 | CHAPTER XXX.
COLONEL CARTER COMMITS HIS FIRST UNGENTLEMANLY
ACTION. Miss Ravenel's conversion from secession to loyalty |  |
30. CHAPTER XXX.
COLONEL CARTER COMMITS HIS FIRST UNGENTLEMANLY
ACTION.
We come now to the times of the famous and unfortunate
Red River expedition. During the winter of 1863-4
New Orleans society, civil as well as military, was wild
with excitement over the great enterprise which was not
only to crush the rebel power in the southwest, but to
open to commerce the immense stores of cotton belonging
to the princely planters of the Red River bottoms. Cotton
was gold, foreign exchange, individual wealth, national
solvency. Thousands of men went half mad in their desire
for cotton. Cotton was a contagion, an influenza, a delirium.
In the height of this excitement a corpulent, baldish,
smiling gentleman of fifty was closeted, not for the first
time, with the chief quartermaster. His thick feet were
planted wide apart, his chubby hands rested on his chubby
knees, his broad base completely filled the large office
chair in which he sat, his paunchy torso and fat head leaned
forward in an attitude of eagerness, and his twinkling grey
eyes, encircled by yellowish folds, were fixed earnestly
upon the face of Carter.
“Colonel, you make a great mistake in letting this
chance slip,” he said, and then paused to wheeze.
The Colonel said nothing, smoked his twenty cent Havana
slowly, and gazed thoughtfully at the toes of his twenty
dollar boots. With his aristocratic face, his lazy pride of
expression, his bran-new citizen's suit, his boots and his
Havana, he looked immensely rich and superbly indifferent
to all pecuniary chances.
“You see, here is a sure thing,” continued the oleaginous
personage. “Banks' column will be twenty thousand
strong. Steele's will be ten thousand. There are
thirty thousand, without counting Porter's fleet. The
Confederates can't raise twenty thousand to cover the Red
River country, if they go to hell. Besides, there is an understanding.
Tit for tat, you know. Cotton for cash.
You see I am as well posted on the matter as you are,
Colonel.”
Here he paused, wheezed, nodded, smiled and bored his
corkscrew eyes into Carter. The latter uttered not a word
and gave no sign of either acquiescence or denial.
“You see the cotton is sure to come,” continued the stout
man, withdrawing his ocular corkscrew for a moment.
“Now what I propose is, that you put in the capital, or the
greater part of it, and that I do the work and give you the
lion's share of the profits. I can't furnish the capital, and
you can. You can't do the work, and I can. Or suppose
I guarantee you a certain sum on each bale, Colonel, for
a hundred thousand dollars, I promise you a square profit
of two hundred thousand.”
“Mr. Walker, if it is sure to pay so well, why don't you
go in alone?” asked Carter.
Mr. Walker pointed at his coarse grey trousers and then
took hold of the frayed edge of his coarse grey coat.
“See here, Colonel,” said he. “The man who wears
this cloth hasn't a hundred thousand dollars handy. When
I knew you in old times I used to go in my broadcloth. I
hope to do it again—not that I care for it. That's one
is that I haven't the influence at headquarters that you have.
I need your name as well as your money to put the business
through quick and sure. That's why I offer you four
fifths of the profits. Colonel, it's a certain thing and a good
thing. I am positively astonished at finding any hesitation
in a man in your pecuniary condition.”
“What do you know about my condition?” demanded
Carter imperiously.
“Well, it's my interest to know,” replied Walker, whose
cunning fat smile did not quail before the Colonel's leonine
roar and toss of mane. “I have bought up a lot of your
debts and notes. I got them for an average of sixty, Colonel.”
“You paid devilish dear, and made a bad investment,”
said Carter, “I wouldn't have given thirty.”
A bitter smile twisted his lips as he thought how poor
he was, how bad his credit was, and how mean it was to
be poor and discredited.
“Perhaps I have. I believe I have, unless you go into
this cotton. I bought them to induce you to go into it.
I thought you would oblige a man who relieved you from
forty or fifty duns. I took a four thousand dollar risk on
you, Colonel.”
Carter scowled and stopped smoking. He did not know
what Walker could do with him; he did not much believe
that he legally could do anything; his creditors never
had done more than dun him. But High Authority might
perhaps be led to do unpleasant things: for instance, in the
way of relieving him from his position, if the fact should
be forced upon its notice, that so responsible an officer as
the chief quartermaster of the Gulf Department was burdened
by private indebtedness. At all events it was unpleasant
to have a grasping, intriguing, audacious fellow
like Walker for a creditor to so large an amount. It
would be a fine thing to get out of debt once for all; to
astonish his duns (impertinent fellows, some of them) by
for all, without danger of recurring poverty; to be rich
enough to force promotion. Other officials—quartermasters,
paymasters, etc.—were going in for cotton on the
strength of Government deposits. The influenza had
caught the Colonel; indeed it was enough to corrupt any
man's honesty to breathe the moral atmosphere of New Orleans
at that time; it could taint the honor derived from
blue ancestral blood and West Point professional pride.
Carter did not, however, give way to his oily Mephistopheles
during this interview. Walker's victory was
not so sudden as Mrs. Larue's; his temptation was not so
well suited as hers to the character of the victim; the love
of lucre could not compare as a force with le divin sens du
genesiaque. It was not until Walker had boldly threatened
to bring his claims before the General Commanding, not
until the army had well nigh reached the Red River, not
until the chance of investment had almost passed, that the
Colonel became a speculator. Once resolved, he acted
with audacity, according to his temperament. But here,
unfortunately for the curious reader, we enter upon cavernous
darkness, where it is impossible to trace out a story
except by hazardous inference, our only guides being common
rumor, a fragment of a letter, a conversation half-overheard,
and other circumstances of a like unsatisfactory
nature. Before giving my narrative publicity I feel bound
to state that the entire series of alleged events may be a
fiction of the excited popular imagination, founded on
facts which might be explained in accordance with an assumption
of Carter's innocence, and official honor.
I am inclined to believe, or at least to admit, that he
drew a large sum (not less than one hundred thousand
dollars) of the Government money in his charge, and
placed it in the hands of his agent for the purchase of cotton
from the planters of the Red River. It is probable
that Walker expected to complete the transaction within
a month, and to place the cotton, or the proceeds of it, in
to show a square balance on his official return at the close
of the current quarter. Such claims as might come in
during this period could be put off by the plea of “no
funds,” or the safer devices of, “disallowed,”—“papers
returned for correction,” etc., etc. That the cotton could
be sold at a monstrous profit was unquestionable. At
New Orleans there were greedy capitalists, who had not
been lucky enough to get into the Ring, and so accompany
the expedition, who were anxious to pay cash down for
the precious commodity immediately on its arrival at the
levee, or even before it quitted the Red River. No body
entertained a doubt of the military and commercial success
of the great expedition, with its fleet, its veteran infantry,
its abundant cavalry, all splendidly equipped, and
its strategic combination of concentric columns. Even
rabid secessionists were infected by the mania, and sought
to invest their gold in cotton. It is probable that Carter's
hopes at this time were far higher than his fears, and that
he pretty confidently expected to see himself a rich man
inside of sixty days. I am telling my story, the reader
perceives, on the presumption that rumor has correctly
stated these mysterious events.
If the materials for the tale were only attainable it would
be a delightful thing to follow the corpulent Walker
through the peaceful advance and sanguinary retreat of
the great expedition. It is certain that from some quarter
he obtained command of a vast capital, and that, in spite
of his avoirdupois, he was alert and indefatigable in seeking
opportunities for investment. Had Mars been half as
adroit and watchful in his strategy as this fat old Mercury
was in his speculations, Shreveport would have been taken,
and Carter would have made a quarter of a million. But
the God of Lucre had great reason to grumble at the God
of War. It was in vain that Mercury lost fifty pounds of
flesh in sleepless lookout for chances, in audacious rides to
plantations haunted by guerrillas, shot at from swamps,
bargaining nearly all night after riding all day, untiring
as a savage, zealous as an abolitionist, sublime in his
passion for gain. Mars incautiously stretched his splendid
army over thirty miles of road, and saw it beaten in detachments
by a force one quarter smaller, and vastly inferior
in discipline and equipment. There was such a
panic at Sabine Cross Roads as had not been seen since
Bull Run. Cavalry, artillery, and infantry, mingled together
in hopeless confusion, rushed in wild flight across
the open fields, or forced their way down a narrow road
encumbered with miles of abandoned baggage wagons.
Through this chaos of terror advanced the saviours of the
day, the heroic First Division of the Nineteenth Corps,
marching calmly by the flank, hooting and jeering the
runaways, filing into line within grape range of the enemy,
and opening a withering fire of musketry which checked
until nightfall the victorious, elated, impetuous Rebel
masses. Then came an extraordinary midnight retreat of
twenty miles, and in the afternoon of the next day a hardly-won,
unimproved victory. The first division of the Nineteenth
Corps, and seven thousand men of the Sixteenth
Corps, the one forming the right and the other the left,
resisted for hours the violent charges of the rebels, and
then advanced two miles, occupying the field of battle.
The soldiers were victorious, but the General was beaten.
A new retreat was ordered, and Mercury went totally to
grief.
The obese Walker was last seen by loyal eyes on the
night which followed the barren triumph of Pleasant Hill.
He had had his horse shot under him in the beginning of
the fighting at Sabine Cross Roads, while in advance of the
column; had effected a masterly retreat, partly on foot
and partly on a Government mule which he took from a
negro driver, who had cut it loose from an entangled
wagon; had fed himself abundantly from the havresacks
of defunct rebels on the field of victory; and then had heroically
Believing with the confidence of his sanguine nature that
the army would advance in the morning, he started on his
mule, accompanied by two comrades of the Ring, for the
house of a neighboring planter, to whom it is supposed
that he had advanced cash for cotton. No one knows to
this day what became of him, or of his funds, or investments,
or fellow adventurers. All alike disappeared utterly
and forever from the knowledge of the Union army when
the three rode into that night of blood and groans beyond
the flickering circle of light, thrown out by the camp fires.
The news of the calamity, we may suppose, nearly paralyzed
Carter. Defalcation, trial by court-martial, disgraceful
dismissal from the service, hard labor at Tortugas,
ball and chain, a beggared family, a crazed wife, must
have made up a terrific spectre, advancing, close at hand,
unavoidable, pitiless. It would be a laborious task to analyze
and fully conceive the feelings of such a man in such
a position. Naturally and with inexorable logic followed
the second act of the moral tragedy. A deed which some
men would call merely a blunder led straight to another
deed which all men would call a crime. He could not,
as men have sometimes done, hope to annul his indebtedness
by the simple commission of murder. Irresistible necessity
drove him (if our hypothetical tale is correct) into a species
of wickedness which was probably more repugnant to his
peculiarly educated conscience than the taking of human
life.
Carter wanted, we will say, one hundred and ten thousand
dollars to make himself square with the United States
and his private creditors. Looking over the Government
property for which he had receipted and was responsible,
he found fifteen steamboats, formerly freight or passenger
boats on the Mississippi and its branches, but now regular
transports, part of them lying idly at the levee, the others
engaged in carrying reinforcements to the army at Grande
Ecore or in bringing back the sick and wounded. If ten
dollars apiece and re-bought at an average of twenty-five
thousand dollars apiece, the transaction would furnish a
profit of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, which
would settle all his debts, besides furnishing collusion-money.
First, he wanted a nominal purchaser, who
had that sort of honor which is necessary among thieves,
fortune enough to render the story of the purchase plausible,
and character enough to impose on the public. Carter
went straight to a man of known fortune, born in New
Orleans, high in social position, a secessionist who had
taken the oath of allegiance. Mr. Hollister was a small
and thin gentleman, with sallow and hollow cheeks, black
eyes, iron gray hair, mellow voice, composed and elegant
manners. His air, notwithstanding his small size, was
remarkably dignified, and his expression was so calm that
it would have seemed benignant but for a most unhappy
eye. It was startlingly black, with an agitated flicker in
it, like the flame of a candle blowing in the wind; it did
not seem to be pursuing any object without, but rather
flying from some horrible thought within. What intrigue
or crime or suffering it was the record of it is not worth
while to inquire. There had been many dark things done
or planned in Louisiana during the lifetime of Mr. Hollister.
His age must have been sixty-five, although the freshness
of his brown morning suit, the fineness and fit of his
linen, the neat brush to his hair, the clean shave on his face,
took ten years off his shoulders. As he dabbled in stocks
and speculations, he had his office. He advanced to meet
the chief quartermaster, shook hands with respectful cordiality,
and conducted him to a chair with as much politeness
as if he were a lady.
“You look pale, Colonel,” he said. “Allow me to offer
you a glass of brandy. Trying season, this last summer.
There was a time when I never thought of facing our climate
all the year round.”
Taking out of a cupboard one of the many bottles of
before the million of former days had dwindled to
the hundred thousand of to-day, he set it beside a pitcher
of ice-water and some glasses which stood on a table. The
Colonel swallowed half a tumbler of pure brandy, and
dashed some water after it. The broker mixed a weak
sling, and sipped it to keep his visitor in countenance.
“Mr. Hollister,” said Carter, “I hope I shall not offend
you if I say that I know you have suffered heavily by
the war.”
“I shall certainly not be offended. I am obliged to you
for showing the slightest interest in my affairs.”
“You have taken the oath of allegiance—haven't you?”
Mr. Hollister said “Yes,” and bowed respectfully, as if
saluting the United States Government.
“It is only fair that you should obtain remuneration for
your losses.”
The black eyes flashed a little under the iron-gray, bushy
eyebrows, but the sallow face showed no other sign of
interest and none of impatience.
“I know of a transaction—an investment—” pursued
Carter, “which will probably enable you to pocket—to realize—perhaps
twenty thousand dollars.”
“I should be indebted to you for life. Whatever service
I can render in return will be given with all my
heart.”
“It requires secrecy. May I ask you to pledge your
word?”
“I pledge it, Colonel—my word of honor—as a Louisiana
gentleman.”
Carter drew a long breath, poured out another dose of
brandy, partially raised it and then set it, down without
drinking.
“There are ten river steamboats here,” he went on—
“ten transports which are not wanted. I have received a
message from headquarters to the effect that we no longer
need our present large force of transports. The army will
to go to Shreveport. I am empowered to select eight of
these transports for sale—you understand.”
“Precisely,” bowed Hollister. “If the army advances,
of course it does not need transports.”
As to the military information he neither believed nor
disbelieved, knowing well that the Colonel would not
honestly tell him anything of consequence on that score.
“Well, they will be sold,” added Carter, after a pause,
during which he vainly tried to imagine some other method
of covering his enormous defalcation. “They will be sold
at auction. They will probably bring next to nothing. I
propose that you be present to buy them.”
The broker closed his eyes for a moment or two, and
when he had opened them he had made his calculations.
He inferred that the United States Government was not to
profit much by the transaction; that, in plain words, it
was to be cheated out of an amount of property more or
less considerable; and, being a Confederate at heart, he
had no objection.
“Why not have a private sale?” he asked.
“It is contrary to the Regulations.”
“Ah! Then it might be well not to have the auction
made too public.”
“I suppose so. Perhaps that can be arranged.”
“I can arrange it, Colonel. If I may select the parties
to be present, men of straw, you understand—the auction
will wear a sufficient air of publicity, and will yet be substantially
a private sale. All that is easily enough managed,
provided we first understand each other thoroughly.
Listen, if you please. The ten steamboats are worth, we
will say, an average of twenty-five thousand dollars, or
two hundred and fifty thousand for the lot. If I buy them
for an average of ten thousand, which is respectable—”
Here he looked gravely at Carter, and, seeing assent in
his eyes, continued.
“If I buy them at an average of ten thousand, there
fifty thousand. That is very well—exceedingly well. Of
course I should only demand a moderate proportion of so
large a sum. But there are several other things to be considered.
If I am to pay cash down, it will oblige me to
borrow immensely, and perhaps to realize at a loss by
forcing sales of my stocks. In that case I should want—
say a third—of the profit in order to cover my risk and
my losses, as well as my expenses in the way of—to be
plain—hush-money. If I can pay by giving my notes,
and moreover can be made sure of a purchaser before the
notes mature, I can afford to undertake the job for one
sixth of the profits, which I estimate to be twenty-five
thousand dollars.”
There was a flash of pleasure in Carter's eyes at discovering
that the broker was so moderate in his expectations.
There was a similar glitter in the dark orbs of Hollister at
seeing that the Colonel tacitly accepted his offer, from
which he would have been willing to abate a few thousands
rather than lose the job.
“The boats will have to go before an Inspector before
they can be sold,” said the Colonel, after a few moments
of reverie, during which he drank off his brandy.
“I hope he will be amenable to reason,” said Hollister.
“Perhaps he will need a couple of thousands or so before
he will be able to discover his line of duty. It may answer
if he is merely ignorant of steamboats.”
“Of course he is. What can an army officer know about
steam engines or hulls?”
“I will see that he is posted. I will see that he has entirely
satisfactory evidence concerning the worthless
nature of the property from the captains, and engineers,
and carpenters. That will require—say three thousand—
possibly twice that. I will advance the money for these
incidental expenses, and you will reimburse me one half
when the transaction is complete.”
The Colonel looked up uneasily, and made no reply.
curiously enough he still had too much conscience, too
much honor, for that; but he must be sure of enough to
clear off his defalcation.
“Well, we will see about that afterward,” compromised
Hollister. “I will pay these expenses and leave the question
of reimbursement to you. By the way, what are the
names of the boats? I know some of them.”
“Queen of the South, Queen of the West, Pelican, Crescent
City, Palmetto, Union, Father of Waters, Red River,
Gulf State, and Massachusetts,” repeated Carter, with a
pause of recollection before each title.
The broker laughed.
“I used to own three of them. I know them all, except
the Massachusetts, which is a northern boat. All in running
order?”
“Yes. Dirty, of course.”
“Very well. Now permit me to make out a complete
programme of the transaction. The boats are recommended
for the action of an Inspector. I see to it that he receives
sufficient evidence to prove their unserviceable condition.
It is ordered that they be sold at public auction. I provide
the persons who are to be present at the auction.
These men—my agents—will purchase the boats at a net
cost of one hundred thousand dollars, for which they will
give my notes payable a month from date. Within the
month I am supposed to refit the boats and make them
serviceable, while the Government is certain to need them
back again. I then sell them to you—the purchasing
agent of the Government—for a net sum of at least two
hundred and fifty thousand dollars. I receive my notes
back, and also a cash balance of one hundred and thirty
thousand dollars, of which I only take thirty thousand,
leaving the rest in your hands under a mutual pledge of
confidence. I desire to make one final suggestion, which
I consider of great importance. It would be well if the
boats, when re-bought, should accidentally take fire and
amount which I might have expended in repairs. Colonel,
is that perfectly to your satisfaction?”
The unfortunate, unhappy, degraded officer and gentleman
could only reply, “Yes.”
Such is the supposed secret history of this scandalous
stroke of business. It is only certain that the boats were
inspected and condemned; that at an auction, attended by
a limited number of respectably dressed persons, they
were sold for sums varying from seven to fifteen thousand
dollars; that the amounts were all paid in the notes of L.
M. Hollister, a well-known broker, and capitalist of supposed
secession proclivities; that within a month the transports
were repurchased by the Government at sums varying
from fifteen to thirty thousand dollars; that thus a net
profit of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars accrued to
the said Hollister; and that three days after the sale the
boats caught fire and burned to the water's edge. Of
course there was talk, perhaps unjustifiable; suspicions,
which perhaps had no foundation in fact. But there was
no investigation, possibly no serious cause for it, probably
no chance for it.
Colonel Carter sent a square balance-sheet to the Quartermaster's
Department at Washington, and paid all his
private debts in New Orleans. But he grew thin, looked
anxious, or ostentatiously gay, and resumed to some extent
his habits of drinking. Once he terrified his wife by
remaining out all night, explaining when he came home in
the morning that he had been up the river on pressing
business. The truth is that the Colonel had got himself
stone-blind drunk, and had slept himself sober in a hotel.
| CHAPTER XXX.
COLONEL CARTER COMMITS HIS FIRST UNGENTLEMANLY
ACTION. Miss Ravenel's conversion from secession to loyalty | |