regularly-commissioned cruisers, like the "Alabama" and "Florida," the property of the Navy Department, and commanded by its regularly-commissioned officers, were no more "privateers" than were the "Minnesota," or "Kearsage."

There was a law passed, regulating the issue of letters of marque; and from time to time much was heard of these in the South. But after the first spirt of the saucy little "Jeff Davis," not more than two or three ever found their way to sea; and even these accomplished nothing.

At one time, a company with heavy capital was gotten up in Richmond, for the promotion of such enterprises; but it was looked upon as a job and was little successful in any sense.

So, with all the ports of the world open to belligerent ships; with unsurpassed sailors "panting for the very lack of element" in musty offices, privateers did not increase in number; and one of the most effective engines of legitimate warfare was but illustrated, instead of being utilized.

Meantime, the Navy Department had ceased to importune for appropriations to build iron-clads at New Orleans; an omission that carried the grave responsibility for loss of that city, and for the far graver disaster of the closing of the whole river and the blockade of the trans-Mississippi. For had the "Louisiana" been furnished with two companion ships of equal strength—or even had she been completely finished and not had been compelled to succumb to accidents within, while she braved the terrific fire from without—the Federal fleet might have been crushed like egg-shells; the splendid exertions of Hollins and Kennon in the past would not have been nullified; the blood of McIntosh and Huger would not have been useless sacrifice; and the homes of the smiling city and the pure vicinage of her noble daughters might not have been polluted by the presence of the commandant, who crawled in after the victorious fleet.

Norfolk, however, had come into southern possession, by the secession of Virginia; and the vast resources of her navy-yard—only partly crippled by the haste of the Federal retreat—stimulated the Government. A meager appropriation was passed for the construction of the "Merrimac;" or rather for an iron-clad ship upon the hull of the half-destroyed frigate of that name. Had the whole amount necessary for her completion been given, the vessel would have been ready weeks before she was, under the dribblet system adopted. Then, indeed, it would be hard to overestimate her value; damage to shipping in Hampton Roads; or her ultimate effect upon McClellan's campaign.

No appropriation for an object of vital import could be shaken free from its bonds of red tape; and this one was saddled with an incubus, in the bill for the "construction of one hundred gunboats." The scheme to build that number of wooden vessels of small size seemed equally short-sighted and impracticable. They could only be built on inland rivers and creeks, to prevent attacks by the enemy's heavier vessels; and hence they were necessarily small and ineffective. The interior navy-yards had, moreover, to be guarded against surprises by the enemy's cavalry; and as men were so scarce, it was generally arranged that the navy-yard should follow the army lines. Constantly shifting position—caused by the rapid movements of the enemy, left these impromptu ship-yards unprotected; and then a small party of raiders would either burn them, or force their builders to do so. It was not until the appropriation was nearly spent—although not one efficient gunboat of this class was ever finished—that the system was abandoned as utterly worthless and impracticable.

Had the large sum thus wasted been applied to the purchase of swift and reliable cruisers—or to the speedy and energetic completion of one iron-clad at a time—it would have read a far more telling story to the enemy, both in prestige and result.

But even in the case of these, energy and capital were divided and distracted. On completion of the "Merrimac," there were in the course of construction at New Orleans, two mailed vessels of a different class—one of them only a towboat covered with railroad iron. There were also two small ones on the stocks at Charleston, and another at Savannah. The great difficulty of procuring proper iron; of rolling it when obtained; and the mismanagement of transportation, even when the plates were ready—made the progress of all these boats very slow. Practicality would have concentrated the whole energy of the Department upon one at a time; not have left them all unfinished, either to prove utterly useless at the trying moment, or to fall a prey to superior force of the enemy.

The plan of the "Merrimac" was unique, in the submersion of her projecting eaves; presenting a continuous angling coat of mail even below the water-surface. She was built upon the razeed hull of the old "Merrimac," of four-and-a-half-inch iron, transverse plates; and carried an armament of seven-inch rifled Brooke guns, made expressly for her. There was much discussion at one time, as to whom the credit for her plan was really due. It finally was generally conceded, however, that her origin and perfection were due to Commander John M. Brooke; and the terrible banded rifle-gun and bolt, she used with such effect on the "Cumberland," was his undisputed invention.

Much wonder had the good people of Norfolk expressed in their frequent visits to the strange-looking, turtle-like structure. Day by day she slowly grew; and at length, after weary work and weary waiting, took on her armament; then her crew was picked carefully from eager volunteers: her grand old captain took his place, and all was ready for the trial.

During all this time Hampton Roads had been gay with Federal shipping. Frigates, gunboats, transports and supply ships ran defiantly up and down; laughing at the futile efforts of the point batteries to annoy them, and indulging in a dream of security that was to be most rudely broken. The "Susquehanna" frigate, with heaviest armament in the Federal navy, laid in the channel at Newport News, blockading the mouth of James river and cutting off communication from Norfolk. The "Congress" frigate was lying near her, off the News; while the "Minnesota" lay below, under the guns of Fortress Monroe. The Ericsson Monitor—the first of her class, and equally an experiment as her rebel rival—had come round a few days before to watch the "Virginia," as the new iron-clad was now rechristened.

The great ship being ready, Flag-Officer Buchanan ordered the "Jamestown," Captain Barney, and the "Yorktown," Captain Tucker, down from Richmond; while he went out with the "Raleigh" and "Beaufort"—two of the smallest class of gunboats, saved by Captain Lynch from Roanoke Island. This combined force—four of the vessels being frail wooden shells, formerly used as river passenger boats—carried only twenty-seven guns. But Buchanan steamed boldly out, on the morning of the 8th of March, to attack an enemy carrying quite two hundred and twenty of the heaviest guns in the United States navy!

It was a moment of dreadful suspense for the soldiers in the batteries and the people of Norfolk. They crowded the wharves, the steeples, and the high points of the shore; and every eye was strained upon the black specks in the harbor.

Slowly—with somewhat of majesty in her stolid, even progress—the "Virginia" steamed on—down the harbor—past the river batteries—out into the Roads. Steadily she kept her way, heading straight for the "Cumberland;" and close to her stuck the frail wooden boats that a single shell might have shattered. On she went—into full range. Then suddenly, as if from one match, shipping and shore batteries belched forth the great shells hurtling over her, hissing into the water—bounding from her side like raindrops from a rock! On she headed—straight for the "Cumberland;" the crew of that ship steadily working their heated guns and wondering at the strange, silent monster that came on so evenly, so slowly—so regardless alike of shot and shell. Suddenly she spoke.

The terrible shell from her bow-gun tore the huge frigate from stern to bow; driving in her quarter, dismounting guns and scattering death along its course. Shocked and staggered, Uncle Sam's tars still stuck to their work. Once more the "Cumberland" delivered her whole broadside, full in her enemy's face at pistol range. It was her death volley. The submerged ram had struck home. A great rent yawned in the ship's side; she filled rapidly—careened—went down by the bows—her flag still flying—her men still at quarters!

On past her—scarce checked in her deadly-slow course—moved the "Virginia." Then she closed on the "Congress," and one terrific broadside after another raked the frigate; till, trembling like a card-house, she hauled down her colors and raised the white flag. The "Beaufort" ranged alongside and received the flag of the "Congress", and her captain, William R. Smith, and Lieutenant Pendergrast as prisoners of war. These officers left their side-arms on the "Beaufort" and returned to the "Congress;" when—notwithstanding the white flag—a hot fire was opened from shore upon the "Beaufort", and she was compelled to withdraw. Lieutenant Robert Minor was then sent in a boat from the "Virginia" to fire the frigate; but was badly wounded by a Minié-ball, from under the white flag; and Captain Buchanan was seriously hit in the leg by the same volley. Then it was determined to burn the "Congress" with hot shot.

There is no room for comment here; and no denial of these facts has ever been made, or attempted.

Meanwhile, the frigates "Minnesota", "St. Lawrence" and "Roanoke" had advanced and opened fire on the "Virginia"; but upon her approach to meet it, they retired under the guns of the fort; the "Minnesota" badly damaged by the heavy fire of her antagonist, while temporarily aground.

Next day the "Virginia" had a protracted but indecisive fight with the "Monitor;" the latter's lightness preventing her being run down and both vessels seeming equally impenetrable. Later in the day the victorious ship steamed back to Norfolk, amid the wildest enthusiasm of its people. The experiment had proved a success beyond the wildest expectation: and a new era seemed opened in naval warfare.

But however great the meed of praise deserved by the iron ship and her crew, at least as much was due to those of the wooden gun-boats that had so gallantly seconded her efforts. All day long had those frail shells been urged into the thickest of that terrific fire. Shot flew by, over and through them; and it seemed miraculous that they were not torn into shreds!

The success of the "Virginia", while it gave food for much comment at the North and in Europe, had the effect of stimulating the Department to renewed exertions elsewhere. At the same time it raised the navy greatly in the estimation of the people, who began now to see of what material it was composed, to accomplish so much with such limited means and opportunity. And this opinion was to be strengthened, from time to time, by the brilliant flashes of naval daring that came to illumine some of the darkest hours of the war.

Who does not remember that defense of Drewry's Bluff when Eben Farrand had only three gunboat crews and three hastily mounted guns, with which to drive back the heavy fleet that knew Richmond city lay helpless at its mercy?

And those desperate, yet brilliant fights off New Orleans, against every odds of metal, numbers, and worse, of internal mismanagement. Do they not illustrate the character of the navy, and bring it out in bold relief of heroism? Nor should we forget the brief but brilliant life of the "Arkansas"—born in danger and difficulty; surrounded on every side by numberless active foes; and finally dying, not from the blow of an enemy, but from the fault of those who sent her forth unfinished and incomplete!

Those trying times recall the conduct of Captain Lynch and his squadron of shells; and of the veteran Cooke in the batteries, on the dark day that lost Roanoke Island. Nor may we lose sight of the splendid conduct of that latter grim old seadog, when, returning wounded and prison-worn, he bore down on Plymouth in the "Albemarle" and crushed the Federal gunboats like egg-shells.

And conspicuous, even among these fellow-sailors, stands John Taylor Wood. Quick to plan and strong to strike, he ever and anon would collect a few trusty men and picked officers; glide silently out from Richmond, where his duties as colonel of cavalry on the President's staff chained him most of the time. Soon would come an echo from the frontier, telling of quick, sharp struggle; victorious boarding and a Federal gunboat or two given to the flames. I have already alluded to his dashing raid upon the fishery fleet; but his cunning capture of the gunboats in the Rappahannock, or his cool and daring attack on the "Underwriter," during Pickett's movement on Newberne, would alone give him undying reputation.

The United States had a navy in her waters that would class as the third maritime power of the world; and this she rapidly increased by every appliance of money, skill and energy. She bought and built ships and spent vast sums and labor in experiments in ordnance, armoring and machinery. As result of this, the Federal navy, at the end of the second year of the war, numbered some 390 vessels of all grades, carrying a fraction over 3,000 guns. Before the end of the war it had increased to near 800 vessels of war of all grades; the number of guns had doubled and were infinitely heavier and more effective; and the number of tenders, tugs, transports and supply ships would have swelled the navy list to over 1,300 vessels.

To meet this formidable preparation, the Confederate Navy Department in May, '61, had one gulf steamer in commission; had the fragments of the Norfolk Navy Yard; the refuse of the harbor boats of Charleston, New Orleans, Savannah and Mobile to select from; and had, besides, the neglect of Congress and the jealousy of the other branch of the service.

Spite of all these drawbacks, the rare powers of the navy officers forced themselves into notice and use.

Before the close of the war, the only two rolling-mills in the Confederacy were in charge of navy officers. They built powder-mills and supplied their own demands; and, to a great extent, those of the army. They established rope-walks and became the seekers for the invaluable stores of niter and coal that both branches of the service so much needed. More than this, they made from nothing—and in spite of constant losses from exposure to the enemy and incomplete supplies—a fleet of iron-clads numbering at one time nine vessels; and a wooden navy at the same moment reaching some thirty-five.

But these—scattered over the vast area of water courses, far from supporting each other—were unable to cope with the superior strength of metal and construction brought against them.

That much-discussed torpedo system, too—regarding the utility of which there was such diversity of opinion—had its birth and perfection in the navy. It was a service of science and perseverance; frequently of exposure to every peril. It required culture, nerve and administrative ability; and it was managed in the main with success. Still the results were hardly commensurate with the outlay involved; for though James river, some of the western streams, and Charleston harbor were literally sown with torpedoes, yet only in rare and isolated instances—such as the "De Kalb" and "Commodore Jones"—did the results equal the expectation. Thousands of tons of valuable powder, much good metal and more valuable time at the work-shops were expended on torpedoes; and, on the whole, it is very doubtful if the amount destroyed was not more than balanced by the amount expended.

Thus, with varying fortunes—but with unceasing endeavor and unfailing courage—the navy worked on. That hue and cry against it—which a brilliant success would partially paralyze—soon gathered force in its intervals of enforced inaction. Just after the triumph of Hampton Roads was, perhaps, the brightest hour for the navy in public estimation. People then began to waver in their belief that its administration was utterly and hopelessly wrong; and to think that its chief had not perhaps sinned quite as much as he had been sinned against.

The old adage about giving a bad name, however, was more than illustrated in Mr. Mallory's case. He had no doubt been unfortunate; but that he really was guilty of one-half the errors and mishaps laid at his door was simply impossible. Not taking time—and, perhaps, without the requisite knowledge—to compare the vast discrepancy of force between the two governments, the masses only saw the rapid increase of the Federal navy and felt the serious effects of its efficiency. Then they grumbled that the Confederate secretary—with few work-shops, scattered navy-yards, little money and less transportation—did not proceed pari passu to meet these preparations. Every result of circumstance, every accident, every inefficiency of a subordinate was visited upon Mr. Mallory's head. Public censure always makes the meat it feeds on; and the secretary soon became the target for shafts of pitiable malice, or of unreflecting ridicule. When the enemy's gunboats—built at secure points and fitted out without stint of cost, labor or material—ascended to Nashville, a howl was raised that the Navy Department should have had the water defenses ready. True, Congress had appropriated half a million for the defenses of the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers; but the censorious public forgot that the money had been voted too late. Even then it was quite notorious, that in the red-tape system of requisition and delay that hedged the Treasury—an appropriation and the money it named were totally diverse things.

When New Orleans fell, curses loud and deep went up against the Navy Department. Doubtless there was some want of energy in pushing the iron-clads there; but again in this case the money was voted very late; and even Confederate machine-shops and Confederate laborers could not be expected to give their material, time and labor entirely for nothing. Had Congress made the appropriations as asked, and had the money been forthcoming at the Treasury—New Orleans might not have fallen as she did.

Later still, when the "Virginia" was blown up on the evacuation of Norfolk, a howl of indignation was raised against Secretary, Department and all connected with it. A Court of Inquiry was called; and Commodore Tatnall himself demanded a court-martial, upon the first court not ordering one.

The facts proved were that the ship, with her iron coating and heavy armament, drew far too much water to pass the shoal at Harrison's Bar—between her and Richmond. With Norfolk in the enemy's hands, the hostile fleet pressing her—and with no point whence to draw supplies—she could not remain, as the cant went, "the grim sentinel to bar all access to the river." It was essential to lighten her, if possible; and the effort was made by sacrificing her splendid armament. Even then she would not lighten enough by two feet; the enemy pressed upon her, now perfectly unarmed; and Tatnall was forced to leave and fire her.

People forgot the noble achievements of the ship under naval guidance; that, if destroyed by naval men, she was the offspring of naval genius. With no discussion of facts, the cry against the navy went on, even after that splendid defense of Drewry's Bluff by Farrand, which alone saved Richmond!

As a pioneer, the "Virginia" was a great success and fully demonstrated the theory of her projector. But there were many points about her open to grave objections; and she was, as a whole, far inferior to the smaller vessels afterward built upon her model at Richmond. Armed with the same gun, there is little doubt but the "Monitor" would have proved—from her superior lightness and obedience to her helm—no less than from her more compact build—at least her equal. Officers on the "Virginia" shared in this belief of her advantages over her terrible antagonist.

On the whole, the experience of the war tells of honest endeavor and brilliant achievement, under surpassing difficulty, for the Confederate navy. That it was composed of gallant, noble-hearted men, none who were thrown with them can doubt; that they wrought heart and hand for the cause, in whatever strange and novel position, none ever did doubt.

They made mistakes. Who in army, or government, did not?

But from the day they offered their swords; through the unequal contest of the Sounds, the victorious one of Hampton Roads; pining for the sea in musty offices, or drilling green conscripts in sand batteries; marching steadily to the last fight at Appomattox—far out of their element—the Confederate sailors flinched not from fire nor fled from duty. Though their country grumbled, and detraction and ingratitude often assailed them; yet at the bitter ending no man nor woman in the broad South but believed they had done their devoir—honestly—manfully—well!

Who in all that goodly throng of soldiers, statesmen and critics—did more?

CHAPTER XXXI.

THE CHINESE-WALL BLOCKADE, ABROAD AND AT HOME.

Potent factor in sapping the foundations of Confederate hope and of Confederate credit, was the blockade.

First held in contempt; later fruitful mother of errors, as to the movements and intentions of European powers; ever the growing constrictor—whose coil was slowly, but surely, to crush out life—it became each year harder to bear:—at last unbearable!

At first, Mr. Lincoln's proclamation was laughed to scorn at the South. The vast extent of South Atlantic and Gulf coast—pierced with innumerable safe harbors—seemed to defy any scheme for hermetic sealing. The limited Federal navy was powerless to do more than keep loose watch over ports of a few large cities; and, if these were even effectually closed, it was felt that new ones would open, on every hand, inviting the ventures of enterprising sailors.

This reasoning had good basis, at first; and—had the South made prompt and efficient use of opportunity and resources at hand, by placing credits abroad and running in essential supplies—the result of the first year's blockade might largely have nullified its effect, for the last three. But there seemed indurated contempt for the safety-bearing look ahead; and its very inefficiency, at the outset, of the blockade lulled the South into false security.

The preceding pages note the rapid and vast growth of the Union navy; but the South misjudged—until error had proved fatal—that enterprise and "grit" of Yankee character; that fixed steadiness of purpose which forced both, ever, into most resultful effort. And, so gradual were appreciable results of this naval growth; so nearly imperceptible was the actual closing of southern ports—that the masses of the people realized no real evil, until it had long been accomplished fact.

Already record has been made of the urgence on Government of sending cotton abroad, and importing arms, munitions and clothing, which ordinary foresight declared so needful. But—only when the proper moment had long passed—was the then doubtful experiment made.

A twin delusion to the kingship of cotton besotted the leaders as to the blockade. Arguing its illegality equal to its inefficiency, they were convinced that either could be demonstrated to Europe. And here let us glance briefly at the South's suicidal foreign policy; and at the feeling of other people regarding it.

Under the Treaty of Paris, no blockade was de facto, or to be recognized, unless it was demonstrated to be effectual closing of the port, or ports, named. Now, in the South, were one or two ships, at most, before the largest ports; with an average of one vessel for every hundred miles of coast! And so inefficient was the early blockade of Charleston, Wilmington and New Orleans, that traders ran in and out, actually with greater frequency than before those ports were proclaimed closed. Their Government declared—and the southern people believed—that such nominal blockade would not be respected by European powers; and reliant upon the kingship of cotton inducing early recognition, both believed that the ships of England and France—disregarding the impotent paper closure—would soon crowd southern wharves and exchange the royal fleece for the luxuries, no less than the necessaries, of life.

When the three first commissioners to Europe—Messrs. Yancey, Rost and Mann—sailed from New Orleans, on March 31, '61, their mission was hailed as harbinger to speedy fruition of these delusive thoughts, to which the wish alone was father. Then—though very gradually—began belief that they had reckoned too fast; and doubt began to chill glowing hopes of immediate recognition from Europe. But there was none, as yet, relative to her ultimate action. The successful trial trip of the "Nashville," Captain Pegram, C.S.N.—and her warm reception by the British press and people—prevented that. And, after every victory of the South, her newspapers were filled with praise from the press of England. But gradually—as recognition did not come—first wonder, then doubt, and finally despair took the place of certainty.

When Mr. Yancey came back, in disgust, and made his plain statement of the true state of foreign sentiment, he carried public opinion to his side; and—while the Government could then do nothing but persist in effort for recognition, now so vital—the people felt that dignity was uselessly compromised, while their powerless representatives were kept abroad, to knock weakly at the back door of foreign intervention.