Four Years in Rebel Capitals Part 41

And in that ten days' truce there was little chance for those worn and wasted battalions to recuperate. There were no fresh men to send to their aid; few, indeed, were the supplies that could be forwarded them.

But they looked into the darkness ahead steadily and calmly; they might not see their path in it, but they were ready to march without the path. And even as they watched and waited, so at Petersburg and Richmond a small but sleepless David watched the grim Goliath, stretched in its huge bulk before their gates. Ceaselessly the trains flashed back and forth over the iron link between those two cities--now Siamese-twinned with a vital bond of endurance and endeavor.

Petersburg, sitting defiant in her circle of fire, worked grimly, ceaselessly--with what hope she might! and Richmond worked for her, feeling that every drop of blood she lost was from her own veins as well.

And so for many weary months the deadly strain went on; and the twin cities--stretched upon the rack--bore the torture as their past training had taught the world they must--n.o.bly and well!

CHAPTER x.x.xVII.

DIES IRae--DIES ILLA.

It is nowise within the scope of these sketches to detail that memorable siege of Petersburg, lasting nearly one year. It were needless to relate here, how--for more than ten months--that long southern line of defense, constantly threatened and almost as constantly a.s.sailed, was held. Men know now that it was not by strength, but by sleepless watch and dogged endurance, that less than 30,000 worn men--so dotted along works extending near forty miles, that at points there was one soldier to every rod of earthwork--held their own, even against the earlier onsets. Men now realize why the Federal general--failing in every separate effort to buy a key-position, even at the cost of six lives for one--was forced to sit down sullenly and wait the slow, but sure, process of attrition.

These matters are now stamped upon the minds of readers, on both sides of the Potomac. In the North they had voluminous reports of every detail; and the cessation of interest elsewhere gave full leisure to study them. In the South, 30,000 earnest historians from the trenches were sought, each one by eager crowds; and the story of every cannonade and skirmish and charge, told in honest but homely words, was burned into the memory of intent listeners.

Slowly that summer wore itself away. Steadily that b.l.o.o.d.y history traced itself out; punctuated, now by many a fierce and sudden rush of crowding Federals--ever beaten back with frightful loss; again by rare sorties from our line, when our leaders saw the chance to strike some telling blow.

But spite of care in those leaders and superhuman endurance in the men, the southern troops were worn with watching and steadily melting away.

Close, ceaseless fighting thinned their ranks; there were no more men--even the youngest of the land, or its first borns--to take the places of the lost veterans. General Grant's words were strictly true--"the South had robbed the cradle and the grave!" The boasted army of the North, led by her latest-chosen champion and strategist, was kept at bay by a skeleton of veterans, barely held together by the worn-out sinews and undeveloped muscle of old age and infancy.

Then the fall of Atlanta came!

The people were not to be deceived by plat.i.tudes about "strategic purposes," or empty nothings about "a campaign to nullify it." They had gotten now beyond that; and saw the terrible blow that had been dealt them in all its naked strength. They felt that an army that had failed to check Sherman, when it was behind strong works, would hardly do so in the open field. They felt that he could now at his leisure bore into the coveted heart of our territory; that the long-attempted "bisection of the rebellion" was accomplished; that further aid, or supplies, from that section was impossible. And then the people of Richmond turned once more with unfailing pride, but lessening hope, toward the decreasing bands that still held their own gates secure. But they saw how the deadly strain was telling upon these; that the end was near.

But even now there was no weak yielding--no despairing cry among the southern people. They looked at the coming end steadily and unflinchingly; and now, for the first time, they began to speculate upon the possible loss of their beloved Capital. It was rumored in Richmond that General Lee had told the President that the lines were longer than he could hold; that the sole hope was to evacuate the town and collect the armies at some interior point for a final struggle that might yet sever the bonds, ever closing tighter and tighter upon us.

And the rumor added that Mr. Davis peremptorily and definitely rejected this counsel; declaring that he would hold the city, at any cost and any risk.

For once--whatever cause they had to credit these reports--the popular voice was louder on the side of the unpopular President than on that of the idolized general. The tremendous efforts to capture the Capital; the superhuman exertions made to defend it in the last four years, _had made Richmond the cause_! People argued that if Richmond was lost, the State of Virginia was lost, too; that there was no point in North Carolina where the army could make a stand, for even that "interior line" then became a frontier. Beyond this the people felt the moral effect of such a step; and that the army, as such, could never be carried out of Virginia. And with the ceaseless discussion of this question, came the first yearnings for peace propositions.

To this extremity, the South had been confident and fixed in her views.

Cheated of her hopes of foreign intervention, she had yet believed her ability to work out her own oracle; through blood and toil--even ruin, perhaps--but still to force a peace at last. But now the popular voice was raised in answer to the vague words of peace that found their way over the Potomac. If there be any desire in the North for cessation of this strife, said the people, for G.o.d's sake let us meet it half way.

Even the Congress seemed impressed with the necessity of meeting any overtures from the North, before it was too late and our dire strait should be known there. But it was already too late; and the resultless mission of Mr. Stephens to Fortress Monroe proved that the Was.h.i.+ngton Government now saw plainly that it could force upon us the terms it made the show of offering.

The failure of this mission, no less than the great mystery in which the Government endeavored to wrap it, produced a decided gloom among the thinking cla.s.ses; and it reacted upon the army as well. The soldiers now began to lose hope for the first time. They saw they were fighting a hydra; for as fast as they lopped off heads in any direction, fresh ones sprang up in others. They began, for the first time, to feel the contest unequal; and this depressing thought--added to the still greater privations following the loss of Georgia--made desertion fearfully common, and threatened to destroy, by that cause, an army that had withstood every device of the enemy.

And so the fall wore into winter; and the news from General Hood's lines only added to the gloom. After the truce of ten days, following the fall of Atlanta, Hood had moved around and gotten almost in Sherman's rear. For a moment there was great exultation, for it was believed he would destroy the enemy's communications and then attack him, or force an attack on ground of his own choosing. Great was the astonishment and great the disappointment, when Hood moved rapidly to Dalton and thence into Alabama, leaving the whole country south of Virginia entirely open, defenseless, and at Sherman's mercy.

And, as usual, in moments of general distress, Mr. Davis was blamed for the move. He had, it was said, removed Joe Johnston at the very moment his patient sagacity was to bear its fruits; he had been in Hood's camp and had of course planned this campaign--a wilder and more disastrous one than the detachment of Longstreet, for Knoxville. Whosesoever may have been the plan, and whatever may have been its ultimate object, it failed utterly in diverting Sherman from the swoop for which he had so long hovered. For, while the small bulwark of Georgia was removed--and sent in Quixotic joust against distant windmills--the threatening force, relieved from all restraint, and fearing no want of supplies in her fertile fields, pressed down, "Marching thro' Georgia."

Meantime Hood, with no more serious opposition than an occasional skirmish, crossed the Tennessee at Florence, about the middle of November. The enemy fell back before him, toward Nashville, until it seemed as if his intent was to draw Hood further and further away from the _real_ point of action--Sherman's advance. On the 30th of November, however, Thomas made a stand at Franklin; and then resulted a terrific battle, in which the Confederates held the field, with the loss of one-third of the army. Six of our generals lay amid their gallant dead on that unhappy field; seven more were disabled by wounds, and one was a prisoner. The enemy's loss was stated at far less than ours; and he retired into Nashville, to which place our army laid siege on the 1st of December.

Weakened by the long march and more by the terrible losses of Franklin; ill-supplied and half-fed, Hood's army was compelled to rely upon the enemy's want of supplies driving him out. On the 15th of December he attacked our whole line, so furiously as to break it at every point.

Hood's defeat was complete; he lost his whole artillery--over fifty pieces--most of his ordnance and many of his supply trains. In the dreadful retreat that followed, General Forrest's vigorous covering alone saved the remnant of that devoted army; and on the 23d of January, 1865--when he had brought them once more into temporary safety--General Hood issued a farewell order, stating that he was relieved at his own request.

Gallant, frank and fearless even in adversity, he did not s.h.i.+rk the responsibility of the campaign; declaring, that disastrous and bitter as it had been, he had believed it best.

So ended all real resistance in the South and West. The enemy had gained the back door to Richmond, had shattered its supports and had marched on to the rear of those strongholds that had so long defied his power from the sea.

It was but a question of time, when Charleston and Savannah should fall; and even the most hopeful could see that Virginia was the only soil on which resistance still walked erect.

Meanwhile, the winter was pa.s.sing in Richmond in most singular gayety.

Though the hostile lines were so close that the pickets could "chaff"

each other without raising their voices, still both had learned that direct attacks in front were not practicable; and such was the state of the roads all around Petersburg, that no movement out of works could be attempted. Therefore more active fighting had for the moment ceased; numbers of young officers could get to Richmond, for a few days at a time; and these came worn and tired from camp and famished for society and gayety of some sort. And the younger ladies of Richmond--ready as they ever were to aid and comfort the soldier boys with needle, with bandage, or with lint--were quite as ready now to do all they could in plans for mutual pleasure.

They only felt the strain was for the moment remitted; they recked not that it was to come to-morrow for the final crush; and they enjoyed to-day with all the recklessness of long restraint.

Parties were of nightly occurrence. Not the brilliant and generous festivals of the olden days of Richmond, but joyous and gay a.s.semblages of a hundred young people, who danced as though the music of sh.e.l.ls had never replaced that of the old negro fiddler--who chatted and laughed as if there were no to-morrow, with its certain skirmish, and its possible blanket for winding-sheet. For the beaux at these gatherings were not only the officers on leave from Petersburg; the lines drawn close to the city furnished many an acquisition, who would willingly do ten miles in and out, on horseback through the slush and snow, for one _deux temps_ with "somebody in particular."

And many a brave fellow had ridden direct from the ball-room into the fight. I can well recall poor H. now, as he looked when last I saw him in life. Ruddy and joyous, with his handsome face one glow of pleasure, he vaulted gaily to his saddle under the bright moon at midnight.

Curbing his restive horse, and waving a kiss to the bright faces pressed against the frosty pane, his clear _au revoir!_ echoed through the silent street, and he was off.

Next morning a country cart brought his lifeless body down Main street, with the small blue mark of a bullet in the middle of the smooth, clear, boyish brow. Never leaving his saddle, he had ridden into a picket fight, and a chance shot had cut short the life of so much promise.

But it is not meant that these parties entailed any waste of those supplies, vital alike to citizen and soldier. They were known as "Starvations;" and all refreshments whatever were forbidden, save what could be drawn from the huge pitcher of "Jeems' River" water, surrounded with its varied and many-shaped drinking utensils. Many of these, even in the houses of the best provided, were of common blown gla.s.s, with a greenish tinge that suggested a most bilious condition of the blower. The music was furnished by some of the ancient negro minstrels--so dear to the juvenile southern heart in days gone by; or more frequently by the delicate fingers of some petted and favored belle. And never, amid the blare of the best trained bands, the popping of champagne, and the clatter of forks over _pate de foies gras_, was there more genuine enjoyment and more courtly chivalry to the _beau s.e.xe_, than at these primitive soirees.

The "Starvations" were not the only amus.e.m.e.nts. Amateur theatricals and tableaux again became the rage in midwinter; and talent of no contemptible grade was displayed on many an impromptu stage. And that especial pet horror of supersensitive G.o.dliness--the G.o.dless German cotillion--even forced itself into the gayeties of the winter. Great was the wrath of the elect against all amus.e.m.e.nts of the kind--but chiefest among outrages was this graceless German. But despite the denunciations, the ridicule, and even the active intervention of one or two ministers, the young soldiers and their chosen partners whirled away as though they had never heard a slander or a sermon.

I have already endeavored to show how a certain cla.s.s in Richmond deprecated gayety of all kinds two years before. These, of course, objected now; and another cla.s.s still was loud and violent against it.

But, said the dancers, we do the fighting--we are the ones who are killed--and if we don't object, why in the deuce should you? Cooped up in camp, with mud and musty bacon for living, and the whistling of Minies and whooing of sh.e.l.ls for episode, we long for some pleasure when we can get off. This is the sole enjoyment we have, and we go back better men in every way for it.

This was rather unanswerable argument; and the younger ladies were all willing to back it; so _malgre_ long faces and a seeming want of the unities, the dancing went on.

We have heard a great deal _post-bellum_ bathos about that strange mixture of gay waltzes, and rumble of dead-cart and ambulance; but one must have heard the sounds together before he can judge; and no one who was not in and of that peculiar, and entirely abnormal, state of society, can understand either its construction, or its demands.

But the short spasm of gayety, after all, was only the fitful and feverish symptom of the deadly weakness of the body politic. It was merely superficial; and under it was a fixed and impenetrable gloom.

The desertions from the army were a.s.suming fearful proportions, that no legislation or executive rigor could diminish; supplies of bare food were becoming frightfully scarce, and even the wealthiest began to be pinched for necessaries of life; and over all brooded the dread cloud of a speedy evacuation of the city.

Every day saw brigades double-quicking back and forth through the suburbs; the continuous scream of steam-whistles told of movement, here and there; and every indication showed that the numbers of men were inadequate to man the vast extent of the lines. As the spring opened, this became more and more apparent. There was no general attack, but a few brigades would be thrown against some ill-defended work here; and almost simultaneously the undefended lines there would have a force hurled against them. It almost seemed that the enemy, aware of our weakness, was determined to wear out our men by constant action, before he struck his heavy blow. How dear the wearied, starving men made these partial attacks cost him, already his own reports have told.

March came, and with it, orders to remove all government property that could possibly be spared from daily need. First the archives and papers went; then the heavier stores, machinery and guns, and supplies not in use; then the small reserve of medical stores was sent to Danville, or Greensboro. And, at last, the already short supplies of commissary stores were lessened by removal--and the people knew their Capital was at last to be given up!

The time was not known--some said April, some the first of May; but the families of the President and Cabinet had followed the stores; the female Department clerks had been removed to Columbia--and there was no doubt of the fact. After four years of dire endeavor and unparalleled endurance, the Capital of the South was lost!

In their extremity the people said little, but hope left them utterly.

In the army or out, there were few, indeed--and no Virginians--but believed the cause was lost when the army marched away.

Richmond was Virginia--was the cause!

With Sherman already in possession of Charleston and Savannah, and the army unable to do aught but retreat sullenly before him--with Virginia gone, and the Confederacy narrowed down to North Carolina, a strip of Alabama and the trans-Mississippi--what hope was left?

After General Johnston had been relieved at Atlanta, the Department had managed, on one reason or another, to shelve him until now. The public voice was loudly raised against the injustice done the man they admired most of all the bright galaxy of the South; and even Congress woke from its stupor long enough to demand for the great soldier a place to use his sword. This was in January; but still the government did not respond, and it was not until the 23d February that he was restored to command. Then--with the shattered remnant of his army, augmented, but not strengthened by the fragments of flying garrisons--he could only fall back before the victorious progress of that "Great March" he might effectually have checked, on its threshold at Atlanta.

Deep gloom--thick darkness that might be felt--settled upon the whole people. Hope went out utterly, and despair--mingled with rage and anguish as the news from the "Great March" came in--took its place in every heart. But in every heart there was bitter sorrow, humiliation--but no fear. As Richmond became more and more empty, and the time to abandon her drew nearer and nearer, her people made what provision they might to meet the enemy they had scorned so long. One cla.s.s and one alone, showed any sign of fear--the human vultures so long fattened on the dead and dying--the speculators.

With every preparation long since made for the event--with cellars and attics stored with tobacco and other merchandise--with Confederate blood-money converted into gold--these Shylocks now s.h.i.+vered in antic.i.p.ation of the coming greenbacks, for abject dread of the bluebacks that were to bring them. There is one gleam of satisfaction through the gloom of the great fire--it partly purified the city of these vermin and the foul nests they had made themselves.

All seemed ready during March, and the people watched every movement, listened for every sound, that might indicate actual evacuation. Each morning the city rose from its feverish sleep, uncertain whether, or not, the army had withdrawn in the stillness of the night.