The Victim: A Romance of the Real Jefferson Davis

by Thomas Dixon

  CHAPTER XIII

  THE CLOSING OF THE RANKS

  A wave of fierce anger swept the North. The fall of Sumter was the onetopic on every lip. Men stopped their trade, their work, their play andlooked about them for the nearest rallying ground of soldiers.

  The President of the United States was quick to seize the favorablemoment to call for 75,000 volunteers. That these troops were to fightthe Confederacy was not questioned for a moment.

  The effect of this proclamation on the South was a political earthquake.In a single day all differences of opinion were sunk in the commoncause. A feeling of profound wonder swept every thoughtful man withinthe Southern States. To this moment, even a majority of those whofavored the policy of secession had done so under the belief that it wasthe surest way of securing redress of grievances and of bringing theFederal Government back to its original Constitutional principles. Manyof them believed, and all of their leaders in authority hoped, that are-formation of the Union would soon take place in peaceful ways on thebasis of the new Constitution proclaimed at Montgomery. Many Northernnewspapers, led by the New York _Herald_, had advocated this course. Thehope of the majority of the Southern people was steadfast that the Unionwould thus be continued and strengthened, and made more perfect, as ithad been in 1789 after the withdrawal of nine States from the Old Unionby the adoption of the Constitution of 1787.

  Abraham Lincoln's proclamation shattered all hope of such peacefuladjustment.

  Thousands of the best men in Virginia and North Carolina had votedagainst secession. Not one of them, in the face of this proclamation,would dispute longer with their brethren. Whatever they might thinkabout the expediency of withdrawing from the Union, they were absolutelyclear on two points. The President of the United States had no powerunder the charter of our Government to declare war. Congress only coulddo that. If the Cotton States were out of the Union, his act was illegalbecause the usurpation of supreme power. If they were yet in the Union,the raising of an army to invade their homes was a plain violation ofthe Constitution.

  The heart of the South beat as one man. The cause of the war had beensuddenly shifted to a broader and deeper foundation about which nopossible difference could ever again arise in the Southern States.

  The demand for soldiers to invade the South was a bugle call to Southernmanhood to fight for their liberties and defend their homes. It gaveeven to the staunchest Union men of the Old South the overt act of anopen breach of the Constitution. From the moment Abraham Lincolnproclaimed a war without the act of Congress, from that moment he becamea dictator and a despot who deliberately sought to destroy theirliberties.

  The cause of the South not only meant the defense of their homes fromforeign invasion; it became a holy crusade for the reestablishment ofConstitutional freedom.

  Virginia immediately seceded from the Union by the vote of the same menwho had refused to secede but a few weeks before. The old flag fell fromits staff on her Capitol and the new symbol of Southern unity wasunfurled in its place. As if by magic the new flag fluttered from everyhill, housetop and window, while crowds surged through the streetsshouting and waving it aloft. Cannon boomed its advent and cheeringthousands saluted it.

  A great torchlight parade illumined the streets on April 19. In thisprocession walked the men who a week ago had marched through FranklinStreet waving the old flag of the Union and shouting themselves hoarsein their determination to uphold it. They had signed the ordinance ofsecession with streaming eyes, but they signed it with firm hands, andsent their sons to the muster fields next day.

  Augusta County, a Whig and Union center, and Rockingham, an equallystrong Democratic Union county, each contributed fifteen hundredsoldiers to the new cause. Women not only began to prepare the equipmentfor their men, but many of them began to arm and practice themselves.Boys from ten to fourteen were daily drilling. In Petersburg threehundred free negroes offered their services to fight or to ditch anddig.

  The bitterness of the answers of the Southern Governors from the BorderStates yet in the Union amazed the President at Washington.

  His demand for troops was refused in tones of scorn and defiance.

  Governor Magoffin of Kentucky replied:

  "The State will furnish no troops for the wicked purpose of subduing hersister Southern States."

  Governor Harris telegraphed from Nashville:

  "The State of Tennessee will not furnish a single man for coercion, butfifty thousand if necessary for the defense of her rights."

  The message of Governor Ellis of North Carolina was equally emphatic:

  "I will be no party to this wicked violation of the laws of ourcountry, and to this war upon the liberties of a free people."

  Governor Rector of Arkansas replied:

  "Your demand adds insult to injury."

  Governor Jackson of Missouri was indignant beyond all others:

  "Your requisition in my judgment is illegal, unconstitutional, andrevolutionary--its objects inhuman and diabolical."

  Tennessee followed Virginia by seceding on May 6. Arkansas on May 18,and North Carolina by unanimous vote on May 21.

  North Carolina had been slow to announce her final separation from theold Union. But she had been prompt in proclaiming her own sovereignrights within her territory when the National Government had dared tocall them in question. On the day the President had issued hisproclamation she seized Fort Macon at Beaufort. Fort Caswell was takenand garrisoned by her volunteers, and on April 19, the arsenal atFayetteville was captured without bloodshed. The value of thisachievement to the South was incalculable. The Confederacy thus securedsixty-five thousand stand of arms, of which twenty-eight thousand wereof the most modern pattern.

  Virginia had seceded on April 17 and immediately moved to secure underthe resumption of her complete sovereignty all the arms, munitions ofwar, ship stores and military posts within her borders. Two posts oftremendous importance she attempted to seize at once--the great navyyard at Norfolk and the arsenal and shops at Harper's Ferry. The navyyard contained a magnificent dry dock worth millions, huge ship houses,supplies, ammunition, small arms and cannon, and had lying in its basinseveral vessels of war, complete and incomplete.

  Harper's Ferry contained ten thousand muskets, five thousand rifles anda complete set of machinery for the manufacture of arms capable ofturning out two thousand muskets a month.

  A force of Virginia volunteers moved on Harper's Ferry. The smallFederal garrison asked for a parley, which was granted. In a short timeflames were pouring from the armory and arsenal. The garrison had setfire to the buildings and escaped across the railroad bridge intoMaryland.

  The Virginia troops rushed into the burning buildings, and saved fivethousand muskets and three thousand unfinished rifles. The garrison hadlaid trains of powder to blow up the workshops, but the Virginiansextinguished the flames and saved to the South the invaluable machineryfor making and repairing muskets and rifles. It was shipped toFayetteville and Richmond and installed for safety.

  The destruction of the navy yard at Norfolk was more complete andirreparable. The dry dock was little damaged, but the destruction ofstores and property was enormous. All ships in the harbor were set onfire and scuttled.

  Events moved now with swift and terrible certainty.

  Massachusetts attempted, on April 19, to send a regiment through thestreets of Baltimore to invade the South, and the indignant wrath of hercitizens could not be controlled by the mayor or police. The street carson which they were riding across town to the Camden station were thrownfrom the tracks. The crowds jammed the streets and shouted their cursesin the face of the advancing volunteers. Stones were hurled into theirranks and two soldiers dropped. A volley was poured into the crowd andseveral fell dead and wounded.

  The crowd went mad. Revolvers were drawn and fired point blank into theranks of the soldiers and those who were unarmed rushed to armthemselves. From Frederic to Smith Streets the firing on both sidescontinued with the regular crash of battle. Citize
ns were falling, buteven the unarmed men continued to press forward and hurl stones into theranks of the New Englanders.

  The troops began to yield before the determined onslaughts of theinfuriated crowds, bewildered and apparently without real commanders.They pressed through the streets, staggering, confused, breaking into arun and turning to fire on their assailants as they retreated.

  Harassed, bleeding and exhausted, the regiment at last reached theBaltimore & Ohio station. The fight continued without pause. Volleys ofstones were hurled into the cars, shattering windows and paneling. Thetroops were ordered to lie down on the floors and keep their heads belowthe line of the windows. Maddened men pressed to the car windows,cursing and yelling their defiance. For half a mile along the tracks thecrowd struggled and shouted, piling the rails with new obstructions asfast as policemen could remove them. Through a steady roar of hoots,yells and curses the train at last pulled slowly out, the troops pouringa volley into the crowd.

  In this first irregular battle of the sections the Massachusettsregiment lost four killed and thirty-six wounded. The Baltimoreans losttwelve killed and an unknown number wounded.

  A wave of tremendous excitement swept the State of Maryland. Bridges onall railroads leading north were immediately burned and the City ofWashington cut off from communication with the outside world. Troopswere compelled to avoid Baltimore and find transportation by water toAnnapolis. Mass meetings were held and speeches of bitter defiancehurled against the Federal Government. The Baltimore Councilappropriated five hundred thousand dollars to put the city in a state ofdefense, though the State had proclaimed its neutrality.

  The shrewd, good-natured, even-tempered President at Washington used allhis powers of personal diplomacy to pour oil on the troubled waters ofMaryland. In the meantime with swift, sure, and merciless tread he movedon the turbulent State with the power of Federal arms. It was impossibleto hold the Capital of the Nation with a hostile State separating itfrom the loyal North.

  The steps he took were all clearly unconstitutional, but they werenecessary to save the Capital. They were the acts of a dictator, forCongress was not in session, but he dared to act. Troops were suddenlythrown into the city of Baltimore and its streets and heights plantedwith cannon. The chief of police was arrested and imprisoned, the policeboard was suspended and the city brought under the rule of drumheadcourt-martial. The writ of _habeas corpus_ was suspended by Federalauthorities in a free and sovereign State whose Legislature hadproclaimed its neutrality in the sectional conflict. Blank warrants wereissued by military officers and the house of every suspect entered byforce and searched. The mayor and his Council were arrested withoutwarrant, held without trial, and imprisoned in a military fortress, andwhen the Legislature dared to protest, its members were arrested and itssession closed by bayonets.

  So thoroughly was this work done that within thirty days from the attackon the troops of New England, Maryland's Governor by proclamation calledfor four regiments of volunteers to assist the Washington Government inthe proposed invasion of the South.

  In like manner, with hand of steel within a velvet glove, Mr. Lincolnprevented the secession of Kentucky and Missouri. It was done with lessviolence, but it was done, and these rich and powerful States saved tothe Union.

  The swift and bloodless conquest of Maryland inspired the North with themost grotesque conception of the war and its outcome.

  The British and French Governments had immediately recognized theConfederate States as belligerents under the terms of international lawand closed their ports to the armed vessels of both contestants. Mr.Seward, Lincoln's Secretary of State, hastened to assure the nations ofEurope that a dissolution of the Union was an absurd impossibility. Ithad never entered the mind of any candid statesman in America and shouldbe dismissed at once by statesmen in Europe. And yet at this time elevenSouthern States, stretching from the James to the Rio Grande, with apopulation of eight millions, had by solemn act of their Legislatureswithdrawn from the Union and their armies were camping within a fewmiles of the City of Washington.

  In all the North not a single statesman or a single newspaper appearedto have any conception of the serious task before them. The fusilladesof rant, passion and bombast which filled the air would have been comicbut for the grim tragedy which was stalking in their wake.

  The "Rebellion" was ridiculed and sneered at in terms that taxed thegenius of the writers for words of contempt.

  The New York _Tribune_, the greatest and most powerful organ of publicopinion in the North, a paper which had boldly from the first proclaimedthe right of the South to peaceable secession, was now swept away withthe popular fury.

  Its editor gravely declared:

  "The Southern rebellion is nothing more or less than the naturalrecourse of all mean-spirited and defeated tyrannies to rule or ruin,making of course a wide distinction between the will and the power, forthe hanging of traitors is soon to begin before a month is over. TheNations of Europe may rest assured that Jeff Davis and Co. will beswinging from the battlements at Washington, at least by the fourth ofJuly. We spit upon a later and longer deferred justice."

  The New York _Times_ gave its opinion with equal clearness:

  "Let us make quick work. The Rebellion is an unborn tadpole. Let us notfall into the delusion of mistaking a local commotion for a revolution.A strong active pull together will do our work in thirty days. We haveonly to send a column of twenty-five thousand men across the Potomac toRichmond to burn out the rats there; another column of twenty-fivethousand to Cairo to seize the Cotton ports of the Mississippi andretain the remaining twenty-five thousand called for by the President atWashington--not because there is any need for them there but because wedo not require their services elsewhere."

  The staid old Philadelphia _Press_ declared:

  "No man of sense can for a moment doubt that all thismuch-ado-about-nothing will end in a month. The Northern people areinvincible. The rebels are a band of ragamuffins who will fly like chaffbefore the wind on our approach."

  The West vied with the East in boastful clamor.

  The Chicago _Tribune_ shouted from the top of its columns:

  "We insist that the West be allowed the honor of settling this littletrouble by herself since she is most interested in its suppression toinsure the free navigation of the Mississippi River. Let the East standaside. This is our war. We can end it successfully in two months.Illinois can whip the whole South by herself. We insist on the affairbeing turned over to us."

  With prospects of a short war and cheaply earned glory the rage forvolunteering was resistless. The war for three months was to be aholiday excursion and every man would return a hero crowned withgarlands of flowers, the center of admiring thousands. The blacksmithsof Brooklyn were busy making handcuffs for one of her crack regiments.Each volunteer had sworn to lead at least one captive rebel in chainsthrough the crowded streets in the great parade on their return.

  Socola on his arrival at Montgomery from Charleston read thesefulminations from the North with amazement and rage. He sent his bitterand emphatic protest against such madness to Holt. The faithful Josephhad been rewarded with an office to his liking. He was now the JudgeAdvocate General of the United States Army. He turned Socola's lettersover to Cameron, the new Secretary of War, who read them with risingwrath.

  "The author of those letters," he said with a scowl, "is either a damnedfool, or traitor."

  Holt's lower lip was thrust out and the lines of his big mouth drawninto a knot.

  "I assure you, sir--he is neither. He is absolutely loyal. Hispatriotism is a religion. He has entered his dangerous and importantmission with the zeal of a religious fanatic."

  "That accounts for it then--he's insane. I don't care to read any moresuch twaddle and I won't pay for the services of such a man out of thefunds of the War Department."

  With the utmost difficulty Holt secured the consent of the Secretary ofWar to continue Socola's commission for two months longer.

  The only c
onsolation the young patriot found in the contemptuous replyhis Government made to his solemn warnings was the almost equal fatuitywith which the Southern people were now approaching their first test ofbattle.

  Until the proclamation of President Lincoln, both Jefferson Davis andthe South had believed in the possibility of a peaceful reconciliation.Even when the proclamation had been made and the wild response of theNorth had been instantly given, the Southern people refused to believethat the millions of Northern voters who still clung to the old forms ofConstitutional Government under the leadership of Stephen A. Douglaswould surrender their principles, arm themselves and march to coerce aState at the command of a President against whom they had voted.

  Senator Barton, from his new position in the Confederate Senate, scoutedthe idea of serious war.

  "Bah!" he growled to Socola, who was drawing him out. "The Yankees won'tfight!"

  "That's what they say about you, sir," was the cool response.

  "Who ever heard of a race of shopkeepers turning into soldiers?" TheSenator laughed. "Such men have no martial prowess! They are unequal tomighty deeds of valor."

  The white teeth of the young observer gleamed in a smile.

  "On the other hand, Senator, I'm afraid history proves that commercialcommunities, once aroused, are the most dogged, pugnacious, ambitiousand obstinate fighters of the world--Carthage, Venice, Genoa, Hollandand England have surely proven this--"

  "There's one thing certain," Barton roared. "We'll bring England to herknees if there is a war. Cotton is the King of Commerce, and we hold thekey of his empire. The population of England will starve without ourcotton. If we need them they've got to come to our rescue, sir!"

  Socola did not argue the point. It was amazing how widespread was thisidea in the South. He wrote his Government again and again that thewhole movement of secession was based on this conception.

  There was one man in Washington who read these warnings with keeninsight--Gideon Welles, the Secretary of the Navy. The part this quiet,unassuming man was preparing to play in the mighty drama then unfoldingits first scene was little known or understood by those who were fillingthe world with the noise of their bluster.

  Jefferson Davis at his desk in Montgomery saw with growing anxiety theconfidence of his people in immediate and overwhelming success. Inanswer to Abraham Lincoln's proclamation calling for 75,000 volunteersto fight the South, he called for 100,000 to defend it. The rage forvolunteering in the South was even greater than the North. An army offive hundred thousand men could have been enrolled for any length ofservice if arms and equipment could have been found. It was utterlyimpossible to arm and equip one hundred thousand, before the firstbattle would be fought.

  Ambitious Southern boys, raging for the smell of battle, rushed frompost to post, begged and pleaded for a place in the ranks. They offeredbig bounties for the places assigned to men who were lucky enough to beaccepted.

  The Confederate Congress, to the chagrin of their President, fixed thetime of service at six months. Jefferson Davis was apparently the onlyman in the South who had any conception of the gigantic task before hisinfant government. He begged and implored his Congress for an enrollmentof three years or the end of the war. The Congress laughed at his absurdfears. The utmost they would grant was enlistment for the term of oneyear.

  With grim foreboding but desperate earnestness the President of theConfederacy turned his attention to the organization and equipment ofthis force with which he was expected to defend the homes of eightmillion people scattered over a territory of 728,000 square miles, withan open frontier of a thousand miles and three thousand leagues of opensea.