Part 94 (1/2)

To remove him from command in such a crisis was to challenge a mutiny in his army which might lead to serious results. Yet if he should continue to retreat, and back out of Atlanta without a fight as he had backed out of every position for the one hundred and fifty miles from Dalton, the results would be still more appalling.

The loss of Atlanta at this moment meant the defeat of the peace party of the North, and the reelection of Lincoln. If Lincoln should be elected it was inconceivable that the South could continue the unequal struggle for four years more.

If Johnston would only hold his trenches and save Atlanta for a few days the South would win. Lee could hold Grant indefinitely.

The thought which appalled Davis was the suspicion which now amounted to a practical certainty that his retreating General would evacuate Atlanta as he had threatened to abandon Richmond when confronted by McClellan, and had abandoned Vicksburg without a blow.

He must know this with absolute certainty before yielding to the demand for his removal. That no possible mistake could be made, he dispatched his Chief of Staff, General Braxton Bragg, to Atlanta for conference with Johnston and make a personal report.

Bragg reported that Johnston was arranging to abandon Atlanta without a battle and the President promptly removed him from command and appointed Hood in his place.

When Hood a.s.sumed command of the disgruntled army, it was too late to save Atlanta. Had Johnston delivered battle with his full force at Dalton, Sherman might have been crushed as Rosecrans was overwhelmed at Chickamauga.

Hood's army was driven back into their trenches. Sherman threw his hosts under cover of night on a wide flanking movement and Atlanta fell.

Under the mighty impulse of this news Lincoln was reelected, the peace party of the North defeated and the doom of the Confederacy sealed.

CHAPTER XLI

THE FALL OF RICHMOND

The conspirators who had complained most bitterly of Davis for the appointment of Lee to the command of the army before Richmond when McClellan was thundering at its gates, now succeeded in pa.s.sing through the Confederate Congress a bill to create a military dictators.h.i.+p which they offered to the man for whose promotion they had condemned the President.

Lee treated this attempt to strike the Confederate Chieftain over his head with the contempt it deserved. Davis laughed at his enemies by the most complete acceptance of their plans.

His answer to Senator Barton's committee was explicit.

”I have absolute confidence in General Lee's patriotism and military genius. I will gladly cooperate with Congress in any plan to place him in supreme command.”

Lee refused to accept the responsibility except with the advice and direction of the President, and the conspiracy ended in a fiasco.

From the moment Sherman's army pierced the heart of the South the Confederate President saw with clear vision that the cause of Southern independence was lost. Lee's army must slowly starve. His one supreme purpose now was to fight to the last ditch for better terms than unconditional surrender which would mean the loss of billions in property and the possible enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of a million slaves.

That Lincoln was intensely anxious to stop the shedding of blood he knew from more than one authentic source. It was rumored that the Northern President was willing to consider compensation for the slaves. An army of a hundred thousand determined Southern soldiers led by an indomitable general could fight indefinitely. That it was of the utmost importance to the life of the South to secure a surrender which would forbid the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of the slaves and the degradation of an electorate to their level, Davis saw with clear vision. From the North now came overtures of peace. Francis P. Blair asked for permission to visit Richmond.

Blair proposed to end the war by uniting the armies of the North and South for an advance on Mexico to maintain the Monroe Doctrine against the new Emperor whom Europe had set upon a throne in the Western Hemisphere.

The Confederate President received his proposals with courtesy.

”I have tried in vain, Mr. Blair,” he said gravely, ”to open negotiations with Was.h.i.+ngton. How can the first step be taken?”

”Mr. Lincoln, I am sure, will receive commissioners--though he would give me no a.s.surance on that point. We must stop this deluge of blood. I cherish the hope that the pride and honor of the Southern States will suffer no shock in the adjustment.”

The result of this meeting was the appointment by Davis of three Commissioners to meet the representatives of the United States.

Alexander H. Stephens, R. M. T. Hunter and Judge John A. Campbell were sent to this important conference. For some unknown reason they were halted at Fortress Monroe and not allowed to proceed to Was.h.i.+ngton. A change had been suddenly produced in the att.i.tude of the National Government. Whether it was due to the talk of the men in Richmond who were trying to depose Davis or whether it was due to the fall of Fort Fisher and the closing of the port of Wilmington, the last artery which connected the Confederacy with the outside world, could not be known.

The Confederate Commissioners were met by Abraham Lincoln himself and his Secretary of State, William H. Seward, in Hampton Roads. The National Government demanded in effect, unconditional surrender.

Davis used the indignant surprise with which this startling announcement was received in Richmond and the South to rouse the people to a last desperate effort to save the country from the deluge which the Radical wing of the Northern Congress had now threatened--the confiscation of the property of the whites and the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of the negro race. In his judgment this could only be done by forcing the National Government through a prolongation of the war to pledge the South some measure of protection before they should lay down their arms.