The Victim: A Romance of the Real Jefferson Davis

by Thomas Dixon

  CHAPTER X

  THE GAUGE OF BATTLE

  Socola found the little town of Montgomery, Alabama, breathing under asuppression of emotion that was little short of uncanny on the dayJefferson Davis was inaugurated President.

  The streets were crowded to suffocation and tents were necessary toaccommodate the people who could not be housed.

  He was surprised at the strange quiet which the spirit of the newPresident had communicated to the people. There was no loud talk, nobraggadocio, no threats, no clamor for war. On the contrary there hadsuddenly developed an overwhelming desire for a peaceful solution of thecrisis.

  The Convention which had unanimously elected Jefferson Davis, President,and Alexander H. Stephens, Vice President, had relegated the hot headsand fire eaters to the rear.

  Three great agitators had really created the new nation, William L.Yancey of Alabama, Robert Toombs of Georgia and Barnwell Rhett of SouthCarolina. And they were consumed with ambition for the Presidency.

  Toombs was the most commanding figure among the uncompromising advocatesof secession in the South--an orator of consummate power, a man of widelearning and magnetic personality. William L. Yancey was as powerful anagitator as ever stirred the souls of an American audience since thefoundation of our Republic. Barnwell Rhett of the Charleston _Mercury_was the most influential editor the country had ever produced.

  Yet the suddenness with which these fiery leaders were dropped in thehour of crisis was so amazing to the men themselves they had not yetrecovered sufficient breath to begin complaints.

  Toombs destroyed what chance he ever had by getting drunk at a banquetthe night before the Convention met. William L. Yancey's turbulenthistory ruled him out of consideration. He had killed his father-in-lawin a street brawl. Rhett's extreme views had been the bugle call tobattle but something more than sound was needed now.

  Toombs was dropped even for Vice-President for Alexander H. Stephens,the man who had pleaded in tears with his State not to secede.

  The highest honor had been forced on the one man in all the South whomost passionately wished to avoid it.

  So acute was the consciousness of tragedy there was scarcely a ripple ofapplause at public functions where Socola had looked for mad enthusiasm.

  The old Constitution had been reenacted with no essential change. Thenew President had even insisted that the Provisional Congress retain theold flag as their emblem of nationality with only a new battle flag foruse in case of war. The Congress over-ruled him at this point with anemphasis which they meant as a rebuke to his tendency to cling to thehope of reconciliation.

  It was exactly one o'clock on Monday, February 18, 1861, that JeffersonDavis rose between the towering pillars of the State Capitol inMontgomery and began his inaugural address. It was careful, moderate,statesmanlike, and a model of classic English. The closing sentenceswept the crowd.

  "It is joyous in the midst of perilous times to look thus upon a peopleunited in heart, whose one purpose of high resolve animates and actuatesthe whole; where the sacrifices to be made are not weighed in thebalance against honor, and right, and liberty and equality."

  The cheer that greeted his appeal rose and fell again and again thethird time with redoubled power and enthusiasm.

  The President-elect stepped forward, placed his hand on the open Bible,and took the oath of office. As the last word fell from his white lipscannon thundered a salute from the hill crest and the great silk ensignof the South was slowly lifted by the hand of the granddaughter ofPresident Tyler.

  As the breeze unrolled its huge red, white and blue folds against theshining Southern skies the crowd burst into hysterical applause.

  A Nation had been born whose history might be brief, but the people whocreated it and the leader who guided its destiny were the pledge of itsimmortality.

  Socola found no difficulty in possessing himself of every secret of thenew Government. What was not proclaimed from the street corners andshouted from the housetops, the newspapers printed in double leads. Thenew Government had yet to organize its secret service.

  The President addressed himself with energy to the task which confrontedhim. But seven States had yet enrolled in the Confederacy. Of four morehe felt sure. The first attempt to coerce a Southern State by force ofarms would close the ranks with Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee andArkansas by his side. Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri were peopled bythe South and the institution of Slavery bound them in a common cause.

  And yet the defense of these eleven Southern States with their fivemillion white population and four million blacks was a task to staggerthe imagination of the greatest statesman of any age. This vastterritory would present an open front on land of more than a thousandmiles without a single natural barrier. Its sea coast presented threethousand miles of water front--open to the attack of the navy. Thisenormous coast of undefended shore was pierced by river after riverwhose broad, deep waters would carry the gunboats of an enemy into theheart of the South.

  The audacity of our fathers in challenging the power of Great Britainwas reasonable in comparison with the madness of the South's challengeto the North. Three thousand miles of storm-tossed ocean defended ourRevolutionary ancestors from the base of the enemy supplies. Threethousand miles of undefended coast invited the attack of the U. S. Navy,while twenty million Northerners stood with their feet on the borders ofthe South ready to advance without the possibility of hindrance save thebare breasts of the men who might oppose them.

  The difference between the sections in material resources was absurd.The North was rich and powerful Her engines of war were exhaustless andunder perfect control. The railroads of the South were few and poorlyequipped, with no work shops from which to renew their equipment whenexhausted. The railroad system of the entire country was absolutelydependent on the North for supplies. The Missouri River was connectedwith the Northern seaboard by the finest system of railways in theworld, with a total mileage of over thirty thousand. Its annual tonnagewas thirty-six million and its revenue valued at four thousand millionsof dollars. The annual value of the manufactures of the North was overtwo thousand millions, and their machinery was complete for theproduction of all the material of war. Her ships sailed every sea andshe could draw upon the resources of the known world. Her manufacturingpower compared to the South was five hundred to one.

  No leader in the history of his race was ever confronted by suchinsuperable difficulties as faced Jefferson Davis.

  He had been called to direct the government of a proud, sensitive,jealous people thrown without preparation into a position whichthreatened their existence, without an army, without arms, or the meansto manufacture them, without even powder, or the means to make it, orthe material out of which it must be made, without a navy or a singleship-yard in which to build one, and three thousand miles of coast to bedefended against a navy which had whipped the greatest maritime nationof the world. His genius must meet every difficulty and supply everywant or his Confederacy would fall at the first shock of war.

  The one tremendous and apparently insuperable difficulty in case of warwas the lack of a navy. A navy could not be built in a day, or a year ortwo years, were the resources of the Confederacy boundless. The ships ofwar now in the possession of the United States were of incalculablepower in such a crisis. The South was cut in every quarter by navigablerivers. Many of their waters opened on Northern interiors accessible togreat workshops from which new gunboats could be built with rapidity andlaunched against the South. The Mississippi River, navigable for athousand miles, flowed through the entire breadth of the Confederacywith its approaches and its mouth in the hands of the North. Both theTennessee and the Cumberland rivers had their mouths open to Northernfrontiers and were navigable in midwinter for transports and gunboatswhich could pierce the heart of Tennessee and Alabama.

  It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that the first purpose of thePresident of the Confederacy was to secure peace by all means consistentwith public honor and the trust
imposed on him by the people.

  His first official act was the dispatch of Confederate Commissioners toWashington to treat for peace.

  The hope that they would be received with courtesy and consideration wasa reasonable one. The greatest newspapers of the North were outspoken intheir opposition to the use of arms against any State of the Union.

  The New York _Tribune_, the creator of Lincoln's party, led in thisopposition to the use of force. The Albany _Argus_ and the New York_Herald_ were equally emphatic. Governor Seymour of New York boldlydeclared in a great mass meeting his unalterable opposition to coercion.The Detroit _Free Press_ suggested that a fire would be poured into therear of any troops raised to coerce a State. It was already known thatMr. Lincoln would not advocate coercion in his inaugural.

  Stephen A. Douglas, leader of the millions of the Northern Democracy,offered a resolution in the Senate of the United States recommending theimmediate withdrawal of the garrisons from all forts within the limitsof the States which had seceded except those at Key West and DryTortugas needful for coaling stations.

  "I proclaim boldly," declared the Senator from Illinois, "the policy ofthose with whom I act. We are for peace!"

  Socola reported to his Chief in Washington that nothing was more certainthan that Jefferson Davis hoped for reunion, with guarantees againstaggression by the stronger section of the Union.

  Buchanan had agreed to receive the Southern Commissioners, and sent amessage to Congress announcing their presence and their overtures.

  The Commissioners found Washington seething with passion and tremblingwith excitement. Buchanan had collapsed in terror, fearing each hour tohear that his home had been sacked and burned at Wheatland.

  But the Southern leaders' hope of peaceful settlement was based on asurer foundation than the shattered nerves of the feeble old man in theWhite House. Joseph Holt, the Secretary of War, was a Southern Democratborn in Kentucky, and from the State of Mississippi. Holt had called onDavis in Washington and assured him of his loyalty to the South and herpeople. The President of the Confederacy knew of his consuming personalambitions and had assured him of his influence to secure generoustreatment.

  But the Secretary of War had received information from the South. He hadstudied the situation carefully. He believed his chances of advancementin the North a better risk. The new Government had ignored him in theselection of a Cabinet--and with quick decision he cast his fortuneswith the Union. That he had deceived Davis and Clay, to whom he hadgiven his pledge of Southern loyalty, was a matter of no importance,save that these two men, who alone knew his treachery, were marked forhis vengeance.

  Little could they dream in this hour the strange end toward which Fatewas even now hurrying them through the machinations of this sullen,envious Southern renegade.

  The Secretary of War placed his big fist on the throat of the tremblingPresident, and the Peace Commissioners could not reach the White Houseor its councils.

  They were forced to await the inauguration of Abraham Lincoln.

  Jefferson Davis gave himself body and soul to the task of preparing hisover-sanguine, credulous people for the possible tragedy of war.

  General Beauregard was ordered to command the forces in South Carolina,and erect batteries for the defense of Charleston and the reduction ofFort Sumter in case of an attempt to reenforce it. This grim fort, inthe center of the harbor of the chief Southern Atlantic city, commandedthe gateway of the Confederacy. If it should be reenforced, theConfederate Government might be strangled by the fall of Charleston, andthe landing of an army even before a blow could be struck.

  Captain Raphael Semmes was sent North to buy every gun in the market. Hewas directed to secure machinery, and skilled workingmen to man it, forthe establishment of arsenals and shops, and above all to buy any vesselafloat suitable for offensive or defensive work. Not a single ship ofany description could be had, and the intervention of the authoritiesfinally prevented the delivery of a single piece of machinery or thearms he had purchased.

  Major Huse was sent to Europe on the third day after the inauguration atMontgomery on a similar mission.

  General G. W. Rains was appointed to establish a manufactory forammunition. His work was an achievement of genius. He created artificialniter beds, from which sufficient saltpeter was obtained, and within ayear was furnishing the finest powder.

  General Gorgas was appointed Chief of Ordnance. There was but one ironmill in the South which could cast a cannon, and that was the littleTredegar works at Richmond, Virginia. The State of Virginia had votedagainst secession and it would require the first act of war against herSouthern sisters to bring her to their defense.

  The widespread belief in the North that the South had secretly preparedfor war, was utterly false, and yet the impression was of the utmostimportance to the President of the Confederacy. It gave his weakgovernment a fictitious strength, and gave him a brief time in which toprepare his raw recruits for their first battle.

  Day and night he prayed for peace at any sacrifice save that of honor.The first bloodshed would be the match in the powder magazine. Hepressed his Commissioners in Washington for haste.

  The inaugural address of Abraham Lincoln had been so carefully worded,its utterances so conservative and guarded, his expressions of good willtoward the South so surprisingly emphatic, that Davis could not believean act of aggression which would bring bloodshed could be committed byhis order.

  And yet day dragged after day with no opportunity afforded hisCommissioners to treat with the new Administration save through theundignified course of an intermediary. The Southern President orderedthat all questions of form or ceremony be waived.

  Seward, the Secretary of State, gave to these Commissioners repeatedassurances of the peaceful intention of the Government at Washington,and the most positive promise that Fort Sumter would be evacuated. Healso declared that no measure would be instituted either by theExecutive or Congress changing the situation except on due notice giventhe Commissioners.

  These assurances were accepted by the Confederate President in absolutegood faith. And yet early in April the news was flashed to Montgomerythat extraordinary preparations were being made in the Northern portsfor a military and naval expedition against the South. On April thefifth, sixth and seventh, a fleet of transports and warships withshotted guns, munitions and military supplies sailed for Charleston.

  The Commissioners in alarm requested an answer to their proposals. Totheir amazement they were informed that the President of the UnitedStates had already determined to hold no communication with themwhatever in any capacity or listen to any proposals they had to make.

  On Beauregard's report to them that Anderson was endeavoring tostrengthen his position instead of evacuating the Fort the Commissionersagain communicated with Mr. Seward.

  The wily Secretary of State assured them that the Government had notreceded from his promise. On April seventh Mr. Seward sent them thismessage:

  "Faith as to Sumter fully kept: wait and see."

  His war fleet was already on the high seas, their black prows pointedsouthward, their one hundred and twenty guns shotted, their battle flagsstreaming in the sky!

  Lincoln's sense of personal honor was too keen to permit this crookedpiece of diplomacy to stain the opening of his administration. Hedispatched a special messenger to the Governor of South Carolina andgave notice of his purpose to use force if opposed in his intention ofsupplying Fort Sumter.

  On the eve of the day the fleet was scheduled to arrive this notice wasdelivered. But a storm at sea had delayed the expedition and Beauregardasked the President of the Confederacy for instructions.

  His Cabinet was called, and its opinion was unanimous that Fort Sumtermust be reduced or the Confederacy dissolved. There was no choice.

  Their President rose, his drawn face deadly pale:

  "I agree with you, gentlemen. The order of the sailing of the fleet wasa declaration of war. The responsibility is on their shoulders, notours. To juggle
for position as to who shall fire the first gun in suchan hour is unworthy of a great people and their cause. A deadly weaponhas been aimed at our heart. Only a fool would wait until the shot hasbeen fired. The assault has already been made. It is of no importancewho shall strike the first blow or fire the first gun."

  With quick decision he seized his pen and wrote the order for thereduction of Fort Sumter.