Billy Hamilton. A novel

Front matter

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Book I. How Stonewall

JACKSON" CAME TO FREDERICK. CHAPTER PAGE I. THE CAVALRY PICKET AT NORTON'S FERRY . 1 II. A SWEET PRISONER 21 III. WHO THE DEUCE IS SHE? .... 36 IV. STONEWALL JACKSON ASKS A FEW QUESTIONS 49 V. "FIND HER, AND — MAKE LOVE 10 HER" . 57

Book II. The Provost-marshal At Baltimore

VI. MAJOR ANANIAS OF STUART'S CAVALRY . . 67 VII. A BLOW IN THE DARK 77 VIII. THE LUNCHEON AT GUY'S .... 85 IX. "GIVE ME FIVE MINUTES ALONE WITH HER" 96

Book III

A BEAUTIFUL ENIGMA. X. WASHINGTON IN 1862 ..... 104 XI. MR. ARAGO'S TREASURY GIRL . . . II7 XII. BAKER'S SECRET SERVICE . . . . I25 XIII. MRS. SENATOR BREAM'S DANCE . . . I32 XIV. THE BELLE OF THE ARMY .... 142 XV. THE CIGAR STORE NEAR THE WAR DEPARTMENT 152 XVI. SPECIAL ORDER NO. 14IO .... CONTENTS. 4

Book IV. The Battle For Her Life

CHAPTER PAGE XVII. THE TOUCH OF THE MOUCHARD . . .176 XVIII. THE NUPTIALS OF DAMOCLES . . .188 XIX. LAMMERSDORFF THE SUTLER . . . 200 XX. DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES . . . .2 12 XXI. A NIGHT AT PORT TOBACCO . . . . 219 XXII. QUASHIE, THE SECESH NEGRO . . . 23I XXIII. "I HAVE BEEN TRAITOR ENOUGH" . . 242

Book V. The Battle For Her Love

XXIV. "I WILL GO TO THE REBEL CAPITAL". . 25 1 XXV. MAJOR BILLY HAMILTON, C.S.A. . . . 262 XXVI. BY DAY IN RICHMOND . . . . .272 XXVII. BY NIGHT IN RICHMOND .... 283 XXVIII. THE DROOPING COLOURS .... 293 XXIX. THE ÆGIS OF THE DEAD PRESIDENT . . 305

Appendix

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Chapter I. The Cavalry Picket At Norton's Ferry

It is night on the Potomac — the night of the 4th of September of the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and sixty-two ; when one man's hand is against an other man's hand ; when the shadow of a bush may conceal n Confederate sharpshooter ; when the light of a firefly may develop into the flash of an Enfield whose whistling bullet will bring death — this night when I, William Fairfax Hamilton, captain in command of a troop of the First Union Kentucky Cavalry, am guard ing Norton's Ford on the Upper Potomac, and prevent ing the carrying of goods contraband of war, medicines for the Confederate service, despatches from Washing ton spies, and the crossing of innocent Maryland farmers into Virginia to give the Southern generals notice of our movements. In addition to this, my instructions specially charge me to furnish, by courier riding for his life, the earliest news of the crossing of the advance divisions of the Confederate army under Stonewall Jackson, now ex pected to invade Maryland.

The bulk of my command occupies a knoll covered with second growth of pine and fir, distant fifty yards from the river, along whose banks my sentries are placed. Immediately behind me, a few yards away, is the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, crossed at this point by a small bridge, which of course is also guarded. Beyond this is the rolling valley of the Monocacy River, which running down from Frederick City joins the Potomac some mile and a half away. To the north, Sugar Loaf Mountain rises. To the west, something over two miles distant, is The Point of Rocks, where the Baltimore & Ohio Railway, coming through the great limestone cliffs of the Potomac gorge from Harper's Ferry — now occupied by General White and Colonel Miles and eleven thousand Union soldiers — turns sharply to the north and runs up the Monocacy Valley on its way to Washington, passing south of Frederick.

These details of scenery are not apparent to my eye, everything being shrouded in the gloom of a summer night, the sky just now made dark by some passing thunder clouds. To prevent surprise, or loss of men by sharpshooters, I have ordered no camp-fires shall be lighted this warm September evening. I peer into the inky blackness and my feelings are more gloomy than the night itself, as I think of the de moralization in the capital, which I had left but two days before, being hastily ordered on this service, when Washington was shaking with fear of capture, after Pope's defeat at the Second Battle of Bull Run, and the Cabinet and War Office were appealing to General McClellan to reorganize the army and save Maryland to the Union. I have just returned from my rounds, after very carefully inspecting the sentries posted near the banks of the river, which is now in this September so low as to be easily fordable, and consequently more difficult to properly patrol and guard.

My ears being very wide open to catch any sound from the direction of the Vir ginia shore which may proclaim the approach of Lee's "victorious legions to the boundaries of Maryland — my State — the conversation from some near-by members of my troop, who do not discern me in the dark ness, comes sharply to them proclaiming that my subordinates appreciate my situation as clearly as I do. " I jist about guess," floats to me in Yankee twang, "that if the Rebs swoop over here and capture ' My Maryland,' it'll be tarnation hard on the Cap." "Sure, if his State turns traitor, what'll become of the poor divil > Begob, they say the Cap's the only Union one in the houl family." This last is in the tones of Sergeant Lommox, a hard riding Irishman who somehow has found his way from the British light cavalry service into my Kentucky regiment ; although, wherever hard blows are plenty and gunpowder is burnt freely, there are sure to be some of his combative race.

"Bedad, this is a mixed up scrimmage anyway, " the sergeant continues. "Some say we're fighting to free the niggers ; some say we ain't. Tare an' ages, I'm always asking myself when I'm sober what am I fighting for anyway? It isn't for grub! Sure, army ra tions are too divilish bad to make a cat enlist. As for the Cap, they say his own family has cut him dead ; his father fired him out of the house in Baltimore, and his sweetheart spat in his face, because he's fighting for the Union." These last remarks as to family and sweetheart are a libel. I have no sweetheart, therefore none spat in my face, and my family are at present blissfully igno rant that I am a Union officer, and think that I, wearing a Confederate uniform and carrying a Confederate commission in my pocket, am fighting under Lee and against my country.

As I think of the deception I have been compelled to practise on the dear ones of my home, my thoughts of war are obliterated by reflections upon my unhappy social environment. For as soon as it is known to them that I, William Fairfax Hamilton, wear a blue uniform, my hosts of friends in my native city of Bal timore will be my friends no longer, and my loving sisters and doting father will be mine no more ; be cause I am doing what I was educated to do — fight for my flag. My peculiar position has come about in a rather curious manner. Before interstate trouble was imminent, in 1857, my father had obtained for me an appointment to the national military academy at West Point. After the secession of South Carolina and formation of the Confederacy most of the cadets from the Southern and Bor der States had tendered their resignations.

These one and all had been refused by the War De partment. Thereupon, most of the Southern cadets had, without leave, returned to their own States, and were forthwith entered upon the records of the War Department as having deserted their colors in the face of the enemy. Not wishing such an implied stigma to be placed upon me, my State not having seceded, I, who had always taken a very strict view of a soldier's discipline and duty, had remained, and received my com mission in that year of the double graduation, 1861, when, with the desire of placing officers in the field as rapidly as possible, the term of instruction at West Point had been greatly shortened ; my class being the later one, B of June, my name not appearing on the rolls as from Maryland, my appointment to the academy hav ing been made at large by President Buchanan.

But during my cadetship, I had, perchance from northern associations, perhaps from more conservative and later reflection, but most probably on account of my views of military honor, determined it was my duty to support the flag of the United States. Without going over the pros and cons of a matter that has been argued in the halls of Congress, in all debating societies, in every cross-road tavern of the country, suffice it to say that for reasons sufficient to myself I had made up my mind to serve in the army of the Union ; though greatly fearing it would bring upon me the displeasure of both friends and kindred. So, having graduated, instead of resigning and join ing the Confederates, as my family doubtless hoped and expected, I was still true to the banner under which I had marched from Pleb.to First-classman.

In order to fortify myself in this resolution, I had, without visiting my home, journeyed to Washington and secured from the War Department my commission in one of the new cavalry regiments just being formed, in an attempt to make efficient that branch of the service, which in the first year or two of the war was the jeer of the Rebels and the disgrace of the Federals, its condition being so pitiable that McClellan took as few cavalry as possible with him to the Peninsula, many so-called troopers being such incompetent horsemen BILLY I1ANLTLTON. 9 that they could scarce manage their arms and steeds at the same moment. In an effort to overcome this, several new mounted regiments were being raised in the Border States, Ken tucky, Maryland, and Missouri, whose men had been cavaliers from childhood.

These were now being rapidly instructed in the school of the trooper, and the nucleus of that great cavalry armament which under Custer and Sheridan did such fine work in the last years of the war, was being formed. In the hope of doing my share towards this, I had accepted a captain's commission in the First Kentucky Cavalry, and with this document in my pocket had im mediately gone to that State to drill and equip my troop — very glad that my duty took me far away from my friends and family in Baltimore. Though thoroughly determined to fight upon the Union side, I still shrank from the ordeal of proclaim ing myself one of the army of Uncle Sam, to the friends of my boyhood in Baltimore and the father and sisters who loved me — all rabid Southerners, and made bitter against all who differed from them by the potent pas sions of that awful time, when neighbor turned against neighbor, and brother against brother, and friend shot down friend, in the so-called Border States, which suf fered more from the war than any other of their sister commonwealths.

After my regiment was organized, equipped, mustered in and drilled, at the end of the opening campaign in Tennessee where my command proved its effectiveness at Forts Henry and Donelson and also at Shiloh ; in very desperation at the inefficiency of the cavalry of the Army of the Potomac, the War Department had ordered us east. Here, in the summer of 1862, on reporting at Wash ington, I succeeded in obtaining a few days' leave of absence. Desperately anxious to see my father and sisters, after telegraphing word of my coming, I, dressed in mufti, had made my appearance at the town-house of my ancestors, in Charles Street, Balti more, to be received in a manner of which perchance I had had aome suspicion, but which my imagination had painted in by no neans the vivid colors that actually took form before my eyes.

Pretty little Birdie, my younger sister, a maid of sweet eighteen, meets me in the hall, looking most charming, her blonde hair done up in fashionable water fall, and her pretty feet in their Balmoral boots peeping out from skirts enormously crinolined to the extreme of fashion, and throwing her arms around me, cries: "Billy, thank God you're back !— Where have you been these six months? — Of course it's been something for the cause. How soldierly you look ! " Then between kisses, she suggests : " Now papa has a sur prise for you. How well you'll look in Confederate gray I But don't let those horrid Feds know of it, or they'll arrest you at once." This last is whispered in my ear, as if the walls might betray us. A moment later, Virginia, my elder sister, a stately young lady of about twenty, makes her appearance, and with equally fervid embrace exclaims: "Billy, thank Heaven you've come — at last !

We've all been anxious for you since you did not return to us after graduation. We sometimes thought you had feared arrest and gone straight to Virginia. Where have you been ? " "That I — I had rather not tell you, "I answer between kisses. Something in my manner impresses her. She mutters : "Ah, I understand. God bless you, Billy! You do not wish to compromise us by your revelations." " Yes ; you — you had better not know," I stammer shamefacedly. To this I add, stroking a moustache which, cultivated assiduously during one campaign, is now quite soldierly : "Is the guv'nor in ? " "Yes; he's waiting for you in the library. He didn't wish to speak to you before the servants. You know, some of them — ungrateful creatures — have politi cal sympathy with our invaders. The poor foolish things think they'll be made free, and do not know they'd starve if they were."

"Very well; I will go in and see father," I remark, my face growing so gloomy that the two darling girls put a pang in my heart by gasping sympatheti cally : " You must have bad news. You — you've been captured." "No, not yet," I mutter. Then Birdie suddenly falters : "You've been wounded," and cries: "A — a sabre-cut just healed, I see it upon his cheek," and the next instant the two stab me with their sweet lips as they kiss and cry over a scratch I had received at Shiloh, and whisper : "Thank Heaven ! you've been in our army." "Pooh, it is nothing!" I mutter, in a hang-dog way, as I put them tenderly from me and open the library door, to be cordially embraced by my father, a gentleman of old-school manners. "My dear boy," he says, his grizzled moustache twitching a little, "you have come home at last.

You did not even write to us when you left West Point. I imagine, for fear your letter might be opened by the damned Yankee postmaster, one of the spies upon us. Neither I nor your sisters could bear to go up and see you march under that infernal flag, therefore none of us could witness your graduation. I feared you thought we had slighted you. Where have you been ? " Receiving no answer to this, he asks almost severely : " Not shirking your duty, I hope?" " No ! " I answer proudly. Then as he sees the slight sabre scratch, his old eyes light with pride, he whispers : "My own boy! your wound shows me ! " and taking me in his arms, blesses me. Good God ! How can I tell my father I received it fighting against the cause he worships ? Then he inspects me anxiously, his lips trembling. His eyes have love and even anguish in them as he mutters : " You are the last who bears our name.

Still, you must bear it honorably, even if to death." Before I can reply to this, he suddenly astounds"' me ; by whispering, extreme significance in his low voice : "Across in Virginia, Lee, Jackson and Davis know what a West Point education means. The proof of it is here ! " With this he goes to the door and locks it, then draws down the blinds of the library windows, to ensure absolute privacy. As I gaze at him wonderingly, he opens a secret drawer in the old-fashioned wainscoting of the room and produces from among some papers a document of official form. Placing it in my hand, he remarks with a profound bow: "Major Hamilton of the Confederate Army, I greet you." As I inspect this document blankly, in a dazed sort of way, I see, with a start of horror, that it is a commission made out to William Fairfax Hamilton, and signed by Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America, and by Randolph, his Secretary of War.

The old gentleman chuckles, "A pleasing surprise for you, eh?" then suddenly ejaculates, " Curious, they did not tell you of this in Richmond." " I — I was in the West ! " I stammer. "Ah, that explains it ! " remarks my father. " I applied for it a year ago, but only received the document recently, the difficulties of transmitting it through the blockade were so great. You see the Southern leaders appreciate your military training : the commission of Major indicates that. Your wound does not incapaci tate you from active duty ? " he asks nervously. " Not at all, I am happy to say." "Then you'll be anxious to get into the field once more — to free your native city — all the more eager when you see infamous Federal soldiers marching in the streets of this unhappy town — when you behold accursed Northern guns threatening our very homes — when you note Yankee officers flaunting their damned blue tyrants' uniforms in our streets.

" These remarks give me a shudder. A blue cloth " tyrant's " uniform is packed securely in my trunk. This, the noise from the hall indicates, is even now being carried upstairs by Jonas and Jumbo, our darky footmen. "Of course it is hard to part from you," continues the old gentleman almost brokenly, "but every man must>do his duty. Your sisters and I always knew you were doing your devoir." For into his mind never seems to come the thought that my West Point education may have placed in me different views from his as to my duty in this crisis of the nation — that I can fight on any other side but the one he loves. Under these circumstances, although with no thought that I will be anything but what I am, an officer of the Union, I cant bring myself to contradict him ; per chance because I wish a few more kisses from my dear sisters, a few more tender looks from my beloved father, which I know will be no longer mine after they know.

"Still, lean's carry that accursed paper about with me," I think. So, remarking nonchalantly: "For my sisters' safety this had better be destroyed, " I am about to place my commission in the Confederate Army in the flame of a wax taper, burning for convenience in sealing letters, after the old-fashioned custom which being a gentleman of the old school, my governor always adheres to. But his hand is on my arm. He mutters hoarsely : " Don't shame your sisters, sir, by thinking they would not risk as much as you or I, for the cause they love." "If you take it in that light," I return, a choking sensation in my throat, "the document remains with me." With this, I place it carefully in my breast pocket, buttoning my coat over it. For into my mind has flown suddenly the idea that this little paper of Jeff Davis' may in some supreme crisis (.nable me to do a great thing for my country.

"Still, with this on my person," I mutter, " I had better not remain in Baltimore very long." "Of course not," he answers. "Go and do your duty. Now step out and join your sisters. I — I will see you, Billy, before you go." As I turn from him, I feel I am playing traitor to those I love so dearly ; for the old gentleman has sunk into a chair, and putting his head upon his writing table, is striving to conceal his emotion. In the dining-room, at lunch with my two fair sisters, the prospect seems no more reassuring. Guessing what they will say to me when they discover I am one of the blue uniforms they hate, I feel it is almost a re lief that my loved mother died ten years ago, for I fear I could never have resisted her, had her arms been put about me and her sweet voice lured me from what my Western campaign has confirmed, even more than my West Point education, as my duty.

Even now, though they do not guess I am recreant ; every tone of my sisters' sweet voices isa temptation to me to fight against my flag. As darling Virginia pours out my coffee, she mur murs, tears coming into her brown eyes : "It'll be hard to part with you again, Billy. I see what papa has told you has already saddened your countenance ; but I would to heaven I were a man," her pretty white teeth came together with a snap, "that I might go and strike with you for the South. As it is, we women can only pray for you, and nurse you if we have the opportunity." "Oh, don't be so gloomy, Virgie ! " cries dear little Birdie from the other side of the table, attempting a whimpering lightheartedness as she plays with her oysters. "There's a girl in Virginia who'll nurse him in a manner more to his taste. 'Deed she will !

" " Who is that ? " I ask, astonished. "The girl to whom you're engaged, sir, of course." This comes indignantly from my elder sister. ' ' The girl to whom I am engaged ■' What girl ? " " What girl P Oh goodness, he's forgotten his little .sweetheart ! " giggles Birdie. "Your affianced wife, William, Eva Vernon Ashley. I am surprised at you ! " remarks Virginia in stately severity. "That chit?" I laugh. "By George! she had slipped my memory." " Chit P Wait till you see her !" ejaculates my elder sister. "Oh, yes! Cadets have so many sweethearts," sneers Birdie. Then she cries with a shudder : " Oh, if I thought you loved some hateful Northern thing ! " "No," I reply, stabbing a soft-shell crab, which de lights my palate after campaign rations. "Behold a free heart." "Ah. then, it's all right ; true to Eve yet.

" " True to her as to any woman. By-the-by, so Eve is already a woman ? The last time I saw her she was ten — a pretty enough nursery witch. But then I was a man of fourteen, and disdained her." "She thinks you protected her ! I can recollect now, as a little tot, how you — you guarded her — though in a very lordly manner," laughs Yirginia. " Besides you must remember, my brother, that it has been an under standing among the families that William Fairfax Hamilton is to wed Eva Vernon Ashley." "Yes, I believe there was some talk of that when I was in pinafores and Eve in short skirts," I reply, adding with military nonchalance : "Still, I think I have seen girls who looked better." "Not girls more beautiful ! " remarks stately Virginia. "Eve is the most lovely thing on either side of the Potomac.

She came to us over a year ago — before the fighting began — accompanied by her half-brother, Charlie St. George." "You know he's a captain in Colonel Mimford's Second Virginia Cavalry, and awfully handsome," throws in Birdie with a suggestive blush. " But the young lady ? " I question sharply. "Oh! Eva!" cries my younger sister. "She was nineteen then and lovely enough to make Baltimore men crazy ; and you know we've got some few beauties in this town — at least Captain St. George said so." "To you personally P " I query with a smile that makes dear little Birdie's face redder. Then I go on philosophically: " I suppose the young lady has for gotten about the old-time idea of our parents ? " Virginia's answer startles me. "On the contrary," she says, "I know Miss Ashley thinks a great deal about it.

She knows it was her dead father's wish — our Virginia properties adjoin. Her mother still keeps it before her." " Great goodness ! " I cry, " you don't mean to say Eve considers herself as my affianced ! " " I know she did when she came here, for she was always asking about you — though she, of course, was too maidenly to write to you. But I am sure when you reach Virginia all you have to do is to go up to Miss Ashley, in your Confederate uniform, and you'll find it all right ! " The Confederate part of this is in a whisper. "She didn't leave any ambrotype, daguerreotype or photograph for me, did she ? " I ask in uneasy face tiousness. "Certainly not. Your fiancee, sir, has been brought up, I am happy to say, in Virginia old-school manners, " remarks my elder sister severely. " But she stole a photograph of you — the one in the West Point uniform," giggles Birdie.

"Glad it impressed her favorably," I laugh, in the easy assurance of military youth. " Well, I should think it would," murmurs my younger sister, who seems proud of me, " Five feet ten ; dark, b savage eyes ; long, drooping moustache. — A Cavalry man's figure." "And a most unblushing assurance!" laughs Vir ginia, who is proud of me also. "But seriously, Wil liam, you must think of this affair. The young lady evidently expects some communication from you. Papa said the other day that if we did not hear of you soon, he should strive to forward a letter to her mother." "So Miss Ashley is very beautiful? " I ask rather eagerly. "Ah, the Stoic has given cry at last!" murmurC, Birdie archly. "Beautiful?" mutters Virginia scornfully. "Wait till you see her, my military philosopher. Oh, what a belle she'd be if it wasn't for this hateful war.

She was in Washington not long ago at her aunt's — the wife of that horrid Border-state Union Senator — but of course Eve would look at none of the Yankee officers who fill' that unfortunate town. " "Well, if she's spent much time in Washington at Mrs. Rufus J. Bream's," I remark cynically, " Miss Eva Vernon Ashley has probably very little of the old-time Virginia ideas in her now ! " " Wait till you see her, "laughs Birdie. " She will be a surprise to you — as much as the surprise we have for you in the closet upstairs." At this both girls sigh, and edge up to me, and place their arms round my neck and whisper, wiping away stray tears : "We put it there when we got your tele gram." "What surprise ?" I ask, masculine curiosity over coming military nonchalance. " Run upstairs and see ! " Taking them at their word, this I do — to my con sternation.