The Victim: A Romance of the Real Jefferson Davis

by Thomas Dixon

  CHAPTER XVI

  THE FLOWER-DECKED TENT

  When Socola rose the following morning he determined to throw everyscruple to the winds and devote himself to Jennie Barton with a zeal andpassion that would leave to his Southern rivals no doubt as to thesecret of his stay.

  At the first informal reception at the White House of the ConfederacyJennie had been pronounced the most fascinating daughter of the newRepublic, as modest and unassuming as she was brilliant and beautiful.

  After the manner of Southern beaux he addressed a note to her on a sheetof exquisitely tinted foreign paper, at the top of which was the richlyembossed coat of arms of the Socola family of North Italy.

  He asked of her the pleasure of a horseback ride over the hills ofVirginia. He was a superb horseman, and she rode as if born in thesaddle.

  He sealed the note with a piece of tinted wax and stamped it with thedie which reproduced his coat of arms. He smiled with satisfaction as headdressed the envelope in his smooth and perfectly rounded handwriting.

  He read the answer with surprise and disappointment. The Senator hadreplied for his daughter. A slight accident to her mother had caused herto leave on the morning train for the South. She would probably remainat Fairview for two weeks.

  There was no help for it. He must await her return. In the meantimethere was work to do. The army of the South was slowly but surelyshaping itself into a formidable engine of war.

  The master mind at the helm of the new Government had laid thefoundations of one of the most efficient forces ever sent into the arenaof battle. It was as yet only a foundation but one which inspired in hismind not only a profound respect for his judgment, but a feeling of deepforeboding for the future.

  Jefferson Davis had received a training of peculiar fitness for histask. The first work before the South was the organization, equipmentand handling of its army of defense. The President they had called tothe leadership had spent four years at West Point and seven years in thearmy on our frontiers, pushing the boundaries of the Republic into theWest. He had led a regiment of volunteers in the conquest of Mexico, andin the battle of Buena Vista, not only saved the day in the moment ofsupreme crisis, but had given evidence of the highest order of militarygenius. On his return from the Mexican War he had been appointed aBrigadier General by the President of the United States but had declinedthe honor.

  For four years as Secretary of War in the Cabinet of Franklin Pierce hehad proven himself a master of military administration, had reorganizedand placed on a modern basis of the highest efficiency the army of theUnion and in this work has proven himself a terror to weakness,tradition and corruption.

  He knew personally every officer of the first rank in the United StatesArmy. His judgment of these men and their ability as commanders wasmarvelous in its accuracy. His genius as an army administratorundoubtedly gave to the South her first advantage in the opening of theconflict.

  From the men who had resigned from the old army to cast their fortuneswith the South his keen eye selected without hesitation the three menfor supreme command whose abilities had no equal in America for thepositions to which they were assigned. And these three men were patriotsof such singleness of purpose, breadth of vision and greatness of soulthat neither of them knew he was being considered for the highestcommand until handed his commission.

  Samuel Cooper had been Adjutant General of the United States Army since1852. Davis knew his record of stern discipline and uncompromisingefficiency, and although a man of Northern birth, he appointed himAdjutant General of the Confederate Army without a moment's hesitation.

  Albert Sidney Johnston was his second appointment to the rank of fullGeneral and Robert E. Lee his third--each destined to immortality.

  His fourth nomination for the rank of full General he made withhesitation. Joseph E. Johnston under the terms of the law passed by theProvisional Congress of the Confederacy was entitled to a position inthe first rank as acting Commissary General of the old army. The keenintuition of the President had perceived from the first the evidences ofhesitation and of timidity in crisis which was the chief characteristicof Joseph E. Johnston. His sense of fairness under the terms of the lawrequired that this man be given his chance. With misgivings but withhigh hopes the appointment was made.

  Robert E. Lee he made military chieftain of the Government withheadquarters in Richmond.

  From four points the Northern forces were threatening the South. Fromthe West by a flanking movement which might open the Mississippi River;from the mountains of Western Virginia whose people were in part opposedto secession; from Washington by a direct movement on Richmond; andfrom Fortress Monroe on the Virginia Peninsula.

  The first skirmish before Fortress Monroe, led by B. F. Butler, had beenrepulsed with such ease no serious danger was felt in that quarter. Theten thousand men under Holmes and McGruder could hold Butlerindefinitely.

  Davis had seen from the first that one of the supreme dangers of theSouth lay in the long line of exposed frontier in the West. If acommander of military genius should succeed in turning his flank herethe heart of the lower South would be pierced.

  For this important command he reserved Albert Sidney Johnston.

  The Northern army under George B. McClellan and Rosecrans had defeatedthe troops in Western Virginia. In a series of small fights they hadlost a thousand men and all their artillery. General Lee was dispatchedfrom Richmond to repair if possible this disaster.

  The first two clashes had been a draw. The South had won first blood onthe Peninsula--the North in Western Virginia. The main army of the Southwas now concentrated to oppose the main army of the North fromWashington.

  Brigadier General Beauregard, the widely acclaimed hero of Fort Sumter,was in command of this army near Manassas Station on the road toAlexandria.

  Beauregard's position was in a measure an accident of fortune. The firstshot had been fired by him at Sumter. He was the first paper-made heroof the war. He had led the first regiment into Virginia to defend herfrom invasion.

  He was the man of the hour. His training and record, too, gave promiseof high achievements. He had graduated from West Point in 1838, secondin a class of forty-five men. His family was of high French extraction,having settled in Louisiana in the reign of Louis XV. He had entered theMexican War a lieutenant and emerged from the campaign a major. He wasnow forty-five years old, in the prime of life. His ability had beenrecognized by the National Government in the beginning of the year byhis appointment as Superintendent of the Military Academy at West Point.His commission had been revoked at the last moment by the vacillatingBuchanan because his brother-in-law, Senator Slidell of Louisiana, hadmade a secession speech in Washington.

  Jefferson Davis was not enthusiastic in his confidence in the new hero.He was too much given to outbursts of a public kind to please theascetic mind of the Southern leader. He had written some silly lettersto the public deriding the power of the North. No one could know betterthan Davis how silly these utterances were. He "hated and despised theYankees." Davis feared and recognized their power. Beauregard'sassertion that the South could whip the North even if her only arms wereflintlocks and pitchforks had been often and loudly repeated.

  Of the army marshaling in front of him under the command of thevenerable Winfield Scott he wrote with the utmost contempt.

  "The enemies of the South," he declared, "are little more than an armedrabble, gathered together hastily on a false pretense and for an unholypurpose, with an octogenarian at its head!"

  In spite of his small stature, Beauregard was a man of striking personalappearance--small, dark, thin, hair prematurely gray, his mannersdistinguished and severe.

  It was natural that, with the fame of his first victory, itself theprovoking cause of the conflict, his distinguished foreign name andcourtly manners, he should have become the toast of the ladies in theseearly days of the pomp and glory of war. He was the center of an everwidening circle of fair admirers who lavished their attentions on him inletters,
in flags, and a thousand gay compliments. His camp table wasfilled with exquisite flowers which flanked and sometimes covered hismaps and plans. He used his bouquets for paper weights.

  It was not to be wondered at, therefore, that the cold intellectualstandard by which Davis weighed men should have found Beauregard wantingin the qualifications of supreme command.

  The President turned his eye to the flower-decked tent of his generalwith grave misgivings. Yet he was the man of the hour. It was fair thathe should have his chance.