Books: The Man in Gray
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Thomas Dixon >> The Man in Gray
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"The highest honor of this Nation, Colonel Lee, is something no man born
under our flag dares to decline. Few men in history have been so well
equipped as you for such an honor, both by birth and culture. You must
also remember that the President of the United States is Commander in
Chief of the Army and Navy. You are proud of your profession. You would
honor it in the highest office of the Republic. You are held in the
highest esteem by every soldier in the army. The President calls you.
The Nation calls you. All eyes are upon you."
Blair studied the effect of his appeal. He saw that Lee was profoundly
moved. Yet his courteous manner gave no hint of the trend of his
emotions. He did not reply for a moment and then spoke with tenderness.
"My dear friend, you must not think that I am deaf to such calls. They
move me to the depths. But no honor can reconcile me to this awful war.
It is madness. It is absolutely unnecessary. But for John Brown's insane
act it could have been avoided. But it has come. Its glory does not
tempt me. I wish peace on earth and good will to all men. I am a
soldier, but a Christian soldier--"
His voice broke.
"I am one of the humblest followers of Jesus Christ. There is but a
single question for me to decide--my duty--"
A horseman dashed under the portico, threw his reins to Sam and entered
without announcement.
"Colonel Lee?" he asked.
"Yes."
He handed Lee a folded paper bearing the great seal of the State.
"A message, sir, from Richmond."
Lee's hand trembled as he broke the seal. He stared at its words as in a
dream.
"You have important news?" Blair asked.
"Most important. I am summoned to Richmond by the Governor in obedience
to a resolution of the Legislature."
Mrs. Marshall advanced on the dusty, young messenger, her eyes aflame
with anger.
"How dare you enter this house unannounced, sir?"
The boy did not answer. He turned away with a smile. She repented her
words immediately. They had sounded undignified, if not positively rude.
But she had been so sure that Blair could not fail. This call from
Richmond, coming in the moment of crisis, drove her to desperation. She
looked at Blair helplessly and he rallied to the attack with renewed
determination.
"A Nation is calling you. The Union your fathers created is calling you,
Colonel Lee!"
Lee's figure stiffened the least bit, though his words were uttered in
the friendliest tones.
"Virginia is also calling me, Mr. Blair. Your own State of Maryland has
not seceded. For that reason you cannot feel this tragedy as I feel it.
Put yourself in my place. I ask you the question, is not the command of
a State that of a mother to a child? We are citizens of the State, not
of the Union. There is no such thing as citizenship in the Union. We
vote only as citizens of a State. We enlist as soldiers by States. I was
sent to West Point as a cadet by the State of Virginia. Even President
Lincoln's proclamation calling for volunteers to coerce a State,
revolutionary as it is, is addressed, not to individual men, but to the
States. He must call on each to furnish her quota of soldiers--"
"Yet the call is to every citizen of the Nation!"
Lee's hand was raised in a gesture of imperious affirmation.
"There is no such thing as citizenship of the Nation! We don't pay taxes
to the Nation. We may yet become a Nation. We are as yet a Union of
Sovereign States. Virginia has refused to furnish the troops called for
by the President and has withdrawn from the Union. She reserved in her
vote to enter, the right to withdraw. I am a Virginian. What is my
duty?"
"To fight for the Union, Robert--always!" Mrs. Marshall answered.
"I love the Union, my dear sister, my heart aches at the thought of its
division--"
He turned sharply to Blair.
"But is not the South to-day in taking her stand for the rights of the
State asserting a principle as vital as the Union itself? All the great
minds of the North have recognized that these rights are fundamental
to our life. Bancroft declares that the State is the guardian of the
security and happiness of the individual. Hamilton declares that, if
the States shall lose their powers, the people will be robbed of their
liberties. George Clinton says that the States are our _only_ security
for the liberties of the people against a centralized tyranny. These
rights once surrendered, and I solemnly warn you, my friend, that your
children and mine may live to see in Washington a centralized power that
will dare to say what you shall eat, what you shall drink, and what you
shall wear!"
Blair laughed incredulously.
"Surely it's a far cry to that, Colonel--"
"I'm not so sure, Mr. Blair. And the cry from Virginia rings through my
heart. I see her in mortal peril. My father was three times Governor
of the Commonwealth. Virginia gave America the immortal words of the
Declaration of Independence. She gave us something greater. She gave us
George Washington, a Southern slaveholder, whose iron will alone carried
our despairing people through ten years of hopeless revolution and won
at last our right to live. Madison wrote the Constitution. John Marshall
of Virginia, as Chief Judge of the Supreme Court, established its power
on the foundations of Justice and Law. Jefferson doubled our area in the
Louisiana Territory. Scott and Taylor extended it to the Pacific Ocean
from Oregon to the Gulf of California. Virginia in the generosity of her
great heart gave the Northwest to the Union and forbade the extension of
slavery within it--"
Blair leaped to make a point.
"Surely these proud recollections, of her gifts to the Union should form
bonds too strong to be broken!"
"So say I, sir! Surely they should place the people of all sections
under obligations too deep to permit the invasion of her sacred soil!
Can I stand by as her loyal son and see this invasion begun? I regret
that Virginia has withdrawn. But the deed is done. Her people through
their Governor and their Legislature call me--command me to come to her
defense. They may be wrong. They may be blinded by passion. They are
still my people, my neighbors, my friends, my children--and I cannot--"
He drew a deep breath and rose to his full height.
"_I will not draw my sword against them!_"
"Glory to God!" the messenger exulted.
Blair spoke with despair.
"This is your final decision?"
"Final."
The messenger slipped close to Lee and spoke hurriedly.
"I came by special train, sir--an engine and coach. They wait you on
a siding just outside of town. We're afraid the line may be cut. The
Northern troops are bivouacing on the Capitol hill. They may stop us.
We've no time to lose. I hope you can come at once."
The messenger walked quickly through the door and seized his horse's
reins.
Lee turned to Blair.
"Troops are on the Capitol Hill?"
"A regiment of Pennsylvanians has just arrived, I believe."
Sam had edged through the door and stood smiling at his old master. The
Colonel had not seen him to this moment.
"You here, Sam?" he said with feeling.
"Yassah. I come home ter stan' by you, Marse Robert."
"Saddle my horse, you can go with me!"
"Yassah. Thankee, sah!"
"Bring Sid to fetch our horses back from the train."
"Yassah, glory hallelujah!" Sam shouted as he darted for the stable.
The anxious mother, praying in her room upstairs, heard Sam's shout and
hurried down with Mary. The other children happily were on the Pamunkey
at the home of Custis.
The mother's heart was pounding. There was war in Sam's shout. She felt
its savage thrill. She gripped herself for the ordeal. There should
be no vain regrets, no foolish words. Her soul rose in the glory of
sacrificial love.
"What is it, my dear?" she asked softly.
"I go to Richmond immediately. Northern troops are pouring into
Washington. Send my things to me if you can."
His eyes wandered about the room he loved. He would never see it again.
He felt this in his inmost soul. It would be but the work of an hour
for the troops to sweep across the bridge, sack its rooms and leave its
beautiful lawn a sodden waste.
The wife saw the anguish in his gaze and her words rang with exaltation.
"Then it is God's will. And I shall try to smile. You have reached this
decision in deepest thought and prayer. And I know that you are right!"
Lee took her in his arms and held her in silence. Those who saw, wept.
At last he kissed her tenderly and turned to the others.
His sister walked blindly toward him.
"Oh, Robert, you have broken my heart--"
"I know, Annie, that you'll blame me," he answered, gently.
She slipped her arms about his neck.
"No, I shall not blame you. I understand now. I only grieve--"
Her voice broke. She struggled to control herself.
"How handsome you are in this solemn hour, my glorious,
soldier-brother--" Again her voice failed.
"The pity and horror of it all! My husband and my son will fight
you--and--I--shall--pray--for--their--success--oh--how can God permit
it!--Goodbye, Robert!"
Her arms tightened and his responded. His hand touched her hair and he
said slowly:
"If dark hours come to us, my sister, we are children again roaming the
fields hand in hand. We'll just remember that."
She kissed him tenderly.
"And success or failure, dear Annie," he continued, "shall be in God's
hands--not ours. I go to lead a forlorn hope perhaps. But I must share
the miseries of my people."
He slipped from her arms and silently embraced his daughter, and again
her mother.
"Say goodbye to the other children for me when you see them, dear."
Blair took his extended hand.
"I know what you feel, Colonel Lee," he said solemnly. "I'm only sorry I
could not hold you."
"Thank you, my friend. My people believe, and I believe that we have
rights to defend. And we must do our best--even if we perish."
He strode quickly to the door, and paused. A sudden pain caught his
heart as he crossed its threshold for the last time. He looked back,
lifted his head as in prayer and passed out.
He mounted his horse and rode swiftly through the beautiful spring
morning toward Richmond--and Immortality. The women stood weeping. The
President's messenger watched in sorrow.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
When John Brown cunningly surveyed the lines around those houses in
Kansas, observed the fastenings of their doors, marked the strength of
the shutters, learned the names of their dogs, crept under the cover
of darkness on his prey as a wild beast creeps through the jungle and
hacked his innocent victims to pieces, we know that he was a criminal
paranoiac pursuing a fixed idea under the delusion that God had sent
him.
Yet on the eighteenth of July, 1861, Colonel Fletcher Webster's
regiment, the Twelfth Massachusetts, marched through the streets of
Boston singing a song of glory to John Brown which one of its members
composed. They were also marching Southward to kill. The only difference
was they had a Commission.
War had been declared.
Why did the war crowd on the streets and in the ranks burst into song as
they marched to kill their fellow men?
To find the answer we must go back to the dawn of human history and see
man, as yet a savage beast, with but one impulse the dominant force in
life, the archaic impulse to slay.
All wars are not begun in this elemental fashion. There are wars of
defense forced on innocent nations by brutal aggressors. But the joy
that thrills the soul of the crowd on the declaration of war is always
the simple thing. It is the roar of the lion as he springs on his prey.
In this Song to the Soul of John Brown there was no thought of freeing
a slave. War was not declared on that ground. The President who called
them had no such purpose. The men who marched had no such idea. They
sang "Glory, Glory Hallelujah! Glory, Glory Hallelujah!" because they
saw Red.
The restraints of Law, Religion and Tradition had been lifted. The
primitive beast that had been held in check by civilization, rose with
a shout and leaped to its ancient task. The homicidal wish--fancy
with which the human mind had toyed in times of peace in dreams and
reveries--was now a living reality.
Not one in a thousand knew what the war was about. And this one in a
thousand who thought he knew was mistaken. It had been made legal to
kill. They were marching to kill. They shouted. They sang.
They were marching to the most utterly senseless and unnecessary
struggle in the history of our race. The North in the hours of sanity
which preceded the outburst did not wish war. The South in her sane
moments never believed it possible. Yet the hell-lit tragedy of brothers
marching to slay their brothers had come. Nothing could dampen the
enthusiasm of this first joyous mob.
On the night of the twentieth of July the Army of the North was encamped
about seven miles from Beaureguard's lines at Bull Run. The volunteers
were singing, shouting, girding their loins for the fray. They had heard
the firing on the first skirmish line. Fifteen or twenty men had been
killed it was reported.
The Red Thought leaped!
At two o'clock before day on Sunday morning, the order came to advance
against the foe. The deep thrill of the elemental man swept the crowd.
They had come loaded down with baggage. They hurled it aside and got
their guns.
What many of them were afraid of was that the whole rebel army would
escape before they could get into the thick of it. Many had brought
handcuffs and ropes along with which to manacle their prisoners and have
sport with them after the fight, another ancient pastime of our half-ape
ancestors. They threw down some of their blankets but held on to their
handcuffs.
When the first crash of battle came these raw recruits on both sides
fought with desperate bravery for nine terrible hours. They fought from
dawn until three o'clock in the afternoon under the broiling Southern
sun of July. Charge and counter charge left their toll of the dead and
then the tired archaic muscles began to wonder when it would end. Why
hadn't victory come? Where were the prisoners they were to manacle?
Both sides were sick with hunger and weariness. The Southerners were
expecting reinforcements from Manassas Junction. The Northerners were
expecting reinforcements. Their eyes were turned toward the same road
which led from the Shenandoah Valley.
A dust cloud suddenly rose over the hill. A fresh army was marching on
the scene. North and South looked with straining eyes. They were not
long in doubt. The first troops suddenly swung in on the right flank of
the Southern army and began to form their lines to charge the North.
Suddenly from this fresh Southern line rose a new cry. From two thousand
throats came the shrill, elemental, savage shout of the hunter in sight
of his game--the fierce Rebel Yell.
They charged the Northern lines and then pandemonium--blind, unreasoning
wolf-panic seized the army that had marched with songs and shouts to
kill. They broke and fled. They cut the traces of their horses, left the
guns, mounted and rode for life.
The mob engulfed the buggies and carriages of Congressmen and picnickers
who had come out from Washington to see the fun. A rebellion crushed at
a blow!
Stuart at the head of his Black Horse Cavalry, his saber flashing, cut
his way through this mob again and again.
When the smoke of battle lifted, the dazed, ill-organized ambulance
corps searched the field for the first toll of the Blood Feud. They
found only nine hundred boys slain and two thousand six hundred wounded.
They lay weltering in their blood in the smothering heat and dust and
dirt.
The details of men were busy burying the dead, some of their bodies yet
warm.
The morning after dawned black and lowering and the rain began to pour
in torrents. Through the streets of Washington the stragglers streamed.
The plumes which waved as they sang were soaked and drooping. Their
gorgeous, new uniforms were wrinkled and mud-smeared.
The President called for five hundred thousand men this time. The joy
and glory of war had gone.
But war remained.
War grim, gaunt, stark, hideous--as remorseless as death.
CHAPTER XXXIX
In a foliage-embowered house on a hill near Washington Colonel Jeb
Stuart, Commander of the Confederate Cavalry, had made his headquarters.
Neighing horses were hitched to the swaying limbs. They pawed the
ground, wheeled and whinnied their impatience at inaction. Every man who
sat in one of those saddles owned his mount. These boys were the flower
of Southern manhood. The Confederate Government was too poor to furnish
horses for the Cavalry. Every man, volunteering for this branch of the
service, must bring his own horse and equipment complete. The South only
furnished a revolver and carbine. At the first battle of Bull Run they
didn't have enough of them even for the regiments Stuart commanded.
Whole companies were armed only with the pikes which John Brown had made
for the swarming of the Black Bees at Harper's Ferry. They used these
pikes as lances.
The thing that gave the Confederate Cavalry its impetuous dash, its fire
and efficiency was the fact that every man on horseback had been born
in the saddle and had known his horse from a colt. From the moment they
swung into line they were veterans.
The North had no such riders in the field as yet. Brigadier-General
Phillip St. George Cooke was organizing this branch of the service. It
would take weary months to train new riders and break in strange horses.
Until these born riders, mounted on their favorites, could be killed or
their horses shot from under them, there would be tough work ahead for
the Union Cavalry.
A farmer approached at sunset. He gazed on the array with pride.
He lifted his gray head and shouted:
"Hurrah for our boys! Old Virginia'll show 'em before we're through with
this!"
A sentinel saluted the old man.
"I've come for Colonel Stuart. His wife and babies are at my house.
He'll understand. Tell him."
The farmer watched the spectacle. Straight in front of the little
portico on its tall staff fluttered the Commander's new, blood-red
battle flag with its blue St. Andrew's cross and white stars rippling
in the wind. Spurs were clanking, sabers rattling. A courier dashed up,
dismounted and entered the house. Young officers in their new uniforms
were laughing and chatting in groups before the door.
An escort brought in a Federal Cavalry prisoner on his mount. The boys
gathered around him and roared with laughter. He was a good-natured
Irishman who could take a joke. His horse was loaded down with a hundred
pounds of extra equipment. The Irishman had half of it strapped on his
own back.
A boy shouted:
"For the Lord's sake, did you take him with all that freight?"
An escort roared:
"That's why we took him. He couldn't run."
The boy looked at the solemn face of the prisoner and chaffed:
"And why have ye got that load on your own back, man?"
Without cracking a smile the Irishman replied:
"An' I thought me old horse had all he could carry!"
The boys roared, pulled him down, took off his trappings and told him to
make himself at home.
Inside the house could be heard the hum of conversation, with an
occasional boom of laughter that could come from but one throat.
Work for the day completed, he came to the door to greet his visitor.
The farmer's eyes flashed at the sight of his handsome figure. He was
only twenty-eight years old, of medium height, with a long, silken,
bronzed beard and curling mustache.
He waved his hand and cried:
"With you in a minute!"
His voice was ringing music. He wore a new suit of Confederate gray
which his wife had just sent him. His gauntlets extended nine inches
above the wrists. His cavalry boots were high above the knee. His
broad-brimmed felt hat was caught up on one side with a black ostrich
plume. His cavalry coat fitted tightly--a "fighting jacket." It was
circled with a black belt from which hung his revolver and over which
was tied a splendid yellow sash. His spurs were gold.
A first glance would give the impression of a gay youngster over fond
of dress. But the moment his blue eyes flashed there came the glint of
steel. The man behind the uniform was seen, the bravest of the brave,
the flower of Southern chivalry.
For all his gay dress he was from the crown of his head to the soles of
his feet, every inch the soldier--the soldier with the big brain and
generous, fun-loving heart. His forehead was extraordinary in height
and breadth, bronzed by sun and wind. His nose was large and nostrils
mobile. His eyes were clear, piercing, intense. His laughing mouth was
completely covered by the curling mustache and long beard.
He had darted around the house on waving to his visitor and in a minute
reappeared, followed by three negroes. He was taking his minstrels with
him on the trip to see his wife.
The cavalcade mounted. He waved his aides aside.
"No escort, boys. See you at sunrise."
The farmer's house was only half a mile inside his lines. When the army
of the North was hurled back into Washington he had sent for his wife
and babies and arranged for their board at the nearest farmhouse.
The little mother's heart was fluttering with love and pride. Richmond
was already ringing with the praises of her soldier man. They
were recruiting the first brigade of Cavalry. He was slated for
Brigadier-General of the mounted forces. And he was only twenty-eight!
Stuart sprang from his horse and rushed to meet his wife. She was
waiting in the glow of the sunset, her eyes misty with joyous tears.
It was a long time as she nestled in his arms before she could speak.
Her voice was barely a whisper.
"You've passed through your first baptism of blood safely, my own!"
"Baptism of blood--nothing!" He laughed. "It wasn't a fight at all. We
had nothing to do till the blue birds flew. And then we flew after 'em.
Oh, honey girl, it was just a lark. I laughed till I cried--"
She raised her eyes to his.
"And you didn't see my dear old daddy anywhere?"
"No. I wish I had! I'd have taken the loyal old rascal prisoner and made
you keep him till the war's over."
"It _is_ over, isn't it, dear?"
"No."
"Why, you've driven the army back in a panic on Washington. They'll ask
for peace, won't they?"
"They won't, honey. I know 'em too well. They'll more than likely ask
for a million volunteers."
"It's not over, then?"
"No, dear little mother. I'll be honest with you. Don't believe silly
talk. We're in for a long, desperate fight--"
"And I've been so happy thinking you'd come home--"
"Your home will be with me, won't it?"
"Always."
"All right. This is the beginning of my scheme for the duration of the
war. I'm going to get you a map of Virginia, showing the roads. I'll get
you a compass. There'll always be a little farmhouse somewhere behind my
headquarters. Our home will be in the field and saddle for a while."
He kissed his babies and ate his supper laughing and joking like a
boy of nineteen. The table cleared, he ordered a concert for their
entertainment.
Bob, the leader of his minstrels, was a dandified mulatto who played the
guitar, the second was a whistler and the third a master of the negro
dance, the back step and the breakdown.
Bob tuned his guitar, picked his strings and gazed at the ceiling. He
was apparently selecting the first piece. It, was always the same, his
favorite, "Listen to the Mocking Bird." He played with a plaintive,
swaying melody that charmed his hearers. The whistler amazed them with
his marvelous imitation of birds and bird calls. The room throbbed with
every note of the garden, field and wood.
The mother's face was wreathed in smiles. The boy shouted. The baby
crooned. The first piece done, the audience burst into a round of
applause.
Bob gave them "Alabama" next, accompanied by the whistler and his bird
chorus.
Stuart laughed and called for the breakdown. Bob begins a jig on his
guitar, the whistler claps and the sable dancer edges his way to the
center of the floor in little spasmodic shuffles. He begins with his
heel tap, then the toe, then in leaps and whirls. The guitar swelled
to a steady roar. The whistler quickens his claps. And Stuart's boyish
laughter rang above the din.
"Go it, boy! Go it!"
The dancer's eyes roll. His step quickens. He cuts the wildest figures
in a frenzy of abandoned joy. With a leap through the door he is gone.
The guitar stops with a sudden twang and Stuart's laughter roars.
And then he gave an hour to play with his children before a mother's
lullaby should put them to sleep. He got down on his all fours and
little Jeb mounted and rode round the room to the baby's scream of joy.
He lay flat on the floor with the baby on his breast and let her pull
his beard and mustache until her strength failed.
The children were still sound asleep when they sat down and ate
breakfast before day.
At the first streak of dawn he was standing beside his horse ready for
the dash back to his headquarters and the work of the day.
The shadow had fallen across the woman's heart again. He saw and
understood. He put his hand under her chin and lifted it.
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