The discovery on the young leader's body of the remarkable2 papers of instructions to burn the city and murder the Confederate President and his Cabinet produced a sharp discussion between Jefferson Davis and his councilors.
Not only did the people of Richmond demand that such methods of warfare3 be met by retaliation4 of the most drastic kind but the Cabinet now joined in this demand. Hundreds of prisoners had been captured both from Dahlgren's and Kilpatrick's division.
It was urged on Davis with the most dogged determination that these prisoners—in view of the character of their instructions to burn a city crowded with unarmed men, women and children and murder in cold blood the civil officers of the Confederate Government—should be treated as felons5 and executed by hanging.
The President had refused on every occasion to lend his power to brutal6 measures of retaliation. This time his Cabinet was persistent7 and in dead earnest in their purpose to force his hand.
Davis faced his angry council with unruffled spirit.
"I understand your feelings, gentlemen," he said evenly. "You have had a narrow escape. The South does not use such methods of warfare. Nor will I permit our Government to fall to such level by an act of retaliation. The prisoners we hold are soldiers of the enemy's army. Their business is to obey orders—not plan campaigns—"
"We have captured officers also," Benjamin interrupted.
"Subordinate officers are not morally responsible for the plans of their superiors."
No argument could move the Confederate Chieftain. He was adamant8 to all appeals for harsh treatment. Even Lee had at last found it impossible to maintain discipline in his army unless he prevented the review of his court martial9 by Davis. The President was never known to sign the death warrant of a Confederate soldier. Lincoln was a man of equally tender heart and yet the Northern President did sign the death warrants of more than two hundred union soldiers during his administration.
The only action Davis would permit was the removal of the fifteen thousand prisoners further south to places of safety where such raids would be impossible. The prisons of Richmond were emptied and the stockades10 at Salisbury and Andersonville over-crowded with these men.
Davis renewed his urgent appeal to the Federal Government for the exchange of these men. His request was treated with discourtesy and steadily11 refused. When the hot climate of Georgia caused the high death rate at Andersonville he released thousands of those men without exchange and notified the Washington Government to send transportation for them to Savannah.
Lincoln had given Grant a free hand in assuming the command of all the armies of the union. But he watched his cruel policy of refusal to exchange prisoners with increasing anguish12. In every way possible, without directly opposing his commanding general, the big-hearted President at Washington managed to smuggle13 Southern prisoners back into the South unknown to Grant and take an equal number of union soldiers home.
A crowd of Southern boys from the prison at Elmira, New York, were announced to arrive in Richmond on the morning train from Fredericksburg. Among them Jennie expected her brother Jimmie who had been captured in battle six months ago. She hurried to the station to meet them.
A great crowd had gathered. A row of coffins14 was placed on the ground at the end of the long platform awaiting the train going south. A dozen men were sitting on those rude caskets smoking, talking, laughing, their feet drawn15 up tailor-fashion to keep them out of the mud.
With a shiver the girl hurried to the other gate.
Her eager eyes searched in vain among the ragged16 wretches17 who shambled from the cars. A man from Baton18 Rouge19, whom she failed to recognize, lifted his faded hat and handed her a letter.
She read it through her tears and hurried to the Confederate White House to show it to the President. Davis scanned the scrawl20 with indignant sympathy:
"Dear Little Sis:
"This is the last message I shall ever send. Before it can reach you I shall be dead—for which I'll thank God. I'm sorry now I didn't take my chances with the other fellows, bribe21 the guard and escape from Camp Douglas in Chicago. A lot of the boys did it. Somehow I couldn't stoop. Maybe the fear of the degrading punishment they gave McGoffin, the son of the Governor of Kentucky, when he failed, influenced me, weak and despondent22 as I was. They hung him by the thumbs to make him confess the name of his accomplices23. He refused to speak and they left him hanging until the balls of his thumbs both burst open and he fainted.
"The last month at Camp Douglas was noted24 for scant25 rations26. Hunger was the prevailing27 epidemic28. At one end of our barracks was the kitchen, and by the door stood a barrel into which was thrown beef bones and slops. I saw a starving boy fish out one of these bones and begin to gnaw29 it. A guard discovered him. He snatched the bone from the prisoner's hand, cocked his pistol, pressed it to his head and ordered him to his all-fours and made him bark for the bone he held above him—
"We expected better treatment when transferred to Elmira. But I've lost hope. I'm too weak to ever pull up again. I've made friends with a guard who has given me the list of the men who have died here in the five months since we came. In the first four months out of five thousand and twenty-seven men held here, one thousand three hundred and eleven died—six and one-half per cent a month—"
Davis paused and shook his head—
"The highest rate we have ever known at Salisbury or Andersonville during those spring months was three per cent!"
He finished the last line in quivering tones.
"There's not a chance on earth that I'll live to see you again. See the President and beg him for God's sake to save as many of the boys as he can. With a heart full of love.
"Jimmie."
The President took both of Jennie's hands in his.
"I need not tell you, my dear, that I have done and am doing my level best. The policy of the new Federal Commander is to refuse all offers of exchange. You understand my position?"
"Perfectly," was the sorrowful answer. "I only came as a duty to bear his dying message—"
"Express to your father and mother my deepest sympathy."
With a gentle pressure of the Chieftain's hand the girl answered:
"I need not tell you I appreciate it—"
The President watched her go with a look of helpless anguish. His troubles for the moment had only begun. The returned prisoners had marched in a body to his office to thank their Chief for his sympathy and help and asked him to say something to them.
Jennie paused and stared in a dazed way into the poor shrunken faces. When the President appeared every ragged hat was in the air and they cheered with all the might of the strength that was left in them. The girl burst into tears. These men, so forlorn, so dried up with a strange, half-animal, hunted look in their eyes—others restless and wild-looking—others calmly vacant in their stare as if they had been dead for years!
A poor mother was rushing in and out among them hunting for her son.
"He was coming with you boys, you know!" she cried.
She stopped suddenly and laughed at her own anxiety and confusion.
"He's here somewhere—I just can't find him—help me, men!"
She hadn't spoken his name, in her eager search for his loved face. She kept lifting the cloth from a basket of provisions which she had cooked that morning.
"I've got his breakfast here—poor boy—I expect he's hungry."
She had lost all consciousness of the crowd now. She was talking to herself, trying to keep her courage up.
The President looked into the emaciated30 faces before him and lifted his long arm in solemn salutation.
"Soldiers of the South:
"I thank you from the bottom of my heart for this tribute of your loyalty31. You were offered your freedom in prison at any moment if you would take the oath and forswear your allegiance to the South. You deliberately32 chose the living death to the betrayal of your faith. I stand with uncovered head before you. I am proud to be the Chief Executive of such men!"
Again they cheered.
The old mother with her basket was searching again for her boy.
Jennie slipped an arm gently around her and led her away.
On the day Lee left Richmond for the front to meet Grant's invading host, the Confederate President was in agony over a letter from General Winder portraying33 the want and suffering among the prisoners confined at Andersonville.
"If we could only get them across the Mississippi," Davis cried, "where beef and supplies of all kind are abundant—but what can we do for them here?"
"Our men are in the same fix," Lee answered quickly, "except that they're free. These sufferings are the result of our necessity, not of our policy. Do not distress34 yourself."
The South was entering now the darkest hours of her want. The market price of food was beyond the reach of the poor or even the moderately well-to-do. Turkeys sold for $60 each. Flour was $300 a barrel, corn meal $50 a bushel. Boots were $200 a pair. A man's coat cost $350—his trousers $100. He could get along without a vest. Wood was $50 a cord. It took $1,800 to buy $100 in gold.
In the midst of this universal suffering the yellow journals of the South, led by the Richmond Examiner, made the most bitter and determined35 assaults on Davis to force him to a policy of retaliation on Northern prisoners.
"Hoist36 the black flag!" shrieked37 the Examiner. "Retaliate38 on these Yankee prisoners for the starvation and abuse of our men in the North—a land teeming39 with plenty." The President was held up to the scorn and curses of the Southern people because with quiet dignity he refused to lower the standard of his Government to a policy of revenge on helpless soldiers in his power.
To a Committee of the Confederate Congress who waited on him with these insane demands he answered with scorn:
"You dare ask me to torture helpless prisoners of war! I will resign my office at the call of my country. But no people have the right to demand such deeds at my hands!"
In answer to this brave, humane40 stand of the Southern President the Examiner had the unspeakable effrontery41 to accuse him of clemency42 to his captives that he might curry43 favor with the North and shield himself if the South should fail.
No characteristic of Davis was more marked than his regard for the weak, the helpless and the captive. His final answer to his assailants was to repeat with emphasis his orders to General Winder to see to it that the same rations issued to Confederate soldiers in the field should be given to all prisoners of war, though taken from a starving army and people.
Enraged44 by the defeat of their mad schemes, the conspirators45 drew together now to depose46 Davis and set up a military dictatorship.
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1
realization
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| n.实现；认识到，深刻了解 | |
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2
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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warfare
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| n.战争(状态)；斗争；冲突 | |
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4
retaliation
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| n.报复，反击 | |
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5
felons
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| n.重罪犯( felon的名词复数 )；瘭疽；甲沟炎；指头脓炎 | |
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6
brutal
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| adj.残忍的，野蛮的，不讲理的 | |
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7
persistent
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| adj.坚持不懈的，执意的；持续的 | |
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8
adamant
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| adj.坚硬的，固执的 | |
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9
martial
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| adj.战争的，军事的，尚武的，威武的 | |
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10
stockades
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| n.（防御用的）栅栏，围桩( stockade的名词复数 ) | |
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11
steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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12
anguish
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| n.(尤指心灵上的)极度痛苦，烦恼 | |
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13
smuggle
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| vt.私运；vi.走私 | |
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14
coffins
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| n.棺材( coffin的名词复数 )；使某人早亡[死，完蛋，垮台等]之物 | |
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15
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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16
ragged
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| adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的 | |
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17
wretches
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| n.不幸的人( wretch的名词复数 )；可怜的人；恶棍；坏蛋 | |
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18
baton
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| n.乐队用指挥杖 | |
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19
rouge
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| n.胭脂，口红唇膏；v.(在…上)擦口红 | |
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20
scrawl
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| vt.潦草地书写；n.潦草的笔记，涂写 | |
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21
bribe
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| n.贿赂；v.向…行贿，买通 | |
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22
despondent
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| adj.失望的，沮丧的，泄气的 | |
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23
accomplices
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| 从犯，帮凶，同谋( accomplice的名词复数 ) | |
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24
noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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25
scant
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| adj.不充分的，不足的；v.减缩，限制，忽略 | |
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26
rations
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| 定量( ration的名词复数 )； 配给量； 正常量； 合理的量 | |
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27
prevailing
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| adj.盛行的；占优势的；主要的 | |
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28
epidemic
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| n.流行病；盛行；adj.流行性的，流传极广的 | |
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29
gnaw
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| v.不断地啃、咬；使苦恼，折磨 | |
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30
emaciated
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| adj.衰弱的，消瘦的 | |
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31
loyalty
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| n.忠诚，忠心 | |
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32
deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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33
portraying
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| v.画像( portray的现在分词 )；描述；描绘；描画 | |
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34
distress
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| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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35
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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36
hoist
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| n.升高，起重机，推动；v.升起，升高，举起 | |
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37
shrieked
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| v.尖叫( shriek的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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38
retaliate
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| v.报复，反击 | |
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39
teeming
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| adj.丰富的v.充满( teem的现在分词 )；到处都是；（指水、雨等）暴降；倾注 | |
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40
humane
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| adj.人道的，富有同情心的 | |
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41
effrontery
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| n.厚颜无耻 | |
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42
clemency
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| n.温和，仁慈，宽厚 | |
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43
curry
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| n.咖哩粉，咖哩饭菜；v.用咖哩粉调味，用马栉梳，制革 | |
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44
enraged
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| 使暴怒( enrage的过去式和过去分词 )； 歜； 激愤 | |
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45
conspirators
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| n.共谋者，阴谋家( conspirator的名词复数 ) | |
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46
depose
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| vt.免职；宣誓作证 | |
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