"Well, well," he said, "I"ll see, I"ll see. Thank G.o.d this war is pretty near over. I"ll let you know, Brice, before I shoot him."
I rode the thirty odd miles to Kinston in--little more than three hours.
A locomotive was waiting for me, and I jumped into a cab with a friendly engineer. Soon we were roaring seaward through the vast pine forests.
It was a lonely journey, and you were much in my mind. My greatest apprehension was that we might be derailed and the despatches captured; for as fast as our army had advanced, the track of it had closed again, like the wake of a ship at sea. Guerillas were roving about, tearing up ties and destroying bridges.
There was one five-minute interval of excitement when, far down the tunnel through the forest, we saw a light gleaming. The engineer said there was no house there, that it must be a fire. But we did not slacken our speed, and gradually the leaping flames grew larger and redder until we were upon them.
Not one gaunt figure stood between them and us. Not one shot broke the stillness of the night. As dawn broke I beheld the flat, gray waters of the Sound stretching away to the eastward, and there was the boat at the desolate wharf beside the warehouse, her steam rising white in the chill morning air.
CHAPTER XIV. THE SAME, CONTINUED
HEADQUARTERS ARMIES OF THE UNITED STATES, CITY POINT, VIRGINIA, March 28, 1865.
DEAR MOTHER: I arrived here safely the day before yesterday, and I hope that you will soon receive some of the letters I forwarded on that day.
It is an extraordinary place, this City Point; a military city sprung up like a mushroom in a winter. And my breath was quite taken away when I first caught sight of it on the high table-land. The great bay in front of it, which the Appomattox helps to make, is a maze of rigging and smoke-pipes, like the harbor of a prosperous seaport. There are gunboats and supply boats, schooners and square-riggers and steamers, all huddled together, and our captain pointed out to me the "Malvern" flying Admiral Porter"s flag. Barges were tied up at the long wharves, and these were piled high with wares and flanked by squat warehouses. Although it was Sunday, a locomotive was puffing and panting along the foot of the ragged bank.
High above, on the flat promontory between the two rivers, is the city of tents and wooden huts, the great trees in their fresh faint green towering above the low roofs. At the point of the bluff a large flag drooped against its staff, and I did not have to be told that this was General Grant"s headquarters.
There was a fine steamboat lying at the wharf, and I had hardly stepped ash.o.r.e before they told me she was President Lincoln"s. I read the name on her--the "River Queen". Yes, the President is here, too, with his wife and family.
There are many fellows here with whom I was brought up in Boston. I am living with Jack Hanc.o.c.k, whom you will remember well. He is a captain now, and has a beard.
But I must go on with my story. I went straight to General Grant"s headquarters,--just a plain, rough slat house such as a contractor might build for a temporary residence. Only the high flagstaff and the Stars and Stripes distinguish it from many others of the same kind. A group of officers stood chatting outside of it, and they told me that the General had walked over to get his mail. He is just as una.s.suming and democratic as "my general." General Rankin took me into the office, a rude room, and we sat down at the long table there. Presently the door opened, and a man came in with a slouch hat on and his coat unb.u.t.toned. He was smoking a cigar. We rose to our feet, and I saluted.
It was the general-in-chief. He stared at me, but said nothing.
"General, this is Major Brice of General Sherman"s staff. He has brought despatches from Goldsboro," said Rankin.
He nodded, took off his hat and laid it on the table, and reached out for the despatches. While reading them he did not move, except to light another cigar. I am getting hardened to unrealities,--perhaps I should say marvels, now. Our country abounds in them. It did not seem so strange that this silent General with the baggy trousers was the man who had risen by leaps and bounds in four years to be general-in-chief of our armies. His face looks older and more sunken than it did on that day in the street near the a.r.s.enal, in St. Louis, when he was just a military carpet-bagger out of a job. He is not changed otherwise. But how different the impressions made by the man in authority and the same man out of authority!
He made a sufficient impression upon me then, as I told you at the time.
That was because I overheard his well-merited rebuke to Hopper. But I little dreamed that I was looking on the man who was to come out of the West and save this country from disunion. And how quietly and simply he has done it, without parade or pomp or vainglory. Of all those who, with every means at their disposal, have tried to conquer Lee, he is the only one who has in any manner succeeded. He has been able to hold him fettered while Sherman has swept the Confederacy. And these are the two men who were unknown when the war began.
When the General had finished reading the despatches, he folded them quickly and put them in his pocket.
"Sit down and tell me about this last campaign of yours, Major," he said.
I talked with him for about half an hour. I should rather say talked to him. He is a marked contrast to Sherman in this respect. I believe that he only opened his lips to ask two questions. You may well believe that they were worth the asking, and they revealed an intimate knowledge of our march from Savannah. I was interrupted many times by the arrival of different generals, aides, etc. He sat there smoking, imperturbable.
Sometimes he said "yes" or "no," but oftener he merely nodded his head.
Once he astounded by a brief question an excitable young lieutenant, who floundered. The General seemed to know more than he about the matter he had in hand.
When I left him, he asked me where I was quartered, and said he hoped I would be comfortable.
Jack Hanc.o.c.k was waiting for me, and we walked around the city, which even has barber shops. Everywhere were signs of preparation, for the roads are getting dry, and the General preparing for a final campaign against Lee. Poor Lee! What a marvellous fight he has made with his material. I think that he will be reckoned among the greatest generals of our race.
Of course, I was very anxious to get a glimpse of the President, and so we went down to the wharf, where we heard that he had gone off for a horseback ride. They say that he rides nearly every day, over the corduroy roads and through the swamps, and wherever the boys see that tall hat they cheer. They know it as well as the lookout tower on the flats of Bermuda Hundred. He lingers at the campfires and swaps stories with the officers, and entertains the sick and wounded in the hospitals.
Isn"t it like him?
He hasn"t changed, either. I believe that the great men don"t change.
Away with your Napoleons and your Marlboroughs and your Stuarts. These are the days of simple men who command by force of character, as well as knowledge. Thank G.o.d for the American! I believe that he will change the world, and strip it of its vainglory and hypocrisy.
In the evening, as we were sitting around Hanc.o.c.k"s fire, an officer came in.
"Is Major Brice here?" he asked. I jumped up.
"The President sends his compliments, Major, and wants to know if you would care to pay him a little visit."
If I would care to pay him a little visit! That officer had to hurry to keep up with the as I walked to the wharf. He led me aboard the River Queen, and stopped at the door of the after-cabin.
Mr. Lincoln was sitting under the lamp, slouched down in his chair, in the position I remembered so well. It was as if I had left him but yesterday. He was whittling, and he had made some little toy for his son Tad, who ran out as I entered.
When he saw me, the President rose to his great height, a sombre, towering figure in black. He wears a scraggly beard now. But the sad smile, the kindly eyes in their dark caverns, the voice--all were just the same. I stopped when I looked upon the face. It was sad and lined when I had known it, but now all the agony endured by the millions, North and South, seemed written on it.
"Don"t you remember me, Major?" he asked.
The wonder was that he had remembered me! I took his big, bony hand, which reminded me of Judge Whipple"s. Yes, it was just as if I had been with him always, and he were still the gaunt country lawyer.
"Yes, sir," I said, "indeed I do."
He looked at me with that queer expression of mirth he sometimes has.
"Are these Boston ways, Steve?" he asked. "They"re tenacious. I didn"t think that any man could travel so close to Sherman and keep "em."
"They"re unfortunate ways, sir," I said, "if they lead you to misjudge me."
He laid his hand on my shoulder, just as he had done at Freeport.
"I know you, Steve," he said. "I shuck an ear of corn before I buy it.
I"ve kept tab on you a little the last five years, and when I heard Sherman had sent a Major Brice up here, I sent for you."
What I said was boyish. "I tried very hard to get a glimpse of you to-day, Mr. Lincoln. I wanted to see you again."
He was plainly pleased.
"I"m glad to hear it, Steve," he said. "Then you haven"t joined the ranks of the grumblers? You haven"t been one of those who would have liked to try running this country for a day or two, just to show me how to do it?"
"No, sir," I said, laughing.
"Good!" he cried, slapping his knee. "I didn"t think you were that kind, Steve. Now sit down and tell me about this General of mine who wears seven-leagued boots. What was it--four hundred and twenty miles in fifty days? How many navigable rivers did he step across?" He began to count on those long fingers of his. "The Edisto, the Broad, the Catawba, the Pedee, and--?"
"The Cape Fear," I said.
"Is--is the General a nice man?" asked Mr. Lincoln, his eyes twinkling.
"Yes, sir, he is that," I answered heartily. "And not a man in the army wants anything when he is around. You should see that Army of the Mississippi, sir. They arrived in Goldsboro" in splendid condition."