The Victim: A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis Part 91

"There's not a chance on earth that I'll live to see you again. See the President and beg him for G.o.d's sake to save as many of the boys as he can. With a heart full of love.

"Jimmie."

The President took both of Jennie's hands in his.

"I need not tell you, my dear, that I have done and am doing my level best. The policy of the new Federal Commander is to refuse all offers of exchange. You understand my position?"

"Perfectly," was the sorrowful answer. "I only came as a duty to bear his dying message--"

"Express to your father and mother my deepest sympathy."

With a gentle pressure of the Chieftain's hand the girl answered:

"I need not tell you I appreciate it--"

The President watched her go with a look of helpless anguish. His troubles for the moment had only begun. The returned prisoners had marched in a body to his office to thank their Chief for his sympathy and help and asked him to say something to them.

Jennie paused and stared in a dazed way into the poor shrunken faces.

When the President appeared every ragged hat was in the air and they cheered with all the might of the strength that was left in them. The girl burst into tears. These men, so forlorn, so dried up with a strange, half-animal, hunted look in their eyes--others restless and wild-looking--others calmly vacant in their stare as if they had been dead for years!

A poor mother was rus.h.i.+ng in and out among them hunting for her son.

"He was coming with you boys, you know!" she cried.

She stopped suddenly and laughed at her own anxiety and confusion.

"He's here somewhere--I just can't find him--help me, men!"

She hadn't spoken his name, in her eager search for his loved face. She kept lifting the cloth from a basket of provisions which she had cooked that morning.

"I've got his breakfast here--poor boy--I expect he's hungry."

She had lost all consciousness of the crowd now.

She was talking to herself, trying to keep her courage up.

The President looked into the emaciated faces before him and lifted his long arm in solemn salutation.

"_Soldiers of the South_:

"I thank you from the bottom of my heart for this tribute of your loyalty. You were offered your freedom in prison at any moment if you would take the oath and forswear your allegiance to the South.

You deliberately chose the living death to the betrayal of your faith. I stand with uncovered head before you. I am proud to be the Chief Executive of such men!"

Again they cheered.

The old mother with her basket was searching again for her boy.

Jennie slipped an arm gently around her and led her away.

On the day Lee left Richmond for the front to meet Grant's invading host, the Confederate President was in agony over a letter from General Winder portraying the want and suffering among the prisoners confined at Andersonville.

"If we could only get them across the Mississippi," Davis cried, "where beef and supplies of all kind are abundant--but what can we do for them here?"

"Our men are in the same fix," Lee answered quickly, "except that they're free. These sufferings are the result of our necessity, not of our policy. Do not distress yourself."

The South was entering now the darkest hours of her want. The market price of food was beyond the reach of the poor or even the moderately well-to-do. Turkeys sold for $60 each. Flour was $300 a barrel, corn meal $50 a bushel. Boots were $200 a pair. A man's coat cost $350--his trousers $100. He could get along without a vest. Wood was $50 a cord.

It took $1,800 to buy $100 in gold.

In the midst of this universal suffering the yellow journals of the South, led by the Richmond _Examiner_, made the most bitter and determined a.s.saults on Davis to force him to a policy of retaliation on Northern prisoners.

"Hoist the black flag!" shrieked the _Examiner_. "Retaliate on these Yankee prisoners for the starvation and abuse of our men in the North--a land teeming with plenty." The President was held up to the scorn and curses of the Southern people because with quiet dignity he refused to lower the standard of his Government to a policy of revenge on helpless soldiers in his power.

To a Committee of the Confederate Congress who waited on him with these insane demands he answered with scorn:

"You dare ask me to torture helpless prisoners of war! I will resign my office at the call of my country. But no people have the right to demand such deeds at my hands!"

In answer to this brave, humane stand of the Southern President the _Examiner_ had the unspeakable effrontery to accuse him of clemency to his captives that he might curry favor with the North and s.h.i.+eld himself if the South should fail.

No characteristic of Davis was more marked than his regard for the weak, the helpless and the captive. His final answer to his a.s.sailants was to repeat with emphasis his orders to General Winder to see to it that the same rations issued to Confederate soldiers in the field should be given to all prisoners of war, though taken from a starving army and people.

Enraged by the defeat of their mad schemes, the conspirators drew together now to depose Davis and set up a military dictators.h.i.+p.

CHAPTER XL

IN SIGHT OF VICTORY

When Grant crossed the Rapidan with his army of one hundred forty-one thousand one hundred and sixty men Lee faced him with sixty-four thousand. The problem of saving Richmond from the tremendous force under the personal command of the most successful general of the North was not the only danger which threatened the Confederate Capital. Butler was pressing from the Peninsula with forty thousand men along the line of McClellan's old march, supported again by the navy.

Jefferson Davis knew the task before Lee to be a gigantic one yet he did not believe that Grant would succeed in reaching Richmond.

The moment the Federal general crossed the Rapidan and threw his army into the tangled forest of the Wilderness, Lee sprang from the jungles at his throat.

Battle followed battle in swift and terrible succession. At Cold Harbor thirty days later the climax came. Grant lost ten thousand men in twenty minutes. The Northern general had set out to hammer Lee to death by steady, remorseless pounding. At the end of a month he had lost more than sixty thousand men and Lee's army was as strong as when the fight began.

Grant's campaign to take Richmond was the bloodiest and most tragic failure in the history of war. The North in bitter anguish demanded his removal from command. Lincoln stubbornly refused to interfere with his bulldog fighter. He sent him word to hold on and chew and choke.

As Grant in his whirl of blood approached the old battle grounds of McClellan, Davis rode out daily to confer with Lee. He was never more cheerful--never surer of the safety of his Capital. His faith in G.o.d and the certainty that he would in the end give victory to a cause so just and holy grew in strength with the report from each glorious field. No doubt of the right or justice of his cause ever entered his mind. Day and night he repeated the lines of his favorite hymn:

"I'll strengthen thee, help thee and cause thee to stand, Upheld by my righteous omnipotent hand."