Book: The Crisis, Volume 6

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THE CRISIS

By Winston Churchill

BOOK III


Volume 6.



CHAPTER I

INTRODUCING A CAPITALIST

A cordon of blue regiments surrounded the city at first from Carondelet
to North St. Louis, like an open fan. The crowds liked best to go to
Compton Heights, where the tents of the German citizen-soldiers were
spread out like so many slices of white cake on the green beside the
city's reservoir. Thence the eye stretched across the town, catching the
dome of the Court House and the spire of St. John's. Away to the west, on
the line of the Pacific railroad that led halfway across the state, was
another camp. Then another, and another, on the circle of the fan, until
the river was reached to the northward, far above the bend. Within was a
peace that passed understanding,--the peace of martial law.

Without the city, in the great state beyond, an irate governor had
gathered his forces from the east and from the west. Letters came and
went between Jefferson City and Jefferson Davis, their purport being that
the Governor was to work out his own salvation, for a while at least.
Young men of St. Louis, struck in a night by the fever of militarism,
arose and went to Glencoe. Prying sergeants and commissioned officers,
mostly of hated German extraction, thundered at the door of Colonel
Carvel's house, and other houses, there--for Glencoe was a border town.
They searched the place more than once from garret to cellar, muttered
guttural oaths, and smelled of beer and sauerkraut, The haughty
appearance of Miss Carvel did not awe them--they were blind to all manly
sensations. The Colonel's house, alas, was one of many in Glencoe written
down in red ink in a book at headquarters as a place toward which the
feet of the young men strayed. Good evidence was handed in time and time
again that the young men had come and gone, and red-faced commanding
officers cursed indignant subalterns, and implied that Beauty had had a
hand in it. Councils of war were held over the advisability of seizing
Mr. Carvel's house at Glencoe, but proof was lacking until one rainy
night in June a captain and ten men spurred up the drive and swung into a
big circle around the house. The Captain took off his cavalry gauntlet
and knocked at the door, more gently than usual. Miss Virginia was home
so Jackson said. The Captain was given an audience more formal than one
with the queen of Prussia could have been, Miss Carvel was infinitely
more haughty than her Majesty. Was not the Captain hired to do a
degrading service? Indeed, he thought so as he followed her about the
house and he felt like the lowest of criminals as he opened a closet door
or looked under a bed. He was a beast of the field, of the mire. How
Virginia shrank from him if he had occasion to pass her! Her gown would
have been defiled by his touch. And yet the Captain did not smell of
beer, nor of sauerkraut; nor did he swear in any language. He did his
duty apologetically, but he did it. He pulled a man (aged seventeen) out
from under a great hoop skirt in a little closet, and the man had a
pistol that refused its duty when snapped in the Captain's face. This was
little Spencer Catherwood, just home from a military academy.

Spencer was taken through the rain by the chagrined Captain to the
headquarters, where he caused a little embarrassment. No damning evidence
was discovered on his person, for the pistol had long since ceased to be
a firearm. And so after a stiff lecture from the Colonel he was finally
given back into the custody of his father. Despite the pickets, the young
men filtered through daily,--or rather nightly. Presently some of them
began to come back, gaunt and worn and tattered, among the grim cargoes
that were landed by the thousands and tens of thousands on the levee. And
they took them (oh, the pity of it!) they took them to Mr. Lynch's slave
pen, turned into a Union prison of detention, where their fathers and
grandfathers had been wont to send their disorderly and insubordinate
niggers. They were packed away, as the miserable slaves had been, to
taste something of the bitterness of the negro's lot. So came Bert
Russell to welter in a low room whose walls gave out the stench of years.
How you cooked for them, and schemed for them, and cried for them, you
devoted women of the South! You spent the long hot summer in town, and
every day you went with your baskets to Gratiot Street, where the
infected old house stands, until--until one morning a lady walked out
past the guard, and down the street. She was civilly detained at the
corner, because she wore army boots. After that permits were issued. If
you were a young lady of the proper principles in those days, you climbed
a steep pair of stairs in the heat, and stood in line until it became
your turn to be catechised by an indifferent young officer in blue who
sat behind a table and smoked a horrid cigar. He had little time to be
courteous. He was not to be dazzled by a bright gown or a pretty face; he
was indifferent to a smile which would have won a savage. His duty was to
look down into your heart, and extract therefrom the nefarious scheme you
had made to set free the man you loved ere he could be sent north to
Alton or Columbus. My dear, you wish to rescue him, to disguise him, send
him south by way of Colonel Carvel's house at Glencoe. Then he will be
killed. At least, he will have died for the South.

First politics, and then war, and then more politics, in this our
country. Your masterful politician obtains a regiment, and goes to war,
sword in hand. He fights well, but he is still the politician. It was not
a case merely of fighting for the Union, but first of getting permission
to fight. Camp Jackson taken, and the prisoners exchanged south, Captain
Lyon; who moved like a whirlwind, who loved the Union beyond his own
life, was thrust down again. A mutual agreement was entered into between
the Governor and the old Indian fighter in command of the Western
Department, to respect each other. A trick for the Rebels. How Lyon
chafed, and paced the Arsenal walks while he might have saved the state.
Then two gentlemen went to Washington, and the next thing that happened
was Brigadier General Lyon, Commander of the Department of the West.

Would General Lyon confer with the Governor of Missouri? Yes, the General
would give the Governor a safe-conduct into St. Louis, but his Excellency
must come to the General. His Excellency came, and the General deigned to
go with the Union leader to the Planters House. Conference, five hours;
result, a safe-conduct for the Governor back. And this is how General
Lyon ended the talk. His words, generously preserved by a Confederate
colonel who accompanied his Excellency, deserve to be writ in gold on the
National Annals.

"Rather than concede to the state of Missouri the right to demand that my
Government shall not enlist troops within her limits, or bring troops
into the state whenever it pleases; or move its troops at its own will
into, out of, or through, the state; rather than concede to the state of
Missouri for one single instant the right to dictate to my Government in
any matter, however unimportant, I would" (rising and pointing in turn to
every one in the room) "see you, and you, and you, and you, and every
man, woman, and child in this state, dead and buried." Then, turning to
the Governor, he continued, "This means war. In an hour one of my
officers will call for you and conduct you out of my lines."

And thus, without another word, without an inclination of the head, he
turned upon his heel and strode out of the room, rattling his spurs and
clanking his sabre.

It did mean war. In less than two months that indomitable leader was
lying dead beside Wilson's Creek, among the oaks on Bloody Hill. What he
would have been to this Union, had God spared him, we shall never know.
He saved Missouri, and won respect and love from the brave men who fought
against him.

Those first fierce battles in the state! What prayers rose to heaven, and
curses sank to hell, when the news of them came to the city by the river!
Flags were made by loving fingers, and shirts and bandages. Trembling
young ladies of Union sympathies presented colors to regiments on the
Arsenal Green, or at Jefferson Barracks, or at Camp Benton to the
northwest near the Fair Grounds. And then the regiments marched through
the streets with bands playing that march to which the words of the
Battle Hymn were set, and those bright ensigns snapping at the front;
bright now, and new, and crimson. But soon to be stained a darker red,
and rent into tatters, and finally brought back and talked over and cried
over, and tenderly laid above an inscription in a glass case, to be
revered by generations of Americans to confer What can stir the soul more
than the sight of those old flags, standing in ranks like the veterans
they are, whose duty has been nobly done? The blood of the color-sergeant
is there, black now with age. But where are the tears of the sad women
who stitched the red and the white and the blue together?

The regiments marched through the streets and aboard the boats, and
pushed off before a levee of waving handkerchiefs and nags. Then
heart-breaking suspense. Later--much later, black headlines, and grim
lists three columns long,--three columns of a blanket sheet! "The City of
Alton has arrived with the following Union dead and wounded, and the
following Confederate wounded (prisoners)." Why does the type run
together?

In a never-ceasing procession they steamed up the river; those calm boats
which had been wont to carry the white cargoes of Commerce now bearing
the red cargoes of war. And they bore away to new battlefields thousands
of fresh-faced boys from Wisconsin and Michigan and Minnesota, gathered
at Camp Benton. Some came back with their color gone and their red cheeks
sallow and bearded and sunken. Others came not back at all.

Stephen Brice, with a pain over his heart and a lump in his throat,
walked on the pavement beside his old company, but his look avoided their
faces. He wrung Richter's hand on the landing-stage. Richter was now a
captain. The good German's eyes were filled as he said good-by.

"You will come, too, my friend, when the country needs you," he said.
"Now" (and he shrugged his shoulders), "now have we many with no cares to
go. I have not even a father--" And he turned to Judge Whipple, who was
standing by, holding out a bony hand.

"God bless you, Carl," said the Judge And Carl could scarce believe his
ears. He got aboard the boat, her decks already blue with troops, and as
she backed out with her whistle screaming, the last objects he saw were
the gaunt old man and the broad-shouldered young man side by side on the
edge of the landing.

Stephen's chest heaved, and as he walked back to the office with the
Judge, he could not trust himself to speak. Back to the silent office
where the shelves mocked them. The Judge closed the ground-glass door
behind him, and Stephen sat until five o'clock over a book. No, it was
not Whittlesey, but Hardee's "Tactics." He shut it with a slam, and went
to Verandah Hall to drill recruits on a dusty floor,--narrow-chested
citizens in suspenders, who knew not the first motion in right about
face. For Stephen was an adjutant in the Home Guards--what was left of
them.

One we know of regarded the going of the troops and the coming of the
wounded with an equanimity truly philosophical. When the regiments passed
Carvel & Company on their way riverward to embark, Mr. Hopper did not
often take the trouble to rise from his chair, nor was he ever known to
go to the door to bid them Godspeed. This was all very well, because they
were Union regiments. But Mr. Hopper did not contribute a horse, nor even
a saddle-blanket, to the young men who went away secretly in the night,
without fathers or mothers or sisters to wave at them. Mr. Hopper had
better use for his money.

One scorching afternoon in July Colonel Carvel came into the office, too
hurried to remark the pain in honest Ephum's face as he watched his
master. The sure signs of a harassed man were on the Colonel. Since May
he had neglected his business affairs for others which he deemed public,
and which were so mysterious that even Mr. Hopper could not get wind of
them. These matters had taken the Colonel out of town. But now the
necessity of a pass made that awkward, and he went no farther than
Glencoe, where he spent an occasional Sunday. Today Mr. Hopper rose from
his chair when Mr. Carvel entered,--a most unprecedented action. The
Colonel cleared his throat. Sitting down at his desk, he drummed upon it
uneasily.

"Mr. Hopper!" he said at length.

Eliphalet crossed the room quickly, and something that was very near a
smile was on his face. He sat down close to Mr. Carvel's chair with a
semi-confidential air,--one wholly new, had the Colonel given it a
thought. He did not, but began to finger some printed slips of paper
which had indorsements on their backs. His fine lips were tightly closed,
as if in pain.

"Mr. Hopper," he said, "these Eastern notes are due this week, are they
not?"

"Yes, sir."

The Colonel glanced up swiftly.

"There is no use mincing matters, Hopper. You know as well as I that
there is no money to pay them," said he, with a certain pompous attempt
at severity which characterized his kind nature. "You have served me
well. You have brought this business up to a modern footing, and made it
as prosperous as any in the town. I am sorry, sir, that those
contemptible Yankees should have forced us to the use of arms, and cut
short many promising business careers such as yours, sir. But we have to
face the music. We have to suffer for our principles.

"These notes cannot be met, Mr. Hopper." And the good gentleman looked
out of the window. He was thinking of a day, before the Mexican War, when
his young wife had sat in the very chair filled by Mr. Hopper now. "These
notes cannot be met," he repeated, and his voice was near to breaking.

The flies droning in the hot office made the only sound. Outside the
partition, among the bales, was silence.

"Colonel," said Mr. Hopper, with a remarkable ease, "I cal'late these
notes can be met."

The Colonel jumped as if he had heard a shot, and one of the notes fell
to the floor. Eliphalet picked it up tenderly, and held it.

"What do you mean, sir?" Mr. Carvel cried. "There isn't a bank in town
that will lend me money. I--I haven't a friend--a friend I may ask who
can spare it, sir."

Mr. Hopper lifted up his hand. It was a fat hand. Suavity was come upon
it like a new glove and changed the man. He was no longer cringing. Now
he had poise, such poise as we in these days are accustomed to see in
leather and mahogany offices. The Colonel glared at him uncomfortably.

"I will take up those notes myself, sir."

"You!" cried the Colonel, incredulously, "You?"

We must do Eliphalet justice. There was not a deal of hypocrisy in his
nature, and now he did not attempt the part of Samaritan. He did not beam
upon the Colonel and remind him of the day on which, homeless and
friendless, he had been frightened into his store by a drove of mules.
No. But his day,--the day toward which he had striven unknown and
unnoticed for so many years--the day when he would laugh at the pride of
those who had ignored and insulted him, was dawning at last. When we are
thoughtless of our words, we do not reckon with that spark in little
bosoms that may burst into flame and burn us. Not that Colonel Carvel had
ever been aught but courteous and kind to all. His station in life had
been his offence to Eliphalet, who strove now to hide an exultation that
made him tremble.

"What do you mean, sir?" demanded the Colonel, again.

"I cal'late that I can gather together enough to meet the notes, Colonel.
Just a little friendly transaction." Here followed an interval of sheer
astonishment to Mr. Carvel.

"You have this money?" he said at length. Mr. Hopper nodded.

"And you will take my note for the amount?"

"Yes, sir."

The Colonel pulled his goatee, and sat back in his chair, trying to face
the new light in which he saw his manager. He knew well enough that the
man was not doing this out of charity, or even gratitude. He reviewed his
whole career, from that first morning when he had carried bales to the
shipping room, to his replacement of Mr. Hood, and there was nothing with
which to accuse him. He remembered the warnings of Captain Lige and
Virginia. He could not in honor ask a cent from the Captain now. He would
not ask his sister-in-law, Mrs. Colfax, to let him touch the money he had
so ably invested for her; that little which Virginia's mother had left
the girl was sacred.

Night after night Mr. Carvel had lain awake with the agony of those
Eastern debts. Not to pay was to tarnish the name of a Southern
gentleman. He could not sell the business. His house would bring nothing
in these times. He rose and began to pace the floor, tugging at his chin.
Twice he paused to stare at Mr. Hopper, who sat calmly on, and the third
time stopped abruptly before him.

"See here," he cried. "Where the devil did you get this money, sir?"

Mr. Hopper did not rise.

"I haven't been extravagant, Colonel, since I've worked for you," he
said. "It don't cost me much to live. I've been fortunate in
investments."

The furrows in the Colonel's brow deepened.

"You offer to lend me five times more than I have ever paid you, Mr.
Hopper. Tell me how you have made this money before I accept it."

Eliphalet had never been able to meet that eye since he had known it. He
did not meet it now. But he went to his desk, and drew a long sheet of
paper from a pigeonhole.

"These be some of my investments," he answered, with just a tinge of
surliness. "I cal'late they'll stand inspection. I ain't forcing you to
take the money, sir," he flared up, all at once. "I'd like to save the
business."

Mr. Carvel was disarmed. He went unsteadily to his desk, and none save
God knew the shock that his pride received that day. To rescue a name
which had stood untarnished since he had brought it into the world, he
drew forth some blank notes, and filled them out. But before he signed
them he spoke:

"You are a business man, Mr. Hopper," said he, "And as a business man you
must know that these notes will not legally hold. It is martial law. The
courts are abolished, and all transactions here in St. Louis are
invalid."

Eliphalet was about to speak.

"One moment, sir," cried the Colonel, standing up and towering to his
full height. "Law or no law, you shall have the money and interest, or
your security, which is this business. I need not tell you, sir, that my
word is sacred, and binding forever upon me and mine."

"I'm not afraid, Colonel," answered Mr. Hopper, with a feeble attempt at
geniality. He was, in truth, awed at last.

"You need not be, sir!" said the Colonel, with equal force. "If you were
--this instant you should leave this place." He sat down, and continued
more calmly: "It will not be long before a Southern Army marches into St.
Louis, and the Yankee Government submits." He leaned forward. "Do you
reckon we can hold the business together until then, Mr. Hopper?"

God forbid that we should smile at the Colonel's simple faith. And if
Eliphalet Hopper had done so, his history would have ended here.

"Leave that to me, Colonel," he said soberly.

Then came the reaction. The good Colonel sighed as he signed, away that
business which had been an honor to the, city where it was founded, I
thank heaven that we are not concerned with the details of their talk
that day. Why should we wish to know the rate of interest on those notes,
or the time? It was war-time.

Mr. Hopper filled out his check, and presently departed. It was the
signal for the little force which remained to leave. Outside, in the
store; Ephum paced uneasily, wondering why his master did not come out.
Presently he crept to the door of the office, pushed it open, and beheld
Mr. Carvel with his head bowed, down in his hands.

"Marse Comyn!" he cried, "Marse Comyn!"

The Colonel looked up. His face was haggard.

"Marse Comyn, you know what I done promise young MISS long time ago,
befo'--befo' she done left us?"

"Yes, Ephum."

He saw the faithful old negro but dimly. Faintly he heard the pleading
voice.

"Marse Comyn, won' you give Ephum a pass down, river, ter fotch Cap'n
Lige?"

"Ephum," said the Colonel, sadly, "I had a letter from the Captain
yesterday. He is at Cairo. His boat is a Federal transport, and he is in
Yankee pay."

Ephum took a step forward, appealingly, "But de Cap'n's yo' friend, Marse
Comyn. He ain't never fo'get what you done fo' him, Marse Comyn. He ain't
in de army, suh."

"And I am the Captain's friend, Ephum," answered the Colonel, quietly.
"But I will not ask aid from any man employed by the Yankee Government.
No--not from my own brother, who is in a Pennsylvania regiments."

Ephum shuffled out, and his heart was lead as he closed the store that
night.

Mr. Hopper has boarded a Fifth Street car, which jangles on with many
halts until it comes to Bremen, a German settlement in the north of the
city. At Bremen great droves of mules fill the street, and crowd the
entrances of the sale stables there. Whips are cracking like pistol
shots, Gentlemen with the yellow cavalry stripe of the United States Army
are pushing to and fro among the drivers and the owners, and fingering
the frightened animals. A herd breaks from the confusion and is driven
like a whirlwind down the street, dividing at the Market House. They are
going to board the Government transport--to die on the battlefields of
Kentucky and Missouri.

Mr. Hopper alights from the car with complacency. He stands for a while
on a corner, against the hot building, surveying the busy scene,
unnoticed. Mules! Was it not a prophecy,--that drove which sent him into
Mr. Carvel's store?

Presently a man with a gnawed yellow mustache and a shifty eye walks out
of one of the offices, and perceives our friend.

"Howdy, Mr. Hopper?" says he.

Eliphalet extends a hand to be squeezed and returned. "Got them
vouchers?" he asks. He is less careful of his English here.

"Wal, I jest reckon," is the answer: The fellow was interrupted by the
appearance of a smart young man in a smart uniform, who wore an air of
genteel importance. He could not have been more than two and twenty, and
his face and manners were those of a clerk. The tan of field service was
lacking on his cheek, and he was black under the eyes.

"Hullo, Ford," he said, jocularly.

"Howdy, Cap," retorted the other. "Wal, suh, that last lot was an extry,
fo' sure. As clean a lot as ever I seed. Not a lump on 'em. Gov'ment
ain't cheated much on them there at one-eighty a head, I reckon."

Mr. Ford said this with such an air of conviction and such a sober face
that the Captain smiled. And at the same time he glanced down nervously
at the new line of buttons on his chest.

"I guess I know a mule from a Newfoundland dog by this time," said he.

"Wal, I jest reckon," asserted Mr. Ford, with a loud laugh. "Cap'n
Wentworth, allow me to make you acquainted with Mr. Hopper. Mr. Hopper,
Cap'n Wentworth."

The Captain squeezed Mr. Hoppers hand with fervor. "You interested in
mules, Mr. Hopper?" asked the military man.

"I don't cal'late to be," said. Mr. Hopper. Let us hope that our worthy
has not been presented as being wholly without a sense of humor. He
grinned as he looked upon this lamb in the uniform of Mars, and added,
"I'm just naturally patriotic, I guess. Cap'n, 'll you have a drink?"

"And a segar," added Mr. Ford.

"Just one," says the Captain. "It's d--d tiresome lookin' at mules all
day in the sun."

Well for Mr. Davitt that his mission work does not extend to Bremen, that
the good man's charity keeps him at the improvised hospital down town.
Mr. Hopper has resigned the superintendency of his Sunday School, it is
true, but he is still a pillar of the church.

The young officer leans against the bar, and listens to stories by Mr.
Ford, which it behooves no church members to hear. He smokes Mr. Hopper's
cigar and drinks his whiskey. And Eliphalet understands that the good
Lord put some fools into the world in order to give the smart people a
chance to practise their talents. Mr. Hopper neither drinks nor smokes,
but he uses the spittoon with more freedom in this atmosphere.

When at length the Captain has marched out, with a conscious but manly
air, Mr. Hopper turns to Ford-- "Don't lose no time in presenting them
vouchers at headquarters," says he. "Money is worth something now. And
there's grumbling about this Department in the Eastern papers, If we have
an investigation, we'll whistle. How much to-day?"

"Three thousand," says Mr. Ford. He tosses off a pony of Bourbon, but his
face is not a delight to look upon, "Hopper, you'll be a d--d rich man
some day."

"I cal'late to."

"I do the dirty work. And because I ain't got no capital, I only get four
per cent."

"Don't one-twenty a day suit you?"

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