Tom Strong, Lincoln's Scout Read online

  CHAPTER II

  OUR WAR WITH MEXICO--KIT CARSON AND HIS LAWYER, ABE LINCOLN--TOM GOES TO LINCOLN'S INAUGURATION--S. F. B. MORSE, INVENTOR OF THE TELEGRAPH--TOM BACK IN WASHINGTON.

  In 1846, Mr. Strong, long enough out of Yale to have begun business andto have married, had heard his country's call and had helped her fighther unjust war with Mexico. General Grant, who saw his first fighting inthis war and who fought well, says of it in his Memoirs that it was "oneof the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation."

  Much more important things were happening here then than the MexicanWar. In 1846 Elias Howe invented the sewing-machine. In 1847 Robert Hoeinvented the rotary printing press. Great inventions like these are thereal milestones of the path of progress.

  Mr. Strong served as a private in the ranks throughout the war. Herefused a commission offered him for gallantry in action because he knewhe did not know enough then to command men. It is a rare man who knowsthat he does not know. His regiment was mustered out of service at theend of the war in New Orleans. The young soldier decided to go home byway of St. Louis because of his memories of that old town in the dayswhen he had followed Fremont. He went again to the Planters' Hotel andthere by lucky accident he met again the famous frontiersman Kit Carson.Carson was away from the plains he loved because of a lawsuit. A sharpspeculator was trying to take away from him some land he had boughtyears ago near the town, which the growth of the town had now made quitevaluable. Carson was heartily glad to see his "Tom-boy" once more. Heinsisted upon his staying several days, took him to court to hear thetrial, and introduced him to his lawyer, a tall, gaunt, slab-sided,slouching, plain person from the neighboring State of Illinois.Everybody who knew him called him "Abe." His last name was Lincoln.

  "I'd heard so much of Abe Lincoln," said Carson, "that when thisspeculator who's trying to do me hired all the big lawyers in St. Louis,I just went over to Springfield, Illinois, to get Abe. When I saw him Irather hesitated about hiring such a looking skeesicks, but when I cameto talk with him, he did the hesitating. I asked him what he'd chargefor defending a land-suit in St. Louis. He told me. I sez: 'All right.You're hired. You're my lawyer.'

  "'Wait a bit,' sez he.

  "'What for?' sez I. 'I'll pay what you said.'

  "'That ain't all,' sez he. 'Before I take your money, Kit, I've got toknow your side of the case is the right side.'

  "'What difference does that make to a lawyer?' sez I.

  "'It makes a heap o' difference to this lawyer,' sez he. 'You've got toprove your case to me before I'll try to prove it to the court. If youain't in the right, Abe Lincoln won't be your lawyer.'

  "Darned if he didn't make me prove I was in the right, too, before he'dtouch my money. No wonder they call him 'Honest Abe.'"

  It took Lincoln a couple of days to win Kit Carson's suit. During thosetwo days young Strong saw much of him and came to admire the sterlingqualities of the man. Lincoln, too, liked this young college-bred fellowfrom the East, unaffected, well-mannered, friendly, and gay. There wasthe beginning of a friendship between the Westerner and the Easterner.Thereafter they wrote each other occasionally. When Lincoln served hisone brief term in Congress, Mr. Strong spent a week with him inWashington and asked him (but in vain) to visit him in New York.

  So, when this new giant came out of the West and Illinois gave hergreatest son to the country, as its President, Mr. Strong went toWashington to see him inaugurated and took with him his boy Tom, as hisfather had taken him in 1829 to Andrew Jackson's inauguration.

  Washington was still a great shabby village, not much more attractiveMarch 4, 1861, than it was March 4, 1829. The crowds at the twoinaugurations were much alike. In both cases the favorite son of theWest had won at the polls. In both cases the West swamped Washington.But in 1829 there was jubilant victory in the air. In 1861 there wassomber anxiety. Seven Southern States had "seceded" and had formedanother government. Other States were upon the brink of secession. Wasthe great democratic experiment of the world about to end in failure?Would there be civil war? What was this unknown man out of the Westgoing to do? Could he do anything?

  Mr. Strong and Tom, with a few thousand other people, went to thereception at the White House on the afternoon of March fourth. PresidentLincoln was laboriously shaking hands with everybody in the long line.Almost every one of them seemed to be asking him for something. He wasweary long before Tom and his father reached him, but his facebrightened as he saw them. A boy always meant a great deal to AbrahamLincoln. "There _may_ be so much in a boy," he used to say. He greetedthe two warmly.

  "Howdy, Strong? Glad to see you. This your boy? Howdy, sonny?"

  Tom did not enjoy being called "sonny" much more than he had enjoyedbeing called "bub," but he was glad to have this big man with a woman'ssmile call him anything. He wrung the President's offered hand,stammered something shyly, and was passing on with his father, whenLincoln said:

  "Hold on a minute, Strong. You haven't asked me for anything."

  "I've nothing to ask for, Mr. President. I'm not here to beg for anoffice."

  "Good gracious! You're the only man in Washington of that kind, Ibelieve. Come to see me tomorrow morning, will you?"

  "Most gladly, sir."

  The impatient man behind them pushed them on. They heard him begin toplead: "Say, Abe, you know I carried Mattoon for you; I'd like to beMinister to England."

  Boys and girls always appealed to the President's heart. When there weretalks of vital import in his office, little Tad Lincoln often sat uponhis father's knee. At a White House reception, Charles A. Dana once puthis little girl in a corner, whence she saw the show. The father tellsthe story. When the reception was over, he said to Lincoln: "'I have alittle girl here who wants to shake hands with you.' He went over to herand took her up and kissed her and talked to her. She will never forgetit if she lives to be a thousand years old."

  * * * * *

  The next morning Tom followed his father into a room on the second floorof the White House. Lincoln sat at a flat-topped desk, piled high withpapers. He was in his shirt-sleeves, with shabby black trousers, coarsestockings, and worn slippers. He stretched out his long legs, swung hislong arms behind his head, and came straight to the point.

  "Strong, I'm going to need you. Your country is going to need you. Iwant you to go straight home and fix up your business affairs so you cancome whenever I call you. Will you do it?"

  "Yes, sir."

  President and citizen rose and shook hands upon it. The citizen wasabout to go when Tom, with his heart in his mouth, but with a fineresolve in his heart, suddenly said:

  "Oh, Father! Oh, Mr. President----"

  Then he stopped short, too shy to speak, but Lincoln stooped down tohim, patted his young head and said with infinite kindness in his tone:

  "What is it, Tom? Tell me."

  "Oh, Mr. President, I'm only a boy, but can't I do something for mycountry, right now? Can't I stay here? Father will let me, won't you,Father?"

  Mr. Strong shook his head. The boy's face fell. It brightened again whenLincoln told him:

  "When I send for your father, I'll send for you, Tom."

  With that promise ringing in his ears, Tom went home to New York City.Home was a fine brick house at the northeast corner of Washington Placeand Greene Street. The house was a twin brother of those that stillstand on the north side of Washington Square. Tom had been born in it.Not long after his birth, his parents had given a notable dinner in itto a notable man. Tom had been present at the dinner, and he rememberednothing about it. As he was at the table but a few minutes, in the armsof his nurse, and less than a year old, it is not surprising that he didnot remember it. His proud young mother had exhibited him to a group ofmoney magnates, gathered at Mr. Strong's shining mahogany table fordinner, at the fashionable hour of three P.M., to see another youngthing, almost as young as Tom. This other young thing was thetelegraph, just invented by Samuel F. B. Morse, at the Uni
versity of theCity of New York, which then filled half of the eastern boundary ofWashington Square.

  * * * * *

  While Tom waited in the old brick house and played in Washington Square,history was making itself. Pope Walker, first Secretary of War of theConfederate States, sitting in his office at the Alabama Statehouse atMontgomery, the first Confederate capital, said: "It is time to sprinklesome blood in the face of the people." So he telegraphed the fatefulorder to fire on Fort Sumter, held by United States troops in Charlestonharbor. Sumter fell. Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers. Virginia, thefamous Old Dominion, "the Mother of Presidents"--Washington, Jefferson,Madison, and Monroe were Virginians--seceded. The war between the Statesbegan.

  Mr. Strong found in his mail one day this letter:

  "The Executive Mansion, Washington, April 17, 1861.

  Sir:

  The President bids me say that he would like to have you come to Washington at once and bring your son Tom with you.

  Respectfully,

  JOHN HAY, Assistant Private Secretary."

  Tom and his father started at once, as the President bade them. AtJersey City, they found the train they had expected to take had beenpre-empted by the Sixth Massachusetts, a crack militia regiment of theOld Bay State, which was hurrying to Washington in the hope of gettingthere before the rebels did. The cars were crammed with soldiers. Asentry stood at every door. No civilian need apply for passage. However,a civilian with a letter from Lincoln's secretary bidding him also hurryto Washington was in a class by himself. With the help of an officer,the father and son ran the blockade of bayonets and started southward,the only civilians upon the train. It was packed to suffocation withsoldiers. Mr. Strong sat with the regimental officers, but he let Tomroam at will from car to car. How the boy enjoyed it. The shininggun-barrels fascinated him. He joined a group of merry men, who hailedhim with a shout:

  "Here's the youngest recruit of all."

  "Are you really going to shoot rebels?" asked Tom.

  "If we must," said Jack Saltonstall, breaking the silence the questionbrought, "but I hope it won't come to that."

  "The war will be over in three months," Gordon Abbott prophesied.

  "Pooh, it will never begin,--and I'm sorry for that," said Jim Casey,"I'd like to have some real fighting."

  Within about three hours, Jim Casey was to see fighting and was to diefor his country. The beginning of bloodshed in our Civil War was in thestreets of Baltimore on April 19, 1861, just eighty-six years to a dayfrom the beginning of bloodshed in our Revolution on Lexington Common.Massachusetts and British blood in 1775; Massachusetts and Marylandblood in 1861.

  When the long train stopped at the wooden car-shed which was then theBaltimore station, the regiment left the cars, fell into line andstarted to march the mile or so of cobblestone streets to the otherstation where the train for Washington awaited it. The line of march wasthrough as bad a slum as an American city could then show. Grog-shopsswarmed in it and about every grog-shop swarmed the toughs of Baltimore.They were known locally as "plug-uglies." Like the New York "Boweryboys" of that time, they affected a sort of uniform, black dresstrousers thrust into boot-tops and red flannel shirts. Far too poor toown slaves themselves, they had gathered here to fight the slave-owners'battles, to keep the Massachusetts troops from "polluting the soil ofMaryland," as their leaders put it, really to keep them from savingWashington.

  A roar of jeers and taunts and insults hailed the head of the marchingcolumn. Tom was startled by it. He turned to his father. The two werewalking side by side, in the center of the column, between two companiesof the militia. He found his father had already turned to him.

  "Keep close to me, Tom," said Mr. Strong.

  The storm of words that beat upon them increased. At the next corner,stones took the place of words. The mob surged alongside the soldiers,swearing, stoning, striking, finally stabbing and shooting. The SixthMassachusetts showed admirable self-restraint, which the "plug-uglies"thought was cowardice. They pressed closer. With a mighty rush, fivethousand rioters broke the line of the thousand troops. The latter wereforced into small groups, many of them without an officer. Each grouphad to act for itself. Tom and his father found themselves part of atiny force of about twenty men, beset upon every side by desperadoes nowmad with liquor and with the lust of killing. Jack Saltonstall tookcommand by common consent. Calmly he faced hundreds of rioters.

  "Forward, march!"

  As he uttered the words, he pitched forward, shot through the chest. Agiant "plug-ugly" bellowed with triumph over his successful shot, yelled"kill 'em all!" and led the mob upon them. But Mr. Strong had snatchedSaltonstall's gun as it fell from his nerveless hands, had leveled andaimed it, and had shouted "fire!" to willing ears. A score of guns rangout. The mob-leader whirled about and dropped. Half-a-dozen other"plug-uglies" lay about him. This section of the mob broke and ran. Someof them fired as they ran, and Jim Casey's life went out of him.

  "Take this gun, Tom," said Mr. Strong.

  The boy took it, reloading it as he marched, while his sturdy fatherlifted the wounded Saltonstall from the stony street and staggeredforward with the body in his arms. Casey and two other men were dead.Their bodies had to be left to the fury of the mob. Saltonstall livedto fight to the end. As the survivors of the twenty pressed forward, themob behind followed them up. Bullets whizzed unpleasantly near. Twice,at Mr. Strong's command, the men faced about and fired a volley. In boththese volleys, Tom's gun played its part. He had hunted before, butnever such big game as men. The joy of battle possessed him. Since itwas apparently a case of "kill or be killed," he shot to kill. Whetherhe did kill, he never knew. The two volleys checked two threateningrushes of the rioters and enabled Mr. Strong to bring what was left ofthe gallant little band safely to the railroad station. An hour laterthe Sixth Massachusetts was in Washington. During that hour Tom had beenviolently sick upon the train. He was new to this trade of man-killing.

  At Washington, once vacant spaces were soon filled with camps. Soldierspoured in on every train. Orderlies were galloping about. Artillerysurrounded the Capitol. And from its dome Tom saw a Confederate flag,the Stars-and-Bars, flying defiantly in nearby Alexandria.

  Those were dark days. There were Confederate forces within a few milesof the White House. Sumter surrendered April 15th. Virginia seceded onthe 17th. Harper's Ferry fell into Southern hands on the 18th. The SixthMassachusetts had fought its way through Baltimore on the 19th. RobertE. Lee resigned his commission in our army on the 20th and leftArlington for Richmond, taking with him a long train of army and navyofficers whose loyal support, now lost forever, had seemed a nationalnecessity. Lincoln spent many an hour in his private office, searchingwith a telescope the reaches of the Potomac, over which the troop-ladentransports were expected. Once, when he thought he was alone, John Hayheard him call out "with irrepressible anguish": "Why don't they come?Why don't they come?" In public he gave no sign of the anxiety that waseating up his heart. He had the nerve to jest about it. The SixthMassachusetts, the Seventh New York, and a Rhode Island detachment hadall hurried to save Washington from the capture that threatened. Whenthe Massachusetts men won the race and marched proudly by the WhiteHouse, Lincoln said to some of their officers: "I begin to believe thereis no North. The Seventh Regiment is a myth. Rhode Island is another.You are the only real thing." They were very real, those men ofMassachusetts, and they were the vanguard of the real army that was tobe.