The Southerner: A Romance of the Real Lincoln Part 38

He leaned close:

"I'm afraid I'm not brave, Miss Betty. I ran with the rest of them yesterday, ran like a dog for my life"--he paused and caught his breath--"but I'm not sorry for it now. In the madness of that scramble to save my skin I had a sudden revelation of why life was sweet----"

He stopped and she scarcely breathed. Her heart seemed to cease beating.

Her dry lips refused to speak the question she would ask. The sweet moment of pain and of glory had come. She felt his trembling hand seize her ice-cold fingers as he went on impetuously:

"Life was sweet because--because--I love you, Betty."

She sprang to her feet trembling from head to foot. He followed, whispering:

"My own, I love you--I love you----"

With sudden fierce strength he clasped her in his arms and covered her lips with kisses.

She lifted her trembling hands:

"Please--please----"

Again he smothered her words and held her in mad close embrace.

"Let me go--let me go!" she cried with sudden fury, thrusting him from her, breathless, her eyes blinded with tears.

"Tell me that you love me!" he cried with desperate pleading.

The splendid young figure faced him tense, quivering with rage.

"How dare you take me in your arms like that without a word?" Her eyes were flas.h.i.+ng, her breast rising and falling with quick furious breathing.

He seized her hand and held it with cruel force. Her eyes blazed and he dropped it. She was thinking of the scene with his slender chivalrous brother. She could feel the soft kiss on the tips of her fingers and the blood surged to her face at the thought of this man's lips pressed on hers in mad, strangling pa.s.sion without so much as by your leave! She could tear his eyes out.

He looked at her now in a hopeless stupor of regret.

"Forgive me, Betty," he faltered. "I--I couldn't help it."

Her eyes held his in a cold stare:

"I suppose that's all any woman has ever meant to you, and you took me for granted----"

He lifted his hand in protest.

"Please, please, Miss Betty," he groaned.

"You may go now," she said with slow emphasis.

He looked at her a moment dazed, and a wave of sullen anger slowly mounted his face to the roots of his black tangled hair, which he suddenly brushed from his forehead.

Without a word he walked out into the storm, his jaws set. The door had scarcely closed, when the trembling figure crumpled on the lounge in a flood of bitter tears.

CHAPTER XI

THE MAN ON HORSEBACK

Before the sun had set on the day of storm which followed the panic at Bull Run, the President had selected and summoned to Was.h.i.+ngton the man who was to create the first Grand Army of the Republic--a man destined to measure the full power of his personality against the Chief Magistrate in a desperate struggle for the supremacy of the life of the Nation itself.

General George Brinton McClellan, in answer to the summons, reached Was.h.i.+ngton on July the 20th, and immediately took command of the Army of the Potomac--or of what was left of it.

The President did not make this selection without bitter opposition and grave warning. He was told that McClellan was an aggressive pro-slavery Democrat, a political meddler and unalterably opposed to him and his party on every essential issue before the people. These arguments found no weight with the man in the White House. He would ask but one question, discuss but one issue:

"Is McClellan the man to whip this new army of 500,000 citizens into a mighty fighting machine and level it against the Confederacy?"

The all but unanimous answer was:

"Yes."

"Then I'll appoint him," was the firm reply. "I don't care what his religion or his politics. The question is not _whether I shall save the Union--but that the Union shall be saved_. My future and the future of my party can take care of themselves--if they can't, let them die!"

The new Commander was a man of striking and charming personality, but thirty-four years old, and graduated from West Point in 1846. He had served with distinction in the war against Mexico, studied military science in Europe under the great generals in command at the Siege of Sebastopol, and had achieved in West Virginia the first success won in the struggle with the South. He had been opposed in West Virginia by General Robert E. Lee, the man of destiny to whom the President, through General Scott, had offered the command of the Union army before Lee had drawn his sword for Virginia. He was a past master of the technical science of engineering, defense and military drill.

In spite of his short physical stature, he was of commanding appearance.

On horseback his figure was impressively heroic. It took no second glance to see that he was a born leader of men.

On the first day of his active command he had already conceived the idea that he was a man of destiny. He wrote that night to his wife:

"I find myself in a new and strange position here--President, Cabinet, General Scott and all deferring to me. By some strange operation of magic, I seem to have become the power of the land----"

Three days later he wrote again of his sensational reception in the Senate Chamber:

"I suppose half a dozen of the oldest members made the remark I am becoming so much used to:

"'Why how young you look and yet an old soldier!'

"They give me my way in everything, full swing and unbounded confidence.

All tell me that I am held responsible for the fate of the Nation, and that all its resources shall be placed at my disposal. It is an immense task that I have on my hands, but I believe I can accomplish it. When I was in the Senate Chamber to-day and found those old men flocking around me; when I afterward stood in the library looking over the Capital of a great Nation, and saw the crowd gathering to stare at me, I began to feel how great the task committed to me. How sincerely I pray G.o.d that I may be endowed with the wisdom and courage necessary to accomplish the work. Who would have thought when we were married, that I should so soon be called upon to save my country?"

Nor was McClellan the only man who saw this startling vision. He made friends with astounding rapidity, and held men to him with hooks of steel.

With utter indifference to his own fame or future, the President joined the public in praise of the coming star. The big heart at the White House rejoiced in the strength of his Commanding General. But the man who measured the world by the fixed standards of an exact science had no powers of adjustment to the homely manners, simple unconventional ways, and whimsical moods of Abraham Lincoln.

McClellan's one answer to all inquiries about his relation to the Chief Executive was:

"The President is honest and means well!"

The smile that played about the corners of his fine, keen, blue eyes when he said this left no doubt in the mind of his hearer as to his real opinion of the poor country lawyer who had by accident been placed in the White House.