University of Virginia Library

40. CHAPTER XL.
THE REMARKABLE MAN AT RICHMOND.

YES, Ratcliff had escaped. His temper had not been
sweetened by his forced visit to the North. In Fort
Lafayette he had for a while given way to the sulks. Then
he changed his tactics. Finding that Surgeon Mooney, though
a Northern man, had conservative notions on the subject of the
“nigger,” he addressed himself to the work of befooling that
functionary. Inasmuch as Nature had already half done it to
his hands, he did not find the task a difficult one.

In his imprisonment Ratcliff had ample time for indulging in
day-dreams. He grew almost maudlin over that photograph
of Clara. Yes! By his splendid generosity he would bind to
him forever that beautiful young girl.

He must transmit his proud name to legitimate children.
He must be the founder of a noble house; for the Confederacy,
when triumphant, would undoubtedly have its orders of
nobility. A few years in Europe with such a wife would suit
him admirably. Slidell and Mason, having been released from
Fort Warren in Boston harbor, would be proud to take him
by the hand and introduce him and his to the best society.

These visions came to soften his chagrin and mitigate the
tediousness of imprisonment. But he now grew impatient for
the fulfilment of his schemes. Delay had its dangers. True,
he confided much in the vigilance of Semmes, but Semmes
was an old man, and might drop off any day. A beautiful
white slave was a very hazardous piece of property.

It was not difficult for Ratcliff to persuade Surgeon Mooney
that his health required greater liberty of movement. At a
time when, under the Davis régime, sick and wounded United

States soldiers, imprisoned at Richmond in filthy tobacco-warehouses,
were, in repeated instances, brutally and against all
civilized usages shot dead for going to the windows to inhale
a little fresh air, the National authorities were tender to a
degree, almost ludicrous in contrast, of the health and rights
of Rebel prisoners. If any of these were troubled with a
bowel complaint or a touch of lumbago, the “central despotism
at Washington” was denounced, by journals hostile to the war,
as responsible for the affliction, and the people were called on
to rescue violated Freedom from the clutches of an insidious
tyrant, even from plain, scrupulous “old Abe,” son of a poor
Kentuckian who could show no pedigree, like Colonel Delancy
Hyde and Jefferson Davis.

A pathetic paragraph appeared in one of the newspapers,
giving a piteous story of a “loyal citizen of New Orleans,”
who, for no namable offence, was made to pine in a foul dungeon
to satisfy the personal pique of Mr. Secretary Stanton.
Soon afterwards a remonstrance in behalf of this victim of
oppression was signed by Surgeon Mooney. Ratcliff, whom
the public sympathy had been led to picture as in the last
stage of a mortal malady, was forthwith admitted to extraordinary
privileges. He was enabled to communicate clandestinely
with friends in New York. He soon managed to get on
board a Nova Scotia coasting schooner. A week afterwards,
he succeeded in running the blockade, and in disembarking
safely at Wilmington, N. C.

Anxious as he was to get home, he must first go to Richmond
to pay his respects to “President” Davis, of whom
everybody at the South used to say to Mr. W. H. Russell
of the London Times, “Don't you think our President is a
remarkable man?” Ratcliff was not unknown to Davis, and
sent up his card. It drew forth an immediate “Show him in.”
The “remarkable man” sat in his library at a small table
strewn with letters and manuscripts. A thin, Cassius-like,
care-burdened figure, slightly above the middle height. What
some persons called dignity in his manner was in truth merely
ungracious stiffness; while his hauteur was the unquiet arrogance
that fears it shall not get its due. His face was not
that of a man who could prudently afford to sneer (as he had

publicly done) at Abraham Lincoln's homeliness. But before
him lay letters on which the postage-stamp was an absurdly
flattered likeness of himself, — as like him as the starved
apothecary is like Jupiter Tonans.

In the original the cheeks were shrunken and sallow, leaving
the bones high and salient. The jaws were thin and
hollow; the forehead wrinkled and out of all proportion with
the lower part of the face; the eyes deep-set, and one of them
dulled by a severe neuralgic affection. The lips were too thin,
and there was no sweetness in the mouth. The whole expression
was that of one whose besetting characteristic is an intense
self-consciousness.

This man could not be betrayed into the ease and abandon
of one of nature's noblemen, for he was never thinking so
much of others as of himself. The absence in him of all geniality
of manner was not the reserve of a gentleman, but the
frigidity of an unsympathetic and unassured heart. There was
little in him of the Southern type of manhood. It is not to be
wondered that bluff General Taylor could not overcome his
repugnance to him as a son-in-law.

Although at the head of the Rebellion, this man had no vital
faith in it; no enthusiasm that could magnetize others by a
noble contagion. He was not a fanatic, like Stonewall Jackson.
And yet, just previously to Ratcliff's call, he had been exercised
in mind about joining the church, — a step he finally took.

He had few of the qualities of a statesman. His petty malignities
overcame all sense of the proprieties becoming his
station; for he would give way, even in his public official addresses,
to scurrilities which had the meanness without the
virility of the slang of George Sanderson, and which showed a
lack of the primary elements of a heroic nature.

A man greatly overrated as to abilities. A repudiator of
the sacred obligations assumed by his State, it was his added
infelicity to be defended by John Slidell. Never respected
for truthfulness by those who knew him best. Future historians
will contrast him with President Lincoln, and will show
that, while the latter surpassed him immeasurably in high
moral attributes, he was also his superior in intellectual pith.

The interview between Ratcliff and Davis began with an

interchange of views on the subject of New Orleans. Each
cheered the other with assurances of the impracticability of the
Federal attack. After public affairs had been discussed, the
so-called President said: “Excuse me for not having asked
after Mrs. Ratcliff. Is she well?”

“She died some time since,” replied Ratcliff.

“Indeed! In these times of general bereavement we find
it impossible to keep account of our friends.”

“It is my purpose, Mr. President, to marry soon again.
You have yourself set the example of second nuptials, and I
believe the experiment has been a happy one.”

“Yes; may yours be as fortunate! Who is the lady?”

“A young person not known in society, but highly respectable
and well educated. I shall have the pleasure to present
her to you here in Richmond in the course of the summer.”

“Mrs. Davis will be charmed to make her acquaintance.
Come and help us celebrate Lee's next great victory.”

“Thank you. If I can get my affairs into position, I may
wish to pass the next year in Europe with my new wife. It
would not be difficult, I suppose, for you to give me some diplomatic
stamp that would make me pass current.”

“The government will be disposed, no doubt, to meet your
views. We are likely to want some accredited agent in Spain.
A post that would enable you to fluctuate between Madrid and
Paris would be not an unpleasant one.”

“It would suit me entirely, Mr. President.”

“You may rely on my friendly consideration.”

“Thank you. How about foreign recognition?”

“Slidell writes favorably as to the Emperor's predispositions.
In England, the aristocracy and gentry, with most of the trading
classes, undoubtedly favor our cause. They desire to see the
Union permanently broken up, and will help us all they can.
But they must do this indirectly, seeing that the mass of the
English people, the rabble rout, even the artisans, thrown out
of employment by this war, sympathize with the plebeians of
the North rather than with us, the true master race of this
continent, the patricians of the South.”

“I 'm glad to see, Mr. President, you characterize the Northern
scum as they deserve, — descendants of the refuse sent
over by Cromwell.”

“Yes, Mr. Ratcliff, you and I who are gentlemen by birth
and education, — and whose ancestors, further back than the
Norman Conquest, were all gentlemen,[1] — can poorly disguise
our disgust at any association with Yankees.”

“Gladstone says you 've created a nation, Mr. President.”

“Yes; Gladstone is a high-toned gentleman. His ancestors
made their fortunes in the Liverpool slave-trade.”

“Have you any assurances yet from Mason?”

“Nothing decisive. But the eagerness of the Ministry to
humble the North in the Trent affair shows the real animus
of the ruling classes in England. Lord John disappoints me
occasionally. Bad blood there. But the rest are all right.”

“A pity they could n't put their peasantry into the condition
of our slaves!”

“A thousand pities! But the new Confederacy must be a
Missionary to the Nations,[2] to teach the ruling classes throughout
the world, that slavery is the normal status for the mechanic
and the laborer. Meanwhile the friends of monarchy in Europe
must foresee that such a triumph as republicanism would
have in the restoration of the old Union, with slavery no longer
a power in the land, and with an army and navy the first in the
world, would be an appalling spectacle.”

“What do you hear from Washington, Mr. President?”

“The last I heard of the gorilla, he was investigating the
so-called spiritual phenomena. The letter-writers tell of a
medium having been entertained at the White House.”

Here Mr. Memminger came in to talk over the state of the
Rebel exchequer, — a subject which Mr. Davis generally disposed
of by ignoring; his old experience in repudiation teaching
him that the best mode of fancy financiering was, — if we
may descend to the vernacular, — to “go it blind.”

“I 'll intrude no longer on your precious time,” said Ratcliff.
“I go home to send you word that the renegade Tennessean,
Farragut, and that peddling lawyer from Lowell, Picayune
Butler, have been spued out of the mouths of the Mississippi.”

The “President” rose, pressed Ratcliff's proffered hand, and,
with a stiff, angular bow, parted from him at the door.