The Project Gutenberg EBook of Shoulder-Straps, by Henry Morford This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: Shoulder-Straps A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 Author: Henry Morford Release Date: August 3, 2009 [EBook #29583] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SHOULDER-STRAPS *** Produced by David Edwards, Graeme Mackreth and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) SHOULDER-STRAPS By Henry Morford T.B. PETERSON & BROS. PHILADELPHIA. SHOULDER-STRAPS. A NOVEL OF NEW YORK AND THE ARMY, 1862. By HENRY MORFORD. PHILADELPHIA: T.B. PETERSON & BROTHERS, 306 CHESTNUT STREET. Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1863, by T.B. PETERSON & BROTHERS, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, in and for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. TO DR. R. SHELTON MACKENZIE, WHO HAS ALREADY RECEIVED SO MANY DEDICATIONS, THAT THEY HAVE BECOME AN OLD, OLD STORY,— THIS VOLUME IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED BY HIS GRATEFUL FRIEND AND CO-LABORER, THE AUTHOR. New York City, July, 1863. PREFACE. Several months have necessarily elapsed since the commencement of this narration. Within that time many and rapid changes have occurred, both in national situation and in private character. As a consequence, there may be several words, in earlier portions of the story, that would not have been written a few months later. The writer has preferred not to make any changes in original expression, but to set down, instead, in references, the dates at which certain portions of the work were written. In one instance important assistance has been derived from a writer of ability and much military experience; and that assistance is thankfully acknowledged in a foot-note to one of the appropriate chapters. Some readers may be disappointed not to find a work more extensively military, under such a title and at this time; but the aim of the writer, while giving glances at one or two of our most important battles, has been chiefly to present a faithful picture of certain relations in life and society which have grown out, as side-issues, from the great struggle. At another time and under different circumstances, the writer might feel disposed to apologize for the great liberty of episode and digression, taken with the story; but in the days of Victor Hugo and Charles Reade, and at a time when the text of the preacher in his pulpit, and the title of a bill in a legislative body, are alike made the threads upon which to string the whole knowledge of the speaker upon every subject,—such an apology can scarcely be necessary. It should be said, in deference to a few retentive memories, that two chapters of this story, now embraced in the body of the work, were originally written for and published in the Continental Monthly, last fall, the publication of the whole work through that medium, at first designed, being prevented by a change of management and a contract mutually broken. New York City, July, 1863. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. Two Friends—Walter Lane Harding and Tom Leslie—Merchant and Journalist—A Torn Dress and a Stalwart Champion—Tom Leslie's Story of Dexter Ralston—Three Meetings—An Incident on the Potomac—The Inauguration of Lincoln—A Warning of the Virginia Secession—Governmental Blindness—Friend or Foe to the Union? CHAPTER II. Richard Crawford and Josephine Harris—The Invalid and the Wild Madonna—An Odd Female Character and a Temptation—Discouragement and Consolation—Miss Joe Harris on the Character of Colonel Egbert Crawford—A Suggestion of Hatred and Murder—A New Agony for the Invalid—A Lady with an Attachment to Cerise Ribbon. CHAPTER III. A Scene at Judge Owen's—Mother and Daughter—Pretty Emily with One Lover Too Many—Emily's Determination, and Judge Owen's Ultimatum—A Pompous Judge playing Grand Signeur in his own Family—Aunt Martha to the Rescue—Her Story of Marriage without Love, Wedded Misery and Outrage—How Old is Colonel John Boadley Bancker, and what is the Character of Frank Wallace? CHAPTER IV. Harding and Leslie make Discoveries on Prince Street—Secesh Flags and Emblems of the Golden Circle—What do they mean?—Tom Leslie takes a Climb and a Tumble—The Red Woman—A Carriage Chase Up-town—A Mysterious House—Amateur Detectives under a Door-step, and what they saw and heard. CHAPTER V. Who was the Red Woman?—Tom Leslie's Strange Story of Parisian Life and Fortune-telling—The 20th of December, 1860—An Hour in the Rue la Reynie Ogniard—The Vision of the White Mist—The Secession of South Carolina seen across the Atlantic—Was the Sorceress in America? CHAPTER VI. Colonel Egbert Crawford and Miss Bell Crawford—Miss Harris entering upon the Spy-System—Some Dissertations thereon, as practised in the Army and Elsewhere—What McDowell knew before Bull Run—Colonel Crawford's Affectionate Care of his Sick Cousin—Josephine Harris behind a Glass Door—What she overheard about Cousin Mary and the Rich Uncle at West Falls—Colonel Crawford trying his Hand at Doctoring—A Suspicious Bandage, and what the Watcher thought of it CHAPTER VII. Introduction of the Contraband—What He Was and What He Is—Three Months Earlier—Colonel Egbert Crawford in Thomas Street—Aunt Synchy, the Obi Woman—How a Man who is only half evil can be tempted to murder—The Black Paste of the Obi Poison CHAPTER VIII. Colonel John Boadley Bancker and Frank Wallace at Judge Owen's—A Pouting Lover and a Satisfied Rival—The Philosophy of Male and Female Jealousy—Frank Wallace doing the Insulting—A Bit of a Row—A Smash-up in the Streets, and a True Test of Relative Courage CHAPTER IX. The First Week of July—News of the Reverses before Richmond—Painful Feeling of the Whole Country—How a Nation weeps Tears of Blood—The Estimation of McClellan—The Curse of Absenteeism—Public Abhorrence of the Shoulder-strapped Heroes on Broadway—A Scene at the World Corner, and a Hero in Disguise CHAPTER X. Leslie and Harding following up the Prince-Street Mystery—A Call upon Superintendent Kennedy—How Tom Leslie wished to play Detective—A Bit of a Rebuff—A Massachusetts Regiment going to the War—Miss Joe Harris and Bell Crawford in a Street Difficulty—A Rescue and a Recognition—A Trip into Taylor's Saloon CHAPTER XI. The True Characters of Men and of Houses—Fifth Avenue and the Swamp—Gilded Vice, and Vice without Ornament —The Progress of Temptation—The Legends of the Lurline and the Frozen Hand—Dangers of Fashionable Restaurants—Scenes at Taylor's Saloon—Tom Leslie, Joe Harris and Bell Crawford at Lunch—The Fortune-teller selected by Miss Harris for a Visit—Wanted, a Knight for Two Distressed Damsels—Tom Leslie enlists, and goes after his Armor CHAPTER XII. A Glance at Fortune-telling and other Delusions—Our Domestic and Personal Superstitions—Omens and their Origin —The Witch of Endor, Hamlet and Macbeth—One Strange Illustration of Prophecy in Dreams—The Fortune-tellers of New York, Boston and Washington CHAPTER XIII. Ten Minutes at a Costumer's—Among the Robes of Queens and the Rags of Beggars—How Tom Leslie suddenly grew to Sixty, and changed Clothes accordingly—Josephine Harris and Bell Crawford still at Lunch, with a Dissertation upon One Pair of Eyes—An Unwarrantable Intrusion, and a Decided Sensation at Taylor's CHAPTER XIV. Necromancy in a Thunder-storm—How Tom Leslie and his Female Companions called upon Madame Elise Boutell, from Paris, in Prince Street—A New Way of Gambling for Precedence—Bell Crawford takes her Turn—A very improper Joining of Hands in the Outer Apartment—About Chances, Accidents and Little Things—The Change in Bell Crawford's Eyes—Eyes that have looked within—Two Pictures in the Old Dusseldorf Gallery—Joe Harris Undergoing the Ordeal—A Thunder-clap and a Shriek of Terror—What Tom Leslie saw in the Apartment of the Red Woman—A Mask removed, and one more Temptation CHAPTER XV. Camp Lyon, and Colonel Egbert Crawford's Two Hundredth Regiment—Recruiting Discipline in the Summer of 1862 —What Smith and Brown saw—Lager-beer, Cards and the Dice-box—An Adjutant who obeys Orders—A Dress Parade a la mode—How Seven Hundred Men may be squeezed into Three CHAPTER XVI. A Few Words on the Two Modern Modes of writing Romances—How to tell what is not known and can never be known—The Bound of a Loyal Pen—More of the Up-town Mystery—How the Reliable Detectives posted a Watch, and how they kept it—Cold Water dampening Enthusiasm—An Escape, and the Post mortem hold on a Vacant House —Trails left by the Secession Serpent CHAPTER XVII. Pictures at the Seat of War—Looking for John Crawford the Zouave—Hopeful and Discouraged Letters Home— Events which had preceded Malvern Hill—An Army winning Victories in Retreat—The Morning after White-Oak Swamp—How the Sun shines on Fields of Carnage—Appearance of the Retreating Army—The Camp of Fitz-John Porter's Division—The Soldiers of Home, and the Soldiers of the Field—The First Rebel Attack at the Cross Roads— Why the Potomac Army was not demoralized—The Repulse, and the Pause before the Heavier Storm CHAPTER XVIII. More of the First Battle of Malvern—A Word about Skulkers—An Attempt to flank the Union Forces—A Storm of Lead and Iron rivalling the War of the Elements—The Rebels Repulsed—The Attack on the Main Position, and the Second Battle of Malvern—The most Terrible Artillery Duel of the Century—Patriotism against Gunpowdered Whiskey—Shells from the Gun-boats, and their Effect—The Dead upon Carter's Field—The Last Repulse of the Rebels, and the General Advance of the Union Forces—Strange Incidents of the Close of the Battle—Odd Bravery in Meagher's Brigade—The Apparition in White, and its Effect—Close of the Great Battle CHAPTER XIX. John Crawford the Zouave, and Bob Webster—Incidents of the Charge of Duryea's Zouaves—Bush-fighting and its Result—A Wound not bargained for—The Burning House and its Two Watchers—A Strange Death-scene—Marion Hobart and her Dying Grandfather—Death under the Old Flag—An Oath of Protection—A Furlough—John Crawford brings his Newly-acquired Family to New York CHAPTER XX. Judge Owen's Condemnation of the Rioters at his House—How Frank Wallace was exiled, and what came of it—The Burly Judge making a Household Arrest at Wallack's—Emily Owen and Joe Harris—A Recognition which may cause Further Trouble CHAPTER XXI. Another Scene at Richard Crawford's—Josephine Harris playing the Detective, with Musical Accompaniments—A Sudden Demand for Dark Paste, with Difficulty in supplying it—A Young Girl who wished to be believed a Coward— Ever of Thee, with some Feelings thereunto attached—Josephine Harris pays a Visit to Doctor LaTurque—Her Discoveries with reference to the Obi Poison CHAPTER XXII. A Little Arrangement between Tom Leslie and Joe Harris—Going to West Falls and Niagara—A Detention and a Night Scene on the Hudson-River Road—Why Joe Harris hid her Saucy Face—Oneida Scenery—Aunt Betsey, Little Susy, and a Peep at the Halstead Homestead, with Pigs, Chickens and Cherries CHAPTER XXIII. Josephine Harris in quest of Information—The Big House on the Hill—Extracting the Secrets of the Crawford Family— How a Big Fib may sometimes be told for a Good Purpose—Aunt Betsey made an Accomplice—Mary Crawford, the Country Girl, and a Terrible Revelation—A Bold Letter to a Bold Man CHAPTER XXIV. The Piazza of the Big House on the Hill—John Crawford the Human Wreck, and Egbert Crawford on the Eve of Marriage—Chanticleer on the Garden Fence, with Remembrances of Peter and Judas Iscariot—John Crawford instructs his Expectant Son-in-law—Arrival of the Domestic Post, with a Letter of Import—A Hit or a Miss?—Strida la Vampa CHAPTER XXV. Affairs in the Crawford Family in New York—The Two Brothers together—Marion Hobart the Enigma—How Richard Crawford thought that he was not able to ride to the Central Park, and found that he could ride to Niagara CHAPTER XXVI. Tom Leslie at Niagara—A Dash at Scenery there—What he saw with his Natural Eyes, and what with his Inner Consciousness—The Wreck and the Rainbow—Another Rencontre with Dexter Ralston—The Eclipse on the Falls— Leslie under the impression that he can be discounted, and that he knows little or nothing on any subject CHAPTER XXVII. Society and Shoulder-Straps at the Falls—The Delights and Duties of a Journalist—Leslie and Harding Exploring Canada—How one Fine Morning War was declared between England and the United States, and Canada annexed to New York—A Meeting at the Cataract—Another Rencontre with the Strange Virginian—An Abduction and a Pursuit CHAPTER XXVIII. The Sequel at West Falls—How Colonel Egbert Crawford was supposed to have been telegraphed for from Albany— Mary Crawford once more at the Halstead's—The Final Instructions and Promises of the Chief Conspirator—Joe Harris returns to the Great City, and her Disappointment therein—Another Conspiracy hatched, threatening to blow Judge Owen's Domestic Tranquillity to Atoms CHAPTER XXIX. Some Speculations on Moonlight and Insanity—Captain Robert Slivers, of the Sickles Brigade, makes his Appearance at Judge Owen's—He draws Graphic Pictures of the War, for the Edification of Colonel Bancker—A Controversy, with further inquiries as to the Age of the Colonel—The Market brisk for Hirsute Excrescences on the Cranium, and no Supply—Judge Owen laughs ponderously CHAPTER XXX. Gathering the Ravelled Threads of a Long Story—What befel Several Persons heretofore named—Marriages in Demand, and only a few furnished—A Raid into Canada—What befell Colonel Egbert Crawford and the Two Hundredth Regiment—A Cavalry Charge at Antietam, and a Farewell SHOULDER-STRAPS. CHAPTER I. Two Friends—A Rencontre before Niblo's—Three Meetings with a Man of Mark—Mount Vernon and the Inauguration—Friend or Foe to the Union? Just before the close of the performances at Niblo's Garden, where the Jarrett combination was then playing, one evening in the latter part of June, 1862, two young men came out from the doorway of the theatre and took their course up Broadway toward the Houston Street corner. Any observer who might have caught a clear view of the faces of the two as they passed under one of the large lamps at the door, would have noted each as being worth a second glance, but would at the same time have observed that two persons more dissimilar in appearance and in indication of character, could scarcely have been selected out of all the varied thousands resident in the great city. The one walking on the inside as they passed on, with the right hand of his companion laid on his left arm in that confidential manner so common with intimate friends who wish to walk together in the evening without being jostled apart by hurried chance passengers, was somewhat tall in figure, dark-haired, dark side-whiskered, and sober-faced, though decidedly fine-looking; and in spite of the heat of the weather he preserved the appearance of winter dress clothing by a full suit of dark gray summer stuff that might well have been mistaken for broadcloth. Not even in hat or boots did he make any apparent concession to the season, for his glossy round hat would have been quite as much in place in January as in June, and his well-fitting and glossy patent-leather boots would have been thought oppressively warm by a hotter-blooded and more plethoric man. Those who should have seen the baptismal register recording his birth some five-and-thirty years before, would have known his name to be Walter Lane Harding; and those who met him in business or society would have become quite as well aware that he was a prosperous merchant, doing business in one of the leading mercantile streets running out of Broadway, not far from the City Hospital. So far as the somewhat precise mercantile appearance of Harding was concerned, a true disciple of Lavater would have judged correctly of him, for there were few men in the city of New York who displayed more steadiness, or greater money-making capacity in all the details of business; and yet even the close observer would have been likely to derive a false impression from this very preciseness, as to the social qualities of the man. There were quite as few better or heartier laughers than Harding, when duly aroused to mirth; and those persons were very rare, making the characters of mankind their professional study, who saw slight indications of disposition more quickly, or better enjoyed whatever gave food for quiet merriment. Once away from his counting-house, too, Walter Harding seemed to assume a second of his two natures that had before been lying dormant, and to enter into the permitted gaieties of city life with a zest that many a professed good fellow might have envied. He visited the theatre, as we have seen; went to the opera when it pleased him, not for fashion's sake, but because he liked music and was a connoisseur of singing and acting; liked a stroll in the streets with a congenial companion (male or female); could smoke a good cigar with evident enjoyment; and sometimes, though rarely, sipped a glass of fine old wine, and indulged in the freer pleasures of the table; though he was scrupulously careful of his company, and no man had ever seen his foot cross the threshold of a house of improper character. It is sufficient, in addition, at the present moment, to say that he was still a bachelor, occupying rooms in an up-town street, and enjoying life in that pleasant and rational mode which seemed to promise long continuance. Harding's companion, who has already been indicated as his opposite, was markedly so in personal appearance, at least. He was two or three inches shorter than Harding, and much stouter, displaying a well-rounded leg through the folds of his loose pants of light-gray Melton cloth, and being quite well aware of that advantage of person. He had a smoothly rounded face, with a complexion that had been fair until hard work, late hours, and some exposure to the elements, had browned and roughened it; brown hair, with an evident tendency to curl, if he had not worn it so short on account of the heat of the season, that a curl was rendered impossible; a heavy dark brown moustache, worn without other beard; a sunny hazel eye that seemed made for laughter, and a full, red, voluptuous lip that might have belonged to a sensualist; while the eye could really do other things than laughing, and the lip was quite as often compressed or curled in the bitterness of disdain or the earnestness of close thought, as employed to express any warmer or more sympathetic feeling. Tom Leslie, who might have been called by the more respectful and dignified name of "Thomas," but that no one had ever expended the additional amount of breath necessary to extend the name into two syllables, was a cadet of a leading family in a neighboring state, who at home had been reckoned the black sheep of the flock, because he would not settle quietly down like the rest to money-getting and the enjoyment of legislative offices; a man who at thirty had passed through much experience, seen a little dissipation, traveled over most States of the Union in the search for new scenery, or the fulfilment of his avocation as a newspaper correspondent and man of letters; been twice in Europe, alternately flying about like a madman, and sitting down to study life and manners in Paris, Vienna, and Rome, and gathering up all kinds of useful and useless information; taken a short turn at war in the Crimea, in 1853, as a private in the ranks of the French army; seen service for a few months in the Brazilian navy, from which he had brought a severe wound as a flattering testimonial. He was at that time located in New York as an editorial contributor and occasional "special correspondent" of a leading newspaper. He had seen much of life—tasted much of its pains and pleasures— perhaps thought more than either; and though with a little too much of a propensity for late hours and those long stories which would grow out of current events seen in the light of past experience, he was held to be a very pleasant companion by other men than Walter Harding. Perhaps even the long stories were more a misfortune than a fault. The Ancient Mariner found it one of the saddest penalties of his crime, that he was obliged to button-hole all his friends and be written down an incorrigible bore; and who doubts that the Wandering Jew, with the weight of twenty centuries of experience and observation upon his head, finds a deeper pang than the tropic heat or the Arctic snow could give, in the want of an occasional quiet and patient listener to the story of his wanderings? On the present occasion it may be noted, at once to complete the picture and give additional insight of a character which did very independent and outre things, that Tom Leslie had gone to Niblo's with his carefully-dressed and precise friend Harding, and sat conspicuously in an orchestra chair, in a gray business sack, no vest and no pretence at a collar. In other men, Harding would have noticed the dress with disapprobation: in Leslie it seemed to be legitimately a part of the man to dress as he liked; and neither Harding, or any one else who knew him, paid any more attention to his outward appearance than they would have bestowed upon a harmless lunatic under the same circumstances. Wherever Leslie boarded, (and his places of boarding were very numerous, taking the whole year together,) it was always noted that he filled up the hat-rack with a collection of hats of all odd and rapid styles, with a few of the more sedate and respectable; and on this evening's visit to Niblo's, when there was not a shadow of occasion for a hat with any brim whatever, he had completed his personal appearance by a fine gray beaver California soft hat, of not less than eighteen or twenty inches in the whole circumference, which gave him somewhat the appearance of being under a collapsed umbrella, and yet became him as well as any thing else could have done, and left him unmistakably a handsome fellow. An oddly mixed compound, certainly—even odder than Harding; and yet what a dull, dead world this would prove to be, if there were no odd and outre characters to startle the grave people from their propriety, and throw an occasional pebble splashing into the pool of quiet and irreproachable mediocrity! The two companions, whose description has occupied a much longer time than it needed to walk from the door of Niblo's to the Houston Street corner, were just passing the corner of that street on their way up to Bleecker, when they were momentarily stopped by a very ordinary incident. A girl, evidently of the demi-monde from her bold eyes, lavish display of charms and general demeanor, was turning the corner from Broadway into Houston Street immediately in front of Harding and Leslie; and as she swept around, her long dress trailing on the pavement, a careless fellow, lounging along, cigar in mouth, and eyes everywhere else than at his feet, stepped full upon her skirt, and before she could check the impetus of her sudden turn, literally tore the garment from her, the dark folds of the dress falling on the pavement and leaving the under-clothing painfully exposed. The girl turned suddenly, one of those harsh oaths upon her lips which even more than any action betray the fallen woman, and hissed out a malediction on his brutal carelessness. The man, probably one who literally knew no better, instead of remembering the provocation, apologizing for the injury he had done and offering to make any reparation in his power, replied by an oath still more shocking than that of the lost girl, hurled at her the most opprobrious epithet which man bestows upon woman in the English language, and one by far too obscene to be repeated in these pages,—and was passing on, leaving the poor girl to gather her torn drapery as she best could, when his course was suddenly arrested. A tall figure had come up from below during the altercation, unnoticed by either; and the instant after the man had disgraced his humanity by that abuse of a fallen woman, he found himself seized by the collar with a hand that managed him as if he had been a child, and himself full off the sidewalk into the street, and among the wheels of the passing omnibuses, with the quick sharp words ringing in his ear: "The devil take you! If you can't learn to walk along the pavement without tearing off women's dresses and afterwards abusing them, go out into the street with the brutes, where you belong!" The two friends noticed, casually, that a policeman stood on the upper corner, and at this act of violence on the part of the new-comer, they naturally expected to see him interfere to preserve the peace, if not make an arrest; but he was either too lazy to cross the street, (such things have been,) or too well satisfied that the coarse ruffian had met the treatment he deserved, to make any step forward. The fellow, thus suddenly sent to the company of worn-out omnibus- horses and swearing stage-drivers on a slippery pavement, turned with an oath, when he recovered himself, made a movement as if to return to the sidewalk and seek satisfaction for the violence, but evidently did not like the looks of his antagonist, when he caught a fair glance of his proportions, and solaced himself with a few more muttered oaths as he dodged across to the other side of Broadway and disappeared in the crowd. The second and prudential resolve of this person seemed fully justified by even a hasty survey of his assailant, who happened to be thrown under the light of the lamp at the corner, and in full view of our companions. He was perhaps six feet and an inch in height, cast in a most powerful model, and evidently possessing herculean strength—with a dark complexion, high cheek bones, showing almost as if he had a cross of the old Indian blood in his descent, fiery dark eyes set under brows of the pent-house or Webster mould, heavy massed black curly hair worn a little long, and a very heavy black moustache entirely concealing the mouth, while the beard shorn away from the lower portions of the face left the square, strong chin in full prominence. He was dressed in dark frock coat with white vest and pants, and wore a dark wide-brimmed slouched hat almost the counterpart of Leslie's, except in color, which harmonized well with his personal appearance in other regards, and while it left him looking the gentleman, made him the gentleman of some other locality than the city of New York. The new-comer, the moment he had sent the other whirling into the street, approached the girl, who still remained standing on the corner, her ungathered dress sweeping the pavement, and said: "Madame, your dress is badly torn. Allow me to offer you a few pins." He drew a large pin-cushion from his large vest pocket, (every thing seemed to be of a large pattern about this man,) and was handing it to the girl, who stretched out her left hand to receive it, when he suddenly seemed to recognize her. "Why, Kate!" He spoke in tones of the most unfeigned surprise—"Kate, what the deuce! I thought you were in—" "Yes, Deck!" answered the girl, with a coarse familiarity, "but you see I am here! And you? I thought you were in—" "Hush-h-h!" said the man, in a quick, sharp, decided tone, prolonged almost to be a hiss. "That will do! Now use some of these pins—quick, fasten up your skirt, and then go with me!" He spoke as if he was in the habit of being obeyed, or as if he had some peculiar claim that he should be obeyed in this instance. And the girl seemed fully to understand him, for only a moment served to supply so many pins to the torn gathers of the dress as enabled her to walk and hid her exposed under-clothing; and the instant that object was accomplished she thrust her arm into his, he making no attempt to repel the familiarity, but walking with hasty strides and almost dragging her after him, down into the partial gloom of Houston Street. When they had disappeared, and not till then, the two friends removed from the spot where they had been standing entirely silent, and passed on up Broadway. "A strange person—a very strange person, that!" said Harding, the moment after, to Leslie, who appeared to be thinking intently, and who had not uttered a word since the affair commenced. "Y—a—es!" said Leslie, in that slow, abstracted tone which indicates that the man who uses it is doing so mechanically and without knowing what he says. "Poor devil! how the new man whirled him out into the street!" Harding went on, his attention on the incident, as Leslie's apparently was not. "Just the treatment he deserved for being brutal to a woman, no matter how lost or degraded she may be! Tearing off her dress was all right enough, however, for all the woman deserve nothing better than to have their dresses torn into ribbons for thrusting them under our feet and sweeping the streets with them, as they do!" Harding was thinking, at the moment, of a little adventure of his own a few weeks before, in which, hurrying along to an appointment, early in the evening, not far from the St. Nicholas, he had come up with a party of theatre-goers, trodden upon the dress of one of the ladies in attempting to pass—in extricating himself from that awkwardness, trodden upon the dresses of two more—and left the whole three nearly naked in the street; while three female voices were screaming in shame and mortification, and three male voices sending words after him the very reverse of complimentary. "You think that a singular person?" at length said Leslie, as if waking from a reverie, but proving at the same time that he had heard the words of his friend. "You are right, he is so!" "What! do you know him?" asked Harding, surprised. "I do, indeed," was the reply of Leslie; "but I should as soon have thought of meeting Schamyl or Garibaldi in the streets of New York, at this moment, as the man we have just encountered. Fortunately, he did not recognize me—perhaps, thanks to this hat—(it is an immense hat, isn't it, Harding?) What can be his position, and what is his business here at the present moment, I wonder?" he went on, speaking more to himself than to his companion, as they turned down Bleecker from Broadway towards Leslie's lodgings, on Bleecker near Elm. "Well, but you have not yet told me his name, or any thing about him, while you go on tantalizing me with speculations as to how he came to be here, and what he is doing!" said Harding. "True enough," answered Leslie. "Well, he is not the sort of man to talk about loosely in the streets; so wait a moment, until I use my night-key and we get up into my room. There we can smoke a cigar, and I will tell you all I know of him, which is just enough to excite my wonder to a much greater height than your own." Less than five minutes sufficed to fulfil the conditions prescribed; and in Leslie's little room, himself occupying the three chairs it contained, by sitting in one, and stretching out his two legs on the others, while Harding threw off his coat and lounged on the bed, Leslie poured out his story, and the smoke from his cigar, with about equal rapidity. "The name of that singular man," he said, "is Dexter Balston, and he is by birth a Virginian. You heard the girl call him 'Deck,' which you no doubt took to be 'Dick,' but which she really meant as a familiar abbreviation of his name. It is a little singular that I should have met him first at a theatre, and not far from the one at which we just now encountered him. It was in the fall of 1857, I think, going in with a party of friends, one night, to Laura Keene's, that one of the ladies of the party was rudely jostled by a large man, who caught his foot in the matting of the vestibule and fell against her with such violence as nearly to throw her to the floor. He turned and apologized at once, and with so much high-toned and gentlemanly dignity, that all the party felt almost glad that the little accident had occurred. This made the first step of an acquaintance between him and myself; and when, in the intermission the same evening, I met him for a few moments in a saloon near the theatre, we drank together, held some slight conversation, exchanged cards, and each invited the other to call at his lodgings. His card lies somewhere in the bureau there at this moment, and it read, I remember, 'Dexter Ralston, Charles City, Virginia,' with 'St. Nicholas' written in pencil in the corner. He was a wealthy planter, living near Charles City, as I afterwards gathered from conversation with him, and had an interest in tobacco transactions at the North which kept him a large proportion of his time in this city. "Of his own choice Ralston attended the theatres very frequently, as I did from professional duty; and the consequence was that we met often, and sometimes supped together. I liked him, and he seemed to be pleased with me, though I should be perverting the truth to say that I ever became very cordial or intimate with him. There was something about the man which forbade familiarity; though I remember thinking, several times, that if one only could penetrate beneath the crust made by that evident pride and haughty reserve, he was a man to be liked to the death by a man, and loved by a woman with eternal devotion. After a time, and without my receiving any 'P.P.C.' to say that he was going to leave the city, he disappeared, and I saw him no more in the street or at any of his favorite places of amusement. "Well, I went down to Mount Vernon with a party of friends from Washington, on board the steamboat George Page. Did you ever know Page himself, the fat old Washingtonian who invented something about the circular-saw, and has some kind of a patent-right on all that are made above a certain number of inches in diameter? No? Well, he is an odd genius, and I will some day tell you something about him. But I was just now speaking of the steamboat named after him. The Rebels had her last year, you remember, using her as a gunboat somewhere up Aquia Creek, until they got scared and burned her one night,—though she was about as fit for that purpose as an Indian bark-canoe. The Page was running as an excursion boat to Mount Vernon, and sometimes going down to Aquia Creek in connection with the railroad, in the winter and spring of 1858-9. I was doing some reporting, and a little lobbying, in the Senate, at the beginning of March, and, as I have said, ran down with a party of friends to see the Tomb of Washington, curse the neglect that hung over it like a nightmare, and execrate the meanness which sold off bouquets from the garden, and canes from the woods, at a quarter each, by the hands of a pack of dirty slaves, to the hands of a pack of dirtier curiosity-hunters. "Going down the river I found no acquaintances on board, outside of my own party; but when we had made the due inspection, and were returning in the afternoon, just when we were off Fort Washington, an acquaintance belonging to the capital came up, in conversation with a thin, scrawny, hard-featured man, dressed, in black, and looking like a cross between a decayed Yankee schoolmaster and a foreign Count gone into the hand-organ business. As we exchanged salutations he stopped, made a step backward, and astounded me by this introduction: "'Col. Washington, my friend, Mr. Leslie—Mr. Leslie, Col. John A. Washington, proprietor of Mount Vernon.' "I do not suppose that there was any merit in it, any more than there would have been in refusing to drink a nauseous dose; but, really, I felt that I was fulfilling a stern duty (no pun intended) in turning my back short upon the Colonel, and saying: "'Much obliged to you, Mr. ——, but I have no desire whatever to know Col. John A. Washington!' "I will do the Colonel (though he did afterwards die a rebel as he deserved) the justice to say that I do not think he cared much for the cut. I noticed that his sallow face looked a shade nearer to green than before, but he merely drew himself up and took no other notice of my decidedly cavalier conduct. Not so, however, with some of the passengers, who had been near enough to hear the words, and who seemed to think that the memory of the great dead was insulted, instead of honored, by this rebuff to the miserable offshoot who kept Mount Vernon as a cross between a pig- stye and a Jew old-clo' shop. Some of them, I suppose, were Virginians, and neighbors of 'the Colonel.' At all events, I heard mutterings, and the ladies in my company (they were all ladies) looked a little alarmed. "Directly one of the F.F.V.'s, as I suppose them to have been, stepped forward immediately in front of me, and said: "'D—n it, sir, the man who insults a Washington must answer to me!' "'Must he?' I said, not much scared, I think, but a little flustered, and quite undecided whether to get into a row on the spot by striking the last man. "'He must!' replied the F.F.V., with another curse or two thrown in by way of emphasis. 'You may be some cursed Yankee, peddling buttons, and afraid to fight; but if not—' "'He will have no occasion to fight,' said a voice coming through the crowd from the side of the vessel. 'I will take that little job off his hands. Eh, Leslie, is that you? They tell me you have been giving the cut-direct to that mean humbug who calls himself John A. Washington. Give me your hand, old boy; you have done nothing more than your duty. I am a Virginian, and no d—d Yankee—does anybody want to fight me?' "It was Dexter Ralston. How many of the people on board knew him I have no idea, or what they knew of him. He seemed to exercise some strange influence, however, for Col. Washington turned away, with the friend who had offered to introduce him; and the man who had offered to fight me also disappeared. The crowd at that spot on the deck seemed to be gone in a moment. Ralston and myself exchanged a few words. I thanked him for having extricated me from a possible scrape, as well as for his good opinion of my conduct, all which he waived with a 'pshaw!' He received an introduction to the ladies with all due courtesy, chatted with them a few moments, and then strolled off, smoking a cigar. I was engaged with my party for the remainder of the trip, and did not see him again until we had reached Washington and the passengers dispersed from the steamboat, when of course I lost him, without any inquiry being made as to his address or present residence. I went to Europe, the last time, as you know, the summer following, and so perhaps lost him more effectually. Tired?" The latter word was especially addressed to Harding, who gave symptoms of going to sleep. Refreshed, however, by a cigar which Leslie thrust between his lips and insisted upon his smoking, Harding managed, even in his recumbent position, to keep awake for what followed. "Confound you!" said Leslie, "you might manage to get along without yawning at my story, when you asked me to tell it! However, who cares! You are not the only man who does not know a good thing when he sees or hears it! Some of my best things in print have probably been received in like manner, by people just as stupid!" "Very likely," said Harding, drily; and Leslie continued. "I came home from Europe in the winter of 1860-61, as you may likewise remember if you are not too sleepy; and I was one of the ten thousand who went down from this city to Washington, to attend the inauguration of Abraham Lincoln. Nine thousand nine hundred and ninety odd went armed to the teeth, carrying each from one revolver to three, and a few bowie-knives, in anticipation of there being a general row on inauguration morning, if not an open attempt to assassinate the President. One man whom I could name actually carried four revolvers and a dirk, without knowing any more about the use of either than a child of ten years might have done. There was danger of a collision, of course, growing out of the very fact that everybody went down armed. I was one of the very few who could not borrow a revolver or did not want one—no matter which. "Suffice it to say that I reached Washington on Sunday morning—the day previous to the inauguration—found the hotels full and took lodgings at a private house a few hundred yards from the Capitol, and spent the early part of the day in inspecting the preparations made for the holiday show, in and about the Capitol building. The courtesy of Colonel Forney, then Clerk of the House, arranged for my admission to the building during the ceremonies of the next day; and that of Douglas Wallach, of the Star, furnished me a seat in the reporters' gallery of the Senate for that evening when the last session of the expiring Congress was to be held and a last effort made for putting through those 'compromise resolutions' which it was then believed might 'save the Union,' but which we now know to have been as useless, even if they could have been passed, as so much whistling against the wind. "Although it was Sunday, time was pressing, and the fate of the nation seemed to be hanging upon a breath; so the Senate had arranged a session for five o'clock, which seemed very likely to last well into the night, and was almost certain to be crowded to suffocation. As you will remember, it did last until seven the next morning—after daylight, and witnessed one of the most exciting debates in the history of that body,—in which Baker of Oregon flashed out even more than usual of his patriotic eloquence; and white-haired, sad old Crittenden of Kentucky moaned out words of fear for the nation, that have since been but too truly realized; and Mason of Virginia showed more boldly than ever the cloven foot of the traitor who would not have reconciliation at any price; and Douglas rose above his short stature in alternately lashing one and the other of those whom he believed to be equally enemies to his type of conservatism. No one who sat out that session will ever forget it—but enough of this, which should be written and not spoken. "Of course after dinner that day I went down to the Hotels on the Avenue, to take a peep at the political barometer and see what was the prospect for violence on the morrow. It was a dark and stormy one. Most of the avowedly Southern element had disappeared from the street, and there were not many of the secession cockades to be met; but a few were flaunted by beardless young men who should that day have been arrested and thrown into the Old Capitol; and every foot of space in Willard's and the other leading houses was full all day long of a moving, surging, anxious and excited crowd, all talking, nobody listening, everybody inquiring, many significant hints, a few threats, an occasional quarrel and the interference of the police, but not much violence and no bloodshed. The evening shut down stormy, as to the national atmosphere, and I went home to supper impressed with the belief that the morrow could not pass off quietly— a belief strengthened by the fears of Scott; which were shown in the calling out of the volunteer militia in large force,— by the tap of the drum and the challenge of the sentry, which could be heard all around Capitol Hill,—and by the knowledge that files of regulars were barracked at different places on the Hill, ready for service in the morning and so posted as to command every avenue of ingress to the inauguration. "One of the high winds which belong to the normal condition of Washington began blowing at dark, and it increased to a gale during the evening, rattling shutters, creaking signs and filling the air with clouds of blinding dust which went whirling around the Capitol as if they would bury it. This added materially to the appearance and feeling of desolation, especially when the white stone being worked for the Extension would gleam and disappear through the cloud, and suggest graveyards and monuments for the national greatness that seemed to be falling. Then at dusk we had the report that several hundreds of armed horsemen had been discovered by one of Scott's scouts, lying in wait over Anacosti, and ready to make a descent upon the doomed city the moment that it should be buried in slumber. Many doubted this report, but some believed it; and I have an impression that hundreds went to bed in Washington that night with a lingering doubt whether they would not be involved, before morning, or at all events before the noon of the next day, in such scenes of violence and bloodshed as the continent had never yet witnessed. "I went over to the Capitol after tea, and took the place that had been kindly kept for me in the reporters' gallery of the Senate. No matter what occurred there—history has made it a part of our painful record, and that is quite sufficient. It was between one and two o'clock in the morning, Crittenden had just concluded his heart-breaking appeal to the North to be generous and not let the Union go by default, and Baker had just closed his noble appeal to the new dominant party (of which he was one) not to peril a nation by the adoption of the old Roman cry of 'Vae Victis,'—when I left the Senate gallery for an hour, intending to return when I had breathed for awhile outside of that suffocating atmosphere. I passed to the front through the entrance under the collonade, and was just about to step out into the open air, when a voice arrested me. Surely I had heard it before. "'Straws against a whirlwind!' I heard it say. 'The work is already done, and no human power can undo it!' "'I yet believe that the Union can be saved by the adoption of the plan proposed by Crittenden!' said the other voice. 'Mason is right when he says that Virginia will join the seceding States if no concession is made; but—' "A laugh, deep, sonorous, and yet hollow and mocking, broke out from the lips of the first speaker, and rung through the arches—such a laugh as we may suppose to have rung from the bearded lips of the Norse Jarl when the poor Viking asked his daughter's hand and the father intended to stun if not to kill him with the bitter scoff. I had heard that laugh before, more moderately given, and minus the accompaniment of the rushing wind without and the ringing of the hollow arches within. It was that of Dexter Ralston, and I now detected that he and his companion were standing just within one of the embrasures, so as to be partially sheltered from the wind, and I could trace their outlines. Ralston was enveloped in a large cloak, and wearing his inevitable broad hat; and his companion seemed much smaller, dressed in dark clothes, and wearing the usual 'stovepipe.' I had no intention to play listener, but there really did not seem to be any wish for privacy on the part of the man who could laugh in that manner; and, at all events, I stood still in the doorway and listened to the discussion of that topic, as I might not have done to another. "'Well, what does the laugh mean?' asked the other, in a tone that did not indicate remarkable good humor, when the sound had ceased. "'Excuse me, I was not laughing at you!' said Ralston, 'but at the blind, besotted fools who believe that they hold in their hands the destinies of this Republic, and who really have no more power over them than so many children playing at marbles! Hear Crittenden and Baker begging and pleading within there, to save what is lost; and Mason, the sly old fox, threatening them with what is already done!' "'What do you mean?' asked the other? 'Virginia—' "'Virginia has seceded!' spoke Ralston, with an accent that sounded like a hiss. I do not to this moment know whether it expressed triumph or anger. "'Seceded!' spoke the other, startled, as was evident from his voice. As for myself, I was trembling like a leaf, for I felt that the words were true, that the treason was already unfathomable, and that the Capitol was tumbling down about my ears long before it was finished. "'Seceded? Yes, I spoke the word!' said Ralston, 'and you are not very likely to believe that I am mistaken.' "'No, no, certainly not!' replied the other, in a tone of energetic disclaimer which showed that he knew why Ralston was not deceived. 'But then, if this is so, why does Mason remain, and why is the fact kept in the dark?' "'To gain time!' answered Ralston, 'and to procure more arms. Virginia is a 'loyal State,' and arms may be shipped to her, while they cannot to the States that are known to have seceded. You can guess that the arms go further south almost as fast as they reach Richmond, and that Colt's pistols, especially, will pretty soon be beyond the reach of many men who live north of Mason and Dixon's line. Do you understand now?' he concluded. "'Humph! Yes, I begin to know something more than I did a while ago!' answered the other. 'Then, as you say, all that is going on in yonder is a farce, and—' "'And to-morrow's proceedings will be a more notable one!' Ralston broke in. 'Some of them, I believe, have been afraid of violence to-morrow. No fear of that—the game is to be played differently, and it is not yet ripe for blood. Well, I have had enough of it. Good-night!' "At the word Ralston stepped out from the arch, and his companion followed him. By the lamp-light in front I caught a view of the face as the former went out, and saw that I had not been mistaken as to the voice. I had intended, when I first knew it was Ralston, to accost him before he left, but I had now lost the desire, while my head was in that whirl and his own position seemed to be so ambiguous. He stepped toward the gat...