House Divided (99 page)

Yet could an officer send his men where he himself would not go? The question led to hot debate, and no conclusion.

There were other arguments. Was the Parrott gun as good as the Whitworth? Would breech-loading rifles, if you could get enough of them, shoot as far and as hard as a muzzle-loader with the bullet well rammed home? Certainly to be rid of the ramrod would make for rapid fire; and it would save casualties, since most men shot in the arm were hit while loading. A musket well charged with buckshot was deadly at fifty yards. Yes, but a good marksman could sometimes kill at five times that range with a rifle. Thus the conflicting views. The long hours of talk covered every aspect of battle and of camp;
and Trav wondered how men equally well-informed could so completely disagree.

 

When in January General Lee went to Richmond, Longstreet was left the ranking officer in the field. At once, as though to take advantage of Lee's absence, Burnside in the camps across the river began to stir; and General Jackson came to Longstreet's headquarters and the two drew apart in talk together. When Jackson rode away it was with something resentful in his bearing; and Trav wondered what had happened. That afternoon, riding with Longstreet and General Alexander to inspect the defensive works along the high ground upstream, he took advantage of a moment when he and Longstreet were alone to speak of the incident.

“We thought there might be some movement planned,” he explained. “Major Moses began to worry about rations.”

Longstreet shook his head. “No, we will not move. General Jackson thinks Burnside will try another crossing below us; but mud and swamplands won't let him go far that way. Jackson wished to march down river to be ready for him, and I declined to consent.” He added reflectively: “Jackson's genius is for battle. Idleness distresses him. But my decision was to stay where we are; and, whether I'm right or wrong, it was my responsibility to decide. When the enemy attacks it will be by the upper fords.”

Trav could read into the other's words more than they said. General Jackson must have asserted his right to use, in Lee's absence, his own judgment; and it had taken courage to remind him that neither the authority nor the responsibility was his. But Longstreet had courage to spare, and a stubborn strength. Right or wrong, he would always have an opinion, would always hold to it.

Before Lee returned, the staff knew by whispered rumor of this small clash between the two commanders; and when Lee's opinion accorded with that of Longstreet they felt a loyal pride. When a day or two later Burnside did try to move down river, and mired his wagons and his guns as Longstreet had predicted, in their eyes Longstreet's prestige grew.

The General, during these weeks of winter, directed the construction
of defensive positions all the way to United States Ford; and General Jackson came one day to see these works, and complimented Longstreet on his use of the traverse to protect men against a cross fire. Longstreet disclaimed the credit

“It was General Alexander's suggestion,” he explained. He said to Trav afterward: “Jackson's a fine man, Currain.”

“I can see there's a lot of sense in that way of building entrenchments.”

“Oh, that was nothing. He just took that way of telling me he understood my insistence the other day; of conceding that I was right and he was wrong.” He added: “I'm glad he spoke. Jackson and I are General Lee's two arms; he has a genius one way, and I another. But it's necessary for us to agree. When generals quarrel, their armies lose the fighting edge.”

 

In mid-February, General Longstreet was ordered to proceed to Richmond. Burnside, over across the river, had been relieved from command and replaced by Hooker; but the Yankees were active in North Carolina and were threatening to move from Norfolk to Suffolk and on toward Petersburg. Trav's old friend, General Harvey Hill, had been sent south a month ago to be ready to meet them. Pickett and then Hood followed him; and General Longstreet, since these divisions were drawn from the First Corps, went to take command.

When they boarded the cars, he and Trav were together. “I've telegraphed Mrs. Longstreet to meet me in Richmond,” he told Trav. “I'll be some time in Petersburg, and I can have her near me there.”

“Stay with us, as long as you're in Richmond,” Trav proposed. Enid might not relish unannounced guests, but she must welcome them. “Cinda will want you, but so do we; and we've plenty of room. Garland must come too!”

“Very glad to do so,” Longstreet agreed. “At least till Louisa can find quarters for us in Petersburg.”

“Do you look for any action down there, sir?”

“I think not,” the General told him. “General Pryor has had some small contention along the Blackwater, but I doubt there's any strong Yankee force there.” He chuckled. “President Lincoln will keep Washington covered as carefully as a lady draws her shades before
she disrobes. No, the North tried the Peninsula last year and had a bad licking. They'll waste no serious effort down here. Our movement is largely to simplify the task of supplying the army. Everything has to go to the Rappahannock on a single line of railroad; but at Petersburg, we can feed our divisions from North Carolina.”

Trav had been troubled for months by the army's lack of proper food. A scrap of bacon, a little flour and rice, some miserable beef; that was the fare. Men were down with scurvy, and stragglers scoured the countryside like half-starved dogs. “Food's short in Richmond too,” he suggested. “The railroad could bring more than it does, if rations were to be had. We may be able to collect enough to send some to Hamilton's Crossing.”

Longstreet nodded. “The first step to victory is to feed our men. If we can help a little in that direction, this movement is worth while.”

In Richmond, Trav saw proudly the fine welcome that greeted Longstreet's appearance. While the General was at the War Department he went to tell Enid that the Longstreets would be their guests. He was prepared for objections, but to his surprise Enid cried delightedly:

“Oh, that's wonderful! I like him so much. Remember how jolly he was the night we did charades at Cinda's? We must have a party for him!”

Trav said the General would be in no mood for parties. Then Lucy heard her father's voice and came running downstairs to throw herself into his arms, and Trav hugged her close, and over her shoulder he said to Enid:

“Mrs. Longstreet will join him here.” He smiled at Lucy. “And Garland's coming,” he told the girl. “Remember him? He'll be a beau for you.”

He left them to decide which rooms these guests should have; and on the way back to the War Department he stopped at Cinda's, and admired Vesta's little Tommy; but he thought his mother was changed. “Is she well, Cinda?” he asked, when he could.

“Why, I think so,” Cinda assured him. “But of course she's older all the time.” She spoke softly: “She's—drifting away into a world of her own, Travis.”

He told her the Longstreets would be his guests and Enid's; and she said: “I hope Enid can find something to give them to eat. But
there, she and Dolly are together all the time, and I suppose Mr. Streean can get her anything she wants.”

Her words suggested a criticism of Enid, but Trav shut his ears. He asked for news of Brett and the others, and she said he had missed Brett by a day. “He was here almost a week, trying to get a pardon for some poor man who had been sentenced to be shot as a deserter, and who probably wasn't guilty. Brett found witnesses and papers and things and got a pardon for the man; but he had to hurry back to camp because the man was supposed to be shot day after tomorrow.” She said Burr had not been in Richmond recently, but Faunt had stopped for a moment about two weeks ago. “By the way,” she asked, “do you ever hear from Tony?”

“No. Why?”

“He isn't married, is he?”

Trav, remembering the last time he saw Tony, remembering that shameful moment in the dining room at Chimneys, said: “I doubt it. Why do you ask?”

“He was buying dress materials and finery here in Richmond a while ago. He took Dolly to advise him and to—try things on; but he was very mysterious about it, just laughed at questions.”

Trav thought in a sombre anger that Sapphira looked not unlike Dolly. She was quite as beautiful, with the same dark hair; and her skin was only faintly darker. But for Tony to use Dolly in this fashion was unspeakable. However, Cinda need never know Sapphira existed. “Well,” he said lightly, “that's interesting. Perhaps he's playing Prince to some Martinston Cinderella. No, I haven't heard from him since I was down there.”

When he left her, snow had begun to fall, a northwest wind driving the small, hard flakes like sleet into his face. He found General Longstreet, and a hackney cab took them to the house on Clay Street. The snow by that time came in clouds and flurries, and the wind was strong to buffet them. Trav thought of the soldiers in camp on the heights above Fredericksburg, sharing thin blankets, half-frozen, half-starved, ill-shod; and when he came indoors he was not surprised to hear the General say:

“Gives you a damned guilty feeling, doesn't it, Currain, to be warm and comfortable, and to remember our men on the march?”

Trav nodded. “But to make ourselves uncomfortable won't help them, General!” It was his part to play the host; and it was pleasant to see the other relax and take his ease, to see Enid so prettily excited that her flushed cheeks and her laughing eyes and her hair lustrous from long brushing made her lovely as a girl again.

Dolly, she told them, had meant to come for supper; but this storm would keep everyone indoors. Longstreet said it was just as well. “With Lucy here, and you, Mrs. Currain, another beauty would be too much for one man's eyes!”

Lucy, sitting by Trav's side, squeezed his arm in shy delight, and Peter put many questions to the big man. “Did you ever shoot anybody, General Longstreet?”

“Not for a long time, youngster.”

“I'm going to shoot a hundred Yankees some day.”

Longstreet chuckled. “Be sure they don't shoot back.”

“I wouldn't be scared!”

The big man asked teasingly: “Hardened to blood already? How old are you, young man?”

“I'm eleven! But I've seen them shoot a lot of old deserters out at Camp Lee, and I saw them hang that nigger woman up back of the almshouse for killing the baby, and I'm going out to see them shoot John Broderick Monday!”

“Hello!” Longstreet looked at Trav in disturbed surprise; and Enid said hastily:

“Peter's awfully morbid, General! I declare I don't know what I'm going to do with him! Peter, it's time you went to bed. Now you march, young man.”

Against Peter's protests she led him from the room, and Trav said awkwardly to his daughter: “Honey, why don't you go to bed too?” When he and Longstreet were alone, he said: “That's the hardest part of all this, for me: not being with my son. I hate to think of him goggling at public executions.”

“There are worse things than death in war, Currain.” The big man stared at the fire, and when he spoke it was in dry anger. “I touched some of them today. I went to Colonel Northrop, told him our army was short of food. His only answer was that he'd foreseen they would be!” Longstreet's heavy fist thumped his knee. “That pepper doctor
seems to feel that if he has expected disaster, he's done his full duty toward averting it.” He was silent for a moment, grumbling in his beard. “Currain, President Davis will ruin us all unless he learns to admit his own mistakes. Northrop should have been discarded long ago. You're worth a dozen of him.” Trav had no high opinion of Mr. Northrop, and he thought honestly that this was probably true. “The army will do its best,” Longstreet said. “And its best is better than any other troops in the world can equal; but behind the army there's corruption, inadequacy, laziness, greed, desertion, skulking. Currain, not one Southern man in ten has his whole heart in this war. If we had as many soldiers as we have exempts and extortioners—I could put together a full division of them from the men I saw on the streets right here in Richmond today—we could march to New York!”

Trav smiled at this extravagance; yet there was truth in it too. “I know there seem to be plenty of able-bodied young men in the departments.”

“Rats gnawing at the roots of our strength.” The General's anger rose. “Damn it, soldiers must eat; and it's only bad management that keeps them from it. Why, even here in Richmond tonight many a mother had to put her babies to bed hungry; yet there's food enough for every baby, yes and every soldier, within two hundred miles of us as we sit here.” He came to his feet. Trav did not speak, and after a moment the other's wrath ended in harsh laughter. “There, I've talked too much, thought too much. In wartime no man should ever think at all, or he'll go stark raving crazy. He'd be better off if he did, too! I'm worn weary, Major. Shall we go to bed?”

 

The General next day insisted on tramping off to St. Paul's. Enid stayed at home, but Trav went with him, plodding through packed snow inches deep. Not many others faced the blizzard that day, but Cinda was at church; and President Davis was in his usual pew, and the President and General Longstreet talked a moment together. Others, after the service, crowded to speak to the General; and that evening, despite the continuing storm, there were callers at the house on Clay Street. General Pickett's division was at Drewry's Bluff, and General Hood's had passed through Richmond a day or two before; and these two officers came to pay their respects. Trav often wondered
at Longstreet's cordiality toward Pickett. He himself, though faintly ashamed of his own feeling, disliked the other for his effeminate mannerisms, his long hair in careful curls around his shoulders, the cloud of scent which emanated from his hair and beard. Pickett was stupid, too; slow of wit and short of memory. Whenever Longstreet gave him an order, it was in elaborate detail and with many explanations.