The Crisis Part 73

Whipple's orders cleared a corner of his inner office and bedroom of papers and books and rubbish, and there the bulky instrument was finally set up. It occupied one-third of the s.p.a.ce. The Judge watched the proceeding grimly, choking now and again from the dust that was raised, yet uttering never a word. He locked the lid when the van man handed him the key, and thrust that in his pocket.

Stephen had of late found enough to do in St. Louis. He was the kind of man to whom promotions came unsought, and without noise. In the autumn he had been made a captain in the Halleck Guards of the State Militia, as a reward for his indefatigable work in the armories and his knowledge of tactics. Twice his company had been called out at night, and once they made a campaign as far as the Merimec and captured a party of recruits who were destined for Jefferson Davis. Some weeks pa.s.sed before Mr. Brinsmade heard of his promotion and this exploit, and yet scarcely a day went by that he did not see the young man at the big hospital. For Stephen helped in the work of the Sanitary Commission too, and so strove to make up in zeal for the service in the field which he longed to give.

After Christmas Mr. and Mrs. Brinsmade moved out to their place on the Bellefontaine Road. This was to force Anne to take a rest. For the girl was worn out with watching at the hospitals, and with tending the dest.i.tute mothers and children from the ranks of the refugees. The Brinsmade place was not far from the Fair Grounds,--now a receiving camp for the crude but eager regiments of the Northern states. To Mr.

Brinsmade's, when the day's duty was done, the young Union officers used to ride, and often there would be half a dozen of them to tea. That house, and other great houses on the Bellefontaine Road with which this history has no occasion to deal, were as homes to many a poor fellow who would never see home again. Sometimes Anne would gather together such young ladies of her acquaintance from the neighbor hood and the city as their interests and sympathies permitted to waltz with a Union officer, and there would be a little dance. To these dances Stephen Brice was usually invited.

One such occasion occurred on a Friday in January, and Mr. Brinsmade himself called in his buggy and drove Stephen to the country early in the afternoon. He and Anne went for a walk along the river, the surface of which was broken by lumps of yellow ice. Gray clouds hung low in the sky as they picked their way over the frozen furrows of the ploughed fields. The gra.s.s was all a yellow-brown, but the north wind which swayed the bare trees brought a touch of color to Anne's cheeks. Before they realized where they were, they had nearly crossed the Bellegarde estate, and the house itself was come into view, standing high on the slope above the withered garden. They halted.

"The shutters are up," said Stephen. "I understood that Mrs. Colfax had come out here not long a--"

"She came out for a day just before Christina," said Anne, smiling, "and then she ran off to Kentucky. I think she was afraid that she was one of the two women on the list of Sixty."

"It must have been a blow to her pride when she found that she was not,"

said Stephen, who had a keen remembrance of her conduct upon a certain Sunday not a year gone.

Impelled by the same inclination, they walked in silence to the house and sat down on the edge of the porch. The only motion in the view was the smoke from the slave quarters twisting in the wind, and the hurrying ice in the stream.

"Poor Jinny!" said Anne, with a sigh, "how she loved to romp! What good times we used to have here together!"

"Do you think that she is unhappy?" Stephen demanded, involuntarily.

"Oh, yes," said Anne. "How can you ask? But you could not make her show it. The other morning when she came out to our house I found her sitting at the piano. I am sure there were tears in her eyes, but she would not let me see them. She made some joke about Spencer Catherwood running away. What do you think the Judge will do with that piano, Stephen?"

He shook his head.

"The day after they put it in his room he came in with a great black cloth, which he spread over it. You cannot even see the feet."

There was a silence. And Anne, turning to him timidly, gave him a long, searching look.

"It is growing late," she said. "I think that we ought to go back."

They went out by the long entrance road, through the naked woods.

Stephen said little. Only a little while before he had had one of those vivid dreams of Virginia which left their impression, but not their substance, to haunt him. On those rare days following the dreams her spirit had its mastery over his. He pictured her then with a glow on her face which was neither sadness nor mirth,--a glow that ministered to him alone. And yet, he did not dare to think that he might have won her, even if politics and war had not divided them.

When the merriment of the dance was at its height that evening, Stephen stood at the door of the long room, meditatively watching the bright gowns and the flash of gold on the uniforms as they flitted past.

Presently the opposite door opened, and he heard Mr. Brinsmade's voice mingling with another, the excitable energy of which recalled some familiar episode. Almost--so it seemed--at one motion, the owner of the voice had come out of the door and had seized Stephen's hand in a warm grasp,--a tall and spare figure in the dress of a senior officer. The military frock, which fitted the man's character rather than the man, was carelessly open, laying bare a gold-b.u.t.toned white waistcoat and an expanse of s.h.i.+rt bosom which ended in a black stock tie. The ends of the collar were apart the width of the red clipped beard, and the mustache was cropped straight along the line of the upper lip. The forehead rose high, and was brushed carelessly free of the hair. The nose was almost straight, but combative. A fire fairly burned in the eyes.

"The boy doesn't remember me," said the gentleman, in quick tones, smiling at Mr. Brinsmade.

"Yes, sir, I do," Stephen made haste to answer. He glanced at the star on the shoulder strap, and said. "You are General Sherman."

"First rate!" laughed the General, patting him. "First rate!"

"Now in command at Camp Benton, Stephen," Mr. Brinsmade put in. "Won't you sit down, General?"

"No," said the General, emphatically waving away the chair. "No, rather stand." Then his keen face suddenly lighted with amus.e.m.e.nt,--and mischief, Stephen thought. "So you've heard of me since we met, sir?"

"Yes, General."

"Humph! Guess you heard I was crazy," said the General, in his downright way.

Stephen was struck dumb.

"He's been reading the lies in the newspapers too, Brinsmade," the General went on rapidly. "I'll make 'em eat their newspapers for saying I was crazy. That's the Secretary of War's doings. Ever tell you what Cameron did, Brinsmade? He and his party were in Louisville last fall, when I was serving in Kentucky, and came to my room in the Galt House.

Well, we locked the door, and Miller sent us up a good lunch and wine, After lunch, the Secretary lay on my bed, and we talked things over. He asked me what I thought about things in Kentucky. I told him. I got a map. I said, 'Now, Mr. Secretary, here is the whole Union line from the Potomac to Kansas. Here's McClellan in the East with one hundred miles of front. Here's Fremont in the West with one hundred miles. Here we are in Kentucky, in the centre, with three hundred miles to defend.

McClellan has a hundred thousand men, Fremont has sixty thousand. You give us fellows with over three hundred miles only eighteen thousand.'

'How many do you want?' says Cameron, still on the bed. 'Two hundred thousand before we get through,' said I. Cameron pitched up his hands in the air. 'Great G.o.d?' says he, 'where are they to come from?' 'The northwest is chuck full of regiments you fellows at Was.h.i.+ngton won't accept,' said I. 'Mark my words, Mr. Secretary, you'll need 'em all and more before we get done with this Rebellion.' Well, sir, he was very friendly before we finished, and I thought the thing was all thrashed out. No, sir! he goes back to Was.h.i.+ngton and gives it out that I'm crazy, and want two hundred thousand men in Kentucky. Then I am ordered to report to Halleck in Missouri here, and he calls me back from Sedalia because he believes the lies."

Stephen, who had in truth read the stories in question a month or two before, could not conceal his embarra.s.sment He looked at the man in front of him,--alert, masterful intelligent, frank to any stranger who took his fancy,--and wondered how any one who had talked to him could believe them.

Mr. Brinsmade smiled. "They have to print something, General," he said.

"I'll give 'em something to print later on," answered the General, grimly. Then his expression changed. "Brinsmade, you fellows did have a session with Fremont, didn't you? Anderson sent me over here last September, and the first man I ran across at the Planters' House was Appleton. '--What are you in town for?' says he. 'To see Fremont,'

I said. You ought to have heard Appleton laugh. 'You don't think Fremont'll see you, do you?' says he. 'Why not?' 'Well,' says Tom, 'go 'round to his palace at six to-morrow morning and bribe that Hungarian prince who runs his body-guard to get you a good place in the line of senators and governors and first citizens, and before nightfall you may get a sight of him, since you come from Anderson. Not one man in a hundred,' says Appleton, I not one man in a hundred, reaches his chief-of-staff.' Next morning," the General continued in a staccato which was often his habit, "had breakfast before daybreak and went 'round there. Place just swarming with Californians--army contracts."

(The General sniffed.) "Saw Fremont. Went back to hotel. More Californians, and by gad--old Baron Steinberger with his nose hanging over the register."

"Fremont was a little difficult to get at, General," said Mr. Brinsmade.

"Things were confused and discouraged when those first contracts were awarded. Fremont was a good man, and it wasn't his fault that the inexperience of his quartermasters permitted some of those men to get rich."

"No," said the General. "His fault! Certainly not. Good man! To be sure he was--didn't get along with Blair. These court-martials you're having here now have stirred up the whole country. I guess we'll hear now how those fortunes were made. To listen to those witnesses lie about each other on the stand is better than the theatre."

Stephen laughed at the comical and vivid manner in which the General set this matter forth. He himself had been present one day of the sittings of the court-martial when one of the witnesses on the prices of mules was that same seedy man with the straw-colored mustache who had bid for Virginia's piano against the Judge.

"Come, Stephen," said the General, abruptly, "run and s.n.a.t.c.h one of those pretty girls from my officers. They're having more than their share."

"They deserve more, sir," answered Stephen. Whereupon the General laid his hand impulsively on the young man's shoulder, divining what Stephen did not say.

"Nonsense!" said be; "you are doing the work in this war, not we. We do the damage--you repair it. If it were not for Mr. Brinsmade and you gentlemen who help him, where would our Western armies be? Don't you go to the front yet a while, young man. We need the best we have in reserve." He glanced critically at Stephen. "You've had military training of some sort?"

"He's a captain in the Halleck Guards, sir," said Mr. Brinsmade, generously, "and the best drillmaster we've had in this city. He's seen service, too, General."

Stephen reddened furiously and started to protest, when the General cried:-- "It's more than I have in this war. Come, come, I knew he was a soldier. Let's see what kind of a strategist he'll make. Brinsmade, have you got such a thing as a map?" Mr. Brinsmade had, and led the way back into the library. The General shut the door, lighted a cigar with a single vigorous stroke of a match, and began to smoke with quick puffs.

Stephen was puzzled how to receive the confidences the General was giving out with such freedom.

When the map was laid on the table, the General drew a pencil from his pocket and pointed to the state of Kentucky. Then he drew a line from Columbus to Bowling Green, through Forts Donelson and Henry.

"Now, Stephen," said he, "there's the Rebel line. Show me the proper place to break it."

Stephen hesitated a while, and then pointed at the centre.

"Good!" said the General. "Very good!" He drew a heavy line across the first, and it ran almost in the bed of the Tennessee River. He swung on Mr. Brinsmade. "Very question Halleck asked me the other day, and that's how I answered it. Now, gentlemen, there's a man named Grant down in that part of the country. Keep your eyes on him. Ever heard of him, Brinsmade? He used to live here once, and a year ago he was less than I was. Now he's a general."

The recollection of the scene in the street by the a.r.s.enal that May morning not a year gone came to Stephen with a shock.

"I saw him," he cried; "he was Captain Grant that lived on the Gravois Road. But surely this can't be the same man who seized Paducah and was in that affair at Belmont."

"By gum!" said the General, laughing. "Don't wonder you're surprised.

Grant has stuff in him. They kicked him around Springfield awhile, after the war broke out, for a military carpet-bagger. Then they gave him for a regiment the worst lot of ruffians you ever laid eyes on. He fixed 'em. He made 'em walk the plank. He made 'em march halfway across the state instead of taking the cars the Governor offered. Belmont! I guess he is the man that chased the Rebs out of Belmont. Then his boys broke loose when they got into the town. That wasn't Grant's fault. The Rebs came back and chased 'em out into their boats on the river. Brinsmade, you remember hearing about that.

"Grant did the coolest thing you ever saw. He sat on his horse at the top of the bluff while the boys fell over each other trying to get on the boat. Yes, sir, he sat there, disgusted, on his horse, smoking a cigar, with the Rebs raising pandemonium all around him. And then, sir,"