THE SKELETON IN THE CLOSET.
BY J. THOMAS DARKAGH (LATE C.C.S.).
[This paper was first published in the "Galaxy," in 1866.]
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I see that an old chum of mine is publishing bits of confidentialConfederate History in Harper's Magazine. It would seem to be time,then, for the pivots to be disclosed on which some of the wheelwork ofthe last six years has been moving. The science of history, as Iunderstand it, depends on the timely disclosure of such pivots, whichare apt to be kept out of view while things are moving.
I was in the Civil Service at Richmond. Why I was there, or what I did,is nobody's affair. And I do not in this paper propose to tell how ithappened that I was in New York in October, 1864, on confidentialbusiness. Enough that I was there, and that it was honest business. Thatbusiness done, as far as it could be with the resources intrusted to me,I prepared to return home. And thereby hangs this tale, and, as itproved, the fate of the Confederacy.
For, of course, I wanted to take presents home to my family. Very littlequestion was there what these presents should be,--for I had no boys norbrothers. The women of the Confederacy had one want, which overtoppedall others. They could make coffee out of beans; pins they had fromColumbus; straw hats they braided quite well with their own fair hands;snuff we could get better than you could in "the old concern." But wehad no hoop-skirts,--skeletons, we used to call them. No ingenuity hadmade them. No bounties had forced them. The Bat, the Greyhound, theDeer, the Flora, the J.C. Cobb, the Varuna, and the Fore-and-Aft alltook in cargoes of them for us in England. But the Bat and the Deer andthe Flora were seized by the blockaders, the J.C. Cobb sunk at sea, theFore-and-Aft and the Greyhound were set fire to by their own crews, andthe Varuna (our Varuna) was never heard of. Then the State of Arkansasoffered sixteen townships of swamp land to the first manufacturer whowould exhibit five gross of a home-manufactured article. But no one evercompeted. The first attempts, indeed, were put to an end, when Schofieldcrossed the Blue Lick, and destroyed the dams on Yellow Branch. Theconsequence was, that people's crinoline collapsed faster than theConfederacy did, of which that brute of a Grierson said there was neveranything of it but the outside.
Of course, then, I put in the bottom of my new large trunk in New York,not a "duplex elliptic," for none were then made, but a "Belmonte," ofthirty springs, for my wife. I bought, for her more common wear, a good"Belle-Fontaine." For Sarah and Susy each, I got two "Dumb-Belles." ForAunt Eunice and Aunt Clara, maiden sisters of my wife, who lived with usafter Winchester fell the fourth time, I got the "Scotch Harebell," twoof each. For my own mother I got one "Belle of the Prairies" and one"Invisible Combination Gossamer." I did not forget good old Mamma Chloeand Mamma Jane. For them I got substantial cages, without names. Withthese, tied in the shapes of figure eights in the bottom of my trunk, asI said, I put in an assorted cargo of dry-goods above, and, favored by apass, and Major Mulford's courtesy on the flag-of-truce boat, I arrivedsafely at Richmond before the autumn closed.
I was received at home with rapture. But when, the next morning, Iopened my stores, this became rapture doubly enraptured. Words cannottell the silent delight with which old and young, black and white,surveyed these fairy-like structures, yet unbroken and unmended.
Perennial summer reigned that autumn day in that reunited family. Itreigned the next day, and the next. It would have reigned till now ifthe Belmontes and the other things would last as long as theadvertisements declare; and, what is more, the Confederacy would havereigned till now, President Davis and General Lee! but for that greatmisery, which all families understand, which culminated in our greatmisfortune.
I was up in the cedar closet one day, looking for an old parade cap ofmine, which I thought, though it was my third best, might look betterthan my second best, which I had worn ever since my best was lost at theSeven Pines. I say I was standing on the lower shelf of the cedarcloset, when, as I stepped along in the darkness, my right foot caughtin a bit of wire, my left did not give way in time, and I fell, with asmall wooden hat-box in my hand, full on the floor. The corner of thehat-box struck me just below the second frontal sinus, and I faintedaway.
When I came to myself I was in the blue chamber; I had vinegar on abrown paper on my forehead; the room was dark, and I found mothersitting by me, glad enough indeed to hear my voice, and to know that Iknew her. It was some time before I fully understood what had happened.Then she brought me a cup of tea, and I, quite refreshed, said I must goto the office.
"Office, my child!" said she. "Your leg is broken above the ankle; youwill not move these six weeks. Where do you suppose you are?"
Till then I had no notion that it was five minutes since I went into thecloset. When she told me the time, five in the afternoon, I groaned inthe lowest depths. For, in my breast pocket in that innocent coat, whichI could now see lying on the window-seat, were the duplicate despatchesto Mr. Mason, for which, late the night before, I had got theSecretary's signature. They were to go at ten that morning toWilmington, by the Navy Department's special messenger. I had taken themto insure care and certainty. I had worked on them till midnight, andthey had not been signed till near one o'clock. Heavens and earth, andhere it was five o'clock! The man must be half-way to Wilmington by thistime. I sent the doctor for Lafarge, my clerk. Lafarge did his prettiestin rushing to the telegraph. But no! A freshet on the Chowan River, or araid by Foster, or something, or nothing, had smashed the telegraph wirefor that night. And before that despatch ever reached Wilmington thenavy agent was in the offing in the Sea Maid.
"But perhaps the duplicate got through?" No, breathless reader, theduplicate did not get through. The duplicate was taken by Faucon, in theIno. I saw it last week in Dr. Lieber's hands, in Washington. Well, allI know is, that if the duplicate had got through, the Confederategovernment would have had in March a chance at eighty-three thousand twohundred and eleven muskets, which, as it was, never left Belgium. Somuch for my treading into that blessed piece of wire on the shelf of thecedar closet, up stairs.
"What was the bit of wire?"
Well, it was not telegraph wire. If it had been, it would have brokenwhen it was not wanted to. Don't you know what it was? Go up in your owncedar closet, and step about in the dark, and see what brings up roundyour ankles. Julia, poor child, cried her eyes out about it. When I gotwell enough to sit up, and as soon as I could talk and plan with her,she brought down seven of these old things, antiquated Belmontes andSimplex Elliptics, and horrors without a name, and she made a pile ofthem in the bedroom, and asked me in the most penitent way what sheshould do with them.
"You can't burn them" said she; "fire won't touch them. If you bury themin the garden, they come up at the second raking. If you give them tothe servants, they say, 'Thank-e, missus,' and throw them in the backpassage. If you give them to the poor, they throw them into the streetin front, and do not say, 'Thank-e,' Sarah sent seventeen over to thesword factory, and the foreman swore at the boy, and told him he wouldflog him within an inch of his life if he brought any more of his saucethere; and so--and so," sobbed the poor child, "I just rolled up thesewretched things, and laid them in the cedar closet, hoping, you know,that some day the government would want something, and would advertisefor them. You know what a good thing; I made out of the bottle corks."
In fact, she had sold our bottle corks for four thousand two hundred andsixteen dollars of the first issue. We afterward bought two umbrellasand a corkscrew with the money.
Well, I did not scold Julia. It was certainly no fault of hers that Iwas walking on the lower shelf of her cedar closet. I told her to makea parcel of the things, and the first time we went to drive I hove thewhole shapeless heap into the river, without saying mass for them.
But let no man think, or no woman, that this was the end of troubles. AsI look back on that winter, and on the spring of 1865 (I do not mean thesteel spring), it seems to me only the beginning. I got out on crutchesat last; I had the office transferred to
my house, so that Lafarge andHepburn could work there nights, and communicate with me when I couldnot go out; but mornings I hobbled up to the Department, and sat withthe Chief, and took his orders. Ah me! shall I soon forget that dampwinter morning, when we all had such hope at the office. One or two ofthe army fellows looked in at the window as they ran by, and we knewthat they felt well; and though I would not ask Old Wick, as we hadnick-named the Chief, what was in the wind, I knew the time had come,and that the lion meant to break the net this time. I made an excuse togo home earlier than usual; rode down to the house in the Major'sambulance, I remember; and hopped in, to surprise Julia with the goodnews, only to find that the whole house was in that quiet uproar whichshows that something bad has happened of a sudden.
"What is it, Chloe?" said I, as the old wench rushed by me with a bucketof water.
"Poor Mr. George, I 'fraid he's dead, sah!"
And there he really was,--dear handsome, bright George Schaff,--thedelight of all the nicest girls of Richmond; he lay there on AuntEunice's bed on the ground floor, where they had brought him in. He wasnot dead,--and he did not die. He is making cotton in Texas now. But helooked mighty near it then. "The deep cut in his head" was the worst Ithen had ever seen, and the blow confused everything. When McGregor gotround, he said it was not hopeless; but we were all turned out of theroom, and with one thing and another he got the boy out of the swoon,and somehow it proved his head was not broken.
No, but poor George swears to this day it were better it had been, if itcould only have been broken the right way and on the right field. Forthat evening we heard that everything had gone wrong in the surprise.There we had been waiting for one of those early fogs, and at last thefog had come. And Jubal Early had, that morning, pushed out every man hehad, that could stand; and they lay hid for three mortal hours, within Idon't know how near the picket line at Fort Powhatan, only waiting forthe shot which John Streight's party were to fire at Wilson's Wharf, assoon as somebody on our left centre advanced in force on the enemy'sline above Turkey Island stretching across to Nansemond. I am not in theWar Department, and I forget whether he was to advance _en barbette_ orby _echelon_ of infantry. But he was to advance somehow, and he knewhow; and when he advanced, you see, that other man lower down was torush in, and as soon as Early heard him he was to surprise Powhatan, yousee; and then, if you have understood me, Grant and Butler and the wholerig of them would have been cut off from their supplies, would have hadto fight a battle for which they were not prepared, with their rightmade into a new left, and their old left unexpectedly advanced at anoblique angle from their centre, and would not that have been the end ofthem?
Well, that never happened. And the reason it never happened was, thatpoor George Schaff, with the last fatal order for this man whose name Iforget (the same who was afterward killed the day before High Bridge),undertook to save time by cutting across behind my house, from Franklinto Green Streets. You know how much time he saved,--they waited all dayfor that order. George told me afterwards that the last thing heremembered was kissing his hand to Julia, who sat at her bedroom window.He said he thought she might be the last woman he ever saw this side ofheaven. Just after that, it must have been,--his horse--that whiteMessenger colt old Williams bred--went over like a log, and poor Georgewas pitched fifteen feet head-foremost against a stake there was in thatlot. Julia saw the whole. She rushed out with all the women, and hadjust brought him in when I got home. And that was the reason that thegreat promised combination of December, 1864, never came off at all.
I walked out in the lot, after McGregor turned me out of the chamber, tosee what they had done with the horse. There he lay, as dead as oldMessenger himself. His neck was broken. And do you think, I looked tosee what had tripped him. I supposed it was one of the boys' bandyholes. It was no such thing. The poor wretch had tangled his hind legsin one of those infernal hoop-wires that Chloe had thrown out in thepiece when I gave her her new ones. Though I did not know it then, thosefatal scraps of rusty steel had broken the neck that day of Robert Lee'sarmy.
That time I made a row about it. I felt too badly to go into a passion.But before the women went to bed,--they were all in the sitting-roomtogether,--I talked to them like a father. I did not swear. I had gotover that for a while, in that six weeks on my back. But I did say theold wires were infernal things, and that the house and premises must bemade rid of them. The aunts laughed,--though I was so serious,--andtipped a wink to the girls. The girls wanted to laugh, but were afraidto. And then it came out that the aunts had sold their old hoops, tiedas tight as they could tie them, in a great mass of rags. They had madea fortune by the sale,--I am sorry to say it was in other rags, but therags they got were new instead of old,--it was a real Aladdin bargain.The new rags had blue backs, and were numbered, some as high as fiftydollars. The rag-man had been in a hurry, and had not known what madethe things so heavy. I frowned at the swindle, but they said all wasfair with a pedler,--and I own I was glad the things were well out ofRichmond. But when I said I thought it was a mean trick, Lizzie andSarah looked demure, and asked what in the world I would have them dowith the old things. Did I expect them to walk down to the bridgethemselves with great parcels to throw into the river, as I had done byJulia's? Of course it ended, as such things always do, by my taking thework on my own shoulders. I told them to tie up all they had in as smalla parcel as they could, and bring them to me.
Accordingly, the next day, I found a handsome brown paper parcel, not sovery large, considering, and strangely square, considering, which theminxes had put together and left on my office table. They had a greatfrolic over it. They had not spared red tape nor red wax. Very officialit looked, indeed, and on the left-hand corner, in Sarah's boldest andmost contorted hand, was written, "Secret service." We had a great laughover their success. And, indeed, I should have taken it with me the nexttime I went down to the Tredegar, but that I happened to dine oneevening with young Norton of our gallant little navy, and a very curiousthing he told us.
We were talking about the disappointment of the combined land attack. Idid not tell what upset poor Schaff's horse; indeed, I do not thinkthose navy men knew the details of the disappointment. O'Brien had toldme, in confidence, what I have written down probably for the first timenow. But we were speaking, in a general way, of the disappointment.Norton finished his cigar rather thoughtfully, and then said: "Well,fellows, it is not worth while to put in the newspapers, but what do yousuppose upset our grand naval attack, the day the Yankee gunboatsskittled down the river so handsomely?"
"Why," said Allen, who is Norton's best-beloved friend, "they say thatyou ran away from them as fast as they did from you."
"Do they?" said Norton, grimly. "If you say that, I'll break your headfor you. Seriously, men," continued he, "that was a most extraordinarything. You know I was on the ram. But why she stopped when she stopped Iknew as little as this wineglass does; and Callender himself knew nomore than I. We had not been hit. We were all right as a trivet for allwe knew, when, skree! she began blowing off steam, and we stopped dead,and began to drift down under those batteries. Callender had totelegraph to the little Mosquito, or whatever Walter called his boat,and the spunky little thing ran down and got us out of the scrape.Walter did it right well; if he had had a monitor under him he could nothave done better. Of course we all rushed to the engine-room. What inthunder were they at there? All they knew was they could get no waterinto her boiler.
"Now, fellows, this is the end of the story. As soon as the boilerscooled off they worked all right on those supply pumps. May I be hangedif they had not sucked in, somehow, a long string of yarn, and cloth,and, if you will believe me, a wire of some woman's crinoline. And thatFrench folly of a sham Empress cut short that day the victory of theConfederate navy, and old Davis himself can't tell when we shall havesuch a chance again!"
Some of the men thought Norton lied. But I never was with him when hedid not tell the truth. I did not mention, however, what I had throwninto the water the las
t time I had gone over to Manchester. And Ichanged my mind about Sarah's "secret-service" parcel. It remained on mytable.
That was the last dinner our old club had at the Spotswood, I believe.The spring came on, and the plot thickened. We did our work in theoffice as well as we could; I can speak for mine, and if otherpeople--but no matter for that! The 3d of April came, and the fire, andthe right wing of Grant's army. I remember I was glad then that I hadmoved the office down to the house, for we were out of the way there.Everybody had run away from the Department; and so, when the powers thatbe took possession, my little sub-bureau was unmolested for some days. Iimproved those days as well as I could,--burning carefully what was tobe burned, and hiding carefully what was to be hidden. One thing thathappened then belongs to this story. As I was at work on the privatebureau,--it was really a bureau, as it happened, one I had made AuntEunice give up when I broke my leg,--I came, to my horror, on a neatparcel of coast-survey maps of Georgia, Alabama, and Florida. They werenot the same Maury stole when he left the National Observatory, but theywere like them. Now I was perfectly sure that on that fatal Sunday ofthe flight I had sent Lafarge for these, that the President might usethem, if necessary, in his escape. When I found them, I hopped out andcalled for Julia, and asked her if she did not remember his coming forthem. "Certainly," she said, "it was the first I knew of the danger.Lafarge came, asked for the key of the office, told me all was up,walked in, and in a moment was gone."
And here, on the file of April 3d, was Lafarge's line to me:--
"I got the secret-service parcel myself, and have put it in thePresident's own hands. I marked it, 'Gulf coast,' as you bade me."
What could Lafarge have given to the President? Not the soundings ofHatteras Bar. Not the working-drawings of the first monitor. I had allthese under my hand. Could it be,--"Julia, what did we do with thatstuff of Sarah's that she marked _secret service?_"
As I live, we had sent the girls' old hoops to the President in hisflight.
And when the next day we read how he used them, and how Pritchardarrested him, we thought if he had only had the right parcel he wouldhave found the way to Florida.
That is really the end of this memoir. But I should not have written it,but for something that happened just now on the piazza. You must know,some of us wrecks are up here at the Berkeley baths. My uncle has aplace near here. Here came to-day John Sisson, whom I have not seensince Memminger ran and took the clerks with him. Here we had before,both the Richards brothers, the great paper men, you know, who startedthe Edgerly Works in Prince George's County, just after the war began.After dinner, Sisson and they met on the piazza. Queerly enough, theyhad never seen each other before, though they had used reams ofRichards's paper in correspondence with each other, and the treasury hadused tons of it in the printing of bonds and bank-bills. Of course weall fell to talking of old times,--old they seem now, though it is not ayear ago. "Richards," said Sisson at last, "what became of that lastorder of ours for water-lined, pure linen government-callendered paperof _surete?_ We never got it, and I never knew why."
"Did you think Kilpatrick got it?" said Richards, rather gruffly.
"None of your chaff, Richards. Just tell where the paper went, for inthe loss of that lot of paper, as it proved, the bottom dropped out ofthe Treasury tub. On that paper was to have been printed our new issueof ten per cent, convertible, you know, and secured on that up-countrycotton, which Kirby Smith had above the Big Raft. I had the printersready for near a month waiting for that paper. The plates were reallyvery handsome. I'll show you a proof when we go up stairs. Wholly newthey were, made by some Frenchmen we got, who had worked for the Bank ofFrance. I was so anxious to have the thing well done, that I waitedthree weeks for that paper, and, by Jove, I waited just too long. Wenever got one of the bonds off, and that was why we had no money inMarch."
Richards threw his cigar away. I will not say he swore between histeeth, but he twirled his chair round, brought it down on all fours,both his elbows on his knees and his chin in both hands.
"Mr. Sisson," said he, "if the Confederacy had lived, I would have diedbefore I ever told what became of that order of yours. But now I have nosecrets, I believe, and I care for nothing. I do not know now how ithappened. We knew it was an extra nice job. And we had it on an elegantlittle new French Fourdrinier, which cost us more than we shall everpay. The pretty thing ran like oil the day before. That day, I thoughtall the devils were in it. The more power we put on the more the rollersscreamed; and the less we put on, the more sulkily the jade stopped. Itried it myself every way; back current; I tried; forward current; highfeed; low freed, I tried it on old stock, I tried it on new; and, Mr.Sisson, I would have made better paper in a coffee-mill! We drained offevery drop of water. We washed the tubs free from size. Then my brother,there, worked all night with the machinists, taking down the frame andthe rollers. You would not believe it, sir, but that little bit ofwire,"--and he took out of his pocket a piece of this hateful steel,which poor I knew so well by this time,--"that little bit of wire hadpassed in from some hoop-skirt, passed the pickers, passed the screens,through all the troughs, up and down through what we call thelacerators, and had got itself wrought in, where, if you know aFourdrinier machine, you may have noticed a brass ring riveted to thecross-bar, and there this cursed little knife--for you see it was aknife, by that time--had been cutting to pieces the endless wire webevery time the machine was started. You lost your bonds, Mr. Sisson,because some Yankee woman cheated one of my rag-men."
On that story I came up stairs. Poor Aunt Eunice! She was the reason Igot no salary on the 1st of April. I thought I would warn other women bywriting down the story.
That fatal present of mine, in those harmless hour-glass parcels, wasthe ruin of the Confederate navy, army, ordnance, and treasury; and itled to the capture of the poor President too.
But, Heaven be praised, no one shall say that my office did not do itsduty!
The Man Without a Country, and Other Tales Page 10