Before the Dawn: A Story of the Fall of Richmond

by Joseph A. Altsheler

  CHAPTER XVI

  THE GREAT REVIVAL

  Two men sat early the next morning in a tent with a pot of coffee and abreakfast of strips of bacon between them. One was elderly, calm andgrave, and his face was known well to the army; the other was youngish,slight, dark and also calm, and the soldiers were not familiar with hisface. They were General Lee and Mr. Sefton.

  The Secretary had arrived from Richmond just before the dawn withmessages of importance, and none could tell them with more easy gracethan he. He was quite unembarrassed now as he sat in the presence of thegreat General, announcing the wishes of the Government--wishes whichlost no weight in the telling, and whether he was speaking or not hewatched the man before him with a stealthy gaze that nothing escaped.

  "The wishes of the Cabinet are clear, General Lee," he said, "and I havebeen chosen to deliver them to you orally, lest written orders by anychance should fall into the hands of the enemy."

  "And those wishes are?"

  "That the war be carried back into the enemy's own country. It is betterthat he should feel its ills more heavily than we. You will recall,General, how terror spread through the North when you invadedPennsylvania. Ah, if it had not been for Gettysburg!"

  He paused and looked from under lowered eyelashes at the General. Therehad been criticism of Lee because of Gettysburg, but he never defendedhimself, taking upon his shoulders all the blame that might or might notbe his. Now when Mr. Sefton mentioned the name of Gettysburg in such aconnection his face showed no change. The watchful Secretary could notsee an eyelid quiver.

  "Yes, Gettysburg was a great misfortune for us," said the General, inhis usual calm, even voice. "Our troops did wonders there, but they didnot win."

  "I scarcely need to add, General," said the Secretary, "that theconfidence of the Government in you is still unlimited."

  Then making deferential excuses, Mr. Sefton left the tent and Leefollowed his retreating figure with a look of antipathy.

  The Secretary wandered through the camp, watching everything. He hadthat most valuable of all qualities, the ability to read the minds ofmen, and now he set himself to the discovery of what these simplesoldiers, the cannon food, were thinking. He did it, too, withoutattracting any attention to himself, by a deft question here, asuggestion there, and then more questions, always indirect, but leadingin some fashion to the point. Curiously, but truly, his suggestions werenot optimistic, and after he talked with a group of soldiers and passedon the effect that he left was depressing. He, too, looked across towardthe Northern lines, and, civilian though he was, he knew that theirtremendous infolding curve was more than twice as great as that formingthe lines of the South. A singular light appeared in the Secretary'seyes as he noticed this, but he made no verbal comment, not even tohimself.

  The Secretary's steps led straight toward the house in which the woundedColonel Harley lay, and when the voice bidding him to enter in responseto his knock was feminine, he smiled slightly, entered with light step,and bowed with all the old school's courteous grace over the hand ofHelen Harley.

  "There are some women, Miss Harley," he said, "who do not fear war andwar's alarms."

  "Some, Mr. Sefton!" she replied. "There are many--in the South, Iknow--and there must be as many in the North."

  "It is your generous heart that speaks," he said, and then he turned toColonel Harley, who was claiming the attention of an old acquaintance.

  The two men shook hands with great warmth. Here was one who received theSecretary without reserve. Miss Harley, watching, saw how her brotherhung upon the words of this accomplished man of the world; how helistened with a pleased air to his praise and how he saw in theSecretary a great man and a friend.

  He asked Helen presently if she would not walk with him a little in thecamp and her brother seconded the idea. He was not intentionallyselfish, and he loved his sister.

  "She sits here all the time nursing me," he said, "when I'm almost well,and she needs the fresh air. Take her out, Mr. Sefton, and I'll thankyou if she doesn't."

  But she was willing to go. She was young; red blood flowed in her veins;she wished to be happy; and the world, despite this black cloud of warwhich hung over her part of it, was curious and interesting. She was notfond of close rooms and sick beds, so with a certain relief she walkedforth by the side of the Secretary.

  It was another of those beautiful days in May which clothe the Virginiaearth in a gauze of spun silver. Nature was blooming afresh, and peace,disturbed by the vain battle of the night before, had returned to thearmies.

  "It seems to me a most extraordinary thing to behold these two armiesface to face and yet doing nothing," said Helen.

  "Wars consist of much more than battles," replied the Secretary.

  "I am learning that," she said.

  She looked about her with eager interest, custom not dimming to her thestrange sights of an army in camp and on the eve of a great conflict.Nothing was like what she imagined it would be. The soldiers seemed tohave no fear of death; in fact, nothing, if they could be judged bytheir actions, was further from their thoughts; they were gay ratherthan sad, and apparently were enjoying life with an indifference tocircumstances that was amazing.

  They were joined presently by Prescott, who thought it no part of hiscue to avoid the Secretary. Mr. Sefton received him with easy courtesy,and the three strolled on together.

  The Secretary asked the news of the camp, and Prescott replied that theReverend Doctor Warren, a favourite minister, was about to preach to thesoldiers.

  "He is worth hearing," said Prescott. "Doctor Warren is no ordinary man,and this is Sunday, you know."

  This army, like other armies, included many wild and lawless men whocherished in their hearts neither the fear of God nor the fear of man;but the South was religious, and if the battle or march did not forbid,Sunday was observed with the rites of the church. The great Jackson, soeager for the combat on other days, would not fight on Sunday if itcould be helped.

  The crowd was gathering already to hear the minister, who would addressthem from a rude little platform built in the centre of a glade.

  The day was so calm, so full of the May bloom that Helen felt its peacesteal over her, and for the moment there was no war; this was not anarmy, but just a great camp-meeting in the woods, such as the Southoften had and still has.

  The soldiers were gathered already to the number of many thousands, somesitting on stumps and logs and others lying on the ground. All werequiet, inspired with respect for the man and his cloth.

  "Let us sit here and listen," said Prescott, and the three, sitting on aconvenient log, waited.

  Doctor Warren, for he was an M.A. and a Ph.D. of a great Americanuniversity and had taken degrees at another in Germany, ascended hisrude forest pulpit. He was then about forty years of age; tall, thin,with straight black hair, slightly long, and with angular butintellectual features.

  "A good man," thought Helen, and she was deeply impressed by his air ofauthority and the respect that he so evidently inspired.

  He spoke to them as to soldiers of the cross, and he made his appealdirectly to their hearts and minds, never to their passions. He did notinquire into the causes of the conflict in which they were engaged, hehad no criticism for the men on the other side; he seemed rather toinclude them in his address. He said it was a great war, marked by manyterrible battles as it would be marked by many more, and he besoughtthem so to bear themselves that whatever the issue none could say thathe had not done his duty as he saw it. And whether they fell in battleor not, that would be the great comfort to those who were at homeawaiting their return.

  Prescott noticed many general officers in the crowd listening asattentively as the soldiers. All sounds in the camp had died and thespeaker's clear voice rose now and penetrated far through the forest.The open air, the woods, the cannon at rest clothed the scene with asolemnity that no cathedral could have imparted. The same peace enfoldedthe Northern army, and it required but little fancy to think that thesoldi
ers there were listening, too. It seemed at the moment an easy andnatural thing for them both to lay down their arms and go home.

  The minister talked, too, of home, a place that few of those who heardhim had seen in two years or more, but he spoke of it not to enfeeblethem, rather to call another influence to their aid in this struggle ofvalour and endurance. Prescott saw tears rise more than once in the eyesof hardened soldiers, and he became conscious again of the power oforatory over the Southern people. The North loved to read and the Southto hear speeches; that seemed to him to typify the difference in thesections.

  The minister grew more fiery and more impassioned. His penetrating voicereached far through the woods and around him was a ring of manythousands. Few have ever spoken to audiences so large and so singular;of women there were not twenty, just men, and men mostly young, mereboys the majority, but with faces brown and scarred and clothingtattered and worn, men hardened to wounds and reckless of death, men whohad seen life in its wildest and most savage phases. But all the brownand scarred faces were upturned to the preacher, and the eyes of thesoldiers as they listened gleamed with emotional fire. The wind moanednow and then, but none heard it. Around them the smoky camp-fires flaredand cast a distorting light over those who heard.

  Prescott's mind, as he listened to the impassioned voice of the preacherand looked at the brown, wild faces of those who listened, inevitablywent back to the Crusades. There was now no question of right or wrong,but he beheld in it the spirit of men stirred by their emotions andgathering a sort of superhuman fire for the last and greatest conflict,for Armageddon. Here was the great drama played against the backgroundof earth and sky, and all the multitude were actors.

  The spirit of the preacher, too, was that of the crusading priest. Thebattlefields before them were but part of the battle of life; it wastheir duty to meet the foe there as bravely as they met the temptationof evil, and then he preached of the reward afterward, the Heaven tocome. His listeners began to see a way into a better life through such adeath, and many shook with emotion.

  The spell was complete. The wind still moaned afar, and the fires stillflared, casting their pallid light, but all followed the preacher. Theysaw only his deepset, burning eyes, the long pale face, and the longblack hair that fell around it. They followed only his promises of deathand life. He besought them to cast their sins at the feet of theMaster--to confess and prepare for the great day to come.

  Prescott was a sober man, one who controlled his emotions, but he couldnot help being shaken by the scene, the like of which the world has notwitnessed since the Crusades--the vast forest, the solemn sky overhead,the smoky fires below, and the fifty thousand in the shadow of immediatedeath who hung on the words of one man.

  The preacher talked of olden days, of the men who, girding themselvesfor the fight, fell in the glory of the Lord. Theirs was a beautifuldeath, he said, and forgiveness was for all who should do as they andcast away their sins. Groans began to arise from the more emotional ofthe soldiers; some wept, many now came forward and, confessing theirsins, asked that prayers be said for their souls. Others followed andthen they went forward by thousands. Over them still thundered the voiceof the preacher, denouncing the sin of this world and announcing theglory of the world to come. Clouds swept up the heavens and the firesburned lower, but no one noticed. Before them flashed the livid face andburning eyes of the preacher, and he moved them with his words as thehelmsman moves the ship.

  Denser and denser grew the throng that knelt at his feet and begged forhis prayers, and there was the sound of weeping. Then he ceased suddenlyand, closing his eyes and bending his head, began to pray. Involuntarilythe fifty thousand, too, closed their eyes and bent their heads.

  He called them brands snatched from the burning; he devoted their soulsto God. There on their knees they had confessed their sins and hepromised them the life everlasting. New emotions began to stir the soulsof those who mourned. Death? What was that? Nothing. A mere dividingplace between mortality and immortality, a mark, soon passed, andnothing more. They began to feel a divine fire. They welcomed wounds anddeath, the immortal passage, and they longed for the battlefield and theprivilege of dying for their country. They thought of those among theircomrades who had been so fortunate as to go on before, and expectedjoyfully soon to see them again.

  Prescott looked up once, and the scene was more powerful and weird thanany he had ever seen before. The great throng of people stood there withheads bowed listening to the single voice pouring out its invocation andholding them all within its sweep and spell.

  The preacher asked the blessing of God on every one and finished hisprayer. Then he began to sing:

  "I've found a friend in Jesus, He is everything to me, He's the fairest of ten thousand to my soul; The Lily of the Valley in Him alone I see-- All I need to cleanse and make me fully whole.

  "He's my comfort in trouble, In sorrow He's my stay; He tells me every care on Him to roll. He's the Lily of the Valley, the Bright and Morning Star He's the fairest of ten thousand to my soul."

  He sang one verse alone, and then the soldiers began to join, at firstby tens, then by hundreds and then by thousands, until the grand chorus,rolling and majestic, of fifty thousand voices swelled through all theforest:

  "He's the Lily of the Valley, the Bright and Morning Star, He's the fairest of ten thousand to my soul."

  The faces of the soldiers were no longer sad. They were transfigurednow. Joy had come after sorrow and then forgiveness. They heard thepromise.

  "The best of all ways to prepare soldiers for battle," said a cynicalvoice at Prescott's elbow.

  It was Mr. Sefton.

  "But it is not so intended," rejoined Prescott.

  "Perhaps not, but it will suffice."

  "His is what I call constructive oratory," presently continued theSecretary in a low voice. "You will notice that what he says is alwayscalculated to strengthen the mind, although the soldiers themselves donot observe it."

  "But no man could be more sincere," said Helen.

  "I do not doubt it," replied the Secretary.

  "It is impossible for me to think that the men singing here may fall inbattle in a few days," said Helen.

  The singing ended and in a few minutes the soldiers were engaged in manyavocations, going about the business of the day. Prescott and Mr. Seftontook Helen back to the house and then each turned to his own task.

  Several officers were gathered before a camp-fire on the followingmorning mending their clothes. They were in good humour because Talbotwas with them and gloom rarely endured long in his presence.

  "After all, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?" said Talbot."Will it profit me more to be killed in a decent uniform than in aragged one?"

  "Don't you want to make a respectable casualty?" asked Prescott.

  "Yes; but I don't like to work so much for it," replied Talbot. "It'sharder to dress well now than it is to win a battle. You can get mightylittle money and it's worth mighty little after you get it. The 'Ipromise to pay' of the Confederate States of America has sunk terriblylow, boys."

  He held up a Confederate bill and regarded it with disgust.

  "It would take a wheelbarrow full of those to buy a decent suit ofclothes," he said. "Do you know the luck I had yesterday when I tried toimprove my toilet?"

  All showed interest.

  "More than six months' pay was due me," said Talbot, "and thinking I'dbuy something to wear, I went around to old Seymour, the paymaster, foran installment. 'See here, Seymour,' I said, 'can't you let me have amonth's pay. It's been so long since I have had any money that I'veforgotten how it looks. I want to refresh my memory.'

  "You ought to have seen the look old Seymour put on. You'd have thoughtI'd asked him for the moon. 'Talbot' he said, 'you're the cheekiestyoungster I've met in a long time.'

  "'But the army owes me six months' pay,' I said. 'What's that got to dowith it?' he asked. 'I'd like to know what use a soldie
r has for money?'Then he looked me up and down as if it wouldn't work a footrule hard tomeasure me. But I begged like a good fellow--said I wanted to buy somenew clothes, and I'd be satisfied if he'd let me have only a month'spay. At last he gave me the month's pay--five hundred dollars--in nicenew Confederate bills, and I went to a sutler to buy the best he had inthe way of raiment.

  "I particularly wanted a nice new shirt and found one just to suit me.'The price?' I said to the sutler. 'Eight hundred dollars,' he answered,as if he didn't care whether I took it or not. That settled me so far asthe shirt question was concerned--I'd have to wait for that until I wasricher; but I looked through his stock and at last I bought ahandkerchief for two hundred dollars, two paper collars for one hundreddollars each, and I've got this hundred dollars left. Oh, I'm abargainer!"

  And he waved the Confederate bill aloft in triumph.

  "I'd give this hundred dollars for a good cigar," he added, "but thereisn't one in the army."

  One of the men sang:

  "I am busted, mother, busted. Gone the last unhappy check; And the infernal sutler's prices Make every pocket-book a wreck."

  Prescott sat reading a newspaper. It was the issue of the _RichmondWhig_ of April 30, 1864, and his eyes were on these paragraphs:

  "That the great struggle is about to take place for the possession ofRichmond is conceded on all sides. The enemy is marshaling his cohortson the Rapahannock and the Peninsula, and that a last desperate effortwill be made to overrun Virginia and occupy her ancient capital isadmitted by the enemy himself. What, then, becomes the duty of thepeople of Richmond in view of the mighty conflict at hand? It isevidently the same as that of the commander of a man-of-war who sailsout of port to engage the foes of his flag in mortal combat. The decksare cleared for action; non-combatants are ordered below or ashore; thesupply of ammunition and food is looked to, and a short prayer utteredthat Heaven will favour the right and protect the land and the lovedones for whom the battle is waged.

  "We sincerely hope and pray that the red waves of battle may not, as in1862, roll and break and hiss against the walls of the capital, and theears of our suffering but resolute people may never again be saluted bythe reports of hostile guns. But our hopes may be disappointed; theenemy may come again as he has come before, and, for aught we know, thebattle may be fought on these hills and in these streets. It is with aview of this possible contingency that we would urge upon our people tomake all needful preparation for whatever fate betides them, andespecially to give our brave and unconquerable defenders a clear deckand open field. And above all, let the living oracles of our holyreligion, and pious men and women of every persuasion, remember that Godalone giveth the victory, and that His ear is ever open to the prayer ofthe righteous."

  * * * * *

  Prescott's thoughts the next morning were of Lucia Catherwood, who hadfloated away from him in a sort of haze. It seemed a long time sincethey parted that night in the snow, and he found himself trying toreproduce her face and the sounds of her voice. Where was she now? Withthat army which hung like a thunder cloud on their front? He had nodoubt of it. Her work would be there. He felt that they were going tomeet again, and it would not be long.

  That day the Southern breeze blew stronger and sweeter than ever. Itcame up from the Gulf, laden with a million odours, and the little wildflowers in delicate tints of pink and purple and blue peeped up amid theshades of the forest.

  That night Grant, with one hundred and thirty thousand men and fourhundred guns, crossed the Rapidan and advanced on the Army of NorthernVirginia.

  The fiercest and bloodiest campaign recorded since history rose from thepast was about to begin.