this ignoring of his rank and, in fact, of his very existence. He
sent for O’Halloran, who appeared at the White House, accompanied by
Wagner, Congressmen Hagarty, Tomlinson, and several other ardent and
influential Irish “patriots.” This gathering of the clans warned the
President that O’Halloran understood the purpose for which he had been
summoned, and was prepared with a reply and a backing. Nevertheless,
the President did not hesitate to rebuke him in sharp words for his
imprudence and meddlesomeness.
O’Halloran’s response was an angry declaration that he had assumed
office at the President’s request, and with the implied understanding
that his policy was to be that of the Administration. If he was
not wanted, if his policy was not to be accepted, he would decline
to retain the secretaryship, and would leave the President to his
own devices. So, he added, would the Secretary of War. Mr. Wagner
truculently confirmed this remark of his colleague. O’Halloran’s
friends joined uninvited in the debate, which soon became undignified
and angry on both sides. It ended by O’Halloran flaming into a
simulated but apparently uncontrollable rage and defying the President.
An Irish regiment, which had left New York for Washington in suspicious
proximity to the departure of “Patsy” and the Irish members of
Congress after their conference in that city, had that morning arrived
at Washington and was encamped on the Mall. O’Halloran begged the
President to take notice of this regiment’s presence, and of the fact,
hitherto not mentioned, that twenty thousand more armed men of the same
race and actuated by the same spirit were, under his orders, _en route_
for the capital. They were his followers. They would obey him. He would
see if the Administration could safely deny its promises to him, and
fail to sustain him in whatever course he saw fit to undertake. “When
you send for me next on such an errand as this, I will bring them with
me,” he shouted. Turning his back on the President, he strode out of
the White House, followed by his friends, who had been at no pains to
conceal their hearty approval of his defiance and his threat.
O’Halloran proceeded straight to the Irish camp on the Mall. The
President, summoning a public carriage, whose movements would attract
no attention, drove to the residence of the Ex-Secretary of State. A
few other friends and prominent men were called in. While they were
debating what steps should be pursued under the new circumstances
which had arisen, information reached them that two more bodies of men
had arrived at the Pennsylvania station, one, like the regiment then on
the Mall, unquestionably Irish, the other as indubitably composed of
German and Austrian socialists. They were marching in a certain order
and discipline to join the body already in the city. Other messengers
brought the news that O’Halloran was in close and secret conference
with the officer commanding the regiment then in camp on the Mall.
It was clear that the President was in personal danger, and that a
deliberate plot to overthrow his authority was in process of execution.
With the few national troops at his command it would be impossible for
him to protect the Government buildings and property, or even to defend
any one of them against the attacks of the armed revolutionists already
in the city, reinforced by the local socialists and Irish, and in
constant receipt of additional forces from all directions, even then in
motion towards Washington under orders from O’Halloran and Wagner.
Hastily and secretly preparations were made for leaving the capital.
A few of the most important documents from the executive office and
a few bundles of treasury notes were packed into trunks. Orders were
sent to the general officer commanding the regulars in and about the
city, directing him to evacuate it as early as possible that night and
to set out for Richmond, destroying railroad tracks and bridges behind
him. At nightfall the President, accompanied by the loyal members of
his Cabinet and the heads of several bureaus, all in closed carriages,
drove across Long Bridge and took the cars at a small Virginia station
for Richmond.
Swift and secret as their movements had been, however, they were
discovered by the revolutionists, who instantly threw off every
disguise of loyalty with which they had thus far masked their treason.
The regulars, marching to the river soon after ten o’clock, found the
bridge torn up and a large force gathered to dispute their passage.
It was only after severe skirmishing that they succeeded in re-laying
enough of the scattered planks to enable them to cross. Arriving on the
other side, they found that the engines and cars which had been sent
across earlier in the evening to await them had been dismantled and
the tracks torn up. Leaving all their _impedimenta_ behind them, the
troops set out on foot across the country, the officers, in the absence
of cavalry, acting as scouts and pushing ahead to endeavor to discover
some means of transportation. This they were unable to do; and it was
not till the fourth day after leaving Washington that the footsore and
weary troops finally marched into Richmond. They found that city in
ruins, the work of a revolutionary mob which had risen in obedience
to orders from Washington the day after the President’s arrival. They
also found that the President had escaped, but that the party which
accompanied him had been compelled to separate and fly in different
directions, no one could tell them whither.
In desperation, they turned towards the mountains of West Virginia
and Tennessee. The population there had always been loyal, and had
healthfully resisted the revolutionary infection; the mountains
themselves afforded opportunities for defence, and possibly for the
gathering of an army which, with the regulars as a nucleus, might be
able to make some successful stand against the revolutionists. After
another toilsome march, about fifteen hundred of the soldiers succeeded
in reaching the mountains, though closely pursued by greatly superior
numbers of the rebels.
In the mean time the President had been stealthily conveyed to a
farm-house, some twenty miles from Richmond, belonging to a loyal
gentleman of that city, with the intention of sending him farther
South by the earliest opportunity. During the night he was attacked
by pneumonia. Enfeebled by physical weariness and mental strain, he
rapidly sank. His identity was concealed to the last, and, excepting
the gentleman in whose house he lay and the physician who attended him,
not one of the inmates knew that under that roof the last President
of the United States passed away. Even after his death the secret was
kept, and his fate was never made known to the revolutionary leaders,
who had themselves fallen before the story was told.
While one portion of the revolutionary forces at Washington had been
disputing the passage of the regulars into Virginia at Long Bridge,
another portion was scouring the city and arresting the members of
Congress who remained and could be found. Few of them knew what had
happened, and their capture was easy. When the next morning dawned, it
found all the Congressmen, except those in secret sympathy with the
revolution, herded in the District jail, and the building surrounded by
armed detachments from the revolutionary forces.
XI.
A PRECIOUS TRIUMVIRATE.
O’Halloran and Wagner issued another proclamation. This time it was
addressed directly to the “revolutionary army” and to the allied
organizations in sympathy with the new order of things. It announced
the flight of the Administration and the withdrawal of the national
troops. Its signers declared, with audacious and impudent hypocrisy,
that they deplored the disorder and destruction of property which had
followed the revolution in many cities, and which they feared might be
imitated in Washington unless immediate steps were taken to carry on
the government. The various organizations engaged in the revolt were
again invited to send delegates to an October “peace convention.”
In the mean time O’Halloran and Wagner summoned Herr Van Liest, a
prominent anarchistic agitator, to join them, and announced that
the triumvirate so composed would administer the government till a
permanent arrangement should be perfected.
In this disposition of authority, as in all the subsequent procedure
of the revolutionists, the apparent disappearance from the scene of
action of that mysterious leader calling himself the “Council of
Seven,” whose edicts had been the controlling force in the riotous
inauguration of the outbreak at Chicago, was one of the most perplexing
features. It gave rise at first to the suspicion that his identity was
concealed in the person of one of the three new rulers. This, however,
was not so generally accepted as the theory that they were simply
the instruments he had chosen through which to work out the schemes
plotted in his secret councils,--the tools with which he, still unseen
and undiscovered, did his work. Whatever the explanation, certain it is
that from this time forward the apparent leadership of the revolution
centred in the Washington triumvirate, from whom emanated the only
orders which were obeyed by the allied hordes of sedition and anarchy.
The bells in the few churches which the socialists had left standing
were rung, cannon fired, and bonfires made in several cities over the
revolutionary success. Herr Liest hastened to Washington, accompanied
by Julius Kopf, a beer-selling socialist, Petrovitch Metron, a
dynamite “professor,” and many other equally malignant anarchists. The
country was fast in the power of a triple combination representing
fanatical hatred of law and order, foreign revengefulness, and native
corruption,--all in their worst forms. But the leaders, fanatics
and zealots though they were, had foresight enough to see that the
alliance could not last unless its continuance were constrained
by the pressure of outside danger. All of them had animosities to
gratify against foreign Governments. Their desire of vengeance and the
necessity of self-preservation united in urging them to foreign wars.
XII.
WAR WITH ENGLAND.
Most of the foreign representatives had fled from Washington during
the stormy scenes which followed the departure of the President. But
the English, German, and French ministers remained, confiding in the
protection of their national flags, and actuated by a sense of duty
towards their fellow-countrymen in the United States, who were more
numerous than those of other nationalities. They were speedily shown
that revenge was a stronger motive in the breasts of the new rulers
than prudence.
Even before the arrival of Herr Liest in Washington, O’Halloran,
smarting under the memory of British prisons and the wound an English
enemy had inflicted on him, had cabled to London a long message, signed
by his own name alone, and addressed to “The British Government,”
demanding the instant release of certain specified criminals and
prisoners waiting trial in British jails, on the ground that they
were American citizens. Of course no notice was taken of the message
in London; but without twenty-four hours’ delay for the receipt of
an answer, if one should be made, O’Halloran ordered the arrest of
the British minister then at Washington. The astounded diplomat was
informed of the message which had been sent to London, and told that
he would be confined until a satisfactory answer was received. If the
demand was not granted in full within sixty days, he was threatened
with trial by court-martial on the charge of complicity in the
Englishman’s assault upon the Irish agitator. He was informed that
he might send his Government such account of his imprisonment as he
saw fit; and he was also at liberty to add that, in the event of the
British Government’s refusal to accede to the Irish-American terms,
not only would he (the minister) assuredly forfeit his life, but ships
and men enough would be sent to Ireland from American ports to effect
the release of the prisoners specified, by whatever force might be
necessary. The minister availed himself of the privilege offered him,
and sent a long despatch from his cell to the British Foreign Office.
The English Government and the English people had been enraged already
to the utmost limit of endurance by the unfriendly indifference of
the Washington authorities to the dynamite outrages in England, which
had been planned in American cities by American citizens, paid for
by American contributions, and carried out by American agents. This
affront to England’s accredited representative and its flag was more
than could be endured for a moment. The Cabinet was in consultation
when the minister’s despatch arrived in Downing Street. It was
supplemented within a couple of hours by another from the secretary of
the legation, corroborating the arrest of the minister and giving the
additional particulars that the embassy had been forcibly entered by a
band of armed men acting under O’Halloran’s instructions, and all its
papers and records removed.
Parliament was in session. That night the news from America was
announced to both Houses, and the Government stated that it would be
prepared at the next evening’s sitting to ask for a vote of credit.
This declaration was received with loud applause. In the Commons, an
Opposition member was instantly on his feet with the notice that he
would on the next day move that the outrage committed on England’s
representative demanded swift and summary vengeance. A member of the
Cabinet dryly remarked that perhaps the Government would by that time
have something to propose rather more to the point. The retort was
greeted with louder cheers than ever; and before Parliament adjourned
for the night it was clear that a declaration of war was the matter of
but a few hours in the future.
The minister’s arrest took place on the second of September. When
Parliament met on the third, the Government announced that war existed
between Great Britain and the United States by the act of the latter
Power, and asked a credit of twenty millions sterling to maintain
British prestige and avenge British wrongs. The few Irish members who
retained seats in Parliament attempted to use their customary dilatory
tactics. For once they were cowed by the roar of indignant derision
which greeted them from floor and galleries. In actual fear of personal
peril, they gave over their “filibustering,” and shortly slunk out of
the House. There was no division. Without a single dissentient voice
the credit asked for by the Government was voted. When the Speaker
declared it carried, the Secretary of War rose and stated that the
utmost exertions of the Government had been set in motion, even before
the vote was taken, to put every war vessel in its possession in
readiness for service, and that over three thousand active seamen had
volunteered that day to serve on the expedition which would shortly be
sent across the Atlantic. The news flew to every hamlet in the United
Kingdom, and the next day saw an outburst of loyal zeal such as was
never witnessed in England before. Within four days more than two
thousand steam ocean-going vessels had been offered to the Government
for use as troop-ships in conveying soldiers across the Atlantic. The
same spirit which actuated the ship-owners moved every other class,
and the Government found all the wealth of the nation and all its men
freely dedicated to the war.
The very day that witnessed the British Government’s acceptance of the
war saw another complication added to affairs at Washington. The two
ministers of France and Germany visited the White House, where the
triumvirate, O’Halloran, Wagner, and Herr Liest, had taken up their
quarters, to urge upon them the folly of their course in arresting
the English minister, and to plead for his release and dismissal from
the country. It happened that Liest and Kopf were angrily reproaching
O’Halloran, at the very moment of their arrival, for his action in
involving the revolutionists in a war with Great Britain while the
cause of their brethren in Germany was utterly neglected.
When the German minister entered and began his plea for his English
colleague, Herr Liest took the answer out of O’Halloran’s mouth,
and began a fiery tirade against Germany and the German Government.
The diplomat listened in amazement for a few minutes; then, without
deigning a word of reply, turned his back on the party and stalked
haughtily out of the room, followed by his French colleague. The
moment they had gone, Herr Liest, with his voice rising to a shriek,
in a frenzy of anger demanded that they both be treated as the English
minister had been. Kopf seconded the demand with a vehemence as great
as Liest’s. O’Halloran attempted to calm their passion and point out to
them the impolicy of angering at the same moment three of the strongest
Powers of the world. They would not listen to him. Instead, they
taunted him with showing weakness in the common cause. Wagner sided
with them, though less violently. O’Halloran saw that it would not be
safe for him to give them the chance to accuse him of lack of energy
or zeal. A guard was hastily sent after the diplomats, and they were
incarcerated in the same jail which held the British minister.
The moment this was done, the revolutionists saw that they must
hasten, if they were to strike the first blow against their old-time
European “oppressors,” before attack should be made on them from
abroad. Acting under orders sent out by the three self-appointed
dictators, detachments from various revolutionary organizations at the
different seaports seized possession of all foreign vessels lying at
their wharves. The officers were put in confinement and the crews sent
ashore, except such as chose to enlist in the revolutionary service.
Cannon of every sort were dragged aboard them, and they set out in
fleets from every Atlantic port to prey on whatever commerce might fall
in their path.
The moment he had assumed the duties of secretary of war, Mr. Wagner
had set about the organization of an army. He passed over the usual
authorities. Not a message was sent to the governor of a single State.
Nowhere was the militia ordered out, nor volunteers asked for, nor
a draft ordered. The various Irish and socialistic societies were
notified that men were wanted, and their answers were prompt. Camps
were formed near New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, Chicago,
Cincinnati, St. Louis, and other cities. In them rapidly gathered
motley armies of Irish dynamiters, German socialists, French and
Italian communists, with here and there Russian nihilists, Swiss
anarchists, and outlaws of every nationality. With these mingled a
larger proportion than two years before would have been regarded as
possible, of native-born workmen who had been inveigled into the
revolutionary ranks by the plausible pleadings of agitators, or driven
into them by their own sufferings and wrongs. Among the Irish were a
few who had served in the armies of 1861–1865; but in the main these
camps were noticeable for the absence of men who had seen service in
the cause of their country during the civil war. Still their numbers
were formidable. Altogether, they mustered something over five hundred
thousand men, armed with such weapons as the arsenals which they had
looted could furnish, and obedient enough to the orders sent out from
Washington, so long as those orders did not conflict with those of
“the Old Man.” And it was no longer a secret that such conflict was
impossible, inasmuch as the triumvirate there were known to be but
puppets in the hand of that mysterious central authority.
Meanwhile, in several quarters attempts to organize bodies from the
population opposed to the revolutionists had been crushed with terrible
cruelty. Except such weapons as chanced to be in their possession
before the outbreak, it was impossible for the really patriotic people
of the land to find arms and ammunition, or even to organize. Every
attempt on their part to meet in large numbers was prevented. Guerilla
bands lurked among the mountains in States which afforded them such
shelter. Thence they maintained a desultory warfare on such small
bodies of revolutionists as they could safely attack. No quarter was
shown them; they showed none in return. Civil war raged in every
congressional district,--it might almost be said in every town. But all
the great centres of communication were in the undisputed possession of
the revolutionists. The depots of supplies were in their hands; they
held all the arsenals; they had confiscated the public treasure. It is
probable that the patriots really outnumbered the revolutionists; but
they were without arms, they lacked money, they lacked supplies, they
lacked organization. The revolutionists spared no pains, hesitated at
no tyranny, forbore no cruelty which promised to keep them deprived of
arms and to prevent combinations among them.
XIII.
CAPTURE OF BOSTON.
The month of September wore away. October came, and with it the opening
of the “peace convention” which O’Halloran had called on the first
day of his power at Washington. But its sessions were cut short by
the unexpectedly speedy action of England. On the declaration of the
British Government that war existed with the United States, cable
communication between the United Kingdom and the United States had
been broken. The arrest of the French and German ministers had caused
irrepressible indignation in the Governments they represented, and the
refusal of the triumvirate in power at Washington to heed their demands
for reparation and apology had been followed by almost simultaneous
declarations of war from Paris and Berlin. All communication with
the United States from any part of their dominions was peremptorily
forbidden. No news could be received from Europe except by roundabout
and tedious routes, and little was known of what was being done there;
but no one among the revolutionary leaders dreamed of a blow being
struck before the opening of the ensuing spring.
It was therefore with something like stupefaction that they heard, on
the morning of the very day on which their farcical “peace convention”
met, of the arrival in the port of Halifax of a powerful British
fleet, consisting of seventeen armored fighting ships and thirty of
the largest steamships formerly plying across the Atlantic, which had
been transformed for the time being into troop-ships, conveying an army
of twenty-eight thousand men and an immense amount of ammunition and
warlike supplies. This fleet, said the first despatch which was handed
to O’Halloran just before he rose to open the convention, was coaling
up as rapidly as the conveniences in the port would permit, evidently
with the intention of making a speedy descent at some point on the
American coast. O’Halloran showed the despatch to Wagner; but both
considered that it must be a hoax. It was impossible, they agreed, that
England could have had a fleet in readiness and transports at hand, and
men and arms prepared so as to strike across the three thousand miles
of intervening sea within a month from the date on which hostilities
had been declared. They consequently decided to ignore the despatch.
But other despatches soon followed, confirming the news. They came from
such sources that even O’Halloran was convinced of their entire truth.
Summoning the two other members of “the Government,” he laid his
additional information before them.