House Divided (143 page)

They were replete at last, torpid with the rich delicious fare; and when they rose Cinda sighed and said: “There, I don't care if I never eat again! We ought to be ashamed, of course; but—wasn't it fun?”

After dinner the gentlemen sat over their brandy in the library; Cinda and Tilda and the younger folk stayed in the drawing room, while the children ranged out of doors to burn up their heavy dinner by an hour's romp in the fresh snow. Cinda had one ear for the talk in the library, one for the chatter here around her. Tilda was discussing hospital problems, asking Cinda's opinion, offering her own; and in the other room Streean spoke mirthfully of the fears of the government clerks, dreading that they would be deprived of their exemption and forced into the army. “Every member of the cabinet has put all his sons and nephews into a safe berth somewhere,” he declared. Dolly here was talking about Captain Pew's exploits. His steamer had been damaged on his latest trip; he would not sail again till early January. Gold, said Judge Tudor in the other room, was at a premium; thirty-five Confederate dollars for one of gold. This talk of figures made Cinda think of Travis, and she asked Enid for news of him.

“Oh I never hear a word,” Enid confessed. “Of course Trav doesn't mean to be thoughtless, but he doesn't realize how I worry.”

Lucy protested: “Why, Mama, he writes to me! I had a letter only last week, but you wouldn't even read it.”

“I'm too polite to read other people's letters, Honey. You and he have your own secrets.”

“I expect he's having a lonely Christmas,” Cinda commented, hiding her loyal resentment. In the yard there were the occasional reports of firecrackers as Kyle and Peter took their pleasure there. Dolly said it was wonderful that Jenny had been able to come to Richmond and bring all those goodies, and she asked:

“Are you going to stay a while?”

“Not very long,” Jenny told her. “Someone has to be there to keep an eye on things. Mr. Peters starts back tomorrow, and I'll have to go soon.”

“I don't blame you for wanting to go back,” Dolly declared. “I certainly wouldn't stay in Richmond unless I had to. I just simply begged Mama to let me go to Nassau with Captain Pew, but she was scandalized! I think it would be perfectly respectable if Darrell went with me, and he's going with Captain Pew next voyage. He thinks Nassau is wonderful.”

Tilda said quietly: “I can't control Darrell, but you certainly aren't going off to Nassau on a blockade-runner.”

Dolly looked at her with angry eyes. “You've told me so, often enough. You don't have to keep saying it.” She asked abruptly: “When are you leaving, really, Jenny?”

“A week from Monday, I think,” Jenny told her; and Cinda felt a sorry pang because they would go so soon. As though answering her unspoken thought, catching her eyes, smiling apologetically, Jenny added: “I must, I'm afraid. There's so much sickness in cities. I want to get the children safe home.”

Tilda asked: “Do you dare travel without an escort?”

Jenny smiled. “Oh, Banquo's dignity is ample protection; and if it weren't, Anarchy is an Amazon.”

Dolly cried in sudden pretty pleading: “Jenny, why don't you invite me down? I wouldn't be much help running the plantation, but I'd be company; and I know Mama'd let me go to the Plains.”

“Why, of course,” Jenny assented, with only the faintest hesitation. “I wish you'd all come, as far as that goes. I'd love to have you, Dolly.” Her glance touched Cinda. “All of you,” she repeated.

Cinda smiled, shook her head. She would never leave Richmond; not as long as Brett was near, and Burr; not while Trav, yes and even Faunt, might at any moment tug the bellpull; not while Julian was here. Jenny of course knew that; she had not meant the suggestion seriously.

And neither, for that matter, did Dolly mean what she said. Dolly would never leave Richmond, where so many gallant youngsters were always ready to pay her attention, for the seclusion of the Plains. Yet she was pretending now an effusive eagerness, appealing to Tilda. “May I, Mama?” And Tilda was saying: “Why, if Jenny wants you. you may go,” and Jenny repeated that Dolly would be welcome, and
Dolly declared she would certainly go. But of course she never would. Cinda was sure of that; and Vesta, when she and Cinda and Jenny had an hour together that evening, agreed.

“She's having too good a time in Richmond,” Vesta declared. “There's so much going on, and of course the town's full of officers to beau her around.” She laughed. “I don't think she enjoys the ‘starvation parties' very much. She's a greedy little pig. But she loves the dancing, and of course with all the things Captain Pew brings her, she has the prettiest dresses in town.”

“She wouldn't have much gaiety at the Plains,” Jenny remarked. “Even in Camden everybody works with the Ladies' Aid Society at the Soldiers' Rest, or does something.”

Brett had gone early to bed, but when Cinda went up stairs he was still awake, and while she was preparing for the night he said thoughtfully: “You know, Cinda, that dinner we had today would have been a treat for the men in camp.”

“It was a treat for us!” She felt herself on the defensive.

He nodded, but he said: “I saw two men get killed for a turkey no bigger than those we had. The turkey was in a field between our skirmish lines. One of our skirmishers shot it and ran to pick it up, and a Yankee shot him and tried to get the turkey, and our men killed the Yankee. Two men and the turkey all dead.” He added, half-laughing: “The worst of it was that we fell back and the Yankees got the turkey.”

“Oh, don't feel so guilty, my dear. After all, it's Christmas.”

“May I take a box of things back with me?”

“Of course.”

He said after a moment: “By the way, we've had a windfall. A letter came today. I still hold a few shares of the Bank of Wilmington, and they're paying a dividend of over six thousand dollars, the first of the year.”

She was puzzled by his tone. “Is that much?”

“Yes. Yes, they used to pay about fifty dollars, but they paid a thousand dollars for 1861, and almost twelve hundred for 1862, and now this. It's blockade money, of course.” He said wearily: “But it won't do any good not to take it.”

“That conscience of yours will be the death of me, Brett Dewain,”
she protested; but her tone was tender, and she came to kiss him where he lay.

 

They had all been certain Dolly had no real intention of going to the Plains; but during the week that followed she came every day to the house to talk with Jenny and to make a thousand plans. “I can't believe even now that she means it,” Jenny admitted. “But she declares she's really going.”

“I wish you'd stay here,” Cinda told her. “Not go back at all.”

Jenny smiled. “I think I'm getting to be like a man,” she reflected. “I've been managing things there so long that I keep thinking all the time of work that should be under way, details I should be handling. And I'm uneasy here. Richmond's so different, so many rough men, such wretched-looking women on the streets.” She laughed at herself. “I'm just plain homesick, I guess. I want to go home.”

“I know how you feel,” Cinda admitted. “About Richmond, I mean. There are so many people here now, so many strangers. It used to be that you knew everyone, but not now——”

When the day of Jenny's departure arrived, Dolly did go with her. Cinda saw in the girl a high excitement, a sharp anticipation, as though Dolly were embarking on an adventure not only attractive but dangerous. Certainly the prospect of a sojourn at the Plains in these times when there would be no gaiety, no young men in attendance, nothing to break the gentle routine of plantation days, was not enough to account for the girl's high color, her shining eyes. After the train pulled out, walking homeward with Vesta, Cinda confessed her mystification. “Did it seem so to you?” she asked.

“Yes,” Vesta agreed. “Yes, it did.”

“I hope she doesn't bother Jenny!” Cinda made an exasperated sound. “I'd like to know what that young minx is up to now!”

December, 1863

 

 

T
RAV, even if he had wished to do so, could not have come home for Christmas. General Longstreet's command was by that time established on the railroad between Morristown and Bull's Gap, with headquarters at Russellville. The little army had a dangerous distinction. It was the only Confederate force in position to strike a useful blow. A thrust through Kentucky toward the Ohio would be troublesome to the North, and a day or two before Christmas the General told Trav: “ 'Lys Grant knows that as well as I do. He won't rest till he's driven us out of East Tennessee.”

It was three months since Longstreet brought his divisions west. Trav's duties threw him twenty-four hours behind the General on the journey. At the request of Dr. Dunn, at whose home in Petersburg Mrs. Longstreet was staying, Longstreet had arranged that the doctor's cousin, Lieutenant Andrew Dunn, should be assigned to his staff; and he and Trav travelled together. Lieutenant Dunn had been born in Ireland, and he was a lively and amusing individual. Trav found him good company.

The battle along Chickamauga Creek had been fought and won before they arrived. It was late evening of that great day when they reached Ringold Station, a long low-roofed stone structure on the eastern fringe of the little town; and once off the cars the clamor of the guns came to them across the hills that lay between Ringold and the battlefield. When their horses had been unloaded, they trotted across the level valley and followed a road that wound through low, forest-covered hills, climbing and then descending to cross Chickamauga Creek and go on up gently rising ground to the rolling woodlands
in whose thickets the battle had been fought. Before they reached headquarters just beyond Jay's Mill, the fight was over, and Trav found Moxley Sorrel drunk with victory.

“We've smashed them, Currain,” he cried. “They're on the dead run for Chattanooga. We'll be after them at daylight, gather them in as easily as shaking ripe plums off a tree.” All about them in the forest there was jubilation as the victorious Confederates built their cooking fires; and triumphant voices drowned even the moaning cries of wounded men as stretcher bearers gathered them for the surgeons' bitter work. “General Hood's killed, mortally wounded. But we've smashed them today.”

“Where's General Longstreet?”

“Trying to find General Bragg, to get orders for tomorrow; but there's only one thing to do, and we'll do it.” Sorrel fell to laughing at his own thoughts. “Oh, we've had a day! We got to Catoosa Station about two o'clock yesterday, and there were no orders for us, so we started to hunt General Bragg. Down by the creek we rode right into a Yankee outpost. It was dark by then. They challenged us and I asked who they were and they told us, and I thought we were goners, but the General just said, loud enough for them to hear: ‘We'd better ride down the creek a little, find a better crossing.' So we turned away and they didn't fire a shot.”

“He never gets excited, does he?”

“Not in danger, no; but in action, yes! You should have heard him roar today!” Sorrel grinned affectionately. “The old Bull-of-the-Woods! And how the men love him! Yes, and civilians, too! In Atlanta, we put up at the Trout Hotel; and just about everyone in town came crowding around the hotel and yelling for him. When he showed himself they wanted a speech. He held up his hand and that quieted them down and he said: ‘I came not to speak but to meet the enemy!' That touched them off again. I wish you could have seen him today.”

“I can imagine it. Were any of the staff hurt?”

Sorrel laughed. “No, but we thought Colonel Manning was a gone goose at dinner. A shell fragment hit him and he was gasping and strangling and black in the face, but the General said: ‘Get that sweet potato out of his mouth and he'll stop choking!' So we clapped him on the back, and up came the potato and he was all right.”

But the first fine exhilaration of that great victory did not long endure Next morning, although the Yankees were in full flight for Chattanooga, Bragg refused to permit the swift pursuit that would have made victory complete. Longstreet and the whole army raged at this excess of caution; and an open demand arose for Bragg's removal, a demand so vehement that a petition went to Richmond. So two or three weeks after the battle, President Davis himself came to Bragg's headquarters. He called the higher-ranking officers into conference, and next day he and Longstreet spent hours together.

Trav saw, thereafter, Longstreet's profound depression; and one evening when they had ridden to the heights above Chattanooga to look down on the enemy far below, the General spoke of what had happened.

“President Davis knew that every general officer in the army desired Bragg's removal; but I suppose he wanted to outface us. He called a council, with Bragg present, and asked me to be the first to express myself.” He laughed. “Perhaps he expected to abash me into silence. I told him that I had not been an hour with this army before I knew General Bragg was unfit to command. I said his intentions were good but his capabilities inadequate. I said that properly handled we could have chased Rosecrans into Kentucky; but that General Bragg made us sit still while Burnside made Chattanooga impregnable.”

“General Bragg heard you?” Trav asked, imagining the scene.

“Yes, and when I was done all his other officers urged his removal, and he heard them too. I don't know how any man of spirit could accept such a humiliation. I expected him to resign, but he did not, and President Davis will not remove him.” He added angrily: “But it's probably just as well. Our chance was lost when we made no pursuit after Chickamauga.”

“You think we had a real chance then?”

“Yes. Oh, I suppose we're all optimists in the hot hours of victory; but I thought that next day we could open the road to the Ohio and push on.” After a moment he added: “Mr. Davis spoke to me privately after our council. He had some thought of assigning me to command. I told him General Johnston was the proper choice; but he doesn't like General Johnston, and he rebuked me as though I were a presumptuous child. I asked permission to resign, and he said I could not be
spared; that my men would not let me go. I asked leave of absence, proposed to withdraw to Texas and to send in a later resignation. He would have none of that.” He laughed gruffly. “Then he began to complain of the way the politicians torment him, said he couldn't decide what to do. Taking thought is a vice with him. There are occasions when even a wrong decision is better than indecision!” He shook his head. “We do everything at the wrong time, Currain. If we had won that victory at Chickamauga Creek in May instead of September, and had followed it up, I believe we would have saved Vicksburg. We would have invaded Ohio last July, instead of Pennsylvania. But time is one opportunity that is never offered twice.”

Trav suspected that a major part of the other's depression had its source in his anxiety for news from Mrs. Longstreet, and when late in October the word at last reached them that on the twentieth Robert Lee Longstreet had been born, he saw an immediate change in the big man. The General, his mind at ease, became mellow and tolerant and genial. One morning when they were at breakfast an old woman in a black silk dress and an extraordinary hat of ancient pattern timidly approached and asked if General Longstreet were among them.

“At your service, madam,” the General assured her. “What can I do for you?”

She looked around uncertainly. “Any harm in me a-comin' heah?”

“None whatever, ma'am. In fact it would please me mightily if you would join us at breakfast.”

The old woman hesitated. “Well, I done walked eight miles sence I et my breakfast, and we-uns don't have much up in our settlement, so I rightly believe I'll take a bite.”

She ate with the headlong, furtive haste of one to whom a full meal was an event, and food loosened her tongue, and she and the General chatted comfortably. She confessed at last that her real errand was to replenish her supply of pipe tobacco, and they filled her pouch and General Longstreet ordered an ambulance to carry her to her distant mountain home.

They had other humble visitors, and Trav thought Longstreet knew how to reassure and to win them; but the big man's eagerness for some military activity persisted. The move against Knoxville, a hundred miles away, seemed to Trav hopeless of success. He thought that for
Bragg thus to divide his army invited disaster. But Longstreet welcomed the opportunity; and with an effective force of no more than fifteen thousand men, he set out to attack and disperse General Burnside's army, which was at least as numerous and on good defensive ground. On that tedious march through bottomless mud he wore from day to day a hearty cheerfulness, and he laughed away Trav's doubts. “Even if we don't take Knoxville, as long as we have an army so near Kentucky, the Yankees won't sleep of nights.”

His good spirits were heightened by an affectionate letter from General Lee, which he proudly showed Trav. “I urged him to come out here and take command,” he explained. “This is his reply.”

Trav read the letter. “As regards your position as to myself,” General Lee wrote, “I wish that I could feel that it was prompted by other reasons than kind feelings to myself. I think that you could do better than I could.” Lee told the story of his unsuccessful move against Meade which ended at Bristoe Station, and he added: “I missed you dreadfully, you and your brave corps. Your cheerful face and strong arms would have been invaluable. I hope you will soon return to me. I trust we may soon be together again. May God preserve you and all with you.”

Trav handed the letter back, understanding how much it must have encouraged Longstreet in this present venture; but his own misgivings persisted, and others shared them. When they faced the enemy in his works at Knoxville and prepared to attack, they heard a rumor that Bragg had been defeated at Chattanooga; and General McLaws in a written protest to Longstreet argued that under the circumstances an assault on Knoxville offered little hope of profit. Longstreet, furiously angry, showed Trav the communication. “With that lack of spirit in my commanding officers,” he demanded, “how can the attack succeed?”

Trav said honestly: “Well, sir, General McLaws is a brave and skillful fighter. He conceives it his duty to offer these considerations, just as you conceived it your duty to advise General Lee against making battle at Gettysburg.”

Longstreet scowled. “Nonsense! Even if Bragg has been defeated, our best course is to beat the enemy in front of us!”

“General Lee felt at Gettysburg that our best course was to attack, but you did not agree.”

Trav knew that to speak thus straightforwardly might draw Longstreet's anger on himself, and he braced to meet the storm. But Longstreet, after a moment, said almost sadly:

“If General Lee believed it was right to attack at Gettysburg, and you see here a parallel, then I am the more convinced that we must attack the forts over there.” He added half to himself: “General Lee may have been wrong, and I may now be wrong; yet I think that in my place here, he would do as I shall do. Certainly I must take the responsibility of decision.”

The assault failed. Trav thought it might have succeeded if it had been pushed home, but on a report from one of General McLaws's staff of difficulties in the way, Longstreet himself recalled the attacking column. Yet he said that night to Trav: “We had them! Blame our repulse on me. I let myself be discouraged by another's doubts.” And he said in stern self-reproach: “No man is fit for high command, nor fit to send other men into the front of battle, if as I did he allows his own heart to waver in the crucial hour.”

As far as Trav knew, he made this admission to no one else; and Trav understood the big man too well to expect that he would. For the repulse at Gettysburg, General Lee had at once and publicly taken the responsibility; but it was not in Longstreet openly to admit he was wrong. Perhaps he was right in this attitude; perhaps to confess his fallibility might shake the confidence of his men. General Lee could admit his errors and still command the highest devotion; but there was no other like Lee.

Immediately after the repulse, the telegraph confirmed the rumor of Bragg's defeat. He had been beaten into hard retreat; and he sent orders for Longstreet's army to unite with his disorganized command. But before Longstreet began to move in that direction, communications were cut; and thus left to his own resources he led his men eastward to reopen direct communication with Virginia.

During those weeks of rain and mud and hunger and disease, and perhaps because he remembered his own lapse at Knoxville, Longstreet's temper became increasingly brittle. He asked for a court-martial for General Robertson, of whom General Hood had complained
at Chickamauga; he relieved General McLaws and ordered him to proceed to Augusta, charging him with “want of confidence in the plans of the commanding general”; and when General Law a day or two later presented his resignation with a request for leave of absence, Longstreet growled:

“General, your request is cheerfully granted.”

Trav understood the other's harshness toward these men who had been so long his comrades. Longstreet's wrath was not at them but at himself. The General had once said of Stuart that the cavalryman had the weaknesses which matched his virtues; that his vanity and his love for the spectacular were a part of the dashing courage which made him a great commander. Something of the sort was true of Longstreet himself. It was confidence in his own rightness that made him the fine battle leader he was, and he knew this, and so would never, unless he must, admit that he had been wrong. But the failure at Knoxville was so clearly his failure that he recognized the fact; and the memory of it must be a torment to him now. During these weeks the General kept even Trav at a distance, forever finding fault with him in little ways; and Trav guessed that Longstreet regretted that confession of his fault, and blamed Trav for having heard it. Certainly it was to find a scapegoat for his own sins that the commanding general now disciplined his lieutenants.