The Victim: A Romance of the Real Jefferson Davis

by Thomas Dixon

  CHAPTER XXIV

  THE SLEEPING LIONESS

  Again the smoke of the navy shadowed the Southern skies. Two expeditionswere aiming mortal blows at the lower South.

  The Confederacy had concentrated its forces of the upper waters of theMississippi on Island Number 10 near New Madrid. The work of puttingthis little Gibraltar in a state of perfect defense had been rushed withall possible haste. New Madrid had been found indefensible and evacuatedon March thirteenth.

  On the seventeenth, Commodore Foote's fleet steamed into position andthe first shell from his guns shrieked its message of death across theisland. The gunboats concentrated their fire on the main battery whichwas located on low ground, almost submerged by the high water andseparated from the others by a wide slough. Their gun platforms werecovered with water--the men in gray must work their pieces standinghalf-leg deep in mud and slush. Five iron-clad gunboats led the attack.Three of them were lashed together in midstream and one lay under theshelter of each shore. Their concentrated fire was terrific. For ninehours they poured a stream of shot and shell on the lone battery withits beaver gunmen.

  At three o'clock Captain Rucker in charge of the battery called forreenforcements to relieve his exhausted men. Volunteers rushed to hisassistance and his guns roared until darkness brought them respite. Ithad been done. A single half-submerged battery exposed to theconcentrated fire of a powerful fleet had held them at bay and compelledthem to withdraw at nightfall. Rucker fired the last shot as twilightgathered over the yellow waters. His battery had mounted five guns atsunrise. Three of them were dismantled. Two of them still spoke defiancefrom their mud-soaked beds.

  On April the sixth, the fleet reenforced succeeded in slipping past thebatteries in a heavy fog. A landing was effected above and below theisland in large force, and its surrender was a military necessity.

  Foote and Pope captured MacKall, the commander, two brigadier generals,six colonels, a stand of ten thousand arms, two thousand soldiers,seventy pieces of siege artillery, thirty pieces of field artillery,fifty-six thousand solid shot, six transports and a floating battery ofsixteen guns.

  A cry of anguish came from the heart of the Confederate President. Theloss of men was insignificant--the loss of this enormous store of heavyguns and ammunition with no factory as yet capable of manufacturing themwas irreparable.

  But the cup of his misery was not yet full. The greatest fleet theUnited States Navy had gathered, was circling the mouth of theMississippi with its guns pointing toward New Orleans. Gideon Welles hadselected for command of this important enterprise the man of destiny,Davis Glasgow Farragut, a Southerner whose loyalty to the Union hadnever been questioned.

  Eighty-two ships answered Farragut's orders in his West Gulf squadron attheir rendezvous. His ships were wood, but no braver men ever walked thedecks of a floating battery.

  In March he managed to crawl across the bar and push his fleet into themouth of the Mississippi. The _Colorado_ was too deep and was leftoutside. The _Pensacola_ and the _Mississippi_ he succeeded indragging through the mud.

  His ships inside, the Commander ordered them stripped for the deathgrapple.

  New Orleans had been from the first considered absolutely impregnable toattack from the sea. Forts Jackson and St. Phillip, twenty miles belowthe city, were each fortifications of the first rank mounting powerfulguns which swept the narrow channel of the river from shore to shore.

  The use of steam, however, in naval warfare was as yet an untriedelement of force in the attacking fleet against shore batteries. Thatsteam in wooden vessels could overcome the enormous advantage of thesolidity and power of shore guns had been considered preposterous bymilitary experts.

  Jefferson Davis had utilized every shipbuilder in New Orleans to hastilyconstruct the beginnings of a Southern navy. Two powerful iron-cladgunboats, _Louisiana_ and _Mississippi_, were under way but not readyfor service. Eight small vessels had been bought and armed.

  To secure the city against the possibility of any fleet passing theforts at night or through fog, the channel of the river between FortsJackson and St. Phillip was securely closed. Eleven dismasted schoonerswere moored in line across the river and secured by six heavy chains.These chains formed an unbroken obstruction from shore to shore.

  This raft was placed immediately below the forts.

  There was no serious alarm in the city on the appearance of the fleet inthe mouth of the river. For months they had been cruising about the Gulfof Mexico without apparent decision.

  The people laughed at their enemy. There was but one verdict:

  "They'll think twice before attempting to repeat the scenes of 1812."

  Not only were the two great forts impregnable but the shores were linedwith batteries. What could wooden ships do with such forts and guns? Itwas a joke that they should pretend to attack them. Their only possibledanger was from the new iron-clad gunboats in the upper waters of theriver. They were building two of their own kind which would be readylong before the enemy could break through the defenses from the North.

  When Farragut stripped his fleet for action and moved toward the fortson the sixteenth of April, New Orleans was the gayest city in America.The spirit of festivity was universal. Balls, theaters, operas were theorder of the day. Gay parties of young people flocked down the river andswarmed the levees to witness the fun of the foolish attempt of a lot ofold wooden ships to reduce the great forts.

  The guns were roaring now their mighty anthem. Ships and forts--fortsand ships. The batteries of Farragut's mortar schooners were hurlingtheir eleven-inch shells with harmless inaccuracy.

  The people laughed again.

  For six days the earth trembled beneath the fierce bombardment. Thefleet had thrown twenty-five thousand shells and General Duncan reportedbut two guns dismantled, with half a dozen men killed and wounded. Theforts stood grim and terrible, their bristling line of black-lipped gunsunbroken, their defenses as strong as when the first shot was fired.

  On the evening of April twenty-third, the fire of the fleet slackened.Farragut had given up the foolish attempt, of course. He had undertakenthe impossible and at last had accepted the fact.

  But the people of New Orleans had not reckoned on the character of thedaring commander of the Federal fleet. He coolly decided that since hecould not silence the guns of the forts he would run past them with hisswift steam craft and take the chances of their batteries sending him tothe bottom.

  Once past these forts and the city would be at his mercy.

  He must first clear the river of the obstruction placed below the forts.Farragut ordered two gunboats to steal through the darkness withoutlights and clear this raft. The work was swiftly done. The task wasrendered unexpectedly easy by a break caused by a severe storm.

  At three o'clock in the morning of the twenty-fourth, the lookout on theramparts of the forts saw the black hulls of the fleet, swiftly andsilently steaming up the river straight for the mouths of their guns.

  The word was flashed to the little nondescript fleet of the Confederacylying in the smooth waters above and they moved instantly to the supportof the forts.

  The night was one of calm and glorious beauty. The Southern skiessparkled with jeweled stars. The waning moon threw its soft, mellowlight on the shining waters, revealing the dark hulls of the fleet withstriking clearness. The daring column was moving straight for FortJackson. They must pass close under the noses of her guns.

  They were in for it now.

  The dim star-lit world with its fading moon suddenly burst into sheetsof blinding, roaring flame. The mortar batteries moored in range, openedinstantly in response--their eleven-inch shells, glowing withphosphorescent halo, circled and screamed and fell.

  The black hulls belched their broadsides of yellow flame now. Frombattlement and casemate of forts rolled the thunder of their batteries,sending their heavy shots smashing into the wooden hulls.

  Through the flaming jaws of hell, the fleet, with lungs throbbing withevery pound of steam,
dashed and passed the forts!

  Farragut led in the _Hartford_. But his work had only begun. He hadscarcely reckoned on the little Confederate fleet. He found them aserious proposition.

  Suddenly above the flash and roar and the batteries of the forts andover the broadsides of the ships leaped a wall of fire straight into thesky.

  Slowly but surely the flaming heavens moved down on the attacking fleetlighting the yellow waters with unearthly glare.

  The Confederates had loosed a fleet of fire ships loaded with pitch pinecargoes. Farragut's lines wavered in the black confusion of rollingclouds of impenetrable smoke, lighted by the glare of leaping flames.

  The daring little fleet of the Confederacy moved down through theblinding vapors of their own fires and boldly attacked the on-cominghosts. Friend could scarcely be told from foe.

  A game little Confederate tug stuck her nose into a fire-ship, pushed itsquarely against Farragut's _Hartford_ and slipped between his guns inthe smoke and flame unharmed. The Flagship ran aground. Her sailorsbravely stuck to their post and from their pumps threw a deluge of wateron the flames and extinguished them. The engines of the _Hartford_,working with all their might, pulled her off the shore under her ownsteam. The _Louisiana_, the new gunboat of the Confederacy, had beenpressed into service with but two of her guns working--but she was oflittle use and became unmanageable.

  Captain Kennon, the gallant Confederate commander of the _GovernorMoore_, found that the bow of his ship interfered with the aim of hisgunners.

  "Lower your muzzle and blow the bow of your ship away!"

  The big gun dipped its black mouth and blew the bow of his own ship tosplinters and through the opening poured shot after shot into theFederal fleet. Kennon fired his last shot at point-blank range, turnedthe broken nose of his ship ashore and blew her up.

  For an hour and a half the two desperate foes wrestled with each otheramid flame and smoke and darkness. As the first blush of dawn mantledthe eastern sky the conflict slowly died away.

  Three of Farragut's gunboats had been driven back and one sunk, but hisfleet had done the immortal deed. Battered and riddled with shots, theyhad passed the forts successfully. As the sun rose on the beautifulspring morning he lifted his battle flags and steamed up the river.

  New Orleans, the commercial capital of the South, the largest exportcity of the world, lay on the horizon in silent shimmering beauty, apriceless treasure, at his mercy.

  Speechless crowds of thousands thronged the streets. The small garrisonhad been withdrawn and the city left to its fate. The marines stoodstatue-like before the City Hall, their bayonets glittering in thesunlight. Not a breath of wind stirred. In dead, ominous silence theflag of the South was lowered from its staff and the flag of the Unionraised in its old place.

  There was one man among the thousands who saw this flag with a cry ofjoy. Judge Roger Barton, Jr., had braved the scorn of his neighborsthrough good report and evil report, holding their respect by the sheerheroism of his undaunted courage. His aged grandfather was in the cityat the moment, having come on a visit from Fairview. Baton Rouge mustfall at once. There was nothing to prevent Farragut's fleet fromsteaming up the river now for hundreds of miles. The old Colonel wasfurious when informed that he could not return to Fairview. But therewas no help for it.

  "Don't worry, Grandfather," the judge pleaded; "you can depend on it,Senator Barton will save Fairview if it's within human power--"

  "But your grandmother is there, sir!" thundered the old man, "helplesson her back. There's no one to protect her from the damned Yankees--"

  The Judge smiled.

  "Maybe the Yankees will not be so bad after all, grandfather. Anyhowthere's no help for it. I've got you here with me safe and sound and I'mgoing to keep you--"

  The fall of New Orleans sent a dagger into the heart of the South. Ft.Donelson had broken the center. The fall of New Orleans had smashed theleft wing of the far-flung battle line. The power of the Confederacy wascrushed in the rich and powerful State of Louisiana at a single stroke.The route to Texas was cut. The United States Navy had established abase from which to send their fleets into the interior by the greatrivers and by the gulf from the Rio Grande to the Keys of Florida.

  The sleeping lioness stirred at last. The delusion of Bull Run hadpassed. It took six months of disasters to do for the South what BullRun did for the North in six days. The South began now to rise in hermight and gird her loins for the fight she had foolishly thought won onthe plains of Manassas.

  Senator Barton was in bed so ill from an attack of influenza it wasimpossible for him to travel.

  Jennie hastily packed her trunk and left on the first train for theSouth. She must reach her helpless grandmother before the Federal armycould attack Baton Rouge.

  The tenderness with which Socola helped her on board the train hadbrought the one ray of sunlight into her heart. She had expected to goin tears and terror for what the future held in store in the strickenworld at home.

  A smile on the lips of a stranger had set her heart to beating with joy.

  She was ashamed of herself for being so happy. But it was impossible tomake her heart stop beating and laughing. He had not yet spoken a wordof love but she knew. She knew with a knowledge sweet and perfectbecause she had suddenly realized her own secret. She might have gone onfor months in Richmond without knowing that she cared any more for himthan for a dozen other boys who were as attentive. In this hour ofparting it had come in a blinding flash as he bent over her hand to saygood-by. It made no difference when he should speak. Love had come intoher own heart full, wonderful, joyous, maddening in its glory. She couldwait in silence until in the fullness of time he must speak. It wasenough to know that she loved.

  "May I write to you occasionally, Miss Jennie?" he asked with a timid,hesitating look.

  She laughed.

  "Of course, you must write and tell me everything that happens here."

  Socola wondered why she laughed. It was disconcerting. He hadn't facedthe question of loving Jennie. She was just a charming, beautiful childwhose acquaintance he could use for great ends. His depression came fromthe tremendous nerve strain of his work. The early movement ofMcClellan's army had kept him in that darkened attic on Church Hillcontinuously every hour of the past night. He was feeling the strain. Hewould throw it off when he got a good night's rest.

  It was not until twenty-four hours after Jennie's departure that hewaked with a dull ache in his heart that refused to go. And so while hedragged himself about his task with a sense of sickening loneliness, agirl was softly singing in the far South.