The Southerner: A Romance of the Real Lincoln Part 90

"To stir up sore and wounded hearts to bitterness requires no skill or power of oratory. To address the minds of men sickened by disaster, wearied by long trial, heated by pa.s.sion, bewildered by uncertainty, heavy with grief, and cunningly to turn them into one vindictive channel, into one blind rush of senseless fury requires no great power of oratory and no great mastery of the truth. It may be the trick of a charlatan!"

He paused and gazed with deliberate and offensive insolence into the faces of the men who had spoken. Their eyes blazed with wrath, and a fierce thrill of excitement swept the crowd.

"For a man to address himself to an a.s.sembly like this, however, goaded to madness by suffering, sorrow, humiliation, perplexity--and now roused by venomous arts to an almost unanimous condemnation of the innocent--I say to address you, turn you in your tracks and force you to go the other way--that would indeed be a feat of transcendent oratorical power.

I am no orator--but I am going to tell you the truth and the truth will make you do that thing!"

Men began to lean forward in their seats now as with impa.s.sioned faith he told the story of the matchless work the great lonely spirit had wrought for his people in the White House during the past pa.s.sion-torn years. His last sentence rang like the clarion peal of a trumpet:

"Desert him now and the election of _George B. McClellan_ on a 'Peace-at-any-Price' platform is a certainty--the Union is dissevered, the Confederacy established, the slaves reshackled, the dead dishonored and the living disgraced!"

His last sentence was an angry shout whose pa.s.sion swept the crowd to its feet. The resolution was pa.s.sed and Lincoln's nomination became a mere formality.

But Senator Winter had only begun to fight. His whole life as an Abolitionist had been spent in opposition to majorities. He had no constructive power and no constructive imagination. His genius was purely destructive, but it was genius. Without a moment's delay he began his plans to force the President to withdraw from his own ticket in the midst of his campaign.

The one ominous sign which the man in the White House saw with dread was the rapid growth through these dark days of a "Peace-at-any-Price"

sentiment within his own party lines in the heart of the loyal North.

Again Horace Greeley and his great paper voiced this cry of despair.

The mischief he was doing was incalculable because he persisted in teaching the millions who read his paper that peace was at any time possible if Abraham Lincoln would only agree to accept it. As a Southern-born man, the President knew the workings of the mind of Jefferson Davis as clearly as he understood his own. Both these men were born in Kentucky within a few miles of each other on almost the same day. The President knew that Jefferson Davis would never consider any settlement of the war except on the basis of the division of the Union and the recognition of the Confederacy. When Greeley declared that the Confederate Commissioners were in Canada with offers of peace, the President sent Greeley himself immediately to meet them and confer on the basis of a restored Union with compensation for the slaves. The Conference failed and Greeley returned from Canada angrier with the President than ever for making a fool of him.

In utter disregard for the facts he continued to demand that the Government bring the war to an end. The thing which made his attack deadly was that he was rousing the bitterness of hopeless sorrow in thousands of homes whose loved ones had fallen.

Thoughtful men and women had begun to ask themselves new questions:

"Is not the price we are paying too great?"

"Can any cause be worth this ocean of tears, this endless deluge of blood?"

The President must answer this bitter cry with the positive a.s.surance that he would make peace at any moment on terms consistent with the Nation's preservation or both he and his party must perish.

He determined to draw from Mr. Davis a positive declaration of the terms on which the South would accept peace. He dared not do this openly, as it would be a confession to Europe of defeat and would lead to the recognition of the Confederacy.

He accordingly sent Colonel Jaquess, a distinguished Methodist clergyman in the army, and J. R. Gilmore, of the _Tribune_, on a secret mission to Richmond for this purpose. They must go without credentials or authority, as private individuals and risk life and liberty in the undertaking.

Both men promptly accepted the mission and left for Grant's headquarters to ask General Lee for a pa.s.s through his lines.

The Democratic Party was now a militant united force inspired by the Copperhead leaders, who had determined to defeat the President squarely on a peace platform and put General McClellan into the White House.

Behind them in serried lines stood the powerful Secret Orders cl.u.s.tered around the Knights of the Golden Circle.

Positive proofs were finally laid before the President that these Societies had planned an uprising on the night of the election and the establishment of a Western Confederacy.

Edmunds, the President of the Union League, handed him the names of the leaders.

"Now, sir, you can strike!" he urged.

The tall, sorrowful man slowly shook his head.

"You doubt the truth of these statements?" Edmunds asked.

"No. They are too true. Let sleeping dogs lie. One revolution at a time.

We have all we can manage at present. If we win the election they won't dare rise. If we lose, it's all over anyhow--and it makes no difference what they do."

With patient wisdom he refused to stir the dangerous hornet's nest.

And to cap the climax of darkness, Jubal Early's army suddenly withdrew from Lee's lines, swept through the Shenandoah Valley and invaded Maryland and Pennsylvania.

With three-quarters of a million blue soldiers under arms, the daring men in grey were once more threatening the Capital. They seized and cut the Northern railroads, burning their bridges and capturing trains; they threatened Baltimore, captured Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, burned it, spread terror throughout the State and surrounding territory, and brus.h.i.+ng past Lew Wallace's six thousand men at Monocacy, were bearing down on Was.h.i.+ngton with swift ominous tread.

It was incredible! It was unthinkable, and yet the reveille of Early's drums could be heard from the White House window.

John Bigelow, our _Charge d'Affaires_ at Paris, had sent warning of a conversation with the Emperor of France, at which the President had only smiled.

"Lee will take Was.h.i.+ngton," the Emperor had declared, "and then I shall recognize the Confederacy. I have just received news that Lee is certain to take the Capital."

The message was flashed to Grant for help. The city was practically at Early's mercy if he should strike. He couldn't hold the Capital, of course, but if he took it even for twenty-four hours the Government would lose all prestige and standing in the Courts of Europe.

For twenty-four hours the panic in Was.h.i.+ngton was complete. The Government clerks were rushed into the trenches and hastily armed.

Early threw one sh.e.l.l into the city, which crashed through a house, his cavalry dashed into the corporate limits and took a prisoner and later burned the house of Blair, a member of the Cabinet.

The Sixth Corps arrived from Petersburg; a thousand men were killed and wounded in the skirmis.h.i.+ng of two days, but the Capital escaped by the skin of its teeth.

Grant laconically remarked:

"If Early had been one day earlier he would have entered the Capital."

While he had not actually taken Was.h.i.+ngton, Lee's strategy was a masterly stroke. He had cleared the Shenandoah Valley, which was his granary, and enabled the farmers to reap their crops. He had showed the world that his army was still so terrible a weapon that with it he could hold Grant at bay, drive his enemy from the Valley, invade two Northern States, burn their cities and destroy their railroads, and throw his sh.e.l.ls into Was.h.i.+ngton.

A wave of incredulous sickening despair swept the North. If this could be done after three and a half years of blood and tears and two billions of dollars spent, where could the end be?

Early had done in Was.h.i.+ngton what neither McDowell, McClellan, Pope, Burnside, Hooker, Meade nor Grant had yet succeeded in doing for Richmond--thrown sh.e.l.ls into the city and taken a prisoner from its very streets. Had he arrived a day earlier--in other words, had not Lew Wallace's gallant little army of six thousand delayed him twenty-four hours--he could have entered the city, raided the Treasury and burned the Capitol.

Senator Winter was not slow to strike the blow for which he had been eagerly waiting a favorable moment. He succeeded in detaching from the President in this moment of panic a group of men who had stood squarely for his nomination at Baltimore. He agreed to withdraw Fremont's name if they would induce the President to withdraw and a new convention be called.

So deep was the depression, so black the outlook, so certain was McClellan's election, that the members of the National Republican Executive Committee met and conferred with this Committee of traitors to their Chief.

No more cowardly and contemptible proposition was ever submitted to the chosen leader of a great party. It was not to be wondered at that Winter and his Radical a.s.sociates could stoop to it. They were theorists. To them success was secondary. They would have gladly and joyfully d.a.m.ned not only the Union--they would have d.a.m.ned the world to save their theories. But that his own party leaders should come to him in such an hour and ask him to withdraw cut the great patient heart to the quick.

He agreed to consider their humiliating proposition and give them an answer in two weeks. Nicolay, his first Secretary, wrote to John Hay, who was in Illinois:

"DEAR MAJOR: h.e.l.l is to pay. The politicians have a stampede on that is about to swamp everything. The National Committee are here to-day. Raymond thinks a commission to Richmond is the only salt to save us. The President sees and says it would be utter ruin. The matter is now undergoing consultation. Weak-kneed d.a.m.ned fools are on the move for a new candidate to supplant the President.

Everything is darkness and doubt and discouragement. Our men see giants in the airy and unsubstantial shadows of the opposition, and are about to surrender without a blow. Come to Was.h.i.+ngton on the first train. Every man who loves the Chief must lay off his coat now and fight to the last ditch. He's too big and generous to be trusted alone with these wolves. He is the only man who can save this Nation, and we must make them see it."

Worn and angry after the long discussion with his cowardly advisers, the President retired to his bedroom, locked the door, laid down, and tried to rest. Opposite the lounge on which he lay was a bureau with a swinging mirror. He gazed for a moment at his long figure, which showed full length, his eye resting at last on the deep cut lines of the haggard face. Gradually two separate and distinct images grew--one behind the other, pale and death-like but distinct. He looked in wonder, and the longer he looked the clearer stood this pale second reflection.

"That's funny!" he exclaimed.

He rose, rubbed his eyes, and walked to the mirror, examining it curiously. He had always been a man of visions--this child of the woods and open fields.