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[Illustration]
SHOULDER-STRAPS
By
Henry Morford
[Illustration]
T.B. PETERSON & BROS.
PHILADELPHIA.
SHOULDER-STRAPS.
A
NOVEL
OF
NEW YORK AND THE ARMY,
1862.
BY HENRY MORFORD.
PHILADELPHIA:
T.B. PETERSON & BROTHERS,
306 CHESTNUT STREET.
Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1863, by
T.B. PETERSON & BROTHERS,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States,
in and for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
TO
DR. R. SHELTON MACKENZIE,
WHO
HAS ALREADY RECEIVED SO MANY DEDICATIONS,
THAT THEY HAVE BECOME
AN OLD, OLD STORY,--
THIS VOLUME IS
RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED
BY
HIS GRATEFUL FRIEND AND CO-LABORER,
THE AUTHOR.
NEW YORK CITY, JULY, 1863.
PREFACE.
Several months have necessarily elapsed since the commencement of this
narration. Within that time many and rapid changes have occurred, both
in national situation and in private character. As a consequence, there
may be several words, in earlier portions of the story, that would not
have been written a few months later. The writer has preferred not to
make any changes in original expression, but to set down, instead, in
references, the dates at which certain portions of the work were
written. In one instance important assistance has been derived from a
writer of ability and much military experience; and that assistance is
thankfully acknowledged in a foot-note to one of the appropriate
chapters. Some readers may be disappointed not to find a work more
extensively military, under such a title and at this time; but the aim
of the writer, while giving glances at one or two of our most important
battles, has been chiefly to present a faithful picture of certain
relations in life and society which have grown out, as side-issues, from
the great struggle. At another time and under different circumstances,
the writer might feel disposed to apologize for the great liberty of
episode and digression, taken with the story; but in the days of Victor
Hugo and Charles Reade, and at a time when the text of the preacher in
his pulpit, and the title of a bill in a legislative body, are alike
made the threads upon which to string the whole knowledge of the speaker
upon every subject,--such an apology can scarcely be necessary. It
should be said, in deference to a few retentive memories, that two
chapters of this story, now embraced in the body of the work, were
originally written for and published in the _Continental Monthly_, last
fall, the publication of the whole work through that medium, at first
designed, being prevented by a change of management and a contract
mutually broken.
NEW YORK CITY, July, 1863.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I. PAGE
Two Friends--Walter Lane Harding and Tom Leslie--Merchant and
Journalist--A Torn Dress and a Stalwart Champion--Tom Leslie's
Story of Dexter Ralston--Three Meetings--An Incident on the
Potomac--The Inauguration of Lincoln--A Warning of the Virginia
Secession--Governmental Blindness--Friend or Foe to the Union? 23
CHAPTER II.
Richard Crawford and Josephine Harris--The Invalid and the Wild
Madonna--An Odd Female Character and a Temptation--Discouragement
and Consolation--Miss Joe Harris on the Character of Colonel
Egbert Crawford--A Suggestion of Hatred and Murder--A New Agony
for the Invalid--A Lady with an Attachment to Cerise Ribbon. 41
CHAPTER III.
A Scene at Judge Owen's--Mother and Daughter--Pretty Emily with
One Lover Too Many--Emily's Determination, and Judge Owen's
Ultimatum--A Pompous Judge playing Grand Signeur in his own
Family--Aunt Martha to the Rescue--Her Story of Marriage without
Love, Wedded Misery and Outrage--How Old is Colonel John Boadley
Bancker, and what is the Character of Frank Wallace? 60
CHAPTER IV.
Harding and Leslie make Discoveries on Prince Street--Secesh
Flags and Emblems of the Golden Circle--What do they mean?--Tom
Leslie takes a Climb and a Tumble--The Red Woman--A Carriage
Chase Up-town--A Mysterious House--Amateur Detectives under a
Door-step, and what they saw and heard. 63
CHAPTER V.
Who was the Red Woman?--Tom Leslie's Strange Story of Parisian
Life and Fortune-telling--The 20th of December, 1860--An Hour in
the Rue la Reynie Ogniard--The Vision of the White Mist--The
Secession of South Carolina seen across the Atlantic--Was the
Sorceress in America? 73
CHAPTER VI.
Colonel Egbert Crawford and Miss Bell Crawford--Miss Harris
entering upon the Spy-System--Some Dissertations thereon, as
practised in the Army and Elsewhere--What McDowell knew before
Bull Run--Colonel Crawford's Affectionate Care of his Sick
Cousin--Josephine Harris behind a Glass Door--What she overheard
about Cousin Mary and the Rich Uncle at West Falls--Colonel
Crawford trying his Hand at Doctoring--A Suspicious Bandage, and
what the Watcher thought of it 83
CHAPTER VII.
Introduction of the Contraband--What He Was and What He Is--Three
Months Earlier--Colonel Egbert Crawford in Thomas Street--Aunt
Synchy, the Obi Woman--How a Man who is only half evil can be
tempted to murder--The Black Paste of the Obi Poison 99
CHAPTER VIII.
Colonel John Boadley Bancker and Frank Wallace at Judge Owen's--A
Pouting Lover and a Satisfied Rival--The Philosophy of Male and
Female Jealousy--Frank Wallace doing the Insulting--A Bit of a
Row--A Smash-up in the Streets, and a True Test of Relative
Courage 115
CHAPTER IX.
The First Week of July--News of the Reverses before
Richmond--Painful Feeling of the Whole Country--How a Nation
weeps Tears of Blood--The Estimation of McClellan--The Curse of
Absenteeism--Public Abhorrence of the Shoulder-strapped Heroes on
Broadway--A Scene at the World Corner, and a Hero in Disguise 129
CHAPTER X.
Leslie and Harding following up the Prince-Street Mystery--A Call
upon Superintendent Kennedy--How Tom Leslie wished to play
Detective--A Bit of a Rebuff--A Massachusetts Regiment going to
the War--Miss Joe Harris and Bell Crawford in a Street Difficulty--A
Rescue and a Recognition--A Trip into Taylor's Saloon 142
CHAPTER XI.
The True Characters of Men and of Houses--Fifth Avenue and the
Swamp--Gilded Vice, and Vice without Ornament--The Progress of
Temptation--The Legends of the Lurline and the Frozen Hand--Dangers
of Fashionable Restaurants--Scenes at Taylor's Saloon--Tom Leslie,
Joe Harris and Bell Crawford at Lunch--The Fortune-teller selected
by Miss Harris for a Visit--Wanted, a Knight for Two Distressed
Damsels--Tom Leslie enlists, and goes after his Armor 160
CHAPTER XII.
A Glance at Fortune-telling and other Delusions--Our Domestic and
Personal Superstitions--Omens and their Origin--The Witch of
Endor, Hamlet and Macbeth--One Strange Illustration of Prophecy
in Dreams--The Fortune-tellers of New York, Boston and Washington 172
CHAPTER XIII.
Ten Minutes at a Costumer's--Among the Robes of Queens and the
Rags of Beggars--How Tom Leslie suddenly grew to Sixty, and
changed Clothes accordingly--Josephine Harris and Bell Crawford
still at Lunch, with a Dissertation upon One Pair of Eyes--An
Unwarrantable Intrusion, and a Decided Sensation at Taylor's 187
CHAPTER XIV.
Necromancy in a Thunder-storm--How Tom Leslie and his Female
Companions called upon Madame Elise Boutell, from Paris, in
Prince Street--A New Way of Gambling for Precedence--Bell
Crawford takes her Turn--A very improper Joining of Hands in the
Outer Apartment--About Chances, Accidents and Little Things--The
Change in Bell Crawford's Eyes--Eyes that have looked within--Two
Pictures in the Old Dusseldorf Gallery--Joe Harris Undergoing the
Ordeal--A Thunder-clap and a Shriek of Terror--What Tom Leslie
saw in the Apartment of the Red Woman--A Mask removed, and one
more Temptation 198
CHAPTER XV.
Camp Lyon, and Colonel Egbert Crawford's Two Hundredth
Regiment--Recruiting Discipline in the Summer of 1862--What Smith
and Brown saw--Lager-beer, Cards and the Dice-box--An Adjutant
who obeys Orders--A Dress Parade a la mode--How Seven Hundred Men
may be squeezed into Three 218
CHAPTER XVI.
A Few Words on the Two Modern Modes of writing Romances--How to
tell what is not known and can never be known--The Bound of a
Loyal Pen--More of the Up-town Mystery--How the Reliable
Detectives posted a Watch, and how they kept it--Cold Water
dampening Enthusiasm--An Escape, and the Post mortem hold on a
Vacant House--Trails left by the Secession Serpent 232
CHAPTER XVII.
Pictures at the Seat of War--Looking for John Crawford the
Zouave--Hopeful and Discouraged Letters Home--Events which had
preceded Malvern Hill--An Army winning Victories in Retreat--The
Morning after White-Oak Swamp--How the Sun shines on Fields of
Carnage--Appearance of the Retreating Army--The Camp of Fitz-John
Porter's Division--The Soldiers of Home, and the Soldiers of the
Field--The First Rebel Attack at the Cross Roads--Why the Potomac
Army was not demoralized--The Repulse, and the Pause before the
Heavier Storm 239
CHAPTER XVIII.
More of the First Battle of Malvern--A Word about Skulkers--An
Attempt to flank the Union Forces--A Storm of Lead and Iron
rivalling the War of the Elements--The Rebels Repulsed--The
Attack on the Main Position, and the Second Battle of Malvern--The
most Terrible Artillery Duel of the Century--Patriotism against
Gunpowdered Whiskey--Shells from the Gun-boats, and their Effect--The
Dead upon Carter's Field--The Last Repulse of the Rebels, and the
General Advance of the Union Forces--Strange Incidents of the Close
of the Battle--Odd Bravery in Meagher's Brigade--The Apparition in
White, and its Effect--Close of the Great Battle 256
CHAPTER XIX.
John Crawford the Zouave, and Bob Webster--Incidents of the
Charge of Duryea's Zouaves--Bush-fighting and its Result--A Wound
not bargained for--The Burning House and its Two Watchers--A
Strange Death-scene--Marion Hobart and her Dying Grandfather--Death
under the Old Flag--An Oath of Protection--A Furlough--John Crawford
brings his Newly-acquired Family to New York 277
CHAPTER XX.
Judge Owen's Condemnation of the Rioters at his House--How Frank
Wallace was exiled, and what came of it--The Burly Judge making a
Household Arrest at Wallack's--Emily Owen and Joe Harris--A
Recognition which may cause Further Trouble 297
CHAPTER XXI.
Another Scene at Richard Crawford's--Josephine Harris playing the
Detective, with Musical Accompaniments--A Sudden Demand for Dark
Paste, with Difficulty in supplying it--A Young Girl who wished
to be believed a Coward--Ever of Thee, with some Feelings
thereunto attached--Josephine Harris pays a Visit to Doctor
LaTurque--Her Discoveries with reference to the Obi Poison 312
CHAPTER XXII.
A Little Arrangement between Tom Leslie and Joe Harris--Going to
West Falls and Niagara--A Detention and a Night Scene on the
Hudson-River Road--Why Joe Harris hid her Saucy Face--Oneida
Scenery--Aunt Betsey, Little Susy, and a Peep at the Halstead
Homestead, with Pigs, Chickens and Cherries 332
CHAPTER XXIII.
Josephine Harris in quest of Information--The Big House on the
Hill--Extracting the Secrets of the Crawford Family--How a Big
Fib may sometimes be told for a Good Purpose--Aunt Betsey made an
Accomplice--Mary Crawford, the Country Girl, and a Terrible
Revelation--A Bold Letter to a Bold Man 350
CHAPTER XXIV.
The Piazza of the Big House on the Hill--John Crawford the Human
Wreck, and Egbert Crawford on the Eve of Marriage--Chanticleer on
the Garden Fence, with Remembrances of Peter and Judas Iscariot--John
Crawford instructs his Expectant Son-in-law--Arrival of the Domestic
Post, with a Letter of Import--A Hit or a Miss?--Strida la Vampa 372
CHAPTER XXV.
Affairs in the Crawford Family in New York--The Two Brothers
together--Marion Hobart the Enigma--How Richard Crawford thought
that he was not able to ride to the Central Park, and found that
he could ride to Niagara 391
CHAPTER XXVI.
Tom Leslie at Niagara--A Dash at Scenery there--What he saw with
his Natural Eyes, and what with his Inner Consciousness--The
Wreck and the Rainbow--Another Rencontre with Dexter Ralston--The
Eclipse on the Falls--Leslie under the impression that he can be
discounted, and that he knows little or nothing on any subject 404
CHAPTER XXVII.
Society and Shoulder-Straps at the Falls--The Delights and Duties
of a Journalist--Leslie and Harding Exploring Canada--How one
Fine Morning War was declared between England and the United
States, and Canada annexed to New York--A Meeting at the
Cataract--Another Rencontre with the Strange Virginian--An
Abduction and a Pursuit 420
CHAPTER XXVIII.
The Sequel at West Falls--How Colonel Egbert Crawford was
supposed to have been telegraphed for from Albany--Mary Crawford
once more at the Halstead's--The Final Instructions and Promises
of the Chief Conspirator--Joe Harris returns to the Great City,
and her Disappointment therein--Another Conspiracy hatched,
threatening to blow Judge Owen's Domestic Tranquillity to Atoms 433
CHAPTER XXIX.
Some Speculations on Moonlight and Insanity--Captain Robert
Slivers, of the Sickles Brigade, makes his Appearance at Judge
Owen's--He draws Graphic Pictures of the War, for the Edification
of Colonel Bancker--A Controversy, with further inquiries as to
the Age of the Colonel--The Market brisk for Hirsute Excrescences
on the Cranium, and no Supply--Judge Owen laughs ponderously 446
CHAPTER XXX.
Gathering the Ravelled Threads of a Long Story--What befel
Several Persons heretofore named--Marriages in Demand, and only a
few furnished--A Raid into Canada--What befell Colonel Egbert
Crawford and the Two Hundredth Regiment--A Cavalry Charge at
Antietam, and a Farewell 460
SHOULDER-STRAPS.
CHAPTER I.
TWO FRIENDS--A RENCONTRE BEFORE NIBLO'S--THREE MEETINGS WITH A MAN OF
MARK--MOUNT VERNON AND THE INAUGURATION--FRIEND OR FOE TO THE UNION?
Just before the close of the performances at Niblo's Garden, where the
Jarrett combination was then playing, one evening in the latter part of
June, 1862, two young men came out from the doorway of the theatre and
took their course up Broadway toward the Houston Street corner. Any
observer who might have caught a clear view of the faces of the two as
they passed under one of the large lamps at the door, would have noted
each as being worth a second glance, but would at the same time have
observed that two persons more dissimilar in appearance and in
indication of character, could scarcely have been selected out of all
the varied thousands resident in the great city.
The one walking on the inside as they passed on, with the right hand of
his companion laid on his left arm in that confidential manner so common
with intimate friends who wish to walk together in the evening without
being jostled apart by hurried chance passengers, was somewhat tall in
figure, dark-haired, dark side-whiskered, and sober-faced, though
decidedly fine-looking; and in spite of the heat of the weather he
preserved the appearance of winter dress clothing by a full suit of dark
gray summer stuff that might well have been mistaken for broadcloth. Not
even in hat or boots did he make any apparent concession to the season,
for his glossy round hat would have been quite as much in place in
January as in June, and his well-fitting and glossy patent-leather boots
would have been thought oppressively warm by a hotter-blooded and more
plethoric man. Those who should have seen the baptismal register
recording his birth some five-and-thirty years before, would have known
his name to be Walter Lane Harding; and those who met him in business or
society would have become quite as well aware that he was a prosperous
merchant, doing business in one of the leading mercantile streets
running out of Broadway, not far from the City Hospital. So far as the
somewhat precise mercantile appearance of Harding was concerned, a true
disciple of Lavater would have judged correctly of him, for there were
few men in the city of New York who displayed more steadiness, or
greater money-making capacity in all the details of business; and yet
even the close observer would have been likely to derive a false
impression from this very preciseness, as to the social qualities of the
man. There were quite as few better or heartier laughers than Harding,
when duly aroused to mirth; and those persons were very rare, making the
characters of mankind their professional study, who saw slight
indications of disposition more quickly, or better enjoyed whatever gave
food for quiet merriment. Once away from his counting-house, too, Walter
Harding seemed to assume a second of his two natures that had before
been lying dormant, and to enter into the permitted gaieties of city
life with a zest that many a professed good fellow might have envied. He
visited the theatre, as we have seen; went to the opera when it pleased
him, not for fashion's sake, but because he liked music and was a
connoisseur of singing and acting; liked a stroll in the streets with a
congenial companion (male or female); could smoke a good cigar with
evident enjoyment; and sometimes, though rarely, sipped a glass of fine
old wine, and indulged in the freer pleasures of the table; though he
was scrupulously careful of his company, and no man had ever seen his
foot cross the threshold of a house of improper character. It is
sufficient, in addition, at the present moment, to say that he was still
a bachelor, occupying rooms in an up-town street, and enjoying life in
that pleasant and rational mode which seemed to promise long
continuance.
Harding's companion, who has already been indicated as his opposite, was
markedly so in personal appearance, at least. He was two or three inches
shorter than Harding, and much stouter, displaying a well-rounded leg
through the folds of his loose pants of light-gray Melton cloth, and
being quite well aware of that advantage of person. He had a smoothly
rounded face, with a complexion that had been fair until hard work, late
hours, and some exposure to the elements, had browned and roughened it;
brown hair, with an evident tendency to curl, if he had not worn it so
short on account of the heat of the season, that a curl was rendered
impossible; a heavy dark brown moustache, worn without other beard; a
sunny hazel eye that seemed made for laughter, and a full, red,
voluptuous lip that might have belonged to a sensualist; while the eye
could really do other things than laughing, and the lip was quite as
often compressed or curled in the bitterness of disdain or the
earnestness of close thought, as employed to express any warmer or more
sympathetic feeling.
Tom Leslie, who might have been called by the more respectful and
dignified name of "Thomas," but that no one had ever expended the
additional amount of breath necessary to extend the name into two
syllables, was a cadet of a leading family in a neighboring state, who
at home had been reckoned the black sheep of the flock, because he would
not settle quietly down like the rest to money-getting and the enjoyment
of legislative offices; a man who at thirty had passed through much
experience, seen a little dissipation, traveled over most States of the
Union in the search for new scenery, or the fulfilment of his avocation
as a newspaper correspondent and man of letters; been twice in Europe,
alternately flying about like a madman, and sitting down to study life
and manners in Paris, Vienna, and Rome, and gathering up all kinds of
useful and useless information; taken a short turn at war in the Crimea,
in 1853, as a private in the ranks of the French army; seen service for
a few months in the Brazilian navy, from which he had brought a severe
wound as a flattering testimonial. He was at that time located in New
York as an editorial contributor and occasional "special correspondent"
of a leading newspaper. He had seen much of life--tasted much of its
pains and pleasures--perhaps thought more than either; and though with a
little too much of a propensity for late hours and those long stories
which _would_ grow out of current events seen in the light of past
experience, he was held to be a very pleasant companion by other men
than Walter Harding.
Perhaps even the long stories were more a misfortune than a fault. The
Ancient Mariner found it one of the saddest penalties of his crime, that
he was obliged to button-hole all his friends and be written down an
incorrigible bore; and who doubts that the Wandering Jew, with the
weight of twenty centuries of experience and observation upon his head,
finds a deeper pang than the tropic heat or the Arctic snow could give,
in the want of an occasional quiet and patient listener to the story of
his wanderings?
On the present occasion it may be noted, at once to complete the picture
and give additional insight of a character which did very independent
and _outre_ things, that Tom Leslie had gone to Niblo's with his
carefully-dressed and precise friend Harding, and sat conspicuously in
an orchestra chair, in a gray business sack, no vest and no pretence at
a collar. In other men, Harding would have noticed the dress with
disapprobation: in Leslie it seemed to be legitimately a part of the man
to dress as he liked; and neither Harding, or any one else who knew him,
paid any more attention to his outward appearance than they would have
bestowed upon a harmless lunatic under the same circumstances. Wherever
Leslie boarded, (and his places of boarding were very numerous, taking
the whole year together,) it was always noted that he filled up the
hat-rack with a collection of hats of all odd and rapid styles, with a
_few_ of the more sedate and respectable; and on this evening's visit to
Niblo's, when there was not a shadow of occasion for a hat with any brim
whatever, he had completed his personal appearance by a fine gray beaver
California soft hat, of not less than eighteen or twenty inches in the
whole circumference, which gave him somewhat the appearance of being
under a collapsed umbrella, and yet became him as well as any thing
else could have done, and left him unmistakably a handsome fellow.
An oddly mixed compound, certainly--even odder than Harding; and yet
what a dull, dead world this would prove to be, if there were no odd and
_outre_ characters to startle the grave people from their propriety, and
throw an occasional pebble splashing into the pool of quiet and
irreproachable mediocrity!
The two companions, whose description has occupied a much longer time
than it needed to walk from the door of Niblo's to the Houston Street
corner, were just passing the corner of that street on their way up to
Bleecker, when they were momentarily stopped by a very ordinary
incident. A girl, evidently of the _demi-monde_ from her bold eyes,
lavish display of charms and general demeanor, was turning the corner
from Broadway into Houston Street immediately in front of Harding and
Leslie; and as she swept around, her long dress trailing on the
pavement, a careless fellow, lounging along, cigar in mouth, and eyes
everywhere else than at his feet, stepped full upon her skirt, and
before she could check the impetus of her sudden turn, literally tore
the garment from her, the dark folds of the dress falling on the
pavement and leaving the under-clothing painfully exposed. The girl
turned suddenly, one of those harsh oaths upon her lips which even more
than any action betray the fallen woman, and hissed out a malediction on
his brutal carelessness. The man, probably one who literally knew no
better, instead of remembering the provocation, apologizing for the
injury he had done and offering to make any reparation in his power,
replied by an oath still more shocking than that of the lost girl,
hurled at her the most opprobrious epithet which man bestows upon woman
in the English language, and one by far too obscene to be repeated in
these pages,--and was passing on, leaving the poor girl to gather her
torn drapery as she best could, when his course was suddenly arrested.
A tall figure had come up from below during the altercation, unnoticed
by either; and the instant after the man had disgraced his humanity by
that abuse of a fallen woman, he found himself seized by the collar with
a hand that managed him as if he had been a child, and himself full off
the sidewalk into the street, and among the wheels of the passing
omnibuses, with the quick sharp words ringing in his ear:
"The devil take you! If you can't learn to walk along the pavement
without tearing off women's dresses and afterwards abusing them, go out
into the street with the brutes, where you belong!"
The two friends noticed, casually, that a policeman stood on the upper
corner, and at this act of violence on the part of the new-comer, they
naturally expected to see him interfere to preserve the peace, if not
make an arrest; but he was either too lazy to cross the street, (such
things have been,) or too well satisfied that the coarse ruffian had met
the treatment he deserved, to make any step forward. The fellow, thus
suddenly sent to the company of worn-out omnibus-horses and swearing
stage-drivers on a slippery pavement, turned with an oath, when he
recovered himself, made a movement as if to return to the sidewalk and
seek satisfaction for the violence, but evidently did not like the looks
of his antagonist, when he caught a fair glance of his proportions, and
solaced himself with a few more muttered oaths as he dodged across to
the other side of Broadway and disappeared in the crowd.
The second and prudential resolve of this person seemed fully justified
by even a hasty survey of his assailant, who happened to be thrown under
the light of the lamp at the corner, and in full view of our companions.
He was perhaps six feet and an inch in height, cast in a most powerful
model, and evidently possessing herculean strength--with a dark
complexion, high cheek bones, showing almost as if he had a cross of the
old Indian blood in his descent, fiery dark eyes set under brows of the
pent-house or Webster mould, heavy massed black curly hair worn a little
long, and a very heavy black moustache entirely concealing the mouth,
while the beard shorn away from the lower portions of the face left the
square, strong chin in full prominence. He was dressed in dark frock
coat with white vest and pants, and wore a dark wide-brimmed slouched
hat almost the counterpart of Leslie's, except in color, which
harmonized well with his personal appearance in other regards, and
while it left him looking the gentleman, made him the gentleman of some
other locality than the city of New York.
The new-comer, the moment he had sent the other whirling into the
street, approached the girl, who still remained standing on the corner,
her ungathered dress sweeping the pavement, and said:
"Madame, your dress is badly torn. Allow me to offer you a few pins." He
drew a large pin-cushion from his large vest pocket, (every thing seemed
to be of a large pattern about this man,) and was handing it to the
girl, who stretched out her left hand to receive it, when he suddenly
seemed to recognize her.
"Why, Kate!" He spoke in tones of the most unfeigned surprise--"Kate,
what the deuce! I thought you were in--"
"Yes, Deck!" answered the girl, with a coarse familiarity, "but you see
I am here! And you? I thought _you_ were in--"
"Hush-h-h!" said the man, in a quick, sharp, decided tone, prolonged
almost to be a hiss. "That will do! Now use some of these pins--quick,
fasten up your skirt, and then go with _me_!"
He spoke as if he was in the habit of being obeyed, or as if he had some
peculiar claim that he should be obeyed in this instance. And the girl
seemed fully to understand him, for only a moment served to supply so
many pins to the torn gathers of the dress as enabled her to walk and
hid her exposed under-clothing; and the instant that object was
accomplished she thrust her arm into his, he making no attempt to repel
the familiarity, but walking with hasty strides and almost dragging her
after him, down into the partial gloom of Houston Street.
When they had disappeared, and not till then, the two friends removed
from the spot where they had been standing entirely silent, and passed
on up Broadway.
"A strange person--a very strange person, that!" said Harding, the
moment after, to Leslie, who appeared to be thinking intently, and who
had not uttered a word since the affair commenced.
"Y--a--es!" said Leslie, in that slow, abstracted tone which indicates
that the man who uses it is doing so mechanically and without knowing
what he says.
"Poor devil! how the new man whirled him out into the street!" Harding
went on, _his_ attention on the incident, as Leslie's apparently was
not. "Just the treatment he deserved for being brutal to a woman, no
matter how lost or degraded she may be! Tearing off her dress was all
right enough, however, for all the woman deserve nothing better than to
have their dresses torn into ribbons for thrusting them under our feet
and sweeping the streets with them, as they do!"
Harding was thinking, at the moment, of a little adventure of his own a
few weeks before, in which, hurrying along to an appointment, early in
the evening, not far from the St. Nicholas, he had come up with a party
of theatre-goers, trodden upon the dress of one of the ladies in
attempting to pass--in extricating himself from that awkwardness,
trodden upon the dresses of two more--and left the whole three nearly
naked in the street; while three female voices were screaming in shame
and mortification, and three male voices sending words after him the
very reverse of complimentary.
"You think that a singular person?" at length said Leslie, as if waking
from a reverie, but proving at the same time that he had heard the words
of his friend. "You are right, he is so!"
"What! do you know him?" asked Harding, surprised.
"I do, indeed," was the reply of Leslie; "but I should as soon have
thought of meeting Schamyl or Garibaldi in the streets of New York, at
this moment, as the man we have just encountered. Fortunately, he did
not recognize me--perhaps, thanks to this hat--(it _is_ an immense hat,
isn't it, Harding?) What can be his position, and what is his business
here at the present moment, I wonder?" he went on, speaking more to
himself than to his companion, as they turned down Bleecker from
Broadway towards Leslie's lodgings, on Bleecker near Elm.
"Well, but you have not yet told me his name, or any thing about him,
while you go on tantalizing me with speculations as to how he came to
be here, and what he is doing!" said Harding.
"True enough," answered Leslie. "Well, he is not the sort of man to talk
about loosely in the streets; so wait a moment, until I use my night-key
and we get up into my room. There we can smoke a cigar, and I will tell
you all I know of him, which is just enough to excite my wonder to a
much greater height than your own."
Less than five minutes sufficed to fulfil the conditions prescribed; and
in Leslie's little room, himself occupying the three chairs it
contained, by sitting in one, and stretching out his two legs on the
others, while Harding threw off his coat and lounged on the bed, Leslie
poured out his story, and the smoke from his cigar, with about equal
rapidity.
"The name of that singular man," he said, "is Dexter Balston, and he is
by birth a Virginian. You heard the girl call him 'Deck,' which you no
doubt took to be 'Dick,' but which she really meant as a familiar
abbreviation of his name. It is a little singular that I should have met
him first at a theatre, and not far from the one at which we just now
encountered him. It was in the fall of 1857, I think, going in with a
party of friends, one night, to Laura Keene's, that one of the ladies of
the party was rudely jostled by a large man, who caught his foot in the
matting of the vestibule and fell against her with such violence as
nearly to throw her to the floor. He turned and apologized at once, and
with so much high-toned and gentlemanly dignity, that all the party felt
almost glad that the little accident had occurred. This made the first
step of an acquaintance between him and myself; and when, in the
intermission the same evening, I met him for a few moments in a saloon
near the theatre, we drank together, held some slight conversation,
exchanged cards, and each invited the other to call at his lodgings. His
card lies somewhere in the bureau there at this moment, and it read, I
remember, 'Dexter Ralston, Charles City, Virginia,' with 'St. Nicholas'
written in pencil in the corner. He was a wealthy planter, living near
Charles City, as I afterwards gathered from conversation with him, and
had an interest in tobacco transactions at the North which kept him a
large proportion of his time in this city.
"Of his own choice Ralston attended the theatres very frequently, as I
did from professional duty; and the consequence was that we met often,
and sometimes supped together. I liked him, and he seemed to be pleased
with me, though I should be perverting the truth to say that I ever
became very cordial or intimate with him. There was something about the
man which forbade familiarity; though I remember thinking, several
times, that if one only _could_ penetrate beneath the crust made by that
evident pride and haughty reserve, he was a man to be liked to the death
by a man, and loved by a woman with eternal devotion. After a time, and
without my receiving any 'P.P.C.' to say that he was going to leave the
city, he disappeared, and I saw him no more in the street or at any of
his favorite places of amusement.
"Well, I went down to Mount Vernon with a party of friends from
Washington, on board the steamboat George Page. Did you ever know Page
himself, the fat old Washingtonian who invented something about the
circular-saw, and has some kind of a patent-right on all that are made
above a certain number of inches in diameter? No? Well, he is an odd
genius, and I will some day tell you something about him. But I was just
now speaking of the steamboat named after him. The Rebels had her last
year, you remember, using her as a gunboat somewhere up Aquia Creek,
until they got scared and burned her one night,--though she was about as
fit for that purpose as an Indian bark-canoe. The Page was running as an
excursion boat to Mount Vernon, and sometimes going down to Aquia Creek
in connection with the railroad, in the winter and spring of 1858-9. I
was doing some reporting, and a little lobbying, in the Senate, at the
beginning of March, and, as I have said, ran down with a party of
friends to see the Tomb of Washington, curse the neglect that hung over
it like a nightmare, and execrate the meanness which sold off bouquets
from the garden, and canes from the woods, at a quarter each, by the
hands of a pack of dirty slaves, to the hands of a pack of dirtier
curiosity-hunters.
"Going down the river I found no acquaintances on board, outside of my
own party; but when we had made the due inspection, and were returning
in the afternoon, just when we were off Fort Washington, an acquaintance
belonging to the capital came up, in conversation with a thin, scrawny,
hard-featured man, dressed, in black, and looking like a cross between a
decayed Yankee schoolmaster and a foreign Count gone into the hand-organ
business. As we exchanged salutations he stopped, made a step backward,
and astounded me by this introduction:
"'Col. Washington, my friend, Mr. Leslie--Mr. Leslie, Col. John A.
Washington, proprietor of Mount Vernon.'
"I do not suppose that there was any merit in it, any more than there
would have been in refusing to drink a nauseous dose; but, really, I
felt that I was fulfilling a stern duty (no pun intended) in turning my
back short upon the Colonel, and saying:
"'Much obliged to you, Mr. ----, but I have no desire whatever to know
Col. John A. Washington!'
"I will do the Colonel (though he did afterwards die a rebel as he
deserved) the justice to say that I do not think he cared much for the
cut. I noticed that his sallow face looked a shade nearer to green than
before, but he merely drew himself up and took no other notice of my
decidedly cavalier conduct. Not so, however, with some of the
passengers, who had been near enough to hear the words, and who seemed
to think that the memory of the great dead was insulted, instead of
honored, by this rebuff to the miserable offshoot who kept Mount Vernon
as a cross between a pig-stye and a Jew old-clo' shop. Some of them, I
suppose, were Virginians, and neighbors of 'the Colonel.' At all events,
I heard mutterings, and the ladies in my company (they were all ladies)
looked a little alarmed.
"Directly one of the F.F.V.'s, as I suppose them to have been, stepped
forward immediately in front of me, and said:
"'D--n it, sir, the man who insults a Washington must answer to _me_!'
"'Must he?' I said, not much scared, I think, but a little flustered,
and quite undecided whether to get into a row on the spot by striking
the last man.
"'He must!' replied the F.F.V., with another curse or two thrown in by
way of emphasis. 'You may be some cursed Yankee, peddling buttons, and
afraid to fight; but if not--'
"'He will have no occasion to fight,' said a voice coming through the
crowd from the side of the vessel. 'I will take that little job off his
hands. Eh, Leslie, is that you? They tell me you have been giving the
cut-direct to that mean humbug who calls himself John A. Washington.
Give me your hand, old boy; you have done nothing more than your duty. I
am a Virginian, and no d--d Yankee--does anybody want to fight me?'
"It was Dexter Ralston. How many of the people on board knew him I have
no idea, or what they knew of him. He seemed to exercise some strange
influence, however, for Col. Washington turned away, with the friend who
had offered to introduce him; and the man who had offered to fight me
also disappeared. The crowd at that spot on the deck seemed to be gone
in a moment. Ralston and myself exchanged a few words. I thanked him for
having extricated me from a possible scrape, as well as for his good
opinion of my conduct, all which he waived with a 'pshaw!' He received
an introduction to the ladies with all due courtesy, chatted with them a
few moments, and then strolled off, smoking a cigar. I was engaged with
my party for the remainder of the trip, and did not see him again until
we had reached Washington and the passengers dispersed from the
steamboat, when of course I lost him, without any inquiry being made as
to his address or present residence. I went to Europe, the last time, as
you know, the summer following, and so perhaps lost him more
effectually. Tired?"
The latter word was especially addressed to Harding, who gave symptoms
of going to sleep. Refreshed, however, by a cigar which Leslie thrust
between his lips and insisted upon his smoking, Harding managed, even in
his recumbent position, to keep awake for what followed.
"Confound you!" said Leslie, "you might manage to get along without
yawning at my story, when you asked me to tell it! However, who cares!
You are not the only man who does not know a good thing when he sees or
hears it! Some of my best things in print have probably been received in
like manner, by people just as stupid!"
"Very likely," said Harding, drily; and Leslie continued.
"I came home from Europe in the winter of 1860-61, as you may likewise
remember if you are not too sleepy; and I was one of the ten thousand
who went down from this city to Washington, to attend the inauguration
of Abraham Lincoln. Nine thousand nine hundred and ninety odd went armed
to the teeth, carrying each from one revolver to three, and a few
bowie-knives, in anticipation of there being a general row on
inauguration morning, if not an open attempt to assassinate the
President. One man whom I could name actually carried four revolvers and
a dirk, without knowing any more about the use of either than a child of
ten years might have done. There _was_ danger of a collision, of course,
growing out of the very fact that everybody went down armed. I was one
of the very few who could not borrow a revolver or did not want one--no
matter which.
"Suffice it to say that I reached Washington on Sunday morning--the day
previous to the inauguration--found the hotels full and took lodgings at
a private house a few hundred yards from the Capitol, and spent the
early part of the day in inspecting the preparations made for the
holiday show, in and about the Capitol building. The courtesy of Colonel
Forney, then Clerk of the House, arranged for my admission to the
building during the ceremonies of the next day; and that of Douglas
Wallach, of the _Star_, furnished me a seat in the reporters' gallery of
the Senate for that evening when the last session of the expiring
Congress was to be held and a last effort made for putting through those
'compromise resolutions' which it was then believed might 'save the
Union,' but which we now know to have been as useless, even if they
could have been passed, as so much whistling against the wind.
"Although it was Sunday, time was pressing, and the fate of the nation
seemed to be hanging upon a breath; so the Senate had arranged a session
for five o'clock, which seemed very likely to last well into the night,
and was almost certain to be crowded to suffocation. As you will
remember, it _did_ last until seven the next morning--after daylight,
and witnessed one of the most exciting debates in the history of that
body,--in which Baker of Oregon flashed out even more than usual of his
patriotic eloquence; and white-haired, sad old Crittenden of Kentucky
moaned out words of fear for the nation, that have since been but too
truly realized; and Mason of Virginia showed more boldly than ever the
cloven foot of the traitor who would not have reconciliation at any
price; and Douglas rose above his short stature in alternately lashing
one and the other of those whom he believed to be equally enemies to his
type of conservatism. No one who sat out that session will ever forget
it--but enough of this, which should be written and not spoken.
"Of course after dinner that day I went down to the Hotels on the
Avenue, to take a peep at the political barometer and see what was the
prospect for violence on the morrow. It was a dark and stormy one. Most
of the avowedly Southern element had disappeared from the street, and
there were not many of the secession cockades to be met; but a few were
flaunted by beardless young men who should that day have been arrested
and thrown into the Old Capitol; and every foot of space in Willard's
and the other leading houses was full all day long of a moving, surging,
anxious and excited crowd, all talking, nobody listening, everybody
inquiring, many significant hints, a few threats, an occasional quarrel
and the interference of the police, but not much violence and no
bloodshed. The evening shut down stormy, as to the national atmosphere,
and I went home to supper impressed with the belief that the morrow
could not pass off quietly--a belief strengthened by the fears of Scott;
which were shown in the calling out of the volunteer militia in large
force,--by the tap of the drum and the challenge of the sentry, which
could be heard all around Capitol Hill,--and by the knowledge that files
of regulars were barracked at different places on the Hill, ready for
service in the morning and so posted as to command every avenue of
ingress to the inauguration.
"One of the high winds which belong to the normal condition of
Washington began blowing at dark, and it increased to a gale during the
evening, rattling shutters, creaking signs and filling the air with
clouds of blinding dust which went whirling around the Capitol as if
they would bury it. This added materially to the appearance and feeling
of desolation, especially when the white stone being worked for the
Extension would gleam and disappear through the cloud, and suggest
graveyards and monuments for the national greatness that seemed to be
falling. Then at dusk we had the report that several hundreds of armed
horsemen had been discovered by one of Scott's scouts, lying in wait
over Anacosti, and ready to make a descent upon the doomed city the
moment that it should be buried in slumber. Many doubted this report,
but some believed it; and I have an impression that hundreds went to bed
in Washington that night with a lingering doubt whether they would not
be involved, before morning, or at all events before the noon of the
next day, in such scenes of violence and bloodshed as the continent had
never yet witnessed.
"I went over to the Capitol after tea, and took the place that had been
kindly kept for me in the reporters' gallery of the Senate. No matter
what occurred there--history has made it a part of our painful record,
and that is quite sufficient. It was between one and two o'clock in the
morning, Crittenden had just concluded his heart-breaking appeal to the
North to be generous and not let the Union go by default, and Baker had
just closed his noble appeal to the new dominant party (of which he was
one) not to peril a nation by the adoption of the old Roman cry of '_Vae
Victis_,'--when I left the Senate gallery for an hour, intending to
return when I had breathed for awhile outside of that suffocating
atmosphere. I passed to the front through the entrance under the
collonade, and was just about to step out into the open air, when a
voice arrested me. Surely I had heard it before.
"'Straws against a whirlwind!' I heard it say. 'The work is already
done, and no human power can undo it!'
"'I yet believe that the Union can be saved by the adoption of the plan
proposed by Crittenden!' said the other voice. 'Mason is right when he
says that Virginia will join the seceding States if no concession is
made; but--'
"A laugh, deep, sonorous, and yet hollow and mocking, broke out from the
lips of the first speaker, and rung through the arches--such a laugh as
we may suppose to have rung from the bearded lips of the Norse Jarl when
the poor Viking asked his daughter's hand and the father intended to
stun if not to kill him with the bitter scoff. I had heard that laugh
before, more moderately given, and minus the accompaniment of the
rushing wind without and the ringing of the hollow arches within. It was
that of Dexter Ralston, and I now detected that he and his companion
were standing just within one of the embrasures, so as to be partially
sheltered from the wind, and I could trace their outlines. Ralston was
enveloped in a large cloak, and wearing his inevitable broad hat; and
his companion seemed much smaller, dressed in dark clothes, and wearing
the usual 'stovepipe.' I had no intention to play listener, but there
really did not seem to be any wish for privacy on the part of the man
who could laugh in that manner; and, at all events, I stood still in the
doorway and listened to the discussion of that topic, as I might not
have done to another.
"'Well, what does the laugh mean?' asked the other, in a tone that did
not indicate remarkable good humor, when the sound had ceased.
"'Excuse me, I was not laughing at _you_!' said Ralston, 'but at the
blind, besotted fools who believe that they hold in their hands the
destinies of this Republic, and who really have no more power over them
than so many children playing at marbles! Hear Crittenden and Baker
begging and pleading within there, to save what is lost; and Mason, the
sly old fox, threatening them with what is already done!'
"'What do you mean?' asked the other? 'Virginia--'
"'Virginia has seceded!' spoke Ralston, with an accent that sounded like
a hiss. I do not to this moment know whether it expressed triumph or
anger.
"'Seceded!' spoke the other, startled, as was evident from his voice.
As for myself, I was trembling like a leaf, for I felt that the words
were true, that the treason was already unfathomable, and that the
Capitol was tumbling down about my ears long before it was finished.
"'Seceded? Yes, I spoke the word!' said Ralston, 'and you are not very
likely to believe that I am mistaken.'
"'No, no, certainly not!' replied the other, in a tone of energetic
disclaimer which showed that he knew _why_ Ralston was not deceived.
'But then, if this is so, why does Mason remain, and why is the fact
kept in the dark?'
"'_To gain time!_' answered Ralston, 'and to procure more arms. Virginia
is a 'loyal State,' and arms may be shipped to her, while they cannot to
the States that are known to have seceded. You can guess that the arms
go further south almost as fast as they reach Richmond, and that Colt's
pistols, especially, will pretty soon be beyond the reach of many men
who live north of Mason and Dixon's line. Do you understand _now_?' he
concluded.
"'Humph! Yes, I begin to know something more than I did a while ago!'
answered the other. 'Then, as you say, all that is going on in yonder is
a farce, and--'
"'And to-morrow's proceedings will be a more notable one!' Ralston broke
in. 'Some of them, I believe, have been afraid of violence to-morrow. No
fear of that--the game is to be played differently, and it is not yet
ripe for blood. Well, I have had enough of it. Good-night!'
"At the word Ralston stepped out from the arch, and his companion
followed him. By the lamp-light in front I caught a view of the face as
the former went out, and saw that I had not been mistaken as to the
voice. I had intended, when I first knew it was Ralston, to accost him
before he left, but I had now lost the desire, while my head was in that
whirl and his own position seemed to be so ambiguous. He stepped toward
the gateway, and, I believe, entered a carriage and drove off. The
other, whose face I recognized by the lamp-light to be that of a certain
New York Congressman of more than doubtful antecedents, went back again
the moment after, and I suppose returned to the Senate Chamber.
"As for myself, I may say that within half an hour after, late as it
was, I had placed myself in communication with a leading member of the
new party in power, with whom I happened to be well acquainted and who
was well known to have the ear of the new President, even if he did not
receive, within the next week, the portfolio of a Cabinet officer. I
need not say, at present, whether he received the Cabinet appointment or
not, as it is a matter of no consequence to my story. Without mentioning
any names, I told him what had fallen under my notice, and gave him my
opinion that Government ought to act as if Virginia had already seceded.
He thanked me for the trouble I had taken, and for my earnestness; said
that if the assertion was true, it would be highly important, as guiding
the immediate policy of the administration; but, pshaw!--and the whole
story is that he did not believe it. Of course the new administration
did not act as if Virginia had seceded; the Rebels were allowed to
gather arms at will and at leisure, Fortress Monroe came very near to
falling into their hands, and Norfolk Navy Yard did so, with the
destruction of half our best vessels, and ten millions of dollars worth
of Government property--all which might have been avoided if they had
taken a hint from a fool. Everybody understands now,[1] that Virginia
_had_ formally seceded before the inauguration, and that she played
loyal for the very purposes indicated by Ralston.
[Footnote 1: September, 1862.]
"Now," Leslie concluded, "you know as much of Dexter Ralston as I do.
And I think you will quite agree with me that he is one of the last men
I could have expected to meet in the streets of New York at the present
moment, when martial law is so prevalent and Fort Lafayette so
convenient."
"Humph!" said Harding, getting up from the bed where he had lounged so
long, examining his watch to see that it was nearly midnight, and
lighting a fresh cigar to go home. "Humph! well, what do you make of
him? A leading traitor, deep in the counsels of Jeff. Davis, Yancey and
Company?"
"Humph!" said Leslie in return, "what else can he be?"
"Or a Virginia Unionist, faithful among the faithless, and too brave to
be afraid anywhere?" suggested Harding.
"Ah!" answered Leslie, in that tone which suggests a new idea, or the
corroboration of an old one.
"Or a trusted agent of the Federal Government, giving up old prejudices
for the sake of patriotism, and better acquainted with Seward than
Slidell--eh?"
"By George!" exclaimed Leslie, "there is something in that idea! He must
be one of the three--but which?"
"That we may know better one of these days," said Harding, as Leslie
accompanied him out to the street. "Meanwhile he is certainly a most
singular person, and I shall not be sorry to know more of him, whether
as friend or foe to the nation!"
How soon and how remarkably his wish was fulfilled, to some extent, we
shall see hereafter.