The Leopard's Spots
The Leopard's SpotsLEADING CHARACTERS OF THE STORYBOOK ONE—LEGREE’S REGIMECHAPTER I—A HERO RETURNSCHAPTER II—A LIGHT SHINING IN DARKNESSCHAPTER III—DEEPENING SHADOWSCHAPTER IV—MR. LINCOLN’S DREAMCHAPTER V—THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHCHAPTER VI—THE PREACHER AND THE WOMAN OF BOSTONCHAPTER VII—THE HEART OF A CHILDCHAPTER VIII—AN EXPERIMENT IN MATRIMONYCHAPTER IX—A MASTER OF MENCHAPTER X—THE MAN OR BRUTE IN EMBRYOCHAPTER XI—SIMON LEGREECHAPTER XII—RED SNOW DROPSCHAPTER XIII—DICKCHAPTER XIV—THE NEGRO UPRISINGCHAPTER XV—THE NEW CITIZEN KINGCHAPTER XVI—LEGREE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSECHAPTER XVII—THE SECOND REIGN OF TERRORCHAPTER XVIII—THE RED FLAG OF THE AUCTIONEERCHAPTER XIX—THE RALLY OF THE CLANSMENCHAPTER XX—HOW CIVILISATION WAS SAVEDCHAPTER XXI—THE OLD AND THE NEW NEGROCHAPTER XXII—THE DANGER OF PLAYING WITH FIRECHAPTER XXIII—THE BIRTH OF A SCALAWAGCHAPTER XXIV—A MODERN MIRACLEBOOK TWO—LOVE’S DREAMCHAPTER I—BLUE EYES AND BLACK HAIRCHAPTER II—THE VOICE OF THE TEMPTERCHAPTER III—FLORACHAPTER IV—THE ONE WOMANCHAPTER V—THE MORNING OF LOVECHAPTER VI—BESIDE BEAUTIFUL WATERSCHAPTER VII—DREAMS AND FEARSCHAPTER VIII—THE UNSOLVED RIDDLECHAPTER IX—THE RHYTHM OF THE DANCECHAPTER X—THE HEART OF A VILLAINCHAPTER XI—THE OLD OLD STORYCHAPTER XII—THE MUSIC OF THE MILLSCHAPTER XIII—THE FIRST KISSCHAPTER XIV—A MYSTERIOUS LETTERCHAPTER XV—A BLOW IN THE DARKCHAPTER XVI—THE MYSTERY OF PAINCHAPTER XVII—IS GOD OMNIPOTENT?CHAPTER XVIII—THE WAYS OF BOSTONCHAPTER XIX—THE SHADOW OF A DOUBTCHAPTER XX—A NEW LESSON IN LOVECHAPTER XXI—WHY THE PREACHER THREW HIS LIFE AWAYCHAPTER XXII—THE FLESH AND THE SPIRITBOOK THREE—THE THE TRIAL BY FIRECHAPTER I—A GROWL BENEATH THE EARTHCHAPTER II—FACE TO FACE WITH FATECHAPTER III—A WHITE LIECHAPTER IV—THE UNSPOKEN TERRORCHAPTER V—A THOUSAND-LEGGED BEASTCHAPTER VI—THE BLACK PERILCHAPTER VII—EQUALITY WITH A RESERVATIONCHAPTER VIII—THE NEW SIMON LEGREECHAPTER IX—THE NEW AMERICACHAPTER X—ANOTHER DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCECHAPTER XI—THE HEART OF A WOMANCHAPTER XII—THE SPLENDOUR OF SHAMELESS LOVECHAPTER XIII—A SPEECH THAT MADE HISTORYCHAPTER XIV—THE RED SHIRTSCHAPTER XV—THE HIGHER LAWCHAPTER XVI—THE END OF A MODERN VILLAINCHAPTER XVII—WEDDING BELLS IN THE GOVERNOR’S MANSIONCopyright
The Leopard's Spots
Thomas Dixon
LEADING CHARACTERS OF THE STORY
Scene: The Foothills of North Carolina-Boston-New York
Time: From 1865 to 1900Charles Gaston...........Who dreams of a Governor’s
MansionSallie Worth.............A daughter of the old fashioned
SouthGen. Daniel Worth..................................Her
fatherMrs. Worth...........................................Sallie’s
motherThe Rev. John Durham.........A preacher who threw his life
awayMrs. Durham........Of the Southern Army that never
surrenderedTom Camp.....................A one-legged Confederate
soldierFlora....................................Tom’s little
daughterSimon Legree........Ex-slave driver and Reconstruction
leaderAllan McLeod..............................A
ScalawagHon. Everett Lowell..........Member of Congress from
BostonHelen Lowell........................His daughterMiss Susan Walker.................A maiden of
BostonMajor Stuart Dameron..............Chief of the Ku Klux
KlanHose Norman.......................A dare-devil poor white
manNelse........................A black hero of the old
régimeAunt Eve.....................His wife-“a respectable
woman.”Hon. Tim Shelby...................Political boss of the new
eraHon. Pete Sawyer.........Sold seven times, got the money
onceGeorge Harris, Jr............An Educated Negro, son of
ElizaDick.......................................An unsolved
riddle
BOOK ONE—LEGREE’S REGIME
CHAPTER I—A HERO RETURNS
ON the field of Appomattox General Lee was
waiting the return of a courier. His handsome face was clouded by
the deepening shadows of defeat. Rumours of surrender had spread
like wildfire, and the ranks of his once invincible army were
breaking into chaos.Suddenly the measured tread of a brigade was heard marching
into action, every movement quick with the perfect discipline, the
fire, and the passion of the first days of the triumphant
Confederacy.
“ What brigade is that?” he sharply asked.
“ Cox’s North Carolina,” an aid replied.As the troops swept steadily past the General, his eyes
filled with tears, he lifted his hat, and exclaimed, “God bless old
North Carolina!”The display of matchless discipline perhaps recalled to the
great commander that awful day of Gettysburg when the Twenty-sixth
North Carolina infantry had charged with 820 men rank and file and
left 704 dead and wounded on the ground that night. Company F from
Campbell county charged with 91 men and lost every man killed and
wounded. Fourteen times their colours were shot down, and fourteen
times raised again. The last time they fell from the hands of
gallant Colonel Harry Burgwyn, twenty-one years old, commander of
the regiment, who seized them and was holding them aloft when
instantly killed.The last act of the tragedy had closed. Johnston surrendered
to Sherman at Greensboro on April 26th, 1865, and the Civil War
ended,—the bloodiest, most destructive war the world ever saw. The
earth had been baptized in the blood of five hundred thousand
heroic soldiers, and a new map of the world had been
made.The ragged troops were straggling home from Greensboro and
Appomattox along the country roads. There were no mails, telegraph
lines or railroads. The men were telling the story of the
surrender. White-faced women dressed in coarse homespun met them at
their doors and with quivering lips heard the news.Surrender!A new word in the vocabulary of the South—a word so terrible
in its meaning that the date of its birth was to be the landmark of
time. Henceforth all events would be reckoned from this; “before
the Surrender,” or “after the Surrender.”Desolation everywhere marked the end of an era. Not a cow, a
sheep, a horse, a fowl, or a sign of animal life save here and
there a stray dog, to be seen. Grim chimneys marked the site of
once fair homes. Hedgerows of tangled blackberry briar and bushes
showed where a fence had stood before war breathed upon the land
with its breath of fire and harrowed it with teeth of
steel.These tramping soldiers looked worn and dispirited. Their
shoulders stooped, they were dirty and hungry. They looked worse
than they felt, and they felt that the end of the world had
come.They had answered those awful commands to charge without a
murmur; and then, rolled back upon a sea of blood, they charged
again over the dead bodies of their comrades. When repulsed the
second time and the mad cry for a third charge from some desperate
commander had rung over the field, still without a word they pulled
their old ragged hats down close over their eyes as though to shut
out the hail of bullets, and, through level sheets of blinding
flame, walked straight into the jaws of hell. This had been easy.
Now their feet seemed to falter as though they were not sure of the
road.In every one of these soldier’s hearts, and over all the
earth hung the shadow of the freed Negro, transformed by the
exigency of war from a Chattel to be bought and sold into a
possible Beast to be feared and guarded. Around this dusky figure
every white man’s soul was keeping its grim vigil.North Carolina, the typical American Democracy, had loved
peace and sought in vain to stand between the mad passions of the
Cavalier of the South and the Puritan fanatic of the North. She
entered the war at last with a sorrowful heart but a soul clear in
the sense of tragic duty. She sent more boys to the front than any
other state of the Confederacy—and left more dead on the field. She
made the last charge and fired the last volley for Lee’s army at
Appomattox.These were the ragged country boys who were slowly tramping
homeward. The group whose fortunes we are to follow were marching
toward the little village of Hambright that nestled in the
foothills of the Blue Ridge under the shadows of King’s Mountain.
They were the sons of the men who had first declared their
independence of Great Britain in America and had made their country
a hornet’s nest for Lord Cornwallis in the darkest days of the
cause of Liberty. What tongue can tell the tragic story of their
humble home coming?In rich Northern cities could be heard the boom of guns, the
scream of steam whistles, the shouts of surging hosts greeting
returning regiments crowned with victory. From every flag-staff
fluttered proudly the flag that our fathers had lifted in the
sky—the flag that had never met defeat.It is little wonder that in this hour of triumph the world
should forget the defeated soldiers who without a dollar in their
pockets were tramping to their ruined homes.Yet Nature did not seem to know of sorrow or death. Birds
were singing their love songs from the hedgerows, the fields were
clothed in gorgeous robes of wild flowers beneath which
forget-me-nots spread their contrasting hues of blue, while life
was busy in bud and starting leaf reclothing the blood-stained
earth in radiant beauty.As the sun was setting behind the peaks of the Blue Ridge, a
giant negro entered the village of Ham-bright. He walked rapidly
down one of the principal streets, passed the court house square
unobserved in the gathering twilight, and three blocks further
along paused before a law-office that stood in the corner of a
beautiful lawn filled with shrubbery and flowers.
“ Dars de ole home, praise de Lawd! En now I’se erfeard ter
see my Missy, en tell her Marse Charles’s daid. Hit’ll kill her!
Lawd hab mussy on my po black soul! How kin I!”He walked softly up the alley that led toward the kitchen
past the “big” house, which after all was a modest cottage boarded
up and down with weatherstrips nestling amid a labyrinth of
climbing roses, honeysuckles, fruit bearing shrubbery and balsam
trees. The negro had no difficulty in concealing his movements as
he passed.
“ Lordy, dars Missy watchin’ at de winder! How pale she look!
En she wuz de purties’ bride in de two counties! God-der-mighty, I
mus’ git somebody ter he’p me! I nebber tell her! She drap daid
right ’fore my eyes, en liant me twell I die. I run fetch de
Preacher, Marse John Durham, he kin tell her.”A few moments later he was knocking at the door of the
parsonage of the Baptist church.
“ Nelse! At last! I knew you’d come!”
“ Yassir, Marse John, I’se home. Hit’s me.”
“ And your Master is dead. I was sure of it, but I never
dared tell your Mistress. You came for me to help you tell her.
People said you had gone over into the promised land of freedom and
forgotten your people; but Nelse, I never believed it of you and
I’m doubly glad to shake your hand to-night because you’ve brought
a brave message from heroic lips and because you have brought a
braver message in your honest black face of faith and duty and life
and love.”
“ Thankee Marse John, I wuz erbleeged ter come
home.”The Preacher stepped into the hall and called the servant
from the kitchen.
“ Aunt Mary, when your Mistress returns tell her I’ve
received an urgent call and will not be at home for
supper.”
“ I’ll be ready in a minute, Nelse,” he said, as he
disappeared into the study. When he reached his desk, he paused and
looked about the room in a helpless way as though trying to find
some half forgotten volume in the rows of books that lined the
walls and lay in piles on his desk and tables. He knelt beside the
desk and prayed. When he rose there was a soft light in his eyes
that were half filled with tears.Standing in the dim light of his study he was a striking man.
He had a powerful figure of medium height, deep piercing eyes and a
high intellectual forehead. His hair was black and thick. He was a
man of culture, had graduated at the head of his class at Wake
Forest College before the war, and was a profound student of men
and books. He was now thirty-five years old and the acknowledged
leader of the Baptist denomination in the state. He was eloquent,
witty, and proverbially good natured. His voice in the pulpit was
soft and clear, and full of a magnetic quality that gave him
hypnotic power over an audience. He had the prophetic temperament
and was more of poet than theologian.The people of this village were proud of the man as a citizen
and loved him passionately as their preacher. Great churches had
called him, but he had never accepted. There was in his make-up an
element of the missionary that gave his personality a peculiar
force.He had been the college mate of Colonel Charles Gaston whose
faithful slave had come to him for help, and they had always been
bosom friends. He had performed the marriage ceremony for the
Colonel ten years before when he had led to the altar the beautiful
daughter of the richest planter in the adjoining county. Durham’s
own heart was profoundly moved by his friend’s happiness and he
threw into the brief preliminary address so much of tenderness and
earnest passion that the trembling bride and groom forgot their
fright and were melted to tears. Thus began an association of their
family life that was closer than their college days.He closed his lips firmly for an instant, softly shut the
door and was soon on the way with Nelse. On reaching the house,
Nelse went directly to the kitchen, while the Preacher walking
along the circular drive approached the front. His foot had
scarcely touched the step when Mrs. Gaston opened the
door.
“ Oh, Dr. Durham, I am so glad you have come!” she exclaimed.
“I’ve been depressed to-day, watching the soldiers go by. All day
long the poor foot-sore fellows have been passing. I stopped some
of them to ask about Colonel Gaston and I thought one of them knew
something and would not tell me. I brought him in and gave him
dinner, and tried to coax him, but he only looked wistfully at me,
stammered and said he didn’t know. But some how I feel that he did.
Come in Doctor, and say something to cheer me. If I only had your
faith in God!”
“ I have need of it all to-night, Madam!” he answered with
bowed head.
“ Then you have heard bad news?”
“ I have heard news,—wonderful news of faith and love, of
heroism and knightly valour, that will be a priceless heritage to
you and yours. Nelse has returned—”
“ God have mercy on me!”—she gasped covering her face and
raising her arm as though cowering from a mortal blow.
“ Here is Nelse, Madam. Hear his story. He has only told me a
word or two.” Nelse had slipped quietly in the back
door.
“ Yassum. Missy, I’se home at las’.”She looked at him strangely for a moment. “Nelse, I’ve
dreamed and dreamed of your coming, but always with him. And now
you come alone to tell me he is dead. Lord have pity! there is
nothing left!” There was a far-away sound in her voice as though
half dreaming.
“ Yas, Missy, dey is, I jes seed him—my young Marster—dem
bright eyes, de ve’y nose, de chin, de mouf! He walks des like
Marse Charles, he talks like him, he de ve’y spit er him, en how he
hez growed! He’ll be er man fo you knows it. En I’se got er letter
fum his Pa fur him, an er letter fur you, Missy.”At this moment Charlie entered the room, slipped past Nelse
and climbed into his mother’s arms. He was a sturdy little fellow
of eight years with big brown eyes and sensitive
mouth.
“ Yassir—Ole Grant wuz er pushin’ us dar afo’ Richmond Pear
ter me lak Marse Robert been er fightin’ him ev’y day for six
monts. But he des keep on pushin’ en pushin’ us. Marse Charles say
ter me one night atter I been playin’ de banjer fur de boys, Come
ter my tent Nelse fo turnin’ in—I wants ter see you.’ He talk so
solemn like, I cut de banjer short, en go right er long wid him. He
been er writin’ en done had two letters writ. He say, ‘Nelse, we
gwine ter git outen dese trenches ter-morrer. It twell be my las’
charge. I feel it. Ef I falls, you take my swode, en watch en dese
letters back home to your Mist’ess and young Marster, en you
promise me, boy, to stan’ by em in life ez I stan’ by you.’ He know
I lub him bettern any body in dis work, en dat I’d rudder be his
slave dan be free if he’s daid! En I say, ‘Dat I will, Marse
Charles.’
“ De nex day we up en charge ole Grant. Pears ter me I nebber
see so many dead Yankees on dis yearth ez we see layin’ on de
groun’ whar we brake froo dem lines! But dey des kep fetchin’ up
annudder army back er de one we breaks, twell bymeby, dey swing er
whole millyon er Yankees right plum behin’ us, en five millyon er
fresh uns come er swoopin’ down in front. Den yer otter see my
Marster! He des kinder riz in de air—pear ter me like he wuz er
foot taller en say to his men—’ ‘Bout face, en charge de line in de
rear!’ Wall sar, we cut er hole clean froo dem Yankees en er
minute, end den bout face ergin en begin ter walk backerds er
fightin’ like wilecats ev’y inch. We git mos back ter de trenches,
when Marse Charles drap des lak er flash! I runned up to him en dar
wuz er big hole in his breas’ whar er bullet gone clean froo his
heart. He nebber groan. I tuk his head up in my arms en cry en take
on en call him! I pull back his close en listen at his heart. Hit
wuz still. I takes de swode an de watch en de letters outen de
pockets en start on—when bress God, yer cum dat whole Yankee army
ten hundred millyons, en dey tromple all over us!
“ Den I hear er Yankee say ter me ‘Now, my man, you’se free.’
‘Yassir, sezzi, dats so,’ en den I see a hole ter run whar dey
warn’t no Yankees, en I run spang into er millyon mo. De Yankees
wuz ev’y whar. Pear ter me lak dey riz up outer de groun’. All dat
day I try ter get away fum ’em. En long ’bout night dey ’rested me
en fetch me up fo er Genr’l, en he say, ‘What you tryin’ ter get
froo our lines fur, nigger? Doan yer know yer free now, en if you
go back you’d be a slave ergin?’”
“ Dats so, sah,” sezzi, “but I’se ’bleeged ter go
home.”
“ What fur?” sezze.
“ Promise Marse Charles ter take dese letters en swode en
watch back home to my Missus en young Marster, en dey waitin’ fur
me—I’se ’bleeged ter go.”
“ Den he tuk de letters en read er minute, en his eyes gin
ter water en he choke up en say, ‘Go-long!’
“ Den I skeedaddled ergin. Dey kep on ketchin’ me twell
bimeby er nasty stinkin low-life slue-footed Yankee kotched me en
say dat I wuz er dang’us nigger, en sont me wid er lot er our
prisoners way up ter ole Jonson’s Islan’ whar I mos froze ter deaf.
I stay dar twell one day er fine lady what say she from Boston cum
er long, en I up en tells her all erbout Marse Charles and my
Missus, en how dey all waitin’ fur me, en how bad I want ter go
home, en de nex news I knowed I wuz on er train er whizzin’ down
home wid my way all paid. I get wid our men at Greensboro en come
right on fas’ ez my legs’d carry me.”There was silence for a moment and then slowly Mrs. Gaston
said, “May God reward you, Nelse!”
“ Yassum, I’se free, Missy, but I gwine ter wuk for you en my
young Marster.”Mrs. Gaston had lived daily in a sort of trance through those
four years of war, dreaming and planning for the great day when her
lover would return a handsome bronzed and famous man. She had never
conceived of the possibility of a world without his will and love
to lean upon. The Preacher was both puzzled and alarmed by the
strangely calm manner she now assumed. Before leaving the home he
cautioned Aunt Eve to watch her Mistress closely and send for him
if anything happened.When the boy was asleep in the nursery adjoining her room,
she quietly closed the door, took the sword of her dead
lover-husband in her lap and looked long and tenderly at it. On the
hilt she pressed her lips in a lingering kiss.
“ Here his dear hand must have rested last!” she murmured.
She sat motionless for an hour with eyes fixed without seeing. At
last she rose and hung the sword beside his picture near her bed
and drew from her bosom the crumpled, worn letters Nelse had
brought. The first was addressed to her.
“ In the Trenches Near Richmond, May 4,
1864.
“ Sweet Wifie:—I have a presentiment to-night that I
shall not live to see you again. I feel the shadows of defeat and
ruin closing upon us. I am surer day by day that our cause is lost
and surrender is a word I have never learned to speak. If I could
only see you for one hour, that I might tell you all I have thought
in the lone watches of the night in camp, or marching over desolate
fields. Many tender things I have never said to you I have learned
in these days. I write this last message to tell you how, more and
more beyond the power of words to express, your love has grown upon
me, until your spirit seems the breath I breathe. My heart is so
full of love for you and my boy, that I can’t go into battle now
without thinking how many hearts will ache and break in far away,
homes because of the work I am about to do. I am sick of it all. I
long to be at home again and walk with my sweet young bride among
the flowers she loves so well, and hear the old mocking bird that
builds each spring in those rose bushes at our
window.
“ If I am killed, you must live for our boy and rear him
to a glorious manhood in the new nation that will be born in this
agony. I love you,—I love you unto the uttermost, and beyond death
I will live, if only to love you forever.
“ Always in life or death your own,
“ Charles.”For two hours she held this letter open in her hands and
seemed unable to move it. And then mechanically she opened the one
addressed to “Charles Gaston, jr.”
“ My Darling Boy:—I send you by Nelse my watch and sword.
It will be all I can bequeath to you from the wreck that will
follow the war. This sword was your great grandfather’s. He held it
as he charged up the heights of King’s Mountain against Ferguson
and helped to carve this nation out of a wilderness. It was a
sorrowful day for me when I felt it my duty to draw that sword
against the old flag in defence of my home and my people. You will
live to see a reunited country. Hang this sword back beside the old
flag of our fathers when the end has come, and always remember that
it was never drawn from its scabbard by your father, or your
grandfather who fought with Jackson at New Orleans, or your great
grandfather in the Revolution, save in the cause of justice and
right. I am not fighting to hold slaves in bondage. I am fighting
for the inalienable rights of my people under the Constitution our
fathers created. It may be we have outgrown this Constitution. But
I calmly leave to God and history the question as to who is right
in its interpretation. Whatever you do in life, first, last and
always do what you believe to be right. Everything else is of
little importance. With a heart full of love, Your
father,
“ Charles Gaston.”This letter she must have held open for hours, for it was two
o’clock in the morning when a wild peal of laughter rang from her
feverish lips and brought Aunt Eve and Nelse hurrying into the
room.It took but a moment for them to discover that their Mistress
was suffering from a violent delirium. They soothed her as best
they could. The noise and confusion had awakened the boy. Running
to the door leading into his mother’s room he found it bolted, and
with his little heart fluttering in terror he pressed his ear close
to the key-hole and heard her wild ravings. How strange her voice
seemed! Her voice had always been so soft and low and full of
soothing music. Now it was sharp and hoarse and seemed to rasp his
flesh with needles. What could it all mean? Perhaps the end of the
world, about which he had heard the Preacher talk on Sundays At
last unable to bear the terrible suspense longer he cried through
the key-hole, “Aunt Eve, what’s the matter? Open the door
quick.”
“ No, honey, you mustn’t come in. Yo Ma’s awful sick. You run
out ter de barn, ketch de mare, en fly for de doctor while me en
Nelse stay wid her. Run honey, day’s nuttin’ ter hurt
yer.”His little bare feet were soon pattering over the long
stretch of the back porch toward the barn. The night was clear and
sky studded with stars. There was no moon. He was a brave little
fellow, but a fear greater than all the terrors of ghosts and the
white sheeted dead with which Negro superstition had filled his
imagination, now nerved his child’s soul. His mother was about to
die! His very heart ceased to beat at the thought. He must bring
the doctor and bring him quickly.He flew to the stable not looking to the right or the left.
The mare whinnied as he opened the door to get the
bridle.
“ It’s me Bessie. Mama’s sick. We must go for the doctor
quick!”The mare thrust her head obediently down to the child’s short
arm for the bridle. She seemed to know by some instinct his
quivering voice had roused that the home was in distress and her
hour had come to bear a part.In a moment he led her out through the gate, climbed on the
fence, and sprang on her back.
“ Now, Bess, fly for me!” he half whispered, half cried
through the tears he could no longer keep back. The mare bounded
forward in a swift gallop as she felt his trembling bare legs clasp
her side, and the clatter of her hoofs echoed in the boy’s ears
through the silent streets like the thunder of charging cavalry.
How still the night! He saw shadows under the trees, shut his eyes
and leaning low on the mare’s neck patted her shoulders with his
hands and cried, “Faster. Bessie! Faster!” And then he tried to
pray. “Lord don’t let her die! Please, dear God, and I will always
be good. I am sorry I robbed the bird’s nests last summer—I’ll
never do it again. Please, Lord I’m such a wee boy and I’m so
lonely. I can’t lose my Mama!”—and the voice choked and became, a
great sob. He looked across the square as he passed the court house
in a gallop and saw a light in the window of the parsonage and felt
its rays warm his soul like an answer to his prayer.He reached the doctor’s house on the further side of the
town, sprang from the mare’s back, bounded up the steps and knocked
at the door. No one answered. He knocked again. How loud it rang
through the hall! May be the doctor was gone! He had not thought of
such a possibility before. He choked at the thought. Springing
quickly from the steps to the ground he felt for a stone, bounded
back and began to pound on the door with all his
might.The window was raised, and the old doctor thrust his head out
calling, “What on earth’s the matter? Who is that?”
“ It’s me, Charlie Gaston—my Mama’s sick—she’s awful sick,
I’m afraid she’s dying—you must come quick!”
“ All right, sonny, I’ll be ready in a minute.”The boy waited and waited. It seemed to him hours, days,
weeks, years! To every impatient call the doctor would answer, “In
a minute, sonny, in a minute!”At last he emerged with his lantern, to catch his horse. The
doctor seemed so slow. He fumbled over the harness.
“ Oh! Doctor you’re so slow! I tell you my Mama’s
sick—!”
“ Well, well, my boy, we’ll soon be there,” the old man
kindly replied.When the boy saw the doctor’s horse jogging quickly toward
his home he turned the mare’s head aside as he reached the court
house square, roused the Preacher, and between his sobs told the
story of his mother’s illness. Mrs. Durham had lost her only boy
two years before. Soon Charlie was sobbing in her
arms.
“ You poor little darling, out by yourself so late at night,
were you not scared?” she asked as she kissed the tears from his
eyes.
“ Yessum, I was scared, but I had to go for the doctor. I
want you and Dr. Durham to come as quick as you can. I’m afraid to
go home. I’m afraid she’s dead, or I’ll hear her laugh that awful
way I heard to-night.”
“ Of course we will come, dear, right away. We will be there
almost as soon as you can get to the house.”He rode slowly along the silent street looking back now and
then for the Preacher and his wife. As he was passing a small
deserted house he saw to his horror a ragged man peering into the
open window. Before he had time to run, the man stepped quickly up
to the mare and said, “Who lived here last, little
man?”
“ Old Miss Spurlin,” answered the boy.
“ Where is she now?”
“ She’s dead.”The man sighed, and the boy saw by his gray uniform that he
was a soldier just back from the war, and he quickly added, “Folks
said they had a hard time, but Preacher Durham helped them lots
when they had nothing to eat.”
“ So my poor old mother’s dead. I was afraid of it.” He
seemed to be talking to himself. “And do you know where her gal is
that lived with her?”
“ She’s in a little house down in the woods below town. They
say she’s a bad woman, and my Mama would never let me go near
her.”The man flinched as though struck with a knife, steadied
himself for a moment with his hands on the mare’s neck and said,
“You’re a brave little one to be out alone this time
o’night,—what’s your name?”
“ Charles Gaston.”
“ Then you’re my Colonel’s boy—many a time I followed him
where men were failin’ like leaves—I wish to God I was with him now
in the ground! Don’t tell anybody you saw me,—them that knowed me
will think I’m dead, and it’s better so.”
“ Good-bye, sir,” said the child “I’m sorry for you if you’ve
got no home. I’m after the doctor for my Mama,—she’s very sick. I’m
afraid she’s going to die, and if you ever pray I wish you’d pray
for her.”The soldier came closer. “I wish I knew how to pray, my boy.
But it seemed to me I forgot everything that was good in the war,
and there’s nothin’ left but death and hell. But I’ll not forget
you, good-bye!” When Charlie was in bed, he lay an hour with wide
staring eyes, holding his breath now and then to catch the faintest
sound from his mother’s room. All was quiet at last and he fell
asleep. But he was no longer a child. The shadow of a great sorrow
had enveloped his soul and clothed him with the dignity and
fellowship of the mystery of pain.
CHAPTER II—A LIGHT SHINING IN DARKNESS
IN the rear of Mrs. Gaston’s place, there stood
in the midst of an orchard a log house of two rooms, with hallway
between them. There was a mud-thatched wooden chimney at each end,
and from the back of the hallway a kitchen extension of the same
material with another mud chimney. The house stood in the middle of
a ten acre lot, and a woman was busy in the garden with a little
girl, planting seed.
“ Hurry up Annie, less finish this in time to fix up a fine
dinner er greens and turnips an’taters an a chicken. Yer Pappy’ll
get home to-day sure. Colonel Gaston’s Nelse come last night. Yer
Pappy was in the Colonel’s regiment an’ Nelse said he passed him on
the road comin’ with two one-legged soldiers. He ain’t got but one
leg, he says. But, Lord, if there’s a piece of him left we’ll
praise God an’ be thankful for what we’ve got.”
“ Maw, how did he look? I mos’ forgot—’s been so long sence I
seed him?” asked the child.
“ Look! Honey! He was the handsomest man in Campbell county!
He had a tall fine figure, brown curly beard, and the sweetest
mouth that was always smilin’ at me, an’ his eyes twinklin’ over
somethin’ funny he’d seed or thought about. When he was young ev’ry
gal around here was crazy about him. I got him all right, an’ he
got me too. Oh me! I can’t help but cry, to think he’s been gone so
long. But he’s comin’ to-day! I jes feel it in my bones.”
“ Look a yonder, Maw, what a skeer-crow ridin’ er ole hoss!”
cried the girl, looking suddenly toward the road.
“ Glory to God! It’s Tom!” she shouted, snatching her old
faded sun-bonnet off her head and fairly flying across the field to
the gate, her cheeks aflame, her blond hair tumbling over her
shoulders, her eyes wet with tears.
Tom was entering the gate of his modest home in as fine style
as possible, seated proudly on a stack of bones that had once been
a horse, an old piece of wool on his head that once had been a hat,
and a wooden peg fitted into a stump where once was a leg. His face
was pale and stained with the red dust of the hill roads, and his
beard, now iron grey, and his ragged buttonless uniform were
covered with dirt. He was truly a sight to scare crows, if not of
interest to buzzards. But to the woman whose swift feet were
hurrying to his side, and whose lips were muttering half articulate
cries of love, he was the knightliest figure that ever rode in the
lists before the assembled beauty of the world.
“ Oh! Tom, Tom, Tom, my ole man! You’ve come at last!” she
sobbed as she threw her arms around his neck, drew him from the
horse and fairly smothered him with kisses.
“ Look out, ole woman, you’ll break my new leg!” cried Tom
when he could get breath.
“ I don’t care,—I’ll get you another one,” she laughed
through her tears.
“ Look out there again you’re smashing my game shoulder. Got
er Minie ball in that one.”
“ Well your mouth’s all right I see,” cried the delighted
woman, as she kissed and kissed him.
“ Say, Annie, don’t be so greedy, give me a chance at my
young one.” Tom’s eyes were devouring the excited girl who had
drawn nearer.
“ Come and kiss your Pappy and tell him how glad you are to
see him!” said Tom, gathering her in his arms and attempting to
carry her to the house.
He stumbled and fell. In a moment the strong arms of his wife
were about him and she was helping him into the house.
She laid him tenderly on the bed, petted him and cried over
him. “My poor old man, he’s all shot and cut to pieces. You’re so
weak, Tom—I can’t believe it. You were so strong. But we’ll take
care of you. Don’t you worry. You just sleep a week and then rest
all summer and watch us work the garden for you!”
He lay still for a few moments with a smile playing around
his lips.
“ Lord, ole woman, you don’t know how nice it is to be petted
like that, to hear a woman’s voice, feel her breath on your face
and the touch of her hand, warm and soft after four years sleeping
on dirt and living with men and mules, and fightin’ and runnin’ and
diggin’ trenches like rats and moles, killin’ men, buryin’ the dead
like carrion, holdin’ men while doctors sawed their legs off, till
your turn came to be held and sawed! You can’t believe it, but this
is the first feather bed I’ve touched in four years.”
“ Well, well!—Bless God it’s over now,” she cried. “S’long as
I’ve got two strong arms to slave for you—as long as there’s a
piece of you left big enough to hold on to—I’ll work for you,” and
again she bent low over his pale face, and crooned over him as she
had so often done over his baby in those four lonely years of war
and poverty.
Suddenly Tom pushed her aside and sprang up in bed.
“ Geemimy, Annie, I forgot my pardners—there’s two more
peg-legs out at the gate by this time waiting for us to get through
huggin’ and carryin’ on before they come in. Run, fetch’em in
quick!”
Tom struggled to his feet and met them at the door.
“ Come right into my palace, boys. I’ve seen some fine places
in my time, but this is the handsomest one I ever set eyes on. Now,
Annie, put the big pot in the little one and don’t stand back for
expenses. Let’s have a dinner these fellers’ll never
forget.”
It was a feast they never forgot. Tom’s wife had raised a
brood of early chickens, and managed to keep them from being
stolen. She killed four of them and cooked them as only a Southern
woman knows how. She had sweet potatoes carefully saved in the
mound against the kitchen chimney. There were turnips and greens
and radishes, young onions and lettuce and hot corn dodgers fit for
a king; and in the centre of the table she deftly fixed a pot of
wild flowers little Annie had gathered. She did not tell them that
it was the last peck of potatoes and the last pound of meal. This
belonged to the morrow. To-day they would live.
They laughed and joked over this splendid banquet, and told
stories of days and nights of hunger and exhaustion, when they had
filled their empty stomachs with dreams of home.
“ Miss Camp, you’ve got the best husband in seven states, did
you know that?” asked one of the soldiers, a mere boy.
“ Of course she’ll agree to that, sonny,” laughed Tom.
“ Well it’s so. If it hadn’t been for him, M’am, we’d a been
peggin’ along somewhere way up in Virginny ‘stead o’ bein’ so close
to home. You see he let us ride his hoss a mile and then he’d ride
a mile. We took it turn about, and here we are.”
“ Tom, how in this world did you get that horse?” asked his
wife.
“ Honey, I got him on my good looks,” said he with a wink.
“You see I was a settin’ out there in the sun the day o’ the
surrender. I was sorter cryin’ and wonderin’ how I’d get home with
that stump of wood instead of a foot, when along come a chunky
heavy set Yankee General, looking as glum as though his folks had
surrendered instead of Marse Robert. He saw me, stopped, looked at
me a minute right hard and says, ‘Where do you live?’”
“ Way down in ole No’th Caliny,” I says, “at Ham-bright, not
far from King’s Mountain.”
“ How are you going to get home?” says he.
“ God knows, I don’t, General. I got a wife and baby down
there I ain’t seed fer nigh four years, and I want to see ’em so
bad I can taste ’em. I was lookin’ the other way when I said that,
fer I was purty well played out, and feelin’ weak and watery about
the eyes, an’ I didn’t want no Yankee General to see water in my
eyes.”
“ He called a feller to him and sorter snapped out to him,
‘Go bring the best horse you can spare for this man and give it to
him’.”
“ Then he turns to me and seed I was all choked up and
couldn’t say nothin’ and says:
“ I’m General Grant. Give my love to your folks when you get
home. I’ve known what it was to be a poor white man down South
myself once for awhile.”
“ God bless you, General. I thanks you from the bottom of my
heart,” I says as quick as I could find my tongue, “if it had to be
surrender I’m glad it was to such a man as you.”
“ He never said another word, but just walked slow along
smoking a big cigar. So ole woman, you know the reason I named that
hoss, ‘General Grant.’ It may be I have seen finer hosses than that
one, but I couldn’t recollect anything about ’em on the road
home.”
Dinner over, Tom’s comrades rose and looked wistfully down
the dusty road leading southward.
“ Well, Tom, ole man, we gotter be er movin’,” said the older
of the two soldiers. “We’re powerful obleeged to you fur helpin’ us
along this fur.”
“ All right, boys, you’ll find yer train standin’ on the side
o’ the track eatin’ grass. Jes climb up, pull the lever and let her
go.”
The men’s faces brightened, their lips twitched. They looked
at Tom, and then at the old horse. They looked down the long dusty
road stretching over hill and valley, hundreds of miles south, and
then at Tom’s wife and child, whispered to one another a moment,
and the elder said:
“ No, pardner, you’ve been awful good to us, but we’ll get
along somehow—we can’t take yer hoss. It’s all yer got now ter make
a livin’ on yer place.”
“ All I got?” shouted Tom, “man alive, ain’t you seed my ole
woman, as fat and jolly and han’some as when I married her ’leven
years ago? Didn’t you hear her cryin’ an’ shoutin’ like she’s crazy
when I got home? Didn’t you see my little gal with eyes jes like
her daddy’s? Don’t you see my cabin standin’ as purty as a ripe
peach in the middle of the orchard when hundreds of fine houses are
lyin’ in ashes? Ain’t I got ten acres of land? Ain’t I got God
Almighty above me and all around me, the same God that watched over
me on the battlefields? All I got? That old stack o’ bones that
looks like er hoss? Well I reckon not!”
“ Pardner, it ain’t right,” grumbled the soldier, with more
of cheerful thanks than protest in his voice.
“ Oh! Get off you fools,” said Tom good-naturedly, “ain’t it
my hoss? Can’t I do what I please with him?” So with hearty
hand-shakes they parted, the two astride the old horse’s back. One
had lost his right leg, the other his left, and this gave them a
good leg on each side to hold the cargo straight.
“ Take keer yerself, Tom!” they both cried in the same breath
as they moved away.
“ Take keer yerselves, boys. I’m all right!” answered Tom, as
he stumped his way back to the home. “It’s all right, it’s all
right,” he muttered to himself. “He’d a come in handy, but I’d a
never slept thinkin’ o’ them peggin’ along them rough
roads.”
Before reaching the house he sat down on a wooden bench
beneath a tree to rest. It was the first week in May and the leaves
were not yet grown. The sun was pouring his hot rays down into the
moist earth, and the heat began to feel like summer. As he drank in
the beauty and glory of the spring his soul was melted with joy.
The fruit trees were laden with the promise of the treasures of the
summer and autumn, a cat-bird was singing softly to his mate in the
tree over his head, and a mocking-bird seated in the topmost branch
of an elm near his cabin home was leading the oratorio of feathered
songsters. The wild plum and blackberry briars were in full bloom
in the fence comers, and the sweet odour filled the air. He heard
his wife singing in the house.
“ It’s a fine old world after all!” he exclaimed leaning back
and half closing his eyes, while a sense of ineffable peace filled
his soul. “Peace at last! Thank God! May I never see a gun or a
sword, or hear a drum or a fife’s scream on this earth
again!”
A hound came close wagging his tail and whining for a word of
love and recognition.
“ Well. Bob, old boy, you’re the only one left. You’ll have
to chase cotton-tails by yourself now.”
Bob’s eyes watered and he licked his master’s hand apparently
understanding every word he said.
Breaking from his master’s hands the dog ran toward the gate
barking, and Tom rose in haste as he recognised the sturdy tread of
the Preacher, Rev. John Durham, walking rapidly toward the
house.
Grasping him heartily by the hand the Preacher said, “Tom,
you don’t know how it warms my soul to look into your face again.
When you left, I felt like a man who had lost one hand. I’ve found
it to-day. You’re the same stalwart Christian full of joy and love.
Some men’s religion didn’t stand the wear and tear of war. You’ve
come out with your soul like gold tried in the fire. Colonel Gaston
wrote me you were the finest soldier in the regiment, and that you
were the only Chaplain he had seen that he could consult for his
own soul’s cheer. That’s the kind of a deacon to send to the front!
I’m proud of you, and you’re still at your old tricks. I met two
one-legged soldiers down the road riding your horse away as though
you had a stable full at your command. You needn’t apologise or
explain, they told me all about it.”
“ Preacher, it’s good to have the Lord’s messenger speak
words like them. I can’t tell you how glad I am to be home again
and shake your hand. I tell you it was a comfort to me when I lay
awake at night on them battlefields, a wonderin’ what had become of
my ole woman and the baby, to recollect that you were here, and how
often I’d heard you tell us how the Lord tempered the wind to the
shorn lamb. Annie’s been telling me who watched out for her them
dark days when there was nothin’ to eat. I reckon you and your wife
knows the way to this house about as well as you do to the church.”
Tom had pulled the Preacher down on the seat beside him while he
said this.
“ The dark days have only begun, Tom. I’ve come to see you to
have you cheer me up. Somehow you always seemed to me to be closer
to God than any man in the church. You will need all your faith
now. It seems to me that every second woman I know is a widow.
Hundreds of families have no seed even to plant, no horses to work
crops, no men who will work if they had horses. What are we to do?
I see hungry children in every house.”
“ Preacher, the Lord is looking down here to-day and sees all
this as plain as you and me. As long as He is in the sky everything
will come all right on the earth.”
“ How’s your pantry?” asked the Preacher.
“ Don’t know. ‘Man shall not live by bread alone,’ you know.
When I hear these birds in the trees an’ see this old dog waggin’
his tail at me, and smell the breath of them flowers, and it all
comes over me that I’m done killin’ men, and I’m at home, with a
bed to sleep on, a roof over my head, a woman to pet me and tell me
I’m great and handsome, I don’t feel like I’ll ever need anything
more to eat! I believe I could live a whole month here without
eatin’ a bite.”
“ Good. You come to the prayer meeting to-night and say a few
things like that, and the folks will believe they have been eating
three square meals every day.”
“ I’ll be there. I ain’t asked Annie what she’s got, but I
know she’s got greens and turnips, onions and col-lards, and
strawberries in the garden. Irish taters’ll be big enough to eat in
three weeks, and sweets comin’ right on. We’ve got a few chickens.
The blackberries and plums and peaches and apples are all on the
road. Ah! Preacher, it’s my soul that’s been starved away from my
wife and child!”
“ You don’t know how much I need help sometimes Tom. I am
always giving, giving myself in sympathy and help to others, I’m
famished now and then. I feel faint and worn out. You seem to fill
me again with life.”
“ I’m glad to hear you say that, Preacher. I get downhearted
sometimes, when I recollect I’m nothin’ but a poor white man. I’ll
remember your words. I’m goin’ to do my part in the church work.
You know where to find me.”
“ Well, that’s partly what brought me here this morning. I
want you to help me look after Mrs. Gaston and her little boy. She
is prostrated over the death of the Colonel and is hanging between
life and death. She is in a delirious condition all the time and
must be watched day and night. I want you to watch the first half
of the night with Nelse, and Eve and Mary will watch the last
half.”
“ Of course, I’ll do anything in the world I can for my
Colonel’s widder. He was the bravest man that ever led a regiment,
and he was a father to us boys. I’ll be there. But I won’t set up
with that nigger. He can go to bed.”
“ Tom, it’s a funny thing to me that as good a Christian as
you are should hate a nigger so. He’s a human being. It’s not
right.”
“ He may be human, Preacher, I don’t know. To tell you the
truth, I have my doubts. Anyhow, I can’t help it. God knows I hate
the sight of ’em like I do a rattlesnake. That nigger Nelse, they
say is a good one. He was faithful to the Colonel, I know, but I
couldn’t bear him no more than any of the rest of ’em. I always
hated a nigger since I was knee high. My daddy and my mammy hated
’em before me. Somehow, we always felt like they was crowdin’ us to
death on them big plantations, and the little ones too. And then I
had to leave my wife and baby and fight four years, all on account
of their stinkin’ hides, that never done nothin’ for me except make
it harder to live. Every time I’d go into battle and hear them
Minie balls begin to sing over us, it seemed to me I could see
their black ape faces grinnin’ and makin’ fun of poor whites. At
night when they’d detail me to help the ambulance corps carry off
the dead and the wounded, there was a strange smell on the field
that came from the blood and night damp and burnt powder. It always
smelled like a nigger to me! It made me sick. Yes, Preacher, God
forgive me, I hate ’em! I can’t help it any more than I can the
color of my skin or my hair.”
“ I’ll fix it with Nelse, then. You take the first part of
the night ’till twelve o’clock. I’ll go down with you from the
church to-night,” said the Preacher, as he shook Tom’s hand and
took his leave.
CHAPTER III—DEEPENING SHADOWS
ON the second day after Mrs. Gaston was
stricken a forlorn little boy sat in the kitchen watching Aunt Eve
get supper. He saw her nod while she worked the dough for the
biscuits.
“ Aunt Eve, I’m going to sit up to-night and every night with
my Mama, ’till she gets well. I can’t sleep for hours and hours. I
lie awake and cry when I hear her talking ’till I feel like I’ll
die. I must do something to help her.”
“ Laws, honey, you’se too little. You can’t keep ’wake ’tall.
You get so lonesome and skeered all by yerself.”
“ I don’t care, I’ve told Tom to wake me to-night if I’m
asleep when he goes, and I’ll sit up from twelve ’till two o’clock
and then call you.”
“ All right, Mammy’s darlin’ boy, but you git tired en can’t
stan’ it.”So that night at midnight he took his place by the bedside.
His mother was sleeping, at first. He sat and gazed with aching
heart at her still, white face. She stirred, opened her eyes, saw
him, and imagined he was his father.
“ Dearie-, I knew you would come,” she murmured. “They told
me you were dead; but I knew better. What a long, long time you
have been away. How brown the sun has tanned your face, but it’s
just as handsome. I think handsomer than ever. And how like you is
little Charlie! I knew you would be proud of him!”While she talked, her eyes had a glassy look, that seemed to
take no note of anything in the room.The child listened for ten minutes, and then the horror of
her strange voice, and look and words overwhelmed him. He burst
into tears and threw his arms around his mother’s neck and
sobbed.
“ Oh! Mama dear, it’s me, Charlie, your little boy, who loves
you so much. Please, don’t talk that way. Please look at me like
you used to. There! Let me kiss your eyes ’till they are soft and
sweet again!”He covered her eyes with kisses.The mother seemed dazed for a moment, held him off at arm’s
length, and then burst into laughter.
“ Of course, you silly, I know you. You must run to bed now.
Kiss me good night.”
“ But you are sick, Mama, I am sitting up with you.” Again
she ignored his presence. She was back in the old days with her
Love. She was kissing her hand to him as he left her for his day’s
work. Charlie looked at the clock. It was time to give her the
soothing drops the doctor left. She took it, obedient as a child,
and went on and on with interminable dreams of the past, now and
then uttering strange things for a boy’s ears. But so terrible was
the anguish with which he watched her, the words made little
impression on his mind. It seemed to him some one was strangling
him to death, and a great stone was piled on his little prostrate
body.When she grew quiet, at last, and dosed, how still the house
seemed! How loud the tick of the clock! How slowly the hands moved!
He had never noticed this before. He watched the hands for five
minutes. It seemed each minute was an hour, and five minutes were
as long as a day. What strange noises in the house! Suppose a ghost
should walk into the room! Well, he wouldn’t run and leave his
Mama; he made up his mind to that.Some nights there were other sounds more ominous. The town
was crowded with strange negroes, who were hanging around the camp
of the garrison. One night a drunken gang came shouting and
screaming up the alley close beside the house, firing pistols and
muskets. They stopped at the house, and one of them yelled, “Burn
the rebel’s house down! It’s our turn now!”The terrified boy rushed to the kitchen and called Nelse. In
a minute, Nelse was on the scene. There was no more trouble that
night.
“ De lazy black debbels,” said Nelse, as he mopped the
perspiration from his brow, “I’ll teach ’em what freedom
is.”The next day when the Rev. John Durham had an interview with
the Commandant of the troops, he succeeded in getting a consignment
of corn for seed, and to meet the threat of starvation among some
families whose condition he reported. This important matter
settled, he said to the officer:
“ Captain, we must look to you for protection. The town is
swarming with vagrant negroes, bent on mischief. There are camp
followers with you organizing them into some sort of Union League
meetings, dealing out arms and ammunition to them, and what is
worse, inflaming the worst passions against their former masters,
teaching them insolence and training them for crime.”
“ I’ll do the best I can for you Doctor, but I can’t control
the camp followers who are organising the Union League. They live a
charmed life.”That night, as the Preacher walked home from a visit to a
destitute family he encountered a burly negro on the sidewalk,
dressed in an old suit of Federal uniform, evidently under the
influence of whiskey. He wore a belt around his waist, in which he
had thrust, conspicuously, an old horse pistol.Standing squarely across the pathway, he said to the
Preacher, “Git outer de road, white man, you’se er rebel, I’se er
Loyal Union Leaguer!”It was his first experience with Negro insolence since the
emancipation of his slaves. Quick as a flash, his right arm was
raised. But he took a second thought, stepped aside, and allowed
the drunken fool to pass. He went home wondering in a hazy sort of
way through his excited passions what the end of it all would be.
Gradually in his mind for days this towering figure of the freed
Negro had been growing more and more ominous, until its menace
overshadowed the poverty, the hunger, the sorrows and the
devastation of the South, throwing the blight of its shadow over
future generations, a veritable Black Death for the land and its
people.
CHAPTER IV—MR. LINCOLN’S DREAM
EVERY morning before the Preacher could finish
his breakfast, callers were knocking at the door—the negro, the
poor white, the widow, the orphan, the wounded, the hungry, an
endless procession.
The spirit of the returned soldiers was all that he could
ask. There was nowhere a slumbering spark of war. There was not the
slightest effort to continue the lawless habits of four years of
strife. Everywhere the spirit of patience, self-restraint and hope
marked the life of the men who had made the most terrible soldiery.
They were glad to be done with war, and have the opportunity to
rebuild their broken fortunes. They were glad, too, that the
everlasting question of a divided Union was settled and settled
forever. There was now to be one country and one flag, and deep
down in their souls they were content with it.
The spectacle of this terrible army of the Confederacy, the
memory of whose battle cry yet thrills the world, transformed in a
month into patient and hopeful workmen, has never been paralleled
in history.
Who destroyed this scene of peaceful rehabilitation? Hell has
no pit dark enough, and no damnation deep enough for these
conspirators when once history has fixed their guilt.
The task before the people of the South was one to tax the
genius of the Anglo-Saxon race as never in its history, even had
every friendly aid possible been extended by the victorious North.
Four million negroes had suddenly been freed, and the foundations
of economic order destroyed. Five billions of dollars worth of
property were wiped out of existence, banks closed, every dollar of
money worthless paper, the country plundered by victorious armies,
its cities, mills and homes burned, and the flower of its manhood
buried in nameless trenches, or worse still, flung upon the charity
of poverty, maimed wrecks. The task of organising this wrecked
society and marshalling into efficient citizenship this host of
ignorant negroes, and yet to preserve the civilisation of the
Anglo-Saxon race, the priceless heritage of two thousand years of
struggle, was one to appal the wisdom of ages. Honestly and
earnestly the white people of the South set about this work, and
accepted the Thirteenth amendment to the Constitution abolishing
slavery without a protesting vote.
The President issued his proclamation announcing the method
of restoring the Union as it had been handed to him from the
martyred Lincoln, and endorsed unanimously by Lincoln’s Cabinet.
This plan was simple, broad and statesmanlike, and its spirit
breathed Fraternity and Union with malice toward none and charity
toward all. It declared what Lincoln had always taught, that the
Union was indestructible, that the rebellious states had now only
to repudiate Secession, abolish slavery, and resume their positions
in the Union, to preserve which so many lives had been
sacrificed.
The people of North Carolina accepted this plan in good
faith. They elected a Legislature composed of the noblest men of
the state, and chose an old Union man, Andrew Macon, Governor.
Against Macon was pitted the man who was now the President and
organiser of a federation of secret oath-bound societies, of which
the Union League, destined to play so tragic a part in the drama
about to follow was the type. This man, Amos Hogg, was a writer of
brilliant and forceful style. Before the war, a virulent
Secessionist leader, he had justified and upheld slavery, and had
written a volume of poems dedicated to John C. Calhoun. He had led
the movement for Secession in the Convention which passed the
ordinance. But when he saw his ship was sinking, he turned his back
upon the “errors” of the past, professed the most loyal Union
sentiments, wormed himself into the confidence of the Federal
Government, and actually succeeded in securing the position of
Provisional Governor of the state! He loudly professed his loyalty,
and with fury and malice demanded that Vance, the great war
Governor, his predecessor, who, as a Union man had opposed
Secession, should now be hanged, and with him his own former
associates in the Secession Convention, whom he had misled with his
brilliant pen.
But the people had a long memory. They saw through this
hollow pretense, grieved for their great leader, who was now locked
in a prison cell in Washington, and voted for Andrew Macon.
In the bitterness of defeat, Amos Hogg sharpened his wits and
his pen, and began his schemes of revengeful ambition.
