The Southerner: A Romance of the Real Lincoln Part 81
With the eagerness of a boy he rushed to the telegraph office and sent the message to Meade over his own signature.
For the first time in dreary months the sun had burst for a moment through the clouds that had hung in endless gloom over the White House.
The sorrowful eyes were shining with new hope. The President felt sure that General Lee could never succeed in leading his shattered army back into Virginia. He had lost twenty thousand men out of his sixty-two thousand--while Meade was still in command of a grand army of eighty-two thousand soldiers flushed with victory. The Potomac River was in flood and the Confederate army was on its banks unable to recross.
It was a moral certainty that the heroic Commander who had saved the Capital at Gettysburg could, with his eighty-two thousand men, capture or crush Lee's remaining force, caught in this trap by the swollen river, and end the war.
The men who crowded into the Executive office the day after the news of Vicksburg, found the Chief Magistrate in high spirits. Among the cases of deserters, court-martialed and ordered to be shot, he was surprised to find a negro soldier bearing the remarkable name of Julius Caesar Thornton. John Vaughan had telegraphed the President asking his interference with the execution of this cruel edict.
The President was deeply interested. It was the beginning of the use of negro troops. He had consented to their employment with reluctance, but they were proving their worth to the army, both in battle and in the work of garrisons.
Julius was brought from prison for an interview with the Chief Magistrate.
Stanton had sternly demanded the enforcement of the strictest military discipline as the only way to make these black troops of any real service to the Government. He asked that an example be made of Julius by sending him back to the army to be publicly shot before the a.s.sembled men of his race. He was convicted of two capital offenses. He had been caught in Washington shamelessly flaunting the uniform he had disgraced.
Julius faced the President with an humble salute and a broad grin. The black man liked the looks of his judge and he threw off all embarra.s.sment his situation had produced with the first glance at the kindly eyes gazing at him over the rims of those spectacles.
"Well, Julius Caesar Thornton, this is a serious charge they have lodged against you?"
"Ya.s.sah, dat's what dey say."
"You went forth like a man to fight for your country, didn't you?"
"Na, sah!"
"How'd you get there?"
"Dey volunteered me, sah."
"Volunteered you, did they?" the President laughed.
"Ya.s.sah--dat dey did. Dey sho' volunteered me whether er no----"
"And how did it happen?"
"Dey done hit so quick, sah, I scacely know how dey did do hit. I was in de war down in Virginia wid Ma.r.s.e John Vaughan--an' er low-lifed Irishman on guard dar put me ter wuk er buryin' corpses. I hain't nebber had no taste for corpses nohow, an' I didn't like de job--mo' specially, sah, when one ob 'em come to ez I was pullin' him froo de dark ter de grave----"
"Come to, did he?" the President smiled.
"Ya.s.sah--he come to all of er sudden an' kicked me! An' hit scared me near 'bout ter death. I lit out fum dar purty quick, sah, an' go West.
An' I ain't mor'n got out dar 'fore two fellers drawed dere muskets on me an' persuaded me ter volunteer, sah. Dey put dese here cloze on me an' tell me dat I wuz er hero. I tell 'em dey must be some mistake 'bout dat, but dey say no--dey know what dey wuz er doin'. Dey keep on tellin'
me dat I wuz er hero an', by golly, I 'gin ter b'lieve hit myself till dey git me into trouble, sah."
"You were in a battle?"
Julius scratched his head and walled his eyes:
"I had er little taste ob it, sah,----"
"Well, you tried to fight, didn't you?"
"No, sah,--I run."
"Ran at the first fire?"
"Yas, _sah_! An' I'd a ran sooner ef I'd er known hit wuz comin'----"
Julius paused and broke into a jolly laugh:
"Dey git one pop at me, sah, 'fore I seed what dey wuz doin'!"
The President suppressed a laugh and gazed at Julius with severity:
"That wasn't very creditable to your courage."
"Dat ain't in my line, sah,--I'se er cook."
"Have you no regard for your reputation?"
"Dat ain't nuttin' ter me, sah, 'side er life!"
"And your life is worth more than other people's?"
"Worth er lot mo' ter me, sah."
"I'm afraid they wouldn't have missed you, Julius, if you'd been killed."
"Na, sah, but I'd a sho missed myself an' dat's de pint wid me."
The President fixed him with a comical frown:
"It's sweet and honorable to die for one's country, Julius!"
"Ya.s.sah--dat's what I hear--but I ain't fond er sweet things--I ain't nebber hab no taste fer 'em, sah!"
"Well, it looks like I'll have to let 'em have you, Julius, for an example. I've tried to save you--but there doesn't seem to be any thing to take hold of. Every time I grab you, you slip right through my fingers. I reckon they'll have to shoot you----"
The negro broke into a hearty laugh:
"G'way fum here, Mr. President! You can't fool me, sah. I sees yer laughin' right now way back dar in yo' eyes. You ain't gwine let 'em shoot me. I'se too vallable a n.i.g.g.e.r fer dat. I wuz worth er thousan'
dollars 'fore de war. I sho' oughter be wuth two thousan' now. What's de use er 'stroyin' er good piece er property lak dat? I won't be no good ter n.o.body ef dey shoots me!"
The President broke down at last, leaned back in his chair and laughed with every muscle of his long body. Julius joined him with unction.
When the laughter died away the tall figure bent over his desk and wrote an order for the negro's release, and discharge from the army.
One of the things which had brought the President his deepest joy in the victory of Vicksburg was not the importance of the capture of the city and the opening of the Mississippi so much as the saving of U. S. Grant as a commanding General.
From the capture of Fort Donelson, the eyes of the Chief Magistrate had been fixed on this quiet fighter. And then came the disaster to his army at Shiloh--the first day's fight a b.l.o.o.d.y and overwhelming defeat--the second the recovery of the ground lost and the death of Albert Sydney Johnston, his brilliant Confederate opponent.