The Tree of Appomattox, Joseph A. Altsheler [best e reader for manga txt] 📗

Before the day was over Dick learned all that had occurred inside that unpretentious but celebrated farm house. The two great commanders, at first did not allude to the civil war, but spoke of the old war in Mexico, where Lee, the elder, had been General Winfield Scott's chief of staff, and the head of his engineer corps, with Grant, the younger, as a lieutenant and quartermaster. It never entered the wildest dreams of either then that they should lead the armies of a divided nation engaged in mortal combat. Now they had only pleasant recollections of each other, and they talked of the old days, of Contreras, Molino del Rey, and other battles in the Valley of Mexico.

They sat down at a plain table, and then came in the straightforward manner characteristic of both to the great business in hand. Colonel Marshall supplied the paper for the historic documents now about to be written and signed.

General Grant, humane, and never greater or more humane than in the hour of victory, made the terms easy. All the officers of the Army of Northern Virginia were to give their parole not to take up arms against the United States, until properly exchanged, and the company or regimental commanders were to sign a like parole for their men. The artillery, other arms and public property were to be turned over to the Union army, although the officers were permitted to retain their side arms and their own horses and baggage. Then officers and men alike could go to their homes.

It was truly the supreme moment of Grant's greatness, of a humanity and greatness of soul the value of which to his nation can never be overestimated. Surrenders in Europe at the end of a civil war had always been followed by confiscations, executions and a reign of terror for the beaten. Here the man who had compelled the surrender merely told the defeated to go to their homes.

Lee looked at the terms and said:

"Many of the artillerymen and cavalrymen in our army own their horses, will the provisions allowing the officers to retain their horses apply to them also?"

"No, it will not as it is written," replied Grant, "but as I think this will be the last battle of the war, and as I suppose most of the men in the ranks are small farmers who without their horses would find it difficult to put in their crops, the country having been swept of everything movable, and as the United States does not want them, I will instruct the officers who are to receive the paroles of your troops to let every man who claims to own a horse or mule take the animal to his home."

"It will have a pleasant effect," said Lee, and then he wrote a formal letter accepting the capitulations. The two generals, rising, bowed to each other, but as Lee turned away he said that his men had eaten no food for several days, except parched corn, and he would have to ask that rations, and forage for their horses, be given to them.

"Certainly, general," replied Grant. "For how many men do you need them?"

"About twenty-five thousand," was Lee's reply.

Then General Grant requested him to send his own officers to Appomattox Station for the food and forage. Lee thanked him. They bowed to each other again, and the Southern leader who no longer had an army, but who retained always the love and veneration of the South, left the McLean house. Thus and in this simple fashion—the small detached fighting elsewhere did not count—did the great civil war in America, which had cost six or seven hundred thousand lives, and the temporary ruin of one section, come to an end.

Dick saw Lee come out of the house, mount Traveler and, followed by Colonel Marshall, ride back toward his own men who already had divined the occurrences in the house. The army saluted him with undivided affection, the troops crowding around him, cheering him, and, whenever they had a chance, shaking his hand. The demonstration became so great that Lee was moved deeply and showed it. The water rose in his eyes and his voice trembled as he said, though with pride:

"My lads, we have fought through the war together. I have done the best I could for you. My heart is too full to say more."

He could not be induced to speak further, although the great demonstration continued, but rode in silence to his headquarters in a wood, where he entered his tent and sat alone, no one ever knowing what his thoughts were in that hour.

Twenty-six thousand men who were left of the Army of Northern Virginia surrendered the next day, and the blue and the gray fraternized. The Union soldiers did not wait for the rations ordered by Grant, but gave of their own to the starved men who were so lately their foes. Dick and his friends hastened at once to find Harry Kenton and his comrades, and presently they saw them all sitting together on a log, thin and pale, but with no abatement of pride. Harry rose nevertheless, and received his cousin joyfully.

"Dick," he said as their hands met, "the war is over, and over forever. But you and I were never enemies."

"That's so, Harry," said Dick Mason, "and the thing for us to do now is to go back to Kentucky, and begin life where we left it off."

"But you don't start this minute," said Warner. "There is a small matter of business to be transacted first. We know all of you, but just the same we've brought our visiting cards with us."

"I don't understand," said Harry.

"We'll show you. Frank Pennington, remove that large protuberance from beneath your blouse. Behold it! A small ham, my friends, and it's for you. That's Frank's card. And here I take from my own blouse the half of a cheese, which I beg you to accept with my compliments. Dick, you rascal, what's that you have under your arm?"

"It's a jar of prime bacon that I've brought along for the party, George."

"I thought so. We're going to have the pleasure of dining with our friends here. We've heard, Captain Kenton, that you people haven't eaten anything for a month."

"It's not that bad," laughed Harry. "We had parched corn yesterday."

"Well, parched corn is none too filling, and we're going to prepare the banquet at once. A certain Sergeant Whitley will arrive presently with a basket of food, such as you rebels haven't tasted since you raided our wagon trains at the Second Manassas, and with him will come one William Shepard, whom you have met often, Mr. Kenton."

"Yes," said Harry, "we've met often and under varying circumstances, but we're going to be friends now."

"Will you tell me, Captain St. Clair," said Dick, "what has become of the two colonels of your regiment, which I believe you call the Invincibles?"

St. Clair led them silently to a little wood, and there, sitting on logs, Colonel Leonidas Talbot and Lieutenant Colonel Hector St. Hilaire were bent intently over the chess board that lay between them.

"Now that the war is over we'll have a chance to finish our game, eh, Hector?" said Colonel Talbot.

"A just observation, Leonidas. It's a difficult task to pursue a game to a perfect conclusion amid the distractions of war, but soon I shall checkmate you in the brilliant fashion in which General Lee always snares and destroys his enemy."

"But General Lee has yielded, Hector."

"Pshaw, Leonidas! General Lee would never yield to anybody. He has merely quit!"

"Ahem!" said Harry loudly, and, as the colonels glanced up, they saw the little group looking down at them.

"Our friends, the enemy, have come to pay you their respects," said Harry.

The two colonels rose and bowed profoundly.

"And to invite you to a banquet that is now being prepared not far from here," continued Harry. "It's very tempting, ham, cheese, and other solids, surrounded by many delicacies."

The two colonels looked at each other, and then nodded approval.

"You are to be the personal guests of our army," said Dick, "and we act as the proxies of General Grant."

"I shall always speak most highly of General Grant," said Colonel Leonidas Talbot. "His conduct has been marked by the greatest humanity, and is a credit to our common country, which has been reunited so suddenly."

"But reunited with our consent, Leonidas," said Lieutenant Colonel St. Hilaire. "Don't forget that I, for one, am tired of this war, and so is our whole army. It was a perfect waste of life to prolong it, and with the North reannexed, the Union will soon be stronger and more prosperous than ever."

"Well spoken, Hector! Well spoken. It is perhaps better that North and South should remain together. I thought otherwise for four years, but now I seem to have another point of view. Come, lads, we shall dine with these good Yankee boys and we'll make them drink toasts of their own excellent coffee to the health and safety of our common country."

The group returned to a little hollow, in which Sergeant Whitley and Shepard had built a fire, and where they were already frying strips of bacon and slices of ham over the coals. Shepard and Harry shook hands.

"I may as well tell you now, Mr. Kenton," said Shepard, "that Miss Henrietta Carden, whom you met in Richmond, is my sister, and that it was she who hid in the court at the Curtis house and took the map. Then it was I who gave you the blow."

"It was done in war," said Harry, "and I have no right to complain. It was clever and I hope that I shall be able to give your sister my compliments some day. Now, if you don't mind, I'll take a strip of that wonderful bacon. It is bacon, isn't it? It's so long since I've seen any that I'm not sure of its identity, but whatever it is its odor is enticing."

"Bacon it surely is, Mr. Kenton. Here are three pieces that I broiled myself and a broad slice of bread for them. Go ahead, there's plenty more. And see this dark brown liquid foaming in this stout tin pot! Smell it! Isn't it wonderful! Well, that's coffee! You've heard of coffee, and maybe you remember it."

"I do remember tasting it some years ago and finding it good. I'd like to try it again. Yes, thank you. It's fine."

"Here's another cup, and try the ham also."

Harry tried it, not once but several times. Langdon sat on the ground before the fire, and his delight was unalloyed and unashamed.

"We have raided a Yankee wagon train again," he said, "and the looting is splendid. Arthur, I thought yesterday that I should never eat again. Food and I were such strangers that I believed we should never know each other, any more, or if knowing, we could never assimilate. And yet we seem to get on good terms at once."

While they talked a tall thin youth of clear dark complexion, carrying a long bundle under his arm, approached the fire and Lieutenant Colonel St. Hilaire welcomed him with joy.

"Julien! Julien de Langeais, my young relative!" he cried. "And you are indeed alive! I thought you lost!"

"I'm very much alive, sir," said young De Langeais, "but I'm starved."

"Then this is the place to come," said Dick, putting before him food, which he strove to eat slowly, although the effort at restraint was manifestly great. Lieutenant Colonel St. Hilaire introduced him to the Union men, and then asked him what was the long black bag that he carried under his arm.

"That, sir," replied De Langeais, smiling pathetically, "is my violin. I've no further use for my rifle and sword, but now that peace is coming I may be able to earn my bread with the fiddle."

"And so you will! You'll become one of the world's great musicians. And as soon as we've finished with General Grant's hospitality, which will be some time yet, you shall play for us."

De Langeais looked affectionately at the black bag.

"You're very good to me, sir," he said, "to encourage me at such a time, and, if you and the others care for me to play, I'll do my best."

"Paganini himself could do no more, but, for the present, we must pay due attention to the hospitality of General Grant. He would not like it, if