Chapter IV. The First Capital

The Guns of Bull Run

by Joseph A. Altsheler

Harry and Arthur stood two days later upon the sea wall of
Charleston. Sumter rose up black and menacing in the clear wintry
air. The muzzles of the cannon seemed to point into the very heart
of the city, and over it, as ever, flew the defiant flag, the red and
blue burning in vivid colors in the thin January sunshine. The heart
of Charleston, that most intense of all Southern cities, had given
forth a great throb. The Star of the West was coming from the North
with provisions for the garrison of beleaguered Sumter. They would
see her hull on the horizon in another hour.

Both Harry and Arthur were trembling with excitement. They were
not on duty themselves, but they knew that all the South Carolina
earthworks and batteries were manned. What would happen? It still
seemed almost incredible to Harry that the people of the Union--at
least of the Union that was--should fire upon one another, and his
pulse beat hard and strong, while he waited with his comrade.

As they stood there gazing out to sea, looking for the black
speck that should mark the first smoke of the Star of the West, Harry
became conscious that another man was standing almost at his elbow.
He glanced up and saw Shepard, who nodded to him.

"I did not know that I was standing by you until I had been here
some time," said Shepard, as if he sought to indicate that he had not
been seeking Harry and his comrade.

"I thought you had left Charleston," said Harry, who had not
seen him for a week.

"Not at such a time," said Shepard, quietly. "So much of
overwhelming interest is happening here that nobody who is alive can
go away."

He put a pair of powerful glasses to his eyes and scanned the
sea's rim. He looked a long time, and then his face showed
excitement.

"It comes! It comes!" he exclaimed, more to himself than to
Harry and Arthur.

"Is it the steamer? Is it the Star of the West?" exclaimed
Harry forgetting all doubts of Shepard in the thrill of the
moment.

"Yes, the Star of the West! It can be no other!" replied
Shepard. "It can be no other! Take the glasses and see for
yourself!"

When Harry looked he saw, where sea and sky joined, a black dot
that gradually lengthened out into a small plume. It was not
possible to recognize any ship at that distance, but he felt
instinctively that it was the Star of the West. He passed the
glasses to Arthur, who also took a look, and then drew a deep breath.
Harry handed the glasses back to Shepard, saying:

"I see the ship, and I've no doubt that it's the Star of the
West. Do you know anything about this vessel, Mr. Shepard?"

"I've heard that she's only a small steamer, totally unfitted
for offense or defense."

"If the batteries fire upon her she's bound to go back."

"You put it right."

"Then, in effect, this is a test, and it rests with us whether
or not to fire the first shot."

"I think you're right again."

Others also saw the growing black plume of smoke rising from the
steamer's funnel, and a deep thrilling murmur ran through the crowd
gathered on the sea walls. To many the vessel, steaming toward the
harbor, was foreign, carrying a foreign flag, but to many others it
was not and could never be so.

Shepard passed the glasses to the boy again, and he looked a
second time at the ship, which was now taking shape and rising fast
upon the water. Then he examined the walls of Sumter and saw men in
blue moving there. They, too, were watching the coming steamer with
the deepest anxiety.

Arthur took his second look also, and Shepard watched through
the glasses a little longer. Then he put them in the case which he
hung over his shoulder. Glasses were no longer needed. They could
now see with the naked eye what was about to happen--if anything
happened at all.

"It will soon be decided," said Shepard, and Harry noticed that
his voice trembled. "If the Star of the West comes without
interference up to the walls of Sumter there will be no war. The
minds of men on both sides will cool. But if she is stopped,
then--"

He broke off. Something seemed to choke in his throat. Harry
and Arthur remained silent.

The ship rose higher and higher. Behind her hung the long black
trail of her smoke. Soon, she would be in the range of the
batteries. A deep shuddering sigh ran through the crowd, and then
came moments of intense, painful silence. The little blue figures
lining the walls of Sumter were motionless. The sea moved slowly and
sleepily, its waters drenched in wintry sunshine.

On came the Star of the West, straight toward the harbor
mouth.

"They will not fire! They dare not!" cried Shepard in a tense,
strained whisper.

As the last word left his lips there was a heavy crash. A
tongue of fire leaped from one of the batteries, followed by a gush
of smoke, and a round shot whistled over the Star of the West. A
tremendous shout came from the crowd, then it was silent, while that
tongue of flame leaped a second time from the mouth of a cannon.
Harry saw the water spring up, a spire of white foam, near the
steamer, and a moment later a third shot clipped the water close by.
He did not know whether the gunners were firing directly at the
vessel or merely meant to warn her that she came nearer at her peril,
but in any event, the effect was the same. South Carolina with her
cannon was warning a foreign ship, the ship of an enemy, to keep
away.

The Star of the West slowed down and stopped. Then another
shout, more tremendous than ever, a shout of triumph, came from the
crowd, but Harry felt a chill strike to his heart. Young St. Clair,
too, was silent and Harry saw a shadow on his face. He looked for
Shepard, but he was gone and the boy had not heard him go.

"It is all over," said St. Clair, with the certainty of
prophecy. "The cannon have spoken and it is war. Why, where is
Shepard?"

"I don't know. He seems to have slipped away after the first
two or three shots."

"I suppose he considered the two or three enough. Look, Harry!
The ship is turning! The cannon have driven her off!"

He was right. The Star of the West, a small steamer, unable to
face heavy guns, had curved about and was making for the open sea.
There was another tremendous shout from the crowd, and then silence.
Smoke from the cannon drifted lazily over the town, and, caught by a
contrary breeze, was blown out over the sea in the track of the
retreating steamer, where it met the black trail left by that
vessel's own funnel. The crowd, not cheering much now, but talking in
rather subdued tones, dispersed.

Harry felt the chill down his spine again. These were great
matters. He had looked upon no light event in the harbor of
Charleston that day. He and Arthur lingered on the wall, watching
that trailing black dot on the horizon, until it died away and was
gone forever. The blue figures on the walls of Sumter had
disappeared within, and the fortress stood up, grim and silent.
Beyond lay the blue sea, shimmering and peaceful in the wintry
sunshine.

"I suppose there is nothing to do but go back to Madame
Delaunay's," said Harry.

"Nothing now," replied St. Clair, "but I fancy that later on
we'll have all we can do."

"If not more."

"Yes, if not more."

Both boys were very grave and thoughtful as they walked to
Madame Delaunay's most excellent inn. They realized that as yet
South Carolina stood alone, but in the evening their spirits took a
leap. News came that Mississippi also had gone out. Then other
planting states followed fast. Florida was but a day behind
Mississippi, Alabama went out the next day after Florida, Georgia
eight days later, and Louisiana a week after Georgia. Exultation
rose high in Charleston. All the Gulf and South Atlantic States were
now sure, but the great border states still hung fire. There was a
clamor for Virginia, Kentucky, Maryland and Missouri, and, though the
promises from them came thick and fast, they did not go out. But the
fiery energy of Charleston and the lower South was moving forward
over all obstacles. Already arrangements had been made for a great
convention at Montgomery in Alabama, and a new government would be
formed differing but little from that of the old Union.

Now Harry began to hear much of a man, of whom he had heard his
father speak, but who had slipped entirely from his mind. It was
Jefferson Davis, a native of Kentucky like Abraham Lincoln. He had
been a brave and gallant soldier at Buena Vista. It was said that he
had saved the day against the overwhelming odds of Santa Anna. He
had been Secretary of War in the old Union, now dissolved forever,
according to the Charleston talk. Other names, too, began to grow
familiar in Harry's ears. Much was said about the bluff Bob Toombs
of Georgia, who feared no man and who would call the roll of his
slaves at the foot of Bunker Hill monument. And there was little
weazened Stephens, also of Georgia, a great intellect in a shrunken
frame, and Benjamin of the oldest race, who had inherited the wisdom
of ages. There would be no lack of numbers and courage and
penetration when the great gathering met at Montgomery.

These were busy and on the whole happy days for Harry and St.
Clair. Harry drilled with his comrade in the Palmetto Guards now,
and, in due time, they were going to Montgomery to assist at the
inauguration of the new president, whoever he might be. No vessel
had come in place of the Star of the West. The North seemed supine,
and Sumter, grim and dark though she might be, was alone. The flag
of the Stars and Stripes still floated above it. Everywhere else the
Palmetto flag waved defiance. But there was still no passage of arms
between Sumter and its hostile neighbors. Small boats passed between
the fort and the city, carrying provisions to the garrison, and also
the news. The Charlestonians told Major Anderson of the states that
went out, one by one, and the brave Kentuckian, eating his heart out,
looked vainly toward the open sea for the help that never came.

Exultation still rose in Charleston. The ball was rolling
finely. It was even gathering more speed and force than the most
sanguine had expected. Every day brought the news of some new
accession to the cause, some new triumph. The Alabama militia had
seized the forts, Morgan and Gaines; Georgia had occupied Pulaski and
Jackson; North Carolina troops had taken possession of the arsenal at
Fayetteville, and those of Florida on the same day had taken the one
at Chattahoochee. Everywhere the South was accumulating arms,
ammunition and supplies for use--if they should be needed. The
leaders had good cause for rejoicing. They were disappointed in
nothing, save that northern tier of border states which still
hesitated or refused.

Harry in these days wondered that so little seemed to happen in
the North. His strong connections and his own good manners had made
him a favorite in Charleston. He went everywhere, perhaps most often
to the office of the Mercury, controlled by the powerful Rhett
family, among the most fiery of the Southern leaders. Exchanges
still came there from the northern cities, but he read little in them
about preparations for war. Many attacked Buchanan, the present
President, for weakness, and few expected anything better from the
uncouth western figure, Lincoln, who would soon succeed him.

Meanwhile the Confederate convention at Montgomery was acting.
In those days apathy and delay seemed to be characteristic of the
North, courage and energy of the South. The new government was being
formed with speed and decision. Jefferson Davis, it was said, would
be President, and Stephens of Georgia would be Vice-President.

The time for departure to Montgomery drew near. Harry and
Arthur were in fine gray uniforms as members of the Palmetto Guards.
Arthur, light, volatile, was full of pleased excitement. Harry also
felt the thrill of curiosity and anticipation, but he had been in
Charleston nearly six weeks now, and while six weeks are short, they
had been long enough in such a tense time to make vital changes in
his character. He was growing older fast. He was more of a man, and
he weighed and measured things more. He recognized that Charleston,
while the second city of the South in size and the first in
leadership, was only Charleston, after all, far inferior in weight
and numbers to the great cities of the North. Often he looked toward
the North over the vast, intervening space and tried to reckon what
forces lay there.

The evening before their departure they sat on the wide piazza
that swept along the entire front of the inn of Madame Delaunay.
Colonel Leonidas Talbot and Major Hector St. Hilaire sat with them.
They, too, were going to Montgomery. Mid-February had passed, and
the day had been one of unusual warmth for that time of the year,
like a day in full spring. The wind from the south was keen with the
odor of fresh foliage and of roses, and of faint far perfumes,
unknown but thrilling. A sky of molten silver clothed city, bay, and
forts in enchantment. Nothing seemed further away than war, yet they
had to walk but a little distance to see the defiant flag over
Sumter, and the hostile Palmetto flags waving not far away.

Madame Delaunay appeared in the doorway. She was dressed as
usual in white and her shining black hair was bound with the slender
gold fillet.

"We are going away tomorrow, Madame," said Colonel Talbot, "and
I know that we cannot find in Montgomery any such pleasant
entertainment as my young friends have enjoyed here."

Harry was confirmed in his belief that the thread of an old
romance still formed a firm tie between them.

"But you will come back," said Madame Delaunay. "You will come
back very soon. Surely, they will not try to keep us from going our
ways in peace."

A sudden thrill of passion and feeling had appeared in her
voice.

"That no one can tell, Julie," said Colonel Talbot very
gravely--it was the first time that Harry had ever heard him call her
by her first name--"but it seems to me that I should tell what I
think. A Union such as ours has been formed amid so much suffering
and hardship, courage and danger, that it is not to be broken in a
day. We may come back soon from Montgomery, Julie, but I see war, a
great and terrible war, a war, by the side of which those we have
had, will dwindle to mere skirmishes. I shut my eyes, but it makes no
difference. I see it close at hand, just the same."

Madame Delaunay sighed.

"And you, Major St. Hilaire?" she said.

"There may be a great war, Madame Delaunay," he said, "I fear
that Colonel Talbot is right, but we shall win it."

Colonel Talbot said nothing more, nor did Madame Delaunay.
Presently she went back into the house. After a long silence the
colonel said:

"If I were not sure that our friend Shepard had left Charleston
long since, I should say that the figure now passing in the street is
his."

A small lawn filled with shrubbery stretched before the house,
but from the piazza they could see into the street. Harry, too,
caught a glimpse of a passing figure, and like the colonel he was
sure that it was Shepard.

"It is certainly he!" he exclaimed.

"After him!" cried Colonel Talbot, instantly all action. "As
sure as we live that man is a spy, drawing maps of our
fortifications, and I should have warned the Government before."

The four sprang from the piazza and ran into the street. Harry,
although he had originally felt no desire to seize Shepard, was
carried along by the impetus. It was the first man-hunt in which he
had ever shared, and soon he caught the thrill from the others. The
colonel, no doubt, was right. Shepard was a spy and should be taken.
He ran as fast as any of them.

Shepard, if Shepard it was, heard the swift footsteps behind
him, glanced back and then ran.

"After him!" cried Major St. Hilaire, his volatile blood leaping
high. "His flight shows that he's a spy!"

But the fugitive was a man of strength and resource. He ran
swiftly into a cross street, and when they followed him there he
leaped over the low fence of a lawn, surrounding a great house,
darted into the shrubbery, and the four, although they were joined by
others, brought by the alarm, sought for him in vain.

"After all, I'm not sorry he got away," said Colonel Talbot, as
they walked back to Madame Delaunay's. "There is no war, and hence,
in a military sense, there can be no spies. I doubt whether we
should have known what to do with him had we caught him, but I am
certain that he has complete maps of all our defenses."

Harry, with Arthur and many others whom he knew, started the
next day for Montgomery. Jefferson Davis had already been chosen
President, and Alexander H. Stephens Vice-President, and Davis was on
his way from his Mississippi home to the same town to be inaugurated.
In the excitement over the great event, so near at hand, Harry
forgot all about Shepard and his doubts. He bade a regretful
farewell to Charleston, which had taken him to its heart, and turned
his face to this new place, much smaller, and, as yet, without
fame.

Harry, Arthur, and their older friends began the momentous
journey across the land of King Cotton, passing through the very
heart of the lower South, as they went from Charleston to Montgomery.
Davis and Stephens would be inaugurated on the 17th of that month,
which was February. But the Palmetto Guards would arrive at
Montgomery before Davis himself, who had left his home and who would
cross Mississippi, Alabama, and a corner of Georgia before he reached
the new capital to receive the chief honor.

Trains were slow and halting, and Harry had ample opportunity to
see the land and the people who crowded to the stations to bring news
or to hear it. He crossed a low, rolling country with many rivers,
great and small. He saw large houses, with white-pillared porticos,
sitting back among the trees, and swarms of negro cabins. Much of
the region was yet dead and brown from the touch of winter, but in
the valleys the green was appearing. Spring was in the air, and the
spirits of the Palmetto Guards, nearly all of whom were very young,
were rising with it.

The train drew into Montgomery, the little city that stood on
the high banks of the Alabama River. Here they were in the very
heart of the new Confederacy, and Harry and Arthur were eager to see
the many famous Southern men who were gathered there to welcome the
new President. Jefferson Davis was expected on the morrow, and would
be inaugurated on the day following. They heard that his coming was
already a triumphal progress. Vast crowds held his train at many
points, merely to see him and listen to a few words. Generally he
spoke in the careful, measured manner that was natural to him, but it
was said that in Opelika, in Alabama, he had delivered a warning to
the North, telling the Northern states that they would interfere with
the Southern at their peril.

Harry and Arthur, despite their eagerness to see the town and
the great men, were compelled to wait. The Palmetto Guards went into
camp on the outskirts, and their commander, Colonel Leonidas Talbot,
late of the United States Army, was very strict in discipline. His
second in command, Major Hector St. Hilaire, was no whit inferior to
him in sternness. Harry had expected that this old descendant of
Huguenots, reared in the soft air of Charleston, would be lax, or at
least easy of temper, but whatever of military rigor Colonel Talbot
forgot, Major St. Hilaire remembered.

The guards were about three hundred in number, and their camp
was pitched on a hill, a half mile from the town. The night, after a
beautiful day, turned raw and chill, warning that early spring, even
in those southern latitudes, was more of a promise than a
performance. But the young troops built several great fires and those
who were not on guard basked before the glow.

Harry had helped to gather the wood, most of which was furnished
by the people living near, and his task was ended. Now he sat on his
blanket with his back against a log and, with a great feeling of
comfort, saw the flames leap up and grow. The cooks were at work,
and there was an abundance of food. They had brought much
themselves, and the enthusiastic neighbors doubled and tripled their
supplies. The pleasant aroma of bacon and ham frying over the coals
and of boiling coffee arose. He was weary from the long journey and
the work that he had done, and he was hungry, too, but he was willing
to wait.

All the troops were South Carolinians except Harry and perhaps a
dozen others. They were a pleasant lot, quick of temper, perhaps,
but he liked them. Their prevailing note was high spirits, and the
most cheerful of all was a tall youth named Tom Langdon, whose father
owned one of the smaller of the sea islands off the South Carolina
coast. He was quite sanguine that everything would go exactly as they
wished. The Yankees would not fight, but, if by any chance they did
fight, they would get a most terrible thrashing. Tom, with a tin cup
full of coffee in one hand and a tin plate containing ham and bread
in the other, sat down by the side of Harry and leaned back against
the log also. Harry had never seen a picture of more supreme content
than his face showed.

"In thirty-six hours we'll have a new President, do you
appreciate that fact, Harry Kenton?" asked young Langdon.

"I do," replied Harry, "and it makes me think pretty hard."

"What's the use of worrying? Why, it's just the biggest picnic
that I ever took part in, and if the Yankees object to our setting up
for ourselves I fancy we'll have to go up there and teach 'em to mind
their own business. I wouldn't object, Harry, to a march at somebody
else's expense to New York and Philadelphia and Boston. I suppose
those cities are worth seeing."

Harry laughed. Langdon's good spirits were contagious even to a
nature much more serious.

"I don't look on it as a picnic altogether," he said. "The
Yankees will fight very hard, but we live on the land almost wholly,
and the grass keeps on growing, whether there's war or not. Besides,
we're an outdoor people, good horsemen, hunters, and marksmen. These
things ought to help us."

"They will and we'll help ourselves most," said Langdon gaily.
"I'm going to be either a general or a great politician, Harry. If
it's a long war, I'll come out a general; if it's a short one, I mean
to enter public life afterward and be a great orator. Did you ever
hear me speak, Harry?"

"No, thank Heaven," replied Harry fervently. "Don't you think
that South Carolina has enough orators now? What on earth do all
your people find to talk about?"

Langdon laughed with the utmost good nature.

"We fire the human heart," he replied. "'Words, words, empty
words,' it is not so. Words in themselves are often deeds, because
the deeds start from them or are caused by them. The world has been
run with words. All great actions result from them. Now, if we
should have a big war, it would be said long afterward that it was
caused by words, words spoken at Charleston and Boston, though, of
course, the things they say at Boston are wrong, while those said at
Charleston are right."

Harry laughed in his turn.

"It's quite certain," he said, "that you'll have no lack of
words yourself. I imagine that the sign over your future office will
read, 'Thomas Langdon, wholesale dealer in words. Any amount of any
quality supplied on demand.'"

"Not a bad idea," said Langdon. "You mean that as satire, but
I'll do it. It's no small accomplishment to be a good dictionary.
But my thoughts turn back to war. You think I never look beyond
today, but I believe the North will come up against us. And you'll
have to go into it with all your might, Harry. You are of fighting
stock. Your father was in the thick of it in Mexico. Remember the
lines:

"We were not many, we who stood Before
the iron sleet that day; Yet many a gallant spirit would
Give half his years if he but could Have been
with us at Monterey." "I remember them," said Harry, much stirred.
"I have heard my father quote them. He was at Monterey and he says
that the Mexicans fought well. I was at Frankfort, the capital of
our state, myself with him, when they unveiled the monument to our
Kentucky dead and I heard them read O'Hara's poem which he wrote for
that day. I tell you, Langdon, it makes my blood jump every time I
hear it."

He recited in a sort of low chant:

"The neighing troop, the flashing blade,
The bugle's stirring blast, The charge, the dreadful
cannonade, The din and shout are past. "Nor
war's wild note, nor glory's peal Shall fill with
fierce delight Those breasts that never more may feel
The rapture of the fight." They were very young and, in
some respects, it was a sentimental time, much given to poetry. As
the darkness closed in and the lights of the little city could be
seen no longer, their thoughts took a more solemn turn. Perhaps it
would be fairer to call them emotions or feelings rather than
thoughts. In the day all had been talk and lightness, but in the
night omens and presages came. Langdon was the first to rouse
himself. He could not be solemn longer than three minutes.

"It's certain that the President is coming tomorrow, Harry,
isn't it?" he asked.

"Beyond a doubt. He is so near now that they fix the exact
hour, and the Guards are among those to receive him."

"I wonder what he looks like. They say he is a very great
man."

They were interrupted by St. Clair, who threw himself down on a
blanket beside them.

"That's the third cup of coffee you're taking, Tom," he said to
Langdon. "Here, give it to me. I've had none."

Langdon obeyed and St. Clair drank thirstily. Then he took from
the inside pocket of his coat a newspaper which he unfolded
deliberately.

"This came from Montgomery," he said. "I heard you two quoting
poetry, and I thought I'd come over and read some to you. What do
you think of this? It was written by a fellow in Boston named Holmes
and published when he heard that South Carolina had seceded. He
calls it: 'Brother Jonathan's Lament for Sister Caroline.'"

"Read it!" exclaimed the others.

"Here goes:

"She has gone--she has left us in passion and pride,
Our stormy-browed sister so long at our side! She has torn her
own star from our firmament's glow, And turned on her brother
the face of a foe. "O Caroline, Caroline, child of the sun,
We can never forget that our hearts have been one, Our foreheads
both sprinkled in Liberty's name From the fountain of blood with
the fingers of flame." St. Clair read well in a full, round voice,
and when he stopped with the second verse Harry said:

"It sounds well. I like particularly that expression, 'the
fingers of flame.' After all, there's some grief in parting company,
breaking up the family, so to speak."

"But he's wrong when he says we left in passion and pride,"
exclaimed Langdon. "In pride, yes, but not in passion. We may be
children of the sun, too, but I've felt some mighty cold winds
sweeping down from the Carolina hills, cold enough to make fur-lined
overcoats welcome. But we'll forget about cold winds and everything
else unpleasant, before such a jolly fire as this."

They finished an abundant supper, and soon relapsed into
silence. The flames threw out such a generous heat that they were
content to rest their backs against the log, and gaze sleepily into
the coals. Beyond the fire, in the shadow, they saw the sentinels
walking up and down. Harry felt for the first time that he was really
within the iron bands of military discipline. He might choose to
leave the camp and go into Montgomery, but he would choose and
nothing more. He could not go. Colonel Leonidas Talbot and Major
Hector St. Hilaire were friends, but they were masters also, and he
was recognizing sooner than some of the youths around him that it was
not merely play and spectacle that awaited them.