Part 33 (1/2)

”Good-bye, Boy,--it's hard to say it!”

They clung to each other for a moment and slowly drew apart as the shadows of the soft spring night deepened.

CHAPTER VIII

THE TRIAL BY FIRE

The troops transformed Was.h.i.+ngton from a lazy Southern town of sixty thousand inhabitants into an armed fortress of the frontier, swarming with a quarter of a million excited men and women. Soldiers thronged the streets and sidewalks and sprawled over every inch of greensward, their uniforms of every cut and color on which the sun of heaven had shone during the past two hundred years of history.

When the tumult and the shouts of departing regiments had died away from the home towns in the North and the flags that were flying from every house had begun to fade under the hot rays of the advancing summer, the patriotic orators and editors began to demand of their President why his grand army of seventy-five thousand lingered at the Capital. When he mildly suggested the necessity of drilling, equipping and properly arming them he was laughed at by the wise, and scoffed at as a coward by the brave.

Mutterings of discontent grew deeper and more threatening. They demanded a short, sharp, decisive campaign. Let the army wheel into line, march straight into Richmond, take Jefferson Davis a prisoner, hang him and a few leaders of the ”rebellion,” and the trouble would be over. This demand became at length the maddened cry of a mob:

”On to Richmond!”

Every demagogue howled it. Every newspaper repeated it. As city after city, and State after State took up the cry, the pressure on the man at the helm of Government became resistless. It was a political necessity to fight a battle and fight at once or lose control of the people he had been called to lead.

The Abolitionists only sneered at this cry. They demanded an answer to a single insistent question:

”What are you going to fight about?”

A battle which does not settle the question of Slavery they declared to be a waste of blood and treasure. If the slave was not the issue, why fight? The South would return to the Union which they had always ruled if let alone. Why fight them for nothing?

Gilbert Winter, their spokesman at Was.h.i.+ngton, again confronted the President with his uncompromising demand:

”An immediate proclamation of emanc.i.p.ation!”

And the President with quiet dignity refused to consider it.

”Why?” again thundered the Senator.

His answer was always the same:

”I am not questioning the right or wrong of Slavery. If Slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. But the Const.i.tution, which I have sworn to uphold in the Border States of Maryland, Missouri and Kentucky, guarantees to their people the right to hold slaves if they choose. We have already eleven Southern States solidly arrayed against us. Add the Border States by such a proclamation, and the contest is settled before a blow is struck. I know the power of State loyalty in the South. I was born there. Many a mother in Richmond wept the days the stars and stripes were lowered from their Capitol. And well they might--for their sires created this Republic. But they brushed their tears away and sent their sons to the front next day to fight that flag in the name of Virginia. So would thousands of mothers in these remaining Slave States if I put them to the test. I'm going to save them for the Union. In G.o.d's own time Slavery will be destroyed.”

Against every demand of the heart of the party which had given him power, he stood firm in the position he had taken.

But there was no resisting the universal demand for a march on Richmond.

The cry was literally from twenty millions. He must heed it or yield the reins of power to more daring hands.

To add to the President's burden, his Secretary of State was still dreaming of foreign wars. He had drawn up a letter of instruction to our Minister to Great Britain which would have provoked an armed conflict.

When the backwoodsman from Southern Illinois read this doc.u.ment he was compelled to lay aside his other duties and practically rewrite it. His work showed a freedom of mind, a balance of judicial temperament, an insight into foreign affairs, a skill in the use of language, a delicacy of criticism, a mastery of the arts of diplomacy which placed him among the foremost statesmen of any age, and all the ages.

He saved the Nation from a second disastrous war, as a mere matter of the routine of his office, and at once turned to the pressing work of the approaching battle.

John Vaughan had joined the army as correspondent for his paper, and Betty had been his companion on many tours of inspection through camp, hospitals and drill grounds. Her quick wit and brilliant mind were an inspiring stimulus. She was cool and self-possessed and it rested him to be near her. She was the only restful woman he had ever encountered at short range. He was delighted that she seemed content without love-making. There was never a moment when he could catch the challenge of s.e.x in a word or att.i.tude. He might have been her older brother, so perfect and even, so free and simple her manner.

Betty had watched him with the keenest caution. The first glance at John's handsome face had convinced her of his boundless vanity and beneath it a streak of something cruel. She would have liked him instantly but for this. His vanity she could forgive. All good-looking men are vain. His character was a study of which she never tired. He strangely distressed and disturbed her--and this kept puzzling and piquing her curiosity. Every time she determined to end their a.s.sociation this everlasting question of the man's inner character came to torment her imagination.