Book: The Crisis, Complete

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I told him "Uncle Billy." And, thinking the story of the white socks
might amuse him, I told him that. It did amuse him.

"Well, now," he said, "any man that has a nickname like that is all
right. That's the best recommendation you can give the General--just say
'Uncle Billy.'" He put one lip over the other. "You've given 'Uncle
Billy' a good recommendation, Steve," he said. "Did you ever hear the
story of Mr. Wallace's Irish gardener?"

"No, sir."

"Well, when Wallace was hiring his gardener he asked him whom he had been
living with.

"'Misther Dalton, sorr.'

"'Have you a recommendation, Terence?'

"'A ricommindation is it, sorr? Sure I have nothing agin Misther Dalton,
though he moightn't be knowing just the respict the likes of a
first-class garthener is entitled to.'"

He did not laugh. He seldom does, it seems, at his own stories. But I
could not help laughing over the "ricommindation" I had given the
General. He knew that I was embarrassed, and said kindly:-- "Now tell me
something about 'Uncle Billy's Bummers.' I hear that they have a most
effectual way of tearing up railroads."

I told him of Poe's contrivance of the hook and chain, and how the
heaviest rails were easily overturned with it, and how the ties were
piled and fired and the rails twisted out of shape. The President
listened to every word with intense interest.

"By Jing!" he exclaimed, "we have got a general. Caesar burnt his bridges
behind him, but Sherman burns his rails. Now tell me some more."

He helped me along by asking questions. Then I began to tell him how the
negroes had flocked into our camps, and how simply and plainly the
General had talked to them, advising them against violence of any kind,
and explaining to them that "Freedom" meant only the liberty to earn
their own living in their own way, and not freedom from work.

"We have got a general, sure enough," he cried. "He talks to them
plainly, does he, so that they understand? I say to you, Brice," he went
on earnestly, "the importance of plain talk can't be overestimated. Any
thought, however abstruse, can be put in speech that a boy or a negro can
grasp. Any book, however deep, can be written in terms that everybody can
comprehend, if a man only tries hard enough. When I was a boy I used to
hear the neighbors talking, and it bothered me so because I could not
understand them that I used to sit up half the night thinking things out
for myself. I remember that I did not know what the word demonstrate
meant. So I stopped my studies then and there and got a volume of Euclid.
Before I got through I could demonstrate everything in it, and I have
never been bothered with demonstrate since."

I thought of those wonderfully limpid speeches of his: of the Freeport
debates, and of the contrast between his style and Douglas's. And I
understood the reason for it at last. I understood the supreme mind that
had conceived the Freeport Question. And as I stood before him then, at
the close of this fearful war, the words of the Gospel were in my mind.
'So the last shall be first, and the first, last; for many be called, but
few chosen.'

How I wished that all those who have maligned and tortured him could talk
with him as I had talked with him. To know his great heart would disarm
them of all antagonism. They would feel, as I feel, that his life is so
much nobler than theirs, and his burdens so much heavier, that they would
go away ashamed of their criticism.

He said to me once, "Brice, I hope we are in sight of the end, now. I hope
that we may get through without any more fighting. I don't want to see
any more of our countrymen killed. And then," he said, as if talking to
himself, "and then we must show them mercy--mercy."

I thought it a good time to mention Colfax's case. He has been on my mind
ever since. Mr. Lincoln listened attentively. Once he sighed, and he was
winding his long fingers around each other while I talked.

"I saw the man captured, Mr. Lincoln," I concluded, "And if a
technicality will help him out, he was actually within his own skirmish
line at the time. The Rebel skirmishers had not fallen back on each side
of him."

"Brice," he said, with that sorrowful smile, "a technicality might save
Colfax, but it won't save me. Is this man a friend of yours?" he asked.

That was a poser.

"I think he is, Mr. Lincoln. I should like to call him so. I admire him."
And I went on to tell of what he had done at Vicksburg, leaving out,
however, my instrumentality in having him sent north. The President used
almost Sherman's words.

"By Jing!" he exclaimed. (That seems to be a favorite expression of his.)
"Those fellows were born to fight. If it wasn't for them, the South would
have quit long ago." Then he looked at me in his funny way, and said,
"See here, Steve, if this Colfax isn't exactly a friend of yours, there
must be some reason why you are pleading for him in this way."

"Well, sir," I said, at length, "I should like to get him off on account
of his cousin, Miss Virginia Carvel." And I told him something about Miss
Carvel, and how she had helped you with the Union sergeant that day in
the hot hospital. And how she had nursed Judge Whipple."

"She's a fine woman," he said. "Those women have helped those men to
prolong this war about three years.

"And yet we must save them for the nation's sake. They are to be the
mothers of our patriots in days to come. Is she a friend of yours, too,
Steve?"

What was I to say?

"Not especially, sir," I answered finally. I have had to offend her
rather often. But I know that she likes my mother."

"Why!" he cried, jumping up, "she's a daughter of Colonel Carvel. I
always had an admiration for that man. An ideal Southern gentleman of the
old school,--courteous, as honorable and open as the day, and as brave as
a lion. You've heard the story of how he threw a man named Babcock out of
his store, who tried to bribe him?"

"I heard you tell it in that tavern, sir. And I have heard it since." It
did me good to hear the Colonel praised.

"I always liked that story," he said. "By the way, what's become of the
Colonel?"

"He got away--South, sir," I answered. "He couldn't stand it. He hasn't
been heard of since the summer of '63. They think he was killed in Texas.
But they are not positive. They probably never will be," I added. He was
silent awhile.

"Too bad!" he said. "Too bad. What stuff those men are made of! And so
you want me to pardon this Colfax?"

"It would be presumptuous in me to go that far, sir," I replied. "But I
hoped you might speak of it to the General when he comes. And I would be
glad of the opportunity to testify."

He took a few strides up and down the room.

"Well, well," he said, "that's my vice--pardoning, saying yes. It's
always one more drink with me. It--" he smiled--"it makes me sleep
better. I've pardoned enough Rebels to populate New Orleans. Why," he
continued, with his whimsical look, "just before I left Washington, in
comes one of your Missouri senators with a list of Rebels who are shut up
in McDowell's and Alton. I said:-- "'Senator, you're not going to ask me
to turn loose all those at once?'

"He said just what you said when you were speaking of Missouri a while
ago, that he was afraid of guerilla warfare, and that the war was nearly
over. I signed 'em. And then what does he do but pull out another batch
longer than the first! And those were worse than the first.

"'What! you don't want me to turn these loose, too?'

"'Yes, I do, Mr. President. I think it will pay to be merciful.'

"'Then durned if I don't,' I said, and I signed 'em."

STEAMER "RIVER QUEEN."
ON THE POTOMAC, April 9, 1865.

DEAR MOTHER: I am glad that the telegrams I have been able to send
reached you safely. I have not had time to write, and this will be but a
short letter.

You will be surprised to see this heading. I am on the President's boat,
in the President's party, bound with him for Washington. And this is how
it happened: The very afternoon of the day I wrote you, General Sherman
himself arrived at City Point on the steamer 'Russia'. I heard the
salutes, and was on the wharf to meet him. That same afternoon he and
General Grant and Admiral Porter went aboard the River Queen to see the
President. How I should have liked to be present at that interview! After
it was over they all came out of the cabin together General Grant silent,
and smoking, as usual; General Sherman talking vivaciously; and Lincoln
and the Admiral smiling and listening. That was historic! I shall never
expect to see such a sight again in all my days. You can imagine my
surprise when the President called me from where I was standing at some
distance with the other officers. He put his hand on my shoulder then and
there, and turned to General Sherman.

"Major Brice is a friend of mine, General," he said. "I knew him in
Illinois."

"He never told me that," said the General.

"I guess he's got a great many important things shut up inside of him,"
said Mr. Lincoln, banteringly. "But he gave you a good recommendation,
Sherman. He said that you wore white socks, and that the boys liked you
and called you 'Uncle Billy.' And I told him that was the best
recommendation he could give anybody."

I was frightened. But the General only looked at me with those eyes that
go through everything, and then he laughed.

"Brice," he said, "You'll have my reputation ruined."

"Sherman," said Mr. Lincoln, "you don't want the Major right away, do
you? Let him stay around here for a while with me. I think he'll find it
interesting." He looked at the general-in-chief, who was smiling just a
little bit. "I've got a sneaking notion that Grant's going to do
something."

Then they all laughed.

"Certainly, Mr. Lincoln," said my General, "you may have Brice. Be
careful he doesn't talk you to death--he's said too much already."

That is how I came to stay.

I have no time now to tell you all that I have seen and heard. I have
ridden with the President, and have gone with him on errands of mercy and
errands of cheer. I have been almost within sight of what we hope is the
last struggle of this frightful war. I have listened to the guns of Five
Forks, where Sheridan and Warren bore their own colors in the front of
the charge, I was with Mr. Lincoln while the battle of Petersburg was
raging, and there were tears in his eyes.

Then came the retreat of Lee and the instant pursuit of Grant, and
--Richmond. The quiet General did not so much as turn aside to enter the
smoking city he had besieged for so long. But I went there, with the
President. And if I had one incident in my life to live over again, I
should choose this. As we were going up the river, a disabled steamer lay
across the passage in the obstruction of piles the Confederates had
built. Mr. Lincoln would not wait. There were but a few of us in his
party, and we stepped into Admiral Porter's twelve-oared barge and were
rowed to Richmond, the smoke of the fires still darkening the sky. We
landed within a block of Libby Prison.

With the little guard of ten sailors he marched the mile and a half to
General Weitzel's headquarters,--the presidential mansion of the
Confederacy. You can imagine our anxiety. I shall remember him always as
I saw him that day, a tall, black figure of sorrow, with the high silk
hat we have learned to love. Unafraid, his heart rent with pity, he
walked unharmed amid such tumult as I have rarely seen. The windows
filled, the streets ahead of us became choked, as the word that the
President was coming ran on like quick-fire. The mob shouted and pushed.
Drunken men reeled against him. The negroes wept aloud and cried
hosannas. They pressed upon him that they might touch the hem of his
coat, and one threw himself on his knees and kissed the President's feet.

Still he walked on unharmed, past the ashes and the ruins. Not as a
conqueror was he come, to march in triumph. Not to destroy, but to heal.
Though there were many times when we had to fight for a path through the
crowds, he did not seem to feel the danger.

Was it because he knew that his hour was not yet come?

To-day, on the boat, as we were steaming between the green shores of the
Potomac, I overheard him reading to Mr. Sumner:--

"Duncan is in his grave;
After life's fitful fever he sleeps well;
Treason has done his worst; nor steel, nor poison,
Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing,
Can touch him further."

WILLARD'S HOTEL, WASHINGTON, April 10, 1865.

I have looked up the passage, and have written it in above. It haunts me.




CHAPTER XV

MAN OF SORROW

The train was late--very late. It was Virginia who first caught sight of
the new dome of the Capitol through the slanting rain, but she merely
pressed her lips together and said nothing. In the dingy brick station of
the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad more than one person paused to look after
them, and a kind-hearted lady who had been in the car kissed the girl
good-by.

"You think that you can find your uncle's house, my dear?" she asked,
glancing at Virginia with concern. Through all of that long journey she
had worn a look apart. "Do you think you can find your uncle's house?"

Virginia started. And then she smiled as she looked at the honest, alert,
and squarely built gentleman beside her.

"Captain Brent can, Mrs. Ware," she said. "He can find anything."

Whereupon the kind lady gave the Captain her hand. "You look as if you
could, Captain," said she. "Remember, if General Carvel is out of town,
you promised to bring her to me."

"Yes, ma'am," said Captain Lige, "and so I shall."

"Kerridge, kerridge! Right dis-a-way! No sah, dat ain't de kerridge you
wants. Dat's it, lady, you'se lookin at it. Kerridge, kerridge,
kerridge!"

Virginia tried bravely to smile, but she was very near to tears as she
stood on the uneven pavement and looked at the scrawny horses standing
patiently in the steady downpour. All sorts of people were coming and
going, army officers and navy officers and citizens of states and
territories, driving up and driving away.

And this was Washington!

She was thinking then of the multitude who came here with aching hearts,
--with heavier hearts than was hers that day. How many of the throng
hurrying by would not flee, if they could, back to the peaceful homes
they had left? But perhaps those homes were gone now. Destroyed, like her
own, by the war. Women with children at their breasts, and mothers bowed
with sorrow, had sought this city in their agony. Young men and old had
come hither, striving to keep back the thoughts of dear ones left behind,
whom they might never see again. And by the thousands and tens of
thousands they had passed from here to the places of blood beyond.

"Kerridge, sah! Kerridge!"

"Do you know where General Daniel Carvel lives?"

"Yes, sah, reckon I does. I Street, sah. Jump right in, sah."

Virginia sank back on the stuffy cushions of the rattle-trap, and then
sat upright again and stared out of the window at the dismal scene. They
were splashing through a sea of mud. Ever since they had left St. Louis,
Captain Lige had done his best to cheer her, and he did not intend to
desist now.

"This beats all," he cried. "So this is Washington, Why, it don't compare
to St. Louis, except we haven't got the White House and the Capitol.
Jinny, it would take a scow to get across the street, and we don't have
ramshackly stores and nigger cabins bang up against fine Houses like
that. This is ragged. That's what it is, ragged. We don't have any dirty
pickaninnies dodging among the horses in our residence streets. I
declare, Jinny, if those aren't pigs!"

Virginia laughed. She could not help it.

"Poor Lige!" she said. "I hope Uncle Daniel has some breakfast for you.
You've had a good deal to put up with on this trip."

"Lordy, Jinny," said the Captain, "I'd put up with a good deal more than
this for the sake of going anywhere with you."

"Even to such a doleful place as this?" she sighed.

"This is all right, if the sun'll only come out and dry things up and let
us see the green on those trees," he said, "Lordy, how I do love to see
the spring green in the sunlight!"

She put out her hand over his.

"Lige," she said, "you know you're just trying to keep up my spirits.
You've been doing that ever since we left home."

"No such thing," he replied with vehemence. "There's nothing for you to
be cast down about."

"Oh, but there is!" she cried. "Suppose I can't make your Black
Republican President pardon Clarence!"

"Pooh!" said the Captain, squeezing her hand and trying to appear
unconcerned. "Your Uncle Daniel knows Mr. Lincoln. He'll have that
arranged."

Just then the rattletrap pulled up at the sidewalk, the wheels of the
near side in four inches of mud, and the Captain leaped out and spread
the umbrella. They were in front of a rather imposing house of brick,
flanked on one side by a house just like it, and on the other by a series
of dreary vacant lots where the rain had collected in pools. They climbed
the steps and rang the bell. In due time the door was opened by a smiling
yellow butler in black.

"Does General Carvel live here?"

"Yas, miss, But he ain't to home now. Done gone to New York."

"Oh," faltered Virginia. "Didn't he get my telegram day before yesterday?
I sent it to the War Department."

"He's done gone since Saturday, miss." And then, evidently impressed by
the young lady's looks, he added hospitably, "Kin I do anything fo' you,
miss?"

"I'm his niece, Miss Virginia Carvel, and this is Captain Brent."

The yellow butler's face lighted up.

"Come right in, Miss Jinny, Done heerd de General speak of you often
--yas'm. De General'll be to home dis a'ternoon, suah. 'Twill do him good
ter see you, Miss Jinny. He's been mighty lonesome. Walk right in, Cap'n,
and make yo'selves at home. Lizbeth--Lizbeth!"

A yellow maid came running down the stairs. "Heah's Miss Jinny."

"Lan' of goodness!" cried Lizbeth. "I knows Miss Jinny. Done seed her at
Calve't House. How is you, Miss Jinny?"

"Very well, Lizbeth," said Virginia, listlessly sitting down on the hall
sofa. "Can you give us some breakfast?"

"Yas'm," said Lizbeth, "jes' reckon we kin." She ushered them into a
walnut dining room, big and high and sombre, with plush-bottomed chairs
placed about--walnut also; for that was the fashion in those days. But
the Captain had no sooner seated himself than he shot up again and
started out.

"Where are you going, Lige?"

"To pay off the carriage driver," he said.

"Let him wait," said Virginia. "I'm going to the White House in a little
while."

"What--what for?" he gasped.

"To see your Black Republican President," she replied, with alarming
calmness.

"Now, Jinny," he cried, in excited appeal, "don't go doin' any such fool
trick as that. Your Uncle Dan'l will be here this afternoon. He knows the
President. And then the thing'll be fixed all right, and no mistake."

Her reply was in the same tone--almost a monotone--which she had used for
three days. It made the Captain very uneasy, for he knew when she spoke
in that way that her will was in it.

"And to lose that time," she answered, "may be to have him shot."

"But you can't get to the President without credentials," he objected.

"What," she flashed, "hasn't any one a right to see the President? You
mean to say that he will not see a woman in trouble? Then all these
pretty stories I hear of him are false. They are made up by the Yankees."

Poor Captain Lige! He had some notion of the multitude of calls upon Mr.
Lincoln, especially at that time. But he could not, he dared not, remind
her of the principal reason for this,--Lee's surrender and the
approaching end of the war. And then the Captain had never seen Mr.
Lincoln. In the distant valley of the Mississippi he had only heard of
the President very conflicting things. He had heard him criticised and
reviled and praised, just as is every man who goes to the White House, be
he saint or sinner. And, during an administration, no man at a distance
may come at a President's true character and worth. The Captain had seen
Lincoln caricatured vilely. And again he had read and heard the pleasant
anecdotes of which Virginia had spoken, until he did not know what to
believe.

As for Virginia, he knew her partisanship to, and undying love for, the
South; he knew the class prejudice which was bound to assert itself, and
he had seen enough in the girl's demeanor to fear that she was going to
demand rather than implore. She did not come of a race that was wont to
bend the knee.

"Well, well," he said despairingly, "you must eat some breakfast first,
Jinny."

She waited with an ominous calmness until it was brought in, and then she
took a part of a roll and some coffee.

"This won't do," exclaimed the Captain. "Why, why, that won't get you
halfway to Mr. Lincoln."

She shook her head, half smiling.

"You must eat enough, Lige," she said.

He was finished in an incredibly short time, and amid the protestations
of Lizbeth and the yellow butler they got into the carriage again, and
splashed and rattled toward the White House. Once Virginia glanced out,
and catching sight of the bedraggled flags on the houses in honor of
Lee's surrender, a look of pain crossed her face. The Captain could not
repress a note of warning.

"Jinny," said he, "I have an idea that you'll find the President a good
deal of a man. Now if you're allowed to see him, don't get him mad,
Jinny, whatever you do."

Virginia stared straight ahead.

"If he is something of a man, Lige, he will not lose his temper with a
woman."

Captain Lige subsided. And just then they came in sight of the house of
the Presidents, with its beautiful portico and its broad wings. And they
turned in under the dripping trees of the grounds. A carriage with a
black coachman and footman was ahead of them, and they saw two stately
gentlemen descend from it and pass the guard at the door. Then their turn
came. The Captain helped her out in his best manner, and gave some money
to the driver.

"I reckon he needn't wait for us this time, Jinny," said be. She shook
her head and went in, he following, and they were directed to the
anteroom of the President's office on the second floor. There were many
people in the corridors, and one or two young officers in blue who stared
at her. She passed them with her head high.

But her spirits sank when they came to the anteroom. It was full of all
sorts of people. Politicians, both prosperous and seedy, full faced and
keen faced, seeking office; women, officers, and a one-armed soldier
sitting in the corner. He was among the men who offered Virginia their
seats, and the only one whom she thanked. But she walked directly to the
doorkeeper at the end of the room. Captain Lige was beside her.

"Can we see the President?" he asked.

"Have you got an appointment?" said the old man.

"No."

"Then you'll have to wait your turn, sir," he said, shaking his head and
looking at Virginia. And he added. "It's slow work waiting your turn,
there's so many governors and generals and senators, although the
session's over. It's a busy time, miss."

Virginia went very close to him.

"Oh, can't you do something?" she said. And added, with an inspiration,
"I must see him. It's a matter of life and death."

She saw instantly, with a woman's instinct, that these words had had
their effect. The old man glanced at her again, as if demurring.

"You're sure, miss, it's life and death?" he said.

"Oh, why should I say so if it were not?" she cried.

"The orders are very strict," he said. "But the President told me to give
precedence to cases when a life is in question. Just you wait a minute,
miss, until Governor Doddridge comes out, and I'll see what I can do for
you. Give me your name, please, miss."

She remained standing where she was. In a little while the heavy door
opened, and a portly, rubicund man came out with a smile on his face. He
broke into a laugh, when halfway across the room, as if the memory of
what he had heard were too much for his gravity. The doorkeeper slipped
into the room, and there was a silent, anxious interval. Then he came out
again.

"The President will see you, miss."

Captain Lige started forward with her, but she restrained him.

"Wait for me here, Lige," she said.

She swept in alone, and the door closed softly after her. The room was a
big one, and there were maps on the table, with pins sticking in them.
She saw that much, and then--!

Could this fantastically tall, stooping figure before her be that of the
President of the United States? She stopped, as from the shock he gave
her. The lean, yellow face with the mask-like lines all up and down, the
unkempt, tousled hair, the beard--why, he was a hundred times more
ridiculous than his caricatures. He might have stood for many of the poor
white trash farmers she had seen in Kentucky--save for the long black
coat.

"Is--is this Mr. Lincoln?" she asked, her breath taken away.

He bowed and smiled down at her. Somehow that smile changed his face a
little.

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