THE General, the blooming Rachel by his side, takes up his homeward
journey. Now when they are on their way and a world has time to observe
them, it is to be noted that changes have befallen with the lengthened
flight of time. The eye of the blooming Rachel is as liquidly black and
deep, her hair as raven-blue, her cheek as round as on a rearward day
when she won the heart of that bottle-green beau from old Salisbury. The
alteration is in her form, which has grown plump and full and stout in
these her matronly middle years. As to the bottle-green beau, his sandy
hair is deeply shot with iron-gray, while his features show haggard,
and seamed of care. To the inquiring eye he looks at once dangerous and
rusty, like an old sword. His form, always spare, is more emaciated than
ever. The last is due in part to those Benton bullets, and the Dickinson
shot fired in that poplar, May-sweet wood on a certain Kentucky morning.
Besides, one is not to forget those southern swamps, which have never
had fame for building a man up. As the General, with his blooming
Rachel, draws near home, the whole Cumberland country rushes forth to
greet him.
From that earliest day when Time began swinging his scythe in the
meadows of humanity, mankind has owned but two ways of honoring a hero.
One is the “parade,” the other is the “dinner.” In the one instance,
half the people march in the middle of the street, while the remaining
half line the curbs and look on. In the other, which has the merit of
exclusion, a select great few set a board with meat and drink; and then,
installing the hero where all may see, they bombard him with toasts and
speeches and applause. All attend the “parade” since it is free. Few
avoid the dinner, because, besides the honor and the honoring, it
affords lawful occasion for being drunk--a manifest advantage to many
in a strait-laced community. The General when he arrives in Nashville is
exhaustively “paraded” and deeply “dined.” Also he is given a sword.
Now, having been “paraded” and “dined,” and with honors thick upon him,
the General sets about his duties as a major general in days of peace.
General Adair and he have a letter-quarrel concerning the courage of
Kentuckians. General Scott and he have a letter-quarrel on grounds more
personal. As the upshot of the latter correspondence, the General
evinces an eagerness to shoot his over-epauletted opponent at ten paces,
oiling up the saw-handles to that hopeful end, but is balked by the
over-epauletted one, who declines on grounds of piety and patriotism.
[Illustration: 0251]
While the General is fuming with ink and paper against those
distinguished warriors, he cools at intervals sufficiently to build
the blooming Rachel a little church. The blooming Rachel is a devout
Presbyterian; and, while the General is far too busy with this world to
think much on the next, she prevails with him--for he never says “No” to
her--to put her up a church. It is not much bigger than a drygoods box;
but there are forty pews, besides a pulpit for Parson Blackburn, and
the blooming Rachel is supremely happy. She owns to some illogical
impression that, should the General build a church, he'll “join.” In
this she goes wrong; for the General only builds.
The General mounts his horse, and rides to Washington. He meets Mr.
Jefferson in Lynchburg, and that aged fine gentleman and maker of
constitutions is struck by the graceful manners of the General, who has
become all ease and polish where once he was as rough as a woods' colt.
In Washington he is much feted and feasted, and the trump of celebration
is tireless to sound his name. He gets back home in time to put a roof
on the blooming Rachel's almost finished church, and listen to Parson
Blackburn's dedicatory sermon.
The Red Stick Creeks from across the Florida line take to marauding and
murdering in Southern Georgia, and the General decides to see about it.
He sends an officer, with a force of men, to reduce Negro Fort on the
Appalachicola. In giving that officer his instructions, the General
expands touching the military virtues of red-hot shots; and with such
satisfactory results that the first one fired at Negro Fort blows it to
ruins, and with it three hundred and thirty-one of the three hundred and
thirty-four blacks and reds who infest it. Three crawl from the blazing
chaos, to be hilariously knocked on the head by friendly Creeks, who
have attended the expedition with that fond hope and purpose. The world
is much rejoiced at the demolition of Negro Fort; since murder and
pillage have been the one business of its robber garrison, and the
fire-torture of prisoners their one amusement.
The General presently appears at the head of his hunting-shirt men, and
destroys the village of Chief Billy Bowlegs on the oft-sung Suwannee
River. Then he takes St. Marks from the feeble Spaniards, and arrests a
brace of conspiring English, Ambrister and Arbuthnot. The arrested ones
have come across from the Bahamas, bringing English guns and lead
and powder and promises to the hostile blacks and reds; and all in
accordance with that policy, dear to England, of preferring bloodshed
by proxy to shedding blood herself. The General hangs conspirator
Arbuthnot, and shoots conspirator Ambrister; while England, in
accordance with a second policy as dear as the first, disavows them
both.
The General goes on to Pensacola. Here he hauls down the flag of Spain,
runs up the stars and stripes, drives out the Spanish Governor, and
installs one of his own with a garrison to back him. Having executed
conspirators Ambrister and Arbuthnot, he now seizes on two
Creek-Seminole chiefs and hangs them, to preserve, so to speak, a racial
equilibrium. Having thus wound up the Spanish, the English, the negroes
and the Indians in Florida, the General returns to his home, serene in
the sense of duty well performed.
The General's serenity is misplaced; trouble breaks out in Washington.
Mr. Monroe is President, and Statesmen Clay and Crawford and Calhoun
and Adams desire to be. The quartette last named suspect in the
General--about whom a responsive public is running mad--a growing
rival. They decide to cripple him in the very cradle of his White House
prospects. If they do not he may grow up to snatch from them the
crown. Moved of this high thought, they charge the General with waging
unauthorized war; and with invading Spanish territory, we at peace
with Spain. They call him a “murderer” for snuffing out conspirators
Ambrister and Arbuthnot and those superfluous Creek-Seminole chiefs.
Also, giving a moral snuffle, they demand that he be courtmartialed and
cashiered.
President Monroe shakes his head at the conniving quartette, replying as
on a somewhat similar occasion did the Russian Catherine:
“We never punish conquerors.”
The General by the Cumberland hears of these weird doings in Washington,
and again rides over the mountains. His object is to discover, by
personal observation, who in his case, are the sheep and who the goats,
and separate in his own mind his friends from his enemies. Upon his
arrival the General finds himself an issue of politics. As such he is
voted upon by Congress, which affirms heavily in his favor. The people
have long ago decided in his favor; and Congress, ever quick to locate
the butter on its bread, sharply follows the popular example. Statesman
Clay and others among the General's foes express themselves freely to
his disadvantage. However, the General expresses himself freely to their
disadvantage, and profound judges of vituperation say that he has the
sulphurous best of the exchange.
Being upheld by Congress, and having freed his mind touching his foes,
the General goes to Baltimore and Philadelphia, and is extravagantly
wined and dined. Then he proceeds to New York, where Fitz Greene Halleck
and Joseph Rodman Drake write doggerel at him in the _Evening Post_;
and where, also, he is “paraded” and “dinner”--honored to a degree
which lays all former “parading” and “dinner”--honoring, by less fervent
communities, deep within the shade.
Spain cedes Florida to the United States; just as she would cede a bad
hot penny that, besides being worthless, is burning her fingers. The
President appoints the General governor of the new domain. Whereupon the
new Governor lays down his Major General's commission, bids farewell to
the army, and journeys south. He does not relish being Governor; and,
after locking up his Spanish predecessor for stealing divers papers of
state, and expatriating a scandalous bevy whose talk sounds like treason
to his sensitive ear, he resigns.
When the General gets back to the Cumberland country, he finds that his
former quartermaster, Major Lewis, has decided to send him to the White
House. The General is mightily taken aback, and declares himself unfit.
Major Lewis retorts that he is far more fit than any of his quartette
of Washington enemies, laying especial emphasis on Statesman Clay. The
accurate force of the retort strikes the General wordless.
Major Lewis is rich, wise, cunning, cool, college-bred, and eighteen
years younger than the General. He is a born manager, a natural
wire-puller, and can play politics by ear as some folk play the fiddle.
Congenitally a Warwick, he prefers making a President to being one, and
would sooner hold a baby than hold an office.
Major Lewis seizes on the General as so much raw material wherefrom to
construct a President. As a best method of having his man on the ground,
he gives a hint, and the Tennessee Legislature sends the General to
Washington as Senator. The blooming Rachel accompanies him; they live at
a tavern in Pennsylvania Avenue called the “Indian Queen.”
This caravansary is kept by one O'Neal, who has a pretty daughter
Peg. Later the pretty Peg will dissolve a Cabinet, make Mr. Van Buren
President, and come within an ace of getting Mr. Calhoun hanged. All
this, however, is in the unpierced future. The blooming, childless
Rachel makes a pet of pretty Peg; which rivets the latter forever in the
good regards of the General, who loves what the blooming Rachel loves.
Major Lewis proves a wizard of politics. Under his quiet legerdemain,
here and there and everywhere political fires break forth in favor of
the General. They break forth in North Carolina, in Pennsylvania, in New
York; and, so deft and secret is his work, none suspects Wizard Lewis as
the incendiary. Wizard Lewis is counseled by Colonel Burr who, like some
old gray fox, sits in the mouth of his New York law-burrow in Nassau
Street, peering out at events as they pass.
In these days, the lion-faced Webster writes his brother:
“His (the General's) manners are more presidential than those of any
of the candidates. He is grave, mild, and reserved. My wife is for him
decidedly.”
There are four candidates for the White House, _vide, licet_, the
General, and Statesmen Adams and Crawford and Clay. The popular vote
falls in the order given, with the General a long flight shot ahead of
Statesman Adams, who is next on the list. And yet, while far in advance
of the others, the General is without that electoral majority required
by the Constitution, and the choice is thrown into the House of
Representatives.
Statesman Clay is now out of the running; for the President must be
chosen from among the three candidates having the highest electoral
vote, and he is fourth and lowest. Statesman Crawford, who ranks third,
is also out. He is stricken of paralysis; and, while this wins him
sympathy, it loses him White House strength. The fight is to be between
the General and Statesman Adams.
While Statesman Clay is out of the coil, so far as any personal chance
of becoming the House selection is concerned, he is in it decisively in
another fashion. As a chief force in the House, he holds that important
body in the hollow of his hand; and, while he cannot be its choice,
he can control its choice. He controls it for Statesman Adams, on
the underground understanding that he, Statesman Clay, shall sit at
Statesman Adams' right hand as Secretary of State. Statesman Clay hopes
to run presidentially another day, and thinks to make his calling and
election sure while head of the Cabinet of Statesman Adams. As events
forge and fuse themselves in the blast furnaces of the future, it will
be discovered that in thus opining Statesman Clay falls into grievous
error.
It is four o'clock in the afternoon when the Clay-guided House counts
Statesman Adams into a Presidency. Five hours afterward the General
meets Statesman Adams in the East Room, where both are in attendance
upon the last reception of outgoing President Munroe. The contrast
between them tells in the General's favor. There is no gloom of
disappointment on his brow, no cloud of defeat in his hawkish blue eyes.
The General has a lady on his arm. He greets Statesman Adams gracefully
and extends his hand:
“How is Mr. Adams?” cries he. “I give you my left hand, sir, since my
right is devoted to the fair.”
Statesman Adams is a diplomat, and used to courts and salons. The
General is of the wilderness and its battlefields. And yet the General
shines out the more polished of the two. Statesman Adams takes the
extended hand; but he does it awkwardly, backwardly, and with a wooden
manner, as though his deportment is seized of some sudden, bashful
stiffness of the joints. At last he manages to say:
“Very well, sir! I hope you are well!”