House Divided (131 page)

“Rollin?”

“No, no, the negro. When I drew a match and lighted the gas, the pantry window was open and there were two black hands holding onto the sill.” The pantry was on the ground floor on the Franklin Street side, and the house on that side was flush with the street; but since the street descended steeply from the corner, the pantry windows were high above the sidewalk. “I slammed the window down on his fingers and locked it and ran!” Brett in his night shirt raced for the stairs, and Cinda came to take Vesta in her arms; but the girl said: “Oh I'm all right now! It startled me for a minute, that's all!”

“I should think it might, poor baby!”

“I'm silly to make a fuss.”

Brett came back. “Gone,” he said. “I turned out the gas.” He asked gravely: “Cinda, does that sort of thing happen often?”

She nodded. “Richmond's full of half-starved negroes, of course. Not even rats and mice get enough to eat here now, you know.”

“It isn't only negroes who're hungry,” Vesta told him. “Of course
people like us have plenty—not always what we want, but plenty of what there is; but the poor people are just starving. You'll see crowds of women standing outside the cartridge factories and the clothing bureau begging for work. They're there before daylight every day, and the police have to keep them from fighting for what few jobs there are. They have to work if they can, with their husbands in the army.” She said in sudden anger: “Oh, it just makes me sick to see all the young men who've been exempted and who do nothing but speculate and gamble and spend a lot of money, when poor women have to see their husbands go off and get killed.” She tried to laugh. “Heavens, I hate to get so worked up this time of night. Good night, dears.”

When Vesta was gone, Brett asked: “Is it as bad as she says?”

“Yes,” Cinda assented. “Yes.” And she added grimly: “‘Rich man's war, poor man's fight.' There's more truth than poetry in that, Brett Dewain.”

“I suppose you'd call us rich, but we've lost one son, and a son-in-law, and had another son maimed. We're fighting, Cinda.”

“Oh yes. So are most of the people we know, our kind of people. But for every one like us there are twenty like Redford Streean. The poor people didn't want the war, but they're being made to fight it, while their wives and children starve.” She came into his arms, sobbing on his shoulder, for a moment surrendering to bitter woe. “Oh, I hate it, Brett Dewain. I hate it, hate it, hate it! Oh, I hate it sol”

 

She did not again let her secret anguish mar the happiness of these fine days when she had him at home, but she realized more and more surely that there lay some trouble in his mind. After his breakfast with her, since even with him here she usually went to spend part of each day at the hospital, he was apt to walk down to the Spottswood, or to the Capitol, or to call upon some of his friends who were still in Richmond. But they had hours of quiet content, Cinda knitting, Brett talking with her or perhaps reading to himself or to her a passage from the papers. This might be a more or less covert criticism of Lee for his failure at Gettysburg, or for his strict orders against looting in Pennsylvania, or of the Government's failure to supply Lee with the ammunition so badly needed on the third day of the battle.
Once Brett read aloud to her passages from Lord Campbell's speech in the House of Lords, advocating England's recognition of the Confederacy.

“Listen to this, Cinda,” he said half in amusement, half in anger. “He's arguing that slavery isn't really the issue, talking about ‘the lingering idea that freedom is involved in the retention of the Union.' And he says: ‘It is for a despotism that the people of the North are pouring out their blood and tarnishing their glory. Already it exists. It had its birth in war and it would take its immortality from conquest. Then would the Union be restored for the advantage of the world? What country would be safe? What country would be free? At first indeed the necessity of Southern garrisons might keep them in repose. But in a few years—and they do not labor to conceal it from us—a power more rapacious, more unprincipled, more arrogant, more selfish and encroaching would arise than has ever yet increased the outlay, multiplied the fears, and compromised the general tranquillity of Europe.' ” Brett chuckled. “You'd think the United States was threatening to invade England, instead of Virginia! Why do politicians always talk like fools?”

“They fall in love with ideas,” she suggested. “Or else surrender to selfishness.” And she said thoughtfully: “Have you noticed that Mr. Rhett and Mr. Yancey, who talked us into this war, are never heard of now? States' rights, secession, coercion! Yes, and slavery, too! All of them put together aren't worth the sorrow and suffering just our family has had to endure, much less all the other families all over the South.”

He nodded. “The trouble is, people believe what they hear. I suppose that's because they don't know any better. That's why I don't believe ignorant people ought to be allowed to vote.”

“Do they have to be ignorant?”

“Well, we've made it a crime to teach a negro to read and write, and we've never had many schools, even for white people. I've sometimes thought that if we'd spent as much money in educating poor whites, these last fifty years, as we're spending now to send them off to kill and be killed, the South would be a wonderfully happy land today.”

“Are poor people any better educated in the North?”

“I suppose not. I suppose the ruling class and the moneyed class there—people like us and our friends down here—think it isn't safe to teach them too much. The more they learn, the more they want. We think if negroes learn to read they'll want to be free, and Northern business men think if working people are educated they'll want higher pay.” He was silent for a moment, said grimly: “I wonder if sometimes good business isn't bad business in the end.”

Knowing him as she did, his tone caught her ear. She guessed that some matter of business filled his thoughts, so she was not surprised when one evening as his furlough neared its end, he told her he expected some gentlemen to call; Judge Tudor, Mr. Daniel of the Fredericksburg railroad, Mr. Harvie of the Danville line, Mr. Haxall and Mr. Crenshaw who were bankers. Cinda thought they would prefer to be left alone together; but Brett asked her to sit with them when they came.

“I want you to hear,” he said. “I want you to help me decide something, Cinda.”

She asked no question. When he was ready, he would tell her. When the gentlemen arrived, Judge Tudor first, the two railroad men together, and then the bankers singly, she greeted them; and while they talked, she sat a silent listener, her knitting needles clicking. She would find later many a dropped stitch in that knitting, and much that must be ravelled out and done again.

They spoke first of the wave of desertions from the army. President Davis had offered free pardon to all but second and third offenders; but none of these gentlemen believed the losses could be checked. Mr. Haxall said there were too many causes behind the desertions: “Poor food, inadequate clothing, defective ammunition, the sufferings of their families at home. And the men see too many exempts getting rich out of the war, too many rich young men hiring substitutes or bribing their way out of the army.”

Mr. Harvie added a word. “The deserters are organizing. All through the mountain country, from southwest Virginia to the Gulf, they're gathering in armed bands to resist capture; and they're turning to robbery, to violence against their neighbors.”

Brett asked: “Can't they be rounded up, forced back into the army?”

Judge Tudor answered him. “The state governments won't allow
force to be made effective. Governor Brown of Georgia, Vance of North Carolina, none of them. When the conscript bureau catches a man, the state courts turn him loose under a writ of
habeas corpus.
Congress suspended the writ last fall; but the states refused to recognize the suspension, and Judge Pearson in North Carolina ruled that to suspend the writ was unconstitutional. I talked with Judge Halliburton last week—he was a Federal judge under the Union, in the United States District Court—and I've discussed it with Judge Meredith. They agree with Judge Pearson; and they say they will never refuse a writ of
habeas corpus
in their courts.” He added strongly: “And if I were still on the bench, gentlemen, I should feel as they do. This war is being fought to defend rights which we hold to be fundamental in a free nation. Not even to win the war should those rights be impaired.”

Mr. Crenshaw took issue with him. “Judge, you know as well as I do that if you want a thing, you have to pay for it. If you want a pair of shoes you have to give up some money. If you want to win this war, you have to give up something, even some rights. We've destroyed the Union by insisting on our right to secede; but the Confederacy cannot survive, any more than the Union did, unless the states surrender some of their rights.” He added: “The North, the Northern states and the Northern people, are giving up treasured rights, and they're stronger for doing so.”

Judge Tudor said stiffly: “It's a matter of conviction, with me, Mr. Crenshaw.”

The banker lifted his shoulders. “It's a matter of expediency, with me.”

For a moment no one spoke. Then Brett said: “Let's take it, then, that desertions will continue. Mr. Daniel, can the railroads carry their burden?”

“Well, we can try. We'll try our damnedest.” He looked at Cinda. “Forgive me, Mrs. Dewain. We'll try our best, I should have said. But we're short of railroad iron and short of workmen and short of brains. We Southerners have never learned to take orders, and we're so used to having things done for us that we aren't ready to do them for ourselves. On our roads, trains are wrecked every day by carelessness and by inefficiency. Of course, if we could pick and choose, we
could carry more private freight and make tremendous profits; but we've put ourselves at the service of the Government, and that means heavy wear and tear on cars and locomotives. We've had to raise wages, and the Government refuses to recognize the tax exemption in our charter, so we pay heavy taxes; but we're allowed to raise rates when necessary, so income stands up pretty well. But we're being ruined by loss and destruction of things we can't replace. If a bridge is burned, it takes us forever to repair it. Last May a year ago, the North rebuilt the bridge over Potomac Creek, four hundred feet long and eighty feet high, in nine days. That same month, some Yankee raiders destroyed our bridge over the South Anna and it was five months before we could put it in shape to use again. Nine days against five months. That gives you some idea of the North's advantage in labor and material and methods. I don't know how long we can keep on, but we'll do our best.”

Brett nodded. “I've heard complaints that some railroads carry such heavy shipments of speculators' goods that corn and bacon and uniforms for the army lie for weeks in the freight houses, and the foodstuffs rot.”

“Not on our road,” Mr. Daniel insisted. “But it's hard to blame the railroads that do take that trade. It's at higher rates than government traffic, and the pay is prompt.”

Mr. Harvie grimly echoed that word. “Prompt, yes! The Government doesn't know the meaning of that word. Half our troubles come from their unnecessary delays. If the Weldon Railroad is ever cut, Richmond's only rail line to the interior and the south will be through Danville. The Piedmont Railroad from Danville to Greensboro would let us reach the lower south. That's only fifty miles. Congress voted a loan to build that road over a year ago, and we agreed to take over all the Piedmont stock and do the work; but we can't get proper surveys, we can't get labor, we can't get iron, we can't do a lick. We can't get iron to repair our own road. We've five miles of line between here and Danville that you can't call a railroad at all, till we get new rails; and our rolling stock is wearing out. But of course, as Mr. Daniel says, we'll do our best.”

There was nothing to be said to that. The picture was plain enough. Brett looked at Mr. Haxall. “I'm trying to get some idea of what's in
the future,” he explained. “Outside of this room, all of us curb our tongues; but here we can perhaps speak more frankly. I'm disturbed about the financial situation, the depreciated currency, the inadequate tax program, the steady borrowing. Funding the currency last June, forcing people to take bonds—that was repudiation. What do you gentlemen think of the government finances?”

“Why, they're in bad shape,” the banker said honestly. “I'd rather see our bank buy state bonds, Virginia or Tennessee, than Confederates. Last March, Virginia bonds were at a hundred and fifteen, and we sold them and bought Confederate eight percents; but by Christmas the eight percents won't be worth fifty cents on the dollar.” He shook his head. “Bad, yes. Bad and getting worse. Look at the Erlanger Loan. The Erlanger people took the bonds at seventy-seven, and put them on the European market at ninety. They were oversubscribed five times, sold up to ninety-five. Then they began to go down, and the Confederacy agreed to support them. Right now we're shipping gold to support those bonds. The Erlanger people will make more out of that loan than the Confederacy.” After a moment he went on: “If we'd shipped cotton while we still could do so, and had held it abroad, we could have established a credit to last us five years. Cotton's worth seventy cents in London now, and every ship that takes a load through the blockade makes a fortune for its owners. North Carolina troops are the best clothed and the best equipped in the army, and North Carolina has largely financed that by buying cotton and sending it to market through the blockade. But Mr. Davis preferred to use cotton as a club, to try to bully England into recognizing us. Now it's too late. It takes fifteen or twenty of our dollars to buy a gold dollar today. It will take a thousand of our dollars before we're through. The Government's wasting money right and left, allowing a seventy-five percent profit on every contract for shoes or cloth or war supplies.”