Dixie After the War. Myrta Lockett Avary

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СКАЧАТЬ whom he was expecting, did not come on time. News reached him of Johnston’s surrender. General Upton had passed almost through Washington on his way to receive the surrender of Augusta. The President perceived his escort’s peril. To their commander, Captain Campbell, he said: “Your company is too large to pass without observation, and not strong enough to fight. See if there are ten men in it who will volunteer to go with me without question wherever I choose?” Captain Campbell reported: “All volunteer to go with Your Excellency.”

      He was deeply touched, but would not suffer them to take the risk. With ten men selected by Captain Campbell, and his personal staff, he rode out of Washington, the people weeping as they watched him go. When he was mounting, Rev. Dr. Tupper, the Baptist minister, approached him, uttering words of comfort and encouragement. “‘Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him,’” the President responded gently. He had made disposition of most of his personal belongings, giving the china in his mess-chest to Colonel Weems, the chest to General McLaws; to Mrs. Robertson his ink-stand, table, dressing-case, some tea, coffee, and brandy, portions of which she still retained when last I heard; the dressing-case and ink-stand she had sent to the Confederate Museum at Richmond.

      His last official order was written at the old bank; it appointed Captain H. M. Clarke Acting Treasurer of the Confederacy. The last Treasury Department was an old appletree at General Basil Duke’s camp a short distance from Washington, under whose shade Captain Clarke sat while he paid out small amounts in coin to the soldiers. General Duke’s Kentuckians, Mr. Davis’ faithful last guard, were the remnant of John H. Morgan’s famous command.

      Soon after his departure, the treasure-train, or a section of it, reached Washington. Boxes of bullion were stored in the bank; Mrs. Faver remembers that officers laughingly told her and her sisters if they would lift one of the boxes, they might have all the gold in it; and they tried, but O, how heavy it was! She recalls some movement on the part of her parents to convey the treasure to Abbeville, but this was not practicable.

      “It was a fitting conclusion of the young Government … that it marked its last act of authority by a thoughtful loyalty to the comfort of its penniless and starved defenders,” says Avery’s “History of Georgia,” commenting on the fact that under that act Major Raphael J. Moses conveyed to Augusta bullion exceeding $35,000, delivering it to General Molineux on the promise that it would be used to purchase food and other necessaries for needy Confederate soldiers and our sick in hospitals.

      Soon after the treasure-train left Washington, some one galloped back and flung into General Toombs’ yard a bag containing $5,000 in gold. The General was in straits for money with which to flee the country, but swore with a great round oath he would use no penny of this mysterious gift, and turned it over to Major Moses, who committed it to Captain Abrahams, Federal Commissary, for use in relieving needy Confederates home-returning. At Greensboro, General Joseph E. Johnston had taken $39,000 for his soldiers. There have been many stories about this treasure-train.4 It carried no great fortune, and Mr. Davis was no beneficiary. He meant to use it in carrying on the war.

      The point has been made that Mr. Davis should have remained in Richmond and made terms. Since governments were governments, no ruler has followed the course that would have been. He thought it traitorous to surrender the whole Confederacy because the Capital was lost. Even after Lee’s surrender the Confederacy had armies in the field, and a vast domain farther south where commanders believed positions could be held. He believed it would be cowardly to fail them, and that it was his duty to move the seat of government from place to place through the Confederacy as long as there was an army to sustain the government. To find precedent, one has but to turn to European history. In England, the rightful prince has been chased all over the country and even across the channel. Mr. Davis believed in the righteousness of his cause; and that it was his duty to stand for it to the death.

      His determination, on leaving Washington, was to reach the armies of Maury, Forrest, and Taylor in Alabama and Mississippi; if necessary, withdraw these across the Mississippi, uniting with Kirby-Smith and Magruder in Texas, a section “rich in supplies and lacking in railroads and waterways.” There the concentrated forces might hold their own until the enemy “should, in accordance with his repeated declaration, have agreed, on the basis of a return to the Union, to acknowledge the Constitutional rights of the States, and by a convention, or quasi-treaty, to guarantee security of person and property.” What Judge Campbell thought could be secured by submission, Mr. Davis was confident could only be attained by keeping in the field a military force whose demands the North, weary of war, might respect. What he sought to do for his people in one way, Judge Campbell sought to do in another. Both failed.

      While Mr. Davis was riding out of Washington, Generals Taylor and Maury, near Meridian, Mississippi, were arranging with General Canby, U. S. A., for the surrender of all the Confederate forces in Alabama and Mississippi. These generals were dining together and the bands were playing “Hail Columbia” and “Dixie.”

THE COUNSEL OF LEE

       CHAPTER VI

      The Counsel of Lee

      “A few days after the occupation, some drunken soldiers were heard talking in the back yard to our negroes, and it was gathered from what they said that the Federals were afraid General Lee had formed an ambuscade somewhere in the neighbourhood of the city, and that he might fall upon them at any time and deliver Richmond out of their hands. How our people wished it might be so!” Matoaca relates. “Do not buoy yourself up with that hope, my dear,” said her monitor. “There’s no hope save in the mercy of our conquerors. General Lee is a great soldier, an extraordinary tactician, but he cannot do the impossible. Our army cannot go on fighting forever without money and without food.”

      When our beloved general came home, the doctrine he taught by precept and example was that of peace. “The stainless sword of Lee” had been laid down in good faith. We had fought a good fight, we had failed, we must accept the inevitable, we must not lose heart, we must work for our country’s welfare in peace. The very first heard of him in his modest, unheralded home-returning, he was teaching this.

      Young William McCaw, his courier for four years, rode in with him; and General Lee, before going to his own home, delivered William, safe and sound, to his father. Dr. McCaw came out when they stopped in front of his door, and General Lee said:

      “Here, Doctor, is your boy. I’ve brought him home to you.”

      William was standing beside Traveller, his arm clasped around General Lee’s leg, and crying as if his heart would break. The General put his hand on William’s head and said:

      “No more fighting – that’s all over. You’ve been a good fighter, Will – now I want to see you work for your country’s welfare in peace. Be a good boy. I expect a fine Christian manhood of you. Goodbye,” and he rode away to his own home, where his invalid wife awaited him.

      It was good to have them home again, our men in gray; good though they came gaunt and footsore, ragged and empty-handed. And glad was the man in gray to cross his own threshold, though the wolf was at the door. Our men were ready enough for peace when peace – or what they mistook for peace – came; that is, the mass of them were. They had fought and starved their fill. The cries of destitute women and children called them home. They had no time to pause and cavil over lost issues, or to forge new occasions for quarrel. All they asked now was a chance to make meat and bread and raiment for themselves and those dependent on them.

      Yet some young spirits were restive, would have preferred death to surrender. The lesson of utter submission came hard. The freeborn American, fearless of shot and shell, and regarding free speech as his birthright, found the task of keeping close watch over his tongue difficult. General Lee knew the mettle of the fiery young courier to whom he uttered the parting words that have been recorded. To many another youth just out of armor, he gave the СКАЧАТЬ