Mohun; Or, the Last Days of Lee and His Paladins.

by John Esten Cooke

  The last words of the speaker were nearly drowned in a heavy fusilladewhich issued from the woods close by.

  "Listen!" exclaimed General Davenant, "that is the fire of yourhirelings, sir, directed at the hearts of your brethren! _You_ areleading that scum against the gentlemen of Virginia! Well join them!Point _me_, and my son, and companion out to them! Tear us to pieceswith your bullets! Trample us beneath your hireling heels! That will notprevent me from branding you again in your dishonored forehead!--fromcursing you as renegade, debauchee, and murderer!"

  The whistle of bullets mingled with these furious and resounding words;and then the crackle of footsteps was heard, the undergrowth suddenlyswarmed with figures--a party of Confederates rushed shouting into thelittle glade.

  Darke wheeled not from, but toward them, as though to charge them. Thestern courage of the Davenant blood burned in his cheeks and eyes. Then,with a harsh and bitter laugh, he turned and pushed his horse close upbeside that of his father.

  "I would call this meeting and parting strange, if any thing werestrange in this world!" he said, "but nothing astonishes me, or movesme, as of old! The devil has brought it about! he put a knife inmy hands once! to-night he brings me face to face with you and myboy-brother--and makes you curse and renounce me! Well, so be it! haveyour will! Henceforth I am really lost--my father!"

  And drawing his pistol, he coolly discharged barrel after barrel in thefaces of the men rushing upon him; wheeled his horse, and dug the spursinto him; an instant afterward, with his sneering face turned over hisshoulder, he had disappeared in the woods.

  Two hours afterward I was on my way to Petersburg.

  The enemy were already falling back from their adventurous attempt toseize the Southside road.

  In the morning they had retired across the Rowanty, and disappeared.

  So ended that heavy blow at Lee's great war-artery.

  THE FLIGHT]

  BOOK IV.

  THE PHANTOMS.

  I.

  RICHMOND BY THE THROAT.

  I was again back at the "Cedars," after the rapid and shifting sceneswhich I have endeavored to place before the reader.

  The tragic incidents befalling the actors in this drama, had mostabsorbed my attention; but sitting now in my tent, with the newspapersbefore me, I looked at the fight in which I had participated, from thegeneral and historic point of view.

  That heavy advance on the Boydton road, beyond Lee's right, had beensimultaneous with a determined assault on the Confederate left, northof James River, and on Lee's centre opposite Petersburg; and now theextracts from Northern journals clearly indicated that the movement wasmeant to be decisive.

  "I have Richmond by the throat!" General Grant had telegraphed; butthere was good ground to believe that the heavy attack, and theeloquent dispatch, were both meant to "make capital" for the approachingPresidential election.

  These memoirs, my dear reader, are written chiefly to record someincidents which I witnessed during the war. I have neither time norspace for political comments. But I laid my hand yesterday, by accident,on an old number of the _Examiner_ newspaper; and it chanced to containan editorial on the fight just described, with some penetrating views onthe "situation" at that time.

  Shall I quote a paragraph from the yellow old paper? It will bebitter--we were all bitter in those days! though to-day we are sofraternal and harmonious. With his trenchant pen, Daniel pierced to thecore of the matter; and the paper may give some idea of the spirit ofthe times.

  I could fancy the great satirist sitting in his lonely study, andpenning the lines I shall quote, not without grim smiles at his ownmordant humor.

  Here is the slip I cut out. The old familiar heading may recall thosetimes to some readers, as clearly as the biting sentences, once read,perhaps, by the camp-fire.

  * * * * * DAILY EXAMINER. * * * * * MONDAY MORNING OCT. 31, 1864. * * ** *

  "Every day must now bring its brilliant bulletin to the Yankee nation. That nation does not regard the punctual rising of the sun as more lawfully due to it than a victory every morning. And those glorious achievements of SHERIDAN in the Valley were grown cold and stale, and even plainly hollow and rotten--insomuch that, after totally annihilating the army of EARLY at least three times, and so clearing the way to Lynchburg, instead of marching up to Lynchburg the heroick victor goes whirling down to Winchester. Then the superb victory obtained on Sunday of last week over PRICE in Missouri, has taken a certain bogus tint, which causes many to believe that there was, in fact, no victory and no battle. This would not do. Something fresh must be had; something electrifying; above all, something that would set the people to cheering and firing off salutes about the very day of the election;--something, too, that could not be plainly contradicted by the events till after that critical day--then let the contradiction come and welcome: your true Yankee will only laugh.

  "From this necessity came the great 'reconnoissance in force' of last Thursday on our lines before Richmond and Petersburg; a 'reconnoissance' in very heavy force indeed upon three points of our front at once both north and south of the James river; so that it may be very properly considered as three reconnoissances in force; made with a view of feeling, as it were, LEE'S position; and the object of the three reconnoissances having been fully attained--that is, LEE having been felt--they retired. That is the way in which the transactions of Thursday last are to appear in STANTON'S bulletin, we may be all quite sure; and this representation, together with the occupation of a part of the Boydton plank-road (which road the newspapers can call for a few days the Southside Road) will cause every city from Boston to Milwaukee to fire off its inevitable hundred guns. Thus, the Presidential election will be served, just in the nick of time; for that emergency it is not the real victory which is wanted, so much as the jubilation, glorification and cannon salutes.

  "Even when the truth comes to be fully known that this was the grand pre-election assault itself: the resistless advance on Richmond which was to lift the Abolitionists into power again upon a swelling high-tide of glory unutterable--easily repulsed and sent rolling back with a loss of about six or seven thousand men in killed, wounded and prisoners; even when this is known, does the reader imagine that the Yankee nation will be discouraged? Very far from it. On the contrary it will be easily made to appear that from these 'reconnoissances in force,' an advantage has been gained, which is to make the next advance a sure and overwhelming success. For the fact is, that a day was chosen for this mighty movement, when the wind was southerly, a soft and gentle breeze, which wafted the odour of the Yankee whiskey-rations to the nostrils of Confederate soldiers. The Confederates ought to have been taken by surprise that morning; but the moment they snuffed the tainted gale, they knew what was to be the morning's work. Not more unerring is the instinct which calls the vulture to the battle-field before a drop of blood is shed; or that which makes the kites 'know well the long stern swell, that bids the Romans close;' than the sure induction of our army that the Yankees are coming on, when morn or noon or dewy eve breathes along the whole line a perfumed savour of the ancient rye. The way in which this discovery may be improved is plain. It will be felt and understood throughout the intelligent North, that it gives them at last the key to Richmond. They will say--Those rebels, to leeward of us, smell the rising valour of our loyal soldiers: the filling and emptying of a hundred thousand canteens perfumes the sweet South as if it had passed over a bed of violets, stealing and giving odours:--when the wind is southerly it will be said, rebels know a hawk from a handsaw. Therefore it is but making our next grand assault on some morning when they are to windward of us--creeping up, in the lee of LEE, as if he were a stag--and Richmond is ours."

  That is savage, and sounds unfraternal to-day, when peace and goodfeeling reign--when the walls of the Virginia capitol re
-echo thestately voices of the conscript fathers of the great commonwealth andmother of States: conscript fathers bringing their wisdom, maturestudy, and experience to the work of still further improving the work ofJefferson, Mason, and Washington.

  "I have Richmond by the throat!" General Grant wrote in October, 1864.In February, 1868, when these lines are written, black hands have gotVirginia by the throat, and she is suffocating; Cuffee grins, Cuffeegabbles--the groans of the "Old Mother" make him laugh.

  Messieurs of the great Northwest, she gave you being, and suckled you!Are you going to see her strangled before your very eyes?

  II.

  NIGHTMARE.

  In truth, if not held by the throat, as General Grant announced,Richmond and all the South in that autumn of 1864, was staggering,suffocating, reeling to and fro under the immense incubus ofall-destroying war.

  At that time black was the "only wear," and widows and orphans werecrying in every house throughout the land. Bread and meat had become nolonger necessaries, but luxuries. Whole families of the old aristocracylived on crusts, and even by charity. Respectable people in Richmondwent to the "soup-houses." Men once rich, were penniless, and borrowedto live. Provisions were incredibly dear. Flour was hundreds of dollarsa barrel; bacon ten dollars a pound; coffee and tea had become unknownalmost. Boots were seven hundred dollars a pair. The poor skinned thedead horses on battle-fields to make shoes. Horses cost five thousanddollars. Cloth was two hundred dollars a yard. Sorghum had taken theplace of sugar. Salt was sold by the ounce. Quinine was one dollar agrain. Paper to write upon was torn from old blank books. The ten ortwenty dollars which the soldiers received for their monthly pay, wasabout sufficient to buy a sheet, a pen, and a little ink to write hometo their starving families that they too were starving.

  In town and country the atmosphere seemed charged with coming ruin. Allthings were in confusion. Everywhere something jarred. The executivewas unpopular. The heads of departments were inefficient. The army wasunfed. The finances were mismanaged. In Congress the opposition bitterlycriticised President Davis. The press resounded with fierce diatribes,_pro_ and _con_, on all subjects. The _Examiner_ attacked thegovernment, and denounced the whole administration of affairs. The_Sentinel_ replied to the attacks, and defended the assailed officials.One could see nothing that was good. The other could see nothing thatwas bad. Their readers adopted their opinions; looking through glassesthat were deep green, or else _couleur de rose_. But the green glassesoutnumbered the rose-colored more and more every day.

  Thus, in the streets of the city, and in the shades of the country,all was turmoil, confusion--a hopeless brooding on the hours that werecoming. War was no longer an affair of the border and outpost. Federalcavalry scoured the woods, tearing the last mouthful from the poorpeople. Federal cannon were thundering in front of the ramparts of thecities. In the country, the faint-hearted gathered at the court-housesand cross-roads to comment on the times, and groan. In the cities,cowards croaked in the market-places. In the country, men were hidingtheir meat in garrets and cellars--concealing their corn in pens, lostin the depths of the woods. In the towns, the forestallers hoardedflour, and sugar, and salt in their warehouses, to await famine prices.The vultures of troubled times flapped their wings and croaked joyfully.Extortioners rolled in their chariots. Hucksters laughed as they countedtheir gains. Blockade-runners drank their champagne, jingled their coin,and dodged the conscript officers.

  The rich were very rich and insolent. The poor were want-stricken anddespairing. Fathers gazed at their children's pale faces, and knewnot where to find food for them. Mothers hugged their frail infants tobosoms drained by famine. Want gnawed at the vitals. Despair had come,like a black and poisonous mist, to strangle the heart.

  The soldiers were agonized by maddening letters from their families.Their fainting loved ones called for help. "Father! come home!" moanedthe children, with gaunt faces, crying for bread. "Husband, come home!"murmured the pale wife, with her half-dead infant in her arms. And themothers--the mothers--ah! the mothers! They did not say, "Come home!" totheir brave boys in the army; they were too proud for that--too faithfulto the end. They did not summon them to come home; they only knelt downand prayed: "God, end this cruel war! Only give me back my boy! Do notbereave me of my child! The cause is lost--his blood not needed! God,pity me and give me back my boy!"

  So that strange autumn of that strange year, 1864, wore on. The countrywas oppressed as by some hideous nightmare; and Government was silent.

  The army alone, kept heart of hope--Lee's old soldiers defied the enemyto the last.

  III.

  LEE'S MISERABLES.

  They called themselves "Lee's Miserables."

  That was a grim piece of humor, was it not, reader? And the name hadhad a somewhat curious origin. Victor Hugo's work, _Les Miserables_, hadbeen translated and published by a house in Richmond; the soldiers, inthe great dearth of reading matter, had seized upon it; and thus, by astrange chance the tragic story of the great French writer, had becomeknown to the soldiers in the trenches. Everywhere, you might seethe gaunt figures in their tattered jackets bending over the dingypamphlets--"Fantine," "Cosette," or "Marius," or "St. Denis,"--andthe woes of "Jean Valjean," the old galley-slave, found an echo in thehearts of these brave soldiers, immured in the trenches and fettered byduty to their muskets or their cannon.

  Singular fortune of a writer! Happy M. Hugo! Your fancies crossed theocean, and, transmitted into a new tongue, whiled away the dreary hoursof the old soldiers of Lee, at Petersburg! Thus, that history of "TheWretched," was the pabulum of the South in 1864; and as the French titlehad been retained on the backs of the pamphlets, the soldiers,little familiar with the Gallic pronunciation, called the book "LeesMiserables!" Then another step was taken. It was no longer the book, butthemselves whom they referred to by that name. The old veterans of thearmy thenceforth laughed at their miseries, and dubbed themselves grimly"_Lee's_ Miserables!"[1]

  [Footnote 1: It is unnecessary to say that this is not a jest or fancyon the part of Colonel Surrey. It is a statement of fact.--ED.]

  THE TRENCHES.]

  The sobriquet was gloomy, and there was something tragic in theemployment of it; but it was applicable. Like most popular terms,it expressed the exact thought in the mind of every one--coined thesituation into a phrase. Truly, they were "The Wretched,"--the soldiersof the army of Northern Virginia, in the fall and winter of 1864. Theyhad a quarter of a pound of rancid "Nassau bacon"--from New England--fordaily rations of meat. The handful of flour, or corn-meal, which theyreceived, was musty. Coffee and sugar were doled out as a luxury, nowand then only; and the microscopic ration became a jest to those wholooked at it. A little "grease" and cornbread--the grease rancid, andthe bread musty--these were the food of the army.

  Their clothes, blankets, and shoes were no better--even worse. Only atlong intervals could the Government issue new ones to them. Thus thearmy was in tatters. The old clothes hung on the men like scarecrows.Their gray jackets were in rags, and did not keep out the chilly windsweeping over the frozen fields. Their old blankets were in shreds,and gave them little warmth when they wrapped themselves up in them,shivering in the long cold nights. The old shoes, patched and yawning,had served in many a march and battle--and now allowed the naked sole totouch the hard and frosty ground.

  Happy the man with a new blanket! Proud the possessor of a wholeroundabout! What millionaire or favorite child of fortune passesyonder--the owner of an unpatched pair of shoes?

  Such were the rations and clothing of the army at that epoch;--rancidgrease, musty meal, tattered jackets, and worn-out shoes. And these werethe fortunate ones! Whole divisions often went without bread even, fortwo whole days. Thousands had no jackets, no blankets, and no shoes.Gaunt forms, in ragged old shirts and torn pantaloons only, clutchedthe musket. At night they huddled together for warmth by the fire in thetrenches. When they charged, their naked feet left blood-marks on theabatis through which they went at the enemy.

/>   That is not an exaggeration, reader. These facts are of record.