Four Years in Rebel Capitals | Page 8

failed to pack the Senate galleries so full
of men and women, struggling for seats and sitting sometimes through
the night. One after another the southern leaders made their
valedictories--some calm and dignified, some hot and vindictive--and
left the seats they had filled for years. One after another, known and
honored names were stricken from the army and navy lists, by
resignation. One after another, states met in convention and, by
"ordinance of secession," declared themselves independent of the
Federal Government. It was as though the train had been prepared and
the action of South Carolina was but the lighting of the fuse. Within six
weeks from Mr. Buchanan's New Year reception, six states had
deliberately gone out of the Union.
When it was too late, the sleepy administration opened its eyes. Not
liking the looks of things, it shut them again. When it was too late,
there were windy declarations and some feeble temporizing; but all
thinking men felt that the crisis had come and nothing could avert it.
The earthquake that had rumbled so long in premonitory throes
suddenly yawned in an ugly chasm, that swallowed up the petty
differences of each side. One throb and the little lines of party were
roughly obliterated; while across the gulf that gaped between them,
men glared at each other with but one meaning in their eyes.
That solemn mummery, the "Peace Congress," might temporarily have
turned the tide it was wholly powerless to dam; but the arch seceder,
Massachusetts, manipulated even that slight chance of compromise.
The weaker elements in convention were no match for the peaceful
Puritan whom war might profit, but could not injure. Peace was pelted
from under her olive with splinters of Plymouth Rock, and
Massachusetts members poured upon the troubled waters oil--of vitriol!
When the "Peace Commissioners" from the southern Congress at
Montgomery came to Washington, all felt their presence only a
mockery. It was too late! they came only to demand what the
government could not then concede, and every line they wrote was

waste of ink, every word they spoke waste of breath. Southern
congressmen were leaving by every train. Families of years residence
were pulling down their household gods and starting on a pilgrimage to
set them up--where they knew not, save it must be in the South. Old
friends looked doubtfully at each other, and wild rumors were rife of
incursions over the Potomac by wild-haired riders from Virginia. Even
the fungi of the departmental desks, seeming suddenly imbued with life,
rose and threw away their quills--and with them the very bread for their
families--to go South. It was the modern hegira!
A dull, vague unrest brooded over Washington, as though the city had
been shadowed with a vast pall, or threatened with a plague. Then
when it was again too late, General Scott--"the general," as the hero of
Lundy's Lane and Mexico was universally known--virtually went into
the Cabinet, practically filling the chair that Jefferson Davis had
vacated. Men felt that they must range themselves on one side, or the
other, for the South had spoken and meant what she said. There might
be war; there must be separation!
I was lounging slowly past the rampant bronze Jackson in Lafayette
Square when Styles Staple joined me.
"When do you start?" was his salutation.
"When do I start?" Staple's question was a sudden one.
"Yes, for the South? You're going of course; and the governor writes
me to be off at once. Better go together. Eh? Night boat, 4th of March."
Now the governor mentioned was not the presiding executive of a
southern state, but was Staple pére, of the heavy cotton firm of Staple,
Long & Middling, New Orleans. Staple fils had been for years a great
social card in Washington. The clubs, the legations, the avenues and the
german knew him equally well; and though he talked about "the
house," his only visible transaction with it was to make the name
familiar to bill-brokers by frequent drafts. So I answered the question
by another:

"What are you going to do when you get there?"
"Stop at Montgomery, see the Congress, draw on 'the house,' and then t'
Orleans," he answered cheerfully. "Come with me. Lots to see; and, no
doubt, about plenty to do. If this sky holds, all men will be wanted. As
you're going the sooner the better. What do you say? Evening boat,
March 4th? Is it a go?"
It gave only two days for preparation to leave what had come nearer
being home that any other place in a nomadic life. But he was right. I
was going, and we settled the matter, and separated to wind up our
affairs and take congé.
The night before President Lincoln's inauguration was a restless and
trying one to every