TANGLED THREADS
Betty Winter received a telegram from John Vaughan announcing his
arrival at Alexandria with McClellan on the last day of August. Her
heart gave a bound of joy. She could see him to-morrow. It had been five
years instead of five months since she had stood on that little pier and
watched him float away into the mists of the river! All life before the
revelation which love had brought was now a shadowy memory. Only love
was real. His letters had been her life. They hadn't come as often as
she had wished. She demanded his whole heart. There could be no
compromise. It must be all, _all_ or nothing.
She tried to sleep and couldn't. Her brain was on fire.
"I must sleep and look my best!" she laughed softly, buried her face in
the pillow and laughed again for joy. How could she sleep with her lover
standing there alive and strong with his arms clasping her to his heart!
She rose at daylight and threw open her window. The air was crisp with
the breath of fall. She watched the sun rise in solemn glory. A division
of cavalry dashed by, the horses' hoofs ringing sharply on the cobble
stones, sabres clashing. Behind them came another and another, and in a
distant street she heard the rumble of big guns, the crack of their
drivers' whips and the sharp cries of the men urging the horses to a
run.
Something unusual was on foot. The sun was barely up and the whole city
seemed quivering with excitement.
She dressed hurriedly, snatched a bite of toast and drank a cup of
coffee. In twenty minutes she entered the White House to get her pass to
the front. She wouldn't go to the War Department. Stanton was rude and
might refuse. The hour was absurd, but she knew that the President rose
at daylight and that he would see her at any hour.
She found him seated at his desk alone pretending to eat an egg and
drink his coffee from the tray that had been placed before him. His
dishevelled hair, haggard look and the pallor of his sorrowful face
showed only too plainly that he had not slept.
"You have bad news, Mr. President?" Betty gasped.
He rose, took her hand and led her to a seat.
"Not yet, dear, but I'm expecting it."
"We lost the battle yesterday?" she eagerly asked.
"Apparently not. You may read that. I trust you implicitly."
He handed her the dispatch he had received from General Pope after the
first day's fight at Manassas. Betty read it quickly:
"We fought a terrific battle here yesterday with the combined forces of
the enemy, which lasted with continuous fury from daylight until dark,
by which time the enemy was driven from the field which we now occupy.
The enemy is still in our front, but badly used up. We lost not less
than eight thousand men killed and wounded, but from the appearance of
the field the enemy lost two to one. The news has just reached me from
the front that the enemy is retreating toward the mountains."
Betty looked up surprised:
"Isn't that good news?"
"Nothing to brag about. It's the last sentence that worries me----"
"But that seems the best!"
"It might be but for the fact that Jackson is leading that retreat
toward the mountains! I've an idea that he will turn up to-day on Pope's
rear with Lee's whole army on his heels. Jackson is in the habit of
appearing where he's least expected----"
He paused, paced the floor a moment in silence and threw his long arms
suddenly upward in a hopeless gesture:
"If God would only give me such a man to lead our armies!"
"Is General McClellan at Alexandria to-day?" Betty suddenly asked.
"I'm wondering myself. He should be on that field with every soldier
under his command."
"I've come to ask you for a pass to Alexandria----"
"Then my worst fears are confirmed!" he broke in excitedly. "Your
sweetheart's on McClellan's staff--his men will never reach the field in
time!"
He dropped into a chair, hurriedly wrote the pass and handed it to
Betty.
"God bless you, child. See me when you get back and tell me all you
learn of McClellan and his men to-day. The very worst is suspected----"
"You mean?"
"That this delay and deliberate trifling with the most urgent and
positive orders is little short of treason. Unless his men reach Pope
to-day and fight, the Capital may be threatened to-morrow."
"Surely!" Betty protested.
"It's just as I tell you, child, but I'll hope for the best. Be eyes and
ears for me to-day and you may help me."
The agony of his face and the deep note of tragedy in his voice had
taken the joy out of her heart. She threw the feeling off with an
effort.
"What has it all to do with my love!" she cried with a toss of her
pretty head as she sprang into the saddle for the gallop to Alexandria.
The cool, bracing air of this first day of September, 1862, was like
wine. The dew was yet heavy on the tall grass by the roadside and a song
was singing in her heart that made all other music dumb.
John had dismounted and was standing beside the road, the horse's bridle
hanging on his arm in the very position he had stood and looked into her
soul that day.
She leaped to the ground without waiting for his help and sprang into
his arms.
"I like you better with that bronzed look--you're handsomer than ever,"
she sighed at last.
His answer was another kiss, to which he added:
"No amount of sunburn could make you any prettier, dear--you've been
perfect from the first."
"Your General is here?" Betty asked.
"Yes."
"And you can give me the whole day?"
"Every hour--the General is my friend."
The moment was too sweet to allow any shadow to cloud it. The girl
yielded to its spell without reserve. They mounted and rode side by side
over the hills. And the man poured into her ears the unspoken things he
had felt and longed to say in the lonely nights of camp and field. The
girl confessed the pain and the longing of her waiting.
They mounted the crest of a hill and the breeze from the southwest
brought the sullen boom of a cannon.
Instinctively they drew rein.
"The battle has begun again," John said casually.
"It stirs your blood, doesn't it?" she whispered.
A frown darkened his brow:
"Not to-day."
The girl looked with quick surprise.
"You don't mean it?"
"Certainly. Why get excited when you know the end before it begins."
"You know it?"
"Yes."
"Victory?"
He laughed cynically:
"Victory for a pompous braggart who could write that address to an army
reflecting on the men who fought Lee and Jackson before Richmond with
such desperate courage?"
"You are sure of defeat then?"
"Absolutely."
Betty looked at him with a flush of angry excitement:
"General McClellan is counting on Pope's defeat to-day?"
"Yes."
"Then it's true that he is not really trying to help him?"
"Why should he wish to sacrifice his brave men under the leadership of a
fool?"
"He is, in fact, defying the orders of the President, isn't he?"
"You might say that if you strain a point," John admitted.
Again the long roar of guns boomed on the Western horizon, louder,
clearer. The dull echoes became continuous now, and the quickening
breeze brought the faint din from the vast field of death whose blazing
smoke covered lines stretched over seven miles.
"_Boom-boom-boom, boom!--boom! boom!_"
Again they drew rein and listened.
John's brow wrinkled and his right ear was thrown slightly forward.
"Those are our big guns," he said with a smile. "The Confederate
artillery can't compare with ours--their infantry is a terror--stark,
dead game fighters----"
"_Boom--Boom!----Boom! Boom! Boom!_"
"How do you know those are our guns?" Betty asked with a shiver.
"The rebels have none so large. They'll have some to-night."
Again an angry flush mounted her cheeks:
"You wish them to be captured?"
"It will be a wholesome lesson."
Betty leaned closer and grasped his hand with trembling eagerness.
"O John--John, dear, this is madness! General McClellan has been
accused of treason already--this surely is the basest betrayal of his
country----"
The man shook his head stubbornly:
"No--it's the highest patriotism. My Commander is brave enough to dare
the authorities at Washington for the good of his country. The sooner
this farce under Pope ends the better--no man of second rate ability can
win against the great Generals of the South."
The girl's keen brown eyes looked steadily into his and her lips
trembled.
"I call it treachery--the betrayal of his country for his selfish
ambitions! I'm surprised that you sympathize with him."
John frowned, was silent and then turned to her with a smile:
"Let's not talk about it, dear. The day's too beautiful. We're alone
together. This is not your battle--nor mine--it's Pope's--let him fight
it out. I love you--that's all I want to think about to-day."
The golden brown curls were slowly shaken:
"It _is_ your battle and it's mine--O John dear, I'm heartsick over it!
The President's anguish clouded the morning for me, but the thought of
you made me forget. Now I'm scared. You've surprised and shocked me."
"Nonsense, dear!" he pleaded.
She looked at him with quick, eager yearning.
"You love me?" she asked.
"Can you doubt it?"
"With every beat of your heart?"
"Yes."
"Will you do something for me?" she begged.
"What is it?"
"Just for me, because I ask it, John, and you love me?"
"If I can."
"I want you to resign immediately from McClellan's staff, report at the
War Department and let the President give you new duties----"
The man shot her a look of angry amazement:
"You can't mean this?"
Again the soft, warm hand that had slipped its glove grasped his. He
could feel her slim, little fingers tremble. She had turned very pale:
"I'm in dead earnest. I love you, dear, with my whole heart, and it's my
love that asks this. I can't think of you betraying a solemn trust. The
very thought of it cuts me to the quick. If this is true, General
McClellan should be court-martialed."
The man's square jaws closed with a snap:
"Let them try it if they dare----"
"The President will dare if he believes it his duty."
"Then he'll hear something from the hundred and fifty thousand soldiers
who have served under McClellan."
The little hand pressed harder.
"Won't you, for my sake, dear,--just because I'm your sweetheart and you
love me?"
The stalwart figure suddenly stiffened:
"And you could respect a man who would do a thing like that?"
"For my sake?--Yes."
"No, you think you could. But you couldn't. No woman can really love a
poltroon or a coward."
"I'm not asking you to do a cowardly thing----"
"To desert my leader in a crisis?"
"To wash your hands of treachery and selfish ambitions."
"But it's not true," he retorted. "You mustn't say that. McClellan's a
leader of genius--brave, true, manly, patriotic."
"I've a nobler ideal of patriotism----"
"Your blundering backwoodsman in the White House?"
"Yes. He has but one thought--that the Union shall be saved. He has no
other ambition. If McClellan succeeds, he rejoices. If he fails, he is
heartbroken. I know that he has defended him against the assaults of his
enemies. He has refused to listen to men who assailed his loyalty and
patriotism. This generous faith your Chief is betraying to-day. That you
defend him is horrible--O John, dear, I can't--I won't let you stay! You
must break your connection with this conspiracy of vain ambition. The
country is calling now for every true, unselfish man--please!"
He lifted his hand in firm protest:
"And for that very reason I stand firmly by the man I believe destined
to save my country."
"You won't change Commanders because I ask it?"
He was silent a moment and a smile played about the corners of his lips:
"Would you change because I asked it?"
"Yes."
"Then come over from Lincoln to McClellan," he laughed.
"And join your group of conspirators--never!"
"Not if I ask it, because I love you?"
[Illustration: "Betty glanced at the stolid, set face and firm lips."]
Her brown eyes sparkled with anger:
"You'll not find this a joke!"
"That's why I treat it seriously, my dear," was the firm reply. "If I
could throw up my position in this war on the sudden impulse of my
sweetheart, I'd be ashamed to look a man in the face--and you would
despise me!"
"If your Commander succeeds to-day in bringing disaster to our army I'll
despise you for aiding him----"
"Let's not discuss it--please, dear!" he begged with a frown.
"As you please," was the cold reply.
They rode on in silence, broken only by the increasing roar of the great
guns at Manassas. Betty glanced at the stolid, set face and firm lips.
Her anger steadily rose with every throb of Pope's cannon. Each low
thunder peal on the horizon now was a cry for help from dying mangled
thousands and the man she loved refusing to hear.
Suddenly the picture of his brother flashed before her vision, the
high-strung, clean young spirit, chivalrous, daring, fighting for what
he knew to be right--right because right is right, and wrong is wrong.
She looked at John Vaughan with a feeling of fierce anger. Between the
two men she preferred the enemy who was fighting in the open to win or
die. Her soul went out to Ned in a wave of tender admiration. Her wrath
against his brother steadily rose.
Suddenly she drew her rein:
"You need come no further. I'll ride back home alone."
He bit his lips without turning and was silent. She touched her horse
with her whip and galloped swiftly toward Washington.
* * * * *
The last day of Pope's brief campaign ended in the overwhelming disaster
of the second battle of Bull Run. The sound of his cannon reached
McClellan's ears, but the organizer of the Army of the Potomac, though
ordered to do so, never joined his rival.
Once more the army of the Union was hurled back on Washington in panic,
confusion and appalling disaster. Lee and Jackson had crushed Pope's
hosts with a rapidity and case that struck terror to the heart of the
Nation. General Pope lost fifteen thousand men in a single battle. Lee
and Jackson lost less than half as many.
The storm broke over McClellan's head at Washington on his arrival.
Stanton and Halleck and Pope accused him of treachery. The hot heads
demanded his arrest and trial by court-martial.
The President shook his head, but sadly added:
"He has acted badly toward Pope. He really wanted him to fail."
And then began the search to find the man once more to weld the
shattered army into an efficient fighting force.
Abraham Lincoln asked himself this question with a sense of the deepest
and most solemn responsibility. He must answer at the bar of his
conscience before God and his country. Again he brushed aside every
adviser inside and outside his Cabinet and determined on his choice
absolutely alone.
Early on the morning of September 2nd John Vaughan looked from the
window of General McClellan's house and saw the giant figure of the
President approaching, accompanied by Halleck.
When his aide announced this startling fact, the General coolly said:
"It means my arrest, no doubt. I'm ready. Let them come."
The President was not kept waiting this time. His General was there to
receive him.
The rugged face was pale and drawn.
"General McClellan," he began without ceremony, "I have come to ask you
to take command of all the returning troops for the defense of
Washington."
The short, stalwart figure of the General suddenly straightened, his
blue eyes flashed with amazement and then softened into a misty
expression. He bowed with dignity and quietly said:
"I accept the position, sir."
"I need not repeat," the President went on, "that I disapprove some
things you have done. I have made this plain to you. I do this because I
believe it's best for our country. I assume its full responsibility and
I expect great things of you."
The President bowed and left the astonished General and his still more
astonished aide gazing after his long swinging legs returning to the
White House.
He had done the most unpopular act of his entire administration. His
decision had defied the fiercest popular hostility. He faced a storm of
denunciation which would have appalled a less simple and masterful man.
The Cabinet meeting which followed the startling news was practically a
riot. He listened to all his excited Ministers had to say with
patience. When they had spoken their last word of bitter disapproval he
quietly rose and ended the tumultuous session with two or three
sentences which none could answer:
"There is no one in the army who can man these fortifications and lick
these troops of ours into shape half as well as he can. McClellan is a
great engineer--of the stationary type, perhaps. But we must use the
tools we have! If he cannot fight himself, at least he excels in making
others ready to fight."
He waited for an answer and none came. He had not only averted a Cabinet
crisis but his remorseless common sense and his unswerving adherence to
what he saw was best had strengthened his authority over all his
councillors.
When the rest had gone he turned to the young man who knew him best, his
Secretary, John Nicolay, and gripped his arm with a big hand which was
trembling:
"The most painful duty of my official life, Boy! There has been a
design, a purpose in breaking down Pope without regard to the
consequences to the country that is atrocious. It's shocking to see and
know this, but there is no remedy at present. McClellan has the army
with him and I must use him."