Before the Dawn: A Story of the Fall of Richmond

"And scared the negro's mule half to death," added Raymond.

"But in your cause, Mrs. Markham, I couldn't miss," replied the gallant Winthrop, not at all daunted.

The waffles were brought in hot from the kitchen and eaten with the coffee. After the refreshments the company began to play "forfeit essay." Two hats were handed around, all drawing a question from one hat and a word from the other. It became the duty of every one to connect question and word by a poem, essay, song or tale in time to be recited at the next meeting. Then they heard the results of the last meeting.

"That's Innes Randolph standing up there in the corner and getting ready to recite," said Talbot to Prescott. "He's one of the cleverest men in the South and we ought to have something good. He's just drawn from one hat the words 'Daddy Longlegs' and from the other 'What sort of shoe was made on the last of the Mohicans?' He says he doesn't ask to wait until the next meeting, but he'll connect them extempore. Now we'll see what he has made out of them."

Randolph bowed to the company with mock humility, folded his hands across his breast and recited:

 
"Old Daddy Longlegs was a sinner hoary,
And punished for his wickedness according to the story;
Between him and the Indian shoes the likeness doth come in,
One made a mock o' virtue and one a moccasin."
 

He was interrupted by the entrance of a quiet little man, modestly clad in a civilian's suit of dark cloth.

"Mr. Sefton," said some one, and immediately there was a halt in the talk, followed by a hush of expectation. Prescott noticed with interest that the company looked uncomfortable. The effect that Mr. Sefton produced upon all was precisely the same as that which he had experienced when with the Secretary.

Mr. Sefton was not abashed. He hurried up to the hostess and said:

"I hope I am not intrusive, Mrs. Markham, but I owed you a call, and I did not know that your little club was in session. I shall go in a few minutes."

Mrs. Markham pressed him to stay and become one of them for the evening, and her manner had every appearance of warmth.

"She believes he came to spy upon us," said Raymond, "and I am not sure myself that he didn't. He knew well enough the club was meeting here to-night."

But the Secretary quickly lulled the feelings of doubt that existed in the minds of the members of the Mosaic Club. He yielded readily to the invitation of Mrs. Markham and then exerted himself to please, showing a facile grace in manner and speech that soon made him a welcome guest. He quickly drifted to the side of Miss Harley, and talked so well from the rich store of his experience and knowledge that her ear was more for him than for any other.

"Is Mr. Sefton a bachelor?" asked Prescott of Winthrop.

Winthrop looked at the young Captain and laughed.

"Are you, too, hit?" Winthrop asked. "You need not flush, man; I have proposed to her myself three times and I've been rejected as often. I expect to repeat the unhappy experience, as I am growing somewhat used to it now and can stand it."

"But you have not answered my question: is the Secretary married?"

"Unfortunately, he is not."

There was an adjoining room to which the men were permitted to retire for a smoke if the spirit moved them, and when Prescott entered it for the first time he found it already filled, General Markham himself presiding. The General was a middle-aged man, heavy and slow of speech, who usually found the talk of the Mosaic Club too nimble for his wits and began his devotions to tobacco at an early hour.

"Have a cigar, Prescott," he said, holding up a box.

"That looks like a Havana label on the box," replied Prescott. "Are they genuine?"

"They ought to be genuine Havanas," replied the General. "They cost me five dollars apiece."

"Confederate money," added a colonel, Stormont; "and you'll be lucky if you get 'em next year for ten dollars apiece."

Colonel Stormont's eyes followed Prescott's round the room and he laughed.

"Yes, Captain Prescott," he said, "we are a somewhat peculiar company. There are now fourteen men in this room, but we can muster among us only twenty-one arms and twenty-four legs. It's a sort of general assembly, and I suppose we ought to send out a sergeant-at-arms for the missing members."

The Colonel touched his own empty left sleeve and added: "But, thank God, I've got my right arm yet, and it's still at the service of the Confederacy."

The Member of Congress, Redfield, came into the room at this moment and lighted a pipe, remarking:

"There will be no Confederacy, Colonel, unless Lee moves out and attacks the enemy."

He said this in a belligerent manner, his eyes half closed and his chin thrust forward as he puffed at his pipe.

An indignant flush swept over the veteran's face.

"Is this just a case of thumbs up and thumbs down?" he asked. "Is the Government to have a victory whenever it asks for it, merely because it does ask for it?"

Redfield still puffed slowly and deliberately at his pipe, and did not lower his chin a fraction from its aggravating height.

"General Lee overestimates the enemy," he said, "and has communicated the same tendency to all his men. It's a fatal mistake in war; it's a fatal mistake, I tell you, sir. The Yankees fight poorly."

The flush on the face of the Confederate colonel deepened. He tapped his empty sleeve and looked around at what he called the "missing members."

"You are in Congress, Mr. Redfield," he said, "and you have not seen the Yankees in battle. Only those who have not met them on the field say they cannot fight."

"I warn you that I am going to speak in Congress on the inaction of Lee and the general sloth of the military arm!" exclaimed Redfield.

"But, Mr. Redfield," said Prescott, seeking to soothe the Colonel and to still the troubled waters, "we are outnumbered by the enemy in our front at least two to one, we are half starved, and in addition our arms and equipment are much inferior to those of the Yankees."

Here Redfield burst into a passion. He thought it a monstrous shame, he said, that any subaltern should talk at will about the Southern Government, whether its military or civil arm.

Prescott flushed deeply, but he hesitated for an answer. His was not a hot Southern temper, nor did he wish to have a quarrel in a club at which he was only a guest. While he sought the right words, Winthrop spoke for him.

"I think, Mr. Redfield," said the editor, "that criticism of the Government is wholly right and proper. Moreover, not enough of it is done."

"You should be careful, Mr. Winthrop, how far you go," replied Redfield, "or you may find your printing presses destroyed and yourself in prison."

"Which would prove that instead of fighting for freedom we are fighting for despotism. But I am not afraid," rejoined the editor. "Moreover, Mr. Redfield, besides telling you my opinion of you here, I am also perfectly willing to print it in my paper. I shall answer for all that I say or write."

Raymond was sitting at a table listening, and when Winthrop finished these words, spoken with much fire and heat, he took out a note-book and regarded it gravely.

"Which would make, according to my entry here—if Mr. Redfield chooses to challenge—your ninth duel for the present season," he said.

There was an equivocal smile on the face of nearly every one present as they looked at the Member of Congress and awaited his reply. What that would have been they never knew, because just at that moment entered Mr. Sefton, breathing peace and good will. He had heard the last words, but he chose to view them in a humourous light. He pooh-poohed such folly as the rash impulses of young men. He was sure that his friend Redfield had not meant to cast any slur upon the army, and he was equally sure that Winthrop, whose action was right-minded were his point of view correct, was mistaken as to the marrow of Redfield's speech.

The Secretary had a peculiarly persuasive power which quickly exerted its influence upon Winthrop, Stormont and all the others. Winthrop was good-natured, avowing that he had no cause of quarrel with anybody if nobody had any with him, and Redfield showed clearly his relief. It seemed to Prescott that the Member of Congress had gone further than he intended.

No breath of these stormy airs was allowed to blow from the smoking-room upon the ladies, and when Prescott presently rejoined them he found vivacity and gaiety still prevalent. Prescott's gaze dwelt longest on Miss Harley, who was talking to the Secretary. He noted again the look of admiration in the eyes of Mr. Sefton, and that feeling of jealousy which he would not have recognized had it not been for Talbot's half-jesting words returned to him. He would not deny to himself now that Helen Harley attracted him with singular force. There was about her an elusive charm; perhaps it was the slight trace of foreign look and manner that added to her Southern beauty a new and piquant grace.

Mr. Sefton was talking in smooth, liquid tones, and the others had drawn back a little in deference to the all-powerful official, while the girl was pleased, too. She showed it in her slightly parted lips, her vivid eyes and the keen attention with which she listened to all that he said.

Mrs. Markham followed Prescott's look. An ironical smile trembled for a moment on her lips. Then she said:

"The Secretary, the astute Mr. Sefton, is in love."

She watched Prescott keenly to notice the effect upon him of what she said, but he commanded his countenance and replied with a pretense of indifference:

"I think so, too, and I give him the credit of showing extremely good taste."

Mrs. Markham said no more upon the subject, and presently Prescott asked of Miss Harley the privilege of taking her home when the club adjourned, after the universal custom among the young in Southern towns.

"My shoulder is a little lame yet, but I am sure that I shall guard you safely through the streets if you will only let me try," he added gallantly.

"I shall be pleased to have you go," she replied.

"I would lend you my carriage and horses," said Mrs. Markham, who stood by, "but two of my horses were killed in front of an artillery wagon at Antietam, another fell valourously and in like manner at Gettysburg, and the fourth is still in service at the front. I am afraid I have none left, but at any rate you are welcome to the carriage."

Prescott laughingly thanked her but declined. The Secretary approached at that moment and asked Miss Harley if he might see her home.

"I have just accepted Captain Prescott's escort, but I thank you for the honour, Mr. Sefton," she replied.

Mr. Sefton flashed Prescott a single look, a look that the young Captain did not like; but it was gone in a moment like a streak of summer lightning, and the Secretary was as bland and smiling as ever.

"Again do I see that we civilians cannot compete with the military," he said.

"It was not his shoulder straps; he was quicker than you," said Mrs. Markham with a soft laugh.

"Then I shall not be a laggard the next time," replied the Secretary in a meaning tone.

The meeting of the club came to an end a half-hour later, but first there was a little ceremony. The coffee was brought in for the third and last time and all the cups were filled.

"To the cause!" said General Markham, the host. "To the cause that is not lost!"

"To the cause that is right, the cause that is not lost," all repeated, and they drank solemnly.

Prescott's feelings as he drank the toast were of a curiously mingled nature. There was a mist in his eyes as he looked upon this gathering of women and one-armed men all turning so brave a face and so bold a heart to bad fortune. And he wished, too, that he could believe as firmly as they in the justice of the cause. The recurring doubts troubled him. But he drank the toast and then prepared for departure.

CHAPTER IV
THE SECRETARY MOVES

Nearly all the guests left the Markham house at the same time and stood for a few moments in the white Greek portico, bidding one another good-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, toward the Harley home six or seven blocks away. Her gloved hand rested lightly on his arm, but her face was hidden from him by a red hood. The cold wind was still blustering mightily about the little city and she walked close beside him.

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

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

"And the Northern army is there, too. And Washington itself is only two hundred miles away It seems to me sometimes that the armies have always been 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, where Washington lies, I begin to wonder about Lincoln. I hear bad things spoken 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 man and so unhappy, they say. I wish I knew all the wrong and right of this cruel struggle."

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

They walked on a little farther in silence, passing now near the Capitol 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 it can 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, and the echo seemed to Prescott to come back from the far forest and the hills beyond the James. It was quickly followed by another and then others 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-like structure 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, a murmur and then a tumult in the streets; shouts of men, the orders of officers and galloping hoof-beats mingled; metal clanked against metal; cannon rumbled and their heavy iron wheels dashed sparks of fire from the stones as they rushed onward. There was a noise of shutters thrown back and lights appeared at innumerable windows. High feminine voices shouted to each other unanswered questions. The tumult swelled to a roar, and over it all thundered the great bell, its echo coming back in regular vibrations from the hills and the farther shore of the river.

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

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

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

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

"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, the Yankees have passed around them and seized Richmond."

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

"Now, sir," continued Robert, "I have not seen any Yankees, nor have you, nor do I believe there is a Yankee force of sufficient size to be alarming 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. If they had the habit of which you accuse them the Yankee army would have been in this city long ago."

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

The forces of cavalry, infantry and artillery increased and were formed about Capitol Square. The tumult decreased, the cries of the women and children sank. Order reigned, but everywhere there was expectation. Everybody, too, gazed toward the east whence the sound of the shots had come. But the noise there died and presently the great bell ceased to ring.

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

But the Member of Congress would not be convinced, and recovering his spirit, he criticized the army again. Prescott scorned to answer, nor did Helen or the Secretary speak. Soon a messenger galloped down the street and told the cause of the alarm. Some daring Yankee cavalrymen, a band of skirmishers or scouts, fifty or a hundred perhaps, coming by a devious way, had approached the outer defenses and fired a few shots at long range. The garrison replied, and then the reckless Yankees galloped away before they could be caught.

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

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

"Not a single Yankee soldier ought to be able to come so near to Richmond," 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 teaches us 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 bidding Prescott and Miss Harley a courteous good-night.

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

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

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

"I was apprehensive about you for awhile, Helen," he said, "when I heard the 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 a long road to Richmond."

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

His own house was within sight, but he had made his mother promise not to wait for him, and he hoped she was already asleep. Never had he been more wide awake, and knowing that he should seek sleep in vain, he strolled 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 side of the street. Robert's eyes were keen, and a soldier's life had accustomed him to their use in the darkness. He caught only a glimpse of it, but was sure the figure was that of the Secretary.

Though wondering what an official high in the Government was about flitting through Richmond at such an hour, he remembered philosophically that it was none of his business. Soon another man appeared, tall and bony, his face almost hidden by a thick black beard faintly touched with silver in the light of the moon. But this person was not shifty nor evasive. He stalked boldly along, and his heavy footsteps gave back a hard metallic ring as the iron-plated heels of his boots came heavily in 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 followed the General, whom he knew well. Wood turned at the sound of his footsteps 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 to get up ev'ry man there is in the country and then hit hard at the enemy and keep on hittin' until there ain't a breath left in him. But sometimes it seems to me that it's the business of gov'ments in war to keep their armies from winnin'!"

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

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

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

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

The flight of steps led directly into the editorial room, where Winthrop sat in his shirt sleeves at a little table, writing. Raymond, at another, was similarly clad and similarly engaged. A huge stove standing in the corner, and fed with billets of wood, threw out a grateful heat. Sitting around it in a semi-circle were four or five men, including the one-armed Colonel Stormont and another man in uniform. All were 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 found seats on cane-bottomed chairs or boxes and joined the group around the stove.

Prescott glanced a moment at the newspaper which Winthrop had thrown to them. It was a copy of the Charleston Mercury, conducted by the famous secessionist Rhett, then a member of the Confederate Senate, and edited meanwhile by his son. It breathed much fire and brimstone, and called insistently for a quick defeat of the insolent North. He passed it on to his friends and then looked with more interest at the office and the men about him. Everything was shabby to the last degree. Old newspapers and scraps of manuscript littered the floor, cockroaches crawled over the desks, on the walls were double-page illustrations from Harper's Weekly and Leslie's Weekly, depicting battle scenes in which the frightened Southern soldiers were fleeing like sheep before the valiant sons of the North.

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

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

Those who were not reading drifted into a discussion on politics and the war. The rumble of a press just starting to work came from the next room. Winthrop and Raymond wrote on undisturbed. The General, still whittling his pine stick, began to stare curiously at them. At last he said:

"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. Raymond presently finished his article, threw it to an ink-blackened galley-boy and 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, but Winthrop asked me to help him out to-night with some pretty severe criticism of the Government. As he's responsible and I'm not, I've pitched into the President, Cabinet and Congress of the Confederate States 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 for the freedom of the press. We Southerners like to put in some heavy licks for freedom and then get something else. Maybe we're kin to the old Puritans."

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

"You are surprised to see me, Mr. Winthrop," he said, "but I trust that I am none the less welcome. I am glad, too, to find so many good men whom 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 to guess his business.

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

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

All now listened with the keenest interest. They saw that the wily Secretary 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 of defiance in his tone.

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

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

"It was merely this," continued the Secretary, "and I really apologize for speaking of it at all, as it is scarcely any business of mine, but they 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 you refrain. The Government, of which I am but a humble official, is sensitive, and it is, too, a critical time. Just now the Government needs all the support and confidence that it can possibly get. If you impair 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 the South is. Are we to belie those words?"

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

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

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

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

A shade crossed the face of Mr. Sefton.

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

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

The Secretary, after the perusal, put down the paper and spoke gently as if 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 to say 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. He tapped 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 expect to make itself an oligarchy or despotism? If that is so, I should like to know what we are fighting for?"