An Unofficial Patriot Page 12

  CHAPTER XII.

  _"The shears of destiny."_--Shakespeare.

  War! war! war! The great election was over. The bitterness of factionand of section had only intensified. The inevitable had at last come.Mobs, riots, and confusion followed threats, and at last the shot thatstruck Fort Sumter echoed in every village and hamlet in the country.The beginning of the struggle with arms to adjust the differencesbetween two irreconcilable doctrines--two antagonistic social andeconomic policies--had culminated. The adjustment must, indeed, nowcome. "Seventy-five thousand troops for three months!" The President'scall rang out, and almost before the echo died away the quota wasfull. The young, the adventurous, and the hot-headed, supplemented thepatriotic and sprang into line. To these it was to be a three months'camping-out lark. Of course the South would back down at the show ofarmed strength and firm resistance to disunion. The martial spirit,the fighting instinct inherent in the race--that legacy from our bruteancestry--was fanned into flame like fire in a summer wind. Collegeclasses were depleted. Young lads hastened to force themselves into theranks. Drum and fife and bugle sounded in every street. LeRoy Davenportwas one of the first to enlist. The company of college boys elected himtheir second lieutenant, and they left at once for Camp Morton to beready to march to the front at the first order for troops from the west.He looked very fine and soldierly and handsome in his uniform, and withthe straps upon his shoulders. Beverly wrote that he should stick tohis editorial chair. He slept in the office, to be ready to receive andwrite up every scrap of news the moment it came. He wrote a series offiery editorials, denouncing the "outrage on the flag at Fort Sumter."An anonymous letter was pushed under his office-door warning him todesist. He published the letter and appended to it a more vigorousarticle than before. That night, as he lay on the bed in the littleback room of the office, he thought he detected a strange odor. He wentsoftly to the window and looked out. The moon was just rising on theriver. His little row-boat, in which his fishing and pleasure trips weretaken, bobbed idly up and down on the waves just under the corner of thebuilding. The strange odor grew stronger and more distinct in character.He began to suspect that he understood it. He opened the door into thefront room and passed on to the compositors' room. He was sure now thatit was the smell of smoke and oil-soaked cloth. His first impulse was toopen the front door and shout fire, but he remembered Lovejoy's fate andpaused. He stepped to the front window and turned the old slats of theheavy green blinds so that he could see out into the narrow street.There were three forms crouching near the door. He thought he saw thegleam of steel. Flames had begun to creep under the door and from thecompositors' room. Suddenly the flimsy pine partition burst into a sheetof flame. He knew that to open the front door was to meet death at thehands of desperadoes. He caught up the only implement of defense hesaw--a pair of great, sharp, clipping-shears, and started for the door.He intended, at least, to mark his man so that others could deal withhim afterward. Suddenly he remembered that he could drop from the backwindow into the river. If they had not taken his oars he could escape.The room was as light as day now, and he knew that to hesitate was to belost. He dropped the curious weapon he had in his hand, and ran to theback room. The only rope there was the support of the old-fashionedbed. He hastily unwound it and fastened it to the bed-post nearest thewindow. He wanted to make the drop as short as possible, lest the splashof the water attract the men from the front of the house. He smiled whenhe climbed into the boat and found the oars safely in its bottom. In aninstant he was pulling gently, softly, slowly out into the stream. Hecould almost hear the beating of his own heart Then in the moonlight ashot rang out on the clear air, and a sharp crack, as the ball struckthe side of the boat, told him that he was discovered. No need forcaution now! Need only for haste and strength! He pulled with all hisyoung vigor--with the stroke of an accustomed hand. The sky was lividwith the flames from his burning office--the dream and hope of his firstmanhood was melting before his eyes. "God damn'em!" he said, between hisset teeth, as two more shots followed him, "they won't dare stay longernow--and I'm out of range. God damn'em!" He let the oars fall by hisside. He could see numbers of men running about now, shouting, swearing,vainly trying to check the flames. Some one yelled, "Shoot again, he'sin that skiff!" He heard and understood that the victim was beingmade out the culprit. The would-be assassins were covering retreat. Hedecided that it would not be safe to pull back to the Missouri side justthen. He would land on the Kansas shore. Morning found him near a smallvillage. He landed and made his way directly to the newspaper office.It was one of his own exchanges, and a free-soil paper like his. He toldhis story, and the editor made a lurid article out of it and calledfor his townsmen to gather in a public meeting. He issued an extra, andBeverly was the hero of the hour. Rough frontiersmen--some of whom hadseen his paper--looked at the slender stripling and volunteered to crossthe river and "clean out the town." They called on Beverly for a speech.They were bent upon making him a leader. The war fever was in thefrontier blood. He began his speech in a passion of personal feeling,but ended in an appeal for volunteers, "not to fight _my_ battle, not toavenge my wrong, not to repair my loss, but to fight this great battlefor liberty and freedom in the great northwest! It seems we will have tofight for the freedom of speech and press, as well as for free soil! Iwill be frank: I had not intended to enlist in this war. I had hoped todo more good by argument than I could hope to do by arms. I had hoped tosee the end of it at the end of the three months for which the Presidentcalled for troops; but I do not stand on that ground any longer.Yesterday, as you all know, there was issued a new call for five hundredthousand more men! I want, now, to be one of the first of those, andI shall enlist for three years or for ten years or as long as this warlasts; and I don't want to come out of it alive if I have got to comeout into a country where free speech is throttled and a free pressburned up! I shall enlist, I tell you, and since I had to fly to Kansasfor protection, I hope that Kansas will enroll me as _her_ son, and ifit may be, as her very first volunteer!"

  The idea took the fancy of his listeners. "Raise a regiment!" "I'll gowith you!" "Three cheers for the editor!"

  They were given with a will, and the enthusiasm for himself put a newidea into his head.

  "I am only twenty-three years old," he said laughing, "and not muchbigger than the right arm of some of you great, fine, muscular fellows;but if you are willing to trust me, I would ask nothing better than totake the lead of such a body of men. If enough of you will enlist hereand now, I'll go with you as private or as captain. I'll take the leadand the responsibility, or I'll follow any better qualified man you mayname, and we'll go up to the capital and offer ourselves as the firstKansas volunteers for this war!"

  Almost before he had spoken the words cheer after cheer rent the air.Men signified their willingness to enlist, and before night on the firstday he had spent on Kansas soil he found himself marching toward thecapital at the head of one hundred determined, rough, strong, fearlessfrontiersmen to ask for a commission as their captain, and for arms andammunition for his men.

  Mr. Davenport was surprised that day to receive this dispatch:

  "Am elected Captain, Company A. First Kansas Vols. Will write.

  "Beverly."

  They could not imagine at home why Beverley should be in a Kansascompany, but when the _Gazette_ came that night with an account ofthe burning of the obscure newspaper-office out in Missouri, theyunderstood, and Katherine felt faint and sick when she realized that twoof her boys had gone to fight against her people. She knew that her ownbrothers and nephews would all be on the other side, and that Griffith'swere there too. Griffith had gone with Roy's company to Camp Morton andhad sorrowfully consented to his enlistment; but if war there must beand if his son must go, Griffith felt that he was on the right side. Heheld back, himself, from the idea that fighting was necessary, even yet.At the very worst, it would all be over very soon, he thought, and hehoped and believed that a few demonstrations of determination on thepart of the Governme
nt would undoubtedly settle the matter without anyreal or serious fighting. He was unalterably opposed to a division ofthe Union, and he believed that the South would see its mistake onthat question and reconsider it. But as State after State seceded, hisperplexity deepened. He and Katherine had all these years kept up afond and constant correspondence with the old home friends and kinsmen,several of whom, from time to time, had visited them. All these had feltthat Griffith had made a grievous mistake in following the course he hadtaken, but until now no real bitterness had resulted. Now, all lettersceased. They had heard, somehow, in the old home, that Griffith's sonshad enlisted in the Union army--to fight against them! That was morethan they could bear. Even before the line of communication was finallyclosed against letters, theirs had ceased to come--and Katherineunderstood. Many a night she sobbed herself to sleep.

  "How terrible this all is, Griffith! How terrible! Why should they fightover it? Why don't they let the slave states go, if they want to, and beone government, and the others be free states and another government--asCanada and we are, or as Mexico and we?"

  Griffith had tried to explain the difficulties and the inevitableclashing of interests that would be forever resulting--the constant andeternal clashing. He pointed out that no country would allow itself tobe divided. He read to her long arguments in support of the maintenanceof the Union; but she said:

  "Yes, I see it is desirable if all want it so; but if they do _not_,why--why--I wouldn't fight to compel them to stay with me if they wantto go. You never do that way with your children, Griffith, you know youdon't. You never did try to conquer one of them and force him to thinkyour way. You always felt that way about freeing the slaves, too. Yousaid you did not judge for other people--only for yourself. And when yousaw how terribly hard it was to do it, and that most people could notdo as you did even if they wanted to--you always said that you did notblame them in the least."

  "I say so yet. I know all that; but governments are very different. Someone has got to decide for others. If they didn't, everything would goto smash in very short order. I suppose I am a good deal of a coward.I can't bear to judge for other people. But I do believe in maintainingthis government at any and all cost--but I'd leave slavery alone in theSouth. I wouldn't let it spread. That is Lincoln's policy now. He saidso in his message--his inaugural. If it will stay where it is, he sayshe won't disturb it--and that suits me; but if it will not----"

  "Well, it won't," put in Howard. "I heard Governor Morton say so in hisspeech last night. He said that this fight had all along been really toextend and not to retain slavery, and when that was lost then the Southproposed to smash the Union. That's exactly what he said; but, 'We'llrally round the flag, boys, we'll rally once again,'" he sang, andbanged the door behind him.

  That night Howard disappeared. He had ran away, sworn that he waseighteen years old and enlisted under another name, as a gunner in abattery! It was ten days before a trace of him was found. Then he was onhis way to the front whence news had come thick and fast of skirmishes,battles and tremendous preparations for a terrible and bloody struggle.Excitement was at fever heat. The streets were crowded with soldiersfend echoed with martial music night and day. War, indeed, was uponthem, and fair July was here.