The tall man merely smiled--his furious visitor starting for the door, turned and growled:
"It is absolutely useless to discuss this question further?"
"Absolutely, Senator."
"And you will not order our regular troops to take Baltimore immediately at the point of the bayonet?"
"I will not."
"Good day, sir!"
"Good day, Senator."
With a muttered explosion of wrath Gilbert Winter shook the dust of the White House floor from his feet and solemnly promised G.o.d it would be many moons before he degraded himself by again entering its portals.
The President had need of all his patience and caution in dealing with Maryland. The next protest demanded that troops should not pa.s.s by way of Annapolis or over any other spot of the soil of the State.
He calmly but firmly replied:
"My troops must reach Washington. They can neither fly over the State of Maryland nor burrow under it: therefore, they must cross it, and your people must learn that there is no piece of American soil too good to be pressed by the foot of a loyal soldier on his march to the defense of the Capital and his country."
During these anxious days while the fate of Maryland hung in the balance the Government was given a startling revelation of what it would mean to have Maryland hostile territory.
For a week the President and his Cabinet were in a state of siege. They got no news. They could send none save by courier. The maddest rumors were daily afloat. The President was supposed to be governing a country from which he was completely isolated.
The tension at last became unbearable. The giant figure stood for hours alone before his window in the White House, his sombre hazel-grey eyes fixed on the hills beyond the Potomac. When the silence could no longer be endured the anguish of his heart broke forth in impa.s.sioned protest:
"Great G.o.d! Why don"t they come? Why don"t they come! Is our Nation a myth? Is there no North?"
And then the tide turned and the troops poured into the city.
His patient, careful and friendly treatment of the Marylanders quickly proved its wisdom. A reaction in favor of the Union set in and the State remained loyal to the flag. The importance of this fact could not be exaggerated. Without Maryland, Washington could not have been held. And the moment the Capital should fall Europe would recognize the Confederacy.
The saving of Maryland for the Union, in fact, established Washington as the real seat of Government, though it was destined to remain for years but an armed fortress on the frontiers of a new Nation.
The stirring events at Sumter and Baltimore brought more than one family to the grief and horror of brother against brother and father against son.
John Vaughan stood in his room livid with rage confronting Ned on the first day that communication was opened with the outside world.
"You are not going to do this insane thing I tell you, Ned!"
The boyish figure stiffened:
"I am going home to Missouri on the first train out of Washington, raise a company and fight for the South."
The older man"s voice dropped to persuasive tones:
"Isn"t there something bigger than fighting for a section? Let"s stand by the Nation!"
"That"s just what I refuse to do. The United States have never been a Nation. This country is a Republic of Republics--not an Empire. The South is going to fight for the right of local self-government and the liberties our fathers won from the tyrants of the old world. The South is right eternally and forever right. The States of this Union have always been sovereign."
"All right--all right," John growled impatiently, "granted, my boy.
Still Secession is impossible. A Nation can"t jump out of its own skin once it has grown it. This country has become a Nation. Steam and electricity have made it so. Railroads have bound us together in iron bands. Can"t you see that?"
"No, I can"t. Right is right."
"But if we have actually grown into a mighty united people with one tongue and one ideal is it right to draw the sword to destroy what G.o.d has joined together? Silently, swiftly, surely during the past thirty years we have become one people and the love of the Union has become a deathless pa.s.sion----"
"You"ve had a poor way of showing it!" Ned sneered.
"Still, boy, it"s true. I didn"t realize it myself until that fort was fired on and the flag hauled down. And then it came to me in a blinding flash. Old Webster"s voice has been hushed in death, but his soul lives in the hearts of our boys. There"s hardly one of us who hasn"t repeated at school his immortal words. They came back to me with thrilling power the day I read of that shot. They are ringing in my soul to-day----"
John paused and a rapt look crept into his eyes, as he began slowly to repeat the closing words of Webster"s speech:
""When mine eyes shall be turned to behold for the last time the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union; on States dissevered, discordant, belligerent; or a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, with fratricidal blood! Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the gracious ensign of the Republic, now known and honored throughout the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original l.u.s.tre, not a stripe erased or polluted, not a single star obscured, bearing for its motto no such miserable interrogatory as "What is all this worth?" nor those other words of delusion and folly, "Liberty first and Union afterward," but everywhere, spread all over with living light, blazing in all its ample folds, as they float over the sea and over the land and in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment dear to every American heart--"Liberty _and_ Union, now and forever, one and inseparable----"""
He paused, his voice choking with emotion, as he seized Ned"s arm:
"O, Boy, Boy, isn"t that a greater ideal? That"s all the President is asking to-day--to stand by the Union----"
"He is making war on the South!"
"But only as the South is forcing him reluctantly to defend the Union by force. The South is mad. She will come to her senses after the shock of the first skirmish is over. With the Southern members in their places, they have a majority in Congress against the President. He can move neither hand nor foot. What has the South to gain by Secession? They always controlled the Union and can continue to do so if they stand united with their Northern friends. In the end their defeat is as sure as that twenty millions of free white Americans can whip five millions of equal courage and daring. They have everything to lose and nothing to gain. It"s madness--it surpa.s.ses belief!"
"That"s why I"m going to fight for them!" Ned"s answer flashed. "They stand for a principle--their equal rights under the Republic their fathers created. They haven"t paused to figure on success or failure.
Five million freemen have drawn the sword against twenty millions because their rights have been invaded. Might has never yet made right.
The South"s daring is sublime and, by G.o.d, I stand with them!"
His words had the ring of steel in their finality. The two men faced each other for a moment, tense, earnest, defiant.
The younger extended his hand:
"Good-bye, John."
The handsome face of the older brother went suddenly white and he shook his head:
"No. From to-day we are no longer brothers--we can"t be friends!"
Ned smiled, waved his hand and from the door firmly answered:
"As you like--from to-day--foes----"
He closed the door and with swift step turned his face toward the house of Senator Winter.
CHAPTER VII