by Thomas Dixon
CHAPTER VI
THE COUNTER STROKE
From the hour he had watched the capture of the armoury old Stoneman feltin the air a current against him which was electric, as if the dead hadheard the cry of the clansmen's greeting, risen and rallied to their paleranks.
The daring campaign these men were waging took his breath. They were goingnot only to defeat his delegation to Congress, but send their own to taketheir seats, reinforced by the enormous power of a suppressed negro vote.The blow was so sublime in its audacity, he laughed in secret admirationwhile he raved and cursed.
The army corps took possession of the hill counties, quartering from fiveto six hundred regulars at each courthouse; but the mischief was done. TheState was on fire. The eighty thousand rifles with which the negroes hadbeen armed were now in the hands of their foes. A white rifle-club wasorganized in every town, village, and hamlet. They attended the publicmeetings with their guns, drilled in front of the speakers' stands,yelled, hooted, hissed, cursed, and jeered at the orators who dared tochampion or apologize for negro rule. At night the hoofbeat of squadronsof pale horsemen and the crack of their revolvers struck terror to theheart of every negro, carpet-bagger, and scallawag.
There was a momentary lull in the excitement, which Stoneman mistook forfear, at the appearance of the troops. He had the Governor appoint a whitesheriff, a young scallawag from the mountains who was a noted moonshinerand desperado. He arrested over a hundred leading men in the county,charged them with complicity in the killing of the three members of theAfrican Guard, and instructed the judge and clerk of the court to refusebail and commit them to jail under military guard.
To his amazement the prisoners came into Piedmont armed and mounted. Theypaid no attention to the deputy sheriffs who were supposed to have them incharge. They deliberately formed in line under Ben Cameron's direction andhe led them in a parade through the streets.
The five hundred United States regulars who were camped on the river bankwere Westerners. Ben led his squadron of armed prisoners in front of thiscamp and took them through the evolutions of cavalry with the precision ofveterans. The soldiers dropped their games and gathered, laughing, towatch them. The drill ended with a double-rank charge at the riverembankment. When they drew every horse on his haunches on the brink,firing a volley with a single crash, a wild cheer broke from the soldiers,and the officers rushed from their tents.
Ben wheeled his men, galloped in front of the camp, drew them up at dressparade, and saluted. A low word of command from a trooper, and theWesterners quickly formed in ranks, returned the salute, and cheered. Theofficers rushed up, cursing, and drove the men back to their tents.
The horsemen laughed, fired a volley in the air, cheered, and gallopedback to the courthouse. The court was glad to get rid of them. There wasno question raised over technicalities in making out bail-bonds. The clerkwrote the names of imaginary bondsmen as fast as his pen could fly, whilethe perspiration stood in beads on his red forehead.
Another telegram from old Stoneman to the White House, and the Writ of_Habeas Corpus_ was suspended and Martial Law proclaimed.
Enraged beyond measure at the salute from the troops, he had two companiesof negro regulars sent from Columbia, and they camped in the CourthouseSquare.
He determined to make a desperate effort to crush the fierce spirit beforewhich his forces were being driven like chaff. He induced Bizzel to returnfrom Cleveland with his negro wife and children. He was escorted to theCity Hall and reinstalled as Mayor by the full force of seven hundredtroops, and a negro guard placed around his house. Stoneman had Lynch runan excursion from the Black Belt, and brought a thousand negroes to attenda final rally at Piedmont. He placarded the town with posters on whichwere printed the Civil Rights Bill and the proclamation of the Presidentdeclaring Martial Law.
Ben watched this day dawn with nervous dread. He had passed a sleeplessnight, riding in person to every Den of the Klan and issuing positiveorders that no white man should come to Piedmont.
A clash with the authority of the United States he had avoided from thefirst as a matter of principle. It was essential to his success that hismen should commit no act of desperation which would imperil his plans.Above all, he wished to avoid a clash with old Stoneman personally.
The arrival of the big excursion was the signal for a revival of negroinsolence which had been planned. The men brought from the Eastern part ofthe State were selected for the purpose. They marched over the townyelling and singing. A crowd of them, half drunk, formed themselves threeabreast and rushed the sidewalks, pushing every white man, woman, andchild into the street.
They met Phil on his way to the hotel and pushed him into the gutter. Hesaid nothing, crossed the street, bought a revolver, loaded it and put itin his pocket. He was not popular with the negroes, and he had been shotat twice on his way from the mills at night. The whole affair of thisrally, over which his father meant to preside, filled him with disgust,and he was in an ugly mood.
Lynch's speech was bold, bitter, and incendiary, and at its close thedrunken negro troopers from the local garrison began to slouch through thestreets, two and two, looking for trouble.
At the close of the speaking Stoneman called the officer in command ofthese troops, and said:
"Major, I wish this rally to-day to be a proclamation of the supremacy oflaw, and the enforcement of the equality of every man under law. Yourtroops are entitled to the rights of white men. I understand the hoteltable has been free to-day to the soldiers from the camp on the river.They are returning the courtesy extended to the criminals who drilledbefore them. Send two of your black troops down for dinner and see that itis served. I wish an example for the State."
"It will be a dangerous performance, sir," the major protested.
The old Commoner furrowed his brow.
"Have you been instructed to act under my orders?"
"I have, sir," said the officer, saluting.
"Then do as I tell you," snapped Stoneman.
Ben Cameron had kept indoors all day, and dined with fifty of the Westerntroopers whom he had identified as leading in the friendly demonstrationto his men. Margaret, who had been busy with Mrs. Cameron entertainingthese soldiers, was seated in the dining-room alone, eating her dinner,while Phil waited impatiently in the parlour.
The guests had all gone when two big negro troopers, fighting drunk,walked into the hotel. They went to the water-cooler and drankostentatiously, thrusting their thick lips coated with filth far into thecocoanut dipper, while a dirty hand grasped its surface.
They pushed the dining-room door open and suddenly flopped down besideMargaret.
She attempted to rise, and cried in rage:
"How dare you, black brutes?"
One of them threw his arm around her chair, thrust his face into hers, andsaid with a laugh:
"Don't hurry, my beauty; stay and take dinner wid us!"
Margaret again attempted to rise, and screamed, as Phil rushed into theroom with drawn revolver. One of the negroes fired at him, missed, and thenext moment dropped dead with a bullet through his heart.
The other leaped across the table and through the open window.
Margaret turned, confronting both Phil and Ben with revolvers in theirhands, and fainted.
Ben hurried Phil out the back door and persuaded him to fly.
"Man, you must go! We must not have a riot here to-day. There's no tellingwhat will happen. A disturbance now, and my men will swarm into townto-night. For God's sake go, until things are quiet!"
"But I tell you I'll face it. I'm not afraid," said Phil quietly.
"No, but I am," urged Ben. "These two hundred negroes are armed and drunk.Their officers may not be able to control them, and they may lay theirhands on you--go--go!--go!--you must go! The train is due in fifteenminutes."
He half lifted him on a horse tied behind the hotel, leaped on another,galloped to the flag-station two miles out of town, and put him on thenorth-bound train.
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p; "Stay in Charlotte until I wire for you," was Ben's parting injunction.
He turned his horse's head for McAllister's, sent the two boys with allspeed to the Cyclops of each of the ten township Dens with positive ordersto disregard all wild rumours from Piedmont and keep every man out of townfor two days.
As he rode back he met a squad of mounted white regulars, who arrestedhim. The trooper's companion had sworn positively that he was the man whokilled the negro.
Within thirty minutes he was tried by drum-head court-martial andsentenced to be shot.
