Part 56 (2/2)

The thin form of the President rose white and ghost-like against this black background of clouds. He was extremely pale, his cheeks hollowed deep, his head bared regardless of the chill mists which beat through the canopy.

His tall figure stood tense, trembling, deathlike--the emblem of sacrificial offering on the altar of his country.

Socola whispered to Jennie:

”Where have I witnessed this scene before?”

”Surely not in America--”

”No”--he mused thoughtfully--”I remember now--on a lonely hill outside Jerusalem the Roman soldiers were crucifying a man on a day like this--that's where I saw it!”

He had scarcely spoken the uncanny words in a low undertone when the speaker closed his address with a remarkable prayer.

Suddenly dropping his ma.n.u.script on the table he lifted his eyes into the darkened heavens and cried with deep pa.s.sion:

”With humble grat.i.tude and adoration, to Thee, O G.o.d, I trustingly commit myself, and prayerfully invoke Thy blessing on my country and its cause!”

CHAPTER XXIV

THE SLEEPING LIONESS

Again the smoke of the navy shadowed the Southern skies. Two expeditions were aiming mortal blows at the lower South.

The Confederacy had concentrated its forces of the upper waters of the Mississippi on Island Number 10 near New Madrid. The work of putting this little Gibraltar in a state of perfect defense had been rushed with all possible haste. New Madrid had been found indefensible and evacuated on March thirteenth.

On the seventeenth, Commodore Foote's fleet steamed into position and the first sh.e.l.l from his guns shrieked its message of death across the island. The gunboats concentrated their fire on the main battery which was located on low ground, almost submerged by the high water and separated from the others by a wide slough. Their gun platforms were covered with water--the men in gray must work their pieces standing half-leg deep in mud and slush. Five iron-clad gunboats led the attack.

Three of them were lashed together in midstream and one lay under the shelter of each sh.o.r.e. Their concentrated fire was terrific. For nine hours they poured a stream of shot and sh.e.l.l on the lone battery with its beaver gunmen.

At three o'clock Captain Rucker in charge of the battery called for reenforcements to relieve his exhausted men. Volunteers rushed to his a.s.sistance and his guns roared until darkness brought them respite. It had been done. A single half-submerged battery exposed to the concentrated fire of a powerful fleet had held them at bay and compelled them to withdraw at nightfall. Rucker fired the last shot as twilight gathered over the yellow waters. His battery had mounted five guns at sunrise. Three of them were dismantled. Two of them still spoke defiance from their mud-soaked beds.

On April the sixth, the fleet reenforced succeeded in slipping past the batteries in a heavy fog. A landing was effected above and below the island in large force, and its surrender was a military necessity.

Foote and Pope captured MacKall, the commander, two brigadier generals, six colonels, a stand of ten thousand arms, two thousand soldiers, seventy pieces of siege artillery, thirty pieces of field artillery, fifty-six thousand solid shot, six transports and a floating battery of sixteen guns.

A cry of anguish came from the heart of the Confederate President. The loss of men was insignificant--the loss of this enormous store of heavy guns and ammunition with no factory as yet capable of manufacturing them was irreparable.

But the cup of his misery was not yet full. The greatest fleet the United States Navy had gathered, was circling the mouth of the Mississippi with its guns pointing toward New Orleans. Gideon Welles had selected for command of this important enterprise the man of destiny, Davis Glasgow Farragut, a Southerner whose loyalty to the Union had never been questioned.

Eighty-two s.h.i.+ps answered Farragut's orders in his West Gulf squadron at their rendezvous. His s.h.i.+ps were wood, but no braver men ever walked the decks of a floating battery.

In March he managed to crawl across the bar and push his fleet into the mouth of the Mississippi. The _Colorado_ was too deep and was left outside. The _Pensacola_ and the _Mississippi_ he succeeded in dragging through the mud.

His s.h.i.+ps inside, the Commander ordered them stripped for the death grapple.

New Orleans had been from the first considered absolutely impregnable to attack from the sea. Forts Jackson and St. Phillip, twenty miles below the city, were each fortifications of the first rank mounting powerful guns which swept the narrow channel of the river from sh.o.r.e to sh.o.r.e.

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