An Original Belle

by Edward Payson Roe

  During the remainder of the 17th of June and for the next few days,the militia regiments of New York and Brooklyn were departing forthe seat of war. The city was filled with conflicting rumors. Onthe 19th it was said that the invaders were returning to Virginia.The questions "Where is Lee, and what are his purposes? and whatis the army of the Potomac about?" were upon all lips.

  On the 20th came the startling tidings of organized resistance tothe draft in Ohio, and of troops fired upon by the mob. Mr. Vosburghfrowned heavily as he read the account at the breakfast-table andsaid: "The test of my fears will come when the conscription beginsin this city, and it may come much sooner. I wish you to join yourmother before that day, Marian!"

  "No," she said, quietly,--"not unless you compel, me to."

  "I may be obliged to use my authority," said her father, after somethought. "My mind is oppressed by a phase of danger not properlyrealized. The city is being stripped of its loyal regiments, andevery element of mischief is left behind."

  "Papa, I entreat you not to send me away while you remain. I assureyou that such a course would involve far greater danger to me thanstaying with you, even though your fears should be realized. Ifthe worst should happen, I might escape all harm. If you do whatyou threaten, I could not escape a wounded spirit."

  "Well, my dear," said her father, gently, "I appreciate your courageand devotion, and I should indeed miss you. We'll await furtherdevelopments."

  Day after day passed, bringing no definite information. There werereports of severe cavalry fighting in Virginia, but the positionof the main body of Lee's army was still practically unknown to thepeople at large. On the 22d, a leading journal said, "The publicmust, with patience, await events in Virginia, and remain inignorance until some decisive point is reached;" and on the 24th,the head-lines of the press read, in effect, "Not much of importancefrom Pennsylvania yesterday." The intense excitement caused bythe invasion was subsiding. People could not exist at the firstfever-heat. It was generally believed that Hooker's army had broughtLee to a halt, and that the two commanders were manoeuvring forpositions. The fact was that the Confederates had an abundance ofcongenial occupation in sending southward to their impoverishedcommissary department the immense booty they were gathering amongthe rich farms and towns of Pennsylvania. Hooker was seeking, bythe aid of his cavalry force and scouts, to penetrate his opponent'splans, meanwhile hesitating whether to fall on the rebel communicationsin their rear, or to follow northward.

  Lee and his great army, flushed with recent victories, were not allthat Hooker had to contend with, but there was a man in Washington,whose incapacity and ill-will threatened even more fatal difficulties.Gen. Halleck, Commander-in-Chief, hung on the Union leader likethe "Old Man of the Sea." He misled the noble President, who,as a civilian, was ignorant of military affairs, paralyzed tensof thousands of troops by keeping them where they could be of nopractical use, and by giving them orders of which General Hookerwas not informed. The Comte de Paris writes, "Lee's projects couldnot have been more efficiently subserved," and the disastrous defeatof General Milroy confirms these words. It was a repetition of theold story of General Miles of the preceding year, with the differencethat Milroy was a gallant, loyal man, who did all that a skilfulofficer could accomplish to avert the results of his superior'sblundering and negligence.

  Hooker was goaded into resigning, and of the army of the Potomac thegifted French author again writes, "Everything seemed to conspireagainst it, even the government, whose last hope it was;" addinglater: "Out of the 97,000 men thus divided (at Washington, Frederick,Fortress Monroe, and neighboring points) there were 40,000, perfectlyuseless where they were stationed, that might have been added tothe army of the Potomac before the 1st of July. Thus reinforced, theUnion general could have been certain of conquering his adversary,and even of inflicting upon him an irreparable disaster."

  The fortunes of the North were indeed trembling in the balance.We had to cope with the ablest general of the South and his greatarmy, with the peace (?) faction that threatened bloody argumentsin the loyal States, and with General Halleck.

  The people were asking: "Where is the army of the Potomac? Whatcan it be doing, that the invasion goes on so long unchecked?" AtGettysburg this patient, longsuffering army gave its answer.

  Meanwhile the North was brought face to face with the direstpossibilities, and its fears, which history has proved to be just,were aroused to the last degree. The lull in the excitement whichhad followed the first startling announcement of invasion wasbroken by the wildest rumors and the sternest facts. The publicpulse again rose to fever-heat. Farmers were flying into Harrisburg,before the advancing enemy; merchants were packing their goodsfor shipment to the North; and the panic was so general that theproposition was made to stop forcibly the flight of able-bodiedmen from the Pennsylvanian capital.

  As Mr. Vosburgh read these despatches in the morning paper, Mariansmiled satirically, and said: "You think that Mr. Merwyn is undersome powerful restraint. I doubt whether he would be restrainedfrom going north, should danger threaten this city."

  And many believed, with good reason, that New York City wasthreatened. Major-General Doubleday, in his clear, vigorous accountof this campaign writes: "Union spies who claimed to have countedthe rebel forces as they passed through Hagerstown made theirnumber to be 91,000 infantry and 280 guns. This statement, thoughexaggerated, gained great credence, and added to the excitement ofthe loyal people throughout the Northern States, while the disloyalelement was proportionately active and jubilant." Again he writes:"There was wild commotion throughout the North, and people began tofeel that the boast of the Georgia Senator, Toombs, that he wouldcall the roll of his slaves at the foot of Bunker Hill Monument,might soon be realized. The enemy seemed very near and the army ofthe Potomac far away." Again: "The Southern people were bent uponnothing else than the entire subjugation of the North and theoccupation of our principal cities."

  These statements of sober history are but the true echoes of theloud alarms of the hour. On the morning of the 20th of June, suchwords as these were printed as the leading editorial of the New YorkTribune: "The rebels are coming North. All doubt seems at lengthdispelled. Men of the North, Pennsylvanians, Jerseymen, New-Yorkers,New-Englanders, the foe is at your doors! Are you true men ortraitors? brave men or cowards? If you are patriots, resolved anddeserving to be free, prove it by universal rallying, arming, andmarching to meet the foe. Prove it NOW!"

  Marian, with flashing eyes and glowing cheeks, read to her fatherthis brief trumpet call, and then exclaimed: "Yes, the issue isdrawn so sharply now that no loyal man can hesitate, and to-dayMr. Merwyn cannot help answering the question, 'Are you a braveman or a coward?' O papa, to think that a MAN should be deaf tosuch an appeal and shrink in such an emergency!"

  At that very hour Merwyn sat alone in his elegant home, his faceburied in his hands, the very picture of dejection. Before him onthe table lay the journal from which he had read the same wordswhich Marian had applied to him in bitter scorn. An open letterwas also upon the table, and its contents had slain his hope. Mrs.Merwyn had answered his appeal characteristically. "You evidentlyneed my presence," she wrote, "yet I will never believe that youcan violate your oath, unless your reason is dethroned. When youforget that you have sworn by your father's memory and your mother'shonor, you must be wrecked indeed. I wonder at your blindness toyour own interests, and can see in it the influence which, in allthe past, has made some weak men reckless and forgetful of everythingexcept an unworthy passion. The armies of your Northern friendshave been defeated again and again. I have means of communicationwith my Southern friends, and before the summer is over our gallantleaders will dictate peace in the city where you dwell. What thenwould become of the property which you so value, were it not for myinfluence? My hope still is, that your infatuation will pass awaywith your youth, and that your mind will become clear, so thatyou can appreciate the future that might be yours. If I can onlyprotect you against yourself and designing people
, all may yet bewell; and when our glorious South takes the foremost place amongthe nations of the earth, my influence will be such that I can stillobtain for you rank and title, unless you now compromise yourselfby some unutterable folly. The crisis is approaching fast, and theNorth will soon learn that, so far from subduing the South, it willbe subjugated and will gladly accept such terms as we may deem itbest to give. I have fulfilled my mission here. The leading classesare with us in sympathy, and it will require but one or two morevictories like that of Chancellorsville to make England our openally. Then people of our birth and wealth will be the equals of theEnglish aristocracy, and your career can be as lofty as you chooseto make it. Then, with a gratitude beyond words, you will thank mefor my firmness, for you can aspire to the highest positions in anempire such as the world has not seen before."

  "No," said Merwyn, sternly, "if there is a free State left at theNorth, I will work there with my own hands for a livelihood, ratherthan have any part or lot in this Southern empire. Yet what can Iever appear to be but a shrinking coward? An owner of slaves allher life, my mother has made a slave of me. She has fettered myvery soul. Oh! if there are to be outbreaks at the North, let themcome soon, or I shall die under the weight of my chains."

  The dark tide of invasion rose higher and higher. At last the tidingscame that Lee's whole army was in Pennsylvania, that Harrisburgwould be attacked before night, and that the enemy were threateningColumbia on the northern bank of the Susquehanna, and would havecrossed the immense bridge which there spans the river, had it notbeen burned.

  On the 27th, the Tribune contained the following editorial words:"Now is the hour. Pennsylvania is at length arousing, we trust nottoo late. We plead with the entire North to rush to the rescue; thewhole North is menaced through this invasion. It we do not stop itat the Susquehanna, it will soon strike us on the Delaware, thenon the Hudson."

  "My chance is coming," Merwyn muttered, grimly, as he read thesewords. "If the answering counter-revolution does not begin duringthe next few days, I shall take my rifle and fight as a citizen aslong as there is a rebel left on Northern soil."

  The eyes of others were turned towards Pennsylvania; he scannedthe city in which he dwelt. He had abandoned all morbid brooding,and sought by every means in his power to inform himself in regardto the seething, disloyal elements that were now manifestingthemselves. From what Mr. Vosburgh had told him, and from what hehad discovered himself, he felt that any hour might witness bloodyco-operation at his very door with the army of invasion.

  "Should this take place," he exclaimed, as he paced his room, "ohthat it might be my privilege, before I died, to perform some deedthat would convince Marian Vosburgh that I am not what she thinksme to be!"

  Each new day brought its portentous news. On the 30th of June, therewere accounts of intense excitement at Washington and Baltimore,for the enemy had appeared almost at the suburbs of these cities.In Baltimore, women rushed into the streets and besought protection.New York throbbed and rocked with kindred excitement.

  On July 3d, the loyal Tribune again sounded the note of deep alarm:"These are times that try men's souls! The peril of our country'soverthrow is great and imminent. The triumph of the rebelsdistinctly and unmistakably involves the downfall of republicanand representative institutions."

  By a strange anomaly multitudes of the poor, the oppressed in otherlands, whose hope for the future was bound up in the cause of theNorth, were arrayed against it. Their ignorance made them dupesand tools, and enemies of human rights and progress were prompt touse them. On the evening of this momentous 3d of July, a manifesto,in the form of a handbill, was extensively circulated throughoutthe city. Jeff Davis himself could not have written anything moredisloyal, more false, of the Union government and its aims, orbetter calculated to incite bloody revolution in the North.

  For the last few days the spirit of rebellion had been burning likea fuse toward a vast magazine of human passion and intense hatredof Northern measures and principles. If from Pennsylvania had comein electric flash the words, "Meade defeated," the explosion wouldhave come almost instantly; but all now had learned that the armyof the Potomac had emerged from its obscurity, and had grappledwith the invading forces. Even the most reckless of the so-calledpeace faction could afford to wait a few hours longer. As soon asthe shattered columns of Meade's army were in full retreat, theNorthern wing of the rebellion could act with confidence.

  The Tribune, in commenting on the incendiary document distributedon the evening of the 3d, spoke as follows: "That the more determinedsympathizers, in this vicinity, with the Southern rebels have, formonths, conspired and plotted to bring about a revolution is ascertain as the Civil War. Had Meade been defeated," etc.

  The dramatic culmination of this awful hour of uncertainty maybe found in the speeches, on July 4th, of ex-President FranklinPierce, at Concord, N.H., and of Governor Seymour, in the Academyof Music, at New York. The former spoke of "the mailed hand ofmilitary usurpation in the North, striking down the liberties ofthe people and trampling its foot on a desecrated Constitution."He lauded Vallandigham, who was sent South for disloyalty, as "thenoble martyr of free speech." He declared the war to be fruitless,and exclaimed: "You will take care of yourselves. With or withoutarms, with or without leaders, we will at least, in the effort todefend our rights, as a free people, build up a great mausoleum ofhearts, to which men who yearn for liberty will, in after years,with bowed heads reverently resort as Christian pilgrims to theshrines of the Holy Land."

  Such were the shrines with which this man would have filled NewEngland. There is a better chance now, that a new and loyal Virginiawill some day build a monument to John Brown.

  Governor Seymour's speech was similar in tenor, but more guarded.In words of bitter irony toward the struggling government, whosehands the peace faction were striving to paralyze, he began: "WhenI accepted the invitation to speak with others, at this meeting,we were promised the downfall of Vicksburg, the opening of theMississippi, the probable capture of the Confederate capital, andthe exhaustion of the rebellion. By common consent, all partieshad fixed upon this day when the results of the campaign should beknown. But, in the moment of expected victory, there came a midnightcry for help from Pennsylvania, to save its despoiled fields fromthe invading foe; and, almost within sight of this metropolis, theships of your merchants were burned to the water's edge. Partiesare exasperated and stand in almost defiant attitude toward eachother."

  "At the very hour," writes the historian Lossing, "when this ungeneroustaunt was uttered, Vicksburg and its dependences and vast spoils,with more than thirty thousand Confederate captives, were in thepossession of General Grant; and the discomfited army of Lee, who,when that sentence was written, was expected to lead his troopsvictoriously to the Delaware, and perhaps to the Hudson, was flyingfrom Meade's troops, to find shelter from utter destruction beyondthe Potomac."

  Rarely has history reached a more dramatic climax, and seldom havethe great scenes of men's actions been more swiftly shifted.

  Merwyn attended this great mass-meeting, and was silent when thethousands applauded. In coming out he saw, while unobserved himself,Mr. Vosburgh, and was struck by the proud, contemptuous expressionof his face. The government officer had listened with a ciphertelegram in his pocket informing him of Lee's repulse.

  For the last twenty-four hours Merwyn had watched almost sleeplesslyfor the outburst to take place. That strong, confident face indicatedno fears that it would ever take place.

  A few hours later, he, and all, heard from the army of the Potomac.

  When at last it became known that the Confederate army was in fullretreat, and, as the North then believed, would be either capturedor broken into flying fragments before reaching Virginia, Merwynfaced what he believed to be his fate.

  "The country is saved," he said. "There will be no revolution at theNorth. Thank God for the sake of others, but I've lost my chance."

  CHAPTER XXXII.

  BLAUVELT.