Before the Dawn: A Story of the Fall of Richmond

  CHAPTER IV

  THE SECRETARY MOVES

  Nearly all the guests left the Markham house at the same time and stoodfor a few moments in the white Greek portico, bidding one anothergood-night. It seemed to Prescott that it was a sort of family parting.

  The last good-by said, Robert and Helen started down the street, towardthe Harley home six or seven blocks away. Her gloved hand rested lightlyon his arm, but her face was hidden from him by a red hood. The coldwind was still blustering mightily about the little city and she walkedclose beside him.

  "I cannot help thinking at this moment of your army. Which way does itlie, Robert?" she asked.

  "Off there," he replied, and he pointed northward.

  "And the Northern army is there, too. And Washington itself is only twohundred miles away It seems to me sometimes that the armies have alwaysbeen there. This war is so long. I remember I was a child when it began,and now----"

  She paused, but Prescott added:

  "It began only three years ago."

  "A long three years. Sometimes when I look toward the North, whereWashington lies, I begin to wonder about Lincoln. I hear bad thingsspoken of him here, and then there are others who say he is not bad."

  "The 'others' are right, I think."

  "I am glad to hear you say so. I feel sorry for him, such a lonely manand so unhappy, they say. I wish I knew all the wrong and right of thiscruel struggle."

  "It would take the wisdom of the angels for that."

  They walked on a little farther in silence, passing now near theCapitol and its surrounding group of structures.

  "What are they doing these days up there on Shockoe?" asked Prescott.

  "Congress is in session and meets again in the morning, but I imagine itcan do little. Our fate rests with the armies and the President."

  A deep mellow note sounded from the hill and swelled far over the city.In the dead silence of the night it penetrated like a cannon shot, andthe echo seemed to Prescott to come back from the far forest and thehills beyond the James. It was quickly followed by another and thenothers until all Richmond was filled with the sound.

  Prescott felt the hand upon his arm clasp him in nervous alarm.

  "What does that noise mean?" he cried.

  "It's the Bell Tower!" she cried, pointing to a dark spire-likestructure on Shockoe Hill in the Capitol Square.

  "The Bell Tower!"

  "Yes; the alarm! The bell was to be rung there when the Yankees came!Don't you hear it? They have come! They have come!"

  The tramp of swift feet increased and grew nearer, there was a hum, amurmur and then a tumult in the streets; shouts of men, the orders ofofficers and galloping hoof-beats mingled; metal clanked against metal;cannon rumbled and their heavy iron wheels dashed sparks of fire fromthe stones as they rushed onward. There was a noise of shutters thrownback and lights appeared at innumerable windows. High feminine voicesshouted to each other unanswered questions. The tumult swelled to aroar, and over it all thundered the great bell, its echo coming back inregular vibrations from the hills and the farther shore of the river.

  After the first alarm Helen was quiet and self-contained. She had livedthree years amid war and its tumults, and what she saw now was no morethan she had trained herself to expect.

  Prescott drew her farther back upon the sidewalk, out of the way of thecannon and the galloping cavalry, and he, too, waited quietly to seewhat would happen.

  The garrison, except those posted in the defenses, gathered aboutCapitol Square, and women and children, roused from their beds, began tothrong into the streets. The whole city was now awake and alight, andthe cries of "The Yankees! The Yankees!" increased, but Prescott,hardened to alarms and to using his eyes, saw no Yankees. The sound ofscattered rifle shots came from a point far to the eastward, and helistened for the report of artillery, but there was none.

  As they stood waiting and listening, Sefton and Redfield, who had beenwalking home together, joined them. The Secretary was keen, watchful andself-contained, but the Member of Congress was red, wrathful andexcited.

  "See what your General and your army have brought upon us," he cried,seizing Prescott by the arm. "While Lee and his men are asleep, theYankees have passed around them and seized Richmond."

  "Take your hand off my arm, if you please, Mr. Redfield," said Prescottwith quiet firmness, and the other involuntarily obeyed.

  "Now, sir," continued Robert, "I have not seen any Yankees, nor haveyou, nor do I believe there is a Yankee force of sufficient size to bealarming on this side of the Rapidan."

  "Don't you hear the bell?"

  "Yes, I hear the bell; but General Lee is not asleep nor are his men. Ifthey had the habit of which you accuse them the Yankee army would havebeen in this city long ago."

  Helen's hand was still lying on Prescott's arm and he felt a gratefulpressure as he spoke. A thrill of delight shot through him. It was apleasure to him to defend his beloved General anywhere, but above allbefore her.

  The forces of cavalry, infantry and artillery increased and were formedabout Capitol Square. The tumult decreased, the cries of the women andchildren sank. Order reigned, but everywhere there was expectation.Everybody, too, gazed toward the east whence the sound of the shots hadcome. But the noise there died and presently the great bell ceased toring.

  "I believe you are right, Captain Prescott," said the Secretary; "I donot see any Yankees and I do not believe any have come."

  But the Member of Congress would not be convinced, and recovering hisspirit, he criticized the army again. Prescott scorned to answer, nordid Helen or the Secretary speak. Soon a messenger galloped down thestreet and told the cause of the alarm. Some daring Yankee cavalrymen, aband of skirmishers or scouts, fifty or a hundred perhaps, coming by adevious way, had approached the outer defenses and fired a few shots atlong range. The garrison replied, and then the reckless Yankees gallopedaway before they could be caught.

  "Very inconsiderate of them," said the Secretary, "disturbing honestpeople on a peaceful night like this. Why, it must be at least half-pasttwo in the morning."

  "You will observe, Mr. Redfield," said Prescott, "that the Yankee armyhas not got past General Lee, and the city will not belong to theYankees before daylight."

  "Not a single Yankee soldier ought to be able to come so near toRichmond," said the Member of Congress.

  "Why, this only gives us a little healthy excitement, Mr. Redfield,"said the Secretary, smoothly; "stirs our blood, so to speak, and teachesus to be watchful. We really owe those cavalrymen a vote of thanks."

  Then putting his hand on Redfield's arm, he drew him away, first biddingPrescott and Miss Harley a courteous good-night.

  A few more steps and they were at Helen's home. Mr. Harley himself, atall, white-haired man, with a self-indulgent face singularly like hisson Vincent's, answered the knock, shielding from the wind with onehand the flame of a fluttering candle held in the other.

  He peered into the darkness, and Prescott thought that he perceived aslight look of disappointment on his face when he saw who had escortedhis daughter home.

  "He wishes it had been the Secretary," thought Robert.

  "I was apprehensive about you for awhile, Helen," he said, "when I heardthe bell ringing the alarm. It was reported that the Yankees had come."

  "They are not here yet," said Prescott, "and we believe it is still along road to Richmond."

  As he bade Helen good-night at the door, she urged him not to neglecther while he was in the capital, and her father repeated the invitationwith less warmth. Then the two disappeared within, the door was shut andRobert turned back into the darkness and the cold.

  His own house was within sight, but he had made his mother promise notto wait for him, and he hoped she was already asleep. Never had he beenmore wide awake, and knowing that he should seek sleep in vain, hestrolled down the street, looking about at the dim and silent city.

  He gazed up at the dark shaft of the tower whence the bell had rung its
warning, at the dusky mass of the Capitol, at the spire of St. Paul's,and then down at a flickering figure passing rapidly on the other sideof the street. Robert's eyes were keen, and a soldier's life hadaccustomed him to their use in the darkness. He caught only a glimpse ofit, but was sure the figure was that of the Secretary.

  Though wondering what an official high in the Government was aboutflitting through Richmond at such an hour, he remembered philosophicallythat it was none of his business. Soon another man appeared, tall andbony, his face almost hidden by a thick black beard faintly touched withsilver in the light of the moon. But this person was not shifty norevasive. He stalked boldly along, and his heavy footsteps gave back ahard metallic ring as the iron-plated heels of his boots came heavilyin contact with the bricks of the sidewalk.

  Prescott knew the second figure, too. It was Wood, the great cavalryman,the fierce, dark mountaineer, and, wishing for company, Robert followedthe General, whom he knew well. Wood turned at the sound of hisfootsteps and welcomed him.

  "I don't like this town nor its folks," he said in his mountain dialect,"and I ain't goin' to stay long. They ain't my kind of people, Bob."

  "Give 'em a chance, General; they are doing their best."

  "What the Gov'ment ought to do," said the mountaineer moodily, "is toget up ev'ry man there is in the country and then hit hard at the enemyand keep on hittin' until there ain't a breath left in him. Butsometimes it seems to me that it's the business of gov'ments in war tokeep their armies from winnin'!"

  They were joined at the corner by Talbot, according to his wont brimmingover with high spirits, and Prescott, on the General's account, was gladthey had met him. He, if anybody, could communicate good spirits.

  "General," said the sanguine Talbot, "you must make the most of thetime. The Yankees may not give us another chance. Across yonder, whereyou see that dim light trying to shine through the dirty window,Winthrop is printing his paper, which comes out this morning. As he is acritic of the Government, I suggest that we go over and see the taskwell done."

  The proposition suited Wood's mood, and Prescott's, too, so they tooktheir way without further words toward Winthrop's office, on the secondfloor of a rusty two-story frame building. Talbot led them up a shabbystaircase just broad enough for one, between walls from which the crudeplastering had dropped in spots.

  "Why are newspaper offices always so shabby," he asked. "I was in NewYork once, where there are rich papers, but they were just the same."

  The flight of steps led directly into the editorial room, whereWinthrop sat in his shirt sleeves at a little table, writing. Raymond,at another, was similarly clad and similarly engaged. A huge stovestanding in the corner, and fed with billets of wood, threw out agrateful heat. Sitting around it in a semi-circle were four or five men,including the one-armed Colonel Stormont and another man in uniform. Allwere busy reading the newspaper exchanges.

  Winthrop waved his hand to the new visitors.

  "Be all through in fifteen minutes," he said. "Sit down by the stove.Maybe you'd like to read this; its Rhett's paper."

  He tossed them a newspaper and went on with his writing. The three foundseats on cane-bottomed chairs or boxes and joined the group around thestove.

  Prescott glanced a moment at the newspaper which Winthrop had thrown tothem. It was a copy of the Charleston _Mercury_, conducted by the famoussecessionist Rhett, then a member of the Confederate Senate, and editedmeanwhile by his son. It breathed much fire and brimstone, and calledinsistently for a quick defeat of the insolent North. He passed it on tohis friends and then looked with more interest at the office and the menabout him. Everything was shabby to the last degree. Old newspapers andscraps of manuscript littered the floor, cockroaches crawled over thedesks, on the walls were double-page illustrations from _Harper'sWeekly_ and _Leslie's Weekly_, depicting battle scenes in which thefrightened Southern soldiers were fleeing like sheep before the valiantsons of the North.

  "It's all the same, Prescott," said Talbot. "We haven't any illustratedpapers, but if we had they'd show the whole Yankee army running fit tobreak its neck from a single Southern regiment."

  General Wood, too, looked about with keen eyes, as if uncertain what todo, but his hesitation did not last long. A piece of pine wood lay nearhim, and picking it up he drew from under his belt a great keen-bladedbowie-knife, with which he began to whittle long slender shavings thatcurled beautifully; then a seraphic smile of content spread over hisface.

  Those who were not reading drifted into a discussion on politics and thewar. The rumble of a press just starting to work came from the nextroom. Winthrop and Raymond wrote on undisturbed. The General, stillwhittling his pine stick, began to stare curiously at them. At last hesaid:

  "Wa'al, if this ain't a harder trade than fightin', I'll be darned!"

  Several smiled, but none replied to the General's comment. Raymondpresently finished his article, threw it to an ink-blackened galley-boyand came over to the stove.

  "You probably wonder what I am doing here in the enemy's camp," he said."The office of every newspaper but my own is the camp of an enemy, butWinthrop asked me to help him out to-night with some pretty severecriticism of the Government. As he's responsible and I'm not, I'vepitched into the President, Cabinet and Congress of the ConfederateStates of America at a great rate. I don't know what will happen to him,because while we are fighting for freedom here we are not fighting forthe freedom of the press. We Southerners like to put in some heavy licksfor freedom and then get something else. Maybe we're kin to the oldPuritans."

  They heard a light step on the stair, and the two editors looked upexpecting to see some one of the ordinary chance visitors to a newspaperoffice. Instead it was the Secretary, Mr. Sefton, a conciliatory smileon his face and a hand outstretched ready for the customary shake.

  "You are surprised to see me, Mr. Winthrop," he said, "but I trust thatI am none the less welcome. I am glad, too, to find so many good menwhom I know and some of whom I have met before on this very evening.Good-evening to you all, gentlemen."

  He bowed to every one. Winthrop looked doubtfully at him as if trying toguess his business.

  "Anything private, Mr. Sefton?" he said "If so we can step into the nextroom."

  "Not at all! Not at all!" replied the Secretary, spreading out hisfingers in negative style. "There is nothing that your friends need nothear, not even our great cavalry leader, General Wood. I was passingafter a late errand, and seeing your light it occurred to me that Imight come up to you and speak of some strange gossip that I have beenhearing in Richmond."

  All now listened with the keenest interest. They saw that the wilySecretary had not come on any vague errand at that hour of the morning.

  "And may I ask what is the gossip?" said Winthrop with a trace ofdefiance in his tone.

  "It was only a trifle," replied the Secretary blandly; "but a friend mayserve a friend even in the matter of a trifle."

  He paused and looked smilingly around the expectant circle. Winthropmade an impatient movement. He was by nature one of the most humane andgenerous of men, but fiery and touchy to the last degree.

  "It was merely this," continued the Secretary, "and I really apologizefor speaking of it at all, as it is scarcely any business of mine, butthey say that you are going to print a fierce attack on the Government."

  "What then?" asked Winthrop, with increasing defiance.

  "I would suggest to you, if you will pardon the liberty, that yourefrain. The Government, of which I am but a humble official, issensitive, and it is, too, a critical time. Just now the Governmentneeds all the support and confidence that it can possibly get. If youimpair the public faith in us how can we accomplish anything?"

  "But the newspapers of the North have entire freedom of criticism,"burst out Winthrop. "We say that the North is not a free country and theSouth is. Are we to belie those words?"

  "I think you miss the point," replied the Secretary, still speakingsuavely. "The Government does not wish to repress the
freedom of thepress nor of any individual, nor in fact have I had any such matter inmind in giving you this intimation. I think that if you do as I hear youpurpose to do, some rather extreme men will be disposed to make youtrouble. Now there's Redfield."

  "The trouble with Redfield," broke in Raymond, "is that he wants all thetwenty-four hours of every day for his own talking."

  "True! true in a sense," said the Secretary, "but he is a member of theHouse Committee on Military Affairs and is an influential man."

  "I thank you, Mr. Secretary," said Winthrop, "but the article is alreadywritten."

  A shade crossed the face of Mr. Sefton.

  "And as you heard," continued Winthrop, "it attacks the Government withas much vigour as I am capable of putting into it. Here is the papernow; you can read for yourself what I have written."

  The galley-boy had come in with a half-dozen papers still wet from thepress. Winthrop handed one to the Secretary, indicated the editorial andwaited while Sefton read it.

  The Secretary, after the perusal, put down the paper and spoke gently asif he were chiding a child: "I am sorry this is published, Mr.Winthrop," he said. "It can only stir up trouble. Will you permit me tosay that I think it indiscreet?"

  "Oh, certainly," replied Winthrop. "You are entitled to your opinion,and by the same token so am I."

  "I don't think our Government will like this," said Mr. Sefton. Hetapped the newspaper as he spoke.

  "I should think it would not," replied Winthrop with an ironical laugh."At least, it was not intended that way. But does our Government expectto make itself an oligarchy or despotism? If that is so, I should liketo know what we are fighting for?"

  Mr. Sefton left these questions unanswered, but continued to expresssorrow over the incident. He did not mean to interfere, he said; he hadcome with the best purpose in the world. He thought that at this stageof the war all influences ought to combine for the public good, andalso he did not wish his young friends to suffer any personalinconvenience. Then bowing, he went out, but he took with him a copy ofthe paper.

  "That visit, Winthrop, was meant for a threat, and nothing else," saidRaymond, when he was sure the Secretary was safely in the street.

  "No doubt of it," said Winthrop, "but I don't take back a word."

  They speculated on the result, until General Wood, putting up his knifeand throwing down his pine stick, drew an old pack of cards from aninside pocket of his coat.

  "Let's play poker a little while," he said. "It'll make us think ofsomethin' else and steady our nerves. Besides, it's mighty good trainin'for a soldier. Poker's just like war--half the cards you've got, an'half bluff. Lee and Jackson are such mighty good gen'rals 'cause theyalways make the other fellow think they've got twice as many soldiers asthey really have."

  Raymond, an inveterate gambler, at once acceded to the proposition;Winthrop and one of the soldiers did likewise, and they sat down toplay. The others looked on.

  "Shall we make the limit ten cents in coin or ten dollars Confederatemoney?" asked Winthrop.

  "Better make it ten dollars Confederate; we don't want to risk toomuch," replied Raymond.

  Soon they were deep in the mysteries and fascinations of the game. Woodproved himself a consummate player, a master of "raise" and "bluff," butfor awhile the luck ran against him, and he made this brief comment:

  "Things always run in streaks; don't matter whether it's politics, love,farmin' or war. They don't travel alone. At Antietam nearly half theYankee soldiers we killed were red-headed. Fact, sure; but atChancellorsville I never saw a single dead Yankee with a red head."

  The luck turned by and by toward the General, but Prescott thought itwas time for him to be seeking home and he bade good-night. ColonelStormont accompanied him as he went down the rickety stairs.

  "Colonel," asked Prescott, as they reached the street, "who, in reality,is Mr. Sefton?"

  "That is more than any of us can tell," replied the Colonel; "nominallyhe is at the head of a department in the Treasury, but he has acquired agreat influence in the Cabinet--he is so deft at the despatch ofbusiness--and he is at the White House as much as he is anywhere. He isnot a man whom we can ignore."

  Prescott was of that opinion, too, and when he got into his bed, notlong before the break of day, he was still thinking of the blandSecretary.