obstacles, and that's the way I am resolved to meet them."
But the poor horse did not respond. He hobbled on three legs for a
space. His master, dismounting, found that he had torn loose a tendon of
one leg in the leap.
There was no choice but to drive a bullet into the poor beast's brain by
way of putting him out of his agony.
Thus was Guilford Duncan left upon the mountain side, more desolate and
helpless than before, with no possessions in all the world except a pair
of pistols, a saddle, a bridle, a side of bacon, a peck of corn meal,
and a few ounces of salt.
The Valley lay before him in all its barrenness. Beyond that lay
hundreds of miles of Allegheny mountains and the region farther on.
All this expanse he must traverse on foot before arriving at that great
river highway, by means of which he hoped to reach his destination, a
thousand miles and more farther still to the West. But the new manhood
had been born in Guilford Duncan's soul, and he was no more appalled by
the difficult problem that he must now face than he had been by the fire
of the enemy when battle was on. "Hard work," he reflected, "is the
daily duty of the soldier of peace, just as hard fighting as that of the
warrior."
Strapping his saddle and bridle on his back he took his bacon and his
salt bag in one hand and his bag of meal in the other. Thus heavily
burdened he set out on foot down the mountain.
"At any rate my load will grow lighter," he reflected, "every time I
eat, and I'll sell the saddle and bridle at the first opportunity. I'll
make the Ohio River in spite of all."
IV
A PRIVATE IN THE ARMY OF WORK
It was a truly terrible tramp that the young man had before him, but he
did not shrink. So long as his provisions lasted he pushed forward,
stopping only in the woodlands or by the wayside for sleep and for
eating. By the time that his provisions were exhausted he had passed the
Valley and had crossed the crest of the Alleghenies.
He was now in a country that had not been wasted by war, a country in
which men of every class seemed to be reasonably prosperous and hard at
work.
There, by way of replenishing his commissariat, he sold the saddle he
was carrying on his back, and thus lightened his load.
Fortunately it was a specially good saddle, richly mounted with silver,
and otherwise decorated to please the fancy of the dandy Federal officer
from whose dead horse Duncan had captured it after its owner had been
left stark upon the field in the Wilderness. It brought him now a good
price in money, and to this the purchaser generously added a little
store of provisions, including, for immediate use, some fresh meat--the
first that had passed Duncan's lips for more months past than he could
count upon the fingers of one hand.
A little later the young man sold his pistols, but as he pushed onward
toward the Ohio River he found that both traveling and living in a
prosperous country were far more expensive than traveling and living in
war-desolated and still moneyless Virginia.
His little store of funds leaked out of his pockets so fast that,
economize as he might, he found it necessary to ask for work here and
there on his journey. It was spring time, and the farmers were glad
enough to employ him for a day or two each. The wages were meagre
enough, but Duncan accepted them gladly, the more so because the farmers
in every case gave him board besides. Now and then he secured odd jobs
as an assistant to mechanics. In one case he stoked the furnaces of a
coal mine for a week.
But he did not remain long in any employment. As soon as he had a trifle
of money or a little stock of provisions to the good, he moved onward
toward the river.
His one dominating and ever-growing purpose was to reach Cairo. What
fortune might await him there he knew not at all, but since he had
scratched that address on the butt of a pistol, the desire to reach
Cairo had daily and hourly grown upon him until it was now almost a
passion. The name "Cairo" in his mind had become a synonym for
"Opportunity."
It was about the middle of May when the toilsome foot journey ended at
Wheeling. There Duncan, still wearing his tattered uniform, made
diligent inquiry as to steamboats going down the river. He learned that
one of the great coal-towing steamers from Pittsburg was expected within
a few hours, pushing acres of coal-laden barges before her, and he was
encouraged by the information, volunteered on every hand, that the work
of "firing up" under the boilers of these coal-towing boats was so
severe that a goodly number of the stokers always abandoned their
employment in disgust of it, and deserted the boat if she made a landing
at Wheeling, as this approaching one must do for the reason that a
number of coal-laden barges had been left there for her to take in tow.
It was Guilford Duncan's hope to secure a place on her as a stoker or
coal passer, to take the place of some one of the deserters. This might
enable him, he thought, to earn a little money on the way down the
river, instead of depleting his slenderly stocked purse by paying
steamboat fare.
With such prospect in mind he ventured to go into the town and purchase
a pair of boots and a suit of clothes fit for wear when he should reach
Cairo. His worn-out uniform would answer all his purposes while serving
as a stoker.
When the steamboat, with her vast fleet of barges, made a landing,
Guilford Duncan was the first man to leap aboard in search of work.
Unfortunately for him there were few or no deserters from in front of
the furnaces on this trip. He could not secure employment as a stoker
earning wages, but after some persuasion the steamer's captain agreed to
let him "work his passage" to Cairo. That is to say, he was to pay no
fare, receive no wages, and do double work in return for his passage
down the river and for the coarse and unsavory food necessary for the
maintenance of his strength.
"All this is a valuable part of my education," he reflected. "I am
learning the important lesson that in work as in warfare the man counts
for nothing--the service that can be got out of him is the only thing
considered by those in command. I must remember all that, if ever I am
in a position to make a bargain for the sale of my services."
It was in this spirit that the young ex-Captain entered upon his new
career in the army of those that work. He was beginning at the bottom in
the new service, just as he had done in the old. "I set out as a private
in the army," he said to himself. "It was only when I had learned enough
to fit me for the command of others that I was placed in authority. Very
well, I'm beginning as a private again. I must learn all that I can, for
I mean to command in that army, too, some day."
V
THE BEGINNING OF A CAREER
It was a little after sunset on Decoration Day--May 30, 1865--when young
Duncan went ashore from the tow boat at Cairo. The town was ablaze with
fireworks, as he made his way up the slope of the levee, through a
narrow passage way that ran between two mountainous piles of cotton
bales. At other points there were equally great piles of corn and oats
in sacks, pork in barrels, hams and bacon in boxes, and finer goods of
every kind in bales and packing cases. For Cairo was just at that time
the busiest _entrepôt_ in all the Mississippi Valley.
The town was small, but its business was larger than that of many great
cities. The little city lay at the point where the Ohio River runs into
the Mississippi. From up and down the Mississippi, from the Ohio, from
the Tennessee and the Cumberland, and even from far up the Missouri,
great fleets of steamboats were landing at Cairo every day to load and
unload cargoes representing a wealth as great as that of the Indies. A
double-headed railroad from the North, carrying the produce of half a
dozen States, and connecting by other roads with all the great cities
of the land, made its terminus at Cairo. Two railroads from the
South--traversing five States--ended their lines at Columbus, a little
farther down the river, and were connected with the northern lines by
steamboats from Cairo.
Cairo was the meeting place of commerce between the North and the South.
Out of the upper rivers came light-draught steamers. Plying the river
below were steamers of far different construction by reason of the
easier conditions of navigation there. At Cairo every steamboat--whether
from North or South--unloaded its freight for reshipment up or down the
river, as the case might be, upon steamboats of a different type, or by
rail. And all the freight brought North or South by rail must also be
transferred at Cairo, either to river steamers or to railroad cars.
The South was still thronged with Northern troops, numbering hundreds of
thousands, who must be fed and clothed, and otherwise supplied, and so
the government's own traffic through the town was in itself a trade of
vast proportions. But that was the smallest part of the matter. Now that
the war was at an end, the South was setting to work to rebuild itself.
From the Cumberland and the Tennessee rivers, from the lower
Mississippi, from the Arkansas, the Yazoo, the Red River, the White, the
St. Francis, and all the rest of the water-ways of the South, energetic
men, of broken fortune, were hurrying to market all the cotton that they
had managed to grow and to save during the war, in order that they might
get money with which to buy the supplies needed for the cultivation of
new crops.
Pretty nearly all this cotton came to Cairo, either for sale to eager
buyers there, or for shipment to the East and a market.
In return the planters and the southern merchants through whom they did
business were clamorous for such goods as they needed. Grain, hay, pork,
bacon, agricultural implements, seed potatoes, lime, plaster, lumber,
and everything else necessary to the rebuilding of southern homes and
industries, were pouring into Cairo and out again by train loads and
steamboat cargoes, night and day.
Even that was not all. For four years no woman in the South had
possessed a new gown, or new handkerchiefs, or a new toothbrush, or a
new set of window curtains, or a new comb, or new linen for her beds, or
new shoes of other than plantation make, or a new ribbon or bit of lace,
or anything else new. Now that the northern market was open for the sale
of cotton the country merchants of the South were besieged for all these
and a hundred other things, and their orders for goods from the North
added mightily to the freight piles on the levee at Cairo.
As Guilford Duncan emerged from the alley-way between the cotton bales
and reached the street at top of the levee, a still burning fragment of
the fireworks fell upon a bale of which the bagging was badly torn,
exposing the lint cotton in a way very tempting to fire. With the
instinct of the soldier he instantly climbed to the top of the pile,
tore away the burning bunches of lint cotton, and threw them to the
ground, thus preventing further harm.
As he climbed down again a man confronted him.
"Are you a watchman?" asked the man.
"No, I'm only a man in search of work."
"Why did you do that, then?" queried the stranger, pointing to the still
burning cotton scattered on the ground.
"On general principles, I suppose," answered Duncan. "There would have
been a terrible fire if I hadn't."
"What's your name?"
"Guilford Duncan."
"Want work?"
"Yes."
"What sort?"
"Any sort--for good wages." That last phrase was the result of his
stoker experience.
"Well, do you want to watch this cotton to-night and see that no harm
comes to it, either from fire, or--what's worse--the cotton thieves that
go down the alleys, pulling out all the lint they can from the torn
bales?"
"Yes, if I can have fair wages."
"Will three dollars for the night be fair wages?"
"Yes--ample. How far does your freight extend up and down the levee?"
"It's pretty nearly all mine, but I have other watchmen on other parts
of it. This is a new cargo. Your beat will extend----" and he gave the
young man his boundaries.
"You'll be off duty at sunrise. Come to me at seven o'clock for your
pay. I'm Captain Will Hallam. Anybody in Cairo will tell you where my
office is. Good-night."
This was an excellent beginning, Duncan thought. Three dollars was more
money than he had carried in his pocket at any time since he had bought
his suit of clothes at Wheeling. Better still, the promptitude with
which employment had thus come to him was encouraging, although the
employment was but for a night. And when he reflected that he had won
favor by doing what seemed to him an act of ordinary duty, he was
disposed to regard the circumstance as another lesson in the new service
of work.
The night passed without event of consequence. There were two or three
little fires born of the holiday celebration, but Guilford Duncan
managed to suppress them without difficulty. Later in the night the
swarm of cotton thieves--mainly boys and girls--invaded the levee, with
bags conveniently slung over their shoulders. As there were practically
no policemen in the town, and as his beat was a large one, young Duncan
for a time had difficulty in dealing with these marauders. But after he
had arrested half a dozen of them only to find that there were no police
officers to whom he could turn them over, he adopted a new plan. He
secured a heavy stick from a bale of hay, and with that he clubbed every
cotton thief he could catch. As a soldier it was his habit to adapt
means to ends; so he hit hard at heads, and seized upon all the stolen
goods. It was not long before word was passed among the marauders that
there was "a devil of a fellow" in charge of that part of the levee, and
for the rest of the night the pilferers confined their operations to
spaces where a less alert watchfulness gave them better and safer
opportunities.
Thus passed Guilford Duncan's first night as a common soldier in the
great army of industry.
In the morning, at the hour appointed, he presented himself to Captain
Will Hallam, and was taken into that person's private office for an
interview.
VI
A CAPTAIN IN THE ARMY OF WORK
Captain Will Hallam Was a Man Of The Very Shrewdest sense,
fairly--though not liberally--educated, whose life, from boyhood onward,
had been devoted to the task of taking quick advantage of every
opportunity that the great river traffic of the fifties had offered to
men of enterprise and sound judgment.
Beginning as a barefoot boy--about 1850, or earlier, he never mentioned
the date--he had "run the river" in all sorts of capacities until, when
the war came, temporarily paralyzing the river trade, he had a
comfortable little sum of money to the good.
Unable to foresee what the course and outcome of the war might be, he
determined, as a measure of prudence, to indulge himself and his little
hoard in a period of safe waiting. He converted all his possessions into
gold and deposited the whole of it in a Canadian bank, where, while it
earned no interest, it was at any rate perfectly safe.
Then he sought and secured a clerkship in the commissary department of
the army, living upon the scant salary that the clerkship afforded, and
meanwhile acquainting himself in minute detail with the food resources
of every quarter of the country, the means and methods of transportation
and handling, and everything else that could in any wise aid him in
making himself a master in commerce.
Then one day in 1863, when he had satisfied himself that the fortunes of
war were definitely turning and that in the end the Union cause was
destined to triumph, he made a change.
He resigned his clerkship. He recalled his money from Canada, and
considerably increased at least its nominal amount by converting the
gold into greatly depreciated greenbacks.
With this capital he opened a commission and forwarding house at Cairo,
together with a coal yard, a bank, five wharf boats, half a dozen tugs,
an insurance office, a flour mill, and other things. He sent for his
brothers to act as his clerks and presently to become his partners.
From the beginning he made money rapidly, and from the beginning he was
eagerly on the lookout for opportunities, which in that time of rapid
change were abundant. He quickly secured control of nearly all the
commission and forwarding business that centered at Cairo. By
underbidding the government itself he presently had contracts for all
the vast government business of that character.
He was always ready to take up a collateral enterprise that promised
results. When the Mississippi River was reopened to commerce by the fall
of Vicksburg and Port Hudson, Captain Will Hallam was the first to see
and seize the opportunity. He bought everything he could lay his hands
on in the way of steamboats and barges, and sent them all upon trading
voyages--each under charge of a captain, but each directed by his own
masterful mind--up and down the Mississippi, and up and down the Ohio,
and up and down every navigable tributary of those great rivers.
This field was quickly made his own, so far as he cared to occupy it. If
a rival attempted a competition that might hurt his enterprises, Captain
Hallam quietly and quite without a ripple of anger in his voice,
dictated some letters to his secretary. Then freight rates suddenly fell
almost to the vanishing point, and after a disastrous trip or two, his
adversary's steamboats became his own by purchase at low prices, and
freight rates went up again. He bore no enmity to the men who thus
antagonized him in business and whom he thus conquered. His attitude
toward them was precisely that of a soldier toward his enemy. So long as
they antagonized him he fought them mercilessly; as soon as they fell
into his hands as wounded prisoners, he was ready and eager to do what
he could for them.
Those of them who knew the river, and had shown capacity in business,
were made steamboat captains in his service, or steamboat clerks, or
wharf-boat managers, or agents, or something else--all at fair
salaries.
It was Captain Will Hallam's practice to make partners of all men who
might render him service in that capacity. Thus when he saw how great a
business there must be at Cairo in supplying Pittsburg steam coal to the
government fleets on the Mississippi, and to the thousands of other
steamboats trafficking in those waters, he went at once to Pittsburg and
two days later he had made a certain Captain Red his partner in the
control of that vastly rich trade.
Captain Red was the largest owner of the Pittsburg mines, and the
pioneer in the business of carrying coal-laden barges in acres and
scores of acres down the river, pushing them with stern-wheel steamers
of large power, but still of a power insufficient for the accomplishment
of the best results.
Captain Red's fleet was unable to control the trade. Captain Hallam
pointed out to him the desirability of making it adequate and dominant.
Within two days the two had formed a partnership which included a number
of New York bankers and investors as unknown and silent stockholders in
the enterprise, and an abundant capital was provided. An order was given
for the hurried building of the Ajax, the Hector, the Agamemnon, the
Hercules, and half a dozen other stern-wheel steamers of power so great
that they could not carry the coal needed for their own furnaces, but
must tow it in barges alongside.
These powerful steamers were to push vast fleets of coal-laden barges
down the river all the way from Pittsburg on the east to St. Louis on
the west, and New Orleans on the south. They were to supply, through
Hallam's agents, every town along the river and every steamboat that
trafficked to any part of it. Hallam was master of it all. Cairo was to
be the central distributing point, and if anybody along the river owned
a coal mine in Kentucky or Indiana, or elsewhere, he was quickly made to
understand that his best means of marketing his product at a profit was
to sell it through the Hallam yards at Cairo.
In the meanwhile, as one region after another in the South was conquered
by the Union arms, Captain Hallam, whose long river service had brought
him into acquaintance with pretty nearly everybody worth knowing south
of Cairo, established agents of his own at every point where there was
cotton to be bought at extravagant prices, payable in gold, even while
the war was going on. These agents bought the cotton, the planters
agreeing to deliver it upon the banks of the rivers and leave it there
at Hallam's risk. Then Captain Hallam's steamboats, big and little,
would push their way up the little rivers, take the cotton on board, and
carry it to Cairo.
At Cairo, while the war lasted, there were difficulties to be
encountered. Military authority was supreme, and just when the influx of
cotton was greatest, military authority arbitrarily decreed that no
cotton should be shipped from Cairo to the North or East without a
military permit. For a time this decree seriously embarrassed trade. The
warehouses in Cairo were choked and glutted with cotton. New ones were
built only to be choked in the same way. The levee was piled high with
precious bales. Even vacant lots and unoccupied blocks in the low-lying
town were rented and made storage places for cotton bales, piled into
veritable mountains of wealth. For cotton was worth forty or fifty cents
a pound, and even more, at that time, and scores of mills were idle for
want of raw material, both in England and in New England, while not a
bale could be shipped because the military authorities would issue no
permits.
Will Hallam one day set himself down to think this thing out. "Why do
the military authorities deny us shipping permits?" he asked himself.
"The eastern buyers want the cotton, and we western holders of it want
to sell it to them. There is absolutely no military or other good reason
why the owner of cotton in one northern city should not be allowed to
ship it to other northern cities where it is needed." Then he saw a
light.
"The military people, or some of them, want a slice of the profit.
That's what's the matter. I don't like to pay a bribe, but in a military
time like this, and while Cairo is under martial law, I suppose I must
submit to conditions as they are. I'm no theorist or moralist. I'm
fairly honest, I think, but I'm a practical business man. Besides, I've
a dozen partners interested in this cotton, and I owe it to them to get
it off to a market. If I don't, most of them will go to the bowwows,
financially. The military authorities have no right to forbid shipment
and ruin men in this way, but they have the power and they are
exercising it. What's that the Bible says about ploughing with the other
fellow's heifer, and making friends with the Mammon of unrighteousness?
I always play the game according to the rules, no matter whether I like
the rules or not. I'll play this hand in that way."
Then turning to his secretary, he said:
"Call the main office cashier by telegraph and tell him to come to me at
once, here at the house."
There were no telephones in that day, but Captain Will Hallam was
accustomed to say that, living, as he did, in the nineteenth century, he
made free use of nineteenth century conveniences in his business. He had
laced the little city with telegraph wires, connecting his house not
only with his office, and many warehouses, but with the houses of all
the chief men in his employ, even to the head drayman. And he exacted of
every one of his employees a reasonable facility in the use of the Morse
telegraph.
Captain Hallam had many rules for the governance of his own conduct.
Among them were these:
"Never be a fool--look at the practical side of things.
"Never let anything run away with you--keep cool.
"Never be in a hurry--make the other fellows do the hustling.
"Never let the men you work with know what you are doing--they might
talk, or they might do a little business on their own account.
"Never be satisfied with anything as it is--there is always some way of
bettering it.
"Never send good money after bad--it doesn't pay.
"Never waste energy in regretting a loss--there's a better use for
energy.
"Never hesitate to pay for your education as you get it--use the
telegraph freely, and keep in close communication with the men who are
likely to know what you want to know.
"When you want a man to keep still, make it worth his while--but don't
say anything to him about it. That opens the way to blackmail.
"Never take a drink--it unbalances the judgment.