Mohun; Or, the Last Days of Lee and His Paladins Part 75

The whistle of bullets mingled with these furious and resounding words; and then the crackle of footsteps was heard, the undergrowth suddenly swarmed with figures--a party of Confederates rushed shouting into the little glade.

Darke wheeled not from, but toward them, as though to charge them. The stern courage of the Davenant blood burned in his cheeks and eyes.

Then, with a harsh and bitter laugh, he turned and pushed his horse close up beside that of his father.

"I would call this meeting and parting strange, if any thing were strange in this world!" he said, "but nothing astonishes me, or moves me, as of old! The devil has brought it about! he put a knife in my hands once! to-night he brings me face to face with you and my boy-brother--and makes you curse and renounce me! Well, so be it! have your will! Henceforth I am really lost--my father!"

And drawing his pistol, he coolly discharged barrel after barrel in the faces of the men rus.h.i.+ng upon him; wheeled his horse, and dug the spurs into him; an instant afterward, with his sneering face turned over his shoulder, he had disappeared in the woods.

Two hours afterward I was on my way to Petersburg.

The enemy were already falling back from their adventurous attempt to seize the Southside road.

In the morning they had retired across the Rowanty, and disappeared.

So ended that heavy blow at Lee's great war-artery.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE FLIGHT]

BOOK IV.

THE PHANTOMS.

I.

RICHMOND BY THE THROAT.

I was again back at the "Cedars," after the rapid and s.h.i.+fting scenes which I have endeavored to place before the reader.

The tragic incidents befalling the actors in this drama, had most absorbed my attention; but sitting now in my tent, with the newspapers before me, I looked at the fight in which I had partic.i.p.ated, from the general and historic point of view.

That heavy advance on the Boydton road, beyond Lee's right, had been simultaneous with a determined a.s.sault on the Confederate left, north of James River, and on Lee's centre opposite Petersburg; and now the extracts from Northern journals clearly indicated that the movement was meant to be decisive.

"I have Richmond by the throat!" General Grant had telegraphed; but there was good ground to believe that the heavy attack, and the eloquent dispatch, were both meant to "make capital" for the approaching Presidential election.

These memoirs, my dear reader, are written chiefly to record some incidents which I witnessed during the war. I have neither time nor s.p.a.ce for political comments. But I laid my hand yesterday, by accident, on an old number of the _Examiner_ newspaper; and it chanced to contain an editorial on the fight just described, with some penetrating views on the "situation" at that time.

Shall I quote a paragraph from the yellow old paper? It will be bitter--we were all bitter in those days! though to-day we are so fraternal and harmonious. With his trenchant pen, Daniel pierced to the core of the matter; and the paper may give some idea of the spirit of the times.

I could fancy the great satirist sitting in his lonely study, and penning the lines I shall quote, not without grim smiles at his own mordant humor.

Here is the slip I cut out. The old familiar heading may recall those times to some readers, as clearly as the biting sentences, once read, perhaps, by the camp-fire.

* * * * * DAILY EXAMINER. * * * * *

MONDAY MORNING OCT. 31, 1864. * * * * *

"Every day must now bring its brilliant bulletin to the Yankee nation. That nation does not regard the punctual rising of the sun as more lawfully due to it than a victory every morning. And those glorious achievements of SHERIDAN in the Valley were grown cold and stale, and even plainly hollow and rotten--insomuch that, after totally annihilating the army of EARLY at least three times, and so clearing the way to Lynchburg, instead of marching up to Lynchburg the heroick victor goes whirling down to Winchester. Then the superb victory obtained on Sunday of last week over PRICE in Missouri, has taken a certain bogus tint, which causes many to believe that there was, in fact, no victory and no battle. This would not do. Something fresh must be had; something electrifying; above all, something that would set the people to cheering and firing off salutes about the very day of the election;--something, too, that could not be plainly contradicted by the events till after that critical day--then let the contradiction come and welcome: your true Yankee will only laugh.

"From this necessity came the great 'reconnoissance in force' of last Thursday on our lines before Richmond and Petersburg; a 'reconnoissance' in very heavy force indeed upon three points of our front at once both north and south of the James river; so that it may be very properly considered as three reconnoissances in force; made with a view of feeling, as it were, LEE'S position; and the object of the three reconnoissances having been fully attained--that is, LEE having been felt--they retired. That is the way in which the transactions of Thursday last are to appear in STANTON'S bulletin, we may be all quite sure; and this representation, together with the occupation of a part of the Boydton plank-road (which road the newspapers can call for a few days the Southside Road) will cause every city from Boston to Milwaukee to fire off its inevitable hundred guns. Thus, the Presidential election will be served, just in the nick of time; for that emergency it is not the real victory which is wanted, so much as the jubilation, glorification and cannon salutes.

"Even when the truth comes to be fully known that this was the grand pre-election a.s.sault itself: the resistless advance on Richmond which was to lift the Abolitionists into power again upon a swelling high-tide of glory unutterable--easily repulsed and sent rolling back with a loss of about six or seven thousand men in killed, wounded and prisoners; even when this is known, does the reader imagine that the Yankee nation will be discouraged? Very far from it. On the contrary it will be easily made to appear that from these 'reconnoissances in force,' an advantage has been gained, which is to make the next advance a sure and overwhelming success.

For the fact is, that a day was chosen for this mighty movement, when the wind was southerly, a soft and gentle breeze, which wafted the odour of the Yankee whiskey-rations to the nostrils of Confederate soldiers. The Confederates ought to have been taken by surprise that morning; but the moment they snuffed the tainted gale, they knew what was to be the morning's work. Not more unerring is the instinct which calls the vulture to the battle-field before a drop of blood is shed; or that which makes the kites 'know well the long stern swell, that bids the Romans close;' than the sure induction of our army that the Yankees are coming on, when morn or noon or dewy eve breathes along the whole line a perfumed savour of the ancient rye. The way in which this discovery may be improved is plain. It will be felt and understood throughout the intelligent North, that it gives them at last the key to Richmond. They will say--Those rebels, to leeward of us, smell the rising valour of our loyal soldiers: the filling and emptying of a hundred thousand canteens perfumes the sweet South as if it had pa.s.sed over a bed of violets, stealing and giving odours:--when the wind is southerly it will be said, rebels know a hawk from a handsaw. Therefore it is but making our next grand a.s.sault on some morning when they are to windward of us--creeping up, in the lee of LEE, as if he were a stag--and Richmond is ours."

That is savage, and sounds unfraternal to-day, when peace and good feeling reign--when the walls of the Virginia capitol re-echo the stately voices of the conscript fathers of the great commonwealth and mother of States: conscript fathers bringing their wisdom, mature study, and experience to the work of still further improving the work of Jefferson, Mason, and Was.h.i.+ngton.

"I have Richmond by the throat!" General Grant wrote in October, 1864.

In February, 1868, when these lines are written, black hands have got Virginia by the throat, and she is suffocating; Cuffee grins, Cuffee gabbles--the groans of the "Old Mother" make him laugh.

Messieurs of the great Northwest, she gave you being, and suckled you!

Are you going to see her strangled before your very eyes?

II.

NIGHTMARE.

In truth, if not held by the throat, as General Grant announced, Richmond and all the South in that autumn of 1864, was staggering, suffocating, reeling to and fro under the immense incubus of all-destroying war.

At that time black was the "only wear," and widows and orphans were crying in every house throughout the land. Bread and meat had become no longer necessaries, but luxuries. Whole families of the old aristocracy lived on crusts, and even by charity. Respectable people in Richmond went to the "soup-houses." Men once rich, were penniless, and borrowed to live. Provisions were incredibly dear. Flour was hundreds of dollars a barrel; bacon ten dollars a pound; coffee and tea had become unknown almost. Boots were seven hundred dollars a pair. The poor skinned the dead horses on battle-fields to make shoes. Horses cost five thousand dollars. Cloth was two hundred dollars a yard. Sorghum had taken the place of sugar. Salt was sold by the ounce. Quinine was one dollar a grain. Paper to write upon was torn from old blank books. The ten or twenty dollars which the soldiers received for their monthly pay, was about sufficient to buy a sheet, a pen, and a little ink to write home to their starving families that they too were starving.

In town and country the atmosphere seemed charged with coming ruin. All things were in confusion. Everywhere something jarred. The executive was unpopular. The heads of departments were inefficient. The army was unfed. The finances were mismanaged. In Congress the opposition bitterly criticised President Davis. The press resounded with fierce diatribes, _pro_ and _con_, on all subjects. The _Examiner_ attacked the government, and denounced the whole administration of affairs. The _Sentinel_ replied to the attacks, and defended the a.s.sailed officials.

One could see nothing that was good. The other could see nothing that was bad. Their readers adopted their opinions; looking through gla.s.ses that were deep green, or else _couleur de rose_. But the green gla.s.ses outnumbered the rose-colored more and more every day.

Thus, in the streets of the city, and in the shades of the country, all was turmoil, confusion--a hopeless brooding on the hours that were coming. War was no longer an affair of the border and outpost. Federal cavalry scoured the woods, tearing the last mouthful from the poor people. Federal cannon were thundering in front of the ramparts of the cities. In the country, the faint-hearted gathered at the court-houses and cross-roads to comment on the times, and groan. In the cities, cowards croaked in the market-places. In the country, men were hiding their meat in garrets and cellars--concealing their corn in pens, lost in the depths of the woods. In the towns, the forestallers h.o.a.rded flour, and sugar, and salt in their warehouses, to await famine prices.

The vultures of troubled times flapped their wings and croaked joyfully. Extortioners rolled in their chariots. Hucksters laughed as they counted their gains. Blockade-runners drank their champagne, jingled their coin, and dodged the conscript officers.

The rich were very rich and insolent. The poor were want-stricken and despairing. Fathers gazed at their children's pale faces, and knew not where to find food for them. Mothers hugged their frail infants to bosoms drained by famine. Want gnawed at the vitals. Despair had come, like a black and poisonous mist, to strangle the heart.

The soldiers were agonized by maddening letters from their families.

Their fainting loved ones called for help. "Father! come home!" moaned the children, with gaunt faces, crying for bread. "Husband, come home!"

murmured the pale wife, with her half-dead infant in her arms. And the mothers--the mothers--ah! the mothers! They did not say, "Come home!"

to their brave boys in the army; they were too proud for that--too faithful to the end. They did not summon them to come home; they only knelt down and prayed: "G.o.d, end this cruel war! Only give me back my boy! Do not bereave me of my child! The cause is lost--his blood not needed! G.o.d, pity me and give me back my boy!"