"Or, in other words, independence or subjugation. We will be free. We will govern ourselves. We will do it if we have to see every Southern plantation sacked and every Southern city in flames."

The visitors rose, and after a few pleasant remarks, took their leave. Mr. Davis was particularly cordial to Colonel Jaquess, whom he knew to have been a clergyman.

John was surprised to see him repeat the habit of Abraham Lincoln, of taking the hand of his visitor in both his in exactly the same cordial way.

He had forgotten for the moment that both Lincoln and Davis were Southerners, born in the same State and reared in precisely the same school of thought and social usage.

"Colonel," the thin Southerner said in his musical voice, "I respect your character and your motives and I wish you well—every good wish possible consistent with the interests of the Confederacy."

As they were passing through the door, he added:

"Say to Mr. Lincoln that I shall at any time be pleased to receive proposals for peace on the basis of our independence. It will be useless to approach me with any other."

Next morning the visitors waited in vain for the appearance of Judge Ould to convey them once more into the Union lines. Visions of a long term in prison, to say nothing of a possible hang-man's noose, began to float before their excited fancy. They had expected the Judge at eight o'clock. It was three in the afternoon when he entered with the laconic remark:

"Well, gentlemen, if you are ready, we'll walk around to Libby Prison."

Certain of their doom, the two men rose and spoke in concert:

"We are ready."

They followed the Judge downstairs and found the same coal black driver with the rickety team that had brought them into Richmond.

Gilmore smiled into the Judge's face:

"Why were you so long coming?"

Ould hesitated and laughed:

"I'll tell you when the war's over. Now I'll take you through the Libby and the hospitals, if you'd like to go."

When they had visited the prison and hospitals, Gilmore again turned to the Judge:

"Now, explain to us, please, your delay this morning—we're curious."

Ould smiled:

"I suppose I'd as well tell you. When I called on Mr. Davis for your permit, Mr. Benjamin was there impressing on the President of the Confederate States the absolute necessity of placing you two gentlemen in Castle Thunder until the Northern elections are over. Mr. Benjamin is a very eloquent advocate, and Mr. Davis hesitated. I took issue with the Secretary of State and we had a very exciting argument. The President finally reserved decision until two o'clock and asked me to call and get it. He handed me your pass with this remark:

"It's probably a bad business for us, but it would alienate many of our Northern friends if we should hold on to these gentlemen."

In two hours the visitors had reached the Union lines, John Vaughan had obtained his passes and was on his way to Atlanta.



CHAPTER XXXVIII

THE STOLEN MARCH

John Vaughan's entrance into Atlanta was simple. His credentials from Richmond were perfect. His exit proved to be a supreme test of his nerve.

The two lines of siege and battle stretched in wide semicircle for miles over the ragged wood tangled hills about the little Gate City of the South.

Sherman had fought his way from Chattanooga one hundred and fifty miles since May with consummate skill. His march had been practically a continuous series of battles, and yet his losses had been small compared to General Grant's. In killed, wounded and prisoners he had only lost thirty-two thousand men in four months. The Confederate losses had been greater—at least thirty-five thousand.

Hood, the new Southern Commander, had given him battle a month before and suffered an overwhelming defeat, losing eight thousand men, Sherman but thirty-seven hundred. The Confederate forces had retired behind the impregnable fortifications of Atlanta and Sherman lay behind his trenches watching in grim silence.

The pickets at many places were so close together they could talk. John Vaughan attempted to slip through at night while they were chaffing one another.

He lay for an hour in the woods near the Southern picket line watching his chance. The men were talking continuously.

"Why the devil don't you all fight?" a grey man called.

"Uncle Billy says it's cheaper to flank you and make you Johnnies run to catch up with us."

"Yes—damn you, and we've got ye now where ye can't do no more flankin'. Ye got ter fight!"

"Trust Uncle Billy for that when the time comes——"

"Yes, and we've got Billy Sherman whar we want him now. We're goin' to blow up every bridge behind ye and ye'll never see home no more——"

"Uncle Billy's got duplicates of all your bridges fast as ye blow 'em up."

"All right, we're goin' ter blow up the tunnels through the mountains——"

"That's nothin'—we got duplicates to all the tunnels, too!"

John Vaughan began to creep toward the Federal lines and muskets blazed from both sides. He dropped flat on the ground and it took two hours to crawl to a place of safety.

He felt these lines next morning where they were wider apart and found them too dangerous to attempt. The pickets, at the point he approached, were in an ugly mood and a desultory fire was kept up all day. The men had bunched up two together and entrenched themselves, keeping a deadly watch for the men in blue. He stood for half an hour close enough to see every movement of two young pickets who evidently had some score to pay and were hunting for their foe with quiet, deadly purpose.

"There's a Yank behind that clump," said one.

"Na—nothin' but a huckleberry bush," the other replied.

"Yes there is, too. We'll decoy and pot him. I'll get ready now and you raise your cap on a ramrod above the hole. He'll lift his head to fire and I'll get him."

The speaker cautiously slipped his musket in place and drew a bead on the spot. His partner placed his hat on his ramrod and slowly lifted it a foot above their hiding place.

The hat had scarcely cleared the pile of dirt before the musket flashed.

"I got him! I told you he was there!"

John turned from the scene with a sense of sickening horror. He would die for his country, but he hoped he would not be called on to kill again.

He made a wide detour and attempted to cross the lines five miles further from the city and walked suddenly into a squad of grey soldiers in command of a lieutenant.

The officer eyed him with suspicion.

"What's your business here, sir?" he asked sharply.

"Looking over the lines," John replied casually.

"So I see. That's why I asked you. Show your pass."

"Why, I haven't one."

"I thought not. You're a damned spy and you'd just as well say your prayers. I'm going to hang you."

The men pressed near. Among them was a second lieutenant, a big, strapping, quiet-looking fellow.

"You've made a mistake, gentlemen," John protested.

"I'm a newspaper man from Atlanta. The chief sent me out to look over the lines and report."

"It's a lie. We've forbidden every paper in town to dare such a thing——"

John smiled:

"That's just why my office sent me, I reckon."

"Well, he sent you once too often——"

He turned to his orderly:

"Get me a bridle rein off my horse."

In vain John protested. The Commander shook his head:

"It's no use talking. You've passed the deadline here to-day. This is a favorite spot for scouts to cross. I'm not going to take any chances; I'm going to hang you."

"Why don't you search me first?"

He was sure that his dangerous message was so skillfully sewed in the soles of his shoes they would not be discovered.

"I can search you afterwards," was the laconic reply.

He quickly tied the leather strap around his neck and threw the end of it over a limb. The touch of his hand and the rough way in which he had tied the leather stirred John Vaughan's rage to boiling point. All sense of danger was lost for the moment in blind anger. He turned suddenly and faced his executioner:

"This is a damned outrage, sir! Even a spy is entitled to a trial by drumhead court-martial!"

"Yes, that's what I say," the big, quiet fellow broke in.

"I'm in command of this squad!" thundered the lieutenant.

"I know you are," was the cool answer, "that's why this outrage is going to be committed."

The executioner dropped the rein and faced his subordinate:

"You're going to question my authority?"

"I've already done it, haven't I?"

A quick blow followed. The quiet man, in response, knocked his commander down and the men sprang on them as they drew their revolvers.

John Vaughan, with a sudden leap, reached the dense woods and in five minutes was inside Sherman's lines.

The bridle rein was still around his neck and the blue picket helped him untie the ugly knot.

"I've had a close call," he panted, with a glance toward the woods.

"You look it, partner. You'll be wantin' to see General Sherman, I guess?"

"Yes—to headquarters quick—you can't get there too quick to suit me."

He had recovered his composure before reaching the farm house where General Sherman and his staff were quartered.

The day was one of terrific heat—the first of September. The President's description of the famous fighter and the tremendous responsibility which was now being placed on his shoulders had roused John's curiosity to the highest pitch.

The General was seated in an arm chair in the yard under a great oak. His coat was unbuttoned and he had tilted back against the tree in a comfortable position reading a newspaper. His black slouch hat was pulled far down over his face.

John saluted:

"This is General Sherman?"

"Yes," was the quick, pleasant answer as the tall, gaunt form slowly rose.

John noted his striking and powerful personality—the large frame, restless hazel eyes, fine aquiline nose, bronzed features and cropped beard. His every movement was instinct with the power of perfect physical manhood, forty-four years old, the incarnation of health and wiry strength.

"I come from Washington, General," John continued, "and bear a special message from the President."

"From the President! Oh, come inside then."

The tall figure moved with quick, nervous energy. In ten minutes couriers were dashing from his headquarters in every direction.

At one o'clock that night the big movement of his withdrawal from the siege lines began. He had no intention of hurling his men against those deadly trenches. He believed that with a sure, swift start undiscovered by the Confederates he could by a single battle turn their lines at Jonesboro, destroy the railroad and force General Hood to evacuate Atlanta.

His sleeping men were carefully waked. Not a single note from bugle or drum sounded. The wheels of the artillery and wagons were wrapped with cloth and every sound muffled.

Through pitch darkness in dead silence the men were swung into marching lines. The moving columns could be felt but not seen. Each soldier followed blindly the man before. Somewhere in the black night there must be a leader—God knew—they didn't. They walked by faith. The wet grounds, soaked by recent rains, made their exit easier. The sound of horses' hoofs and tramping thousands could scarcely be heard.

The ranks were strung out in long, ragged lines, each man going as he pleased. Something blocked the way ahead and the columns butted into one another and pinched the heels of the men in front.

In their anger the fellows smarting with pain forgot the orders for silence. A storm of low muttering and growling rumbled through the darkness.

"What 'ell here!"

"What's the matter with you——"

"Keep off my heels!"

"What 'ell are ye runnin' over me for?"

"Hold up your damned gun——"

"Keep it out of my eye, won't you?"

"Damn your eye!"

They start again and run into a bog of mud knee deep cut into mush by the artillery and wagons which have passed on.

The first men in line were in to their knees and stuck fast before they could stop the lines surging on in the dark. They collide with the bogged ones and fall over them. The ranks behind stumble in on top of the fallen before word can be passed to halt.

The night reeks with oaths. The patient heavens reverberate with them. The mud-soaked soldiers damned with equal unction all things visible and invisible on the earth, under it and above it. They cursed the United States of America and they damned the Confederate States with equal emphasis and wished them both at the bottom of the lowest depths of the deepest pit of perdition.

As one fellow blew the mud from his mouth and nose he bawled:

"I wish Sherman and Hood were both in hell this minute!"

"Yes, and fightin' it out to suit themselves!" his comrade answered.

On through the black night the long blue lines crept under lowering skies toward their foe, the stern face of William Tecumseh Sherman grimly set on his desperate purpose.



CHAPTER XXXIX

VICTORY

Betty had found the President at the War Telegraph office in the old Army and Navy building. He was seated at the desk by the window where in 1862 he had written his first draft of his Emancipation Proclamation on pieces of pasteboard.

"You have heard nothing yet from General Sherman?" she asked pathetically.

"Nothing, child."

"And no message of any kind from John Vaughan since he left!" she exclaimed hopelessly.

"But I'm sure, remember, sure to a moral certainty—that he reached Richmond safely and left there safely."

"How do you know?"

"Gilmore has just arrived with his reply from Jefferson Davis. It will be worth a half million votes for us. From his description of the 'reporter' with Benjamin I am sure it was our messenger."

"But you don't know—you don't know!" Betty sighed.

The President bent and touched her shoulder gently:

"Come, dear, it's not like you to despair——"

The girl smiled wanly.

"How long since any message arrived from General Sherman?"

"Three days, my child. I know the hole he went in at, but I can't tell where he's going to come out——"

"If he ever comes out," Betty broke in bitterly.

"Oh, he'll come out somewhere!" the President laughed. "It's a habit of his. I've watched him for months—sometimes I can't hear from him for a week—but he always bobs up again and comes out with a whoop, too——"

"But we've no news!" she interrupted.

"No news has always been good news from Sherman——"

He paused and looked at his watch:

"Wait here. I'll be back in a few moments. We're bound to hear something to-day. I've an engagement with my Committee of Undertakers. They are waiting for me to deliver my corpse to them—and they are very restless about it because I haven't given up sooner, I'm full of foolish hopes. I'm going to adjourn them until we can get a message of some kind——"

He returned in half an hour and sat in silence for a long time listening to the steady, sharp click of the telegraph keys.

Betty was too blue to talk—too heartsick to move.

At last the tall figure rose and walked back among the operators. They knew that he was waiting for the magic call, "Atlanta, Georgia." It had been three years and more since that heading for a message had flashed over their wires. Every ear was keen to catch it.

The President bent over the table of Southern wires and silently watched:

"You can't strain a little message through for me, can you, my boy?"

The operator smiled:

"I wish I could, sir."

The President returned to the front room and shook his head to Betty:

"Nothing."

"He entered Atlanta a spy, didn't he?" she said despairingly.

"Yes—of course."

"They couldn't execute him without our knowing it, could they?"

"If they trap him—yes—but he's a very intelligent young man. He'll be too smart for them. I feel it. I know it——"

He stopped and looked at her quizzically:

"I've a sort of second sight that tells me such things. I saw General Sickles in the hospital after Gettysburg. They said he couldn't live. I told him he would get well and he did."

Again the President returned restlessly to the operator's room and Betty followed him to the door. He waited a long time in silence, shook his head and turned away. He had almost reached the door when suddenly the operator sprang to his feet livid with excitement:

"Wait—Mr. President!—It's come—my God, it's here!"

Every operator was on his feet listening in breathless excitement to the click of that Southern wire.

The President had rushed back to the table.

"It's for you, sir!"

"Read it then—out with it as you take it!" he cried.

"Atlanta, Georgia, September 3rd, 1864."

"Glory to God!" the President shouted.

"Atlanta is ours and fairly won. W. T. Sherman."

"O my soul, lift up thy head!" the sorrowful lips shouted. "Unto thee, O God, we give all the praise now and forever more!"

He seated himself and quickly wrote his thanks and congratulations:

"EXECUTIVE MANSION, "WASHINGTON, D. C. "September 3, 1864.

"The National thanks are rendered by the President to Major General W. T. Sherman and the gallant officers and soldiers of his command before Atlanta, for the distinguished ability and perseverance displayed in the campaign in Georgia, which under Divine favor has resulted in the capture of Atlanta. The marches, battles and sieges that have signalized this campaign must render it famous in the annals of war, and have entitled you to the applause and thanks of the Nation.

"ABRAHAM LINCOLN, "President of the United States."

His sombre eyes flamed with a new light. He took the copy of his message from Sherman and started to the White House with long, swift strides.

Betty greeted him outside with tearful joy still mixed with deep anxiety.

"You have no word from him, of course?"

"Not yet, child, but it will come—cheer up—it's sure to come. You see that he reached Atlanta and delivered my message!"

"We are not sure. The city may have fallen, anyhow——"

"Yes, yes, but it didn't just fall, anyhow. Sherman took it. He got my message. I know it. I felt it flash through the air from his soul to mine!"

His faith and enthusiasm were contagious and Betty returned home with new hope.

In half an hour the Committee who were waiting for his resignation from the National Republican ticket filed into his office to receive as they supposed his final surrender.

The Chairman rose with doleful countenance:

"Since leaving you, Mr. President, we have just heard a most painful and startling announcement from the War Department. We begged you to withhold the new draft for five hundred thousand men until after the election. Halleck informs us of the discovery of a great combination to resist it by armed force and General Grant must detach a part of his army from Lee's front in order to put down this counter revolution. This is the blackest news yet. We trust that you realize the impossibility of your administration asking for indorsement at the polls——"

With a sign of final resignation he sat down and the tall, dark figure rose with quick, nervous energy.

"I, too, have received important news since I saw you an hour ago."

He held the telegram above his head:

"I'll read it to you without my glasses. I know it by heart. I have just learned that my administration will be indorsed by an overwhelming majority, that the defeat of George B. McClellan and his platform of failure is a certainty. The war to preserve the Union is a success. The sword has been driven into the heart of the Confederacy. Sherman has captured Atlanta—the Union is saved!"

The Committee leaped to their feet with a shout of applause and crowded around him to congratulate and praise the man they came to bury. There was no longer a question of his resignation. The fall of Atlanta would thrill the North. A wave of wild enthusiasm would sweep into the sea the last trace of gloom and despair. They were practical men—else, as rats, they would never have tried to desert their own ship. They knew that the tide was going to turn, but it was a swift tide that could turn before they could!

They wrung the President's hands, they shouted his praise, they had always gloried in his administration, but foolish grumblers hadn't been able to see things as they saw them—hence this hue and cry! They congratulated him on his certain triumph and the President watched them go with a quiet smile. He was too big to cherish resentments. He only pitied small men, he never hated them.



CHAPTER XL

WITH MALICE TOWARD NONE

General Grant fired a salute in honor of the Atlanta victory with shotted guns from every battery on his siege lines of thirty-seven miles before Richmond and Petersburg. To Sherman he sent a remarkable message—the kind which great men know how to pen:

"You have accomplished the most gigantic undertaking given to any General in this war, with a skill and ability which will be acknowledged in history as unsurpassed if not unequaled."

From the depths of despair the North swung to the wildest enthusiasm and in the election which followed Abraham Lincoln was swept into power again on a tidal wave. He received in round numbers two million five hundred thousand votes, McClellan two millions. His majority by States in the electoral college was overwhelming—two hundred and twelve to his opponent's twenty-one.

The closing words of his second Inaugural rang clear and quivering with emotion over the vast crowd:

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."

As the last echo died away among the marble pillars above, the sun burst through the clouds and flooded the scene. A mighty cheer swept the throng and the guns boomed their second salute. The war was closing in lasting peace and the sun shining on the finished dome of the Capitol of a new nation.

Betty Winter, leaning on John Vaughan's arm, was among the first to grasp his big, outstretched hand:

"A glorious day for us, sir," she cried, "a proud one for you!"

With a far-away look the President slowly answered:

"And all that I am in this world, Miss Betty, I owe to a woman—my angel mother—blessings on her memory!"

"I trust her spirit heard that beautiful speech," the girl responded tenderly.

She paused, looked up at John, blushed and added:

"We are to be married next week, Mr. President——"

"Is it so?" he said joyfully. "I wish I could be there, my children—but I'm afraid 'Old Grizzly' might bite me. So I'll say it now—God bless you!"

He took their hands in his and pressed them heartily. His eyes suddenly rested on a shining black face grinning behind John Vaughan.

"My, my, can this be Julius Caesar Thornton?" he laughed.

"Yassah," the black man grinned. "Hit's me—ole reliable, sah, right here—I'se gwine ter cook fur 'em!"

* * * * *

From the moment of Abraham Lincoln's election the end of the war with a restored Union was a foregone conclusion.

In the fall of Atlanta the heart of the Confederacy was pierced, and it ceased to beat. Lee's army, cut off from their supplies, slowly but surely began to starve behind their impregnable breastworks. Sherman's march to the sea and through the Carolinas was merely a torchlight parade. The fighting was done.

When Lee's emaciated men, living on a handful of parched corn a day, staggered out of their trenches in the spring and tried to join Johnston's army they marched a few miles to Appomattox, dropping from exhaustion, and surrendered.

When the news of this tremendous event reached Washington, the Cabinet was in session. Led by the President, in silence and tears, they fell on their knees in a prayer of solemn thanks to Almighty God.

General Grant won the gratitude of the South by his generous treatment of Lee and his ragged men. He had received instructions from the loving heart in the White House.

Long before the surrender in April, 1865, the end was sure. The President knowing this, proposed to his Cabinet to give the South four hundred millions of dollars, the cost of the war for a hundred days, in payment for their slaves, if they would lay down their arms at once. His ministers unanimously voted against his offer and he sadly withdrew it. Among all his councillors there was not one whose soul was big enough to understand the far-seeing wisdom of his generous plan. He would heal at once one of the Nation's ugliest wounds by soothing the bitterness of defeat. He knew that despair would send the older men of the South to their graves.

Edmund Ruffin, who had fired the first shot against Sumter and returned to his Virginia farm when his State seceded, was a type of these ruined, desperate men. On the day that Lee surrendered he placed the muzzle of his gun in his mouth, pulled the trigger with his foot, and blew his own head into fragments.

When Senator Winter demanded proscription and vengeance against the leaders of the Confederacy, the President shook his head:

"No—let down the bars—let them all go—scare them off!"

He threw up his big hands in a vivid gesture as if he were shooing a flock of troublesome sheep out of his garden.

"Triumphant now, you will receive our enemies with open arms?" the Senator sneered.

"Enemies? There are no such things. The Southern States have never really been out of the Union. Their Acts of Secession were null and void. They know now that the issue is forever settled. The restored Union will be a real one. The Southern people at heart are law-abiding. It was their reverence for the letter of the old law which led them to ignore progress and claim the right to secede under the Constitution. They will be true to Lee's pledge of surrender. I'm going to trust them as my brethren. Let us fold up our banners now and smelt the guns—Love rules—let her mightier purpose run!"

So big and generous, so broad and statesmanlike was his spirit that in this hour of victory his personality became in a day the soul of the New Republic. The South had already unconsciously grown to respect the man who had loved yet fought her for what he believed to be her highest good.

He was entering now a new phase of power. His influence over the people was supreme. No man or set of men in Congress, or outside of it, could defeat his policies. Even through the years of stunning defeats and measureless despair his enemies had never successfully opposed a measure on which he had set his heart.

His first great work accomplished in destroying slavery and restoring the Union, there remained but two tasks on which his soul was set—to heal the bitterness of the war and remove the negro race from physical contact with the white.

He at once addressed himself to this work with enthusiasm. That he could do it he never doubted for a moment.

His first care was to remove the negro soldiers from the country as quickly as possible. He summoned General Butler and set him to work on his scheme to use these one hundred and eighty thousand black troops to dig the Panama Canal. He summoned Bradley, the Vermont contractor, and put him to work on estimates for moving the negroes by ship to Africa or by train to an undeveloped Western Territory.

His prophetic soul had pierced the future and seen with remorseless logic that two such races as the Negro and Caucasian could not live side by side in a free democracy. The Radical theorists of Congress were demanding that these black men, emerging from four thousand years of slavery and savagery should receive the ballot and the right to claim the white man's daughter in marriage. They could only pass these measures over the dead body of Abraham Lincoln.

The assassin came at last—a vain, foolish dreamer who had long breathed the poisoned air of hatred. It needed but the flash of this madman's pistol on the night of the 14th of April to reveal the grandeur of Lincoln's character, the marvel of his patience and his wisdom.

The curtains of the box in Ford's theatre were softly drawn apart by an unseen hand. The Angel of Death entered, paused at the sight of the smile on his rugged, kindly face, touched the drooping shoulders, called him to take the place he had won among earth's immortals and left to us "the gentlest memory of our world."

THE END