THE MASTER MIND
Socola read the story of the chaining of the Confederate Chieftain with
indignation. His intimate association with Jefferson Davis had convinced
him of his singular purity of character and loftiness of soul. That he
was capable of conspiring to murder Abraham Lincoln was inconceivable.
That the charge should be made and pressed seriously by the National
Government was a disgrace to the country.
Charles O'Connor, the greatest lawyer in America, indignant at the
outrage, had offered his services to the prisoner. Socola hastened to a
conference with O'Connor and placed himself at his command.
The lawyer sent him to Washington to find out the master mind at the
bottom of these remarkable proceedings.
"Johnson the President," he warned, "is only a tool in the hands of a
_stronger_ man. Find that man. Stanton, the Secretary of War, is
vindictive enough, but he lacks the cunning. Stevens, the leader of the
House, is the real ruler of the Nation at this moment. Yet I have the
most positive information that Stevens sneers at the attempt to accuse
Davis of the assassination of Lincoln. Stevens hated Lincoln only a
degree less than he hates Davis. He is blunt, outspoken, brutal in his
views. There can be no question of the honesty of his position. Sumner,
the leader of the Senate, is incapable of such low intrigue. Find the
man and report to me."
Socola found him within six hours after his arrival in Washington. He
was morally sure of him from the moment he left O'Connor's office.
Immediately on his arrival at the Capital he sought an interview with
Joseph Holt, now the Judge Advocate General of the United States Army.
He was therefore in charge of the prosecution of the cases of Clay and
Davis.
For five minutes he watched the crooked poisonous mouth of the
ex-Secretary of War and knew the truth. This vindictive venomous old
man, ambitious, avaricious, implacable in his hatreds, had organized a
Board of Assassination, which he called "The Bureau of Military
Justice." This remarkable Bureau had already murdered Mrs. Surratt on
perjured testimony.
Socola had given his ex-Chief no intimation of his personal feelings and
no hint of his association with O'Connor.
"I've a little favor to ask of you, young man," Holt said suavely.
Socola bowed.
"At your service, Chief--"
"I need a man of intelligence and skill to convey a proposition to Wirz,
the keeper of Andersonville prison. He has been sentenced to death by
the Bureau of Military Justice. I'm going to offer him his life on one
condition--"
"And that is?"
"If he will confess under oath that Davis ordered the starving and
torturing of prisoners at Andersonville I'll commute his sentence--"
"I see--"
"I'll give you an order to interview Wirz. He has never seen you. Report
to me his answer."
When Socola explained to Wirz in sympathetic tones the offer of the
Government to spare his life for the implication of Davis in direct
orders from Richmond commanding cruelties at Andersonville, the
condemned man lifted his wounded body and stared at his visitor.
His answer closed the interview.
"Tell the scoundrel who sent you that I am a soldier. I was a soldier in
Germany before I cast my fortunes with the South. I bear in my body the
wounds of honorable warfare. If I hadn't time to learn the meaning of
honor from my friends in the South, my mother taught me in the old
world. You ask me to save my life from these assassins by swearing away
the life of another. Tell my executioner that I never saw the President
of the Confederacy. I never received an order of any kind from him. I
did the best I could for the men in my charge at Andersonville and tried
honestly to improve their conditions. I am not a perjurer, even to save
my own life. A soldier's business is to die. I am ready."
Socola extended his hand through the bars and grasped the prisoner's.
The deeper he dived into the seething mass of corruption and blind
passion which had engulfed Washington the more desperate he saw the
situation of Davis at Fortress Monroe. After two weeks of careful work
he hurried to New York and reported the situation to O'Connor.
"The master mind," he began slowly, "I found at once. His name is
Holt--"
"The Judge Advocate General?"
"Yes."
"That accounts for my inability to obtain a copy of the charges against
Davis. Holt drew those charges. They are in his hands and he has
determined to press his prisoner to trial before his Board of Assassins
without allowing me to know the substance of his accusations. It's
infamous."
"There are complications which may increase our dangers or suddenly lift
them--"
"Complications--what do you mean?"
"The President, who has been intensely hostile to Davis, realizes that
his own term of office and possibly his life are now at stake. He has
broken with the Radicals who control Congress, old Thaddeus Stevens's at
their head. Stevens lives in Washington in brazen defiance of
conventionalities with a negro woman whom he separated from her husband
thirty odd years ago. Under the influence of this negress he has
introduced a bill into the House of Representatives to confiscate the
remaining property of the white people of the South and give it to the
negroes--dividing the land into plots of forty acres each. He proposes
also to disfranchise the whites of the Southern States, enfranchise the
negroes, destroy the State lines and erect on their ruins territories
ruled by negroes whom his faction can control.
"Johnson the President, a Southern born white man, has already informed
the Radicals that he will fight this programme to the last ditch.
Stevens' answer was characteristic of the imperious old leader. 'Let him
dare! I'll impeach Andrew Johnson, remove him from office and hang him
from the balcony of the White House.'
"The President realizes that the Bureau of Military Justice which he
allowed Holt to create may be used as the engine of his own destruction.
They have already taken the first steps to impeach him--"
"Then he'll never dare allow another case to be tried before that
Bureau--" O'Connor interrupted.
"It remains to be seen. He is afraid of both Stanton and Holt. The
Bureau of Military Justice is their hobby."
O'Connor sprang to his feet.
"We must smash it by an appeal to the people. Their sense of justice is
yet the salt that will save the Nation. The key to the situation is in
the character of the remarkable witnesses whom Holt has produced before
this tribunal of assassination. In my judgment they are a gang of hired
perjurers. Their leader is a fellow named Conover. There are five men
associated with him. They used these witnesses against Mrs. Surratt.
They used them against Wirz. They are preparing to use them against
Davis. It is inconceivable that these plugs from the gutters of New York
could have really stumbled on the facts to which they have sworn. Find
who these men are. Get their records to the last hour of the day you
track them--and report to me."
Socola organized a force of detectives and set them to work. The task
was a difficult one. He found that Conover and his pals were protected
by the unlimited power of the National Government.