Part 65 (1/2)

CHAPTER XXVII

THE LIGHT THAT FAILED

The struggle which Jefferson Davis was making to parry the force of the mortal blows delivered by the United States Navy at last gave promise of startling success.

The fight to establish the right of the Confederacy to arm its allies under letters of marque and reprisal had been won by the Southern President. The first armed vessel sailing under the orders of Davis which was captured by the navy had brought the question to sharp issue.

The Was.h.i.+ngton Government had proclaimed the vessels flying the Confederate flag under letters of marque to be pirates and subject to the treatment of felons.

The Captain and the crew of the _Savannah_ when captured had been put in irons and condemned to death as pirates. If the Was.h.i.+ngton Government could make good this daring a.s.sumption, the power of the Confederacy to damage the commerce of the North would be practically destroyed at a blow.

Davis met the crisis with firmness. He selected an equal number of Federal prisoners of war in Richmond and threw them into a dungeon below Libby Prison. He dispatched a letter to Was.h.i.+ngton whose language could not be misunderstood.

”Dare to execute an officer or sailor of the _Savannah_, and I will put to death as felons an equal number of Federal officers and men.

I have placed them in close confinement and ordered similar treatment to that accorded our prisoners from the captured vessel.”

Socola received a message summoning him to the house on Church Hill.

A courier had arrived from Was.h.i.+ngton. The Government must know immediately if this threat were idle or genuine. If Jefferson Davis should dare to execute these thirteen officers and men, the administration could not resist the storm of indignant protest which would overwhelm it from the North.

Socola read the cipher dispatch by the dim light of the candle in his attic and turned to Miss Van Lew.

”My information in the State Department is of the most positive kind.

The prisoners have been put in the dungeon set apart for condemned felons and they but wait the word of the execution of the men from the _Savannah_, to be led to certain death. It may be talk. We must know.

Apply for permission to visit the condemned men and minister to their comfort--”

”At once,” was the prompt response. ”I've made friends with Captain Todd, the Commandant of Libby Prison; I'll succeed.”

Crazy Bet appeared at Libby Prison next morning with a basket of flowers for the condemned men. Captain Todd humored her mania. Poor old abolition fanatic, she could do no harm. She was too frank and outspoken to be dangerous. Besides, it was a war of brothers. His own sister was the wife of Abraham Lincoln. These condemned men were the best blood of the North. It was a pitiful tragedy.

Miss Van Lew, with a market basket on her arm, watched for Socola's appearance from the office of the Secretary of State. The young clerk was walking slowly down Main Street and turned into an unused narrow road at the foot of the hill.

Crazy Bet, swinging the basket and humming a song, pa.s.sed him without turning her head.

”It's true,” she whispered quickly, ”all horribly true. Thirteen of the finest officers of the Union army have been condemned to death the moment the crew of the _Savannah_ are executed--among them Colonel Cochrane of New York and Colonel Paul Revere of Ma.s.sachusetts. The dispatch must go to-night.”

”To-night,” was the short answer.

Within an hour Socola's courier was on his way to Was.h.i.+ngton with a message which unlocked the prison doors of the condemned men on both sides of the line.

Abraham Lincoln stoutly opposed a repet.i.tion of the effort to treat Confederate prisoners as outlaws, no matter where taken by land or sea.

Davis had established the legality of his letters of marque and reprisal beyond question.

The United States Navy in the first flood of its victories made another false step which brought to the South an hour of brilliant hope. Captain Wilkes overhauled a British steamer carrying the royal mail and took from her decks by force the Commissioners Mason and Slidell whom Davis had dispatched to Europe to plead for the recognition of the Confederacy. The North had gone wild with joy over the act and Congress voted Wilkes the thanks of the nation as its hero.

Great Britain demanded an apology and the restoration of the prisoners, put her navy on a war footing and dispatched a division of her army to Canada to strike the North by land as well as sea.