"Yes, and was paroled at Appomattox," sententiously rejoined the veteran.
"Now, my dear sir, you greatly interest me; may I inquire your rank in the Confederate army?"
"I was a Colonel of cavalry, sir."
"Were you at Gettysburg, sir?"
"Yes, and was wounded as we were falling back to the Potomac."
"Gettysburg! Ah, yes!" the stranger observed reflectively; "this battle was quite disastrous to the South, I believe, and was claimed by the North as a great victory."
"And what upon the face of the earth have they not claimed?" excitedly replied the veteran.
"Ah yes, they are a boastful people," said Mr. Jamieson. "I doubt not they claimed victories they never won. You of course are still of the opinion that the South was right?"
"No opinion about it. I know she was right. We never resorted to hostilities until our inst.i.tutions were a.s.sailed."
"I am sure your statement is correct, sir," said the Englishman. "While our government, then in the control of a radical ministry, was officiously unfriendly to the South, your government had a great army of sympathizers in England who deplored its downfall; indeed, the president of our society was an active sympathizer with your country, and the bank in which he was a director, upon his private account emitted bills of credit that were used by the agents of the Confederate government in the purchase of materials of war. I presume, sir," continued the Englishman, "you would have no hesitation in going to war again if the same casus-belli existed?"
"No indeed, sir."
"And you are of opinion that it would not be treasonable to oppose the policy of the government in respect to its acts of reconstruction?"
"If armed with adequate power, I should not hesitate in respect to my duty in the premises," replied the veteran with a show of temper.
"I am very glad, sir, that you have been entirely frank with me," said the stranger, "and I fully appreciate your feelings. I suspect that you do not think that a strongly centralized government in any contingency is the least oppressive form of government?"
"a.s.suredly not, sir. Nature has established a diversity of climates, interests and habits in the extensive territories embraced by the Federal government. We cannot a.s.similate these differences by legislation. We cannot conquer nature. Other differences have been introduced by human laws and advent.i.tious circ.u.mstances, very difficult, if not impossible to be adjusted by Federal legislation, hence the necessity of local legislatures with adequate powers, and a general government with its appropriate powers."
"I presume, sir," said the stranger, "that you cannot conscientiously support the reconstruction measures of Congress and the president?"
"I cannot and will not, sir," responded Colonel Seymour with emphasis; "and if you were advertant to that point of time in the history of our late war when, from sheer exhaustion, the South laid down its arms, you would not ask the question. There were hundreds of thousands of patriotic men in the North, who, upon the question of the emanc.i.p.ation of the negro, concurred in its propriety, yea, its necessity, but who denounced those reactionary measures that were crystalized and enforced with cruelty against the South. In our judgment these measures were not only extra-hazardous, but inherently oppressive. It would have been a pernicious power in the hands of an intelligent, conservative, law-abiding people, but most deadly in the hands of ignorant, unscrupulous and truculent officials. You must remember that the South, in a metaphorical sense, was an immense area sown in grain ready to be harvested, with its hedges trampled under foot and destroyed, and inviting cattle and swine to enter and devour. The herds came greedily through every gap, and like the wild beasts upon our western prairies, depastured and consumed almost the whole."
"How wonderfully recuperative have been the energies of your people sir," interrupted the stranger.
"Yes, but will you allow me to proceed?" replied the Colonel; "We believed that when the war ended, the people of the South relying upon the pledges made by the union generals in the field before the armies were disbanded; on the negotiations preceding the surrender; on the proclamation of President Lincoln; and the publications of the press; as well as upon the terms actually agreed on between Grant and Lee, and Johnson and Sherman, at the time of the capitulation of the Confederate armies; that when resistence to federal authority ceased, and the supremacy of the const.i.tution of the United States was acknowledged; and especially after the ordinances of secession were repealed, and an amendment to the const.i.tution, abolishing slavery wherever it existed, was ratified by the legislatures of the insurrectionary states; that a full and complete restoration of the southern states to their former position of equal states would at once take place; and after the exhaustion of such a war they hailed the return of peace with satisfaction; they acknowledged defeat; accepted the situation, and went to work to rebuild their waste places and to cultivate their crops. The men who composed the union armies, found on their return home, a healthy, prosperous, peaceable and well organized society; while the government with a prodigal hand freely distributed pay, pensions, and bounties. It was not so in the south; society here was disorganized; the strain upon the people to supply the armies in the fields had exhausted their resources; labor was absolutely demoralized; the negroes being freed, in their ignorance and delusion were not slow to understand their changed condition, and became aggressive, riotous and lawless. Under such circ.u.mstances it was impossible to restore harmony in the civil government without the utmost confusion; yet so earnestly did our people struggle to return to their allegiance and thus ent.i.tle them to the protection which had been promised, that from the day of the surrender of the Confederate army, not a gun has been fired; no hostile hand has been uplifted against the authority of the United States, but before breathing time even was allowed, a set of harpies, many of whom had shirked the dangers of the battle field, pounced down upon our people to ravage, plunder, and destroy. All remonstrances, entreaties, resistances were stifled by the cry of treason and disloyalty and by the hollow pretence that the plunderers were persecuted because of their loyalty to the Union. A system has grown up in the South with obstinacy, whereby great protected monopolies are fostered at the expense of its agricultural labor; then follow the series of offensive measures known as the reconstruction acts; but one further observation sir, and I have done. The English people had no just conception of the oppressions want only inflicted upon the South; of the insolence and rapacity of the carpet-baggers and freedmen who were made our masters."
There was quite an interval before the stranger replied.
"Your address sir has been a revelation indeed; it is a lesson of great educational value and I sincerely hope I may hear you again. Would you care to present your views in writing?"
The Colonel without any suggestion of evil said to the stranger. That possibly at some future day he might find the leisure to do so.
"And now you must allow me to thank you, before leaving, for the courtesy you have shown. I shall take pleasure in reporting this interview."
Colonel Seymour upon entering his wife"s chamber remarked to her "I have found a friend in need; an Englishman who was delightfully entertaining and who represents certain humanitarian interests. I expect to hear something very flattering to the South when he submits a report to his princ.i.p.al."
Mrs. Seymour who had pa.s.sed that period in life, when she could look hopefully upon anything, observed quite sadly. "I hope it is so, my dear husband; I hope the future has very much happiness in store for you; but I am suspicious of strangers who seem to have no other business with you, than to obtain your views upon the unhappy events that are girdling our home as it were with a zone of fire." "Ah," exclaimed the husband, "you do not understand, perhaps your opinion will change in a few days."
"I hope so" the sick lady replied feebly.
We pretermit events more or less irritating to follow the urbane Englishman. The reader has perhaps surmised that he was an agent of the secret service bureau. This was true, as Colonel Seymour learned to his sorrow, within forty eight hours after the man and the lady dropped out of the wide open arms of the old mansion. But how could a southern gentleman withhold knowledge when sought under such a disguise. He spoke as he felt; and if the weapons that he used to punctuate his expressions were boomerangs that impaled him on its points, he could not help it.
Anywhere, everywhere, he would have spoken his convictions without concealment, without equivocation. Laflin came to Ingleside; came to foreclose a poor man"s liberty, without a day of redemption. The old man saw the offensive carpet-bagger approaching the mansion and met him sternly with the interrogatory. "What is your business?"
"Ah!" sneeringly answered the carpet-bagger, "that is a fine question to ask a gentleman. Do you recognize that seal sir" he continued, handing the old man an official requisition bearing the broad seal of the department of justice upon it "you will perhaps conclude, sir, that it will be compatible with your safety to return with me; I promise you a safe conduct to Washington."
"I will go with you" replied the old man with all the suavity possible, "but you will allow me to prepare for the journey."
"Certainly sir," said Laflin, "but I must see that you do not provide yourself with arms."
"I do not want my house polluted by your presence," cried the old man in the vehemence of his feelings.
"Then you shall go as you are," gruffly replied the carpet-bagger.
Alice had but little to say to the man, knowing that entreaty or expostulation would be unavailing, and Clarissa slunk away from him as if he were the forerunner of the plague. When the Colonel arrived in the village he saw the white-haired governor with his overcoat upon his arms, and his valise and umbrella upon a chair beside him. He knew intuitively that their missions were the same, that their destination was Washington.
"What are you doing here governor?" asked Colonel Seymour.
The dejected man replied deliberately, "I am going to Washington sir.
May I ask your destination as I observe you are traveling too?"
"You see my guide, do you not," answered the Colonel with a frigid smile.
"Yes and I am informed he is mine also; so we shall not get lost on the route shall we?" answered the governor lugubriously. "I presume we shall have a suite of rooms at the old capital," asked the Colonel provokingly.
"Perhaps so, if the President doesn"t invite us to the executive mansion. I hope he will do this as I have no bank account North, and but little currency in my pocket," replied the Governor in irony. "By the way Colonel," continued the Governor, "did you have an elegant gentleman and his niece to call upon you a few days ago? Quite an interesting man was he not? I hope we shall have a good report from him when he returns home."
"And were you confidential toward this man?" asked Colonel Seymour.
"Why yes, quite so," replied the Governor innocently. "I found him so agreeable and so intelligent withal, that I told him all that I knew and I am expecting great things when I hear from him."
"Do you think, Governor," asked the Colonel quizzically, "that the Englishman has given us free transportation to Washington to be examined and punished as suspects?"
"Why my dear sir" replied the old Governor, "you alarm me. Is it possible we are the dupes of a government spy so clever and intelligent?"
"That is my opinion, sir," replied the Colonel.
"Is it possible? My, my, my!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, and sank back in the upholstered seat, and after awhile fell asleep.
These were men who had made the wager of battle for eleven proud commonwealths and lost; men coming now with their patriotism repudiated, to be told that their traditions were treasonable, their principles insurrectionary; to be badgered into compliance; to be scourged into submission; men who believed with a living faith that they had given American reasons for convictions that ought not to be challenged, coming now heroically to receive their doom.
The Governor, on entering the great judgment hall with Colonel Seymour, was surprised to see in the person of the chairman a highly honored colleague upon the committee of ways and means in the congress of 1858.
The recognition was mutual, and the distinguished chairman descending from the dais, demonstratively grasped the old Governor"s hand, exclaiming, "My dear sir, what has brought you here?" The excess of joy experienced by the Governor quite overcame him, and for a moment he did not answer, but he replied after awhile as coherently as he could, that he had never been informed of the charge against him.
"Ah!" replied the chairman sympathetically, "That is indeed regretable, but the discipline of this court does not contain within itself the germ of an arbitrary prerogative. No man, however bitter may be his opinions shall be condemned unheard." The Englishman, under the alias of Mr.
Jamieson appeared as a witness in the person of Jonathan Hawkins.
It is unnecessary to go through the trial that followed. "You are at liberty," said the chairman, at its conclusion, "to go wheresoever you will. You shall be safeguarded while you remain in the city, and we shall exert our utmost to protect you and your interests at home. Mr.
Laflin," he continued, "you will procure pa.s.sports for these gentlemen whom you have brought here without a pretext of reason."