I had been an undoubting Union boy. Neither then nor afterward could I be
fairly classified as a Secessionist. Circumstance rather than conviction or
predilection threw me into the Confederate service, and, being in, I went
through with it.
The secession leaders I held in distrust; especially Yancey, Mason,
Slidell, Benjamin and Iverson, Jefferson Davis and Isham G. Harris were not
favorites of mine. Later along I came into familiar association with
most of them, and relations were established which may be described as
confidential and affectionate. Lamar and I were brought together oddly
enough in 1869 by Carl Schurz, and thenceforward we were the most devoted
friends. Harris and I fell together in 1862 in the field, first with
Forrest and later with Johnston and Hood, and we remained as brothers to
the end, when he closed a great career in the upper house of Congress, and
by Republican votes, though he was a Democrat, as president of the Senate.
He continued in the Governorship of Tennessee through the war. He at no
time lost touch with the Tennessee troops, and though not always in the
field, never missed a forward movement. In the early spring of 1864, just
before the famous Johnston-Sherman campaign opened, General Johnston asked
him to go around among the boys and "stir 'em up a bit." The Governor
invited me to ride with him. Together we visited every sector in the army.
Threading the woods of North Georgia on this round, if I heard it once I
heard it fifty times shouted from a distant clearing: "Here comes Gov-ner
Harris, fellows; g'wine to be a fight." His appearance at the front had
always preceded and been long ago taken as a signal for battle.
[Illustration: John Bell of Tennessee--In 1860 Presidential Candidate
"Union Party"--"Bell and Everett" Ticket.]
My being a Washington correspondent of the Philadelphia Press and having
lived since childhood at Willard's Hotel, where the Camerons also lived,
will furnish the key to my becoming an actual and active rebel. A few days
after the inauguration of Mr. Lincoln, Colonel Forney came to my quarters
and, having passed the time of day, said: "The Secretary of War wishes you
to be at the department to-morrow morning as near nine o'clock as you can
make it."
"What does he want, Colonel Forney?" I asked.
"He is going to offer you the position of private secretary to the
Secretary of War, with the rank of lieutenant colonel, and I am very
desirous that you accept it."
He went away leaving me rather upset. I did not sleep very soundly that
night. "So," I argued to myself, "it has come to this, that Forney and
Cameron, lifelong enemies, have made friends and are going to rob the
Government--one clerk of the House, the other Secretary of War--and I, a
mutual choice, am to be the confidential middle man." I still had a home in
Tennessee and I rose from my bed, resolved to go there.
I did not keep the proposed appointment for next day. As soon as I could
make arrangements I quitted Washington and went to Tennessee, still
unchanged in my preconceptions. I may add, since they were verified by
events, that I have not modified them from that day to this.
I could not wholly believe with either extreme. I had perpetrated no wrong,
but in my small way had done my best for the Union and against secession. I
would go back to my books and my literary ambitions and let the storm blow
over. It could not last very long; the odds against the South were too
great. Vain hope! As well expect a chip on the surface of the ocean to lie
quiet as a lad of twenty-one in those days to keep out of one or the other
camp. On reaching home I found myself alone. The boys were all gone to the
front. The girls were--well, they were all crazy. My native country was
about to be invaded. Propinquity. Sympathy. So, casting opinions to the
winds in I went on feeling. And that is how I became a rebel, a case of
"first endure and then embrace," because I soon got to be a pretty good
rebel and went the limit, changing my coat as it were, though not my better
judgment, for with a gray jacket on my back and ready to do or die, I
retained my belief that secession was treason, that disunion was the height
of folly and that the South was bound to go down in the unequal strife.
I think now, as an academic proposition, that, in the doctrine of
secession, the secession leaders had a debatable, if not a logical case;
but I also think that if the Gulf States had been allowed to go out by
tacit consent they would very soon have been back again seeking readmission
to the Union.
Man proposes and God disposes. The ways of Deity to man are indeed past
finding out. Why, the long and dreadful struggle of a kindred people, the
awful bloodshed and havoc of four weary years, leaving us at the close
measurably where we were at the beginning, is one of the mysteries which
should prove to us that there is a world hereafter, since no great creative
principle could produce one with so dire, with so short a span and nothing
beyond.