The Guns of Bull Run: A Story of the Civil War's Eve

The man was looking at him with frank blue eyes set well apart, and Harry saw no need of concealing his identity.

"My name is Kenton, Henry Kenton—though people generally call me Harry—and I live at Pendleton in Kentucky," he replied.

Now the smile of Leonidas Talbot, late colonel U. S. A., became rarely sweet.

"I should have guessed it," he said. "The place where you joined us and the strong resemblance should have made me know. You must be the son of Colonel George Kenton."

"Yes," said Harry.

"Then, young sir, let me shake your hand."

His manner seemed so warm and natural that Harry held out his hand, and Colonel Talbot gave it a strong clasp.

"Your father and I have served together," he said. "We were in the same class at West Point, and we fought in the same command against the Indians on the plains. I saw him again at Cerro Gordo, and we were side by side at Contreras, Molino del Rey, and the storming of Chapultepec. He left the service some time after we came back from Mexico, but I remained in it, until—recent events. It is fitting that I should meet his son here, when we go upon errands which are, perhaps, similar in nature. I infer that your destination is Charleston!"

"Yes," said Harry impulsively, and he was not sorry that he had obeyed the impulse.

"Then we shall go together," said Colonel Talbot. "I take it that many other people are now on their way to this same city of Charleston, which since the secession of South Carolina has become the most famous in the Union."

"I shall be glad if you will take me with you," said Harry. "I know little of Charleston and the lower South, and I need company."

"Then we will go to a hotel," said Colonel Talbot. "On a journey like this two together are better than one alone. I know Nashville fairly well, and while it is of the undoubted South, it will be best for us, while we are here, to keep quiet tongues in our heads. We cannot get a train out of the city until the afternoon."

They were now in the station and everybody was going out. It was not much past midnight, and a cold wind blowing across the hills and the Cumberland River made Harry shiver in his overcoat. Once more he was glad of his new comradeship with a man so much his superior in years and worldly wisdom.

Snow lay on the ground, but not so deep as in Kentucky. Houses, mostly of wood, and low, showed dimly through the dusk. No carriages met the train, and the people were melting away already to their destinations.

"I'll lead the way," said Colonel Talbot. "I know the best hotel, and for travelers who need rest the best is always none too good."

He led briskly through the silent and lonely streets, until they came to a large brick building with several lights shining from the wide and open door. They entered the lobby of the hotel, one carrying his saddle bags, the other his valise, and registered in the book that the sleepy clerk shoved toward them. Several loungers still sat in cane-bottomed chairs along the wall, and they cast curious glances at Harry and the colonel.

The hotel was crowded, the clerk said. People had been crowding into town in the last few days, as there was a great stir in the country owing to the news from Charleston. He could give them only one room, but it had two beds.

"It will do," said the colonel, in his soft but positive voice. "My young friend and I have been traveling hard and we need rest."

Harry would have preferred a room alone, but his trust in Colonel Talbot had already become absolute. This man must be what he claimed to be. There was no trace of deceit about him. His heart had never before warmed so much to a stranger.

Colonel Talbot closed and locked the door of their room. It was a large bare apartment with two windows overlooking the town, and two small beds against opposite walls. The colonel put his valise at the foot of one bed, and walked to the window. The night had lightened somewhat and he saw the roofs of buildings, the dim line of the yellow river, and the dusky haze of hills beyond. He turned his head and looked steadily in the direction in which lay Charleston. A look of ineffable sadness overspread his face.

The light on the table was none too bright, but Harry saw Colonel Talbot's melancholy eyes, and he could not refrain from asking:

"What's the trouble, colonel?"

The South Carolinian turned from the window, sat down on the edge of the bed and smiled. It was an illuminating smile, almost the smile of youth.

"I'm afraid that everything's the matter, Harry, boy," he said. "South Carolina, the state that I love even more than the Union to which it belongs, or belonged, has gone out, and, Harry, because I'm a son of South Carolina I must go with it—and I don't want to go. But I've been a soldier all my life. I know little of politics. I have grown up with the feeling that I must stay with my people through all things. I must be kin by blood to half the white people in Charleston. How could I desert them?"

"You couldn't," said Harry emphatically.

Colonel Leonidas Talbot smiled. It is possible that, at the moment, he wished for the sanguine decision of youth, which could choose a side and find only wrong in the other.

"In my heart," he continued, "I do not wish to see the Union broken up, although the violence of New England orators and the raid of John Brown has appalled me. But, Harry, pay good heed to me when I say it is not a mere matter of going out of the Union. It may not be possible for South Carolina and the states that follow her to stay out."

"I don't understand you," said the boy.

"It means war! It means war, as surely as the rising of the sun in the morning. Many think that it does not; that the new republic will be formed in peace, but I know better. A great and terrible war is coming. Many of our colored people in Charleston and along the Carolina coast came by the way of the West Indies. They have strange superstitions. They believe that some of their number have the gift of second sight. In my childhood I knew two old women who claimed the power, and they gave apparent proofs that were extraordinary. I feel just now as if I had the gift myself, and I tell you, Harry, although you can see only a dark horizon from the window, I see one that is blood red all the way to the zenith. Alas, our poor country!"

Harry stared at him in amazement. The colonel, although he had called his name, seemed to have forgotten his presence. A vivid and powerful imagination had carried him not only from the room, but far into the future. He recovered himself with an abrupt little shrug of the shoulders.

"I am too old a man to be talking such foolishness to a boy," he said, briskly. "To bed, Harry! To bed! Your sleep on the train was brief and you need more! So do I!"

Harry undressed quickly, and put himself under the covers, and the colonel also retired, although somewhat more leisurely. The boy could not sleep for some time. One vision was present in his mind, that of Charleston, the famous city to which they were going. The effect of Colonel Talbot's ominous words had worn off. He would soon see the city which had been so long a leader in Southern thought and action, and he would see, too, the men who had so boldly taken matters in their own hands. He admired their courage and daring.

It was late when Harry awoke, and the colonel was already up and dressed. But the man waited quietly until the boy was dressed also, and they went down to breakfast together. Despite the lateness of the hour the dining-room was still crowded, and the room buzzed with animated talk. Harry knew very well that Charleston was the absorbing topic, just as it had been the one great thought in his own mind. The people about him seemed to be wholly of Southern sympathies, and he knew very well that Tennessee, although she might take her own time about it, would follow South Carolina out of the Union.

They found two vacant seats at a table, where three men already sat. One was a member of the Legislature, who talked somewhat loudly; the second was a country merchant of middle age, and the third was a young man of twenty-five, who had very little to say. The legislator, whose name was Ramsay, soon learned Colonel Talbot's identity, and he would have proclaimed it to everybody about him, had not the colonel begged him not to do so.

"But you will at least permit me to shake your hand, Colonel Talbot," he said. "One who can give up his commission in the army and come back to us as you have done is the kind of man we need."

Colonel Talbot gave a reluctant hand.

"I am proud to have felt the grasp of one who will win many honors in the coming war," said Ramsay.

"Or more likely fill a grave," said Colonel Talbot, dryly.

The silent young man across the table looked at the South Carolinian with interest, and Harry in his turn examined this stranger. He was built well, shaven smoothly, and did not look like a Tennesseean. His thin lips, often pressed closely together, seemed to indicate a capacity for silence, but when he saw Harry looking at him he smiled and said:

"I gather from your conversation that you are going to Charleston. All southern roads seem to lead to that town, and I, too, am going there. My name is Shepard, William J. Shepard, of St. Louis."

Colonel Talbot turned a measuring look upon him. It was so intent and comprehensive that the young man flushed slightly, and moved a little in his seat.

"So you are from St. Louis?" said the colonel. "That is a great city, and you must know something about the feeling there. Can you tell me whether Missouri will go out?"

"I cannot," replied Shepard. "No man can. But many of us are at work."

"What do you think?" persisted Colonel Talbot.

"I am hoping. Missouri is really a Southern state, the daughter of Kentucky, and she ought to join her Southern sisters. As the others go out one by one, I think she will follow. The North will not fight, and we will form a peaceful Southern republic."

Colonel Leonidas Talbot of South Carolina swept him once more with that intent and comprehensive gaze.

"The North will fight," he said. "As I told my young friend here last night, a great and terrible war is coming."

"Do you think so?" asked Shepard, and it seemed to Harry that his tone had become one of overwhelming interest. "Then Charleston, as its center and origin, ought to be ready. How are they prepared there for defense?"

Colonel Talbot's eyes never left Shepard's face and a faint pink tint appeared again in the young man's cheeks.

"There are the forts—Sumter, Moultrie, Johnson and Pinckney," replied the South Carolinian, "and I heard to-day that they are building earthworks, also. All are helping and it is said that Toutant Beauregard is going there to take command."

"A good officer," said Shepard, musingly. "I believe you said you were leaving for Charleston this afternoon?"

"No, I did not say when," replied Colonel Talbot, somewhat sharply. "It is possible that Harry and I may linger a while in Nashville. They do not need us yet in Charleston, although their tempers are pretty warm. There has been so much fiery talk, cumulative for so many years, that they regard northern men with extremely hostile eyes. It would not take much to cause trouble."

Colonel Talbot continued to gaze steadily at Shepard, but the Missourian looked down into his plate. It seemed to Harry that there was some sort of play between them, or rather a thread of suspicion, a fine thread in truth, but strong enough to sustain something. He could see, too, that Colonel Talbot was giving Shepard a warning, a warning, veiled and vague, but nevertheless a warning. But the boy liked Shepard. His face seemed to him frank and honest, and he would have trusted him.

They rose presently and went into the lobby, where the colonel evaded Shepard, as the place was now crowded. More news had come from Charleston and evidently it was to their liking. There was a great amount of talk. Many of the older men sprinkled their words with expressive oaths. The oaths came so naturally that it seemed to be a habit with them. They chewed tobacco freely, and now and then their white shirt fronts were stained with it. All those who seemed to be of prominence wore long black coats, waistcoats cut low, and trousers of a lighter color.

Near the wall stood a man of heavy build with a great shaggy head and thick black hair all over his face. He was dressed in a suit of rough gray jeans, with his trousers stuffed into high boots. He carried in his right hand a short, thick riding whip, with which he occasionally switched the tops of his own boots.

Harry spoke to him civilly, after the custom of the time and place. He took him for a mountaineer, and he judged by the heavy whip he carried, that he was a horse or cattle trader.

"They talk of Charleston," said Harry.

"Yes, they talk an' talk," said the man, biting his words, "an' they do nothin'."

"You think they ought to take Tennessee out right away?"

"No, I'm ag'in it. I don't want to bust up this here Union. But I reckon Tennessee is goin' out, an' most all the other Southern states will go out, too. I 'low the South will get whipped like all tarnation, but if she does I'm a Southerner myself, an' I'll have to git whipped along with her. But talkin' don't do no good fur nobody. If the South goes out, it's hittin' that'll count, an' them that hits fastest, hardest, truest an' longest will win."

The man was rough in appearance and illiterate in speech, but his manner impressed Harry in an extraordinary manner. It was direct and wonderfully convincing. The boy recognized at once a mind that would steer straight through things toward its goal.

"My name is Harry Kenton," he said politely. "I'm from Kentucky, and my father used to be a colonel in the army."

"Mine," said the mountaineer, "is Nat Forrest, Nathan Bedford Forrest for full and long. I'm a trader in live stock, an' I thought I'd look in here at Nashville an' see what the smart folks was doin'. I'd tell 'em not to let Tennessee go out of the Union, but they wouldn't pay any 'tention to a hoss-tradin' mountaineer, who his neighbors say can't write his name."

"I'm glad to meet you, Mr. Forrest," said Harry, "but I'm afraid we're on different sides of the question."

"Mebbe we are 'til things come to a head," said the mountaineer, laughing, "but, as I said, if Tennessee goes out, I reckon I'll go with her. It's hard to go ag'in your own gang. Leastways, 't ain't in me to do it. Now I've had enough of this gab, an' I'm goin' to skip out. Good-bye, young feller. I wish you well."

Bringing his whip once more, and sharply this time, across the tops of his own boots, he strode out of the hotel. His walk was like his talk, straight and decisive. Harry saw Shepard in the lobby making friends, but, imitating his older comrade, he avoided him, and late that afternoon Colonel Talbot and he left for Charleston.

CHAPTER III

THE HEART OF REBELLION

Harry, with his friend Colonel Leonidas Talbot, approached Charleston on Christmas morning. It was a most momentous day to him. As he came nearer, the place looked greater and greater. He had read much about it in the books in his father's house—old tales of the Revolution and stories of its famous families—and now its name was in the mouths of all men.

He had felt a change in his own Kentucky atmosphere at Nashville, but it had become complete when he drew near to Charleston. It was a different world, different alike in appearance and in thought. The contrast made the thrill all the keener and longer. Colonel Talbot, also, was swayed by emotion, but his was that of one who was coming home.

"I was born here, and I passed my boyhood here," he said. "I could not keep from loving it if I would, and I would not if I could. Look how the cold North melts away. See the great magnolias, the live oaks, and the masses of shrubbery! Harry, I promise you that you shall have a good time in this Charleston of ours."

They had left the railroad some distance back, and had come in by stage. The day was warm and pleasant. Two odors, one of flowers and foliage, and the other of the salt sea, reached Harry. He found both good. He felt for the thousandth time of his pocket-book and papers to see that they were safe, and he was glad that he had come, glad that he had been chosen for such an important errand.

The colonel asked the driver to stop the stage at a cross road, and he pointed out to Harry a low, white house with green blinds, standing on a knoll among magnificent live oaks.

"That is my house, Harry," he said, "and this is Christmas Day. Come and spend it with me there."

Harry felt to the full the kindness of Colonel Leonidas Talbot, for whom he had formed a strong affection. The colonel seemed to him so simple, so honest and, in a way, so unworldly, that he had won his heart almost at once. But he felt that he should decline, as his message must be delivered as soon as he arrived in Charleston.

"I suppose you are right," said the colonel, when the boy had explained why he could not accept. "You take your letters to the gentlemen who are going to make the war, and then you and I and others like us, ranging from your age to mine, will have to fight it."

But Harry was not to be discouraged. He could not see things in a gray light on that brilliant Christmas morning. Here was Charleston before him and in a few hours he would be in the thick of great events. A thrill of keen anticipation ran through all his veins. The colonel and he stood by the roadside while the obliging driver waited. He offered his hand, saying good-bye.

"It's only for a day," said Colonel Leonidas Talbot, as he gave the hand a strong clasp. "I shall be in Charleston tomorrow, and I shall certainly see you."

Harry sprang back to his place and the stage rolled joyously into Charleston. Harry saw at once that the city was even more crowded than Nashville had been. Its population had increased greatly in a few weeks, and he could feel the quiver of excitement in the air. Citizen soldiers were drilling in open places, and other men were throwing up earthworks.

He left the stage and carried over his arm his baggage, which still consisted only of a pair of saddle bags. He walked to an old-fashioned hotel which Colonel Talbot had selected for him as quiet and good, and as he went he looked at everything with a keen and eager interest. The deep, mellow chiming of bells, from one point and then from another, came to his ears. He knew that they were the bells of St. Philip's and St. Michael's, and he looked up in admiration at their lofty spires. He had often heard, in far Kentucky, of these famous churches and their silver chimes.

It seemed to Harry that the tension and excitement of the people in the streets were of a rather pleasant kind. They had done a great deed, and, keyed to a high pitch by their orators and newspapers, they did not fear the consequences. The crowd seemed foreign to him in many aspects, Gallic rather than American, but very likeable.

He reached his hotel, a brick building behind a high iron fence, kept by a woman of olive complexion, middle years, and pleasant manners, Madame Josephine Delaunay. She looked at him at first with a little doubt, because it was a time in Charleston when one must inspect strangers, but when he mentioned Colonel Leonidas Talbot she broke into a series of smiles.

"Ah, the good colonel!" she exclaimed. "We were children at school together, but since he became a soldier he has gone far from here. And has he returned to fight for his great mother, South Carolina?"

"He has come back. He has resigned from the army, and he is here to do South Carolina's bidding."

"It is like him," said Madame Delaunay. "Ah, that Leonidas, he has a great soul!"

"I travelled with him from Nashville to Charleston," said Harry, "and I learned to like and admire him."

He had established himself at once in the good graces of Madame Delaunay and she gave him a fine room overlooking a garden, which in season was filled with roses and oranges. Even now, pleasant aromatic odors came to him through the open window. He had been scarcely an hour in Charleston but he liked it already. The old city breathed with an ease and grace to which he was unused. The best name that he knew for it was fragrance.

He had a suit of fresh clothing in his saddle bags, and he arrayed himself with the utmost neatness and care. He felt that he must do so. He could not present himself in rough guise to a people who had every right to be fastidious. He would also obtain further clothing out of the abundant store of money, as his father had wished him to make a good appearance and associate with the best.

He descended, and found Madame Delaunay in the garden, where she gave him welcome, with grave courtesy. She seemed to him in manner and bearing a woman of wealth and position, and not the keeper of an inn, doing most of the work with her own hands. He learned later that the two could go together in Charleston, and he learned also, that she was the grand-daughter of a great Haytian sugar planter, who had fled from the island, leaving everything to the followers of Toussaint l'Ouverture, glad to reach the shores of South Carolina in safety.

Madame Delaunay looked with admiration at the young Kentuckian, so tall and powerful for his age. To her, Kentucky was a part of the cold North.

"Can you tell me where I am likely to find Senator Yancey?" asked Harry. "I have letters which I must deliver to him, and I have heard that he is in Charleston."

"There is to be a meeting of the leaders this afternoon in St. Anthony's Hall in Broad street. You will surely find him there, but you must have your luncheon first. I think you must have travelled far."

"From Kentucky," replied Harry, and then he added impulsively: "I've come to join your people, Madame Delaunay. South Carolina has many and powerful friends in the Upper South."

"She will need them," said Madame Delaunay, but with no tone of apprehension. "This, however, is a city that has withstood much fire and blood and it can withstand much more. Now I'll leave you here in the garden. Come to luncheon at one, and you shall meet my other guests."

Harry sat down on a little wooden bench beneath a magnolia. Here in the garden the odor of grass and foliage was keen, and thrillingly sweet. This was the South, the real South, and its warm passions leaped up in his blood. Much of the talk that he had been hearing recently from those older than he passed through his mind. The Southern states did have a right to go if they chose, and they were being attacked because their prominence aroused jealousy. Slavery was a side issue, a mere pretext. If it were not convenient to hand, some other excuse would be used. Here in Charleston, the first home of secession, among people who were charming in manner and kind, the feeling was very strong upon him.

He left the house after luncheon, and, following Madame Delaunay's instructions, came very quickly to St. Andrew's hall in Broad street, where five days before, the Legislature of South Carolina, after adjourning from Columbia, had passed the ordinance of secession.

Two soldiers in the Palmetto uniform were on guard, but they quickly let him pass when he showed his letters to Senator Yancey. Inside, a young man, a boy, in fact, not more than a year older than himself, met him. He was slender, dark and tall, dressed precisely, and his manner had that easy grace which, as Harry had noticed already, seemed to be the characteristic of Charleston.

"My name is Arthur St. Clair," he said, "and I'm a sort of improvised secretary for our leaders who are in council here."

"Mine," said Harry, "is Henry Kenton. I'm a son of Colonel George Kenton, of Kentucky, late a colonel in the United States Army, and I've come with important messages from him, Senator Culver and other Southern leaders in Kentucky."

"Then you will be truly welcome. Wait a moment and I'll see if they are ready to receive you."

He returned almost instantly, and asked Harry to go in with him. They entered a large room, with a dais at the center of the far wall, and a number of heavy gilt chairs covered with velvet ranged on either side of it. Over the dais hung a large portrait of Queen Victoria as a girl in her coronation robes. A Scotch society had occupied this room, but the people of Charleston had always taken part in their festivities. In those very velvet chairs the chaperons had sat while the dancing had gone on in the hall. Then the leaders of secession had occupied them, when they put through their measure, and now they were sitting there again, deliberating.