The Little Lady of Lagunitas by Richard Henry SavageA Franco-Californian Romance (page 4)

the southern line, and our forces will patrol Arizona. Mexico will furnish us ports and supplies.

“Should the Northerners attempt to push troops over the plains, we will attack them, in flank, from New Mexico. We can hold, thus, New Mexico, Arizona, southern Utah, and all of California, by our short line from El Paso to San Diego. We are covered on one flank by Mexico.”

The able brethren are ready with many suggestions. Friendly spies in the Department at Washington have announced the intended drawing East of the regular garrisons. It is suggested that the forts, and in fact the whole State, be seized while the troops are in transit.

Another proposes the fitting out of several swift armed steam letters-of-marque from San Francisco, to capture the enormous Yankee tonnage now between China, Cape Horn, Australia, and California. The whaling fleet is the object of another. He advises sending a heavily armed revenue cutter, when seized, to the Behring Sea to destroy the spring whalers arriving from Honolulu too late for any warning, from home, of the hostilities.

A number of active committees are appointed. One, of veteran rangers, to select frontiersmen to stir up the Indians to attack the northern overland mail stations. Another, to secretly confer with the officers of the United States Mint, Custom-House, and Sub-Treasury. Another, to socially engage the leading officers of the army and navy, and win them over, or develop their real feelings. Every man of mark in the State is listed and canvassed.

The “high priest” announces that the families of those detailed for distant duty will be cared for by the general committee. Each member receives the mystic tokens. Orders are issued to trace up all stocks of arms and ammunition on the coast.

The seizure of the Panama Railroad, thus cutting off quick movement of national troops, is discussed. Every man is ordered to send in lists of trusty men as soon as mustered into the new mystery. Convenient movements of brothers from town to town are planned out. Only true sons of the sunny South are to be trusted.

In free converse, the duty of watching well-known Unionists is enjoined upon all. Name by name, dangerous men of the North are marked down for proscription or special action. “Removal,” perhaps.

With wild cheers, the Knights of the Golden Circle receive the news that the South is surely going out. The dream long dear to the Southern heart! Any attempt of the senile Buchanan to reinforce the garrisons of the national forts will be the signal for the opening roar of the stolen guns. They know that the inauguration of Lincoln on March 4, 1861, means war without debate. He dare not abandon his trust. He will be welcomed with a shotted salute across the Potomac.

When the move “en masse” is made, the guests, warmed with wine and full of enthusiasm, file away. Hardin and Valois sit late. The splashing rain drenches the swaying trees of the Judge’s hillside retreat.

Lists and papers of the principal men on both sides, data and statistics of stock and military supplies, maps, and papers, are looked at. The deep boom of the Cathedral bell, far below them, beats midnight as the two friends sit plotting treason.

There is something mystical in the exact hour of midnight. The rich note startles Hardin. Cold, haughty, crafty, and able, his devotion to the South is that of the highest moral courage. It is not the exultation which culminates rashly on the battle-field. These lurid scenes are for younger heroes.

His necessary presence in the West, his age and rank, make him invaluable, out of harness. His scheming brain is needed, not his ready sword.

He pours out a glass of brandy, saying, “Valois, tell me of our prospects here. You know the interior as well as any man in the State.”

Maxime unburdens his mind. “Judge, I fear we are in danger of losing this coast. I have looked over the social forces of the State. The miners represent no principle. They will cut no figure on either side. They would not be amenable to discipline. The Mexicans certainly will not sympathize with us. We are regarded as the old government party. The Black Republicans are the ‘liberals.’ The natives have lost all, under us. We will find them fierce enemies. We cannot undo the treatment of the Dons.” Hardin gravely assents.

“Now, as to the struggle. Our people are enthusiastic and better prepared. The nerve of the South will carry us to early victory. The North thinks we do not mean fight. Our people may neglect to rush troops from Texas over through Arizona. We should hold California from the very first. I know the large cities are against us. The Yankees control the shipping and have more money than we. We should seize this coast, prey on the Pacific fleets, strike a telling blow, and with Texan troops (who will be useless there) make sure of the only gold-yielding regions of America. Texas is safe. We hold the Gulf at New Orleans. Yankee gunboats cannot reach the shallow Texas harbors. Unless we strike boldly now, the coast is lost forever. If our people hold the Potomac, the Ohio, and the Missouri (after a season’s victories), without taking Cincinnati and Washington, and securing this coast, we will go down, finally, when the North wakes up. Its power is immense. If Europe recognizes us we are safe. I fear this may not be.”

“And you think the Northerners will fight,” says Hardin.

“Judge,” replies Valois, “you and I are alone. I tell you frankly we underestimate the Yankees. From the first, on this coast we have lost sympathy. They come back at us always. Broderick’s death shows us these men have nerve. “Valois continues: “That man is greater dead than alive. I often think of his last words, ‘They have killed me because I was opposed to a corrupt administration and the extension of slavery.'”

Hardin finishes his glass. “It seems strange that men like Broderick and Terry, who sat on the bench of the Supreme Court (a senator and a great jurist), should open the game. It was unlucky. It lost us the Northern Democrats. We would have been better off if Dave Terry had been killed. He would have been a dead hero. It would have helped us.”

Valois shows that, in all the sectional duels and killings on the coast, the South has steadily lost prestige. The victims were more dangerous dead than alive. Gilbert, Ferguson, Broderick, and others were costly sacrifices.

Hardin muses: “I think you are right, Maxime, in the main. Our people are in the awkward position of fighting the Constitution, and the old flag is a dead weight against us. We must take the initiative in an unnecessary war. This Abe Lincoln is no mere mad fool. I will send a messenger East, and urge that ten thousand Texan cavalry be pushed right over to Arizona. We must seize the coast. You are right! There is one obstacle, Valois, I cannot conquer.”

“What is that?” says Maxime.

“It is Sidney Johnston’s military honor,” thoughtfully says Hardin. “He is no man to be played with. He will not act till he has left the old army regularly. He will wait his commission from our confederacy. He will then resign and go East.”

“It will be too late,” cries Valois. “We will be forgotten, and so lose California.”

“The worst is that the coast will stand neutral,” says Hardin.

“Now, Judge,” Valois firmly answers, “I have heard to-night talk of running up the ‘bear flag,’ ‘the lone star,’ ‘the palmetto banner,’ or ‘the flag of the California Republic,’ on the news of war. I hope they will not do so rashly.”

“Why?” says Hardin.

“I think they will swing under the new flags on the same pole,” cries Valois, pacing the room. “If there is failure here, I shall go East. Judge Valois offers me a Louisiana regiment. If this war is fought out, I do not propose to live to see the Southern Cross come down.”

The Creole pauses before the Judge, who replies, “You must stay here; we must get California out of the Union.”

“If we do not, then the cause lies on Lone Mountain,” says Valois, pointing westward toward the spot where a tall shaft already bears Broderick’s name.

Hardin nods assent. “It was terrific, that appeal of Baker’s,” he murmurs.

Both felt that Baker (now Senator from Oregon) would call up the mighty shade of the New York leader. Neither could foresee the career of the eulogist of Broderick, after his last matchless appeals to an awakening North. That denunciation in the Senate sent the departing Southern senators away, smarting under the scorpion whip of his peerless invective. Baker was doomed to come home cold in death from the red field of Ball’s Bluff, and lie on the historic hill, beside his murdered friend.

The plotters in the cold midnight hours then, the glow of feeling fading away, say “Good-night.” They part, looking out over twinkling lights like the great camps soon to rise on Eastern plain and river-bank. Will the flag of the South wave in TRIUMPH HERE? Ah! Who can read the future?

Cut off from the East, the excited Californians burn in high fever. The grim dice of fate are being cast. Slowly, the Northern pine and Southern palm sway toward the crash of war. As yet only journals hurl defiance at each other. Every day has its duties for Hardin and Valois; they know that every regimental mess-room is canvassed; each ship’s ward-room is sounded; officers are flattered and won over; woman lends her persuasive charms; high promised rank follows the men who yield.

In these negotiations, no one dares to breed discontent among the common soldiers and sailors. It is madness to hope to turn the steady loyalty of the enlisted men. They are as true in both services as the blue they wear. Nice distinctions begin at the epaulet. Hardin and Valois are worn and thoughtful. The popular tide of feelings is not for the South. Separation must be effective, to rouse enthusiasm. The organization of the Knights of the Golden Circle proceeds quickly, but events are quicker.

The seven States partly out of the Union; the yet unfinished ranks of the Southern Confederacy; the baffling questions of compromise with the claims and rights of the South to national property are agitated. The incredulous folly of the North and the newspaper sympathy of the great Northern cities drag the whole question of war slowly along. In the West (a month later in news), the people fondly believe the bonds of the Union will not be broken.

Many think the South will drop out quietly. Lincoln’s policy is utterly unknown. Distance has dulled the echo of the hostile guns fired at the STAR OF THE WEST by armed traitors, on January 9, at Charleston.

Jefferson Davis’s shadowy Confederacy of the same fatal date is regarded as only a temporary menace to the Union. The great border States are not yet in line.

Paltering old President Buchanan has found no warrant to draw the nation’s sword in defence of the outraged flag.

Congress is a camp of warring enemies. Even the conspirators cling to their comfortable chairs.

It is hard to realize, by the blue Pacific, that the flag is already down. No one knows the fatal dead line between “State” and “Union.”

So recruits come in slowly to the Knights of the Golden Circle, in California. Secession is only a dark thunder-cloud, hanging ominously in the sky. The red lightning of war lingers in its sulphury bosom.

Hardin, Valois, and the Knights toil to secure their ends. They know not that their vigorous foes have sent trusted messengers speeding eastward to secure the removal of General Albert Sidney Johnston. There is a Union League digging under their works!

The four electoral votes of California cast for Lincoln tell him the State is loyal. An accidental promotion of Governor Latham to the Senate, places John G. Downey in the chair of California. If not a “coercionist,” he is certainly no “rebel.” The leaders of the Golden Circle feel that chivalry in the West is crushed, unless saved by a “coup de main.” McDougall is a war senator. Latham, ruined by his prediction that California would go South or secede alone, sinks into political obscurity. The revolution, due to David Terry’s bullet, brought men like Phelps, Sargent, T. W. Park, and John Conness to the front. Other Free-State men see the victory of their principles with joy. Sidney Johnston is the last hope of the Southern leaders. The old soldier’s resignation speeds eastward on the pony express. Day by day, exciting news tells of the snapping of cord after cord. Olden amity disappears in the East. The public voice is heard.

The mantle of heroic Baker as a political leader falls upon the boy preacher, Thomas Starr King. He boldly raises the song of freedom. It is now no time to lurk in the rear. Men, hitherto silent; rally around the flag.

The “Union League” grows fast, as the “Golden Circle” extends. All over California, resolute men swear to stand by the flag. Stanford and Low are earning their governorships. From pulpit and rostrum the cry of secession is raised by Dr. Scott and the legal meteor Edmund Randolph, now sickening to his death. Randolph, though a son of Virginia, with, first, loyal impulses, sent despatches to President Lincoln that California was to be turned over to the South. He disclosed that Jefferson Davis had already sent Sidney Johnston a Major-General’s commission. Though he finally follows the course of his native State, Randolph rendered priceless service to the Union cause in the West. General Edward V. Sumner is already secretly hurrying westward. He is met at Panama by the Unionist messengers. They turn back with him. In every city and county the Unionists and Southerners watch each other. While Johnston’s resignation flies eastward, Sumner is steaming up the Mexican coast, unknown to the conspirators.

In the days of March and April, 1861, one excited man could have plunged the Pacific Coast into civil warfare. All unconscious of the deadly gun bellowing treason on April 12th at Charleston, as the first shell burst over Sumter, the situation remained one of anxious tension in California. The telegraph is not yet finished. On April 19th, General Sumner arrived unexpectedly. He was informed of local matters by the loyalists. General Sidney Johnston, astonished and surprised, turned over his command at once. Without treasonable attempt, he left the Golden Gate. When relieved, he was no longer in the service. Speeding over the Colorado deserts to Texas, the high-minded veteran rode out to don the new gray uniform, and to die in the arms of an almost decisive victory at Shiloh.

Well might the South call that royal old soldier to lead its hosts. Another half hour of Albert Sidney Johnston at Shiloh, and the history of the United States might have been changed by his unconquered sword. Lofty in his aims, adored by his subordinates, he was a modern Marshal Ney. The Southern cypress took its darkest tinge around his untimely grave. Sidney Johnston had all the sterling qualities of Lee, and even a rarer magnetism of character.

Honor placed one fadeless wreath upon his tomb. He would not play the ignoble part of a Twiggs or a Lynde. He offered a stainless sword to the Bonnie Blue Flag.

The gravity of his farewell, the purity of his private character, the affection of his personal friends, are tributes to the great soldier. He nearly crushed the Union army in his tiger-like assault at Shiloh. By universal consent, the ablest soldier of the “old army,” he was sacrificed to the waywardness of fate. Turns of Fortune’s wheel.

California was stunned by the rapidity of Sumner’s grasp of the reins of command. Before the Knights of the Golden Circle could move, the control of the State and the coast was lost to them forever. Forts and arsenals, towns and government depositories, navy-yards and vessels, were guarded.

Following this action of Sumner, on May 10th the news of Sumter, and the uprising of the North, burst upon friend and foe in California. The loyal men rallied in indignation, overawing the Southern element. The oath of fealty was renewed by thousands. California’s star was that day riveted in the flag. An outraged people deposed Judge Hardy, who so feebly prosecuted the slayer of Broderick. Every avenue was guarded. Conspiracy fled to back rooms and side streets. Here were no Federal wrongs to redress. On the spot where Broderick’s body lay, under Baker’s oratory, the multitude listened to the awakened patriots of the West. The Pacific Coast was saved.

The madness of fools who fluttered a straggling “bear flag,” “palmetto ensign,” or “lone star,” caused them to flee in terror.

Stanley, Lake, Crockett, Starr King, General Shields, and others, echoed the pledges of their absent comrades in New York. Organization, for the Union, followed. Even the maddest Confederate saw the only way to serve the South was to sneak through the lines to Texas. The telegraph was completed in October, 1861. The government had then daily tidings from the loyal sentinels calling “All’s well,” on fort and rampart, from San Juan Island to Fort Yuma.

Troops were offered everywhere. The only region in California where secessionists were united was in San Joaquin.

While public discussion availed, Hardin and Valois listened to Thornton, Crittenden, Morrison, Randolph, Dr. Scott, Weller, Whitesides, Hoge, and Nugent. But the time for hope was past. The golden sun had set for ever. Fifteen regiments of Californian troops, in formation, were destined to hold the State. They guarded the roads to Salt Lake and Arizona. The arsenals and strongholds were secured. The chance of successful invasion from Texas vanished. It was the crowning mistake of the first year of secession, not to see the value of the Pacific Coast. From the first shot, the Pacific Railroad became a war measure. The iron bands tied East and West in a firm union.

Gwin’s departure and Randolph’s death added to the Southern discomfiture. No course remained for rebels but to furtively join the hosts of treason. Flight to the East.

In the wake of Sidney Johnston went many men of note. Garnett, Cheatham, Brooks, Calhoun, Benham, Magruder, Phil Herbert, and others, with Dan Showalter and David Terry, each fresh from the deadly field of honor. Kewen, Weller, and others remained to be silenced by arrest. All over the State a hegira commenced which ended in final defeat. Many graves on the shallow-trenched battle-fields were filled by the Californian exiles. Not in honor did these devoted men and hundreds of their friends leave the golden hills. Secretly they fled, lest their romantic quest might land them in a military prison. Those unable to leave gave aid to the absent. Sulking at home, they deserted court and mart to avoid personal penalties.

It was different with many of the warm-hearted Californian sons of the South who were attached to the Union. Cut off in a distant land, they held aloof from approving secession. Grateful for the shelter of the peaceful land in which their hard-won homes were made, it was only after actual war that the ties of blood carried them away and ranged them under the Stars and Bars. When the Southern ranks fell, in windrows, on the Peninsula, hundreds of these manly Californians left to join their brethren. They had clung to the Union till their States went out one by one. They sadly sought the distant fields of action, and laid down their lives for the now holy cause.

The attitude of these gallant men was noble. They scorned the burrowing conspirators who dug below the foundations of the national constitution. These schemers led the eager South into a needless civil war.

The holiest feelings of heredity dragged the Southerners who lingered into war. It was a sacrifice of half of the splendid generation which fought under the Southern Cross.

When broken ranks appealed for the absent, when invaded States and drooping hopes aroused desperation, the last California contingents braved the desert dangers. Indian attack and Federal capture were defied, only to die for the South on its sacred soil. “Salut aux braves!” The loyalists of California were restrained from disturbing the safe tenure of the West by depleting the local Union forces. Abraham Lincoln saw that the Pacific columns should do no more than guard the territories adjacent. To hold the West and secure the overland roads was their duty. To be ready to march to meet an invasion or quell an uprising. This was wisdom.

But the country called for skilled soldiers and representative men to join the great work of upholding the Union. A matchless contingent of Union officers went East.

California had few arms-bearing young Americans to represent its first ten years of State existence. But it returned to the national government men identified with the Pacific Coast, who were destined to be leaders of the Union hosts.

Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Thomas, Halleck, Hancock, Hooker, Keyes, Naglee, Baker, Ord, Farragut (the blameless Nelson of America), Canby, Fremont, Shields, McPherson, Stoneman, Stone, Porter, Boggs, Sumner, Heintzelman, Lander, Buell, with other old residents of the coast, drew the sword. Wool, Denver, Geary, and many more, whose abilities had been perfected in the struggles of the West, took high rank.

Where the young were absent (by reason of the infancy of the State), these men were returned to the government. They went with a loyalty undimmed, in the prime of their powers. Even the graceful McClellan was identified with the Pacific Railway survey. Around the scenes of their early manhood, the halo of these loyal men will ever linger, and gild the name of “Pioneer.” It can never be forgotten that without the stormy scenes of Western life, without the knowledge of the great golden empire and the expansion of powers due to their lessons on plain and prairie, many of these men would have relapsed into easy mediocrity.

The completed telegraph, military extension of lines, and the active Union League, secured California to the Union.

The gigantic game of war rolled its red pageantry over Eastern fields. Bull Run fired the Southern heart. Hardin and Valois learned the Southern Government would send a strong expedition to hold New Mexico and Arizona. Local aid was arranged by the Knights of the Golden Circle to, at last, seize California. It was so easy to whip Yankees. The Knights were smiling.

At the risk of their lives, two Southern messengers reached San Francisco. One by Panama. The other crossed Arizona and examined the line of march. He rode, warning sympathizers to await the Confederate flag, which now waved in triumph at Munson’s Hill, in plain sight of the guarded capitol.

Valois fears this Western raid may be too late. For the Navy Department reinforces the Pacific fleet. Valois explains to Hardin that his prophecy is being realized. The Confederates, with more men than are needed, hold their lines of natural defence. The fruits of Bull Run are lost. While letters by every steamer come from Northern spies, Washington friends, and Southern associates, the journals tell them of the deliberate preparation of the North for a struggle to the death. The giant is waking up.

Valois mourns the madness of keeping the flower of the South inactive. A rapid Northern invasion should humble the administration. The ardent Texans should be thrown at once into California, leaving New Mexico and Arizona for later occupation.

There is no reason why the attack should not be immediate. Under the stimulus of Bull Run the entire Southern population of California would flock to the new standard. Three months should see the Confederate cavalry pasturing their steeds in the prairies of California.

The friends sicken at the delay, as weary months drag on. Sibley’s Texans should be now on the Gila. They have guides, leaders, scouts, and spies from the Southern refugees pouring over the Gila. Every golden day has its gloomy sunset. Hardin’s brow furrows with deep lines. His sagacity tells him that the time has passed for the movement to succeed.

And he is right. Sibley wearies out the winter in Texas. The magnet of Eastern fields of glory draws the fiery Texans across the Mississippi. The Californian volunteers are arming and drilling. They stream out to Salt Lake. They send the heavy column of General Carleton toward El Paso.

The two chiefs of the Golden Circle are unaware of the destination of Carleton. Loyalty has learned silence. There are no traitor department clerks here, to furnish maps, plans, and duplicate orders.

Canby in New Mexico, unknown to the secessionists of California, aided by Kit Carson, gathers a force to strike Sibley in flank. It is fatal to Californian conquest. Hardin and Valois learn of the lethargy of the great Confederate army, flushed with success. Sibley’s dalliance at Fort Bliss continues.

The “army of New Mexico,” on September 19, 1861, is only a few hundreds of mounted rangers and Texan youth under feeble Sibley.

From the first, Jefferson Davis’s old army jealousies and hatred of able men of individuality, hamstring the Southern cause. A narrow-minded man is Davis, the slave of inveterate prejudice. With dashing Earl Van Dorn, sturdy Ben Ewell, and dozens of veteran cavalry leaders at his service, knowing every foot of the road, he could have thrown his Confederate column into California. Three months after Sumter’s fall, California should have been captured. Davis allows an old martinet to ruin the Confederate cause in the Pacific.

The operation is so easy, so natural, and so necessary, that it looks like fatuity to neglect the golden months of the fall of 1861.

Especially fitted for bold dashes with a daring leader, the Texans throw themselves, later, uselessly against the flaming redoubts of Corinth. They are thrown into mangled heaps before Battery Robinett, dying for the South. Their military recklessness has never been surpassed in the red record of war.

Though gallant in the field, President Jefferson Davis, seated on a throne of cotton, gazes across the seas for England’s help. He craves the aid of France. He allows narrow prejudice to blind him to any part of the great issue, save the military pageantry of his unequalled Virginian army. It is the flower of the South, and moves only on the sacred soil of Virginia. Davis, restrained by antipathies, haughty, and distant, is deaf to the thrilling calls of the West for that dashing column. It would have gained him California. Weakness of mind kept him from hurling his victorious troops on Washington, or crossing the Ohio to divide the North while yet unprepared. Active help could then be looked for from Northern Democrats. But he masses the South in Virginia.

As winter wears on the movement of Carleton’s and Canby’s preparations are disclosed by Southern friends, who run the gauntlet with these discouraging news.

Sibley lingered with leaden heels at Fort Bliss. The Confederate riders are not across the Rio Grande. Valois grows heartsick.

Broken in hopes, wearied with plotting, mistrusted by the community, Hardin knows the truth at last. The words, “Too late!” ring in his ears.

It will be only some secret plot which can now hope to succeed in the West.

Davis and Lee are wedded to Virginia. The haughty selfishness of the “mother of presidents” demands that every interest of the Confederacy shall give way to morbid State vanity. Virginia is to be the graveyard of the gallant Southern generation in arms.

Every other pass may be left unguarded. The chivalry of the Stars and Bars must crowd Virginia till their graves fill the land. Unnecessarily strong, with a frontier defended by rivers, forests, and chosen positions, it becomes Fortune’s sport to huddle the bulk of the Confederate forces into Lee’s army.

It allows the Border, Gulf, and Western States to fall a prey to the North. The story of Lee’s ability has been told by an adoring generation. The record of his cold military selfishness is shown in the easy conquests of the heart of the South. Their natural defenders were drafted to fill those superb legions, operating under the eyes of Davis and controlled by the slightest wish of imperious Lee.

Albert Sidney Johnston, Beauregard, and the fighting tactician, Joe Johnston, were destined to feel how fatal was the military favoritism of Jefferson Davis. Davis threw away Vicksburg, and the Mississippi later, to please Lee. All for Virginia.

Stung with letters from Louisiana, reproaching him for inaction while his brethren were meeting the Northern invaders, Valois decides to go East. He will join the Southern defence. For it is defence–not invasion–now.

Directing Hardin to select a subordinate in his place, Valois returns to Lagunitas. He must say farewell to loving wife and prattling child. Too well known to be allowed to follow Showalter, Terry, and their fellows over the Colorado desert, he must go to Guaymas in Mexico. He can thus reach the Confederates at El Paso. From thence it is easy to reach New Orleans. Then to the front. To the field.

Valois feels it would be useless for him to go via Panama. The provost-marshal would hold him as a “known enemy.”

With rage, Valois realizes a new commander makes latent treason uncomfortable in California. He determines to reach El Paso, and hurl the Texans on California. Should he fail, he heads a Louisiana regiment. His heart tells him the war will be long and bloody. Edmund Randolph’s loyalty, at the outbreak, prevented the seizure of California. Sibley’s folly and Davis’s indifference complete the ruin of the Western plan of action.

“Hardin, hold the Knights together. I will see if I can stop a Yankee bullet!” says Valois. He notifies Hardin that he intends to make him sole trustee of his property in his absence.

Hardin’s term on the bench has expired. Like other Southerners debarred from taking the field, he gives aid to those who go. The men who go leave hostages behind them. The friendship of years causes Yalois to make him the adviser of his wife in property matters. He makes him his own representative. “Thank Heaven!” cries Valois, “my wife’s property is safe. No taint from me can attach to her birthright. It is her own by law.”

Valois, at Lagunitas, unfolds to the sorrowing padre his departure for the war. Safe in the bosom of the priest, this secret is a heavy load. Valois gains his consent to remain in charge of Lagunitas. The little girl begins to feebly walk. Her infant gaze cannot measure her possessions.

Lovely Dolores Valois listens meekly to her husband’s plans. Devoted to Maxime, his will is her only law. The beautiful dark eyes are tinged with a deeper lustre.

Busied with his affairs, Maxime thinks of the future as he handles his papers. Fran‡ois Ribaut is the depositary of his wishes. Dolores is as incapable as her child in business. Will God protect these two innocents?

Valois wonders if he will return in defeat like Don Miguel. Poor old Don! around his tomb the roses creep,–his gentle Juanita by his side.

He hopes the armies of the West will carry the banner, now flying from Gulf to border, into the North. There the legendary friends of the South will hail it.

Alas! pent up in California, Maxime hears not the murmurs of the Northern pines, breathing notes of war and defiance. The predictions of the leaders of the conspiracy are fallacious. Aid and comfort fail them abroad. North of Mason and Dixon’s line the sympathizers are frightened.

In his heart he only feels the tumult of the call to the field. It is his pride of race. Tired, weary of the crosses of fortune, he waits only to see the enemy’s fires glittering from hill and cliff.

With all his successes, the West has never been his home. Looking out on his far-sweeping alamedas, his thoughts turn fondly back to his native land. He is “going home to Dixie.”

CHAPTER XI.

“I’SE GWINE BACK TO DIXIE.”–THE FORTUNES OF WAR.–VAL VERDE.

The last weeks of Maxime Valois’ stay at Lagunitas drift away. Old “Kaintuck” has plead in vain to go. He yields to Valois’ orders not to dream of going with him. His martial heart is fired, but some one must watch the home. Padre Fran‡ois Ribaut has all the documents of the family, the marriage, and birth of the infant heir. He is custodian also of the will of Donna Dolores. She leaves her family inheritance to her child, and failing her, to her husband. The two representatives of the departing master know that Philip Hardin will safely guide the legal management of the estate while its chieftain is at the wars.

Donna Dolores and the priest accompany Valois to San Francisco. He must leave quietly. He is liable to arrest. He takes the Mexican steamer, as if for a temporary absence.

It costs Maxime Valois a keen pang of regret, as he rides the last time over his superb domain. He looks around the plaza, and walks alone through the well-remembered rooms. He takes his seat, with a sigh, by his wife’s side, as the carriage whirls him down the avenues. The orange-trees are in bloom. The gardens show the rare beauties of midland California. As far as the eye can reach, the sparkle of lovely Lagunitas mirrors the clouds flaking the sapphire sky. Valois fixes his eyes once more upon his happy home. Peace, prosperity, progress, mining exploration, social development, all smile through this great interior valley of the Golden State. No war cloud has yet rolled past the “Rockies.” It is the golden youth of the commonwealth. The throbbing engine, clattering stamp, whirling saw, and busy factory, show that the homemakers are moving on apace, with giant strides. No fairer land to leave could tempt a departing warrior. But even with a loved wife and his only child beside him, the Southerner’s heart “turns back to Dixie.”

Passing rapidly through Stockton, where his old friends vainly tempt him to say, publicly, good-by, he refrains. No one must know his destination. No parting cup is drained.

In San Francisco, Philip Hardin, in presence of Valois’ wife and the padre, receives his powers of attorney and final directions. Letters, remittances, and all communications are to be sent through a house in Havana. The old New Orleans family of Valois is well known there. Maxime will be able, by blockade-runners and travelling messengers, to obtain his communications.

The only stranger in San Francisco who knows of Maxime’s departure is the old mining partner, Joe Woods. He is now a middle-aged man of property and vigor. He comes from the interior to say adieu to his friend. “Old times” cloud their eyes. But the parting is secret. Federal spies throng the streets.

At the mail wharf the Mexican steamer, steam up, is ready for departure. The last private news from the Texan border tells of General Sibley’s gathering forces. Provided with private despatches, and bundles of contraband letters for the cut-off friends in the South, Maxime Valois repairs to the steamer. Several returning Texans and recruits for the Confederacy have arrived singly. They will make an overland party from Guaymas, headed by Valois. Valois, under the orders of the Golden Circle, has been charged with important communications. Unknown to him, secret agents of the government watch his departure. He has committed no overt act. He goes to a neutral land.

The calm, passionless face of Padre Fran‡ois Ribaut shows a tear trembling in his eye. He leads the weeping wife ashore from the cabin. The last good-by was sacred by its silent sorrow. Valois’ father’s heart was strangely thrilled when he kissed his baby girl farewell, on leaving the little party. Even rebels have warm hearts.

Philip Hardin’s stern features relax into some show of feeling as Valois places his wife’s hands in his. That mute adieu to lovely Dolores moves him. “May God deal with you, Hardin, as you deal with my wife and child,” solemnly says Valois. The lips of Fran‡ois Ribaut piously add “Amen. Amen.”

Padre Francisco comes back to the boat. With French impulsiveness, he throws himself in Valois’ arms. He whispers a friend’s blessing, a priest’s benediction.

The ORIZABA glides out past two or three watchful cruisers flying the Stars and Stripes. The self-devoted Louisianian loses from sight the little knot of dear ones on the wharf. He sees the flutter of Dolores’ handkerchief for the last time. On to Dixie! Going home!

Out on the bay, thronged with the ships of all nations, the steamer glides. Its shores are covered with smiling villages. Happy homes and growing cities crown the heights. Past grim Alcatraz, where the star flag proudly floats on the Sumter-like citadel, the boat slowly moves. It leaves the great metropolis of the West, spreading over its sandy hills and creeping up now the far green valleys. It slips safely through the sea-gates of the West, and past the grim fort at the South Heads. There, casemate and barbette shelter the shotted guns which speak only for the Union.

Valois’ heart rises in his throat as the sentinel’s bayonet glitters in the sunlight. Loyal men are on the walls of the fort. Far away on the Presidio grounds, he can see the blue regiments of Carleton’s troops, at exercise, wheel at drill. The sweeping line of a cavalry battalion moves, their sabres flash as the lines dash on. These men are now his foes. The tossing breakers of the bar throw their spray high over bulwarks and guard. In grim determination he watches the last American flag he ever will see in friendship, till it fades away from sight. He has now taken the irrevocable step. When he steps on Mexican soil, he will be “a man without a country.” Prudential reasons keep him aloof from his companions until Guaymas is reached. Once ashore, the comrades openly unite. Without delay the party plunges into the interior. Well armed, splendidly mounted, they assume a semi-military discipline. The Mexicans are none too friendly. Valois has abundant gold, as well as forty thousand dollars in drafts on Havana, the proceeds of Lagunitas’ future returns advanced by Hardin.

Twenty days’ march up the Yaqui Valley, through Arispe, where the filibusters died with Spartan bravery, is a weary jaunt. But high hopes buoy them up. Over mesa and gorge, past hacienda and Indian settlement, they climb passes until the great mountains break away. Crossing the muddy Rio Grande, Valois is greeted by old friends. He sees the Confederate flag for the first time, floating over the turbulent levies of Sibley, still at Fort Bliss.

Long and weary marches; dangers from bandit, Indian, and lurking Mexican; regrets for the home circle at Lagunitas, make Maxime Valois very grave. Individual sacrifices are not appreciated in war-time. As he rides through the Confederate camp, his heart sinks. The uncouth straggling plainsmen, without order or regular equipment, recall to him his old enemies, the nomadic Mexican vaqueros.

There seems to be no supply train, artillery, or regular stores. These are not the men who can overawe the compact California community. Far gray rocky sandhills stretch along the Texan border. Over the Rio Grande, rich mountain scenery delights the eye. It instantly recalls to Valois the old Southern dream of taking the “Zona Libre.” Tamaulipas, Coahuila, and Nueva Leon were coveted as a crowning trophy of the Mexican war. Dreams of olden days.

Received kindly by General Sibley, the Louisianian delivers his letters, despatches, and messages. After rest and refreshment, he is asked to join a council of war. There are fleet couriers, lately arrived, who speak of Carleton’s column being nearly ready to cross the Colorado. When the General explains his plan of attacking the Federal forces in New Mexico, and occupying Arizona, Valois hastens to urge a forced march down to the fertile Gila. He trusts to Canby timidly holding on to Fort Union and Fort Craig. Alas, Sibley’s place of recruiting and assembly has been ill chosen! The animals, crowded on the bare plains, suffer for lack of forage. Recruits are discouraged by the dreary surroundings. The effective strength has not visibly increased in three months. The Texans are wayward. A strong column, well organized, in the rich interior of Texas, full of the early ardor of secession might have pushed on and reached the Gila. But here is only a chafing body of undisciplined men. They are united merely by political sentiment.

General Sibley urges Valois to accompany him in his forward march. He offers him a staff position, promising to release him, then to move to the eastward. Valois’ knowledge of the frontier is invaluable, and he cannot pass an enemy in arms. Maxime Valois, with fiery energy, aids in urging the motley command forward. On February 7, 1862, the wild brigade of invasion reaches the mesa near Fort Craig. The “gray” and “blue” meet here in conflict, to decide the fate of New Mexico and Arizona. Feeble skirmishing begins. On the 2lst of February, the bitter conflict of Val Verde shows Valois for the first time–alas, not the last!–the blood of brothers mingled on a doubtful field. It is a horrid fight. A drawn battle.

Instead of pushing on to Arizona, deluded by reports of local aid, Sibley straggles off to Santa Fe and Albuquerque. Canby refits his broken forces under the walls of strong Fort Union. Long before the trifling affairs of Glorietta and Peralta, Valois, disgusted with Sibley, is on his way east. He will join the Army of the West. His heart sickens at the foolish incapacity of the border commander. The Texan column melts away under Canby’s resolute advance. The few raiders, who have ridden down into Arizona and hoisted the westernmost Confederate flag at Antelope Peak, are chased back by Carleton’s strong column. The boasted “military advance on California” is at an end. Carleton’s California column is well over the Colorado. The barren fruits of Val Verde are only a few buried guns of McRea’s hard-fought battery. The gallantry of Colonel Thos. P. Ochiltree, C.S.A., at Val Verde, under the modest rank of “Captain,” is the only remembered historic incident of that now forgotten field. The First Regiment and one battalion of the Second California Volunteer Cavalry, the Fifth California Infantry, and a good battery hold Arizona firmly. The Second Battalion, Second California Cavalry, the Fifth California Cavalry, and Third California Infantry, under gallant General Pat Connor, keep Utah protected. They lash the wild Indians into submission, and prevent any rising.

General Canby and Kit Carson’s victorious troops keep New Mexico. They cut the line of any possible Confederate advance. Only Sibley’s pompous report remains now to tell of the fate of his troops, who literally disbanded or deserted. An inglorious failure attends the dreaded Texan attack.

The news, travelling east and west, by fugitives, soon announce the failure of this abortive attempt. The golden opportunity of the fall of 1861 never returns.

The Confederate operations west of the Rio Grande were only a miserable and ridiculous farce. Valois, leaving failure behind him, learns on nearing the Louisiana line, that the proud Pelican flag floats no longer over the Crescent City. It lies now helpless under the guns of fearless Farragut’s fleet. So he cannot even revisit the home of his youth. Maxime Valois smuggles himself across the Mississippi. He joins the Confederates under Van Dorn. He is a soldier at last.

Here in the circling camps of the great Army of the West, Maxime Valois joins the first Louisiana regiment he meets. He realizes that the beloved Southern Confederacy has yet an unbeaten army. A grand array. The tramp of solid legions makes him feel a soldier, not a sneaking conspirator. He is no more a guerilla of the plains, or a fugitive deserter of his adopted State.

The capture of New Orleans seals the Mississippi. The Confederacy is cut in twain. It is positive now, the only help from the golden West will be the arrival of parties of self-devoted men like himself. They come in squads, bolting through Mexico or slipping through Arizona. Some reach Panama and Havana, gaining the South by blockade runners. He opens mail communication with Judge Hardin, via Havana. He succeeds in exchanging views with the venerable head of his house at New Orleans. It is all gloomy now. Old and despondent, the New Orleans patriarch has sent his youthful son away to Paris. Armand is too young to bear arms. He can only come home and do a soldier’s duty later. By family influence, Maxime Valois finds himself soon a major in a Louisiana regiment. He wears his gray uniform at the head of men already veterans. Shiloh’s disputed laurels are theirs. They are tigers who have tasted blood. In the rapidly changing scenes of service, trusting to chance for news of his family, Maxime Valois’ whole nature is centred upon the grave duties of his station. Southern victories are hailed from the East. The victorious arms of the Confederacy roll back McClellan’s great force. Bruised, bleeding, and shattered from the hard-fought fields of the Peninsula, the Unionists recoil. The stars of the Southern Cross are high in hope’s bright field. Though Richmond is saved for the time, it is at a fearful cost. Malvern Hill shakes to its base under the flaming cannon, ploughing the ranks of the dauntless Confederates, as the Army of the Potomac hurls back the confident legions of Lee, Johnston, and Jackson. The Army of the Potomac is decimated. The bloody attrition of the field begins to wear off these splendid lines which the South can never replace. Losses like those of Pryor’s Brigade, nine hundred out of fifteen hundred in a single campaign, would appall any but the grim Virginian soldiers. They are veterans now. They learn the art of war in fields like Seven Pines and Fair Oaks. Even Pryor, as chivalric in action as truculent in debate, now admits that the Yankees will fight. Fredericksburg’s butchery is a victory of note. All the year the noise of battle rolls, while the Eastern war is undecided, for the second Manassas and awful Antietam balance each other. Maxime Valois feels the issue is lost. When the shock of battle has been tried at Corinth, where lion-like Rosecrans conquers, when the glow of the onset fades away, his heart sinks. He knows that the iron-jointed men of the West are the peers of any race in the field.

Ay! In the West it is fighting from the first. Donelson, Shiloh, and Corinth lead up to the awful death shambles of Stone River, Vicksburg, and Chickamauga. These are scenes to shake the nerve of the very bravest.

Heading his troops on the march, watching the thousand baleful fires of the enemy at night, when friend and foe go down in the thundering crash of battle, Valois, amazed, asks himself, “Are these sturdy foes the Northern mudsills?”

For, proud and dashing as the Louisiana Tigers and Texan Rangers prove, steady and vindictive the rugged Mississippians, dogged and undaunted the Georgians, fierce the Alabamans–the honest candor of Valois tells him no human valor can excel the never-yielding Western troops. Their iron courage honors the blue-clad men of Iowa, Michigan, and the Lake States. No hired foreigners there; no helot immigrants these men, whose glittering bayonets shine in the lines of Corinth, as steadily as the spears of the old Tenth Roman Legion–Caesar’s pets.

With unproclaimed chivalry and a readiness to meet the foe which tells its own story, the Western men come on. Led by Grant, Sherman, Rosecrans, Sheridan, Thomas, McPherson, and Logan, they press steadily toward the heart of the Confederacy. The rosy dreams of empire in the great West fade away. Farragut, Porter, and the giant captain, Grant, cut off the Trans-Mississippi from active military concert with the rest of the severed Confederacy.

To and fro rolls the red tide of war. Valois’ soldierly face, bronzed with service, shows only the steady devotion of the soldier. He loves the cause–once dear in its promise–now sacred in its hours of gloomy peril and incipient decadence. Gettysburg, Vicksburg, and Port Hudson are terrible omens of a final day of gloom. Letters from his wife, reports from Judge Hardin, and news from the Western shores give him only vague hints of the future straggling efforts on the Pacific. The only comforting tidings are that his wife and child are well, by the peaceful shores of Lagunitas. The absence of foreign aid, the lack of substantial support from the Northern sympathizers, and the slight hold on the ocean of the new government, dishearten him. The grim pressure everywhere of the Northern lines tells Valois that the splendid chivalry of the Southern arms is being forced surely backward. Sword in hand, his resolute mind unshaken, the Louisianian follows the Stars and Bars, devoted and never despairing. “Quand meme.”

In the long silent days at Lagunitas, the patient wife learns much from the cautious disclosures of Padre Francisco. Her soldier husband’s letters tell her the absent master of Lagunitas is winning fame and honor in a dreadful conflict. It is only vaguely understood by the simple Californian lady.

Her merry child is rapidly forgetting the self-exiled father. Under the bowers of Lagunitas she romps in leafy alley and shady bower.

Judge Hardin, grave-faced, cautious, frugal of speech, visits the domain several times. In conference with Padre Francisco and the vigilant “Kaintuck,” he adjusts the accumulating business affairs.

Riding over the billowing fields, mounting the grassy hills, threading the matchless forests of uncut timber, he sees all. He sits plotting and dreaming on the porch by the lake side. Thousands of horses and cattle, now crossed and improved, are wealth wandering at will on every side. Hardin’s dark eyes grow eager and envious. He gazes excitedly on this lordly domain. Suppose Valois should never come back. This would be a royal heritage. He puts the maddening thought away. Within a few miles, mill and flume tell of the tracing down of golden quartz lodes. The pick breaks into the hitherto undisturbed quartz ledges of Mariposa gold. Is there gold to be found here, too? Perhaps.

Only an old prating priest, a simple woman, and an infant, between him and these thousands of rich acres, should Valois be killed.

Philip Hardin becomes convinced of final defeat, as 1863 draws to a close. The days of Gettysburg and Vicksburg ring the knell of the Confederacy. Even the prestige of Chancellorsville, with its sacred victory sealed with Stonewall Jackson’s precious blood, was lost in the vital blow delivered when the columns of Longstreet and Pickett failed to carry the heights of Gettysburg.

The troops slain on that field could never be replaced. Boyhood and old age, alone, were left to fill the vacant ranks. Settling slowly down, the gloomy days of collapse approach.

While Lee skilfully faced the Army of the Potomac, and the Confederacy was drained of men to hold the “sacred soil,” the Western fields were lit up by the fierce light of Grant and Sherman’s genius. Like destroying angels, seconded by Rosecrans, Thomas, and McPherson, these great captains drew out of the smoke of battle, gigantic figures towering above all their rivals.

Maxime Valois bitterly deplored the uselessness of the war in the trans-Mississippi section of the Confederacy. It is too late for any Western divisions to affect the downward course of the sacred cause for which countless thousands have already died.

The Potomac armies of the Union, torn with the dissensions of warring generals, wait for the days of the inscrutable Grant and fiery Philip Sheridan. In the West, the eagle eye of Rosecrans has caught the weakness of the unguarded roads to the heart of the Confederacy.

Stone River and Murfreesboro’ tell of the wintry struggle to the death for the open doors of Chattanooga. Though another shall wear the laurels of victory, it is the proud boast of Rosecrans alone to have divined the open joint in the enemy’s harness. He points the way to the sea for the irresistible Sherman. While the fearless gray ranks thin day by day, in march and camp, Valois thinks often of his distant home. Straggling letters from Philip Hardin tell him of the vain efforts of the cowed secessionists of the Pacific Coast. Loyal General George Wright holds the golden coast. Governor and Legislature, Senators and Congressmen, are united. The press and public sentiment are now a unit against disunion or separation.

Colonel Valois looked for some effective action of the Knights of the Golden Circle on the Pacific. Alas, for the gallant exile! Impending defeat renders the secret conspirators cautious. In the cheering news that wife and child are well, still guarded by the sagacious Padre Fran‡ois, Valois frets only over the consecutive failures of Western conspiracy. Folly and fear make the Knights of the Golden Circle a timid band. The “Stars and Stripes” wave now, unchallenged, over Arizona and New Mexico. The Texans at Antelope Peak never returned to carry the “Stars and Bars” across the Colorado. Vain boasters!

While Bragg toils and plots to hurl himself on Rosecrans in the awful day of Chickamauga, where thirty-five thousand dying and wounded are offered up to the Moloch of Disunion, Valois bitterly reads Hardin’s account of the puerile efforts on the Pacific. It is only boys’ play.

All energy, every spark of daring seems to have left the men who, secure in ease and fortune, live rich and unharassed in California. Their Southern brethren in the ranks reel blindly in the bloody mazes of battle, fighting in the field. A poor Confederate lieutenant attempts a partisan expedition in the mountains of California. He is promptly captured. The boyish plan is easily frustrated. Bands of resolute marauders gather at Panama to attack the Californian steamers, gold-laden. The vigilance of government agents baffles them. The mail steamers are protected by rifle guns and bodies of soldiers. Loyal officers protect passengers from any dash of desperate men smuggled on board. Secret-service spies are scattered over all the Western shores. Mails, telegraphs, express, and the growing railway facilities, are in the hands of the government. It is Southern defeat everywhere.

Valois sadly realizes the only help from the once enthusiastic West is a few smuggled remittances. Here and there, some quixotic volunteer makes his way in. An inspiring yell for Jeff Davis, from a tipsy ranchero, or incautious pothouse orator, is all that the Pacific Coast can offer.

The Confederate flag never sweeps westward to the blue Pacific, and the stars and bars sink lower day by day. As the weakness of American commerce is manifest on the sea, Colonel Valois forwards despairing letters to California. He urges attacks from Mexico, Japan, Panama, or the Sandwich Islands, on the defenceless ships loaded with American gold and goods. Unheeded, alas! these last appeals. Unfortunately, munitions of war are not to be obtained in the Pacific. The American fleets, though poor and scattered, are skilfully handled. Consuls and diplomats everywhere aid in detecting the weakly laid plans of the would-be pirates.

Still Valois fumes, sword in hand, at the pusillanimity of the Western sympathizers. They are rich and should be arming. Why do they not strike one effective blow for the cause? One gun would sink a lightly built Pacific liner, or bring its flag down. Millions of gold are being exported to the East from the treasure fields of the West. Though proud of the dauntless, ragged gray ranks he loves, Valois feels that the West should organize a serious attack on some unprotected Federal interest, to save the issue. But the miserable failure of Sibley has discouraged Confederate Western effort. The Confederate Californian grinds his teeth to think that one resolute dash of the scattered tens of thousands lying in camp, uselessly, in Arkansas and Texas, would even now secure California. Even now, as the Confederate line of battle wastes away, desperate Southern men dream of throwing themselves into Mexico as an unwelcome, armed immigration. This blood is precious at home.

Stung by the taunts of Eastern friends, at last Philip Hardin and his co-workers stir to some show of action.

Peacefully loading in San Francisco harbor for Mexico, a heavy schooner is filled with the best attainable fittings for a piratical cruise.

The J.W. Chapman rises and falls at the wharves at half gun-shot from the old U.S. frigate CYANE. Her battery could blow the schooner into splinters, with one broadside. Tackle and gear load the peaceful-looking cases of “alleged” heavy merchandise. Ammunition and store of arms are smuggled on board. Mingling unsuspectedly with the provost guard on the wharves, a determined crew succeed in fitting out the boat. Her outward “Mexican voyage” is really an intended descent on the treasure steamers.

Disguised as “heavy machinery,” the rifled cannons are loaded. When ready to slip out of the harbor, past the guard-boats, the would-be pirate is suddenly seized. The vigilant Federal officials have fathomed the design. Some one has babbled. Too much talk, or too much whiskey.

Neatly conceived, well-planned, and all but executed, it was a bold idea. To capture a heavy Panama steamer, gold-laden; to transfer her passengers to the schooner, and land them in Mexico; and, forcing the crew to direct the vessel, to lie in wait for the second outgoing steamer, was a wise plan. They would then capture the incoming steamer from Panama, and ravage the coast of California.

With several millions of treasure and three steamers, two of them could be kept as cruisers of the Confederacy. They could rove over the Pacific, unchallenged. Their speed would be their safety.

Mexican and South American ports would furnish coal and supplies. The captured millions would make friends everywhere. The swift steamers could baffle the antiquated U.S. war vessels on the Pacific. A glorious raid over the Pacific would end in triumph in India or China.

These were the efforts and measures urged by Valois and the anxious Confederates of the East.

It was perfectly logical. It was absolutely easy to make an effective diversion by sea. But some fool’s tongue or spy’s keen eye ruins all.

When, months after the seizure of the CHAPMAN, Valois learns of this pitiful attempt, he curses the stupid conspirators. They had not the brains to use a Mexican or Central American port for the dark purposes of the piratical expedition. Ample funds, resolute men, and an unprotected enemy would have been positive factors of success. Money, they had in abundance. Madness and folly seem to have ruled the half-hearted conspirators of California. An ALABAMA or two on the Pacific would have been most destructive scourges of the sea. The last days of opportunity glide by. The prosaic records of the Federal Court in California tell of the evanescent fame of Harpending, Greathouse, Rubery, Mason, Kent, and the other would-be buccaneers. The “Golden Circle” is badly shattered.

Every inlet of the Pacific is watched, after the fiasco of the Chapman. She lies at anchor, an ignoble prize to the sturdy old Cyane. It is kismet.

Maxime Valois mourns over the failure of these last plans to save the “cause.” Heart-sick, he only wonders when a Yankee bullet will end the throbbings of his unconquerable heart. All is dark.

He fears not for his wife and child. Their wealth is secured. He loses, from day to day, the feelings which tied him once to California.

The infant heiress he hardly knows. His patient, soft-eyed Western wife is now only a placid memory. Her gentle nature never roused the inner fires of his passionate soul. Alien to the Pacific Coast, a soldier of fortune, the ties into which he drifted were the weavings of Fate. His warrior soul pours out its devotion in the military oath to guard to the last the now ragged silken folds of his regimental banner, the dear banner of Louisiana. The eyes of the graceful Creole beauties who gave it are now wet with bitter tears. Beloved men are dying vainly, day by day, under its sacred folds. Even Beauty’s spell is vain.

The wild oats are golden once more on the hills of Lagunitas; the early summer breezes waft stray leaf and blossom over the glittering lake in the Mariposa Mountains. Heading the tireless riflemen of his command, Valois throws himself in desperation on the Union lines at Chickamauga. Crashing volley, ringing “Napoleons,” the wild yell of the onset, the answering cheers of defiance, sound faintly distant as Maxime Valois drops from his charger. He lies seriously wounded in the wild rush of Bragg’s devoted battalions. He has got his “billet.”

For months, tossing on a bed of pain, the Louisianian is a sacred charge to his admiring comrades. Far in the hills of Georgia, the wasted soldier chafes under his absence from the field. The beloved silken heralds of victory are fluttering far away on the heights of Missionary Ridge. His faded eye brightens, his hollow cheek flushes when the glad tidings reach him of the environment of Rosecrans. His own regiment is at the front. He prays that he may lead it, when it heads the Confederate advance into Ohio. For now, after Chickamauga’s terrific shock, the tide of victory bears northward the flag of his adoration. Months have passed since he received any news of his Western domain. No letters from Donna Dolores gladden him. Far away from the red hills of Georgia, in tenderness his thoughts, chastened with illness, turn to the dark-eyed woman who waits for him. She prays before the benignant face of the Blessed Virgin for her warrior husband. Alas, in vain!

Silent is Hardin. No news comes from Padre Francisco. Nothing from his wife. Valois trusts to the future. The increasing difficulty of contraband mails, hunted blockade-runners, and Federal espionage, cut off his home tidings.

His martial soul thrilled at the glories of Chickamauga, Valois learns that California has shown its mettle on the fiercest field of the West. Cheatham, Brooks, and fearless Terry have led to the front the wild masses of Bragg’s devoted soldiery. These sons of California, like himself, were no mere carpet knights. On scattered Eastern fields, old friends of the Pacific have drawn the sword or gallantly died for Dixie. Garnett laid his life down at Rich Mountain. Calhoun Benham was a hero of Shiloh. Wild Philip Herbert manfully dies under the Stars and Bars on the Red River.

The stain of cold indifference is lifted by these and other self-devoted soldiers who battle for the South.

With heavy sighs, the wounded colonel still mourns for the failure to raise the Southern Cross in the West. Every day proves how useless have been all efforts on the Pacific Coast. Virginia is now the “man eater” of the Confederacy. Valois is haunted with the knowledge that some one will retrace the path of Rosecrans. Some genius will break through the open mountain-gates and cut the Confederacy in twain. It is an awful suspense.

While waiting to join his command, he hungers for home news. Grant, the indomitable champion of the North, hurls Bragg from Missionary Ridge. Leaping on the trail of the great army, which for the first time deserts its guns and flags, the blue-clad pursuers press on toward Chattanooga. They grasp the iron gate of the South with mailed hand.

The “Silent Man of Destiny” is called East to measure swords with stately Lee. He trains his Eastern legions for the last death-grapple. On the path toward the sea, swinging out like huntsmen, the columns of Sherman wind toward Atlanta. Bluff, impetuous, worldly wise, genius inspired, Sherman rears day by day the pyramid of his deathless fame. Confident and steady, bold and untiring, fierce as a Hannibal, cunning as a panther, old Tecumseh bears down upon the indefatigable Joe Johnston. Now comes a game worthy of the immortal gods. It is played on bloody fields. The crafty antagonists grapple in every cunning of the art of war. Rivers of human blood make easy the way. The serpent of the Western army writhes itself into the vitals of the torn and bleeding South. Everywhere the resounding crash of arms. Alas, steadfast as Maxime Valois’ nature may be, tried his courage as his own battle blade, the roar of battle from east to west tells him of the day of wrath! The yells and groans of the trampled thousands of the Wilderness, are echoed by the despairing chorus of the dying myriads of Kenesaw and Dalton. A black pall hangs over a land given up to the butchery of brothers. Mountain chains, misted in the blue smoke of battle, rise unpityingly over heaps of unburied dead from the Potomac to the Mississippi. Maxime Valois knows at last the penalty of the fatal conspiracy. A sacrificed generation, ruined homes, and the grim ploughshare of war rives the fairest fields of the Land of the Cypress.

Fearless and fate-defying, under ringing guns, crashing volley, and sweeping charge, the Southern veterans only close up the devoted gray ranks. They are thinning with every conflict, where Lee and Johnston build the slim gray wall against the resistless blue sea sweeping down.

There is no pity in the pale moon. The cold, steady stars shine down on the upturned faces of the South’s best and bravest. No craven blenching when the tattered Stars and Bars bear up in battle blast. And yet the starry flag crowns mountain and rock. It sweeps through blood-stained gorges and past battle-scarred defile. Onward, ever southward. The two giant swordsmen reel in this duel of desperation. Sherman and Johnston may not be withheld. The hour of fate is beginning to knell the doom of the cause. Southern mothers and wives have given up their unreturning brave as a costly sacrifice on the altar of Baal. Valois, once more in command, a colonel now, riding pale and desperate, before his men, sees their upturned glances. The dauntless ranks, filing by, touch his heroic heart. He fears, when Atlanta’s refuge receives the beaten host, that the end is nigh.

Bereft of news from his home, foreseeing the final collapse in Virginia, assured that the sea is lost to the South, the colonel’s mood is daily sadder. His hungry eyes are wolfish in their steady glare. Only a soldier now. His flag is his altar of daily sacrifice.

Port after port falls, foreign flatterers stand coldly aloof, empty magazines and idle fields are significant signs of the end. Useless cotton cannot be sent out or made available, priceless though it be. The rich western Mississippi is now closed as a supply line for the armies. The paper funds of the new nation are mere tokens of unpaid promises, never to be redeemed.

Never to falter, not to shun the driving attacks of the pursuing horse or grappling foot, to watch his battle-flag glittering in the van, to lead, cheer, hope, inspire, and madly head his men, is the second nature of Valois. He has sworn not to see his flag dishonored.

It never occurs to him to ask WHERE his creed came from. His blood thrills with the passionate devotion which blots out any sense of mere right and wrong. His motto is “For Dixie’s Land to Death.”

CHAPTER XII.

HOOD’S DAY.–PEACHTREE CREEK.–VALOIS’ LAST TRUST.–DE GRESS’ BATTERY.–DEAD ON THE FIELD OF HONOR.

A lantern burns dimly before the tent of Colonel Valois on the night of July 21, 1864. Within the lines of Atlanta there is commotion. Myriad lights flicker on the hills. A desperate army at bay is facing the enemy. Seven miles of armed environment mocks the caged tigers behind these hard-held ramparts. Facing north and east, the gladiators of the morrow lie on their arms, ready now for the summons to fall in, for a wild rush on Sherman’s pressing lines. It is no holiday camp, with leafy bowers and lovely ladies straying in the moonlight. No dallying and listening to Romeos in gray and gold. No silver-throated bugles wake the night with “Lorena.” No soft refrain of the “Suwanee River” melts all the hearts. It is not a gala evening, when “Maryland, my Maryland,” rises in grand appeal. The now national “Dixie” tells not of fields to be won. It is a dark presage of the battle morrow. Behind grim redan and salient, the footsore troops rest from the day’s indecisive righting. The foeman is not idle; all night long, rumbling trains and busy movements tell that “Uncle Billy Sherman” never sleeps. His blue octopus crawls and feels its way unceasingly. The ragged gray ranks, whose guns are their only pride, whose motto is “Move by day; fight always,” are busy with the hum of preparation.

It is a month of horror. North and South stand aghast at the unparalleled butchery of the Wilderness and Spottsylvania. The awful truth that Grant has paved his bloody way to final victory with one hundred thousand human bodies since he crossed the Rapidan, makes the marrow cold in the bones of the very bravest. Sixty thousand foes, forty thousand friends, are the astounding death figures. As if the dark angel of death was not satisfied with a carnage unheard of in modern times, Johnston, the old Marshal Ney of the Confederacy, gives way, in command of the Southern army covering Atlanta, to J.B. Hood. He is the Texan lion. Grizzled Sherman laughs on the 18th of July, when his spies tell him Johnston is relieved. “Replenish every caisson from the reserve parks; distribute campaign ammunition,” he says, briefly. “Hood would assault me with a corporal’s guard. He will fight by day or night. I know him,” Uncle Billy says.

The great Tecumseh feels a twinge as he whips out this verdict. Hood’s tactics are fearful. There are thousands of mute witnesses of his own fatal rashness lying at Kenesaw, whose tongues are sealed in death. On that sad clay, Sherman out-Hooded Hood. But the blunt son of Ohio is right. He is a demi-god in intellect, and yet he has the intuition of femininity. He has caught Hood’s fighting character at a glance.

There’s no time to chaffer over the situation. McPherson, the pride of the army, Thomas, the Rock of Chickamauga, and wary Schofield, draw in the great Union forces. Gallant Howard is in this knightly circle. “Black Jack” Logan, the “Harry Monmouth” of this coming field, connects on the 19th. There has been hot work to-day. Firing in Thomas’s front tells the great strategist that Hood has tasted blood. Enough!

Sherman knows how that mad Texan will throw his desperate men to the front, in the snapping, ringing zone of fire and flame. Hooker receives the shock of the onset, reinforced by heavy batteries, whose blazing guns tear lightning-rent lanes through the Confederates. Not a second to lose. The gray swarms are pouring on like mountain wolves.

Fighting sharp and hot, the Union lines reach the strong defences of Peachtree Creek. Here Confederate Gilmer’s engineering skill has prepared ditch and fraise, abattis and chevaux-de-frise, with yawning graves for the soon-forgotten brave.

McPherson, Schofield, Howard, Hooker, and Palmer are all in line, deployed with strong reserves.

Anxious Sherman sends clouds of orderly officers and scouts, right and left. Hood’s defiant volleys die away. Will the rush come to-day? No; the hours wear away. The night brings quiet along the lines. Though a red harvest lies on the field, it is not the crowning effort of the entire enemy. It is only a rattling day of uneasy, hot-tempered fight.

But the awful morrow is to come. Sherman soon divines the difficulty of fathoming the Texan’s real designs. Hood is familiar with the ground. Drawing back to the lines of Atlanta, Hood crouches for a desperate spring. The ridges of the red clay hills, with little valleys running to the Chattahoochee in the west, and Ocmulgee in the east, cover his manoeuvres. Corn and cotton patches, with thick forests between, lie along the extended front. A tangled undergrowth masks the entire movements of the lurking enemy.

Tireless Sherman, expectant of some demoniac rush, learns that the array before him is under Hood, Hardee, and the audacious cavalry leader, Wheeler. Stewart’s and Smith’s Georgian levies are also in line.

Every disposition is made by the wary antagonists. Sherman, eagle-eyed and prompt to join issue, gains a brief repose before the gray of morning looses the fires of hell. McPherson, young and brilliant, whose splendid star is in its zenith, firmly holds his exposed lines along the railroad between two valleys. In his left and rear, the forest throws out dark shades to cover friend and foe. Between the waiting armies, petty murder stays its hands. The stars sweep to the west, bringing the last morning to thousands. They are now dreaming, perhaps, of the homes they will never see. A thrill of nervous tension keeps a hundred thousand men in vague, dumb expectancy. The coming shock will be terrible. No one can tell the issue.

As the worn Confederate sentinel drags up and down before the tent of Colonel Valois, he can see the thoughtful veteran sitting, his tired head resting on a wasted hand.

Spirit and high soul alone animate now the Louisiana colonel. Hope has fled. Over his devoted head the sentinel stars swing, with neither haste nor rest, toward the occident. They will shine on Lagunitas, smiling, fringed with its primeval pines.

In her sleep, perhaps his little girl calls for him in vain. He is doomed not to hear that childish voice again.

A bundle of letters, carelessly tossed down at head-quarters, have been carried in his bosom during the day’s scattering fight. They are all old in their dates, and travel-worn in following the shifting positions of his skeleton regiment. They bring him, at last, nearly a year’s news.

Suddenly he springs to his feet, and his voice is almost a shriek. “Sentinel, call the corporal.” In a moment, Valois, with quivering lip, says, “Corporal, ask Major Peyton to be kind enough to join me for a few moments.”

When his field-officer approaches, anticipating some important charge of duty, sword and revolver in hand, the ghastly face of Valois alarms him.

“Colonel!” he cries. Valois motions him to be seated.

“Peyton,” begins Valois, brokenly, “I am struck to the heart.”

He is ashy pale. His head falls on his friend’s bosom.

“My wife!” He needs not finish. The open letters tell the story. It is death news.

The major clasps his friend’s thin hands.

“Colonel, you must bear up. We are fallen on sad, sad days.” His voice fails him. “Remember to-morrow; we must stand for the South.”

The chivalric Virginian’s voice sounds hollow and strange. He sought the regiment, won over by Valois’ lofty courage and stern military pride. To-morrow the army is to grapple and crush bold Sherman. It will be a death struggle.

Yes, out of these walls, a thunderbolt, the heavy column, already warned, was to seek the Union left, and strike a Stonewall Jackson blow. Its march will be covered by the friendly woods. The keen-eyed adjutants are already warning the captains of every detail of the attack. Calm and unmoved, the gaunt centurions of the thinned host accepted the honorable charges of the forlorn hope. Valois’ powder-seasoned fragment of the army was a “corps d’elite.” Peyton wondered, as he watched his suffering colonel, if either would see another sparkling jewel-braided night.

The blow of Hood must be the hammer of Thor.

“To-morrow, yes, to-morrow,” mechanically replied Valois. “I will be on duty to-morrow.”

“To-night, Peyton,” he simply said, “I must suffer my last agony. My poor Dolores! Gone–my wife.”

The tears trickled through his fingers as he bowed his graceful head.

“And my little Isabel,” he softly said; “she will be an orphan. Will God protect that tender child? “Valois was talking to himself, with his eyes fixed on the dark night-shadows hiding the Federal lines. A stern, defiant gaze.

Peyton shivered with a nervous chill.

“Colonel, this must not be.” In the silence of the brooding night, it seems a ghastly call from another world, this message of death.

Valois proudly checks himself.

“Peyton, I have few friends left in this land now. I want you to look these letters over.” He hands him several letters from Hardin and from the priest. With tender delicacy, his hands close on the last words of affection from the gentle dark-eyed wife, who brought him the great dowry of Lagunitas, and gave him his little Isabel.

Peyton reads the words, old in date but new in their crushing force of sorrow to the husband. Resting on the stacked arms in front of his tent, the colors of Louisiana and the silken shreds of the Stars and Bars wait for the bugles of reveille calling again to battle.

Dolores dying of sudden illness, cut off in her youthful prime, was only able to receive the last rites of the Church, to smile fondly in her last moments, as she kisses the picture of the absent soldier of the Southern Cross. Fran‡ois Ribaut, the French gentleman, writes a sad letter, with no formula of the priest. He knows Maxime Valois is face to face with death, in these awful days of war. A costly sacrifice on the altar of Southern rights may be his fate at any moment.

It is to comfort, not admonish, to pledge every friendly office, that the delicate-minded padre softens the blow. Later, the priest writes of the lonely child, whose tender youth wards off the blow of the rod of sorrow.

Philip Hardin’s letter mainly refers to the important business interests of the vast estate. The possibility of the orphanage of Isabel occurs. He suggests the propriety of Colonel Valois’ making and forwarding a new will, and constituting a guardianship of the young heiress. In gravest terms of friendship, he reminds Valois to indicate his wishes as to the child, her nurture and education. The fate of a soldier may overtake her surviving parent any day.

Other unimportant issues drop out of sight. Hardin has told of the last attempt to fit out a schooner at a secluded lumber landing in Santa Cruz County. They tried to smuggle on board a heavy gun secretly transported there. An assemblage of desperate men, gathering in the lonely woods, were destined to man the boat. By accident, the Union League discovers the affair. Flight is forced on the would-be pirates.

Valois’ lip curls as he tells Peyton of the utter prostration of the last Confederate hope beyond the Colorado. All vain and foolish schemes.

“I wish your advice, Major,” he resumes. In brief summing up, he gives Peyton the outline of his family history and his general wishes.

A final result of the hurried conclave is the hasty drawing up of a will. It is made and duly witnessed. It makes Philip Hardin guardian of the heiress and sole executor of his testament. His newly descended property he leaves to the girl child, with directions that she shall be sent to Paris. She is to be educated to the time of her majority at the “Sacred Heart.” There in that safe retreat, where the world’s storms cannot reach the defenceless child, he feels she will be given the bearing and breeding of a Valois. She must be fitted for her high fortunes.

He writes a fond letter to Father Francisco, to whom he leaves a handsome legacy, ample to make him independent of all pecuniary cares. He adjures that steadfast friend to shield his darling’s childhood, to follow and train her budding mind in its development. He informs him of every disposition, and sends the tenderest thanks for a self-devotion of years.

The farewell signature is affixed. Colonel Valois indites to Judge Philip Hardin a letter of last requests. It is full of instructions and earnest appeal. When all is done, he closes his letter. “I send you every document suggested. My heart is sore. I can no longer write. I will lead my regiment to-morrow in a desperate assault. If I give my life for my country, Hardin, let my blood seal this sacred bond between you and me. I leave you my motherless child. May God deal with you and yours as you shall deal with the beloved little one, whose face I shall never see.

“If I had a thousand lives I would lay them down for the flag which may cover me to-morrow night. Old friend, remember a dying man’s trust in you and your honor.”

When Peyton has finished reading these at Colonel Valois’ request, his eyes are moist. To-night the bronzed chief is as tender as a woman. The dauntless soul, strong in battle scenes, is shaken with the memories of a motherless little one. She must face the world alone, God’s mercy her only stay.

Colonel Valois, who has explained the isolation of the child, has left his estate in remainder to the heirs of Judge Valois, of New Orleans.

Old and tottering to his tomb is that veteran jurist. The possible heir would be Armand, the boy student, cut off in Paris. No home-comings now. The ports are all closed.

When all is prepared, Colonel Valois says tenderly: “Peyton, I have some money left at Havana. I will endorse these drafts to you, and give you a letter to the banker there. You can keep them for me. I want you to ride into Atlanta and see these papers deposited. Let there be made a special commission for their delivery to our agent at Havana. Let them leave Atlanta at once. I want no failure if Sherman storms the city. I will not be alive to see it.”

Awed by the prophetic coolness of Valois’ speech, Peyton sends for his horse. He rides down to the town, where hundreds on hundreds of wounded sufferers groan on every side. Thousands desperately wait in the agony of suspense for the morrow’s awful verdict. He gallops past knots of reckless merry-makers who jest on the edge of their graves. Henry Peyton bears the precious packet and delivers it to an officer of the highest rank. He is on the eve of instant departure for the sea-board. Cars and engines are crowded with the frightened people, flying from the awful shock of Hood’s impending assault.

This solemn duty performed, the Major rejoins Colonel Valois at a gallop. Lying on his couch, Valois’ face brightens as he springs from his rest. “It is well. I thank you,” he simply says. He is calm, even cheerful. The bonhomie of his race is manifest. “Major Peyton,” he says, pleasantly, “I would like you to remember the matters of this evening. Should you live through this war the South will be in wild disorder. I have referred to your kindness, in my letter to Hardin and in a paper I have enclosed to him. It is for my child. You will have a home at Lagunitas if you ever go to California.”

He discusses a few points of the movement of the morrow. There is no extra solemnity in going under fire. They have lived in a zone of fire since Sherman’s pickets crossed the open, months ago. But this supreme effort of Hood marks a solemn epoch. The great shops and magazines of Atlanta, the railroad repair works, foundries and arsenals, the geographical importance, studied fortifications, and population to be protected, make the city a stronghold of ultimate importance to the enfeebled South.

If the Northern bayonets force these last doors of Georgia, then indeed the cause is desperate.

When midnight approached, Colonel Valois calmly bade his friend “Good-night.” Escorting him to his tent, he whispers, “Peyton, take your coffee with me to-morrow. I will send for you.”

Slumber wraps friend and foe alike. All too soon the gray dawn points behind the hills. There is bustle and confusion. Shadowy groups cluster around the waning fires long before daybreak. The gladiators are falling into line. Softly, silently, day steals over the eastern hills. Is it the sun of Austerlitz or of Waterloo?

Uneasy picket-firing ushers in the battle day. Colonel Valois and Major Peyton share their frugal meal. The rattle of picket shots grows into a steady, teasing firing. Well-instructed outpost officers are carrying on this noisy mockery.

Massed behind the circling lines of Atlanta, within the radius of a mile and a half, the peerless troops who DOUBT Hood’s ability, but who ADORE his dauntless bravery, are silently massed for the great attack.

The officers of Valois’ regiment, summoned by the adjutant, receive their Colonel’s final instructions. His steady eye turns fondly on the men who have been his comrades, friends, and devoted admirers. “Gentlemen,” he says, “we will have serious work to-day. I shall expect you to remember what Georgia hopes from Louisiana.”

Springing to his saddle, he doffs his cap as the head of the regiment files by, in flank movement. The lithe step, steady swing, and lightly poised arms proclaim matchless veterans. They know his every gesture in the field. He is their idol.

As Peyton rides up, he whispers (for the colors have passed), “Henry, if you lead the regiment out of this battle, I ask you never to forget my last wishes.” The two friends clasp hands silently. With a bright smile, whose light lingers as he spurs past the springy column, he takes the lead, falcon-eyed, riding down silently into the gloomy forest-shades of death.

A heavy mass of troops, pushing out in swift march, works steadily to the Union left, and gains its ground rapidly. The Seventeenth Corps of Blair, struck in flank, give way. The Sixteenth Union Corps of Dodge are quickly rushed up. The enemy are struck hard. Crash and roar of battle rise now in deafening clamor. Away to the unprotected Union rear ride the wild troopers of Wheeler. The whole left of Sherman’s troops are struck at disadvantage. They are divided, or thrown back in confusion toward Decatur. The desperate struggle sways to and fro till late in the day. With a rush of Hood’s lines, Murray’s battery of regular artillery is captured. The Stars and Bars sweep on in victory.

Onward press the Confederate masses in all the pride of early victory. The Fifteenth Corps, under Morgan L. Smith, make a desperate attempt to hold on at a strong line of rifle pits. The seething gray flood rolls upon them and sends them staggering back four hundred yards. Over two cut-off batteries, the deadly carnage smites blue and gray alike. Charge and countercharge succeed in the mad struggle for these guns. Neither side can use them until a final wave shall sweep one set of madmen far away.

With desperate valor, Morgan L. Smith at last claims the prize. His cheering troops send double canister from the regained batteries into the gray columns of attack. General Sherman, at a deserted house, where he has made his bivouac, paces the porch like a restless tiger. The increasing firing on the left, tells him of this heavy morning attack. A map spread on a table catches his eye from time to time. The waiting crowd of orderlies and staff officers have, one by one, dashed off to reform the lines or strengthen the left. While the firing all along the line is everywhere ominous, the roar on the left grows higher and higher. Out from the fatal woods begin to stream weary squads of the wounded and stragglers. The floating skulkers hover at the edge of the red tide of conflict.

Ha! A wounded aide dashes up with tidings of the ominous gap on the left. That fearful sweep of Wheeler’s cavalry to the rear is known at last by the fires of burning trains. With a few brief words of counsel, and a nod of his stately head, McPherson, the splendid light of battle on his brow, gallops away to reform these broken lines. The eye of the chief must animate his corps.

Hawk-eyed Sherman watches the glorious young general as he turns into the forest. A grim look settles on the general’s face. He runs his eye over the map. As the tiger’s approach is heralded by the clatter of the meaner animals, so from out that forest the human debris tell of Hood’s battle hammer crashing down on that left “in air.” Is there yet time to reform a battle, now fighting itself in sudden bloody encounters? All is at haphazard. A sigh of relief. McPherson is there. His ready wit, splendid energy, and inspiring presence are worth a thousand meaner souls, in the wild maelstrom of that terrible July day.

Old Marshal Tecumseh, with unerring intuition, knows that the creeping skirmishers have felt the whole left of his position. With the interior lines and paths of the forest to aid, if anything has gone wrong, if gap or lap has occurred, then on those unguarded key-points and accidental openings, the desperate fighters of the great Texan will throw their characteristic fierceness. Atlanta’s tall chimneys rise on the hills to the west. There, thousands, with all at stake, listen to the rolling notes of this bloody battle. High in the air, bursting shells with white puffs light up the clouds of musketry smoke. Charging yells are borne down the wind, with ringing answering cheers. The staccato notes of the snapping Parrotts accentuate the battle’s din.

Sherman, with cloudy brow, listens for some news of the imperilled left wing. Is the iron army of the Tennessee to fail him now? Seven miles of bayonets are in that great line, from left to right, headed by McPherson, Schofield, and Thomas, the flower of the Union Army.

Looking forward to a battle outside Atlanta, a siege, or a flanking bit of military chesswork, the great Union commander is dragged now into a purely defensive battle. Where is McPherson?

Sherman has a quarter of an hour of horrible misgiving. He saw the mad panic of the first Bull Run. He led the only compact body of troops off that fatal field himself. It was his own brigade. In his first-fought field, he showed the unshakable nerve of Macdonald at Wagram. But he has also seen the fruits of the wild stampede of McCook and Crittenden’s divisions since at Chickamauga. It tore the laurels from Rosecrans’ brow. Is this to be a panic? Rosecrans’ defeat made Sherman the field-marshal of the West.

At Missionary Ridge, even the invincibles of the South fled their lines in sudden impulse, giving up an almost impregnable position. The haughty old artillerist, Braxton Bragg, was forced to officially admit that stampede. He added a few dozen corpses to his disciplinary “graveyards,” “pour encourager les autres.” Panic may attack even the best army.

Is it panic now swelling on the breeze of this roaring fight? Fast and far his hastily summoned messengers ride. To add a crowning disaster to the confusion of the early morning death grapple, the sun does not touch the meridian before a bleeding aide brings back McPherson’s riderless horse. Where is the general? Alas, where?

Dashing far ahead of his staff and orderlies, tearing from wood to wood, to close in the fatal gap and reface his lines–a volley from a squad of Hood’s pickets drops the great corps commander, McPherson, a mangled corpse, in the forest. No such individual loss to either army has happened since Stonewall Jackson’s untimely end at Chancellorsville.

His rifled body is soon recovered. With super-human efforts it is borne to the house in the clearing and laid at General Sherman’s feet.

Lightning flashes of wit traverse Sherman’s brain. Every rebel straggler is instantly searched as he is swept in. The invaluable private papers of General McPherson, the secret orders, and campaign plans are found in the haversack of one of the captured skirmishers. These, at least, are safe.

With this blow, comes the news of the Seventeenth Corps being thrown back, far out of its place, by the wild rush of Hood’s braves. All goes wrong. The day is lost.

Will it be a Bull Run?

No! The impetuous Logan tears along his lines. “Black Jack’s” swarthy face brings wild cheers from the men, who throw themselves madly on the attacking lines, seeking vengeance. The Fifteenth Corps’ rifles are sounding shotted requiem salvos for their lost leader. The Seventeenth holds on and connects. The Sixteenth Corps, struck heavily in flank by the victorious Confederates, faces into line of battle to the left. It grimly holds on, and pours in its leaden hail. Smith’s left flank doubled back, joining Leggett, completes the reformed line. From high noon till the darkness of the awful night, a general conflict rages along the whole front. War in its grim horror.

Sherman, casting a wistful glance on the body of McPherson, stands alert. He is as bristling as a wild boar at bay. Sherman at his best.

Is this their worst? No, for at four in the afternoon, a terrific sally from Atlanta throws the very flower of the assailants on the bloody knoll, evermore to be known as “Leggett’s Hill.” There is madness and demoniac fury in the way those gray columns struggle for that ridge.

In vain does Hood send out his bravest stormers to crown the wished-for position of Leggett.

Sherman is as sure of Atlanta now, as if his eagles towered over its domes. Drawing to the left the corps of Wood, massing Schofield with twenty heavy guns playing on Hood’s charging columns, Sherman throws Wood, backed by John A. Logan’s victorious veterans, on the great body of the reeling assailants. The final blow has met its stone wall, in the lines of Leggett. The blue takes up the offensive, with wild cheers of triumph. They reach “Uncle Billy’s” ears.

Some decisive stroke must cut the tangle of the involved forces. When Hood sees that his devoted troops have not totally crushed the Union left, when his columns reel back from Leggett’s Hill, mere fragments, he knows that even his dauntless men cannot be asked to try again that fearful quest. It is checkmate!

But Wheeler is still careering in destruction around Sherman’s rear parks, and ravaging his supplies. Hood persists in his desperate design to pierce the Union lines somewhere. He throws away his last chance of keeping an army together. His fiery valor bade him defend Atlanta from the OUTSIDE. He now sends a last thunderbolt crashing on the Decatur road.

During the day Valois’ regiment has been thrown in here and there. The stern colonel gazes with pride on the seasoned fighters at their grim work.

But it is after four when Colonel Valois is ordered to mass his regiment, followed by the last reserve, and lead it to the front in the supreme effort of this awful day. His enemy in front is a Union battery, which has been a flail to the Southern army.

In dozens of encounters the four heavy twenty-pound Parrotts of De Gress have been an object of the maddest attack. Superbly handled, in the best equipment, its high power, long range, and dashing energy have given to this battery the rank in the West, which John Pelham’s light artillery gained under Lee’s eyes in Virginia. The pride of Sherman’s artillery is the famous battery of De Gress. To-day it has been dealing out death incessantly, at half musket-range. It has swept rank on rank of the foes away. Now, with the frenzy of despair, General Hood sends a forlorn column to pierce the Union lines, carry the road, and take those renowned guns. A lull betokens the last rush.

Riding to the front, Colonel Valois reins up beside Major Peyton. There is only time for a few last directions. A smile which haunts Peyton for many a long day, flashes on Maxime Valois’ stern lips. He dashes on, waving his sword, and cries in his ringing voice,

“Come on, boys, for Louisiana!”

Springing like panthers into the open, the closed ranks bound toward the fated guns at a dead run. Ha! There was a crashing salvo. Now, it is load and fire at will. Right and left, fire pours in on the guns, whose red flashes singe the very faces of the assailants. Peyton’s quick eye sees victory wavering. Dashing towards the guns he cheers his men. As he nears the battery the Louisiana color-bearer falls dead. Henry Peyton seizes the Pelican flag, and dashes on over friends, dead and dying, as his frightened steed races into the battery.

There, every horse is down. The guns are now silent. A knot of men, with clubbed rammers, bayonet thrusts, and quick revolver shots, fight for the smoking cannon. A cheer goes up. De Gress’s guns are taken. Peyton turns his head to catch a glimpse of Colonel Valois. Grasping the star-spangled guidon of the battery with his bridle hand, Valois cuts down its bearer.

A wild yell rises as a dozen rebel bayonets are plunged into a defiant fugitive, for he has levelled his musket point-blank and shot Valois through the heart.

The leader’s frightened charger bounds madly to the front, and the Louisiana colonel falls heavily to the ground.

Clasped in his clenched hands, the silken folds of the captured battery flag are dyed with his blood. A dozen willing arms raise the body, bearing it to one side, for the major, mindful of the precious moments, yells to “swing the guns and pass the caissons.” In a minute, the heavy Parrotts of De Gress are pouring their shrapnel into the faces of the Union troops, who are, three hundred yards away, forming for a rush to recapture them.

As the cannon roar their defiance to the men who hold them dear, Peyton bends over Maxime Valois. The heart is stilled forever. With his stiffening fingers clutching his last trophy, the “Stars and Stripes,” there is the light of another world shining on the face of the dead soldier of the Southern Cross. Before sending his body to the rear, Henry Peyton draws from Valois’ breast a packet of letters. It is the last news from the loved wife he has rejoined across the shadowy river. United in death. Childish Isabel is indeed alone in the world. A rain of shrieking projectiles and bursting shells tells of the coming counter-charge.

Drawing back the guns by hand to a cover for the infantry, and rattling the caissons over a ridge to screen the ammunition boxes, the shattered rebel ranks send volleys into the faces of the lines of Schofield, now coming on at a run.

The captured Parrotts ring and scream. One over-heated gun of the battery bursts, adding its horrors to the struggle. Logan’s men are leaping over the lines to right and left, bayoneting the gunners. The Louisianians give way and drift to the rear. The evening shadows drop over crest, wood, and vale. When the first stars are in the skies Hood’s shattered columns stream back into Atlanta. The three guns of De Gress have changed hands again. Even the bursted piece falls once more under the control of the despairing Union artillery captain. He has left him neither men, horses, fittings, nor harness available–only three dismantled guns and the wreck of his fourth piece. But they are back again! Sherman’s men with wildest shouts crowd the field. They drive the broken remnants of the proud morning array under the guns of the last lines of the doomed city. Dare-devil Hood has failed. The desperate dash has cost ten thousand priceless men. The brief command of the Texan fighter has wrecked the invaluable army of which Joe Johnston was so mindful.

McPherson, who joined the subtlety of Stonewall to the superb bearing of Sidney Johnston, a hero born, a warrior, and great captain to be, lies under the stars in the silent chambers of the Howard House.

General Sherman, gazing on his noble features, calm in death, silently mourns the man who was his right hand. Thomas, Schofield, Howard, Logan, and Slocum stand beside the dead general. They bewail the priceless sacrifice of Peachtree Creek.

In the doomed city of Atlanta, there is gloom and sadness. With the fragments of the regiment which adored him, a shattered guard of honor, watching over him with yet loaded guns, in charge of the officers headed by Major Peyton, the body of Maxime Valois rests within the Southern lines.

For the dear land of his birth he had abandoned the fair land of his choice. With the captured banner of his country in his hand, he died in the hour of a great personal triumph, “under the Stars and Bars.” Game to the last.

High-souled and devoted, the son of Louisiana never failed the call of his kinsmen. He carried the purest principles to the altar of Secession.

Watching by the shell from which the dauntless spirit had fled in battle and in storm, Henry Peyton feels bitterly that the fate of Atlanta is sealed. He knows the crushing of their weak lines will follow. He can picture Sherman’s heavy columns taking city after city, and marching toward the blue sea.

The end is approaching. A gloomier darkness than the night of the last battle broods over the Virginian. With pious reverence, he hastens to arrange the few personal matters of his chief. He knows not the morrow. The active duties of command will soon take up all his time. He must keep the beloved regiment together.

For, of the two or three companies left of a regiment “whose bayonets were once a thousand,” Henry Peyton is the colonel now. A “barren honor,” yet inexpressibly dear to him.

In the face of the enemy, within the lines held hard by the reorganizing fragments of yesterday’s host, the survivors bury the brave leader who rode so long at their head. Clad in his faded gray, the colonel lies peacefully awaiting the great Reveille.

When the sloping bayonets of the regiment glitter, for the last time, over the ramparts their generous blood has stained in fight, as the defeated troops move away, many a stout heart softens as they feel they are leaving alone and to the foe the lost idol of their rough worship.

Major Peyton preserves for the fatherless child the personal relics of his departed friend. Before it is too late, he despatches them to the coast, to be sent to Havana, to await Judge Hardin’s orders at the bankers’. The news of the fate of Colonel Valois, and the last wishes of the dead Confederate, are imparted in a letter to Judge Hardin by Peyton.

In the stern realities of the last retreat, fighting and marching, after the winter snows have whitened the shot-torn fields around Atlanta; sick of carnage and the now useless bloodshed, Colonel Peyton leads his mere detachment to the final scene of the North Carolina surrender. Grant’s iron hand has closed upon Petersburg’s weakened lines. Sheridan’s invincible riders, fresh from the Shenandoah, have shattered the steadfast at Five Forks.

Gloomy days have fallen, also, on the cause in the West. The despairing valor of the day at Franklin and the assault on Nashville only needlessly add to. the reputation for frantic bravery of the last of the magnificent Western armies of the Confederacy. Everywhere there are signs of the inevitable end. With even the sad news of Appomattox to show him that the great cause is irretrievably lost, there are bitter tears in Henry Peyton’s eyes when he sees the flags of the army he has served with, lowered to great Sherman in the last surrender.

The last order he will ever give to them turns out for surrender the men whose reckless bravery has gilded a “Lost Cause” with a romantic halo of fadeless glory. Peyton sadly sheathes the sword he took from Maxime Valois’ dead hands. Southward, he takes his way. Virginia is now only a graveyard and one vast deserted battle-field. The strangers’ bayonets are shining at Richmond. He cannot revisit the scenes of his boyhood. A craving seizes him for new scenes and strange faces. He yearns to blot out the war from his memory. He dreams of Mexico, Cuba, or the towering Andes of South America. His heart is too full to linger near the scenes where the red earth lies heaped over his brethren of the sword. Back to Atlanta