77. CHAPTER LXXVII.
DESERTIONS TO RANDOLPH.
The Commander-in-chief of the Northern army, upon
resuming his march from Richmond, strove in vain to bring
Randolph to a decisive battle. The President's course had
been taken after deliberate consideration. Futile then were
the repeated stratagems of Ruffleton to precipitate a general
engagement; and equally unsuccessful were the persuasions
and remonstrances of many of the President's
Southern friends. He knew that the preponderating physical
force of the Despot must inevitably be diminished as
he ventured farther into the country, and that he could, at
the proper moment, concentrate all the patriotism and
chivalry of the slave States against the invader. He went
still further, and for every thousand men that joined his
standard, he detached fifteen hundred from it, and stationed
them in the garrisons on the right and left of the invaders,
to be in readiness to fall upon their flanks, or to intercept
their communications.
Thus for days and weeks Randolph retired and Ruffleton
pursued. The former presented no serious obstacle to the
passage of the Roanoke, or Cape Fear river, but fell back
into South Carolina, much to the chagrin and disgust of
the large planters, who were under the necessity of removing
their dense population of slaves beyond the Catawba,
and to witness, unnecessarily, as they believed or asserted,
the destruction of the growing crop. But Randolph persisted
in his plan, and Blount concurred in it heartily.
Nevertheless there were dissensions in the camp as well as
out of it, among divers ambitious political leaders; and
the discontented chiefs in several States conspired together
for the overthrow of the President. This conspiracy obtained
consistency when it was ascertained that General
Fell, the rival and competitor of Randolph for the Presidency,
had levied an army in the valley of the Mississippi,
consisting mostly of slaves, and was then approaching the
Atlantic seaboard by way of Tennessee and Virginia.
Nevertheless Randolph remained steadfast in his plan of
conducting the campaign. He sent couriers to Major-General
Toler to oppose the passage of Fell across the mountains,
and to render what aid he could to the beleaguered
castle commanded by his daughter. But in the midst of
these complications the President began to reap the fruits
for which he had been laboring so long and so consistently.
The seventh regiment from New York, the élite of Ruffleton's
army, embraced the first opportunity, which occurred
on the Pee Dee—for Ruffleton had been fearful of such an
event—to go over in a body to the Federal army, with
hearty huzzas for the Union. And Col. D— was followed
by twenty other Colonels, at the head of their respective
regiments, bearing the National Flag, which had hitherto
been concealed in their drums. The President embraced
them all, and welcomed them as patriots, loyal to the Federal
Government—and with whom he had been in secret
correspondence for several weeks.
Even this accession to the Federal army gave rise to a
new outburst on the part of Randolph's Southern enemies;
and they made many credulous people believe that the President
himself was in league with the Northern fanatics for
the subjugation of the Slave States. They published depreciatory
articles in the newspapers, asserting that the reason
why Randolph did not fight the Despot, was because he intended
to enlist his followers. And they insinuated that the
seeming desertion of the Northern regiments was merely
a preliminary to a more extensive union, for the purpose of
abolishing slavery. And as Ruffleton, in one of his Proclamations,
had offered to legalize slavery everywhere, he
ought to be regarded as less an enemy to the South than the
false and traitorous Southerner who had availed himself of
the Federal sword and purse to destroy his native country.
Still Randolph remained unmoved. The approbation of
his own conscience, the concurrence of his own head and
heart, sustained him in the midst of the thickening shafts of
calumny. And no other man could have risen above the
cloud which enveloped the Federal cause. A return of the
army exhibited the fact, that although there had been accessions
to the ranks on southern ground, amounting in all to
250,000 men, yet, on the Pee Dee, the effective force in the
field, retiring before the invaders, numbered 50,000 less than
it did on the day that Washington City was abandoned.
Moreover, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia (the eastern portion),
half of North and South Carolina, with all their
capitals and principal cities, had fallen into the hands of the
enemy—and yet no blow had been struck, no battle had
been fought, since the slight stand made on the banks of the
Potomac.
But Randolph was aware of other facts not known to his
Southern enemies. He knew that at least two-fifths of
Ruffleton's army were on the sick list, and that the daily
mortality was making terrible inroads upon his strength.
Bilious fever, and the ague, were incapacitating the enemy
in a greater ratio than the arrival of recruits from the North;
so that if the retreating army was daily diminished by detachments
sent off to healthy positions, the invaders were
decimated by the departure of victims never to return to the
theatre of mortal strife.
And, here, on the Pee Dee, Ruffleton paused in his career
of invasion. Randolph, advised of the enemy's purpose to
advance no further, sent General Carbon with a flag to
Ruffleton, demanding an unconditional surrender. This, of
course, was declined; and the long wished-for signal for
battle was given.
Pale and debilitated by disease engendered in the miasmatic
swamps through which they had been enticed by Randolph,
and in a climate to which none of them, and particularly
the English, had been accustomed, the Northern
invaders were not prepared for the furious onset made by
those whom they had so recently been chasing from river
to river, and across so many plains, without encountering
serious opposition. The battle raged furiously for several
hours; when General Crook galloped through the dust and
smoke up to Randolph, waving his hat, and announced that
the enemy had given way at all points, and the victory was
complete. Blount arrived soon after, and confirmed the
good tidings. Then messengers came spurring from Valiant
and Carlton.
“No!” said Randolph, on perusing the brief notes handed
him in peneil-mark, “they are our fellow citizens. Keep
back our cavalry. The war is over. Further effusion of
blood would only be a national calamity. Arrest the leaders,
and punish them according to law, but spare their followers.
Gentlemen,” he continued, as many of his principal
officers rode up and surrounded him, “you have stood
by me, and by the Constitution of our country, through evil
report. None of you have abandoned me when I retired
before the invaders, and when the almost universal cry was
for battle. Now, that the battle has been fought and won,
your fidelity is to be tested on the field of victory. With
many it is harder to withstand prosperity than adversity.
But I must announce to you that it is not my purpose to
slay the Northern people who have invaded the territory of
their Southern brethren. It was never my purpose to do
so, and hence I have avoided as much as possible sanguinary
engagements. Disease is mowing doing the ranks of Ruffleton's
victims with sufficient rapidity. All we have to do
is to confine them in as narrow limits as possible until they
leave the country. This will be triumph enough for the
Chief Magistrate of the Union.”
“Sir,” said Blount—the first to speak—“I am with you
still. If the Union is to endure, no good could be accomplished
by a sanguinary policy. By the frightful slaughter
we might inflict, we should only exasperate the people of
the opposite section, and enlist the sympathies of the world
in their behalf.”
“I must acknowledge I am very bloodthirsty,” said
Crook; “but, at the same time, I must own that the judgment
of my superiors has always been superior to my own.
Randolph, I am with you to the end—and to the bitter end,
if it must be so, against your old enemy, General Fell! I
learn he has all my niggers with him and none of his own!”
This speech was followed by applause, and some merriment.
“I thank you, gentlemen,” said Randolph. “And although
we shall certainly have a reflux of the tide of invasion,
from this point, and although it may be said from this
moment there is a virtual termination of the war, we must
expect strifes, executions, and, perhaps, bloody battles before
the majesty of the law can be fully vindicated. The
time has not yet expired named in my proclamation for the
submission of the misguided rebels in arms against the Government.
Those who lay down their arms must have
mercy and assistance; while those who persist in their hostility
must be tried and punished. For the leaders there is
no pardon; and knowing this, they will make desperate
efforts to prolong the civil dissensions. What General Fell
may do, I have no means of determining. But he is acting
quite as much in defiance of the authority of the United
States as Ruffleton has been doing. And if it should be his
purpose to subvert the Federal Government, he may possibly
form a junction with the rebels, and turn his arms
against the South, for which he has professed so much loyalty!”
“If so,” said General Crook, “the South will be against
him! And I should like to aim the first blow at the infernal
traitor!”
“The first blow,” said General Blount, “will be dealt by
General Toler.”
“Yes, sir,” said Randolph, “for he will have several hundred
miles the start of us. And the danger is that Toler
will not have a sufficient force to withstand this motley
army, numbering five or six to one. If Fell should succeed
in taking Amherst Castle, in conjunction with Maller, and
then unite with Ruffleton —”
“Can such a thing be possible?” exclaimed Crook, who
had, until recently, been an admirer and partisan of Fell.
“General,” said Randolph, “I have information that
Windvane has been authorized, on the part of Ruffleton and
Lord Slysir, to make certain propositions to Fell, which
have been favorably entertained.”
“Then — him, say I!” was Crook's response.
“If this treasonable union be consummated,” continued
Randolph, “and a Revolution be proclaimed on the basis
of a recognition of slavery everywhere, with the State lines
obliterated, and the establishment of a consolidated empire,
then the war will recommence in earnest. But the scene of
its horrors will be shifted, and the despot will experience
the bitterness of rebellion among his first advocates and followers.
The North will rise up against him as the South
has done, and then we must all make common cause with
the North! And, you see, my friends, why it is I would
spare the lives of the poor deluded creatures now flying
from this field of victory.”
“It is consummate wisdom and patriotic duty,” said
Blount. “But what becomes of Fell's black soldiers, when
it is understood that negro slavery is to prevail everywhere?”
“We shall send them back to their masters,” said Randolph.
“I am with you there, too, Randolph,” said Crook, “and
I shall claim my share of them. But who comes here?”
It was Virus, with a flag of truce. Orders had been
issued to stop the pursuit.
“Well, Virus,” said Randolph, “it has been some days
since we had the pleasure of seeing you. Then you offered
peace, with the Roanoke the dividing line between the
North and the South. Is it now the Pee Dee?”
“I am not charged to offer peace, your Excellency,” said
Virus, with much gravity of countenance. “But I may
say I would to God the war were ended!”
“Amen!” said the President. “But let us hear what
you have to propose.”
“I come merely to solicit a suspension of hostilities until
we can bury the dead.”
“Granted,” said the President, “provided you agree to
retrace your steps in the track of desolation you have made
through the country.”
“Perhaps I do not fully comprehend your Excellency,”
said Virus.
“I will be explicit. Your loss in this battle has not been
very great, and more have fallen during the last month from
disease than by the sword. The suspension is not for the
purpose you name; for Ruffleton never stops to bury the
dead. But he would `steal a march' on us. His purpose
is to retreat beyond the reach of our cavalry, if possible;
but it is not possible. Say to him, however, whether he
goes by day or by night, if his columns be confined within
the limits I have named, I will not be the first to strike the
next blow.”
“I will faithfully report what your Excellency has charged
me with,” said Virus; “but I am quite sure his Highness the
Protector has no purpose of retiring far from the scene of
his last conflict. his army is suffering somewhat, however,
with the enervating disease of ague and fever; and after a
temporary cessation of marching, to restore the sick to
health, and to incorporate his ample recruits and allies in
the Grand Army, I know it is his intention to resume operations.”
“No doubt you think so, Virus,” said Randolph, smiling;
“but it is probable the slaves will be quite as willing to live
with their old masters as to die for their new ones.”
Virus stared in astonishment, for he comprehended the
significance of the allusion. But not venturing to reply,
he returned to his principal, who readily agreed to the
terms dictated by Randolph.
