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WHEN MEN GREW TALL
OR THE STORY OF

ANDREW JACKSON

WHEN MEN GREW TALL
OR THE STORY OF

ANDREW JACKSON

ALFRED HENRY LEWIS

ILLUSTRATED

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

NEW YORK

1907

UBRARY of CONGRESS

Two Coole* RKCtved

CCl 30 •^O'

Cwynitrf Entry

CLASS 4 XXc, No.
COPY 6. '

Published yovemher, 1907

THEODORE ROOSEVELT

THAT MAN OF THE PUBLIC

FOR WHOM I HAVE MOST REGARD

AND FROM WHOSE FUTURE I AS

AN AMERICAN MOST HOPE

THIS VOLUME IS

DEDICATED

A. H. L.

CONTENTS

I. — Old Salisbury and the Law
II. — The Rowan House Supper .
III. — ^The Blooming Rachel .
IV. — Col. Waightstill Avery Offends
V. — ^The Winning of a Wife
VI. — Dead-shot Dickinson
VII. — How the General Fought .
VIII. — England and Grim-visaged War
IX. — The General at the Horseshoe
X. — Florida Delenda Est .
XI. — The Two Flags at Pensacola .
XII. — The General Goes to New Orlean
XIII. — The Watch-fires of the English
XIV. — The Battle in the Dark .
XV. — Cotton Bales and Sugar Casks
XVI. — The Eighth of January
XVII. — ^The Slaughter among the Stubble
XVIII. — Odds and Ends of Time

PAGE

127

141

155
169
181

195
2og
225

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

XIX. — The Killing Edge of Slander . . . 239

XX. — The General Goes to the White House 251

XXI. — Wizard Lewis Urges a Change of Front 265

XXII. — The Downfall of Machiavelli Clay . 279

XXIII. — The Federal Union. It Must be Pre-
served 293

XXIV. — The Rout of Treason 309

XXV. — The Grave at the Garden's Foot . . 323

viu

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

FACING
PAGE

Andrew Jackson Frontispiece

Mrs. Rachel Jackson 46

Aaron Burr — From a painting by J. Vandyke . . 62

Interview between General Jackson and Weathersford . 108

General William C. C. Claiborne — From a miniature
by A. Duval 146

Major-General Andrew Jackson at New Orleans — From
a painting by Chappel 172

Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans — From a paint-
ing by D. M. Carter 200

Death of Pakenham at the Battle of New Orleans —
From a painting by F. O. C. Darley . . . .212

Andrew Jackson — From a painting by R. E. W. Earl . 226

John Quincy Adams 240

Henry Clay 246

Edward Livingston — From a drawing by J. B. Long-
acre 268

Daniel Webster 288

John C. Calhoun 302

Martin Van Buren 316

Andrew Jackson — From a portrait at The Hermitage,
April 15, 1845 326

SALISBURY AND THE LAW

CHAPTER I

SALISBURY AND THE LAW

IN this year of our Lord's grace, 1787,
the ancient town of Salisbury, seat of jus-
tice for Rowan County, and the buzzing
metropolis of its region, numbers by word of
a partisan citizenry eight hundred souls. Its
streets are unpaved, and present an unbroken
expanse of red North Carolina clay from one
narrow plank sidewalk to another. In the sum-
mer, if the weather be dry, the red clay resolves
itself into blinding brick-red dust. In the
spring, when the rains fall, it lapses into brick-
red mud, and the Salisbury streets become bot-
tomless morasses, the despair of travelers. Just
now, it being a bright October afternoon and
a shower having paid the town a visit but an
hour before, the streets offer no suggestion of
either mud or dust, but are as clean and straight
and beautiful as a good man's morals. Trees
rank either side, and their branches interlock

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

overhead. These make every street a cathedral
aisle, groined and arched In leafy green.

In one of the suburbs, that Is to say about
pistol shot from the town's commercial center,
stands a two-story mansion. It Is painted
white, and thereby distinguished above its neigh-
bors, and has a heavily columned veranda all
across Its wide face. This edifice is the resi-
dence of Spruce McCay, a foremost member
of the Rowan County bar.

In a corner of the lawn, which unfolds ver-
dantly in front of the house. Is a one-story one-
room structure, the law office of Spruce McCay.
Inside are two or three pine desks, much visited
of knives In the past, and a half-dozen ram-
shackle chairs, which have seen stronger If not
better days. Also there Is a collection of
shelves; and these latter hold scores of law
books, among which " Blackstone's Commen-
taries," " Coke on Littleton," and " Hales's
Pleas of the Crown " are given prominent place.
The books show musty and dog-eared, and It is
many years since the youngest among them came
from the printing press.

On this October afternoon, the office has but
one occupant. He is tall, being six feet and an
inch, and so slim and meager that he seems six

SALISBURY AND THE LAW

Inches taller. Besides, he stands as straight as
a lance, with nothing of stoop to his narrow
shoulders, and this has the effect of augmenting
his height.

The face Is a boy's face. It Is likewise of the
sort called *' horse"; with hollow cheeks and
lantern jaws. The forehead is high and nar-
row. The yellow hair is long, and tied In a
cue with an eelskin — for eelsklns are according
to the latest fashionable command sent up from
Charleston. The redeeming feature to the
horse face is the eyes. These are big and blue
and deep, and tell of a mighty power for either
love or hate. They are Scotch-Irish eyes, loyal
eyes, steadfast eyes, and of that inveterate
breed which If aroused can outstare, outdomi-
neer Satan.

As adding to the horse face a look of com-
mand, which sets well with those blue eyes —
so capable of tenderness and ferocity — Is a high
predatory nose. The mouth, thin-lipped and
wide. Is replete of what folk call character, but
does nothing to soften a general expression
which is nothing If not iron. And yet the last
word is applicable only at times. The horse
face never turns iron-hard unless danger presses,
or perilous deeds are to be done. In easier,

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

relaxed hours one finds no sternness there, but
gayety and lightness and a love of pleasure.

In dress the horse-faced boy is rather the fop,
with a bottle-green surtout of latest cut, high-
collared, long-tailed, open to display a flowered
waistcoat of as many hues as May, from which
struggles a ruffle stiff with starch. The horse-
faced boy has his predatory nose buried in a
law book. This is as it should be, for he is a
student of the learned Spruce McCay.

There comes a step at the door; the horse-
faced boy takes his nose from between the covers
of the book. Spruce McCay walks in, and
throws himself carelessly into a seat. He is
a square, hearty man, with nose up-tilted and
eager, as though somewhere in the distance it
sniffed an orchard. He is of middle years, and
well arrived at that highest ground, just where
the pathway of life begins to slope downward
toward the final yet still distant grave.

Spruce McCay glances at a paper or two on
his desk. Then, shoving all aside, he fills and
lights a corn-cob pipe. Through the smoke
rings he surveys the horse-faced boy; plainly he
meditates a communication.

"Andy, I've been thinking you over."

Andy says " Yes? " expectantly.
6

SALISBURY AND THE LAW

" You should cross the mountains."

The blue eyes take on a bluer glint, and light
up the horse face like azure lamps.

" Yes, a new country is the place for you.
You are now about to be admitted to practice
law; not because you know law, but for the
reason that I have recommended it. As I say,
you have little law knowledge; but you possess
courage, brains, perseverance, honesty, pru-
dence and divers other traits, which you take
from your Carrickfergus ancestors. These
should carry you farther in the wilderness than
any knowledge of the books."

The predatory nose snorts, and the horse face
begins to glow resentfully.

" You think I know no law? "

"No more than does Necessity I Not
enough to keep you from being laughed at in
Rowan County ! How should you ? Your at-
tention and your interest have both run away to
other things. I've watched you for two years
past. You are deep in the lore of cockfight-
ing, but guiltless of the Commentaries of our
worthy Master Blackstone. If I were to ask
you for the Rule in Shelly's Case, you would
be posed. At the same time you could expound
every rule that governs a horse race. In brief
3 7

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

you are accomplished in many gentlemanly
things, while as barren of law learning as a
Hottentot. Now if you were a lad of fortune,
instead of being as poor as the crows, you might
easily cut a figure of elegant idleness on the
North Carolina circuits. But you lack utterly
of that money required to gild and make toler-
able your ignorance here at home. In the woods
along the Cumberland, that is to say in the Nash-
ville and Jonesboro courts, where ignorance and
poverty are the rule, your deficiencies will count
for trifles. Also you will be surrounded by
conditions that promote courage, honesty and
quickness to a first importance. On the Cum-
berland the fact that you are a dead shot with
rifle or pistol, and can back the most unman-
ageable horse that ever looked through a bridle,
will place you higher In the confidence of men
than would all the law that Hobart, Hales and
Hawkins ever knew. Now don't get angry.
Think over what I've said; the longer you look
at it, the more you'll feel that I am right. I'll
see that you are given your sheepskin as a
lawyer; and, when you decide to migrate, I'll
have you commissioned In that new country as
attorney for the state. This last will send you
headlong into the midst of a backwoods prac-

SALISBURY AND THE LAW

tice, where those native virtues you own should
find a field for their exercise, and your talents
for cockfighting and horse racing, added to your
absolute genius for firearms, be sure to advance
you far."

Spruce McCay raps the ashes from his corn-
cob pipe. Just then one of the house negroes
taps at the door, as preliminary to Intruding
a respectful head. The respectful head an-
nounces that visitors have arrived at the big
white mansion. Spruce McCay at this quits the
office, and the horse-faced Andy finds himself
alone.

For one hour he ponders the unpalatable
words of his worthy master. His vanity has
been hurt; his self-love ruffled. None the less
he feels that a deal of truth lies tucked away
in what Spruce McCay has said. Besides a
plunge into the untried wilderness rather
matches his taste, and a promised state's attor-
neyship Is not to be despised.

As the horse-faced Andy ruminates these
things, laughter and much joyous clatter Is
heard at the door. This time It Is his two fel-
low students, Crawford and McNalry. These
young gentlemen have been out with their guns,
and now present themselves with a double back-

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

load of quails as the fruits of it. The pair be-
gin vociferously to inform the horse-faced Andy
concerning their day's adventures. He halts
the conversational flow with a repressive lift of
the hand.

" Gentlemen," says he, with a vast affectation
of dignity, and as though sixty were the years
of each instead of twenty, " I desire your com-
pany at supper in my rooms. Come at 7
o'clock. I shall have news for you — news, and
a proposition."

THE ROWAN HOUSE SUPPER

CHAPTER II

THE ROWAN HOUSE SUPPER

THE horse-faced Andy precedes the
coming of his two friends to that
supper by two hours. As he moves
up the street toward the Rowan House, fair
faces beam on him and fair hands wave him a
salutation from certain Salisbury verandas. In
return he doffs his hat with an exaggerated
politeness, which becomes him as the acknowl-
edged beau of the town. One cannot blame
those beaming fair faces and those saluting
hands. Slim, elegant, confident with a kind of
polished cockyness that does not ill become his
years, our horse-faced one possesses what the
world calls "presence." No one will look on him
without being impressed; he is congenitally re-
markable, and to see him once is to ever after-
ward expect to hear him. Besides, for all his
foppishness, there is a scar on his sandy head,
and a second on his hand, which were made by

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

an English saber when he had no more than
entered upon his teens. Also he has shed Eng-
lish blood to pay for those scars; and in a day
which still heaves and tosses with the ground
swells of the Revolution, such stark matters
brevet one to the respect of men and the love
of women.

The foppish, horse-faced Andy strides into
the Rowan House. In the long-room he meets
mine host Brown, who has fame as a publi-
can, and none as a sinner, throughout North
Carolina.

" Supper in my rooms, Mr. Brown," com-
mands our hero; "supper for three. Have it
hot and ready at sharp seven. Also let us have
plenty of whisky and tobacco."

Mine host Brown says that all shall be as
ordered.

The foppish Andy, with that grave manner
of dignity which laughs at his boyish twenty
years, explains to his landlord that he will call
for his bill in the morning.

" Have my horse, Cherokee," he says, " well
groomed and saddled. To-morrow I leave
Salisbury."

"Going West?"

" West," returns Andy.
14

ROWAN HOUSE SUPPER

" As to the bill," ventures mine host Brown,
" would you like to play a game of all-fours,
and make it double or nothing? "

Andy the horse-faced hesitates.

" You have such vile luck," he says, as though
remonstrating with mine host Brown for a fault.
" It seems shameful to play with you, since you
never win."

Mine host Brown looks sheepishly apologetic.

" For one as eager to play as I am," he re-
sponds, " it does look as though I ought to
know more about the game. However, since
it's your last night, we might as well preserve
a record."

Andy the horse-faced yields to the rabid
anxiety of mine host Brown to gamble. The
game shall be played presently; meanwhile, there
is an errand which takes him to his rooms.

Andy goes to his rooms: mine host Brown,
after preparing a table in the long-room for the
promised game, saunters fatly — being rotund as
a publican should be — into the kitchen, to leave
directions concerning that triangular supper.
There he encounters his wife, as rotund as him-
self, supervising the energies of a phalanx of
black Amazons, who form the culinary forces
of the Rowan House.

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

" Young Jackson leaves in the morning,
mother," observes mine host Brown to Mrs.
Brown, whom he always addresses as
" mother."

"For good?" asks Mrs. Brown, who is
singeing the pin feathers from a chicken of much
fatness, and exceeding yellow as to leg.

" Oh, I knew he was going," returns mine
host Brown, rather irrelevantly. " Spruce Mc-
Cay told me that he was about to advise him to
emigrate to the western counties. Spruce says
the Cumberland country is just the place for
him."

"And now I suppose," remarks Mrs. Brown,
" you'll let him win a good-by game of cards,
to square his bill."

" Why not? " returns mine host Brown.
"He's got no money; never had any money.
You yourself said, when he came here, to give
him his board free, because you knew and loved
his dead mother. Now the Christian thing is to
let him win it. In that way his pride is saved;
at the same time it gives me amusement."

" Well, Marmaduke," says Mrs. Brown,
moving off with the yellow-legged fowl, " I'm
sure I don't care how you manage, only so you
don't take his money."

ROWAN HOUSE SUPPER

" There never was a chance, mother. He
never has any money, after his clothes are
bought."

The game of all-fours is played; and is won
by Andy of the horse face, who thereby rounds
oft a run of card-luck that has continued un-
broken for two years.

" It looks as though I'd never beat you ! "
exclaims mine host Brown, pretending sadness
and imitating a sigh.

" You ought never to gamble," advises the
horse-faced Andy solemnly.

Mine host Brown produces his bill, wherein
the charges for board, lodging, laundry, tobacco,
and whisky in pints, quarts and gallons are set
down on one side, to be balanced and acquitted
by divers sums lost at all-fours, the same being
noted opposite.

"There you are! All square!" says mine
host Brown.

" But the charges for to-night's supper? "

" Mother " — meaning Mrs. Brown — " says
the supper is to be with her compliments."

Steaming hot, the supper comes promptly at
seven. It Is followed, steaming hot, by un-
limited whisky punch. Pipes are lighted, and,
with glasses at easy hand, the three boys draw
17

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

about the fire. The punch, the pipes, and the
crackling log fire are very comfortable adjuncts
on an October night.

"And now," cries Crawford,, who is full of
life and interest, " now for the news and the
proposition! "

McNairy nods owlish assent to the words of
his volatile friend. He intends one day to be
a judge, and, while quite as lively as Crawford,
seizes on occasions such as this to practice his
features in a formidable woolsack gravity.

*' First," observes Andy, soberly sipping his
punch, "let me put a question: What is my
standing in Rowan County? "

" You are the recognized authority," cries
Crawford, " on dog fighting, cockfighting, and
horse racing."

McNairy nods.

" Humph! " says Andy. Then, on the heels
of a pause: "And what should you say were
my chief accomplishments? "

Again Crawford takes it upon himself to
reply.

" You ride, shoot, run, jump, wrestle, dance
and make love beyond expression."

McNairy the judicial nods.

" Humph ! " says Andy.
i8

ROWAN HOUSE SUPPER

The trio puff and sip in silence.

" You say nothing for my knowledge of
law? " This from the disgruntled Andy, with
a rising inflection that is like finding fault.

" No ! " cry the others in hearty concert.

" You wouldn't believe us if we did," adds
McNairy of the future woolsack.

" Neither would the Judge," returns Andy
cynically. " The Judge " is the title by which
the three designate their master, Spruce Mc-
Cay. Andy goes on: " The news I promised
is this. To-morrow I leave Salisbury. The
Judge has recommended my admission to the
bar, and I shall take the oath and get my license
before I start. I shall transfer myself to the
region along the Cumberland, where I am told
a barrister of my singular lack of ability should
find plenty of practice."

" Why do you leave old Rowan? " asks wool-
sack McNairy, beginning to take an interest.

" Because I have no education, less law, and
still less money. It seems that these are condi-
tions precedent to staying in Rowan with
credit."

" Well," cries McNairy the judicial, grasp-
ing Andy's long bony hand, " you have as much
education, as much law, and as much money as
19

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

L Under the circumstances I shall go with
you."

" And I," breaks in the lively Crawford,
" since I have none of those ignorant and pov-
erty-eaten qualifications you name, but on the
contrary am rich, wise and learned — I shall re-
main here. When the wilderness casts you fel-
lows out, come back and I shall welcome you.
Pending which — as Parson Hicks would say —
receive my blessing."

The evening wears on amid clouds of tobacco
smoke and rivers of punch. At the close the
three take hold of hands, and sing a farewell
song very badly. Then, since they look on the
evening as a sacred one, they wind up by break-
ing the pipes they have smoked and the glasses
they have drunk from, to save them in the here-
after from profane and vulgar uses. At last,
rather deviously, they make their various ways
to bed.

The next day, young Andrew Jackson, bar-
rister and counselor at law, with all his belong-
ings— save the rifle he carries, and the pistols
in his saddle holsters — crowded into a pair of
saddlebags, rides out of Salisbury on his bay
horse Cherokee. He will stop at Martinsville
for a space, awaiting the judicial McNairy.

ROWAN HOUSE SUPPER

Then the pair are to set their willing, hopeful
faces for the Cumberland.

As Andy the horse-faced rides away that Oc-
tober afternoon, Henry Clay is a fatherless boy
of nine, living with his mother at the Virginia
Slashes; Daniel Webster, a sickly child of six,
is toddling about his father's New Hampshire
farm; John C. Calhoun is a baby four years old
in a South Carolina farmhouse; John Quincy
Adams, nineteen and just home from a polishing
trip to France, Is a Harvard student; Martin
Van Buren, aged four. Is playing about the tap
room of his Dutch father's tavern at Kinder-
hook; while Aaron Burr, fortunate, foremost
and full of promise, has already won high sta-
tion at the New York bar. None of these has
ever heard of Andy the horse-faced, nor he of
them; yet one and all they are fated to grow
well acquainted with one another in the years to
come, and before the curtain is rung finally down
on that tragedy-comedy-farce which, played to
benches ever full and ever empty, men call Ex-
istence.

Ill

THE BLOOMING RACHEL

CHAPTER III

THE BLOOMING RACHEL

NASHVILLE is the merest scrambling
huddle of log houses. The most
Imposing edifice Is a blockhouse,
built of logs squared by the broadaxe. It is the
home of the widow Donelson ; and, since it Is all
her husband left her when the Indians shot him
down at the plow-stilts, and because she must
live, the widow Donelson has turned the block-
house into a boarding house.

With the widow Donelson dwells her daugh-
ter Rachel, a beautiful brunette of twenty, and
the belle of the Cumberland. Rachel Is viva-
cious and bright; and, while there Is much con-
fusion among her nouns, pronouns, verbs and
adverbs In the matters of case, number, and
tense, she shines forth an indomitable conversa-
tionist. With frontier freedom she laughs
with everybody, jests with everybody, delights
in everybody's admiration; and this does not

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

please her husband, Lewis Robards, who is ig-
norant, suspicious, narrow, lazy, shiftless, jeal-
ous, and generally drunk. One time and an-
other he has accused Rachel of a tenderness for
every man in the settlement, and their quarrels
have been frequent and fierce.

It is evening; the widow Donelson is prepar-
ing supper for the half dozen boarders, assisted
by the blooming Rachel. The moody Robards,
half soaked in corn whisky, sits by the open
door, ear on the conversation, eye on the not-
over-distant woods. If the worthless Robards
will not work, at least he may maintain a half-
bright lookout for murderous Indians; and he
does.

The widow Donelson glances across from the
corn bread she is mixing.

" The runner who came on ahead," she says,
addressing the blooming Rachel, " reports the
party as being due to-morrow. Mr. Jackson,
the new State's Attorney, who will come with it,
is to board and lodge with us."

The blooming Rachel looks brightly up.
The drunken Robards likewise looks up ; but his
face is gloomy with incipient jealousy.

"A Mr. Jackson, eh?" he sneers. Then,
to the blooming Rachel: "It's mighty likely

THE BLOOMING RACHEL

you'll find in him a new lover to try your wiles
on."

The blooming Rachel colors and her black
eyes snap, but she holds her tongue. The widow
Donelson is also silent. The mother and daugh-
ter have found wordlessness the best return to
those insults, which it is the habit of the jealous
drunkard to hurl at his pretty wife.

The runner made true report, and the party
in which travels the horse-faced Andy makes its
appearance next day. Tall, slender, elegant,
self-possessed, and with a manner which marks
him above the common, he is disliked by the
drunken Robards on sight. When he declines
to drink with that sot, the dislike crystallizes into
hatred. The outrageous jealousy of Robards
has found a new reason for its green-eyed ex-
istence, and he already goes drunkenly ponder-
ing the slaughter of the horse-faced Andy.
Since he will never advance beyond the pond-
ering stage, for certain reasons called " craven "
among men of clean courage, his homicidal lucu-
brations are the less important.

Andy the horse-faced does not notice Rob-
ards. He does, however, notice with a thrill
of pleasure the beautiful Rachel, and is glad to
find his lines are down in such pleasant places.
27

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

He Is vastly taken with the boarding house of
the widow Donelson, and incautiously says as
much. He praises her corn pone and fried
squirrel, and vehemently avers that her hog and
hominy are the best he ever ate.

Rachel the blooming does not allow her hus-
band's jealousy to interrupt hospitality, and piles
high the young State's Attorney's plate with
these delicacies. She even brings out a store of
wild honey and cream — dainties sparse and few
and far between in these rude regions. She
calls this " hospitality " ; her jealous drunkard
of a husband calls it " making advances," He
says that in the course of a long, and he might
have added misspent, life, he has observed that
a coquette, with designs on a man's heart, never
fails to begin by making an ally of his stomach.

" Hence," says the drunken deductionist,
" that honey and cream."

That night, after Rachel the blooming and
her drunken husband retire, a bitter quarrel
breaks out between them. It rages with such
fury that the bicker arouses one Overton, who
occupies the adjoining chamber. Mr. Overton
is a severe character, firm and clear as to his
rights. He objects to having his rest disturbed,
alleging that he has troubles of his own. Tak-
28

THE BLOOMING RACHEL

ing final offense at the language of the brute
Robards, which is more emphatic than nice, he
gets his pistols. Rapping on the intervening
wall to invoke attention, he informs that vitu-
perative drunkard of his intention to instantly
put him (Robards) to death, should he so much
as raise his voice above a whisper for the balance
of the night.

Rachel seeks her mother, and the jealous
drunkard quiets down. He is not unacquainted
with Mr. Overton, who is reputed to possess as
restless a brace of hair triggers as ever owned
flint and pan. Altogether he is precisely the
one whose word would carry weight with such
as Robards, and, on the back of his interference
in the domestic affairs of that inebriate, a great
peace settles upon the blockhouse of the widow
Donelson which abides throughout the night.

As for the horse-faced State's Attorney, he
knows nothing of the differences between Ra-
chel and the jealous Robards. He does not
sleep in the blockhouse, having been appointed
to a blanket couch in the " Bunk House," a
separate dormitory structure which stands at a
little distance.

During breakfast, the blooming Rachel again
freights daintily deep the plate of the young
29

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

State's Attorney. Thereupon the favored one
beams his thanks, while behind his back as
though to soothe his hate, the malevolent Rob-
ards sits cleaning a rifle, casting upon him the
while an occasional midnight look. Just across
is the taciturn Overton, proprietor of those rest-
less hair triggers, wondering over his bacon and
eggs where this drama of love and threatened
murder is to end.

COLONEL WAIGHTSTILL
AVERY OFFENDS

CHAPTER IV

COLONEL WAIGHTSTILL AVERY OFFENDS

NOW, when the horse-faced Andy finds
himself In the Cumberland country,
he begins to look about him. Be-
ing a lawyer, his instinct leads him to consider
those opposing ranks of commerce, the debtor
and creditor classes. He finds the former com-
posed of persons of the highest honor. Also,
their honor is sensitive and easily touched, be-
ing sensitive and touchy in proportion as the
bulk of their debts is increased. The debtor
class, as the same finds representation about those
two Cumberland forums, Nashville and Jones-
boro, holds it to be the privilege of every gen-
tleman, when dunned, to challenge and If prac-
ticable kill his creditor honorably at ten paces.
So firm indeed is the debtor class in this be-
lief, that the creditor class, less warlike and with
more to lose, seldom presents a bill. Neither
does it refuse the opposition credit; for the
33

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

debtor class also clings to the no less formidable
theory, that to refuse credit is an insult quite as
stinging as a dun direct.

In short, the horse-faced Andy discovers the
region to be a very Arcadia for debtors. Their
credit is without a limit and their debts are never
due. He resolves to disturb these commercial
Arcadians; he will break upon them as a Satan
of solvency come to trouble their debt paradise.

The horse-faced Andy, as has been noted, is
Scotch-Irish. Being Irish, his honor is as sen-
sitive and his soul as warlike as are those of the
most debt-eaten individual along the Cumber-
land. Being Scotch, he believes debts should
be paid, and holds that a creditor may ask for
his money without forfeiting life. He urges
these views in tavern and street; and there-
upon the creditors, taking heart, come to him
with their claims. He accepts the trusts thus
proffered; as a corollary, having now flown in
the face of the militant debtor class, he is soon
to prove his manhood.

The horse-faced Andy files a declaration for
a client, on a mixed claim based upon bacon,
molasses and rum. The defendant, a person-
age yclept Irad Miller, genus debtor, species
keel boatman, is a very patrician among bank-
34

COLONEL AVERY OFFENDS

rupts, boasting that he owes more and pays less
than any man south of the Ohio river. Also,
having been already offended by the foppish
frivolity of that ruffled shirt and grass-green
surtout, he is outraged now, when the ruffled
grass-green one brings suit against him.

Breathing fire and smoke, the insulted Irad
lowers his horns, and starts for the horse-faced
Andy. His methods at this crisis are character-
istic of the Cumberland; he merely grinds the
horse-faced Andy's polished boot beneath his
heel, mentioning casually the while that he him-
self Is " half boss, half alligator," and can drink
the Cumberland dry at a draught.

This is fighting talk, and the horse-faced
Andy so accepts It. He surveys the truculent
Irad with the cautious tail of his eye, and finds
him discouragingly tall and broad and thick.
The survey takes time, but the Injured Irad pre-
vents It being wasted by again grinding the pol-
ished toes.

Andy the strategic suddenly seizes a rail from
the nearby fence, and charges the indebted one.
The end of the rail strikes that Insolvent in what
is vulgarly known as the pit of the stomach, and
doubles him up like a two-foot rule. At that,
he who Is " half boss, half aUIgator," gives

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

forth a screech of which an Injured wild cat
might be proud, and perceiving the rail poised
for a second charge makes off. This small ad-
venture gives the horse-faced Andy station, and
an avalanche of claims pours in upon him.

Having established himself in the confidence
of common men, it still remains with our horse-
faced hero to conquer the esteem of the bar.
The opportunity is not a day behind his collision
with that violent one of equine-alligator genesis.
In good sooth, It is an offshoot thereof.

The bruised Irad's case is up for trial. His
counsel. Colonel Waightstill Avery, hails from
a hamlet, called Morganton, on the thither side
of the Blue Ridge. Colonel Waightstill is of
middle age, pompous and high, and the youth
of Andy — slim, lean, eager, horse face as hair-
less as an egg — offends him.

" Your honor," cries Colonel Waightstill,
addressing the bench, " who, pray, is the oppos-
ing counsel?" The boyish Andy stands up.
" Must I, your honor," continues the outraged
Colonel Waightstill, " must I cross forensic
blades with a child? Have I journeyed all the
long mountain miles from Morganton to try
cases with babes and sucklings? Or perhaps,
your honor " — here Colonel Waightstill waxes

COLONEL AVERY OFFENDS

sarcastic — " I have mistaken the place. Pos-
sibly this is not a court, but a nursery."

Colonel Waightstill sits down, and the horse-
faced Andy, on the leaf of a law book, indites
the following:

August 12, 1788.
Sir: When a man's feelings and charector
are injured he ought to seek speedy redress.
My charector you have injured; and further you
have Insulted me in the presunce of a court and
a large aujence. I therefore call upon you as a
gentleman to give me satisfaction for the same ;
I further call upon you to give me an answer
immediately without Equivocation and I hope
you can do without dinner until the business is
done; for it is consistent with the character of
a gentleman when he injures a man to make
speedy reparation; therefore I hope you will
not fail in meeting me this day.

From yr Hbl St.,

Andw Jackson.

The horse-faced one spells badly; but Marl-
borough did, Washington does and Napoleon
will spell worse. It is a notable fact that con-
quering militant souls have ever been better with
the sword than with the spelling book.

The judge is a gentleman of quick and ap-
prehensive eye, as frontier jurists must be.
37

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

Also, he is of finest sensibilities, and can appre-
ciate the feelings of a man of honor. He sees
the note shoved across to Colonel Waightstill
by the horse-faced Andy, and at once orders a
recess. The judge, with delicate tact, says the
Cumberland bottoms are heavy with the seeds
of fever, and that it is his practice to consume
prudent rum and quinine at this hour.

While the judge goes for his rum and quinine,
Colonel Waightstill and the horse-faced Andy
repair to a convenient ravine at the rear of the
log courthouse. A brother practitioner attends
upon Colonel Waightstill, while the Interests of
the horse-faced Andy are conserved by Mr.
Overton, who espouses his cause as a fellow
boarder at the widow Donelson's. Mr. Overton
has with him his Invaluable hair triggers; and,
since he wins the choice, presents them politely,
butt first, to the second of Colonel Waightstill,
who selects one for his principal. The ground
Is measured and pegged; the fight will be at ten
paces.

As Mr. Overton gives the horse-faced Andy
his weapon, he asks:

" What can you do at this distance? "

" Snuff a candle."

"Good! Let me offer a word of advice:

COLONEL AVERY OFFENDS

Don't kill; don't even wound. The casus belli
does not justify it, and you can establish your
credit without. Should your adversary require
a second shot, it will then be the other way. His
failure to apologize, coupled with a demand for
another shot, should mean his death warrant."

The horse-faced Andy approves this counsel.
And yet, if he must not wound he may warn,
and to that admonitory end sends his ounce of
lead so as to all but brush the ear of Colonel
Waightstill. That gentleman's bullet flies safely
wild. After the exchange of shots, the seconds
hold a consultation. Mr. Overton says that his
principal must receive an apology, or the duel
shall proceed.

Colonel Waightstill's second talks with that
gentleman, and finds him much softened as to
mood. The flying lead, brushing his ear like
the wing of a death angel, has set him thinking.
He now distrusts that simile of " babes and suck-
lings," and is even ready to concede the Intima-
tion that the horse-faced Andy Is a child to be
far-fetched. Indeed, he has conceived a vast
respect, almost an affection, for his youthful
adversary, and will not only apologize, but de-
clares that, for purposes of litigation, he shall
hereafter regard the horse-faced Andy as a being
4 39

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

of mature years. All this says Colonel Waight-
still, under the respectful spell of that flying
lead; and if not in these phrases, then in words
to the same effect.

The horse-faced Andy shakes hands with
Colonel Waightstill, and they return to the log
courthouse, where the rum-and-quinine jurist
is pleasantly awaiting them. The trial is again
called, and the horse-faced Andy secures a ver-
dict. What is of more consequence, he secures
the respect of bench and bar; hereafter no
one will so much as dream of disputing his word,
should he lay claim to the years of Methuselah.
That careful grazing shot at Colonel Waight-
still, ages the horse-faced Andy wondrously in
Cumberland estimation.

Good fortune is not yet done with Andy of
the horse face. Within hours after the meeting
in that convenient ravine, he is given new oppor-
tunity to fix himself in the good regard of folk.

It is on the verge of midnight. A gentle-
man, unsteady with his cups, seeks temporary
repose on the grassy litter which surrounds the
tavern haystack. Being comfortable, and safe
against a fall, he of the too many cups refreshes
himself with his pipe. Pipe going, he falls into
thought; and next, in the midst of his pre-
40

COLONEL AVERY OFFENDS

occupation, he sets the hay afire. It burns like
tinder, and the flames, wind-flaunted, catch the
thatched roof of the stable.

The settlement is threatened; the wild cry of
" Fire! " is raised; from tavern and dwelling,
men, women and children come trooping forth,
clad in little besides looks of terror. The scene
is one of confusion and misdirection; no one
knows what to do. Meanwhile, the flames leap
from the stable to the tavern itself.

It is Andy the horse-faced who brings order
out of chaos. Born for leadership, command
comes easy to him. He calls for buckets, and
with military quickness forms a double line of
men between the river and the flames. The full
buckets chase each other along one line, while
the empties are returned by the second to be re-
filled. When the lines are working in watery
concord, he organizes the balance of the com-
munity into a wet-blanket force. By his orders,
coverlets, tablecloths, blankets, anything, every-
thing that will serve, are dipped in the river
and spread on exposed roofs. In an encourag-
ingly short space, the fire is checked and the
settlement saved.

While the excitement is at its height, that pipe
incendiary, who started the conflagration, breaks
41

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

through the double line of water passers, and
begins to give orders. He is as wild as was
Nero at the burning of Rome. Finding this
person disturbing the effective march of events,
the horse-faced Andy — who is nothing if not
executive — knocks him down with a bucket.
The Cumberland Nero falls into the river, and
the ducking, acting In happy conjunction with
the stunning thump, brings him to the shore
a changed and sobered man. That bucket
promptitude, wherewith he deposed Nero, be-
comes one of those several immediate argu-
ments which make mightily for the communal
advancement of Andy the horse-faced.

THE WINNING OF A WIFE

CHAPTER V

THE WINNING OF A WIFE

ALL these energetic matters happen at
Jonesboro, where the horse-faced one,
in the interests of the creditor class
aforesaid, is dancing attendance upon the court.
The fame of them travels to Nashville in ad-
vance of his return, and works a respectful
change toward him in the attitude of the public.
Hereafter he is to be called "Andrew " by ones
who know him well; while others, less ac-
quainted, will on military occasions hail him as
" Cap'n " and on civil ones as " Square." On
every hand, reference to him as " horse-faced "
is to be dropped; wherefore this history, the
effort of which is to follow close in the wake
of the actual, will from this point profit by that
polite example.

The household at the widow Donelson's
learns of the Jonesboro valor and executive
promptitude of the young State's Attorney.
The blooming Rachel rejoices, while her

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

drunken spouse turns sullen. His jealousy of
Andrew is multiplied, as that young gentleman's
fame increases. The fame, however, is of a sort
that seriously mislikes the drunken Robards,
who is at heart a hare. Wherefore, while his
jealousy grows, he no longer makes it the tavern
talk, as was his sottish wont.

Affairs run briskly prosperous with Andrew,
and he finds himself engaged in half the litiga-
tion of the Cumberland. There is little money,
but the region owns a currency of its own. Some
wise man has said that the circulating medium
of Europe is gold, of Africa men, of Asia
women, of America land. The clients of An-
drew rf'ward his labors with land, and many a
" six-forty," by which the slang of the Cumber-
Jand identifies a section of land, becomes his.
Finally he owns such an array of wilderness
square miles, polka-dotted about between the
Cumberland and the Mississippi, that the aggre-
gate acreage swells into the thousands. Those
acres, however, are hardly more valuable than
are the brown leaves wherewith each autumn
carpets them.

While the ardent Andrew is pushing his way
at the bar, and accumulating " six-forties," he
continues to board at the widow Donelson's.
46

Mrs. Rachel Jackson

THE WINNING OF A WIFE

The blooming Rachel delights in his society —
so polished, so splendidly different from that of
the drunkard Robards ! Once or twice, too,
when Andrew, in his saddlebag excursions from
court to court, has a powder-burning brush with
Indians and saves his sandy scalp by a narrow-
ish margin, the red cheek of Rachel is seen to
whiten. That is to say, the drunkard Robards
sees it whiten; the purblind Andrew never once
observes that mark of tender concern. The
pistol repute of the decisive Andrew serves when
he is by to stifle remark on the lip of the re-
creant Robards. But there come hours when
the latter has the blooming Rachel to himself,
at which time he raves like one demon-pos-
sessed. He avers that the unconscious Andrew
is the lover of the blooming Rachel, and in
so doing lies like an Ananias. However, the
drunken one has the excuse of jealousy; which
emotion is not only green-eyed but cross-eyed,
and of all things — as history shows — most apt
to mislead the accurate vision of folk.

Andrew overflows of sentiment, and often in
moments of loneliness turns homesick. This is
the more marvelous, since never from his very
cradle days has he had a home. Being homesick
^-one may as well call it that, for want of a

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

better word — he goes out to the orchard fence,
a lonely spot, cut off from view by intercepting
bushes, and devotes himself to melancholy.
This melancholy, as often happens with high-
strung, vanity-bitten young gentlemen, is for the
greater part nothing more than the fomenta-
tions of his egotism and conceit. But Andrew
does not know this truth, and wears a fine tragic
air as one beset of what poets term " a name-
less grief."

One day the blooming Rachel discovers the
melancholy Andrew, dreamily mournful by the
orchard fence. She watches him unperceived,
and her gentle bosom yearns over him. The
blooming Rachel is not wanting in that taint of
romanticism to which all border folk are born;
and now, to see this Hector! — this lion among
men ! — so bent in sadness, moves her tenderly.
At that it is only a kind of maternal tenderness;
for the blooming Rachel has a wealth of
mother love, and no children upon whom to
lavish it. She stands looking at the melancholy
one, and would give worlds if she might only
take his head to her sympathetic bosom and
cherish it.

The blooming Rachel approaches, and cheer-
ily greets the gloomy one. She seeks to uplift
48

THE WINNING OF A WIFE

his spirits. Under the sweet spell of her, he
tells how wholly alone he Is. He speaks of his
mother and how her very grave Is lost. He
relates how the Revolution swallowed up the
lives of his two brothers.

"And your father?"

" He was burled the week before I was born."

The two stay by the orchard fence a long
while, and talk on many things; but never once
on love.

The drunken Robards, fiend-guided, gets a
green-eyed glimpse of them. With that his
jealousy receives added edge, and — the better
to decide upon a course — he hurries to a grog-
gery to pour down rum by the cup. Either he
drinks beyond his wont, or that rum Is of sterner
impulse than common; for he becomes pot-
valorous, and with curses vows the death of
Andrew.

The drunken Robards, filled with rum to the
brim, issues forth to execute his threats. He
finds his victim still sadly by the orchard fence ;
but alone, since the blooming Rachel has been
called to aid In supper-getting. The pot-valor-
ous Robards bursts into a torrent of jealous
recrimination.

The melancholy Andrew cannot believe his
49

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

ears I His melancholy takes flight when he
does understand, and in its stead comes white-
hot anger.

"What! you scoundrel!" he roars. The
blue eyes blaze with such ferocity that Robards
the craven starts back. In a moment the other
has control of himself. " Sir! " he grits, " you
shall give me satisfaction ! "

Robards the drunken says nothing, being
frozen of fear. The enraged Andrew stalks
away in quest of the taciturn Overton who owns
those hair triggers.

" Let us take a walk," says hair-trigger Over-
ton, running his arm inside the lean elbow of
Andrew. Once in the woods, he goes on :
" What do you want to do? "

" Kill him ! I would put him in hell in a
second! "

" Doubtless ! Having killed him, what then
will you do? "

" I don't understand."

" Let me explain : You kill Robards. His
wife is a widow. Also, because you have killed
Robards in a quarrel over her, she is the talk of
the settlement. Therefore, I put the question :
Having made Rachel the scandal of the Cum-
berland, what will you do? "
50

THE WINNING OF A WIFE

There is a long, embarrassed pause. Pres-
ently Andrew lifts his gaze to the cool eyes of
his friend,

" I shall offer her marriage. She shall, if
she accept it, have the protection of my
name."

" And then," goes on the ice-and-iron Over-
ton, " the scandal will be redoubled. They will
say that you and Rachel, plotting together, have
murdered Robards to open a wider way for your
guilty loves."

Andrew takes a deep breath. " What would
you counsel? " he asks.

" One thing," — laying his hand on Andrew's
shoulder — " under no circumstances, not even
to save your own life, must you slay Robards.
You might better slay Rachel; since his death
by your hand spells her destruction. Good
people would avoid her as though she were the
plague. Never more, on the Cumberland,
should she hold up her head."

That night the fear-eaten Robards solves the
situation which his crazy jealousy has created.
He starts secretly for the North. He tells two
or three that he will never more call the bloom-
ing Rachel wife.

For a month there is much silence, and some

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

restraint, at the widow Donelson's. This con-
dition wears away; and, while no one says so,
everybody feels relaxed and relieved by the ab-
sence of the drunken Robards. No one names
him, and there is tacit agreement to forget the
creature. The drunken Robards, however, has
no notion of being forgotten. Word comes
down from above that he will return and reclaim
his wife. At this the black eyes of Rachel
sparkle dangerously.

" That monster," she cries, *' shall never
kiss my lips, nor so much as touch my hand
again I "

By advice of her mother, and to avoid the
drunken Robards — who promises his hateful ap-
pearance with each new day — the blooming
Rachel resolves to take passage on a keel boat
for Natchez. Andrew, in deep concern, de-
clares that he shall accompany her. He says
that he goes to protect her from those Indians
who make a double fringe of savage peril along
the Cumberland, the Ohio, and the Mississippi.
Overton, the taciturn, shrugs his shoulders; the
keel-boat captain is glad to have with him the
steadiest rifle along the Cumberland, and says
as much; the blooming Rachel is glad, but says
so only with her eyes; the Nashville good people

THE WINNING OF A WIFE

say nothing, winking in silence sophisticated
eyes.

Robards the drunken, now when they are
gone, plays the ill-used husband to the hilts.
He seems to revel in the role, and, to keep it
from cooling in interest, petitions the Virginia
Legislature for a divorce. In course of time
the news climbs the mountains, and descends
into the Cumberland, that the divorce is
granted ; while similar word floats down to Nat-
chez with the keel boats.

The slow story of the blooming Rachel's re-
lease reaches our two in Natchez. Thereupon
Andrew leads Rachel the blooming before a
priest; and the priest blesses them, and names
them man and wife. That autumn they are
again at the widow Donelson's; but the bloom-
ing Rachel, once Mrs. Robards, is now Mrs.
Jackson.

Slander is never the vice of a region that goes
armed to the teeth. Thus it befalls that now,
when the two are back on the Cumberland,
those sophisticated ones forget to wink. There
comes not so much as the arching of a brow;
for no one is so careless of life as all that. The
whole settlement can see that the dangerous An-
drew is watching with those steel-blue eyes.
53

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

At the first suggestion that his Rachel has been
guilty of wrong, he will be at the throat of her
maligner like a panther.

Time flows on, and a horrible thing occurs.
There comes a new word that no divorce was
granted by that Legislature ; and this new word
is indisputable. There is a divorce, one granted
by a court; but, as an act of separation between
Rachel the blooming and the drunken Robards,
that decree of divorce is long months younger
than the empowering act of the Richmond Leg-
islature, which mistaken folk regarded as a
divorce. The good priest's words, when he
named our troubled two as man and wife,
were ignorantly spoken. During months upon
months thereafter, through all of which she was
hailed as " Mrs. Jackson," the blooming Ra-
chel was still the wife of the drunken Robards.

The blow strikes Andrew gray; but he says
never a word. He blames himself for this ship-
wreck; where his Rachel was inv-olved, he should
have made all sure and invited no chances.

The injury Is done, however; he must now go
about its repair. There is a second marriage,
at which the silent Overton and the widow
Donelson are the only witnesses, and for the
second time a priest congratulates our storm-
54

THE WINNING OF A WIFE

tossed ones as man and wife. This time there
is no mistake.

The young husband sends to Charleston ; and
presently there come to him over the Blue Ridge,
the finest pair of dueling pistols which the Cum-
berland has ever beheld. They are Galway
saw-handles, rifle-barreled; a breath discharges
them, and they are sighted to the splitting of
a hair.

" What are they for? " asks Overton the taci-
turn, balancing one in each experienced hand.

In the eyes of Andrew gathers that steel-blue
look of doom. " They are to kill the first vil-
lain who speaks ill of my wife," says he.

VI
DEAD-SHOT DICKINSON

CHAPTER VI

DEAD-SHOT DICKINSON

THE sandy-haired Andrew now devotes
himself to the practice of law and the
domestic virtues. In exercising the
latter, he has the aid of the blooming Rachel,
toward whom he carries himself with a tender
chivalry that would have graced a Bayard.
Having little of books, he is earnest for the edu-
cation of others, and becomes a trustee of the
Nashville Academy.

About this time the good people of the Cum-
berland, and of the regions round about, be-
lieving they number more than seventy thousand
souls, are seized of a hunger for statehood.
They call a constitutional convention at Knox-
ville, and Andrew attends as a delegate from
his county of Davidson. Woolsack McNairy,
his fellow student in the office of Spruce Mc-
Cay, is also a delegate. The woolsack one has
realized that dream of old Salisbury, and Is now
a judge.

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

Andrew and woolsack McNalry are members
of the committee which draws a constitution for
the would-be commonwealth. The constitution,
when framed, is brought by Its authors into
open convention, and wranglingly adopted.
Also, " Tennessee " Is settled upon for a name,
albeit the ardent Andrew, who is nothing if not
tribal, urges that of " Cumberland."

The constitution goes, with the proposition of
statehood, before Congress in Philadelphia;
and, following a sharp fight, In which such fos-
silized ones as Rufus King oppose and such
quick spirits as Aaron Burr sustain, the admis-
sion of " Tennessee," the new State Is created.

Its hunting-shirt citizenry, well pleased with
their successful step in nation building, elect
Andrew to the House of Representatives. A
little later, he Is taken from the House and sent
to the Senate. There he meets with Mr. Jeffer-
son, who Is the Senate's presiding officer, being
vice-president of the nation, and that accurate
parliamentarian and polished fine gentleman
writes of him :

" He never speaks on account of the rash-
ness of his feelings. I have seen him attempt
it repeatedly, but as often choke with rage."

There also he encounters Aaron Burr; and
60

DEAD-SHOT DICKINSON

is so far socially sagacious as to model his de-
portment upon that of the American Chester-
field, ironing out its backwoods wrinkles and
savage creases, until it fits a salon as smoothly
well as does the deportment of Burr himself.
Our hero finds but one other man about Con-
gress for whom he conceives a friendship equal
to that which he feels for Aaron Burr, and he
is Edward Livingston.

Andrew the energetic discovers the life of a
senator to be one of dawdling uselessness, over-
long drawn out; and says so. He anticipates
the acrid Randolph of Roanoke, and declares
that he never winds his watch while in Congress,
holding all time spent there as wasted and
thrown away.

Idleness rusts him; and, being of a temper
even with that of best Toledo steel, he refuses
to rust patiently. Preyed upon and carked of
an exasperating leisure, which misfits both his
years and his fierce temperament, he seeks refuge
in what amusements are rife in Philadelphia.
He goes to Mr. McElwee's Looking-glass
Store, 70 South Fourth Street, and pays four bits
for a ticket to the readings of Mr. Fennell,
who gives him Goldsmith, Thompson and
Young. The readings pall upon him, and,
61

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

athirst for something more violent, he dinks
down' a Mexican dollar, witnesses the horse-
manship at Mr. Rickett's amphitheater, and
finds it more to his horse-loving taste. When all
else fails, he buys a seat in a box at the Old
Theater in Cedar Street, and is entertained by
the sleight of hand of wizard Signor Falconi.
On the back of it all he grows heartily sick of
the Senate, and of civilization, as the latter finds
exposition in Philadelphia, and resigns his place
and goes home.

When he arrives in Nashville, the Legisla-
ture— which still holds that he should be en-
gaged upon some public work — elects him to
the supreme bench. There he gets along more
to his own comfort; for, besides being among
the people he loves, he relieves the monotony of
existence by a street fight with Governor John
Sevier. The two meet in the causeways of
Knoxvllle, empty their pistols at one another,
and are both shamefully wide.

The young Judge is also called from the
bench to arrest that celebrated backwoods bully
and cut-throat, Russell Bean, who with a pistol
in one hand and a knife in the other is engaged,
at the moment, in challenging a reluctant sheriff
to a free fight. The young Judge covers the

Aaron Burr

From a painting by J. Vandyke.

DEAD-SHOT DICKINSON

objectionable Mr. Bean with those Galway saw-
handles ; and that violent person surrenders un-
conditionally. In elucidating his sudden tame-
ness and its causes, Mr. Bean subsequently ex-
plains to a disgusted admirer:

" I looks at the Jedge, an' I sees shoot in his
eye; an' thar warn't shoot in nary 'nother eye
in the crowd. So I says to myse'f, says I, * Old
Hoss, it's about time to sing small ! ' An'
I does."

Notwithstanding those leaden exchanges with
the Governor, and the conquest of the discreet
Mr. Bean, our jurist finds the bench inexpres-
sibly tedious. At last he resigns from It, as he
did from the Senate, and again retreats to pri-
vate life.

Here his forethoughtful Scotch blood begins
to assert itself, and he goes seriously to the mak-
ing of money. With his one hundred and fifty
slaves, he tills his plantation as no plantation
on the Cumberland was ever tilled before; and
the cotton crops he " makes " are at once the
local boast and wonder. He starts an inland
shipyard, and builds keel and flat boats for the
river commerce with New Orleans. He opens
a store, sells everything from gunpowder to
quinine, broadcloth by the bolt to salt by the

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

barrel, and takes his pay in the heterogeneous
currency of the region, whereof 'coon skins are
a smallest subsidiary coin. Also, it is now that
he is made Major General of Militia, an honor
for which he has privily panted, even as the
worn hart panteth for the water brook.

When he is a general, the blooming Rachel
cuts and bastes and stitches a gorgeous uniform
for her Bayard, in which labor of love she ex-
hausts the Nashville supply of gold braid.
Once the new General dons that effulgent uni-
form, which he does upon the instant it is com-
pleted, he offers a spectacle of such brilliancy
that the bedazzled public talks facetiously of
smoked glass. The new General in no wise re-
sents this jest, being blandly tolerant of a back-
woods sense of humor which suggests it. Be-
sides, while the public has its joke, he has the
uniform and his commission ; and these, he
opines, give him vastly the better of the situa-
tion.

Many friends, many foes, says the Arab,
and now the popular young General finds his
path grown up of enemies. There be reasons
for the sprouting of these malevolent gentry.
The General is the idol of the people. He can
call them about him as the huntsman calls his
64

DEAD-SHOT DICKINSON

hounds. At word or sign from him, they fol-
low and pull down whatsoever man or measure
he points to as his quarry of politics. This does
not match with the ambitions of many a pushing
gentleman, who is quite as eager for popular
preference, and — he thinks — quite as much en-
titled to it, as is the General.

These disgruntled ones, baffled in their politi-
cal advancement by the General, take darkling
counsel among themselves. The decision they
arrive at is one gloomy enough. They cannot
shake the General's hold upon the people.
Nothing short of his death promises a least ray
of relief. He is the sun ; while he lives he alone
will occupy the popular heavens. His destruc-
tion would mean the going down of that sun.
In the night which followed, those lesser plot-
ting luminaries might win for themselves some
twinkling visibility.

It is the springtime of the malevolent ones'
conspiracy, and the plot they make begins to
blossom for the bearing of Its lethal fruit.
There is in Nashville one Charles Dickinson.
By profession he is a lawyer, albeit of practice
intermittent and scant. In figure he Is tall,
handsome, graceful with a feline grace. If
there be aught in the old Greek's theory touch-
65

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

ing the transmigration of souls, then this Dick-
inson was aforetime and In another life a tiger.
He is sinuous, powerful, vain, narrowly cruel,
with a sleek purring gloss of manner over all.
Also, he Is of " good family" — that defense and
final refuge of folk who would else sink from
respectable sight in the mire of their own well-
earned disrepute.

Mr, Dickinson has one accomplishment, a
physical one. So nicely does his eye match his
hand, that he may boast himself the quickest,
surest shot In all the world. Knowing his
vanity, and the deadly certainty of his pistols,
the conspirators work upon him. They point
out that to kill the General under circumstances
which men approve, will be an easy Instant step
to greatness. Urged by his vanity, permitted
by his cruelty, dead-shot Dickinson rises to the
glittering lure.

Give a man station and fortune, and while
his courage Is not sapped his prudence is pro-
moted. The poor, obscure man will risk him-
self more readily than will the eminent rich one,
not that he is braver, but he has less to lose.
The General — who has been in both Houses of
Congress, and was a judge on the bench besides
— will not be hurried to the field, as readily as

DEAD-SHOT DICKINSON

when he was merely Andrew the horse-faced.
However, those malignant secret ones are in-
genious. They know a name that cannot fail to
set him ablaze for blood. They whisper that
name to dead-shot Dickinson.

It is a banner day at the Clover Bottom track.
The General's Truxton is to run — that meteor
among race horses, the mighty Truxton ! The
blooming Rachel, seated in her carriage, is where
she can view the finish. The General — one of
the Clover Bottom stewards — is in the judge's
stand. Dead-shot Dickinson, as the bell rings
on the race, takes his stand at the blooming
Rachel's carriage wheel. He is not there to
see a race, but to plant an insult.

" Go! " cries the starter.

Away rushes the field, the flying Truxton in
the lead! Around they whirl, the little jockeys
plying hand and heel! They sweep by the
three-quarters post! The great Truxton, eye
afire, nostrils wide, comes down the stretch with
the swiftness of the thrown lance ! Behind, ten
generous lengths, trail the beaten ruck! The
red mounts to the cheek of the blooming Rachel ;
her black eyes shine with excitement ! She ap-
plauds the invincible Truxton with her little
hands.

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

" He is running away with them ! " she cries.

Dead-shot Dickinson turns to the friend who
is conveniently by his side. The chance he waited
for has come.

" Running away with them! " he sneers, re-
peating the phrase of the blooming Rachel.
" To be sure ! He takes after his master, who
ran away with another man's wife."

VII
HOW THE GENERAL FOUGHT

CHAPTER VII

HOW THE GENERAL FOUGHT

THE General seeks the taciturn Over-
ton— that wordless one of the uneasy
hair triggers.

*' It is a plot," says the General. "And yet
this man shall die."

Hair-trigger Overton bears a challenge to
dead-shot Dickinson, and is referred to that
marksman's second, Hanson Catlet. Hair-trig-
ger Overton and Mr. Catlet agree on Harrison's
Mills, a long day's ride away in Kentucky.
There are laws against dueling in Tennessee;
wherefore her citizens, when bent on blood,
repair to Kentucky. To make all equal, and
owning similar laws, the Kentuckians, when
blood hungry, take one another to Tennessee.
The arrangement is both perfect and polite,
not to say urbane, and does much to induce
friendly relations between these sister common-
wealths.

6 71

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

Place selected, Mr. Catlet insists upon putting
off the fight for a week. His principal Is noth-
ing if not artistic. He must send across the
Blue Ridge Mountains for a famous brace of
pistols. His duel with the General will have
its page in history. He insists, therefore, upon
making every nice arrangement to attract the
admiration of posterity. He will kill the Gen-
eral, of course; and, by way of emphasizing his
gallantry, offers wagers to that effect. He bets
three thousand dollars that he will kill the Gen-
eral the first fire.

The General makes no wagers, but holds long
pow-wows with hair-trigger Overton over their
glasses and pipes. The fight is to be at twelve
paces, each man toeing a peg. The word agreed
on is : "Fire — one — two — three — stop ! '*
Both are free to kill after the word " Fire,"
and before the word " Stop."

Hair-trigger Overton and the General give
themselves up to a heartfelt study of what ad-
vantages and disadvantages are presented by the
situation. They decide to let the gifted Dick-
inson shoot first. Lie 'S so quick that the Gen-
eral cannot hope to forestall his fire. Also, any
undue haste on the General's part might spoil
his aim. By the pros and cons of it, as weighed
72

THE GENERAL FOUGHT

between them, It is plain that the General must
receive the fire of dead-shot Dickinson. He
will be hit; doubtless the wound will bring
death. He must, however, bend every Iron
energy to the task of standing on his feet long
enough to kill his adversary.

"Fear not! I'll last the time!" says the
General. " He shall go with me; for Tve set
my heart on his blood."

Those wonderful pistols come over the Blue
Ridge, and dead-shot Dickinson with his friends
set out for that far-away Kentucky fighting
ground. They make gala of the business, and
laugh and joke as they ride along. By way
of keeping his hand In, and to give the con-
fidence of his admirers a wire edge, dead-shot
Dickinson unbends In sinister exhibitions of his
pistol skill. At a farmer's house a gourd Is
hanging by a string from the bough of a tree.
Dead-shot Dickinson, at twenty paces, cuts the
string; the gourd falls to the ground.

" Some gentlemen will be along presently,"
he says. " Show them that string, and tell them
how it was cut."

At a wayside Inn he puts four bullets Into a
mark the size of a silver dollar.

" When General Jackson arrives," he ob-

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

serves, tossing a gold piece to the innkeeper,
" say that those shots were fired at twenty-four
paces."

And so with song and shout and jest and
pistol firing, the Dickinson party troop forward.
They arrive in the early evening and put up
at Harrison's tavern. The fight is for seven
o'clock in the morning.

Behind this gay cavalcade are journeying the
General and hair-trigger Overton. The farmer
repeats the story of the gourd and its bullet-
broken string. A bit farther, and the innkeeper
calls attention to that quartette of shots, which
took effect within the little circumference of a
dollar piece. The stern pair behold these mar-
vels unmoved; hair-trigger Overton merely
shrugs his shoulders, while the General's lip
curls contemptuously. Dead-shot Dickinson has
thrown away his lead and powder if he hoped to
shake these men of granite. Upon coming to
the battle ground, the General and hair-trigger
Overton avoid the Harrison tavern, which shel-
ters the jovial Dickinson coterie, and put up at
the inn of David Miller. That evening, they
hold their final conference in a cloud of tobacco
smoke, like a couple of Indians. Finally, the
General goes to bed, and sleeps like a tree.

THE GENERAL FOUGHT

With the first blue streaks of morning our
two war parties are up and moving. They meet
In a convenient grove of poplars. The ground
is stepped off and pegged; after which hair-
trigger Overton and Mr. Catlet pitch a coin.
The impartial coin awards the choice of posi-
tions to Mr. Catlet, and gives the word to hair-
trigger Overton. There is a third toss which
settles that the weapons are to be those Galway
saw-handles. At this good fortune a steel-blue
point of fire shows in the satisfied eye of the
General. He recalls how he procured those
weapons to kill the first man who spoke evil of
the blooming Rachel, and is pleased to think a
benignant destiny will not permit them to be
robbed of that original right.

The men are led to their respective pegs by
Mr. Catlet and hair-trigger Overton. The
General, through the experienced strategy of
hair-trigger Overton, wears a black coat — high
of collar, long of skirt. It buttons close to the
chin; not a least glimpse of bullet-guiding white,
whether of shirt collar or cravat, is allowed to
show. The black coat is purposely voluminous ;
and the whereabouts of the General's lean
frame, tucked away in its folds, is a question
not readily replied to. The only mark on the

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

whole sable expanse of that coat is a row of
steel-bright buttons. These are not in the mid-
dle, but peculiarly to one side. Those steel-
bright buttons will draw the fire of dead-shot
Dickinson like a magnet. Which is precisely
what hair-trigger Overton had in mind.

As the two stand at the pegs, dead-shot Dick-
inson calls loudly to a friend :

"Watch that third button! It's over the
heart! I shall hit him there! "

The grim General says nothing; but the look
on his gaunt face reads like a page torn from
some book of doom. As he stands waiting the
word, he is observ^ed by the watchful Ov^erton
to slip something into his mouth. Then his
jaws set themselves like flint.

" Gentlemen, are you ready? "

They are ready, dead-shot Dickinson cruelly
eager, the somber General adamant. There is
a soundless moment, still as death:

"Fire!"

Instantly, like a flash of lightning, the pistol
of dead-shot Dickinson explodes. That objec-
tive third button disappears, driven in by the
vengeful lead ! The General rocks a little on
his feet with the awful shock of it; then he
plants himself as moveless as an oak. Through

THE GENERAL FOUGHT

the curling smoke dead-shot Dickinson makes
out the stark, upstanding form. For a moment
it is as though he were planet-struck. He
shrinks shudderingly from his peg.

"God!" he whispers; "have I missed
him?"

Hair-trigger Overton cocks the pistol he holds
in his hand and covers the horror-smitten
Dickinson.

" Back to your mark, sir! " he roars.

Dead-shot Dickinson steps up to his peg, his
cheek the hue of ashes. He reads his sentence
In those implacable steel-blue eyes, and the death
nearness touches his heart like ice.

" One ! " says hair-trigger Overton.

At the word, there is a sharp " klick ! " The
General has pulled the trigger, but the hammer
catches at half cock. The General's inveterate
steel-blue glance never for one moment leaves
his man. He recocks the weapon with a re-
sounding " kluck! "

" Two ! " says hair-trigger Overton.

"Bang!"

There comes the flash and roar, and dead-shot
Dickinson is seen to stagger. He totters, stum-
bles slowly forward, and falls all along on his
face. The bullet has bored through his body.
77

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

The General stays by his peg — cold and hard
and stern. Hair-trigger Overton approaches
the wounded Dickinson. One glance is enough.
He crosses to the General and takes his arm.

" Come ! " he says. " There is nothing more
to do!"

Hair-trigger Overton leads the General back
to their inn. As the pair journey through the
poplar wood, he asks :

" What was that you put In your mouth? "

"It was a bullet," returns the General; "I
placed it between my teeth. By setting my jaws
firmly upon it I make my hand as steady as a
church."

As the General says this, he gives that steady-
ing pellet of lead to hair-trigger Overton, who
looks it over curiously. It has been crushed
between the clenched teeth of the General until
now it is as flat and thin as a two-bit piece. As
the two approach the tavern they come upon
a negress churning butter, and the General
pauses to drink a quart of milk.

Once in his room, hair-trigger Overton pulls
off the General's boot, which is full of blood.

" Not there ! " says the General. " His bul-
let found me here"; and he throws open the
black coat.

THE GENERAL FOUGHT

Dead-shot Dickinson's aim was better than
his surmise. He struck that indicated third
button; but, thanks to the strategy of hair-
trigger Overton which prompted the voluminous
coat, the button did not cover the General's
heart. The deceived bullet has only broken
two ribs and grazed the breastbone.

The surgeon Is called; the wound Is dressed
and bandaged. He describes jt as serious, and
shakes his head.

*' Still," he observes, " you are more fortunate
than Mr. Dickinson. He cannot live an hour."

As the man of probe and forceps Is about to
retire the General detains him.

" You are not to speak of my wound until
we are back In Nashville."

He of the probe and forceps bows assent.
When he has left the room hair-trigger Over-
ton asks:

"What was that for?"

The brow of the General grows cloudy with
a reminiscent war frown.

" Have you forgotten those four shots Inside
the circle of a dollar, and that bullet-severed
string? I want the braggart to die thinking
he has missed a man at twelve paces."

The two light pipes and hair-trigger Overton
79

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

sends for his whisky. Once it has come he
gives the General a stiff four fingers, and under
the fiery spell of the liquor the color struggles
into the pale hollow of his cheek.

He of the probe* and forceps comes to the
door.

" Gentlemen," he says, palms outward with
a sort of deprecatory gesture — " gentlemen,
Mr. Dickinson is dead."

The General knocks the ashes from his pipe.
Then he crosses to the open window and looks
out into the May sunshine. From over near
the poplar wood drifts up the liquid whistle of
a quail. Presently he returns to his seat and
begins refilling his pipe.

" It speaks worlds for your will power, that
you should have kept your feet after being hit
so hard. Not one in ten thousand could have
held himself together while he made that shot ! "

This is a marvelous burst of loquacity for
hair-triggef Overton, who deals out words as
some men deal out ducats.

" I was thinking on her, whom his slanderous
tongue had hurt. I should have stood there till
I killed him, though he had shot me through
the heart ! "

VIII

ENGLAND AND GRIM-VISAGED
WAR

CHAPTER VIII

ENGLAND AND GRIM-VISAGED WAR

THE saw-handles are cleaned and oiled
and laid away to that repose which
they have won. No more will they
be summoned to defend the blooming Rachel.
No one now speaks evil of her; for that tragedy
which reddened a May Kentucky morning has
sealed the lips of slander. The General does
not speak of that battle at twelve paces in the
poplar wood; and yet the blooming Rachel
knows. She, like her lover-husband, never re-
fers to it; but her worship of him finds multi-
plication, while he, towards her, grows more and
more the Bayard. Much are they revered and
looked up to along the Cumberland, he for his
gentle loyalty, she for her love ; and the common
tongue is tireless in reciting the story of their
perfect happiness.

The currents of time roll on and the General
Is busy with his planting, his storekeeping, and

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

his boat building. He is fortunate; and the
three-sided profits pile themselves into moderate
riches. In the midst of his prosperity he is
visited by Aaron Burr. The late vice-president
has killed Alexander Hamilton — a name de-
spised along the Cumberland. Also he was
aforetime the champion of Tennessee, when she
asked the boon of statehood.

For these sundry matters, as well as for what
good unconscious lessons in deportment were
taught him by the courtly Colonel Burr, the
General fails not to take that polished exile to
his heart and to his hearth. Colonel Burr is
in and out of Nashville many times. He comes
and goes and comes and goes and comes again;
and writes his daughter Theodosia :

" I am housed with General Jackson, who is
one of those prompt, frank, loyal souls whom
I like."

Colonel Burr has been in France, and tells
the General of Napoleon. He draws a battle
map of Quebec, shows where Montgomery
fell, arid relates how he, Colonel Burr, bore that
dead chieftain from the field. In the end, he
gives a dim outline of his dreams for the con-
quest of that Spanish America, lying on the
thither side of the Mississippi; and to these lat-

ENGLAND AND WAR

ter tales of empire the General lends eager
ear.

By the General's suggestion a dinner Is given
at the Nashville Inn In honor of Colonel Burr.
The General presides, and, with a heart full of
anger against Barbary pirates, offers among
others the toast:

" Millions for defense, but not one cent for
tribute ! "

Colonel Burr, being dined, confides to the
General how he Is not without an ally In the
Southwest, and says that Commander Wilkin-
son, In control for the Government at New
Orleans, stands ready to advance his antl-Spanlsh
projects. At the name of " Wilkinson " the
General shakes his prudent head. He declares
that Commander Wilkinson Is a faithless, caitiff
creature, with a brandlfied nose, a coward
heart, and a weakness for breaking his word.
The crafty Burr, confident to vanity of his own
genius for Intrigue, Insists that he can trust
Commander Wilkinson. Then he arranges with
the General for the building of a flotilla of flat-
boats at the latter's yards, and goes his schem-
ing way. Later, when Colonel Burr Is on trial
for treason In Richmond, the General will ride
over the Blue Ridge to give him aid and comfort,

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

and make street-corner speeches defending him,
wherein he will say things more explicit than
flattering concerning President Jefferson, who is
urging the prosecution of Colonel Burr.

The hours, never resting, never sleeping,
march onward with our planter-General, until
the procession in its passing is remembered and
spoken of as years. Then comes the war with
England. That saber scar on the General's head
begins to throb, and he sends word to Washing-
ton that he is ready, with twenty-five hundred of
his hunting-shirt militia, to kill British wher-
ever they shall be found.

The Government thanks him, and orders him
with his hunting-shirt followers to report to
General Wilkinson at New Orleans. The Gen-
eral does not like this, the Wilkinson in ques-
tion being that red-nosed renegade one, against
whom long ago he warned the ambitious Colonel
Burr. For all that, orders are orders; and be-
sides a fight under any commander is not to be
despised. The General presently hurries his
hunting-shirt forces aboard flatboats, and floats
away on the convenient bosom of the Cumber-
land. He will go down that stream to the
Ohio, and so to the Mississippi and to New
Orleans. As they float downward with the
86

ENGLAND AND WAR

stream, the General recalls a former voyage
when love and the blooming Rachel were his
companions, and is heard to sigh.

At Natchez, word from Commander Wilkin-
son meets the General. He is told to land, and
wait for further orders. The General takes his
boys of the hunting shirts ashore, and pitches
camp. Privily he unbends in oaths and male-
dictions, all addressed to the ex-grocer Wilkin-
son; for he thinks the order, preventing his
entrance Into New Orleans, born of the mean
rivalry of that red-nosed ignobility.

The General waits, and curses Commander
Wilkinson, for divers weeks. Then occurs one
of those imbecilities, of which only the witless-
ness of Government is capable, and whereof the
archives at Washington carry so many examples.
The General receives a curt dispatch from the
war secretary, " dismissing " him and his hunt-
ing-shirt soldiers from the service of the United
States. Not a word is said as to pay, or pro-
vision for returning to the Cumberland. Hav-
ing gotter^^ the General and his little army sev-
eral hundred wilderness miles from home, the
thick-head Government, with no intelligence and
as little heart, coolly reduces him and them to
the practical status of vagrants; which feat ac-
7 87

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

complished, It walks away, as it were, hands in
pockets, whistling " Yankee Doodle." Possibly,
the Government thinks that the General and his
hunting-shirt friends can float upstream as they
floated down. The angry General, however,
makes no such marine mistake, and the Intricate
oaths which he now evolves and fulminates, as
expressive of his feelings, would have won the
admiration of any army that ever fought in
Flanders.

The General's credit is golden, since he has
ever been a fanatic about paying debts. Invok-
ing that credit, he cashes a handful of drafts,
and marches home with his hunting-shirt contin-
gent at his own expense. Also he Indites a letter
to that war secretary which reddens the latter's
departmental ears, and causes his departmental
head to buzz like a nest of hornets. Later, the
Government pays the General the amount of
those drafts; not because it is right — since the
argument of right has little Washington weight
— but for the far more moving reason that Ten-
nessee, in a rage, Is preparing to desert the bone-
less President Madison for the Federalists. It
is the latter thought which brings a ray of com-
mon sense to the besotted Government, and his
money to our General, now back in Tennessee.

ENGLAND AND WAR

The bellicose General is vastly disappointed
at missing a brush with invading British; for,
aside from a saber-engrafted hatred of all Eng-
lish things and men, he is one to dote on fighting
for fighting's crimson sake, and is almost as well
pleased with mere battle as with victory. How-
ever, he is given scanty room for sorrowful re-
flections, since fate is hurrying to his relief with
a private war of his own.

The General, ever an expositor of the duello,
and the peaceful hours resting heavy on his
hands, goes out as second for a Captain Carroll
against Mr. Jesse Benton. Captain Carroll is
shot in the toe, and Mr. Benton in the leg;
whereat the General and the Cumberland pub-
lic groan over results so inadequate.

Being thus shot in the leg, Mr. Benton dis-
plays his bad taste by falling into a fury with the
General. He recounts what he regards as his
" wrongs " to his brother Thomas, and that in-
temperate Individual loses no time in taking up
his brother's quarrel. The pair say things of
the General which would arouse the wrath of
an image; with that, the General calls for his
saw-handles, and begins to plan trouble for those
verbally reckless Bentons.

The General takes with him as guide, phi-
89

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

losopher and friend, his faithful subaltern,
Colonel Coffee. The two establish themselves,
strategically, at the Nashville Inn.

Across the corner of the public square upon
which the Nashville Inn finds hospitable front-
age, stands the City Hotel. Sunning themselves
in the veranda of the latter caravansary, but
with war written upon their angry visages, the
General and the faithful Coffee perceive the
brothers Benton. The enemies glare at one an-
other, and the General says to Colonel Coffee
that they will now go to the post office. Since
a trip to the post office is calculated to bring
them within touching distance of the brothers
Benton, Colonel Coffee at once discerns the pro-
priety of such a journey.

The pair go to the post office, staring haught-
ily at the brothers Benton as they pass. The
brothers Benton, for their side, being apoplec-
tic of habit, grow black in the face with rage.

Having visited the post office, and being now
upon their return, the General and Colonel
Coffee again draw near the apoplectic Bentons,
glowering from their veranda. When within
three feet of them, the General abruptly whips
out one of those celebrated saw-handles, and
jams its muzzle against the horrified stomach of

ENGLAND AND WAR

brother Thomas Benton. That imperiled per-
sonage thereupon backs rapidly away from the
saw-handle, which as rapidly follows; while the
public, assembling on the run, confidently ex-
pects the General to shoot brother Thomas Ben-
ton in two.

The General might have done so, and thus
gratified the public, but the unexpected occurs.
As brother Thomas Benton backs briskly from
the muzzle of the saw-handle, brother Jesse,
who is not wanting in a genius for decision,
whirls, and from a huge horse pistol plants two
balls in the General's left shoulder. As the war-
rior goes down. Colonel Coffee empties his pistol
at brother Thomas, who avoids having his head
blown off only by the fortunate fact of a cellar,
into whose receptive depths he tumbles, just in
what novelists call " the nick of time." As
brother Thomas lapses into the cellar, young
Hays, a nephew of the blooming Rachel, hurls
brother Jesse to the floor, to which he makes
heartfelt attempts to pin him with a dirk, but
is baffled by the activity of the restless brother
Jesse, who will not lie still to be pinned.

The whole riot has not covered the space of
sixty seconds, when the public, suddenly con-
ceiving its duty to lie in that direction, seizes

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

young Hays, releases the recumbent brother
Jesse, disarms Colonel Coffee, fishes brother
Thomas out of that receptive cellar, and carries
the badly wounded General to a bed in the
Nashville Inn. The City Hotel mentions its
own beds, and lays claim to the injured General,
on the argument that the battle has been fought
in its bar. The claim is disallowed and the
General conveyed to the rival hostelry afore-
said, as being peculiarly his own proper inn,
since it is there he has ever repaired for bil-
liards, mint juleps, and to hold conferences over
pipe and glass with his friends.

Once in bed, the local surgeons burst in and
offer to cut off the General's arm. The offer
is declined fiercely and a poultice of slippery-
elm bark is substituted for that proposed sur-
gery. This latter medicament works wonders;
under its soothing influences, and the revivify-
ing effects of whisky — both being remedies much
in vogue along the Cumberland — the General
begins to mend.

The General, the patient object of a deal of
slippery-elm bark and whisky — the one applied
externally and the other internally — lies in bed
a month. Then the awful word arrives of the
massacre at Fort Mims. Five hundred and
92

ENGLAND AND WAR

fifty-three souls have been slaughtered, and
Chief Weathersford with all his Creeks, valor
sharpened by English gold and English fire-
water, is reported on the warpath. The news
brings the General out of bed in a moment.
His friends remonstrate, the doctors command, -)k
the blooming Rachel pleads; but he puts them
aside. Gaunt of cheek, face paper-white with
weakness, left arm in a sling, he climbs painfully
into the saddle and takes command.

The General sends Colonel Coffee and his
mounted riflemen to the fore, with orders to
wait for him at Fayettesville. Meanwhile, he
himself lingers briefly to enroll and organize
his little army. A few weeks later he follows
the doughty Coffee, and the entire command —
horns full of powder, pouches heavy with bul-
lets, hunting knives whetted to a razor edge —
moves southward after hostile Creeks.

THE GENERAL AT THE
HORSESHOE

CHAPTER IX

THE GENERAL AT THE HORSESHOE

THE General goes to Fayettesvllle, and
orders Colonel Coffee with his eager
five hundred to Huntsville, as a point
nearer the heart of savage war. Volunteers,
each bringing his own rifle and riding his own
horse, join Colonel Coffee, who sends back in-
spiring word that his five hundred have grown
to thirteen hundred, all thirsting for Creek
blood. Meanwhile, the General, weak and worn
to a shadow, can hardly keep the saddle, and
must be bathed hourly in whisky to hold soul and
body together. Unable to eat, he lives by his
will alone. The shot-shattered left arm, lest
he faint with the awful agony which attends
its least disturbance, is bound tightly to his side.
The General takes the field, and presently
comes up with the Creeks. He smites them hip
and thigh at Tallushatches, Talladega, and di-
vers other places of equally complicated names,

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

slaying hundreds while losing few himself. The
Creeks give way before the invincible General.
Wherever he goes they scatter hke an affrighted
flock of blackbirds.

The Indian is terrible only when he is win-
ning. He is not upholstered, whether mentally
or morally, for an uphill, losing war. The
General would like it better if this were other-
wise. Could he but coax his evanescent enemy
into a pitched battle, he would break both his
heart and his power with one and the same
blow.

Chief Weathersford is as well aware of this
defect in the Indian make-up as is the General.
He himself is half white, and knows what points
of strength and weakness belong with either
race. Wherefore, when now his Creeks have
been beaten, and their hearts are low in defeat,
he makes no effort to lead them against the
General's front; but breaks them into squads
and little bands, with directions to harass the
hunting-shirt men and hang about their flanks
in the name of flea-bite annoyance and isolated
scalps. Thus is the General plagued and fa-
tigued nigh unto death, without once being able
to lay hand upon those skulking, hiding, flying
foot-Parthians against whom he has come forth.
98

AT THE HORSESHOE

Also, he and his hunting-shirt men are getting
farther and farther from anything that might be
termed a base of supplies. At last, many a
pathless mile through wood and swamp, and
many an unbridged river, lie between the near-
est barrel of flour and their stomachs clamor-
ous for food.

The military stomach is the first great base
of every military operation. The war-wise
Frederick had it for his aphorism, that an army
is so much like a snake it can move forward
only on its belly. The General is made pain-
fully aware of this truism when he and his
hunting-shirt men find themselves penned up
with starvation at Fort Strother. In the teeth
of his troubles, however, he makes shift to send
home an orphaned papoose for the blooming
Rachel to raise.

Famine takes command at Fort Strother, and
the General writes : " He is an enemy I dread
more than hostile Creeks — I mean the meager
monster. Famine ! " There is murmuring
among the hunting-shirt men, who have, with
the appetite common to bordermen, that con-
tempt of discipline which belongs to their rude
caste. They are reduced to roots and berries,
with an occasional pigeon or squirrel, which lat-

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

ter diminutive deer no one waits to cook, but
devours raw. One day a backwoods boy,
whose appetite is even with his effrontery, way-
lays the General on his rounds and demands
food.

" Here is what I was saving for supper,"
says the General; " you may have that." And
he tosses the hungry one a double handful of
acorns.

The starving hunting-shirt men mutiny; they
draw themselves up preparatory to marching
north, to find that home-fatness which waits for
them on the Cumberland. At this the General
changes his manner. Heretofore he has been
the symbol of fatherly sympathy and toleration.
He can make excuses for the grumbling of hun-
gry men, and makes them. But this goes be-
yond grumbling, which, when all is in, comes to
be no more than a healthful blowing off of angry
steam ; this is desertion by wholesale.

As the lean-flanked, rancorous ones line up
to begin their homeward march, the General,
haggard and emaciated by those Benton wounds
and a want of food, rides out in front. Halt-
ing forty yards from the foremost mutineers, he
swings from the saddle. In his right hand he
carries a long eight-square rifle. This, since he

lOO

AT THE HORSESHOE

has no left hand to support his aim, he runs
across the empty saddle. Being ready, he calls
on the hunting-shirt men to give the order to
march, if they dare.

" For by the Eternal," says he, " I'll shoot
down the first of you who takes a forward
step!" •

The sulky, hungry hunting-shirt men scowl
at the General. He scowls back at them, with
the wicked ferocity of a tiger and an iron de-
termination not to be revoked. And thus they
stand glaring — one against hundreds ! Then the
courage of the hungry hundreds oozes away,
and they fall back before that menacing appa-
rition which glowers at them along the rifle
barrel. They melt away by the rear, those hunt-
ing-shirt men, and lurk off to their quarters —
ashamed of their weakness, yet afraid to go on.

At last, a herd of beef, quite as gaunt as the
starved hunting-shirt men themselves, arrives.
Fires are set going and knives drawn. There
is a measureless eating. Belts are let out to the
full-fed holes of other days; mutiny, like an evil
spirit, takes its flight. The gorged hunting-
shirt men, as though in amends for their scowl-
ings and mutinous grumblings, beg to be led in-
stantly against the Creeks. This the General

lOI

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

is very willing to do, since he suspects the
Creeks of possessing corn.

The General's scouts tell him that the scat-
tered Creeks are collecting in force at the Horse-
shoe. Upon this news, one bright morning the
General rides out of Fort Strother, and his re-
cuperated hunting-shirt men, two thousand
strong, are at his back.

The Horseshoe is a loop-like bend in the
Tallapoosa, which incloses a round one hundred
heavily-timbered acres. Across the open end,
three hundred and fifty yards wide, the British
engineers have taught the Creeks to throw up a
fortification of logs. Behind this bulwark is
gathered the fighting flower of the Creeks, more
than one thousand warriors in all.

Arriving in front of the log bulwark, the
General, with the experienced Coffee, pushes
forward to reconnoiter.

" We can thank the British for that," says the
General, tossing his Indignant right hand to-
ward the Creek defenses. " Billy Weathers-
ford, even with the half-white blood that's in
him, would never have designed It."

The astute Coffee makes a suggestion and,
acting on it, the General dispatches him by a
roundabout march to take the Creeks from be-

I02

AT THE HORSESHOE

hind. The fatuous savages flatter themselves
that the wide-flowing Tallapoosa will defend
their rear. All they need do, they think, is He
behind those English-log breastworks and knock
over whatever obnoxious paleface shows his
head. This Is an admirable programme, and
comforting to the cockles of the aboriginal
heart. There is but one trouble; it won't
work.

As the circuitous Coffee begins to swing wide
for his stealthy creep to the rear, the General
covers the strategy with a brace of brawling
nine-pounders. Inside the log breastworks, he
hears the "tunk! tunk!" of the "medicine"
drum, and the measured chant of the prophets
promising victory. In the midst of the pro-
phetic chantings and the dull thumping of the
tomtoms, the nine-pounders roar and bury their
shot in the log breastworks. The shot do no
harm, and serve but to excite the ribald mirth
of the Creeks. The latter can speak enough
English for the purposes of insult, and scoff and
jeer at the General, whom they describe — hav-
ing in mind his lean form — as a lance shaft,
harmless, because wanting a keen head. They
storm at him with opprobrious epithet, and in-
vite him, unless he be a coward, to come to them
8 103

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

over their breastworks. The General pays no
heed to the contumely of the Creeks; he Is bend-
ing his ear to catch, above the din of his nine-
pounders, the earliest signal of the redoubtable
Coffee's attack.

Colonel Coffee and his riflemen, horses at a
walk, pick their difficult way through the woods.
It is a matter of no little time before they find
themselves at the toe of the Horseshoe, and in
the ignorant rear of the Creeks. Between them
and those one hundred tree-grown acres held by
the enemy flows the Tallapoosa — turbid, wide
and deep. Across, they see the canoes, which
the stupidity of the Creeks has left without so
much as a squaw or a papoose to guard t^em.
In a moment, a score have thrown off their hunt-
ing shirts, and are in the river. They swim like
so many Newfoundlands, and come out drip-
ping, but happy, on the farther side. Presently
each of the swimming score is upon his return
trip, towing a dozen of the largest canoes.

Leaving a horse guard to look after the
mounts. Colonel Coffee embarks his command
in the canoes; ten minutes later, the last light-
ing man jack of them is on the other side.
They hear the boom of the nine-pounders, and
the yells and war shouts of the Creeks. Also
104

AT THE HORSESHOE

they discover the wickiups of the Creeks, hid-
den away, with their squaws and papooses, in a
thickety corner of the wood.

Colonel Coffee, who, for all he is a back-
woodsman, is not without certain sparks and
spunks of military skill, sets fire to the wicki-
ups, as an excellent sure method of wringing
the withers and distracting the attention of the
fighting Creeks at the front. The flames go
crackling skyward; the squaws and papooses
rush yelling from the slight houses of wattled
willow twigs and bark, and scuttle into the un-
derbrush like rabbits. Unlike rabbits, being in
the underbrush, they set up such a dismal tem-
pest of howls, that those rearmost Creeks who
hear it come running to learn what disaster has
seized upon their households.

Before they can make extensive Inquiry, Colo-
nel Coffee and his riflemen open on them with
a storm of bullets; and next, each man takes a
tree. The war now proceeds Creek fashion,
every man — white and red — fighting for him-
self. There Is a difference, however; for while
the hunting-shirt men are dead shots, the Creeks
prove themselves such wretchedly bad marks-
men— not understanding a rear sight, which ar-
ticle of gun furniture Is a mystery to the Indian
105

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

mind even unto this day — as to provoke a deal
of hunting-shirt laughter.

Slowly but surely the Creeks give way be-
fore that low-flying sleet of lead. As they give
way, running from one tree to another, their
hunting-shirt foe presses forward — as deadly a
skirmish line as ever commander threw out!

The quick ear of the General catches the fir-
ing down at the toe of the Horseshoe. It tells
him that Colonel Coffee is busy with the Creek
rear. Also, he gets a far-off glimpse, through
the trees, of the smoke and flames from those
burning wickiups, and understands the message
of them.

Drawing off the futile nine-pounders, the
General orders a charge, the amateur artiller-
ists taking up their rifles with the others. At
the word, the hunting-shirt men rush forward,
and go over the log breastworks like cats.

The one earliest to scale the breastworks —
quick as a panther, strong as a bear — is Ensign
Sam Houston. The Southwest will hear more
of him before all is done. That lively youth,
however, is not thinking of the future; for an
arrow, excessively of the present, has just
pierced his thigh, and is demanding his whole
attention. Shutting his teeth like a trap to con-
io6

AT THE HORSESHOE

trol the pain, he snaps the shaft and draws the
arrow from the wound. A moment later, the
surgeon bandages it.

The General is standing near, and waxes con-
servative touching Ensign Sam Houston.

"Don't go back!" comr. .ands the General
shortly. " That arrow through your leg should
be enough."

Ensign Sam Houston says nothing, but the
moment his commander's back is turned rushes
headlong over those log breastworks again.
Later he is picked up with two bullets in him,
which serve to keep him quiet for nigh a fort-
night.

Once the hunting-shirt men are across the
log breastworks, a slow and painstaking killing
ensues. Not a Creek asks quarter; not a Creek
accepts it when tendered. It is to be a fight to
the death — a fight unsparing, relentless, grim ! \

"Remember Fort Mims!" shout the hunt-
ing-shirt men, working away with rifle and axe
and knife.

The Creeks, caught between the General and
Colonel Coffee, hide in clumps of bushes or be-
hind logs. From these slight coverts, the hunt-
ing-shirt men flush them, as setters flush birds,
and shoot them as they fly. Once a Creek Is
107

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

down, out flashes the ready hunting knife and
a Creek scalp Is torn off; for the huntlng-shirt
men, on a principle that fights Satan with
fire, have adopted the war habits of their red
enemy.

The huntlng-shirt men range up and down,
quartering those one hundred acres of Horse-
shoe wood like hounds, killing out In all direc-
tions. Now and then a warrior, sorely crowded,
leaps Into the Tallapoosa, and strikes forth for
the opposite shore. His feather-tufted head is
seen bobbing on the muddy surface of the river.
To gentlemen who, offhand, make nothing of
a turkey's head at one hundred yards, those
brown bobbing feather-tufted Creek heads are
child's play. A rifle cracks; the shot-pierced
Creek springs clear of the water with a death
yell, and then goes bubbling to the bottom.
Sometimes two rifles crack; in which double
event the Creek takes with him to the bottom
two bullets Instead of one.

The slaughter moves forward slowly, but
satisfactorily, for hours. It is ten o'clock in the
night when the last Creek Is killed, and the
hunting-shirt men, hungry with a hard day's
work, may think on supper. Of the red one
thousand and more who manned those British-
io8

AT THE HORSESHOE

built fortifications in the morning, not two-score
get away. It is the Creek Thermopylae.

The General's triumph at the Horseshoe puts
the last paragraph to the last chapter of the
Creek wars. Also, it disappoints certain Eng-
lish prospects, and defeats for all time those
savage hopes of a general race battle against the
paleface, the fires of which the dead Tecumseh
so long supported by his eloquence and fed with
deeds of valor. By way of a finishing touch,
from which the hue of romance is not wanting,
the terrible Weathersford rides in, on his fa-
mous gray war horse, and gives himself up to
the General.,

" You may kill me," says Weathersford. " I
am ready to die, for I have beheld the destruc-
tion of my people. No one will hereafter fear
the Creeks, who are broken and gone. I come
now to save the women and little children starv-
ing in the forest."

The hunting-shirt men, not at all sentimental,
lift up their voices in favor of slaying the chief.
At that the General steps in between.

" The man who would kill a prisoner," he
cries, " is a dog and the son of a dog. To him
who touches Weathersford I promise a noose
and the nearest tree."

109

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

The General leads his hunting-shirt men by-
easy marches back to that impatient plenty
which awaits their coming on the Cumberland.
The public welcomes him with shout and toss
of hat, while the blooming Rachel gives her hero
measureless love and tenderness. The General's
one hundred and fifty slaves, agog with joy and
fire water, make merry for two round days.
They would have enlarged that festival to three
days, but the stern overseer intervenes to recall
them to the laborious realities of life.

As the General begins to have the better of
his fatigue and sickness — albeit that Benton-
wounded left arm is still in a sling — a note is
put in his hands. The note is from the War
Department in Washington, and reads: "An-
drew Jackson of Tennessee is appointed Major
General in the Army of the United States, vice
William Henry Harrison, resigned."

FLORIDA DELENDA EST

CHAPTER X

FLORIDA DELENDA EST

HE General, at the behest of the
■ blooming Rachel, rests for three

round weeks, which seem to his fight-
loving soul like three round years. Then the
Government sends him to Fort Jackson to dic-
tate terms of peace to the broken Creeks.

The latter assemble, war paints washed off,
in a deeply thoughtful, if not a peaceful, mood.

The General proposes terms which well nigh
amount to a wiping out of the Creek landed
possessions. The Creeks go into secret council,
as it were executive session, and bemoan their
desperate lot. They curse the English who
urged them to that butchery of Fort Mims and
then deserted them. Beyond relieving their
minds, however, the curses accomplish no
Creek good. They must still face the invet-
erate General, whose word is, " Your lives or
your lands ! "

113

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

The mournful, beaten Creeks come forth
from executive session, and the great formal
conference begins. The council is called on the
flat field-like expanse in front of the General's
imposing marquee — for he has come to this mis-
sion with no little of pompous style, to the end
that the Creek mind be impressed.

The Creek chiefs, blanketed to the ears,
feathered to the eyes, sit about, crosslegged
like tailors, in a half circle, their only weapon a
sacred red-stone pipe. The General, blazing in
a new uniform, comes out of his marquee. With
him are Colonel Coffee, Colonel Hawkins, and
lastly, Colonel Hayne, the brother of him who
will one day cross blades in Senate debate with
the lion-faced Webster, and have the worst
of it.

As the General steps forward an orderly
leads up his great war horse, as though the con-
ference might lapse into battle, and he must be
ready to mount and fight. To the rear, his hunt-
ing-shirt men, one thousand strong, are drawn
out, as following forth those precautions which
produce the General's war horse. The Creeks,
at these evidences of suspicious alertness, never
move a bronze muscle ; they pass the sacred red-
stone pipe with gravity unmoved, and puff
114

FLORIDA DELENDA EST

away as though the last thing they suspect Is
suspicion.

Big Warrior makes a speech, and is followed
by She-lok-tah, the tribal Demosthenes. The
General shakes his grim head at their protests;
there is no help for it, they must give him his
way or fight. The Creeks bow to the inevita-
ble, and give the General his way; which bow-
ing submission is the less disgraceful, since
both the Spanish at Pensacola and the Eng-
lish at New Orleans, in a brief handful of
months, under pressures less stringent than
are those which now and here in front of
the General's great marquee bear down the
broken hopeless Creeks, will follow their ab-
ject example.

Having made peace with the Creeks on the
Tallapoosa, the General lets his angry, war-
seeking eye rove in the direction of Florida.
Many of the hostile Creek Red Sticks have fled
to cover there, where they are made welcome by
the Spanish Governor Maurequez, and petted
and pampered by Colonel Nichols and Captain
Woodbine of the English. The besotted Gov-
ernor Maurequez has permitted these latter to
land an English force, and. Inspired by his na-
tive hatred of Americans and the sight of
115

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

British ships of war in Pensacola harbor, has
surrendered to them the last stitch of Florida
control.

The General guesses these things and sends
out scouts to make discoveries. Meanwhile, he
marches his hunting-shirt men to Mobile, which
his instincts — never at fault in war — warn him
will be the next English point of attack. Word
has reached him of the downfall of Napoleon,
and he foresees that this will release against
America the utmost energies of England, who
in thirty odd years has not forgotten Yorktown
nor despaired of its repair.

The General's scouts are a sleepless, observ-
ant, close-going set of gentlemen, and fairly en-
ter Pensacola. Presently, they are back with the
news that two flags float in friendly partnership
on the battlements of Fort St. Michael, one
English and one Spanish. Also, seven English
war ships ride in the harbor.

They likewise say that the popinjay Colonel
Nichols Is issuing proclamations to " The Peo-
ple of Louisiana," demanding that, as " French-
men, Spaniards, and English," they arise and
" throw off the American yoke "; that Captain
Woodbine Is assembling the fugitive Red Sticks
by scores, and reviving their drooping spirits
ii6

FLORIDA DELENDA EST

with English gold, English guns, English gin,
and English red coats.

Captain Woodbine, it appears, is so dull as
to think he may make regular soldiers of the
untamed Red Sticks, and drills them in the Pen-
sacola plaza, where they handle their new mus-
kets much as a cow might a cant hook, and look
like copper-colored apes in those gorgeous red
coats. The tactical, yet tactless, Captain Wood-
bine even makes his red command a speech, and
is so unguarded as to refer to " General Jack-
son." This is a blunder, since instantly half the
assembled Red Sticks desert, taking with them
the guns, gin, and jackets which have been con-
ferred upon them. The oratorical Captain
Woodbine is deeply impressed by the awful ef-
fect of the General's name upon his red recruits,
and their terror communicates itself to him.
He has difficulty in restraining himself from
deserting with them, but takes final courage and
remains. Only he is at pains to delete " Gen-
eral Jackson " from subsequent eloquence, and
never again mentions that paladin of the Cum-
berland in the quaking presence of a Red Stick
Creek.

By way of adding to these hardy doings, the
wordy popinjay, Colonel Nichols, fulminates
117

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

new proclamations, comic in their ignorance and
bombast. He believes that the formidable
General can be whipped by manifestoes. As
against this belief, however, most careful prep-
arations move forward aboard the English ships,
looking to the destruction of Fort Bowyer and
the capture of Mobile; for Captain Percy of
the Hermes^ who has command of the fleet,
is altogether a practical person, and pins no
faith to proclamations and Indians in red
coats when it comes to bringing a foe to his
knees.

All these interesting items are laid before the
General by his painstaking scouts, and he is pe-
culiarly struck with the word about Captain
Percy and Mobile. He sends back his scouts
for another bagful of news, and begins to
strengthen and stiffen Fort Bowyer, thirty
miles below the town.

Having patched up this redoubt to his taste,
the General puts Major Lawrence in command,
and tells him to fight his batteries while a man
remains alive. Major Lawrence says he will;
and, not having a ship, but a fort, to defend, he
follows as nearly as he may the motto of his
heroic relative, and issues the watchword,
" Don't give up the Fort! " Leaving Major
ii8

FLORIDA DELENDA EST

Lawrence in this high vein, the General goes
back to Mobile to concert plans for its protec-
tion.

Captain Percy of the Hermes is a gallant
man, but a bad judge of Americans. He tells
the proclaiming Colonel Nichols that he will
take four ships and capture Fort Bowyer in
twenty minutes. Colonel Nichols has so little
trouble in believing this that he conceives the
deed of conquest already done. Full of hope
and strong waters — for the English have not
given the thirsty Red Sticks all their gin — he is
so far worked upon by Captain Percy's turgid
prophecies' as to issue a new proclamation, de-
claring Fort Bowyer taken, and showing how,
presently, the English intend doing likewise at
New Orleans. Having taken time so conspicu-
ously by the forelock, the anticipatory Colonel
Nichols — who has never been in the chicken
trade, and therefore knows nothing of what
perils attend a count of poultry noses before the
poultry are hatched — goes aboard the Hermes,
with Captain Woodbine and others of his staff;
for he would be on the ground, when Fort Bow-
yer and Mobile succumb, ready to assume con-
trol of those strongholds.

It Is no mighty voyage from Pensacola to
9 119

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

Mobile, and a half day's sail will bring Colonel
Nichols and Captain Percy within point-blank
range of Fort Bowyer. Taking a bright, cool
morning for it, Captain Percy lets fall his top-
sails, and forges seaward, followed by the cor-
dial wishes of Governor Maurequez who, glass
in hand, drinks "Good voyage!" from the
ramparts of St. Michael.

" All I regret is," cries the valorous Governor
Maurequez, in the politest phrases of Castile,
" that you brave English will destroy these vag-
abonds, and thus deprive me and my heroic
soldiery of the pleasure of their obliteration,
when they shall have invaded our beloved
Florida."

Away go the English war ships in line, like
a quartette of geese crossing a mill pond, the
Hermes, Captain Percy, in the van. The fleet
rounds the lower extremity of Mobile Point,
out of range from Fort Bowyer, and lands
Colonel Nichols with a force of foot soldiers
and a howitzer. This military feat accom-
plished, the fleet, still like geese in line, bear up
until abreast of the Fort, which is a musket
shot away.

There is no time wasted. The Hermes lets
go her anchors and swings broadside-on to the
1 20

FLORIDA DELENDA EST

Fort. The others follow suit. Then, with a
crashing discharge of big guns by way of over-
ture, the fight is on.

Five minutes, ten minutes, twenty minutes go
by; shots fly and shells burst, and Major Law-
rence still holds the fort. Evidently Captain
Percy cut his time too fine! Then, one hour,
two hours follow, and Major Lawrence's twen-
ty-four pounders are making matches of the
Hermes.

As the merry war progresses. Colonel Nich-
ols, with much ardor and no discernment, drags
his howitzer to a strategic sand hill, and fires one
shot at Fort Bowyer. It is a badly considered
movement, the instant effect being to draw the
Fort's horns his way. The southern battery of
the Fort opens upon him like a tornado, and he
and his fellow artillerists retire — without their
howitzer. The most discouraging feature is
that a stone, sent flying from the strategic sand
hill by a cannon ball, knocks out one of Colonel
Nichols's eyes. After this exploit, the one-eyed
proclamationist, much saddened, but with wis-
dom increased, is content to stand afar off, and
leave the down-battering of Fort Bowyer to the
fleet.

This down-battering Captain Percy and his

121

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

sailormen do their tarry best to bring about.
But, as hour after hour drifts to leeward in the
smoke of their broadsides, and the stubborn
Lawrence continues to send his hail of twenty-
four-pound shot aboard, it begins to creep upon
Captain Percy, like mosses upon stone, that
Fort Bowyer is a nut beyond the power of even
his iron teeth to crack. As a red-hot shot sets
fire to the Hermes and explodes her magazine,
the impression deepens to apprehension, which,
when the Sophia is reported sinking, ripens rap-
idly into conviction. Major Lawrence, with his
" Don't give up the Fort! " all but blots Cap-
tain Percy — who has tenfold his force — off the
face of the Gulf, and he does it with a loss of
eight men killed and wounded to an English
loss of over three hundred.

Captain Percy, whipped and broken-hearted,
shifts his flag and what is left of his Hermes'
crew to the Sophia^ and, pumps clanking hyster-
ically to keep himself afloat, goes limping back
to Pensacola, lighted on his defeated way by the
flare and glare from the blazing Hermes. As
the English pass the extreme southern tip of
Mobile Point, as far from the unmannerly bat-
teries of Fort Bowyer as the lay of the land
permits, they pick up the one-eyed proclama-

122

FLORIDA DELENDA EST

tionist, Colonel Nichols, and his howltzerless
men.

The fleet, battered, torn, sails adroop, with
the Sophia three feet below her trim from shot-
admitted water in her hold, reaches Pensacola.
Governor Maurequez looks scornfully dark,
but, Spaniard-like, shrugs his vainglorious
shoulders and says to an aide :

" It is nothing ! They are but English pigs 1
When this General Jackson reaches Pensacola
— if he should be so great a fool as to come —
we cavaliers of old Spain will tear him to pieces,
as tigers rend their prey. Yes, amigo, we will
show these beaten pigs of English how the proud
blood of the Cid can fight."

The Red Stick Creeks, furnished of a better
intelligence, in no wise adopt the high-flying
sentiments of Governor Maurequez. The mo-
ment the English come halting into the harbor,
the awful name of " General Jackson ! " leaps
from aboriginal lip to lip. Hastily tearing off
Captain Woodbine's red coats as garments full
of probable trouble, but taking with them his
new guns, the frightened Red Sticks head south
for the Everglades, first drinking up what re-
mains of their gin. Not a hostile Creek will
thereafter be found within a day's ride of the
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WHEN MEN GREW TALL

General; all of those English plans, which seek
the aid of savage axe and knife and torch, are
to fall to pieces.

Captain Percy, made ten years older by that
fight and failure at Fort Bowyer, goes about the
repair of his ships; Colonel Nichols, omitting
for the nonce all further proclamations, nurses
his wounds; Captain Woodbine, having now no
Indians, abandons his daily drills on the plaza;
Governor Maurequez, whispering with his aide,
brags in chosen Spanish of what he will do to
thick-skull vagabond Americans should they put
themselves in his devouring path; while over at
Mobile the General hugs Major Lawrence to
his bosom in a storm of approval, and gives
that sterhng soldier a sword of honor.

THE TWO FLAGS AT
PENSACOLA

CHAPTER XI

THE TWO FLAGS AT PENSACOLA

THOSE two flags, one the red flag of
England, flying at Pensacola, haunt
the General night and day. His
hunting-shirt men, twenty-eight hundred from
his beloved Tennessee and twelve hundred from
the territories of Mississippi and Alabama, are
lusting for battle. He resolves to lead them
into Florida, across the Spanish line.

" We must rout the English out of Pensa-
cola ! " he explains to Colonel Cofi^ee.

"Pensacola!" repeats Colonel Coffee, look-
ing thoughtful. " It is Spanish territory. Gen-
eral! There Is the boundary; and diplomacy,
I believe, although It Is an art whereof I know
little, lays stress on the word boundary."

" Boundary! " snorts the General in dudgeon.
" The English are there ! Where my foe goes,
I go; my diplomacy Is of the sword."

The General elaborates; for he Is not without
liking the sound of his own voice. Governor
127

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

Maurequez, he says, has welcomed the Eng-
lish; he must enlarge that welcome to include
Americans.

" For I tell you," goes on the General, " that
I shall expect from him the same courtesy he
extends to Colonel Nichols. Nor do I despair
of receiving it, since I shall take my artillery.
With both Americans and English among his
guests, if trouble fall out it will be his own
fault, and should teach him to practice here-
after a less complicated hospitality."

The General prepares for the journey to
Pensacola. The treasure chest shows the usual
emptiness, and he exerts his own credit, as he
did on a Natchez occasion, to provide for his
hunting-shirt men. This time the Government
will honor his drafts promptly, for election day
is drawing near.

One sun-filled autumn morning, the General
and his hunting-shirt men march away for Pen-
sacola, their hearts full of cheering anticipa-
tions of a fight, and eight days provant in the
commissariat.

" We should be there in eight days," says the
General hopefully, " and Governor Maurequez
and the English must provide for us after that."

The General does not overstate the powers of
128

FLAGS AT PENSACOLA

his hunting-shirt men, and the eighth morning
finds them and him within striking distance of
Fort St. Michael. The General shades his blue
eyes with his hand and scans the walls with
vicious lynxlike Intentness in search of that hated
red flag. His heart chills when he does not find
It. There is the flag of Arragon and Castile;
but the staff which only yesterday supported the
flag of England stands an unfurnished, naked
spar of pine.

The General heaves a sigh.

*' Coffee," he says, pathos in his tones, " they
have run away."

" Possibly," returns the excellent Coffee, who
sees that the General's regrets are leveled at an
absence of English, and is anxious to console
him, " possibly they've only retired to Fort
Barrancas, six miles below, and are waiting
for us there."

The disappointed General shakes his head;
he does not share the confidence of the optimis-
tic Coffee.

" Send Major Plere," he says, " with a flag
of truce to announce to the Spaniard our pur-
pose of lunching with him. We will ask him,
now we're here, by what license he gives shelter
to our enemies."

129

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

Major Plere goes forward, white flag flutter-
ing, and is promptly fired upon by Governor
Maurequez at the distance of six hundred yards.
The balls fly wide and high, for the Spaniard
shoots like a Creek. Finding himself a target,
the disgusted Major Piere returns and reports
his uncivil reception. The General's eyes blaze
with a kind of blue fury.

"Turn out the troops! " he roars.

The drums sound the long roll. The hunt-
ing-shirt men are about the cookery — being al-
ways hungry — of the last of those eight days'
rations. When they fall into line, the General
makes them a speech. It is brief, but registers
the point of better provender in Pensacola than
that which now bubbles in their coffee pots and
burns on their spits. Whereat the hunting-shirt
men cheer joyously.

" The English, too, are there," concludes the
General. Then, in a burst of flattering elo-
quence: "And I know that you would sooner
fight Englishmen than eat."

At the name of Englishmen, the hunting-shirt
men give such a cheer that it quite throws that
former cheer into the vocal shade. Everyone
is in immediate favor of rushing on Pensacola.

The General becomes cunning, and sends
130

FLAGS AT PENSACOLA

Colonel Coffee with a detachment of cavalry to
threaten Fort St. Michael from the east. The
Spaniards are singularly guileless in matters
military. That feigned attack succeeds beyond
expression, and the befogged Governor Maure-
quez hurries his entire garrison to those menaced
eastern walls.

While the excited Spaniards are making a
chattering, magpie fringe along the eastern ram-
parts, the General moves the bulk of his hunt-
ing-shirt forces, under cover of the woods, to
the fort's western face. Once they are placed,
he gives the order:

"Charge!"

The word sends the hunting-shirt men at that
mud-built citadel with a whoop.

The Spaniards are unstrung by surprise, and
fall to pattering prayers and telling beads. In
the very midst of their orisons, the hunting-
shirt men, as in the fight at the Horseshoe,
pour like a cataract over the parapet and
sweep the praying, helpless Spaniards into a
corner.

The work, however, is not altogether done.

When Governor Maurequez gives the order to

man the eastern walls against the deploying

Coffee, he does not remain to see it executed.

131

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

Having sublime faith in the heroism of his fol-
lowers, for him to personally remain, he argues,
would be superfluous. Nay, it might even be
construed into a criticism of his devoted soldiery,
as implying a fear that they will not fight if
relieved of his fiery presence, not to say the fiery
pressure of his commanding eye. Having thus
defined his position, the valorous Governor
Maurequez, acting in that spirit of compliment
toward his people which has ever characterized
his speech, gathers up his gubernatorial skirts
and scuttles for his palace like a scared hen
pheasant.

Having swept the walls of St. Michael clean
of magpie Spaniards, and run up the stars and
stripes on the vacant English staff, the General
and his hunting-shirt men make ready to follow
Governor Maurequez to the palace. He is to
be their host; it is their polite duty to find him
with all dispatch and offer their compliments.

Full of this urbane purpose, they wheel their
bristling ranks on the town. Approaching
double-quick, they casually lick up, as with a
tongue of flame, a brace of abortive block-
houses which obstruct their path. At this, an
interior fort opens fire with grapeshot and
shrapnel, and the hunting-shirt men spring
132

FLAGS AT PENSACOLA

upon it with the ruthless ferocity of panthers.
To quench it is no more than the fighting work
of a moment. The General, with his flag al-
ready on the ramparts of Fort St. Michael, now
feels his clutch at the very throat of Pensacola.

Governor Maurequez, equipped in his turn
of a milk-white flag, bursts from the palace
portals.

" Oh, Seiiores Americanos," he cries, " spare,
for the love of the Virgin, my beautiful Pensa-
cola ! As you hope for heaven's mercy, spare
my beautiful city ! "

The wild hunting-shirt men are in a jocular
mood. The terrified rushing about of Gover-
nor Maurequez excites their laughter.

" Where is your humane General Jackson? "
wails Governor Maurequez, in appeal to the
hunting-shirt men. " Where is he — I beseech
you? I hear he is the soul of merciful for-
bearance ! "

At this the hunting-shirt laughter breaks out
with double volume, as though Governor Maure-
quez has evolved a jest.

The alarmed Governor, catching sight of a
couple of dead Spaniards, fresh killed in the
struggle with the foolish interior fort, expresses
his grief in staccato shrieks, which serve as

133

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

weird marks of punctuation to the laughter of
the rude hunting-shirt men. The laughter
ceases when the General himself rides up.

" Thar's the Gin'ral," says a hunting-shirt
man, biting his merriment short off. " Thar's
the man of mercy you're asking for."

Governor Maurequez starts back at sight of
the gaunt face, emaciated by sickness born of
those Benton bullets, and yellowed to primrose
hue with the malaria of the Alabama swamps.
The lean figure on the big war stallion might
remind him of Don Quixote — for he has read
and remembers his Cervantes — save for the
frown like the look of a fighting falcon, and
the fire-sparkle in the dangerous blue eyes. As
it Is, he feels that his visitor Is a perilous man,
and begins to bow and cringe.

" I beg the victorious Senor General," says
he, pressing meanwhile a right hand to his heart,
and presenting the white square of truce with
the other — " I beg the victorious Seiior Gene-
ral to spare my beautiful Pensacola ! "

"You are Governor Maurequez!" returns
the General, hard as flint.

" Yes, Senor General ; I am Governor Mau-
requez, as you say. Also " — here his voice
begins to shake — " I must remind your excel-
134

FLAGS AT PENSACOLA

lency that this is a province of Spain, and ask
by what right you invade it."

" Right! " returns the General, anger rising.
" Did you not fire on my messenger? Sir, if
you were Satan and this your kingdom, it would
be the same ! I would storm the walls of hell
itself to get at an Englishman."

There comes the whiplike crack of a rifle
almost at the General's elbow. Far up the nar-
row street, full four hundred yards and more,
a flying Spanish soldier throws up his hands
with a death yell, and pitches forward on his
face. At this, the hunting-shirt man who fired
tosses his coonskin cap in the air and shouts:

" Thar, Bill Potter, the jug of whisky's mine !
Thar's your Spaniard too dead to skin ! If the
distance ain't four hundred yard, you kin have
the gun ! "

"What's this?" cries the General fiercely.

" Nothin', Gin'ral ! " replies the hunting-
shirt man, abashed at the forbidding manner of
the General, " nothin', only Bill Potter, from
the 'Possum Trot, bets me a jug of whisky that
old Soapstick here " — holding up his rifle as
identifying " old Soapstick " — " won't kill at
four hundred yard."

" Betting, eh ! " retorts the General, assuming
10 135

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

the coldly Implacable. " Now it's in my mind,
Mr. Soapstick, that unless you mend your mor-
als, some one about your size will pass an hour
strung up by the thumbs so high his moccasins
won't touch the grass ! How often must I tell
you that I'm bound to break up gambling among
my troops? "

The rebuked soapstick one slinks away, and
the General turns to Colonel Coffee.

*' Give the word, Coffee, to cease firing."

The General's glance comes around to Gov-
ernor Maurequez, still bowing and presenting
his white flag.

"Where are those English?" he demands.

The frightened Governor Maurequez makes
the sign of the cross. He is sorry, but the pig
English withdrew to Fort Barrancas at the first
signs of the coming of the victorious Sefior Gen-
eral, taking with them their hateful red flag.
Also, it was they who fired on the messenger.
If the victorious Sefior General will but move
quickly, he may catch the pig English before
they escape.

The General, half his hunting-shirt men at

his back, starts for Fort Barrancas. They are

two miles on their way when the earth is shaken

by a thunderous explosion. Over the tops of

136

FLAGS AT PENSACOLA

the forest pines a gush of black smoke shoots
upward toward the sky.

"They have blown up the fort!" says the
explanatory Coffee.

The General says nothing, but urges speed.
At last they come in sight of what has been Fort
Barrancas. It is as the astute Coffee surmised.
The one-eyed Colonel Nichols and his English
have fled, leaving a slow-match and the maga-
zine to destroy what they dared not defend.
Far away in the offing Captain Percy's English
fleet — upon which the one-eyed Colonel Nichols
and his fugitive followers have taken refuge —
wind aft and an ebb tide to help, Is speeding
seaward like gulls.

XII

THE GENERAL GOES TO
NEW ORLEANS

CHAPTER XII

THE GENERAL GOES TO NEW ORLEANS

GOVERNOR MAUREQUEZ evolves
into the very climax of the affable,
not to say obsequious. He assures
the General that he is relieved by the flight of
the pig English, whom he despises as hare-
hearts. Also, he is breathless to do anything
that shall prove his affectionate admiration for
his friend, the valorous Seiior General.

The General accepts the affectionate admira-
tion of Governor Maurequez, and leaves in his
care Major Laval, who has been too severely
wounded to move; and Governor Maurequez
subsequently smothers that convalescent with
nursing solicitude and kindness. Those other
twenty wounded hunting-shirt men the General
takes back with him to Mobile.

The General now gives himself up to a pro-
found study of maps. His invasion of Florida
has paled the cheek of the Spanish Minister at
Washington and given European diplomacy a
141

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

chill; he knows nothing of that, however, and
would care even less if he did. After poring
over his maps for divers days, he comes to sun-
dry sagacious conclusions, and sends for the in-
dispensable Coffee to confer. That commander
makes an admirable counselor for the General,
since he seldom speaks, and then only to indorse
emphatically the General's views. For these
splendid qualities, and because he is as brave as
Richard the Lion Heart, the General makes a
point of consulting the excellent Coffee concern-
ing every move.

" Coffee," says the General, as that warrior
casts himself upon a bench, which creaks dolor-
ously beneath his giant weight, " Coffee, they'll
attack New Orleans next."

The listening Coffee grunts, and the General,
correctly construing the Coffee grunt to mean
agreement, proceeds:

" England has now no foe in Europe. That
allows her to turn upon us with her whole
power. Even as we talk, I've no doubt but an
immense fleet is making ready to pounce upon
our coasts. Now, Coffee, the question is,
Where will it pounce? "

The General pauses as though for answer.
The admirable Coffee emits another grunt, and
142

TO NEW ORLEANS

the General understands this second grunt to be
a grunt of inquiry. Stabbing the map before
him, therefore, with his long, slim finger, he
says :

" Here, Coffee, here at New Orleans. It's
the least defended, and, fairly speaking, the
most important port we have, for it locks or
unlocks the Mississippi. Besides, it's mid-
winter, and such points as New York and Phila-
delphia are seeing rough, cold weather. Yes,
I'm right; you may take it from me, Coffee,
the English are aiming a blow at New Orleans."

The convinced Coffee testifies by a third
grunt that his own belief is one and the same
with the General's, and the council of war
breaks up. As the big rifleman swings away
for his quarters the General observes :

" Coffee, you will never realize how much I
am aided by your opinions. Two heads are
better than one, particularly when one of them
is capable of such a clean, unfaltering grasp of
a situation as is yours."

The General burns to be at New Orleans,
and leaving Colonel Coffee to bring on his three
thousand hunting-shirt men as fast as he may,
gallops forward with four of his staff. It is a
rough, evil road that threads those one hundred

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

and seventy-five miles which lie between the
General and the Mississippi, but he puts It be-
hind him with amazing rapidity. At last the
wide, sullen river rolls at his horse's feet.

As the General traverses the rude forest
roads, difficult with November's mud and slush,
a few days' sail away on the Jamaica coast may
be seen proof of the pure truth of his deduc-
tions. The English admiral is reviewing his
fleet of fifty ships, preparatory to a descent
upon New Orleans.

It is a formidable flotilla, with ten thousand
sailors and nine thousand five hundred soldiers
and marines, and mounts one thousand cannon.
The flagship Is the Tonnant, eighty guns, and
-V there sail in her company such invincibles as the
Royal Oak, the Norge, the Jsia, the Bedford,
and the RatJiillies, each carrying seventy- four
guns. With these are the Dictator, the Gorgon,
the Annide, the Sea Horse, and the Belle Poule,
and the weakest among them better than a two-
decked forty-four.

In command of this armada are such doughty

spirits as Sir Alexander Cockrane, admiral of

^ the red, Admiral Sir Edward Codrington, Rear

Admiral Malcolm, and Captain Sir Thomas

Hardy — " Nelson's Hardy," who commanded

144

TO NEW ORLEANS

the one-armed fighter's flagship Victory at Tra-
falgar. These, with their followers, have
grown gray and tired in unbroken triumph.
Now, when they are making ready to spring on
New Orleans, their war word is " Beauty and
Booty!"

Review over, Admiral Cockrane in the van
with the Tonnant, the fleet sails out of Negril
Bay for Louisiana. As the General's horse
cools his weary muzzle in the Mississippi, the
English fleet has been two days on its course.

It is a dull, lowering December morning when
the General, on his great war stallion, follow-
ing the Bayou road, rides into New Orleans.
He finds the city in a tumult, and nothing afoot
for its defense. He is received by Governor
Claiborne, a stately Virginian, and Mayor
Girod, plump and little and gray and French,
with a delegation of citizens. Among the lat-
ter is one whom the General recognizes. He
is Edward Livingston, aforetime of New York,
and the General's dearest friend in those old
Philadelphia Congressional days. The General
gives the Livingston hand a squeeze and says:

" It's like medicine in wine, Ned, to see you
at such a time as this."

Governor Claiborne makes a speech in Eng-

145

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

lish, Mayor Girod makes a speech in French,
leading citizens make speeches in English, Span-
ish, and French. The speeches are fiery, but
inconclusive. All are excited, confused, and
without a plan. The General replies in little
more than a word:

" I have come to defend your city," says he;
*' and I shall defend it or find a grave among
you."

Following this ultimatum, the General goes
to dinner with Mr. Livingston.

Governor Claiborne, Mayor Girod, and the
leading citizens remain behind to talk the Gen-
eral over in their several tongues. They are
disappointed, it seems. They looked for a mili-
tary personage of romantic, inspiring splendor.
And what is he? A meager, emaciated figure
in a leather cap, a Spanish cloak of rusty blue,
homespun coat, buckskin breeches, and high
dragoon boots as red as a horse from the pro-
longed absence of tallow and lampblack. Still
they cannot forget the iron face and the high
hawklike glance of the blue eyes, in which the
battle fires already begin to kindle. The man
in his queer habiliments is grotesque; in their
souls they none the less concede his formidable
character.

146

General William C. C. Claiborne

From a miniature by A. Duval.

TO NEW ORLEANS

There be those who wish he hadn't come.
Among them is the Speaker of the Territorial
House of Representatives — A French Creole of
anti-American sentiments.

" His presence will prove a calamity ! " cries
this legislative person. " He seems to me to be
a desperado, who will make war like a savage
and bring destruction and fire on our city and
the neighboring plantations."

There is no retort to this, for the local spirit
of treason is widespread.

While the citizens of New Orleans are dis-
cussing the General, he with his friend Living-
ston is discussing them.

"What is the state of affairs here, Ned?"
asks the General.

" It could not be worse," is the reply. " All
is confusion, contradiction, and cross-purposes.
The whole city seems to be walking in a circle."

" We'll see, Ned," returns the General grim-
ly, " if we can't make it walk in a straight line."

Commodore Patterson comes to call on the
General. He is one who says little and looks a
deal — precisely a gentleman after the General's
own heart, for while he himself likes to talk,
he prefers silence in others.

Commodore Patterson sets forth the naval

147

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

defenses of the town. An enemy entering from
the sea must come by way of Lake Borgne,
and there are six baby gunboats on Lake
Borgne. The flotilla is commanded by Lieu-
tenant Jones, who is Welsh and therefore ob-
stinate; he will fight to the final gasp. The
General beams approval of Lieutenant Jones,
who he thinks has a right notion of war.

*' But of course," says Commander Patter-
son, " he will be overcome in the end."

The General nods to this. He does not ex-
pect Lieutenant Jones to defend the city alone.
Commodore Patterson continues: "There are
the schooner Carolina and the ship Louisiana
in the river, but they are out of commission and
have no crews."

" Enlist crews at once ! " urges the General.

The General appoints Mr. Livingston to his
staff, and the pair make a tour of the suburbs
and the flat, marshy regions round about. The
General is alert, inquisitive; he is studying the
strategic advantages and disadvantages of the
place. When he returns he orders a muster of
the city's military strength for the next day.
The review occurs, and the General declares
himself pleased with the display.

Commodore Patterson comes to say that,
148

TO NEW ORLEANS

while the streets are full of sailors, not one will
enlist. The General asks the Legislature to
suspend the habeas corpus. That done, he will
organize press gangs and enlist those reluc-
tant " volunteers " by force. The Legisla-
ture refuses, and the General's eyes begin to
sparkle.

" To-morrow, Ned," says he, "I shall clap
your city under martial law."

" But, my dear General," urges Mr. Living-
ston, who, being a lawyer, reveres the law,
" you haven't the authority."

" But, my dear Ned," replies the determined
General, " I have the power. Which is more
to the point."

The General declares civil rule suspended,
and puts the city under martial law. It is as
though he lays his strong, bony hand on the
shoulder of every man, and, the first shock over,
every man feels safer for it. The press gangs
are formed, and scores of seafaring " volun-
teers " are carried aboard the Carolina and
Louisiana m irons. Once aboard and irons off,
the " volunteers " become miracles of zeal and
patriotic fire, furbishing up the dormant broad-
side guns, filling the shot racks, and making
ready the magazines, hearts light as larks, as
149

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

though to fight Invading English is the one
pleasant purpose of their lives; for such is the
seafaring nature.

The General's " press " does not confine itself
to sailors. Negroes, mules, carts, shovels, and
picks are brought under his rigid thumb. Every
gun, every sword, every pistol is collected and
stored for use when needed. Meanwhile, the
indefatigable Coffee arrives, marching seventy
miles the last day and fifty the day before to
join his beloved chief. Also Captain Hinds
of the dragoons is no less headlong, and brings
his command two hundred and thirty miles in
four days, such is his heat to fight beneath the
blue, commanding eye of the General.

Nor is this all. A day goes by, and Colonel
Carroll steps ashore from a fleet of flatboats,
at the head of a hunting-shirt force from the
Cumberland country. The backwoods cheer
which goes up when the new hunting-shirt men
see the General, brings the water to his eyes
with thoughts of home. Lastly, Colonel Adair
appears with his force of Kentuckians. These
latter are a disappointment, being practically un-
armed, owning but one gun among ten.

"Ain't you got no guns for us, Gin'ral?"
asks one of the Kentucky captains anxiously.
150

TO NEW ORLEANS

" I am sorry to say I have not," returns the
General.

" Well," responds the Kentuckian, while a
look of satisfaction begins to struggle into his
face, as though he has hit upon a solution of the
tangle, " well, I'll tell you what we'll do, then.
Which the boys '11 just nacherally go out on
the firin' line with the rest, an' then as fast as
one of them Tennesseans gets knocked over,
we'll up an' Inherit his gun."

XIII

THE WATCH FIRES OF THE
ENGLISH

CHAPTER XIII

THE WATCH FIRES OF THE ENGLISH

THESE are busy times for the General.
He lives on rice and coffee, and goes
days and nights without sleep. He
sends the tireless Coffee, with his hunting-shirt
men, to take position below the city, between
the morass and the river. Finally he orders all
his forces below — Colonel Carroll with his new
hunting-shirt men, Colonel Adair with his un-
armed Kentuckians, the hard-riding Captain
Hinds with his dragoons, as well as the muster
of local military companies, among the rest
Major Plauche's battalion of " Fathers of Fami-
lies." There are a great many filial as well as
paternal tears shed when the " Fathers of Fami-
lies " march away to the field of certain honor
and possible death; even Papa Plauche himself
does not refrain from a sob or two. The
" Fathers of Families " take with them their
band, which musical organization plays the

155

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

Chant du Depart^ whereat, catching the tem-
po^ they strut heroically. The rough hunting-
shirt men are much Interested In the " Fathers
of Families," and think them as good as a play.
The General busies himself about his head-
quarters, and waits for news of the English, of
whose coming he has word. One afternoon
appears a lean little dark man, with black,
beady eyes, like a rat. He Introduces himself;
^ he Is Jean Lafitte, the *' Pirate of Barratarla."
Only he explains that he Is really no pirate at
all, not even a sailor; at the worst he Is simply
the Innocent shore agent or business manager
of pirates. Also, he declares that he Is very
patriotic and very rich, and might add " very
criminal " without startling the truth.

Why has he come to see Monsieur General?
Only to show him a letter from the English
Admiralty, brought by the General's old friend.
Captain Percy, late of H. R. H. Ship Hermes,
offering him, Jean Lafitte, a captain's commis-
sion In the royal navy, thirty thousand dollars
in English gold, and the privilege of looting
New Orleans, if he will but aid in the city's
capture. Now he, Jean Lafitte, scorning these
base attempts upon his honor, desires to offer
his own and the services of his buccaneers to the
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WATCH FIRES OF ENGLISH

General in repulsing those villain English, whom
he looks upon with loathing as Greeks bearing
gifts.

" Only," concludes Jean Lafitte, his black
rat eyes taking on a sly expression, " my two
best captains, Dominique and Bluche, together
with most of their crews, are locked up in the
New Orleans calaboose."

The General considers a moment, looking the
while deep into the rat eyes of Jean Lafitte.
The scrutiny is satisfactory; there is nothing
there save an anxiety to get his men out of jail.
This the General is pleased to regard as credit-
able to Jean Lafitte. He comes back to the
question in hand.

" Dominique and Bluche," he repeats. " Can
they fight? "

" They can do anything with a cannon, Mon-
sieur General, which your sharpshooters do with
their squirrel rifles."

The General has the caged Dominique and
Bluche brought before him. They are hardy,
daring, brown men of the sea, with bushy hair,
curling beards, gold rings in their ears, crimson
handkerchiefs about their heads, gay shirts,
sashes of silk, short voluminous trousers, like
Breton fisherman, and loose sea boots — alto-

157

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

gether of the brine briny are Dominique and
Bluche.' One glance convinces the General.
The order is issued, and the two pirates with
their followers take their places as artillerists
where the wary Coffee may keep an eye on them.

The English fleet arrives and anchors off the
Louisiana coast. Loaded scuppers-deep with
soldiers and sailors and marines, the lighter
craft enter Lake Borgne. They sight the six
cockleshells of Lieutenant Jones, and make for
them.

Lieutenant Jones, with his cockleshells, slowly
and carefully retreats. He retreats so carefully
that one after another the English boats, to the
round number of a score, run aground on divers
mud banks, where they stick, looking exceed-
ing foolish. When the last pursuing boat is
fast on the mud banks. Lieutenant Jones anchors
his six cockleshells where the English may only
get at him in small boats, and awaits results.

The English are in no wise backward. Down
splash the small boats, in tumble the men, and
presently they are pulling down upon the wait-
ing Lieutenant Jones — twelve men for every
one of his. The small boats have swivels
mounted in their bows, and by way of prelimi-
nary, stand off from the six cockleshells, waging
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WATCH FIRES OF ENGLISH

battle with their little bow guns. This is a mis-
take. Lieutenant Jones returns the fire -from his
cockleshells, sinks four of the small boats, and
spills out the crews among the alligators. Un-
happily, it is winter, and the alligators are sound
asleep in the mud below, by which effect of the
season the spilled ones are pulled aboard their
sister boats with legs and arms intact.

Being reorganized, and having enough of
swivel war, the English fleet of small boats
rush the six cockleshells, and after a fierce strug-
gle, take them by weight of numbers. The
English Captain Lockyer, following the fight,
wipes the blood from his face, which has been
scratched by a cutlass, and reports to Admiral
Cockrane his success, and adds :

" The American loss is, killed and wounded,
sixty; English, ninety-four."

Being masters of Lake Borgne, the English
go about the landing of troops on Pine Island.
The sixteen hundred first ashore are formed into
an advance battalion and ordered forward.
They go splashing through the swamps toward
the river like so many muskrats, and in the
wet, cold, dripping end crawl out on a narrow
belt of sugar-cane stubble which bristles between
the levee and the swamp from which they have

159

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

emerged. Finding dry land under their feet,
they cheer up a bit, and build fires to make com-
fortable their bivouac while waiting the coming
of their comrades, still wallowing in the swamp.

Night descends, but finds those sixteen hun-
dred of the English advance reasonably gay;
for, while the present is distressing, their fel-
lows by brigades will be with them in the morn-
ing, and they may then march on to sumptuous
New Orleans, where — as goes their war word —
theirs shall be the " Beauty and Booty " for
which they have come so far. And so the
chilled, starved sixteen hundred of that English
advance hold out their benumbed hands to the
fires, and console themselves with what the poet
describes as " The Pleasures of Anticipation."
And in this instance, of course, the anticipations
are sure of fulfillment, for what shall withstand
them? The raw, cowardly militia of the coun-
try? Absurd!

As confirmatory of this, a subaltern hands
about a copy of the London Sun which has a
description of Americans. The others peruse
it by the light of their camp fires. It makes
timely reading, since it is ever worth while to
gather — so that they be reliable — what scraps
one may descriptive of an enemy. The Eng-
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WATCH FIRES OF ENGLISH

lish, crouched about their fires, are much bene-
fited by the following:

" The American armies of Copper Captains
and Falstaff recruits defy the pen of satire to
paint them worse than they are — worthless,
lying, treacherous, false, slanderous, cowardly,
and vaporing heroes, with boasting on their loud
tongues and terror in their quaking hearts.
Were it not that the course of punishment they
are to receive is necessary to the ends of moral
and political justice, we declare before our
country that we should feel ashamed of victory
over such ignoble foes. The quarrel resembles ^
one between a gentleman and a sweep — the
former may beat the low scoundrel to his heart's
content, but there is no honor in the exploit,
and he is sure to be covered with the soil and
dirt of his ignominious antagonist. But neces-
sity will sometimes compel us to descend from
our station to chastise a vagabond, and endure
the degradation of such a contest in order to
repress, by wholesome correction, the presump-
tuous insolence and mischievous designs of the
basest assailant."

The young English officers find this refresh-
ing as literature. It might have been less up-
lifting could they have foreseen how ninety
years later England will fawn upon and flatter
and wheedle America to the point which sick-
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WHEN MEN GREW TALL

ens, while her bankrupt nobility make that de-
spised region a hunting ground where, equipped
of a title and a coat of arms, they track heir-
esses to lairs of gold and marry them.

Now that the satisfied English are asleep
about their fires, it behooves one to hear how
the General is faring. The day with him is one
fraught with work. Word reaches him of the
captured cockleshells on Lake Borgne. Also
it reaches that valuable Legislature — honey-
combed of treason.

The Legislature sends a committee to ask the
General what will be his course If he's beaten
back. The General Is hardly courteous:

" Tell your honorable body," says he, " that
if disaster overtake me and the fate of war
drives me from my lines to the city, they may
expect to have a very warm session,"

Mr. Livingston catches the adjective. The
committee having departed, he propounds a
query.

"A warm session, General!" says he.
*' What do you mean by that? "

" Ned," replies the General, " If I am beaten

here, I shall fall back on the city, fire it, and

fight It out in the flames! Nothing for the

maintenance of the enemy shall be left. New

162

WATCH FIRES OF ENGLISH

Orleans destroyed, I shall occupy a position on
the river above, cut off supplies, and, since I can't
drive, I shall starve the English out of the coun-
try. There is this difference, Ned, between me
and those fellows from the Legislature. They
think only of the city and its safety. For my
side, I'm not here to defend the city, but the
nation at large."

On the heels of this, the Legislature whispers
of surrendering Louisiana to the English by
resolution. It is scarcely feasible as a plan, but
it angers the General. He stations a guard at
the door of the chamber and turns the members
away.

" We can dispense with your sessions," says
he. " We have laws enough ; our great need
now is men and muskets at the front."

The patricians of the Legislature are scandal-
ized as being shut out of their chamber.

" Did I not tell you," cries the prophetic
House Speaker, " did I not tell you this fellow
was a desperado, and would wage war like a
savage :

The members retire from the guarded doors,

cursing the General under their breath. Their

doorkeeper, a low, common person, is so struck

by what the General has said anent men and

163

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

muskets, that he gets a gun and joins that " des-
perado." And wherefore no? Patriotism has
been the mark of vulgar souls in every age.

Colonel Coffee's hunting-shirt scouts come in
and report the watch fires of those sixteen
hundred of the English advance winking and
blinking among the sugar stubble.

"Ah!" says the General, "I've a mind to
disturb their dreams."

The General dispatches word to Commodore
Patterson to have the Carolina in readiness to
act with his forces. Then he sends for the in-
dispensable Coffee.

" Coffee, we shall attack them to-night."

The wise Coffee gives the grunt acquiescent.

" Thank you, Coffee ! " says the General.

The council over, Colonel Coffee goes to turn
out the troops. This is to be done softly, as a
surprise is aimed at.

Now on the dread threshold of battle. Papa
Plauche of the " Fathers of Families " is over-
come. As the intrepid " Fathers " fall into
line, tears fill Papa Plauche's eyes, and he ap-
peals to neighbor St. Geme.

" I am a Frenchman! " cries Papa Plauche,
tossing his arms; " I am a Frenchman, and do
not fear to die! But, alas! mon St. Geme, I
164

WATCH FIRES OF ENGLISH

fear I have not the courage to lead the ' Fathers
of Families ' to slaughter."

"Hush, Papa Plauche!" returns the good
St. Geme, made wretched by the grief of his
friend. "Hush! Command yourself! Do
not let the wild General hear you ; he will not,
with his coarse nature, understand such senti-
ments."

Captain Roche, of the " Fathers of Fami-
lies," steps in front of his company. Striking
his breast melodramatically, he sings out:

" Sergeant Roche, advance! "

Sergeant Roche advances.

"Embrace me, brother!" cries Captain
Roche in broken utterances, " embrace me! It
is perhaps for the last time."

The brothers Roche embrace, and the
" Fathers of Families " are melted by the tab-
leau.

"Sergeant Roche, return to your place!"
commands the devoted Captain Roche, and the
sergeant, weeping, lapses into the ranks.

The hunting-shirt men, witnesses of these
touching scenes, are rude enough to laugh, and
by way of parody embrace one another effu-
sively. As they depart through the dark for
their station, they break into whispered debate

165

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

as to whether the theatrical grief of Papa
Plauche, the brothers Roche, and the " Fathers
of Famihes " is due to their Creole blood, or
their city breeding, either, according to the the-
ories of the hunting-shirt men, being calculated
to promote the effeminate in a man. While
they thus wrangle, there comes an angry hiss-
ing whisper from Colonel Coffee, like the hiss
of a serpent :

"Silence!"

Every hunting-shirt man is stricken dumb.
They move forward like shadows, right flank
skirting the cypress swamp. To the far left they
hear the moccasined, half-muffled tramp of
Colonel Carroll's men — their hunting-shirt
brothers from the Cumberland. As they turn
a bend in the swamp, they see not a furlong
away the flickering and shadow dancing of the
watch fires of the tired English. At this every
hunting-shirt man makes certain the flint is se-
cure in the hammer of his rifle, and loosens the
knife and tomahawk In his rawhide belt.

XIV
THE BATTLE IN THE DARK

CHAPTER XIV

THE BATTLE IN THE DARK

AS the hunting-shirt men come within
sight of the blinking lights, which
polka-dot the sugar stubble In front
and mark the bivouac of the English, Colonel
Coffee sends the whispered word along the line
to halt. At this, the hunting-shirt men crouch
in the lee of the cypress swamp, and wait.
Colonel Coffee Is lying by for the signal which
shall tell him to begin.

Before the movement commences, the Gen-
eral calls Colonel Coffee to one of their cele-
brated conferences.

" It is my purpose, Coffee," explains the
General, " merely to shake them up a bit. An
attack will cure them of overconfidence, and
break the teeth of their conceit. This should
hold them in check, and give us time for certain
earthworks I meditate. The signal will be a
gun from the Carolina. When you hear the
169

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

gun, Coffee, attack everything wearing a red
coat. But be careful!" Here the General
lifts, a long, admonitory finger. " Do not fol-
low too far ! Reinforcements are crawling
out of the swamp to the rear of the English
every hour, and the only certainty is that,
even as we talk, they outnumber us two for
one."

The faithful Coffee departs. As he reaches
the door, the General calls after him:

" Don't forget, Coffee ! The gun from the
Carolina ! "

The hunting-shirt men lie waiting by the
cypress swamp. On their near left is Papa
Plauche and his " Fathers of Families." Be-
yond these is a half company of regulars, which
the General has brought up from the near-by
post. On the Bayou Road, between the regu-
lars and the river, is the General himself, with
a brace of small field pieces.

It is a moonless night, and what light the
stars might furnish is withheld by a blanket-
screen of thick clouds. No night could be
darker; for, lest an occasional star find a cloud-
rift and peer through, a fog drifts up from the
river. This is good for the English, since It
hides their watch fires, which one by one are
170

THE BATTLE IN THE DARK

lost in the mists. The darkness deepens until
even the hawk-eyed hunting-shirt men, trained
by much night fighting to a nocturnal keenness
of vision, are unable to make out their nearest
comrades.

The pitch blackness, and the fog chill creep-
ing over him, tell on Papa Plauche. He whis-
pers sorrowfully to his friend St. Geme.

" Neighbor St. Geme," he says, " these dif-
ferences should be adjusted by argument, and
not by deadly guns. I see that he who would
either shoot or be shot by his fellow-man, is in
an erroneous position."

Before the kindly St. Geme may frame re-
sponse, a liquid tongue of flame illuminates the
broad dark bosom of the river. It is followed
sharply by a crashing " Boom! " This is the
word from the Carolina.

The signal carries dismay into the hearts of
the English, since Commodore Patterson, whose
genius is thoroughgoing, is at pains to load
the gun with two pecks of slugs, and eighty-
four killed and wounded are the red English
harvest of that one discharge. The frightened
drums beat the alarm, and the ranks of Eng-
lish form. As they grasp their arms the nine
broadside guns of the Carolina begin to rake
171

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

them. With this the English fall slowly back
from the river.

The rearward movement, while managed
slowly because of the darkness, brings discour-
aging results. The English retreat into the
hunting-shirt men, who are skirmishing up
from the cypress swamp. The English are first
told of this new danger by the spitting flashes
which remind them of needles of fire, and the
crack of the long squirrel rifles like the snap-
ping of a whip. Here and there, too, a groan
is heard, as the sightless lead finds some Eng-
lish breast. This augments the blind horror
of the hour.

The trapped English reply in a desultory
fashion, and make a bad matter worse. The
hunting-shirt men' locate them by the flash of
their guns, at which they shoot with incredible
quickness and accuracy. With men falling like
November's leaves, the English give ground to
the south, which saves them somewhat from
both the Carolina and the hunting-shirt men.

Guessing the English direction, the hunting-
shirt men follow, loading and firing as they ad-
vance. Now and then a hunting-shirt man
overtakes an individual foe, and settles the na-
tional differences which divide them with toma-
172

Major-General Andrew Jackson at New Orleans
From a painting by Chap pel.

THE BATTLE IN THE DARK

hawk and knife. It Is cruel work — this unsee-
ing bloodshed in the dark, and disturbingly new
to the English, who express their dislike for it.

While the hunting-shirt men drive the Eng-
lish along the fringe of the cypress swamp, the
General, a half mile nearer the river, is work-
ing his two field pieces. Affairs proceed to his
warlike satisfaction — and this is saying a deal
for one so insatiate in matters of blood — until
a flying ounce of lucky English lead wounds a
horse on the number two gun. This brings
present relief to those English in the General's
front; for the hurt animal upsets the gun into
the ditch. It takes fifteen minutes to put it
on its proper wheels again. The accident dis-
gruntles the General; but he bears it with what
philosophy he may, and in good truth is pleased
to find that the gun carriage has not been
smashed In the upset.

" Save the gun! " Is his word to the artillery
men; and when It Is saved he praises them.

At the booming signal from the Carolina,
the intrepid Papa Plauche cries out:

"Forwards, brave Fathers of Families!
Forwards, heroes ! "

The " Fathers " respond, and go on with the
hunting-shirt men. But their pace Is sedate;
173

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

and this last results in an impoliteness which
disturbs the excellent Papa Plauche to the core.

The hunting-shirt men are, for the major
portion, riotous young blades from the back-
woods. Moreover, they are used to this prowl-
ing warfare of the night. Is it wonder then
that they advance more rapidly than does Papa
Plauche with his " Fathers," whose step is
measured and dignified as becomes the heads
of households?

Thus it befalls that, do their dignified best,
Papa Plauche and his " Fathers " are left be-
hind by the hunting-shirt men, who, deploying
more and still more to the left, extend them-
selves in front of Papa Plauche. This does
not suit the latter's hardy tastes, and he frets
ferociously. He grows condemnatory, as the
spitting rifle flashes show him that the vain-
glorious hunting-shirt men are between him and
those English whom he hungers to destroy. In-
deed, he fumes like tiger cheated of its prey.

" But we shall extricate ourselves, neighbor
St. Geme ! " cries Papa Plauche. " We shall
yet extricate ourselves! Behold!"

The " Behold ! " is the foreword of certain
masterly maneuvers by Papa Plauche among
the sugar stubble. The maneuvers free the far-
174

THE BATTLE IN THE DARK

seeing Papa Plauche and his " Fathers " from
those obstructive, unmannerly hunting-shirt
men, who have cut off their advance even in its
indomitable bud. The " Fathers " being better
used to shop floors than plowed fields, however,
make difficult work of it. At last courage has
its reward, and the " Fathers " uncover their
dauntless front.

" Oh, my brave St. Geme ! " cries Papa
Plauche, when his strategy has put the hunting-
shirt men on his right, where they belong,
" nothing can save the caitiff English now !
Those ruffians in hunting tunics who pro-
tected them no longer impede our front. For-
wards! "

The final word has hardly issued from be-
tween the clenched teeth of Papa Plauche
when a rustling in the stubble apprises him of
the foe.

"Fire, Fathers of Families, fire!" shouts
Papa Plauche, and such is the fury which con-
sumes him that the shout is no shout, but a
screech.

It is enough! One by one each "Father"
discharges his flintlock. The procession of re-
ports is rather ragged, and now and again a
considerable wait occurs between shots, like a

175

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

great gap in a picket fence. Still, the last
" Father " finally finds the trigger, and the
command of Papa Plauche is obeyed.

The " Fathers " hurt no one by this savage
volley, for their aim like their hearts is high.
It is quite as well they do not. The stubble-
disturbing force in front chances to be none
other than that half company of regulars, to
whose rear it seems the inadvertent Papa
Plauche, in freeing them from the hunting-shirt
men, has led his " Fathers." The regulars are
in a towering rage with Papa Plauche; but
since no one has been injured, and Papa.
Plauche is profuse in his apologies, their anger
presently subsides. The regulars again take
up their bloody work upon the retreating Eng-
lish, while the discouraged Papa Plauche and
the ** Fathers," full of confusion and chagrin
at twice being balked, remain where they are.

" After all, neighbor St. Geme," observes
Papa Plauche, " the mistake was theirs. Did
they not usurp the place which belonged to the
English, in thus getting in front of us? It
should teach them to beware how they put
themselv^es in the path of my ' Fathers,' whose
wrath is terrible."

For two black, sightless hours the hunting-
176

THE BATTLE IN TK^E DARK

shirt men crowd the English to th ie south.
Then the General draws them off. They come,
bringing as captives one colonel, two majo -.fs,
three captains, and sixty-four privates. Also"
they have killed and wounded two hundred and
thirteen of the English, which comforts them
marvelously. They themselves have suffered
but slightly, and the backloads of English guns
they carry will gladden many an unarmed Ken-
tucky heart.

Now when he has them together, the beloved
Coffee at their head, the General leads the way
to the thither side of the Roderlquez Canal,
where he plans a line of breastworks. Ar-
riving, the weary hunting-shirt men build fires,
and make themselves easy for the balance of
the night.

After a brief rest, the thoughtful General
detaches a party with one of the field guns, to
interest the English until daylight.

" For I think. Coffee," says he, " that If we
keep them awake, they will be apt to sleep to-
morrow; and so leave us free to work on our
defenses."

COTTON BALES AND SUGAR
CASKS

CHAPTER XV

COTTON BALES AND SUGAR CASKS

IT Is the day before Christmas when the
General lays out his line for fortifications.
The Roderiquez Canal is no canal at all,
but a disused mill race, which an active man can
leap and any one may wade. The General will
make a moat of it, and raise his breastworks
along its mile-length muddy course, between the
river and the cypress swamp. He keeps an
army of mules and negroes, with scrapers and
carts, hard at work, heaping up the earth. A
boat load of cotton is lying at the levee. The
cotton bales are rolled ashore, and added to the
heaped-up earth. This pleases Papa Plauche.

" It is singular," he remarks to neighbor St.
Geme, " that cotton, which has been my busi-
ness support for years, should now defend my
life."

There is a low place to the General's front.
He cuts the levee; and soon the Mississippi
i8i

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

furnishes three feet of water, to serve as a wet
drawback to any English advance. The lat-
ter, however, are not thinking on an advance.
Supports have come dripping from the swamp,
and swollen their numbers to threefold the
General's force; but none the less their hearts
are weak. That horrifying night attack, when
their blood was shed in the dark, has broken
the heart of their vanity, and a paralyzing
fear of those dangerous hunting-shirt men lies
all across the English like a cloud. More
and worse, the Carolina swings downstream,
abreast of their position, and her broadsides
drive them to hide in ditches and the cypress
borders of the swamp. There is no peace,
no safety, on the flat, stubble ground, while
light remains by which to point the Carolina's
guns.

Nor does nightfall bring relief. Those
empty-handed Kentuckians must be provided
for; and, no sooner does the sun go down,
than the hunting-shirt men by two and three
go forth in search of English muskets. They
shoot down sentries, and carry away their dead
belongings. Does an English group assemble
round a camp fire, it becomes an invitation sel-
dom neglected. A party of hunting-shirt men
182

COTTON AND SUGAR

creep within range and begin the butchery.
There is never the moment, dayhght and dark,
when the unhappy English are not within the
icy reach of death. There is no repose, no
safety ! A chill dread claims them like a palsy !

The English complain bitterly at this bush-
whacking; which, to the hunting-shirt men,
reared in schools of Indian war, is the merest
A B c of battle. The harassed English de-
nounce the General as a barbarian, in whose
savage bosom burns no spark of chivalry.
They recall how in their late campaigns In
Spain, English and French pickets spent peace-
filled weeks within fifty yards of one another,
exchanging nothing more deadly than coffee
and compliments.

The grim General refuses to be affected by
the French-English example. He continues to
pile up his earthworks, while the hunting-shirt
men go forth to pot nightly English as usual.
The situation wears away the courage of the
English to a white and paper thinness.

While the General is fortifying his lines,
and the hunting-shirt men are stalking English
sentinels, peace is signed in Europe between
America and England. But Europe is far
away; and there is no Atlantic cable. And so
13 183

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

the General continues at his congenial labors
undisturbed.

Christmas does not go unrecognized in the
General's camp. He himself attempts nothing
of festival sort, and only drives his fortifying
mules and negroes the harder. But the hunt-
ing-shirt men celebrate by cleaning their rifles,
molding bullets, refilling powder horns, and
whetting knives and tomahawks to a more
lethal edge.

As for Papa Plauche and the " Fathers of
Families," they become jocund. Their wives
and daughters purvey them roast fowls in little
wicker baskets, and the warmest wines of Bur-
gundy In bottles. Whereupon Papa Plauche
and his " Fathers " wax blithe and merry,
singing the songs of France and talking of old
loves.

And now Sir Edward Pakenham arrives, and
relieves General Keane In command of the
English. With him comes General Gibbs. The
two listen to the reports of General Keane, and
shrug polite shoulders as he speaks of the
savage valor of the Americans. It is prepos-
terous that peasants clad in skins, and not a
bayonet among them, should check the flower
of England. General Keane does not reply to
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COTTON AND SUGAR

the polite shrug. He reflects that the General,
with his hunting-shirt men, can be relied upon
to later make convincing answer.

Upon the morning which follows the advent
of General Pakenham, the English see a mo-
ment of good fortune. A red-hot shot sets fire
to the Carolina, as she swings downstream on
her cable for that daily bombardment, and
burns her to the water line. This cheers the
English mightily; and does not discourage
Commodore Patterson, who transfers his ac-
tivities to the decks of the Louisiana.

Sir Edward gives the General three uninter-
rupted days. This the latter warrior improves
so far as to rear his earthworks to a height
of four feet, and mount five guns. On the
fourth day the English are led out to the as-
sault. Sir Edward does not say so, but he
expects to march over those four-foot walls of
mud and cotton bales as he might over any
other casual four-foot obstruction, and go up
to the city beyond.

The sequel does not justify Sir Edward's
optimism. The moment the English approach
within two hundred yards of the General's line,
a sheet of fire hisses all along. The English
melt away like smoke. They break and run,
185

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

seeking refuge in the cross ditches which drain
the stubble lands. Once in the ditches, they
are made to sit fast by the watchful hunting-
shirt men, whose aim is death and who shoot
at every exposed two square inches of English
flesh and blood.

All day the English must crouch in the sav-
ing mud and water of those ditches, and it
rufiles their self-regard. With darkness for a
shield. Sir Edward brings them off. He ex-
plains the disaster to his staff by calling it a
" reconnoissance." General Keane also calls it a
" reconnoissance " ; but there is a satisfied grin
on his war-worn face. Sir Edward has received
a taste of the mettle of those " peasants," and
may now take a more tolerant, and less politely
cynical, view of what earlier setbacks were ex-
perienced by General Keane. As for the sev-
enty dead who lie, faces to the quiet stars,
among the sugar stubble, they say nothing.
And whether it be called a " reconnoissance "
or a defeat matters little to them.

"What do you think of it?" asks Sir Ed-
ward of his friend, General Gibbs, as the two
confer over a bottle of port.

" Sir Edward," returns the General, " I
should call a council of war."
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COTTON AND SUGAR

Sir Edward winces. It is too great an honor
for the brother-in-law of Lord Wellington to
pay a " Copper Captain " like the General.
For all that he calls it; and the call assembles,
besides Generals Gibbs and Keane, those salt-
water soldiers, Admirals Cochrane, Codrington
and Malcolm, and Captain Hardy whom Nel-
son loved. Sir John Burgoyne, the chief of the i
English engineers, is also there. The solemn
debate lasts hours. The decision Is to regard
the General's position as " A walled and forti-
fied place, to be reduced by regular and formal
approaches." Which Is flattering to the Gen-
eral's engineering skill.

The council breaks up. The next morning
Sir John Burgoyne commits a stroke of genius.
He rolls out of the storehouses to the English
rear countless hogsheads of sugar. Night sets
in, foggy and black. Under Its protecting
cover, Sir John trundles his hundreds of hogs-
heads to a point not six hundred yards from
the General's mud walls. Till daybreak the
English work. They set the hogsheads on
end — four close-packed thicknesses of them,
two tier high. Ingenious portholes are left to
receive the muzzles of the guns, and thirty
cannon, which have been dragged through the
187

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

cypress swamp from the fleet, are placed in
position.

Those hogsheads of sugar, with the thirty
black muzzles frowning forth, impress folk as
a most formidable fortalice, when the upshooting
sun rolls back the fog and offers a view of them.
The General, however, does not hesitate; he
instantly opens with his five, and the thirty
guns of the English bellow their iron response.
Hardly a whit behind the General, the active
Commodore Patterson drops downstream with
the Louisiana, and throws the weight of her
broadsides against the English.

The big-gun duel is hot and furious, and the
rolling clouds of powder smoke shut out the
fighters from one another. They do not pause
for that, but fire blindly through the smoke,
sighting their guns by guess. When the smoke
has cloaked the scene, Sir Edward orders two
columns of the English foot to storm the Gen-
eral's mud walls.

The columns advance, and run headforemost
into the hunting-shirt men. The sleety rain of
lead which greets them rolls the columns up
like two red carpets. The recoiling columns
break, and the English take cover for a second
time in those saving ditches. They declare
i88

COTTON AND SUGAR

among themselves that mortal man might more
easily face the fires of hell itself, than the
flame-filled muzzles of the hunting-shirt men,
who seem to be Death's very agents upon
earth.

As the broken English crouch in those
ditches the fire of Sir John Burgoyne's big guns
begins to falter. The smoke is so thick that no
one may tell the cause. At last the English
volleys altogether end, and the General orders
Dominique and Bluche, with their swarthy
pirate crews from Barrataria, and what other
artillerists are serving his quintette of guns, to
cease their stormy work. With that a silence
falls on both sides.

The breeze from the river tears the smoky
veil aside; and lo! that noble fortification of
sugar hogsheads is heaped and piled in ruins.
The General's solid shot go through and
through those hogsheads of sugar, as though
they are hogsheads of snow. Five of the thirty
English guns are smashed. The proud work
of Sir John Burgoyne presents a spectacle of
desolation, while the English who serve the
batteries go flying for their lives. Not all !
The three-score dead remain — the only English
whose honor is saved that day I
189

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

Sir Edward's cheek is white as death. He
blames Sir John Burgoyne, who has erred, he
says, in constructing the works. Sir John did
err, and Sir Edward is right. Forty years
later, the same Sir John will repeat the same
mistake at Sebastapol; which shows how there
be Bourbons among the English, learning noth-
ing, forgetting nothing.

As the English skulk in clusters, and ragged,
beaten groups for their old position beyond the
General's long reach, the fear of death is writ-
ten on their faces. It will take a long rest,
and much must be forgotten, e'er they may
be brought front to front with the General
again.

Among the hunting-shirt men are exultation
and crowing triumph. Only Papa Plauche is
sad. During the fight, the cotton bales in
front of Papa Plauche and the " Fathers " are
sorely knocked about. As though this be not
enough, what must a felon hot shot do but set
one of them ablaze! The smoke fills the noses
of Papa Plauche and his " Fathers," and
makes them sneeze. It burns their eyes until
the tears the *' Fathers " shed might make one
think them engaged upon the very funeral of
Papa Plauche himself.

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COTTON AND SUGAR

In the tearful sneezing midst of this an-
guish, a vagrant flying flake of cotton, all afire,
explodes an ammunition wagon to the heroic
rear of Papa Plauche and the " Fathers," and
the shock is as the awful shock of doom.

The fortitude of Hercules would fail at such
a pinch! Papa Plauche and the "Fathers"
actually and for the moment think on flight!
But whither shall they fly? They are caught
between Satan and a deepest sea — the ammuni-
tion wagon and the English ! Also to the right,
plying sponge and rammer, are the pirate Bar-
ratarians who are as bad as the English!
While to the left is the General, who Is worse
than the ammunition wagon.

"It is written!" murmurs Papa Plauche;
" our fate Is sure ! We must perish where we,
stand! " Papa Plauche extends his hands, and
cries: " Courage, my heroes! Give your hearts
to heaven, your fanie to posterity, and show
history how ' Fathers of Families ' can die! "

From the cypress swamp a last detachment
of reenforcements emerges, and meets the
beaten English coming back. General Lam-
bert, with the reenforcements, is shocked as he
reads their broken-hearted story in their eyes.

"What Is It, Colonel?" he whispers to
191

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

Colonel Dale of the Highlanders. " In heav-
en's name, what stopped you? "

"Bullets, mon ! '•' returns the Scotchman.
" Naught but bullets! The fire of those de'ils
in lang shirts wud 'a' stopped Caesar himsel' ! "

XVI
THE EIGHTH OF JANUARY

CHAPTER XVI

THE EIGHTH OF JANUARY

BACK to his negroes and mules and carts
and scrapers goes the General, and sets
them to renewed hard labor on those
Immortal mud walls which he will never get
too high. Those cotton bales, so distressing to
Papa Plauche and the " Fathers," are elimina-
ted, at which that paternal commander breathes
freer. The hunting-shirt men, with each going
down of the sun, resume their nighthawk par-
ties, which swoop upon English sentinels, taking
lives and guns.

The English themselves are a prey to dejec-
tion. The foe against whom they war is so
strange, so savage, so sleepless, so coldly invet-
erate ! Also those incessant night attacks sap
their manhood. They build no fires now, but
sit in darkness through the nights. A fire is
but the attractive prelude to a shower of noc-
turnal lead, and the woefully lengthening list

195

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

of dead and wounded tells strongly against it.
To even light a cigar after dark is an approach
to suicide; and so the English wrap themselves
in blackness — very miserable ! Their earlier
horror of the hunting-shirt men is increased;
for they have three times studied backwoods
marksmanship from the standpoint of targets,
and the dumb chill about their heart-roots is
a testimony to its awful accuracy.

The General, who reads humanity as astron-
omers read the heavens, is not wanting in no-
tions of the gloom which envelops the English
like a funeral pall.

" Coffee," says he, at one of those famous
war councils of two, " in their souls we have
them beaten. They will fight again; but only
from pride. Their hope is gone, Coffee; we
have broken their hearts."

The reports of the General's scouts teach
him that the English will put a force across
the river. In anticipation, he dispatches Com-
modore Patterson, with a mixed command of
soldiers and sailors, to fortify the west bank.
Commodore Patterson emulates the General's
four-foot mud walls and throws up a re-
doubt of his own, mounting thereon twelve
eighteen-pounders taken from the Louisiana.
196

THE EIGHTH OF JANUARY

He tries one on the English opposite. The re-
sult is gratifying; the gum pitches a solid shot
all across the Mississippi and into the English
lines.

Eight days pass by in Indian file, and Sir
Edward Pakenham with his English feels that,
for his safety as much as his honor, he must
attack the General, whose mud walls increase
with each new sunset. The General foresees
this, and has reports of Sir Edward's movements
brought him every hour.

On the morning of the eighth the General's
scouts wake him at two o'clock and say that
the English are astir. He is instantly abroad;
the word goes down the line; by four o'clock
every rifle is ready, each hunting-shirt man at
his post.

The weak spot, the one at which Sir Edward
will level his utmost force, is where the Gen-
eral's line finds an end in the moss-hung
cypress swamp. It is there he stations the re-
liable Coffee with his hunting-shirt men. To
the rear, as a reserve, is General Adair with
what Kentuckians the good, unerring offices of
those night-prowling hunting-shirt men have
armed at the red expense of the English.
In the center is the redoubtable Papa Plauche
197

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

and his " Fathers." The " Fathers " are be-
tween the pirates Dominique and Bluche and
Captain Humphries of the regular artillery.

Papa Plauche is rejoiced at being thus
thrust into the center.

"For my heroes!" cries Papa Plauche, in
a speech which he makes the " Fathers," " the
center is the heart — the home of honor ! On
us, my Fathers, devolves the main defense of
our beloved city, where sleep our wives and
children. Wherefore, be brave as vigilant —
vigilant as brave! "

Papa Plauche's voice is husky, but not from
fear. No, it is husky by reason of a cold which,
despite certain woolen nightcaps wherewith the
excellent Madam Plauche equipped him for the
field, he has contracted in sleeping damply
among the stubble and the river fogs.

Six hundred yards in front of the General's
mud walls, and near the river, are a huddle of
plantation buildings. The English, he argues,
will mask a part of their advance with these
structures. The forethoughtful General pre-
pares for this, and has furnaces heating shot,
to set those buildings blazing at the psycho-
logical moment.

Also, in response to a comic cynicism not
198

THE EIGHTH OF JANUARY

usual with him, he has out the brass band of
Papa Plauche, with instructions to strike up
*' Yankee Doodle " as the first gun is fired.
The band, In compHment to the General, has
been privily rehearsing " 'Possum up a Gum
Tree," which it understands is the national an-
them of Tennessee, and offers to play that.

The General thanks the band, but declines
" 'Possum up a Gum Tree." It will not be
understood by the English; whereas "Yankee
Doodle " they have known and loathed for
forty years.

" Give 'em ' Yankee Doodle,' " says the Gen-
eral. " Since they are so eager to dance, we'll
furnish the proper music."

Sir Edward is as soon afoot as is the Gen-
eral. He finds his English steady yet dull;
they will fight, but not with spirit. As the
General assured the conferring Coffee, the
hunting-shirt men, with their long rifles like
wands of death, have broken the English heart.

The English are to advance in three col-
umns; General Keane on the right with Ren-
nie's Rifles, in the center Dale's Highlanders,
on the left, where the main attack is to be
launched. General GIbbs, with three thousand
of tne pride of England at his back. General
14 199

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

Lambert is to hold himself in the rear of Gen-
eral Gibbs, with two regiments as a reserve.
As the columns form, there are eighty-five
hundred of the English; against which the
General opposes a scanty thirty-two hundred.
And yet, upon those overpowering eighty-five
hundred hangs a silence like a sadness, as
though they are about to go marching to their
graves.

The solemn fear in which the English hold
the hunting-shirt men finds pathetic evidence.
As the columns wheel into position. Colonel
Dale of the Highlanders gives a letter and his
watch to the surgeon.

*' Carry them to my wife," says he, " and
tell her that I died at the head of my regi-
ment."

The Forty-fourth is told off to lead the main
attack, and Colonel Mullins breaks into hys-
terical anger.

" My regiment," he cries, " has been or-
dered for execution ! Our dead bodies are to
fill the ditch, and form a bridge for the others
to cross upon ! "

Sir Duncan Campbell comes among his
Highlanders, wrapped in a cloak. Some one
suggests that he lay it aside.
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< fc

THE EIGHTH OF JANUARY

" Never! " says he; " Til peel for no Ameri-
can ! " and twenty-four hours later he is buried
in that cloalc.

The English stand to their arms, and wait
the breaking of day. Slowly the minutes drag
their leaden length along; morning comes at
last.

With the first streaks of livid dawn, a con-
greve rocket flashes skyward from Sir Edward's
headquarters. The rocket is the English sig-
nal to advance. In a moment, General Gibbs,
General Keane, and Colonel Dale with his
*' praying " Highlanders are in motion.

The signal rocket uncouples thousands upon
thousands of fellow rockets; the air is on fire
with them as they blaze aloft in mighty arcs,
to fall and explode among the hunting-shirt
men.

" Toys for children, boys," cries the Gen-
eral, as he observes the hunting-shirt men
watching the flaming shower with curious,
non-understanding eyes; "toys for children!
They'll hurt no one!"

The General is right. Those congreve rock-
ets are supposed to be as deadly as artillery.
Like many another commodity of war, how-
ever, meant primarily to fatten contractors,

201

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

they prove as Innocuous as so many huge fire-
flies. The hunting-shirt men laugh at them.
The battery of eighteen-pounders, wherewith
the English second that flight of rockets, is a
more serious affair.

As the sun shoots up above the cypress
swamp and rolls back the mists of morning,
the English make a gallant picture. The dull
yellow of the stubble in front of the General's
line is gay with splotches of red and gray and
green and tartan, the colors of the various Eng-
lish corps.

The hunting-shirt men, however, are not
given much space for admiration; for, with one
grand crash, the big guns go into action and
the red-green-gray-tartan picture is swallowed
up in powder smoke. Also, it is now that Papa
Plauche's band blares forth " Yankee Doodle,"
while those anticipatory hot shot set fire to
the plantation buildings. As the latter burst
out at door and window in smoke and flames,
Colonel Rennie and his riflemen are driven
into the open. The conflagration gets much
in the English way, and spoils the drill-room
nicety of Sir Edward's onset as he has it
planned.

Colonel Rennie, being capable of brisk de-

202

THE EIGHTH OF JANUARY

cislon, makes the best of a disconcerting situa-
tion. When the flames and smoke from those
fired plantation buildings drive him into the
open before he is ready, he promptly orders
a charge. This his riflemen obey; for the in-
exorable Patterson, across the river, is already
upon them with those eighteen-pounders, and
his solid shot are mowing ghastly swaths through
the rifle-green ranks, tossing dead men in the
air like old bags. With so little inducement
to stand still, the riflemen hail that word to
charge as a relief, and head for the General's
mud walls at double quick.

The oncoming Colonel Rennie and his Eng-
lish are met full in the face by a tempest of
grape, from Major Humphrey and the pirates
Dominique and Bluche, which throws them
backward upon themselves. They bunch up
and clot into lumps of disorder, like clumps of
demoralized sheep in rifle-green. At that,
Commodore Patterson serves his eighteen-
pounders with multiplied speed, and the great
balls tear those sheep-clumps to pieces, stain-
ing with crimson the rifle-green. The English
marvel at the artillery work of the General's
men, whose every shot comes on, well aimed
and low, bringing death in its whistling wake.
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WHEN MEN GREW TALL

They should reflect: The theory, not to say the
eye, which aims a squirrel rifle will point a
cannon.

Colonel Rennie, when his English recoil,
keeps on — face red with grief and rage.

" It's my time to die ! " says he to Captain
Henry. " But before I die, I shall at least see
the inside of those mud walls."

Colonel Rennie is wrong. A bullet finds his
brain as he lifts his head above the breastworks,
and he slips back dead in the ditch outside.
Major King and Captain Henry die with him,
pierced each by a handful of bullets.

When the English flinch and Colonel Ren-
nie falls, the bugler — a boy of fourteen —
climbs a tree, not one hundred yards from the
General's line. Perched among the branches,
he sounds his dauntless charges. The General
gives orders to let the boy alone. And so the
little bugler, protected by the word of the
General, sings his shrill onsets to the last.

Finally an artillery-man goes out to him.

" Come down, my son ! " says the cannoneer.
" The war's about over! "

The little bugler comes down, and Is at once
taken to the fatherly heart of Papa Plauche, who
declares him to be a sucking Hector, and is for
204

THE EIGHTH OF JANUARY

adopting him as his son on the spot, but is
restrained by thoughts of Madam Plauche.

Sir Edward's main assault, with General
Gibbs, meets no fairer fortune than falls to
Colonel Rennie by the river. Confusion pre-
vails on the threshold of the movement; for
Colonel Mullins with his Forty-fourth refuses
to go forward. Later he will be courtmartialed,
and dismissed in disgrace. Just now, how-
ever, the recreant makes a shameful tangle of
the English van. As a quickest method of set-
ting the tangle straight, General Gibbs, as did
Colonel Rennie, orders a charge. The column
moves forward, the mutinous Forty-fourth on
the right flank, led by its major.

General Gibbs advances, brushing with the
shoulder of his corps, the cypress swamp. Be-
hind the mud walls in his front, the steady
hunting-shirt men are waiting. The General
is there, to give the latter patience and hold
them in even check.

" Easy, boys ! " he cries. " Remember your
ranges ! Don't fire until they are within two
hundred yards ! "

On rush the English. At six hundred yards
they are met by the fire of the artillery. They
heed it not, but press sullenly forward, closing
205

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

up the gaps in their ranks, where the solid shot
go crashing through, as fast as made. Five
hundred yards, four hundred, three hundred!
Still they come ! Two hundred yards !

And now the hunting-shirt men ! A line of
fire unending glances from right to left and left
to right, along the crest of those mud walls,
and Death begins his reaping. The head of
the English column burns away, as though
thrust into a furnace ! The column wavers
and welters like a red ship in a murky sea of
smoke ! It pauses, falteringly — disdaining to
fly, yet unable to advance !

" Forward, men ! " shouts General Gibbs.
" This is the way you should go ! "

As he points with his sword to those terrible
mud walls, he falls riddled by the hunting-shirt
men.

XVII

THE SLAUGHTER AMONG THE
STUBBLE

CHAPTER XVII

THE SLAUGHTER AMONG THE STUBBLE

WHEN the main advance begins, Sir
Edward is in the center with the
Highlanders. The latter are not
to move until he has word of their success from
General Keane with Rennie's rifle corps, and
General Gibbs with the main column — the one
by the river and the other by the cypress
swamp. He has not long to wait; a courier
dashes up from the river — eye haggard, dis-
order in his look I

"General Keane?" cries Sir Edward, his
apprehension on edge.

" Fallen! " returns the courier hoarsely.

"And Rennie?"

" Dead. The Rifles are in full retreat! "

Sir Edward stands like one stricken. Then
he pulls himself together.

" Bring on your Highlanders ! " he cries
to Colonel Dale. " We must force their lines
209

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

in front of General Gibbs. It is our only
chance ! "

Sir Edward dashes across to General Gibbs,
in the shadow of that significant cypress swamp.
He sees General Gibbs go down ! He sees
the red column torn and twisted by that
storm of lead which the hunting-shirt men
unloose.

As the English reel away from those low-
flying messengers of death, Sir Edward seeks to
rally them.

"Are you Englishmen?" he cries. "Have
you but marched upon a battlefield to stain the
glory of your flag? "

Sir Edward's gesticulating arm falls, smashed
by a bullet from some sharp-shooting hunting-
shirt man. He seems not to know his hurt!
He is on fire with the thought that those hon-
ors, won upon forty fields, are to be wrested
from him by a " Copper Captain," backed by a
mob of peasants in buckskin ! He rushes among
the shaken English to check the panic which is
seizing them !

The Highlanders come up !

"Hurrah! brave Highlanders!" he shouts.

At Sir Edward's welcoming shout, Colonel
Dale waves a salute ! It is his last; the hunting-

2IO

AMONG THE STUBBLE

shirt men are upon him with those unerring
rifles, and he falls dead before his General's
eyes. Coincident with the fall of his beloved
Dale, Sir Edward is struck by a second bullet.
It enters near the heart. As his aide catches
him in his arms, he beckons feebly to Sir John
Tylden.

" Call up Lambert with the reserves! " he
whispers.

As he lies supported in the arms of his aide,
a third bullet puffs out his lamp of life, and
England loses a second Sir Philip Sidney.

The main column falls into renewed disor-
der! It begins to retreat; the retreat becomes
a rout ! Only the Highlanders stay ! They
cannot go forward; they will not go back!
There they stand rooted, until five hundred and
forty of their nine hundred and fifty are shot
down.

As the main column breaks, Major Wilkin-
son turns to Lieutenant Lavack.

" This is too much disgrace to take home ! "
says he.

Like Colonel Rennie, a mile away by the
river. Major Wilkinson charges the mud walls.
Lieutenant Lavack, sharing his feelings, shares
with him that desperate, disgrace-defying

211

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

charge. Through the singing, droning " zip !
zip ! " of the bullets, they press on ! They
reach the ditch, and splash through ! Up the
mud walls they swarm! Major Wilkinson
falls inside, dead, three times shot through and
through ! Lieutenant Lavack, with a luck that
is like a charm, lands in the midst of the
hunting-shirt men without a scratch ! They re-
ceive him hilariously, offer whisky and compli-
ments, and assure him that they like his style.
Lieutenant Lavack accepts the whisky and the
compliments, and gains distinction as the one
live Englishman over the General's mud walls
this January day.

The field is swept of hostile English; all is
silent in front, and not a shot is heard. Now
when the firing Is wholly on one side, the Gen-
eral passes the word for the hunting-shirt men
to cease.

The hard-working Coffee comes up, face
a-smudge of powder stains; for he has been
taking his turn with a rifle, like any other hunt-
ing-shirt man. He finds the General as drunk
on battle as some folk are on brandy.

"They can't beat us, Coffee!" cries the
General, wringing his friend's big hand. " By
the living Eternal they can't beat us! "

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AMONG THE STUBBLE

The General unslings his ramshackle tele-
scope, and leaps upon the mud walls for a
survey of the field. The less curious Coffee de-
votes himself to wiping the sweat and powder
smudges from his face. His Impromptu toilet
results only In unhappy smears, which make
him resemble an overgrown sweep. He looks
at his watch.

"Sharp, short work!" he mutters, as he
notes that they have been fighting but twenty-
five minutes.

Those plantation buildings are still blazing,
no more than half-burned down, and the smoke
hides the scene toward the river. The General
turns his ramshackle spyglass upon his Imme-
diate front. The ground is fairly carpeted
with dead English. As he gazes he calls to
Colonel Coffee, who Is now broadening the
powder smears Ingeniously with the sleeve of
his hunting shirt.

"Jump up here. Coffee! " cries the General,
" It's like resurrection day ! "

Thus urged. Colonel Coffee abandons his at-
tempts to improve his looks, and joins the Gen-
eral on the mud walls. He Is In time to be-
hold four hundred odd Highlanders scramble
to their brogues among those five hundred and
213

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

forty who will never march again, and come
forward to surrender.

It has been a hot and bloody morning.
Of those six thousand whom Sir Edward
takes Into action — for the reserves with Gen-
eral Lambert are never within range — over
twenty-one hundred are fallen. Seven hundred
and thirty are killed as they stand In their
ranks; and of the fourteen hundred marked
" wounded," more than six hundred are to die
within the week. Among the twenty-one hun-
dred killed and wounded, sixteen hundred go
to swell the red record of the dire huntlng-shirt
men.

The two attacks, being at the ends of the
General's lines, Involve no more than two-thirds
of his thirty-two hundred. Papa Plauche's
" Fathers " In the center, as well as General
Adair's Kentucklans who act as reserves, are
merest spectators.

That his " Fathers " are not called upon to
fire a shot, In no wise depresses Papa Plauche.
He harangues his brave followers, and elo-
quently explains :

" It is because of your sanguinary fame, my
heroes!" vociferates Papa Plauche. "The
English knew your position, and avoided you.
214

AMONG THE STUBBLE

They went as far to the right and to the left
as they could, to escape that destruction you else
would have infallibly meted out to them. Ah !
my ' Fathers,' see what it is to have a ter-
rible name ! You must sit idle In battle, because
no foe dare engage you! Be comforted, my
glorious heroes! Achilles could have done no
more!

Colonel Coffee, still busy with the powder
smears, calls the General's attention to an Eng-
lish group of three, made up of a colonel, a
bugler, and a soldier bearing a white flag. The
trio halt six hundred respectful yards away.
The bugler sounds a fanfare ; the soldier waves
his white flag.

The General dispatches Colonel Butler with
two captains to receive their message. It is a
note signed " Lambert," asking an armistice of
twenty-four hours to bury the dead.

"Who is Lambert? " asks the General, and
sends to the English colonel, with his bugler
and white flag, to find out.

The three presently return; this time the
note is signed " John Lambert, Commander-in-
Chief." The alteration proves to the General's
liking, and the armistice is arranged.

The seven hundred and thirty dead English
15 215

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

are burled where they fell. Thereafter the
superstitious blacks will defy lash and torture
rather than plow the land where they lie. It
will raise no more sugar cane; but in time a
cypress grove will sorrowfully cover It, as
though in mournful memory of those who sleep
beneath. The General carries his own dead to
the city. They are not many, four dead and
four wounded being the limit of his loss.

General Lambert and the beaten English go
wallowing, hip-deep, through the swamps to
their boats. They will not fight again. The
booming of the batteries, or mayhap the un-
usual warmth of the sun, has roused from their
winter beds a scaly host of alligators. These
saurians uplift their hideous heads and gaze
sleepily, yet inquisitively, at the wallowing re-
treating English. Now and then one widely
yawns, and the spectacle sends an icy thrill
along what English spines bear witness to it.

In the end the beaten English are all
departed. That tremendous invasion which,
with " Beauty and Booty! " for its cry, sailed
out of Negrll Bay six weeks before to the sack
of New Orleans, is abandoned, and the last de-
feated man jack once more aboard the ships
and mighty glad to be there. The fleet sails
216

AMONG THE STUBBLE

south and east; but not until the tallest ship is
hull down in the horizon does the General
march Into New Orleans.

The General cannot bring himself to believe
that the retreat of the English is genuine.
They have still, as they sail away, full thirteen
thousand fighting men aboard those ships, with
a round one thousand cannon, and munitions
and provisions for a year's campaign. He
judges them by himself, and will not be con-
vinced that they have fled. With this on his
mind, he plants his pickets far and wide, and
insists on double vigilance.

Now when fear of the English is rolled
like a stone from their breasts, the folk of New
Orleans fret under the General's iron rule.
With that the prudent General tightens his
grip. Even so excellent a soldier as Papa
Plauche complains. He says that the hearts of
the " Fathers of Families " are bursting with
victory. His valiant " Fathers " burn to ex-
press their joy.

The General suggests that the joy-swollen
" Fathers " repair to the Cathedral, and hear
the Abbe Duborg conduct a Te Deum.

Papa Plauche points out that, while a Te
Deum is all very well in its way, it is a rite and
217

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

not a festival. What his " Fathers " — who are
thunderbolts of war! — desire is to give a ball.

The General says that he has no objections to
the ball.

Papa Plauche explains that a ball is not pos-
sible, with the city held fast in the controlling
coils of military law. The rule that all lights
must be out at nine o'clock, of itself forbids
a ball. As affairs stand the " Fathers " are
helpless in their happiness. No one may dance
by daylight; that would be too fantastic, too
bizarre ! And yet who, pray, can rejoice in the
dark? It is against human nature, argues Papa
Plauche.

The General refuses to be moved; but con-
tinues to hold the city in his unrelenting clutch
— maintaining the while a wary eye for sly re-
turning English, with an occasional glance at
the local treason which is simmering about him.

The public murmur grows louder and
deeper. A rumor of the peace comes ashore,
no one knows how. The General refuses the
rumor, fearing an English ruse to throw him
off his guard. At the peace whisper, the popu-
lar discontent increases. The General, in the
teeth of it, remains unchanged.

Citizen Hollander expresses himself with
2i8

AMONG THE STUBBLE

more heat than prudence. The General locks
up the vituperative Citizen Hollander. M.
Toussand, Consul for France, considers such ac-
tion high-handed; and says so. The General
marches Consul Toussand out of town, with a
brace of bayonets at the consular back. Leg-
islator Louaillier protests against the casting
out of Consul Toussand. The General con- "^
signs the protesting Legislator Louaillier to a
cell in the calaboose. Jurist Hall of the Dis-
trict Court issues a writ of habeas corpus for
the relief and release of the captive Louaillier.
The General responds by arresting Jurist Hall,
who is given a cell between captives Louaillier
and Hollander, where by raising his voice he
may condole with them through the intervening
stone walls.

Thus are affairs arranged when official notice
of the peace reaches the General from Wash-
ington. Instantly he withdraws his grip from
the city, restores the civil rule, and releases
from captivity Jurist Hall, Citizen Hollander,
and Legislator Louaillier.

Upon the disappearance of martial law.

Papa Plauche, with his Immortal " Fathers of

Families," gives that ball of victory, the exiled

Consul Toussand creeps back into town, while

219

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

Jurist Hall signalizes his restoration to the
woolsack by fining the General one thousand
dollars for contempt of court — which he pays.

The Legislature, guards withdrawn from its
treasonable doors, expands into lawmaking.
Its earliest action is a resolution of thanks for
their brave defense of the city to officers
Coffee, Carroll, Hinds, Adair, and Patterson.
The Legislature pointedly does not thank the
General, who grins dryly.

Colonel Coffee, upon receiving the vote of
thanks, writes a letter of acknowledgment, in
which he intimates his opinions of the General,
the Legislature, and himself. This missive is
a remarkable outburst on the part of Colonel
Coffee, who fights more easily than he writes,
and shows how he is stirred to his hunting-shirt
depths.

Through the clouds of pestiferous jurists and
treason-hatching legislators descends a grand
burst of sunshine. The blooming Rachel, as
unlooked for as an angel, joins her gaunt hero
in New Orleans, and the General forgets alike
his triumphs and his troubles.

Papa Plauche — foremost in peace as in war
— at once seizes on the advent of the blooming
Rachel to give another ball. The whole city
220

AMONG THE STUBBLE

attends the function; the heroic " Fathers" In
full panoply and very splendid. The band
plays " 'Possum up a Gum Tree," In the execu-
tion whereof It soars to vanest heights.

Papa Plauche dances with the blooming
^Rachel. The General unbuckles In certain In-
tricate breakdowns, with which he challenged
admiration In those days long ago when he was
the beau of old Salisbury and read law with
Spruce McCay. The " Fathers " are not only
edified but excited by the General's dancing;
for he dances as he fights, violently.

Colonel Coffee, not being a dancing man,
goes looking about him. He discovers a flower-
piece, prepared by Papa Plauche, that Is like unto
a piece of flattery, and spells " Jackson and
Victory ! " In deepest red and green. He shows
It to the General, who suggests that If Papa
Plauche had made It " Hickory and Victory! "
It would mean the same, and save the euphony.

While the blooming Rachel, the General,
the non-dancing Coffee, and the ardent Papa
Plauche, with the beauty and chivalry of New
Orleans about them, are at the ball. Colonel
Burr, gray and bent and cynical. Is talking with
his friend Swartwout In far-away New York.

" It was a glorious, a most convincing vlc-

221

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

tory! " exclaims Mr. Swartwout. " President
Madison cannot do the General too much
-f^ honor. He has saved the country! "

" He has saved," returns the ironical Colonel
Burr, " what President Madison holds in much
greater esteem. He has saved the Madison ad-
ministration I "

XVIII
ODDS AND ENDS OF TIME

CHAPTER XVIII

ODDS AND ENDS OF TIME

THE General, the blooming Rachel by
his side, takes up his homeward
journey. Now when they are on
their way and a world has time to observe
them, it is to be noted that changes have be-
fallen with the lengthened flight of time. The
eye of the blooming Rachel is as liquidly black
and deep, her hair as raven-blue, her cheek as
round as on a rearward day when she won the
heart of that bottle-green beau from old Salis-
bury. The alteration is in her form, which has
grown plump and full and stout in these her
matronly middle years. As to the bottle-green
beau, his sandy hair is deeply shot with iron-
gray, while his features show haggard, and
seamed of care. To the inquiring eye he looks
at once dangerous and rusty, like an old sword.
His form, always spare, is more emaciated than
ever. The last is due in part to those Benton
bullets, and the Dickinson shot fired in that
225

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

poplar, May-sweet wood on a certain Kentucky
morning. Besides, one is not to forget those
southern swamps, which have never had fame
for building a man up. As the General, with
his blooming Rachel, draws near home, the
whole Cumberland country rushes forth to
greet him.

From that earliest day when Time began
swinging his scythe In the meadows of hu-
manity, mankind has owned but two ways of
honoring a hero. One is the " parade," the
other is the " dinner." In the one instance,
half the people march In the middle of the
street, while the remaining half line the curbs
and look on. In the other, which has the
merit of exclusion, a select great few set a board
with meat and drin^; and then. Installing the
hero where all may see, they bombard him
with toasts and speeches and applause. All at-
tend the " parade " since it Is free. Few avoid
the dinner, because, besides the honor and the
honoring, It affords lawful occasion for being
drunk — a manifest advantage to many in a
strait-laced community. The General when he
arrives In Nashville Is exhaustively " paraded "
and deeply " dined." Also he Is given a sword.

Now, having been " paraded " and " dined,"
226

a^tef"^

^^r--^-.

Andrkw Jackson
From a painting by R. E. W. Earl.

ODDS AND ENDS OF TIME

and with honors thick upon him, the General
sets about his duties as a major general in days
of peace. General Adair and he have a letter-
quarrel concerning the courage of Kentuckians.
General Scott and he have a letter-quarrel on
grounds more personal. As the upshot of the
latter correspondence, the General evinces an
eagerness to shoot his over-epauletted opponent
at ten paces, oiling up the saw-handles to that
hopeful end, but is balked by the over-epauletted
one, who declines on grounds of piety and pa-
triotism.

While the General is fuming with ink and
paper against those distinguished warriors, he
cools at intervals sufficiently to build the bloom-
ing Rachel a little church. The blooming
Rachel is a devout Presbyterian; and, while the
General is far too busy with this world to
think much on the next, she prevails with him
— for he never says " No " to her — to put her
up a church. It is not much bigger than a dry-
goods box; but there are forty pews, besides a
pulpit for Parson Blackburn, and the blooming
Rachel is supremely happy. She owns to some
illogical impression that, should the General
build a church, he'll " join." In this she goes
wrong; for the General only builds.
227

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

The General mounts his horse, and rides
to Washington. He meets Mr. Jefferson in
Lynchburg, and that aged fine gentleman and
maker of constitutions is struck by the graceful
manners of the General, who has become all
ease and polish where once he was as rough as
a woods' colt. In Washington he is much feted
and feasted, and the trump of celebration is
tireless to sound his name. He gets back home
in time to put a roof on the blooming Rachel's
almost finished church, and listen to Parson
Blackburn's dedicatory sermon.

The Red Stick Creeks from across the Flori-
da line take to marauding and murdering in
Southern Georgia, and the General decides to
see about it. He sends an officer, with a force
of men, to reduce Negro Fort on the Ap-
palachicola. In giving that officer his instruc-
tions, the General expands touching the military
virtues of red-hot shots; and with such satis-
factory results that the first one fired at Ne-
gro Fort blows it to ruins, and with it three
hundred and thirty-one of the three hundred
and thirty-four blacks and reds who infest it.
Three crawl from the blazing chaos, to be
hilariously knocked on the head by friendly
Creeks, who have attended the expedition with
228

ODDS AND ENDS OF TIME

that fond hope and purpose. The world is
much rejoiced at the demolition of Negro Fort;
since murder and pillage have been the one
business of its robber garrison, and the fire-
torture of prisoners their one amusement.

The General presently appears at the head
of his hunting-shirt men, and destroys the vil-
lage of Chief Billy Bowlegs on the oft-sung
Suwannee River. Then he takes St. Marks
from the feeble Spaniards, and arrests a brace
of conspiring English, Ambrister and Arbuth-
not. The arrested ones have come across from
the Bahamas, bringing English guns and lead
and powder and promises to the hostile blacks
and reds; and all in accordance with that policy,
dear to England, of preferring bloodshed by
proxy to shedding blood herself. The General
hangs conspirator Arbuthnot, and shoots con-
spirator Ambrister; while England, in accord-
ance with a second policy as dear as the first,
disavows them both.

The General goes on to Pensacola. Here he
hauls down the flag of Spain, runs up the stars
and stripes, drives out the Spanish Governor,
and installs one of his own with a garrison to
back him. Having executed conspirators Am-
brister and Arbuthnot, he now seizes on two
229

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

Creek-Seminole chiefs and hangs them, to pre-
serve, so to speak, a racial equilibrium. Hav-
ing thus wound up the Spanish, the English,
the negroes and the Indians in Florida, the
General returns to his home, serene in the sense
of duty well performed.

The General's serenity Is misplaced; trouble
breaks out in Washington. Mr. Monroe is
President, and Statesmen Clay and Crawford
and Calhoun and Adams desire to be. The
quartette last named suspect in the General —
about whom a responsive public is running
mad — a growing rival. They decide to cripple
him in the very cradle of his White House
prospects. If they do not he may grow up to
snatch from them the crown. Moved of this
higH thought, they charge the General with
waging unauthorized war; and with invading
Spanish territory, we at peace with Spain.
They call him a " murderer " for snuffing out
conspirators Ambrlster and Arbuthnot and those
superfluous Creek-Seminole chiefs. Also, giv-
ing a moral snuffle, they demand that he be
courtmartialed and cashiered.

President Monroe shakes his head at the
conniving quartette, replying as on a somewhat
similar occasion did the Russian Catherine:
230

ODDS AND ENDS OF TIME

*' We never punish conquerors.

The General by the Cumberland hears of
these weird doings In Washington, and again
rides over the mountains. His object is to dis-
cover, by personal observation, who in his case
are the sheep and who the goats, and separate
in his own mind his friends from his enemies.
Upon his arrival the General finds himself an
issue of politics. As such he is voted upon by
Congress, which affirms heavily In his favor.
The people have long ago decided in his favor;
and Congress, ever quick to locate the butter on
its bread, sharply follows the popular example.
Statesman Clay and others among the General's
foes express themselves freely to his disadvan-
tage. However, the General expresses himself
freely to their disadvantage, and profound
judges of vituperation say that he has the sul-
phurous best of the' exchange.

Being upheld by Congress, and having freed
his mind touching his foes, the General goes to
Baltimore and Philadelphia, and is extrava-
gantly wined and dined. Then he proceeds to
New York, where FItz Greene Halleck and
Joseph Rodman Drake write doggerel at him
in the Evening Post; and where, also, he is
" paraded " and " dinner "-honored to a degree
16 231

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

which lays all former " parading " and " din-
ner "-honoring, by less fervent communities,
deep within the shade.

Spain cedes Florida to the United States; just
as she would cede a bad hot penny that, besides
being worthless, is burning her fingers. The
President appoints the General governor of
the new domain. Whereupon the new Gov-
ernor lays down his Major General's commis-
sion, bids farewell to the army, and journeys
south. He does not relish being Governor;
and, after locking up his Spanish predecessor
for stealing divers papers of state, and expatri-
ating a scandalous bevy whose talk sounds like
treason to his sensitive ear, he resigns.

When the General gets back to the Cumber-
land country, he finds that his former quarter-
master. Major Lewis, has decided to send him
to the White House. The General is mightily
taken aback, and declares himself unfit. Major
Lewis retorts that he is far more fit than any
of his quartette of Washington enemies, laying
especial emphasis on Statesman Clay. The ac-
curate force of the retort strikes the General
wordless.

Major Lewis is rich, wise, cunning, cool,
college-bred, and eighteen years younger than
232

ODDS AND ENDS OF TIME

the General. He is a born manager, a natural
wire-puller, and can play politics by ear as some
folk play the fiddle. Congenitally a Warwick,
he prefers making a President to being one, and
would sooner hold a baby than hold an office.

Major Lewis seizes on the General as so
much raw material wherefrom to construct a
President. As a best method of having his
man on the ground, he gives a hint, and the
Tennessee Legislature sends the General to
Washington as Senator. The blooming Ra-
chel accompanies him; they live at a tavern
in Pennsylvania Avenue called the " Indian
Queen."

This caravansary is kept by one O'Neal,
who has a pretty daughter Peg. Later the
pretty Peg will dissolve a Cabinet, make Mr.
Van Buren President, and come within an
ace of getting Mr. Calhoun hanged. All
this, however, is in the unpierced future. The
blooming, childless Rachel makes a pet of
pretty Peg; which rivets the latter forever in
the good regards of the General, who loves
what the blooming Rachel loves.

Major Lewis proves a wizard of politics.
Under his quiet legerdemain, here and there
and everywhere political fires break forth in

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

favor of the General. They break forth in
North Carolina, in Pennsylvania, in New
York; and, so deft and secret is his work, none
suspects Wizard Lewis as the incendiary. Wiz-
ard Lewis is counseled by Colonel Burr who,
like some old gray fox, sits in the mouth of his
New York law-burrow in Nassau Street, peer-
ing out at events as they pass.

In these days, the lion-faced Webster writes
his brother:

" His (the General's) manners are more
presidential than those of any of the candidates.
He is grave, mild, and reserved. My wife is
for him decidedly."

There are four candidates for the White
House, vide licet, the General, and Statesmen
Adams and Crawford and Clay. The popular
vote falls in the order given, with the General
a long flight shot ahead of Statesman Adams,
who is next on the list. And yet, while far in
advance of the others, the General is without
that electoral majority required by the Consti-
tution, and the choice is thrown into the House
of Representatives.

Statesman Clay is now out of the running;
for the President must be chosen from among
the three candidates having the highest elec-
234

ODDS AND ENDS OF TIME

toral vote, and he is fourth and lowest. States-
man Crawford, who ranks third, is also out.
He is stricken of paralysis; and, while this
wins him sympathy, it loses him White House
strength. The fight is to be between the Gen-
eral and Statesman Adams.

While Statesman Clay is out of the coil, so
far as any personal chance of becoming the
House selection is concerned, he is in It de-
cisively in another fashion. As a chief force in
the House, he holds that important body in the
hollow of his hand; and, while he cannot be
its choice, he can control its choice. He con-
trols it for Statesman Adams, on the under-
ground understanding that he. Statesman Clay,
shall sit at Statesman Adams' right hand as Sec-
retary of State. Statesman Clay hopes to run
presldentlally another day, and thinks to make
his calling and election sure while head of the
Cabinet of Statesman Adams. As events forge
and fuse themselves in the blast furnaces of the
future, it will be discovered that in thus opin-
ing Statesman Clay falls into grievous error.

It is four o'clock In the afternoon when the
Clay-guided House counts Statesman Adams
into a Presidency. Five hours afterward the
General meets Statesman Adams In the East

235

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

Room, where both are in attendance upon the
last reception of outgoing President Munroe.
The contrast between them tells in the Gen-
eral's favor. There is no gloom of disappoint-
ment on his brow, no cloud of defeat in his
hawkish blue eyes. The General has a lady on
his arm. He greets Statesman Adams grace-
fully and extends his hand:

" How is Mr. Adams? " cries he. " I give
you my left hand, sir, since my right is devoted
to the fair."

Statesman Adams is a diplomat, and used to
courts and salons. The General is of the wil-
derness and its battlefields. And yet the Gen-
eral shines out the more polished of the two.
Statesman Adams takes the extended hand; but
he does it awkwardly, backwardly, and with a
wooden manner, as though his deportment is
seized of some sudden, bashful stiffness of the
joints. At last he manages to say:

" Very well, sir! I hope you are well! "

XIX

THE KILLING EDGE OF
SLANDER

CHAPTER XIX

THE KILLING EDGE OF SLANDER

WIZARD LEWIS boldly re-begins his
work of White House capturing.
He becomes busy to the elbows in
the General's destinies before Statesman Adams
is inaugurated. When the latter names States-
man Clay to be his Secretary of State, Wizard
Lewis lays bare the deal which thus exalts the
Kentuckian. He raises the cry of " Bargain
and Corruption ! " and the public takes it up.
Statesman Adams and Statesman Clay are pil-
loried as conspirators who have wronged the
General of a Presidency, and the State port-
folio in the hands of Statesman Clay is pointed
to as proof. The General writes the bloom-
ing Rachel, just now at home by the Cumber-
land:

" The Judas of the West has closed the con-
tract and received the thirty pieces of silver."

Statesman Clay defends himself badly. He
declares that he objects to the General's White
239

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

House ambitions only because he is a " Mili-
tary Chieftain." He speaks as though the
world knows that a " Military Chieftain " will
make a perilous Chief Magistrate. The world
knows nothing of the sort; the cry of " Bargain
and Corruption " gains head.

In retort to that arraignment of being a
*' Military Chieftain " — made as if the phrase
be merely another name for " buccaneer " — the
General writes the old friendly fox, Colonel
Burr :

" It is not strange that he (Statesman Clay)
should indulge himself In such reasoning, since
It comes somewhat to his own personal defense.
Our blue-grass Secretary has been ever remark-
able for his caution, to give It a no worse name,
and has not yet risked himself for his coun-
try, or moved from safe repose to repel an
invading foe."

The General Is not the only one who com-
ments upon the astounding copartnership In
politics and policies between Statesman Adams
and Statesman Clay. John Randolph, of Roa-
noke, remarks concerning It, from his bitter
place In the Senate :

*' Sir, It Is a coming together of the puritan
and the blackleg — Blifil and Black George ! "
240

S. H- J\<^o^'y^-

THE EDGE OF SLANDER

This view seems hugely to excite Statesman
Clay, and he challenges the picturesque Ran-
dolph to a duel by Little Falls. They meet;
but, since both are at pains to miss, no good
comes of it.

Wizard Lewis goes teaching the General's
merits in every State of the Union. In his
White House siege, Wizard Lewis receives his
best help from Statesman Adams himself.

The latter publicist is a personage of ice-
cold ideas, and lists ingratitude at the top of
the virtues. There be folic — descended, doubt-
less, of ancestors that heated the pincers and
turned the thumbikins, and worked the strain-
ing rack for the Inquisitions as mere day la-
borers at torture — who delight in doing mean,
hateful, punishing things to their fellow mor-
tals, if they may but call such doing " duty."
They will weep hypocritically while burning a
victim, and aver, between sobs, that they pile
the fagots and apply the torch only from a
" sternest conviction of duty." The word
" duty," like the venom of a serpent, is ever in
their mouths; by it they break hearts, destroy
hopes, create blackness, blot out light, forbid
happiness, foster grief, and plant pain in breasts
innocent of every crime save that of helping
241

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

them. Statesman Adams — heart as hollow as
a bell and quite as brazen — is one of these. He
demonstrates his purity by refusing his obliga-
tions, and proves himself great by turning his
back on his friends. Made up of a multitude
of littlenesses, he offers no trait of breadth or
bigness as an offset. He is not wise; he is not
brave; he is not generous; he is not — even in
wrongdoing — original. He will guide by some
maxim; or he will permit himself to be posed
by a proverb; and, while ever breathlessly re-
spectable, he is never once right. As President
he proposes for himself an inhuman goodness,
and declares that he will remove no one from
office on " account of politics " — a catch phrase
which has protected incompetency In place in
every age.

Although he is so fond of them, Statesman
Adams, in taking the latter snow-white position,
overlooks an aphorism that will be vital while
time lasts. He forgets that " The President
who makes no removals will himself be re-
moved."

"Strike, lest you be stricken!" murmured

Queen Elizabeth, as seizing the pen she signed

the warrant of block and axe for Scottish

Mary, and It might be well and wise for States-

242

THE EDGE OF SLANDER

man Adams to wear in constant mind that il-
lustrious example.

The thought is vain. Statesman Adams ig-
nores his friends, consults his foes, and offers
a base picture of the ungrateful that draws the
public's honest wrath his way. Wizard Lewis
is no one to miss such opportunities to upbuild
the General's fortunes at the expense of the
enemy; and so the General grows each day
stronger, while Statesman Adams — ^who hopes
to succeed himself — owns less and less of
strength.

The currents of time flow swiftly now, and
four years go by — four years wherein the old
friendly far-seeing fox, Colonel Burr, in his
Nassau Street burrow, teaches the General's
leaders intrigue as a pedagogue teaches the al-
phabet to his pupils. And day after day the
purblind Adams, with the purblind Clay at the
elbow of his hopes and fears, sets traps against
his own prospects, and does his unwitting best
or worst to destroy himself. Then comes the
canvass : the General against Statesman Adams,
who courts a reelection.

The moment the rival forces march upon the
field, the dullest marks the superiority of the
General's. With that. Statesman Clay — in the
243

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

war saddle for Statesman Adams, whose battle
is his battle and whose defeat means his down-
fall— loses his head. He accuses the General
of every offense except that of theft, calls him
every name save that of coward. The accusa-
tions fail; the epithets fall harmless to the
ground; the people know, and draw the closer
about the General's standards. The latter's pop-
ularity rises as might a hurricane, and sweeps
away opposition like down of thistles !

Statesman Clay becomes frantic. Possessed
as by a demon, he issues instructions to assail
the blooming Rachel. His hound-pack obey the
call. From that moment the General's mar-
riage is the issue. He is charged with " steal-
ing another's wife," and every shaft of menda-
cious villification is shot against the unoffending
bosom of the blooming Rachel. Those are fire-
swept moments of anguish for the General,
who feels the pain the more, since his hands are
tied against what saw-handle methods silenced
the dead Dickinson one May Kentucky morn-
ing in that poplar wood.

The blooming Rachel, for her wronged part,

says never a word. She goes the oftener to the

little church, but that is all. And yet, while

she seems so resigned and patient beneath the

244

THE EDGE OF SLANDER

slandrous lash, the thong Is biting always to
her soul's source.

The election takes place, and now the people
speak. They set the grinding heel of their an-
ger upon those slanders; they throw down that
ladder of lies by which Statesman Adams hopes
to climb. Wizard Lewis, Burr-guided, foils
Statesman Clay at every point; the General
rides down Statesman Adams like a coach and
six.

New England is tribal and narrow, with the
reeking taint of old Federalism In Its veins; it
gives Itself for Statesman Adams, unredeemed
save by a single district In Maine. There, In-
deed, rises up one electoral vote for the Gen-
eral. It shows in the gray waste of Adams
sentiment about it, like a green tree and a
fountain against the gray wastes of Sahara.
New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland follow In
New England's dreary wake for Statesman
Adams; while New York gives him sixteen
electoral votes out of thirty-six. That offers
the round circumference of his Clay-collected
strength — an electoral vote of eighty-three!

For the General, Pennsylvania, Virginia,
North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Ala-
bama, Mississippi, Missouri, Kentucky, Ohio,

245

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

and Illinois go headlong ; while New York gives
him twenty electoral votes, with Tennessee his
own by a popular count of twenty for one.
Statesman Clay, as a retort to the slanders he
fulminated, beholds his own State of Kentucky
reject him, and aid in swelling those one hun-
dred and seventy-eight electoral votes which
declare for the General. The world at large,
seated by Its fireside and sagely thumbing those
returns of one hundred and seventy-eight for
the General against a meager eighty-three for
Statesman Adams, finds therein a stunning re-
buke to both the ambitions and the methods of
Statesman Clay.

When word of the General's election reaches
the blooming Rachel, she smiles wearily and
says:

"For the General's sake I'm glad! For
myself I never wished It."

Now that the war of the votes is over and
the General victor, mankind relaxes into Its
customary dinners and parades. The Cumber-
land good people resolve to outparade all for-
mer parades, outdine all former dinners. They
engage themselves with tremendous gala prep-
arations. It shall be a time when oxen are
eaten whole, and whisky Is drunk by the barrel.
246

THE EDGE OF SLANDER

The day set apart as sacred to the coming
parade, and that dinner yet to be devoured,
breaks brightly full of promise. There is never
a cloud in the Cumberland sky, never a care
on the Cumberland heart. In a moment all is
reversed! — light gives way to blackness, hap-
piness to grief ! Like a bolt from a heaven
smiling, the word descends that the -blooming
Rachel lies dead. The word is true. The mon-
strous weight of slander heaped upon it breaks
her gentle heart.

They bury the blooming Rachel at the foot
of the garden where her best-loved flowers
grow. The General is ten years older In a
night; the tall form, yesterday as straight as a
lance, is bent and broken. The blue eyes, once
hawklike, are dimmed with tears. Friends
come to press his hand — he chokes and cannot
speak ! But the awful agony of his soul is
written in the sweat drops on his wrung brow.

As the General stands by the grave that is
smothering for him all the song and the sweet
sunshine of life, the ever-faithful, never-failing
Coffee is by his side. The poor General reaches
blindly out and takes hold of the rough, big,
loyal hand for support. His beloved Coffee,
who flanked the Red Stick Creeks for him at
17 247

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

the Horseshoe and held his low mud walls
against England's boast and best at New Or-
leans, will not fail him now in this his sternest
trial by the graveside of the blooming Rachel!
The General, doubly quiet, doubly stern, is-
sues forth of that ordeal another man. He is
as one who lives because it is his duty, and not
for love of life. Plainly, his hopes like his
heart are buried with the blooming Rachel. In
y^ his soul he lays her death to the doors of States-
man Adams and Statesman Clay; throughout
the years to follow he will never forget nor
forgive. To the end he will cultivate his hatred
of them, and tend it as he might a flower.
Time cannot remold him in this belief; and a
decade later he will say to his friend Lewis,
while his eye flashes like some sudden-drawn
rapier:

" Major, she was stung to death by slander!
It was such adders as John Quincy Adams, such
pit-vipers as Henry Clay, that killed her! "

THE GENERAL GOES TO THE
WHITE HOUSE

CHAPTER XX

THE GENERAL GOES TO THE WHITE HOUSE

THIS is of a Steamboat day, and keel
boats are but a memory. The Gen-
eral makes his tedious eight-weeks'
way to Washington via the Cumberland, the
Ohio, the mountains, and the Potomac valley.
It is like the progress of a conqueror. The
people throng about him until Wizard Lewis,
remembering his broken state, fears for his life.
The fears are without grounds to stand on.
Applause never kills, and the General finds in
it the milk of lions. He enters Washington re-
newed, and was never so fit for hard work.
The General is inaugurated. As he is cheered
into the White House by jubilant thousands,
Statesman Clay, beaten and bitter, retires to
Kentucky ; while Statesman Adams goes back to
Massachusetts, where his ice-waterisms, let us
hope, will be appreciated, and from which
frigid region he ought never to have been
drawn.

251

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

When the General Is declared President,
Statesman Calhoun is made Vice-President.
From his high perch in the Senate Statesman
Calhoun begins at once to scan the plain of the
possible for ways and means to name himself
the General's successor. He proves dull in the
furtherance of his ambitions, and conceives that
the only best path to victory lies over the Gen-
eral himself. He must break down that demi-
god in the hearts of the people, and teach them
to hate where now they trust and love.

The General is not a day in Washington be-
fore Statesman Calhoun is Intriguing to cut the
ground of popularity from beneath his feet.
As frequently happens with dark-lantern strate-
gists, his plottings in their very inception go
off on the wrong foot. Statesman Calhoun is
so foolish as to commence his campaign against
the General with an attack upon a woman.
The woman thus malevolently distinguished is
the pretty Peg, once belle of the Indian Queen.

Between that time when the General came
last to Washington as Senator and the pretty
Peg was petted and loved by the blooming
Rachel, and now when the General occupies
the White House as President, destiny has been
moving rapidly and not always gayly with the
252

TO THE WHITE HOUSE

pretty Peg. In that Interim she becomes the
wife of Purser Timberlake of the Navy, who
later cuts his drunken throat and walks over-
board to his drunken death in the Mediter-
ranean.

In her widow's weeds the pretty Peg looks
prettier than before — since black is ever the
best setting for beauty, and shows it off like a
diamond. Major Eaton, Senator from Ten-
nessee and per incident friend of the General,
is smitten of the pretty Peg, and marries her.
The wedding bells are ringing as the General
rides into Washington.

It is an hour wherein Vice-Presidents have
more to say than they will later on. Statesman
Calhoun, scheming his own advantage, puts
forward covert efforts to place his friends about
the General as cablneteers. This is not so dif-
ficult; since the General is not thinking on
Statesman Calhoun. His eyes, hate-guided, are
fastened upon Statesman Adams and Statesman
Clay; his single aim is to advance no follower
of theirs. These are happy conditions for
Statesman Calhoun, who comes up unseen on
the General's blind side, and presents him — all
unnoticed — with three of his Cabinet six.

Statesman Calhoun, who prefers four to

253

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

three, next tries all he secretly knows to control
the General's choice of a War Secretary. In
this he meets defeat; the General selects Major
Eaton, just wedded to the pretty Peg. His
completed Cabinet includes Van Buren, Secre-
tary of State; Ingham, Secretary of the Treas-
ury; Eaton, Secretary of War; Branch, Secre-
tary of the Navy; Berrien, Attorney General;
and Barry, Postmaster General. Of these.
Statesman Calhoun, craftily reviewing the list
from his perch in the Senate, may call Cabi-
neteers Ingham, Branch, and Berrien his hench-
men.

The General is not aware of this Calhoun
color to his Cabinet. The last man of the six
hates Statesman Clay and Statesman Adams;
which is the consideration most upon the Gen-
eral's mind. He does not like Statesman Cal-
houn. But he in no sort suspects him; and, at
this crisis of Cabinet making, that plotting
Vice-President is not at all upon the General's
slope of thought.

Not content with half the Cabinet, States-
man Calhoun resents privily his failure to con-
trol the war portfolio. He resolves to attack
Major Eaton, and drive him from the place.
As much wanting in chivalry as in a wisdom
254

TO THE WHITE HOUSE

of the popular, he decides to assail him through
the pretty Peg. It is the error of Statesman
Calhoun's career, which now becomes one blun-
dering procession of mistakes.

Statesman Calhoun's attack on the pretty
Peg begins with hidden adroitness. There lives
in Philadelphia a smug dominie named Ely.
On the merest Calhoun hint in the dark, Dom-
inie Ely — who has a mustard-seed soul — writes
the General a letter, wherein he charges the
pretty Peg with every immorality. Dominie
Ely prayerfully protests against the husband of
a woman so morally ebon making one of the
General's official family.

The General is in flames in a moment. His
loved and blooming Rachel was stabbed to
death by slander! The pretty Peg was the
blooming Rachel's favorite, in that old day at
the Indian Queen ! The General possesses
every angry reason for being aroused, and he
sends fiercely for smug Dominie Ely.

The villifylng Dominie Ely appears before
the General In fear and trembling — color
stricken from his fat cheek. He falterlngly
confesses that he has been Inspired to his slan-
ders by a Dominie Campbell. The furious
General summons Dominie Campbell, about

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

whom there is a Calhoun atmosphere of jackal
and buzzard in even parts. The General hurls
pointed questions at Dominie Campbell, and
catches him in lies.

While the General is putting to flight the
two black-coat buzzards of slander, the war
breaks out in a new quarter. The " Ladies of
Washington," compared to whom the Red
Stick Creeks at the Horseshoe and the redcoat
English at New Orleans are as children's toys,
fall upon the General's social flank. They hate
the pretty Peg because she is more beautiful
than they. They resent her as the daughter of
a tavern keeper — a common tapster ! — who is
now being lifted to a social eminence equal with
their own. These reasons bring the " Ladies
of Washington " to the field. But with mili-
tant sapiency they conceal them, and adopt as
the pretended cause of their onslaught the
slanders of those ophidians, Dominie Ely and
Dominie Campbell.

Mrs. Calhoun, wife of Statesman Calhoun,
at the head of Capital fashion and social war-
chief of the " Ladies of Washington," says she
will not " recognize " the pretty Peg. Mrs.
Ingham, Mrs. Branch, and Mrs. Berrien, wives
of the three Cabineteers who wear in private
256

TO THE WHITE HOUSE

the colors of Statesman Calhoun, say they will
not " recognize " the pretty Peg. Mrs. Donel-
son, wife of the General's private secretary and
ex officio "Lady of the White House," says
she will not " recognize " the pretty Peg. The
latter drawing-room Red Stick is the General's
niece. Also, she is in fashionable leading
strings to Mrs. Calhoun, who as social war-
chief of the " Ladles of Washington " dazzles
and benumbs her.

Mrs. Donelson approaches the General con-
cerning the pretty Peg.

" Anything but that, Uncle! " she says. " I
am sorry to offend you, but I cannot ' recog-
nize ' Mrs. Eaton."

" Then you'd better go back, to Tennessee,
my dear! " returns the General, between puffs
at his clay pipe.

Mrs. Donelson and her unwilling spouse go
back to Tennessee. The war against the pretty
Peg goes on.

The General's Cabinet is a house divided
against itself. Cabineteers Ingham, Branch,
and Berrien align themselves with Statesman
Calhoun on this issue of the pretty Peg. For
each has a ring in his nose, a wedding ring, and
his wife leads him about by it socially, hither
257

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

and yon as she chooses. Cabineteers Van
Buren and Barry range themselves with Cabl-
neteer Eaton and the pretty Peg.

Cabineteer Van Buren is short, round, fat,
smooth, adroit, ambitious, and so much the
mental tree-toad that, now when he is in con-
tact with the positive General, his every opin-
ion takes its color from that warrior. Also
Cabineteer Van Buren is a widower, with no
wife to lead him socially by the nose. Hat in
hand, he calls upon the pretty Peg — a polite-
ness which pleases the General tremendously.

Cabineteer Van Buren gives dinners, and
asks the pretty Peg to perform as hostess.
With a wise eye on the General, he incites
Cabineteer Barry, who is a bachelor, to burst
into similar dinners, with the pretty Peg in com-
mand. By his suggestion, Minister Vaughn of
the English and Minister Krudener of the Rus-
sians, who like Cabineteer Barry are bachelors,
follow amiable suit. They give legation din-
ners, at which the pretty Peg presides. The
General adopts these brilliant examples with
the White House. The prett)^ Peg finds her-
self in control of such society high ground as
the English and Russian legations, two Cabi-
net houses besides her own, and last and most
258

TO THE WHITE HOUSE

important the White House itself. It is a
merry even if a savage war, and the pretty
Peg is everywhere victorious.

Not everywhere! Mrs. Calhoun, as war-
chief of the " Ladies of Washington," with
Mrs. Ingham, Mrs. Branch, and Mrs. Berrien
about her as a staff, refuses to yield. These
four indomitables and their beflounced and be-
feathered followers, noses uptilted in scorn of
the pretty Peg, prosecute their battle to the
acrid end.

In the earlier stages, the General, his angry
thoughts on Statesman Clay, inclines to the be-
lief that these attacks on the pretty Peg are of
that defeated personage's connivance, and says
so to Wizard Lewis.

Wizard Lewis, when the General is inaugu-
rated, is for returning to his Cumberland home,
but finds himself restrained by the lonesome
General.

" What! " cries the latter, " would you leave
me now, after doing more than all the rest to
land me here? "

Upon which reproach. Wizard Lewis re-
mains, and lives in the White House with the
General. It befalls that with the earliest slan-
ders of the ophidians, Dominie Ely and Dom-
259

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

inie Campbell, the General goes to Wizard
Lewis with accusations against Statesman Clay.

" It's that pit-viper, Henry Clay! " cries the
General. " Major, the pet employment of that
scoundrel Is the vUlification of good women! "

Wizard Lewis holds to a different view. He
declares that the secret impulse of this base war
is Statesman Calhoun, and proves it as events
unfold.

" And yet," asks the General, " why should
he assail little Peg? Both he and Mrs. Cal-
houn called upon her and Major Eaton, and
congratulated them on their marriage."

" That was while Major Eaton was a sena-
tor," Wizard Lewis responds, " and before he
became War Secretary and got In the way of
the Calhoun plans. Your Vice-President, Gen-
eral, is mad to be President. Also, he is so
blurred in his strategy as to Imagine that these
attacks on little Peg will advance his prospects."

The General snorts suspiciously; a light
breaks upon him,

" Then your theory Is," he says, " that Cal-
houn assails Peg as a step toward the presi-
dency."

"Precisely, General! Rightly construed, it
is not an attack on Peg, but you. He is try-
260

TO THE WHITE HOUSE

ing to put you before the people in the role of
one who countenances the immoral, and up-
holds a bad woman. In that he hopes to array
every virtuous fireside against you. He looks
for you to ask a second term; and, by any
means In his power, he will strive to destroy
you out of his path."

" Now, was there ever such infamy ! " cries
the General. " Here is a man so vile that he
would pave his way to the White House with
the slain honor of a woman! "

The hate of the General is now focused upon
Statesman Calhoun. That ignoble strategist,
he resolves, shall never achieve the presidency.

As one wherewith to defeat Statesman Cal-
houn and succeed himself, the General picks
upon Cabineteer Van Buren — that suave one,
who is so much to the urbane fore for the
pretty Peg.

" Yes, sir," says the General to Wizard
Lewis; "I'll take a second term! And then.
Major, we will make Matt President after me."

" We'll do more," returns Wizard Lewis.
*' When we elect you President the second time,
we'll shove aside the plotting Calhoun, and
make Van Buren Vice-President."

"Right!" exults the General. "Then,
261

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

should I die, Matt will at once step Into my
shoes."

Neither the General nor Wizard Lewis is at
pains to conceal their design. The sallow cheek
of Statesman Calhoun grows sallower; for the
news is like an icicle through his heart. It in
no wise abates his war upon the pretty Peg,
however; which — as Wizard Lewis guesses — is
only meant to break down the General with
good people.

XXI

WIZARD LEWIS URGES A
CHANGE OF FRONT

CHAPTER XXI

WIZARD LEWIS URGES A CHANGE OF FRONT

WIZARD LEWIS, bending his brows
to the situation, now counsels an
extreme step. The pretty Peg Is
vindicated; in all quarters she rises in triumph
over Mrs. Calhoun, Mrs. Ingham, Mrs.
Branch, Mrs. Berrien, and what other " society
Red Sticks " — as he terms them — seek her de-
struction. The next thing is to shear away the
cabinet strength of Statesman Calhoun. Wiz-
ard Lewis recommends a dissolution of the
Cabinet. He lays his thought before the Gen-
eral, who sits listening in the smoke of his long
pipe. Cabineteer Van Buren will resign. Cabi-
neteers Eaton and Barry will emulate his ex-
ample and turn over their portfolios. With
half his Cabinet gone, should the Calhoun three
prove backward, the General shall demand
their portfolios.

"And then?" asks the General, his iron-
gray head in a cloud of tobacco smoke.
265

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

*' Then you will make Van Buren Minister
to England, and give Major Eaton the gov-
ernorship of Florida. Little Peg should look
well in the palace at St. Augustine."

" By the Eternal! " cries the General, as he
hurls his clay pipe into the fireplace where hun-
dreds of its brittle predecessors have gone
crashing — " by the Eternal, we'll do it ! The
last vestige of a Calhoun cabinet influence
shall be wiped out! "

It comes to pass as Wizard Lewis pro-
grammes. Cabineteer Van Buren resigns, and
Cabineteers Eaton and Barry hasten to follow
his lead. The three other cabineteers sit dazed;
the suddenness of the thing takes away their
cabinet breaths. They sit dazed so long that
the General loses patience and asks for their
portfolios. One by one they hand them in, as
it were at the White House door — Cabineteer
Ingham being last and most reluctant of all.

There be tears and mournful wailings now
among the society Red Sticks. Mrs. Ingham,
Mrs. Branch, and Mrs. Berrien are shak-
en in their social souls, never for one mo-
ment having foreseen this movement in disas-
trous flank. However, there is no help for
it. The deposed three wash off their social
266

A CHANGE OF FRONT

war paint, and go their divers ways lament-
ing; while the General and Wizard Lewis
grin sourly over their fireside pipes. As for
Statesman Calhoun, his schemes experience a
chill; for in thus sending Cabineteers Ingham,
Branch, and Berrien into political exile, the
General drives a knife to the very heart of his
selfish diplomacy.

Cabinet wiped out, the General constructs
another, with his old-time friend and comrade
Livingston as Secretary of State. Also, the
agreeable Van Buren departs for the Court of
St. James as the General's envoy to England,
while Major Eaton and the villified yet vic-
torious Peg wend southward among the flowers
to rule over Florida.

Before he leaves Washington, the ill-used
Eaton makes praiseworthy attempts to fasten a
duel upon ex-Cabineteer Ingham, who hires a
whole stage coach and gallops off to Baltimore
— the fear of death upon him — to avoid being
sacrificed. The flight of ex-Cabineteer Ingham
is a shock to the General.

" I knew he was a bad, designing man,"
says the General with a sigh; "but, upon my
soul. Major, I didn't think him a coward ! "

Statesman Calhoun, weaker by virtue of that
267

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

Cabinet lopping off, is still too narrowly set In his
White House ambitions to give up the war. In
this he is much sustained by the Senate, which
jealous body pretends to possess its own causes
of complaint. Chief among these is the ob-
vious manner In which the General promotes
the importance of that old fox, Colonel Burr.
The General shows that he cares more for the
appointment-indorsement of Colonel Burr than
for the recommendations of half the Senate.
This does not set well on the proud senatorial
stomachs of the togaed ones; and, with States-
man Calhoun to lead them, they are willing to
obstruct and baffle the General in his policies.
Moved of this spirit, and at the Instigation of
Statesman Calhoun, the Senate refuses to con-
firm the appointment of Minister Van Buren —
a Burrite — who thereupon makes his farewell
unruffled bow to the great ones at St. James and
returns amiably home.

That Thomas Benton, who was so fortunate
as to fall Into a receptive cellar on a certain
Nashville occasion when the muzzle of the
General's saw-handle was at his breast, and who
is now in the Senate from Missouri, gives
Statesman Calhoun notice of what he may ex-
pect:

268

E^DWARD Livingston
From a Jraiuing by y. B. Longacre.

A CHANGE OF FRONT

*' You have broken a minister," observes the
farslghted Benton — " you have broken a Min-
ister to make a Vice-President."

While the slander battle against the pretty
Peg is raging, a storm cloud of a different char-
acter is gathering over the General. Although
Statesman Clay has no part in that war upon
the pretty Peg, he by no means sits with folded
hands in idleness.

There is a certain money-creature called
the United States Bank. It is controlled by
one Biddle of Philadelphia. Banker Biddle
is a glistening, serpentine personage, oily and
avaricious — a polished composite of assurance,
greed, and lies. He is a proven and unscrupu-
lous corruptionist, and a majority of both
Senate and House wait upon his money-bidding.
Under the Biddle influence, the Bank never
fails to consider the mere " name " of a Con-
gressman as perfect collateral for a loan. Even
so incorrigible a bankrupt as the lion-faced
Webster is good at the Biddle Bank for thou-
sands.

Secure in its hold on Congress, and insolent

— as Money ever is when it feels secure — the

Biddle Bank thinks to crack a political whip.

The main bank is in Philadelphia. There

269

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

are twenty-five branch banks scattered here
and there throughout the country. In pursu-
ance of its determination to dominate politics,
the Biddle Bank suddenly refuses loans to the
General's friends. Banker Biddle and the
Bank are secretly moved to these doughty at-
titudes by Statesman Clay, who, with his party
of the Whigs, has for long been their ally.

Statesman Clay, in possession of the ma-
chinery of his party, is resolved to put his
own name forward at the head of the next
Whig ticket against the formidable General.
He foresees that Statesman Calhoun — who is
of the General's party of the Democrats — will
come to utter grief in his intrigues to supplant
the General and make himself a candidate.
And yet, the blue-grass Machiavelli can use
Statesman Calhoun. The latter is powerful
with the Senate. The Senate hates the General
as blindly as does Statesman Calhoun.

Machiavelli Clay resolves to have advantage
of this double condition of hatred. He will
beguile the General to attack the Biddle Bank.
The attack can only be made by message to
* Congress. That should be the opportunity of
MachKucllI Clay. He will have the Senate for
the battle ground; and it shall go hard if he
270

A CHANGE OF FRONT

do not emerge with the General defeated and
the Bank and Banker Biddle at his back. With
such friends in the campaign to come later he
should have the General and his party of
democracy at his mercy. Thus dreams Machia-
velli Clay.

It is a beautiful dream — this long-drawn chi-
cane of Machiavelli Clay. As a move toward
its realization he suggests the policy of a loan
hostility toward the General's friends; for the
General will fight almost as quickly for a friend
as for a woman.

Banker Biddle adopts it, and the Bank de-
velops it in Portsmouth. The paper of one
of the General's friends — a Mr. Isaac Hill —
is dishonored, and the General's friendship is
understood to be the reason. The thing is
managed like a challenge, and has the instant
effect of bringing the General — ever ready for
such a war — to the field. In its invidious at-
titude toward his friends, the Bank throws
down the glove; and the General promptly
picks it up. In a message to Congress, he as-
sails the Bank; and the fight is on.

Money is always a coward, and commonly a
fool. Also its instinct is the weak instinct of
corruption. Its attitude toward a public is ever
271

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

that of the threatening, bullying, bragging ter-
rorist, who will either rule or ruin. It works
by fear, and resorts to every quack device. It
will gnash its jaws, lash its tail, spout fire and
smoke in the face of a quailing world. And
yet all this tail-lashing and jaw-gnashing and
fire-spouting is a sham. Money, for all its
appearance of ferocity, is no more perilous
to folk who face it than is the fire-spouting,
jaw-gnashing, tail-lashing papier-mache dragon
of grand opera. Attack it, and what follows?
A couple of rueful supernumeraries crawl ab-
jectly, if grumblingly, from its papier-mache
stomach — the complete yet harmless reason
of the jaw-gnashing, fire-spouting, tail-lashing
from which a frightened world shrunk back.

Besides these furious matters. Money does
another lying thing. It seeks to teach the pub-
lic to regard it as the palpitant heart of the
country itself.

"I am the seat of life!" cries Money.
" Touch me, and you die! "

The advantage of this lie is clear; that is, if
the lie win credit. Being the heart, however
corrupt, no law surgery may reach it. If
Money were the hand of a people, or the fin-
gers on that hand, then it might be dealt
272

A CHANGE OF FRONT

with. It could be statute-lanced or poulticed or
even amputated, and no threat to life ensue.
Money foresees this; and, with that lying
cunning which is ever the scoundrel sword and
shield of cowards, it declares itself to be the
heart. Thus is it safeguarded against the
honest least correction of communal saw and
knife. Being the heart, its vileness may be de-
plored but cannot be mended. For who is the
mediciner that shall handle the heart to any
result save death?

And yet while Money thus proclaims itself
the nation's heart it lies. It is not even so re-
putable a member as the hand. At the most
it comes to be no more than just a thumb, or a
forefinger, and the farthest possible remove
from any source of life. Folk who would aid
their money-throttled hour must remember these
things.

Banker Biddle and the Bank, now when
the General advances upon them, go through
that furious charlatanry of jaw-gnashing, tail-
lashing, and fire-spouting. The General is un-
convinced, unterrified. His hawk eyes pierce
the miserable masquerade. He knows the Bank
for a dragon of paper and pretense, and does
not hesitate.

273

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

Falling to arouse his personal-political fear,
Banker Biddle and the Bank attempt to stay
the General by proclaiming a peril to the coun-
try at large.

" We are the throbbing heart of all pros-
perity ! " they cry.

The General recognizes the lie. He knows
that prosperity comes from the rain and the sun
and the soil, and not from banks or bankers.
As well might the two-bushel sacks declare
themselves to be the harvest reason of a na-
tion's wheat. The General continues his ad-
vance. There shall be no evasion, no hiding,
no safety by lies; masks are not to avail nor
pretenses protect.

The General in his attack on Banker Biddle
and the Bank displays a genius even with that
which he employed against the English at New
Orleans. Banker Biddle and the Bank are
the petted custodians of all the millions of
Government. The General " removes " those
millions — a yellow mountain of gold I Inci-
dentally, he dismisses a weak-kneed Secretary of
the Treasury as a preliminary.

" Remove the deposits ! " says the Gen-
eral.

" I dare not! " whines the weak-kneed one.
274

A CHANGE OF FRONT

"I will take the responsibility!" urges the
General.

Still the weak-kneed one falters. At that
the General sets him aside.

The " removal " of those Government mil-
lions, which is as the drawing off of half their
life blood, leaves the Bank and Banker Biddle
exceeding pale in the face. They look appeal-
ingly at Statesman Clay, who, the better to
manage his side of the conflict, has taken a Ken-
tucky seat in the Senate. Statesman Clay en-
courages the Bank and Banker Biddle. It will
all come right, he says; there is a Senate bomb
preparing.

To bring the General squarely before the
public as the Bank's destroyer. Statesman Clay
anticipates the years and offers a measure
renewing the charter of that money temple.
Statesman Calhoun, with every Senate foe of
the General, is for it. The measure gallops
through both Senate and House. It is sent'
whirling to the White House.

" Will he sign it? " wonders Statesman Clay,
in consultation with his own thoughts.

For an anxious moment Statesman Clay fears
the coming of that signature; he cannot con-
ceive of courage greater than his own. His
275

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

anxiety is misplaced. The General will not
sign. When the Clay-constructed measure re-
newing the charter of the Banic is laid before
him, with about what ado might attend the
killing of a garter snake he breaks Its back with
his veto.

Statesman Clay rubs his satisfied hands.

" Now," says he to Banker Biddle, who Is
becoming a bit weak, " we have him helpless I
That veto is his death warrant ! The campaign
is at hand; I shall be the candidate of my
party, he of his. That veto shall be the issue 1
Money, you know, is all powerful. Being so,
who shall doubt the result when now the pub-
lic is driven to choose between the Bank and
the White House — Prosperity and Andrew
Jackson? "

XXII

THE DOWNFALL OF MACHIA-
VELLI CLAY

CHAPTER XXII

THE DOWNFALL OF MACHIAVELLI CLAY

MACHIAVELLI CLAY Is one who
looks seldom from the window and
often in the glass. No man carries
himself more upon the back of his own regard
than does Machiavelli Clay. He believes in the
wisdom of the classes, the ignorance of the
masses, and thinks that government should be
of people, by statesmen, for statesmen. Also
he has a profound respect for Money, and little
for perishing flesh and blood. As to each of
these thought-conditions he lives In head-on col-
lision with the General, who in all things is his
precise contradiction.

As a guide by which the popular view may
direct Itself, Machiavelli Clay asks the Senate to
pass a vote of censure upon the General. With
the help of Statesman Calhoun, he puts it
through. The Clay-invoked " censure " strikes
these sparks from the General:
19 279

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

" Major," he cries, thinking on his saw-
handles as he and Wizard Lewis sit with their
evening pipes, " if I Hve to get these robes of
office off, I may yet bring that rascal to a dear
account."

Banker Biddle, now when his precious Bank
for its life or death will be made the campaign
issue, is not without those pale misgivings which
ever shake the livid heart of Money on the eve
of war. Observing this knee-knocking trepida-
tion, Machiavelli Clay attempts to give him
courage. This is no difficult task for Machia-
velli Clay to undertake; since, in his native ig-
norance of the popular, he harbors no doubt of
the General's downfall. Also he extends cheer-
ing word the more readily to the quaking Bank-
er Biddle, because the latter and his jeopardized
Bank are to furnish those golden sinews of war,
which will be required for the Whig campaign.

Machiavelli Clay uplifts the confidence of
Banker Biddle to a point where the latter, from
his money lair in Philadelphia, WTltes him the
following :

" He (the General) has all the fury of a
chained panther biting the bars of its cage — a
condition which I think should contribute to re-
lieve the country of the tyranny of this mlser-
280

MACHIAVELLI CLAY

able man. You, my dear sir, are destined to be
the instrument of that deliverance, and at no
period of your life has the public had a deeper
stake in you."

In so writing to Machiavelli Clay, Banker
Biddle permits his hopes to overrun his intelli-
gence. Machiavelli Clay is not to become " the
deliverer " of his hour, nor shall the *' chained
panther " in the White House be cast out.
Machiavelli Clay, however, is no Elijah gifted
of prophecy; but, on the wooden-witted other
hand, proves quite as besotted touching the fu-
ture as does Banker Biddle. He replies to that
financier in these words:

" Fear not; there shall come a cleansing of
the Augean stables ! Our cause cannot fail !
That veto of the Bank charter is a broad con-
fession of the incompetency of the Administra-
tion, and shows him (the General) unfit to
carry on the business of government. I think
we are authorized to confidently anticipate his
defeat."

Now when the candidates of the Democratic
party are about to be named, Statesman Cal-
houn foresees that he himself will be ignored,
and ex-Cabineteer Van Buren supplant him,
nominationally, for the place of Vice-President.
281

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

To save his chagrin, and on the principle that
when one is about to be thrown out it is wise
to go out, he resigns from his vice-presiden-
tial perch, lays down the Senate gavel, and
returns to his home-state of South Carolina.
Once there, following the Kentucky example of
Machiavelli Clay, he sees to it that his own
Legislature returns him to Washington as a
Senator.

Statesman Calhoun abandons hope of mak-
ing his appearance as a White House candidate
in the campaign at hand. What then? He is
of middle years, and can wait. He will lie back
and watch the struggle between the General
and Machiavelli Clay. Let victory fall where
it may, he. Statesman Calhoun, will prepare
himself for his own sure triumph in the con-
flict four years away. Which demonstrates
that, while his judgment is crippled, his ambi-
tion stands as tall and as straight as a mountain
pine.

The tickets are brought to the field — the
General against Machiavelli Clay, with ex-Cab-
ineteer Van Buren, and a Whig obscurity
named Sargent running for second place. The
issue presents the alternative — the General or
the Bank, humanity in a death-hug with Money.
282

MACHIAVELLI CLAY

Machiavelll Clay and Banker Biddle have no
fears; for they are gold-blind and can see noth-
ing beyond themselves. They are given a rude
awakening. The people speak; and when the
sound of that speaking dies out, the General has
overwhelmed Machiavelli Clay with two hun-
dred and nineteen electoral votes against the
latter's sixty-nine. Machiavelli Clay and Bank-
er Biddle and the Bank go down, while the
General — ever the conqueror and never once
the conquered — sweeps back to the presidency.
Also ex-Cabineteer Van Buren is made Vice-
President, as aforetime resolved upon by the
General and Wizard Lewis, and from that
Senate eminence, so lately vacated by Statesman
Calhoun, will wield the gavel over togaed dis-
cussion.

The General, President the second time, picks
up the reins, settles himself upon the box, and
proceeds to drive his governmental times after
this wise. He kills out what fev/ sparks of life
still animate the Biddle Bank. He removes the
Creeks and Cherokees from Florida and Geor-
gia, and thereby guarantees the scalp on many
an innocent head. He throws open the public
lands for settlement at nominal figures. He
fosters a gold currency and discourages paper.
283

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

He pays off the last splinter of the national
debt, and offers to the wondering eyes of his-
tory the spectacle of a country that doesn't owe
a dollar. He makes commercial treaties with
every tribe of Europe. Finally, he compels
France to pay five millions in gold for outrages
long ago committed upon the sailors of America.

The last is not brought about without some
show of force, France, at the General's de-
mand, falls into a white heat of rage and
froths for Instant war. The General takes
France at her warlike word, notifies Congress,
and orders his fleet into the Mediterranean, the
flagship Constitution in the van.

The cool vigor of the move sets France gasp-
ing. She consults England across the Channel,
and is privily assured that whipping a Yankee
eighty-gun ship is a feat so difficult of marine
accomplishment that, like the blossoming of the
century plant, it would be foolish to look for it
oftener than once in one hundred years. It is
England's impression, whispered in the Frank-
ish ear, that it will be cheaper to pay the five
millions. Whereupon, France breaks into dip-
lomatic smiles, assures the General that her late
war-rage was mere humor and her froth a jest.
And pays.

284

MACHIAVELLI CLAY

By way of a little junket, the General visits
New England, and at the genial sight of him
that chill region thaws like icicles in July. In-
deed, the New England temperature rises to a
height where Harvard College confers upon X
the General the degree of Doctor of Laws. At
which Statesman Adams nurses his wrath with
this entry in his sour diary;

*' Seminaries of learning have been time- x
servers and sycophants in every age."

The General has done his people many a
service. He has defended them from savage
Red Stick Creeks, and savage Red-coat English
with their war cry of " Beauty and Booty! "
Now he will do his foremost work of all, and
buckler them against the javelins of treason, V'
save them from between the jaws of a con-
spiracy— wolfish and widespread for national
destruction.

The conspiracy has its birth in the ambition-
crazed bosom of Statesman Calhoun; its shibo-
leth is "Nullification! "

*' I would sooner," said Caesar, when his
courtiers were laughing at the pompous mayor
of a little mud town in Spain — " I would
sooner be first here than second in Rome ! "
And, centuries after, the sentiment wakes a re-
285

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

sponslve echo in the jealous breast of Statesman
Calhoun.

Statesman Calhoun aims to follow the Gen-
eral in the headship of American affairs. De-
feated of that, he is resolved to sever those
constitutional links which bind his home-state
of South Carolina to her sister States in Federal
Union, and declare her a nation by and of
herself.

In his new role of " seceder," Statesman Cal-
houn makes this impression on the English
Harriet Martineau. After speaking of him as
Involving himself tighter and tighter in spin-
nings of political mysticism and fantastic specu-
lation, she calls him a " cast-iron man " and
says :

"He (Calhoun) Is eager, absorbed, over-
speculative. I know of no one who lives In
such Intellectual solitude. He meets men and
harangues them by the fireside as In the Senate.
He Is wrought like a piece of machinery, set
^ going vehemently by a weight, and stops while
you answer. He either passes by what you say,
or twists it into suitability with what Is in his
head, and begins to lecture again. He is full
of his ' Nullification,' and those who know the
force that is in him and his utter incapacity for
modification by other minds, will no more ex-

286

MACHIAVELLI CLAY

pect repose and self -retention from him than
from a volcano in full force. Relaxation is no
longer in the power of his will. I never saw
anyone who gave me so completely the idea of
' possession.' "

By which the English woman would say that
she thinks Statesman Calhoun insane. She
overstates, however, his *' incapacity for modi-
fication " and " self-retention." There will
come a day when he does not pause, nor close
his eyes in sleep, between Washington and his
home in South Carolina, such is his fear-spurred
eagerness — with the shadow of the gibbet all
across him ! — to stamp out what fires of treason
he has been at pains to kindle, and avoid that
halter which the General promises as their re-
ward.

It is in Senate debate that Statesman Calhoun
removes the mask from his intended treason,
and gives the world a glimpse of its blackness.
He threatens, unless the tariff be changed to
match his pleasure, that South Carolina will
prevent its enforcement within her borders.
He declares South Carolina superior to the na-
tion in her powers, and proclaims for her the
right to " nullify " what Federal laws she deems
inimical to her peculiar interest. He shows how
287

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

South Carolina will, as against the tariff con-
templated, invoke that inherent right to " nul-
lify," and says, should the Washington govern-
ment attempt to coerce her, she will take herself
out of the Union.

To this exposition of States rights, the Gen-
eral in the White House listens with gathering
scorn. He turns to Wizard Lewis :

" Why, sir," he cries, addressing that Merlin
of politics, *' if one is to believe Calhoun, the
Union is like a bag of meal open at both ends.
No matter how you pick it up, the meal all runs
out. I shall tie the bag and save the country ! "

Treason, however base, will have its friends,
and Statesman Calhoun goes not without " Nul-
lification " followers. In his own mischievous
State the doctrine is received with open arms.
The Governor issues his proclamation; a con-
vention of the people is authorized by the
y. Legislature, They are to meet at Colum-
bia and settle the details of " Nullification "
in its practical workings out. They do meet;
and adopt unanimously an " Ordinance of Nul-
lification " which declares the tariff just made
in Washington " Null, void, and no law, nor
binding upon this State, its officers or citizens."
They decree that no duties, enjoined by such
288

^^^^^ y^^^Z^^^

MACHIAVELLI CLAY

tariff, shall be paid or permitted to be paid in
any port of South Carolina. The closing as-
sertion of the " Ordinance " runs that, should
the Government of the United States try by
force to collect the tariff duties, *' The people
of South Carolina will thenceforth hold them-
selves absolved from all further obligation to
maintain or preserve their political connection
with the people of the other States, and will
proceed to organize a separate government, and
do all other acts and things which sovereign
and independent States may of right do."

Following this doughty setting-out of what
one might call the Palmetto-rattlesnake position,
the Governor suggests military associations on
the model of the Minute Men of the Revolu-
tion, and makes ready for what blood-letting
shall be required to sustain Statesman Calhoun
in his new preachment. Altogether it is a South
Carolina day of bombast and blue cockades,
with Statesman Calhoun already chosen as the
president of a coming " Southern Confederacy."

While these dour matters are in process of
Palmetto transaction, Statesman Hayne encoun-
ters the lion-faced Webster on the floor of the
Senate, and the latter establishes forever the
rightful supremacy of the Federal Union, and
289

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

demonstrates that the " Nullification " set up
by Statesman Calhoun is but the chimera of a
jaundiced, ambition-bitten mind. Thus canters
the hour in the Senate and in South Carolina;
while up in the White House the General sits
reading a book.

XXIII

THE FEDERAL UNION: IT
MUST BE PRESERVED

CHAPTER XXIII

THE FEDERAL UNION: IT MUST BE PRESERVED

THE General is reading his book, when
in walks Wizard Lewis. The latter
necromancer casually alludes to
Statesman Calhoun, and his pet infamy of
•' Nullification." At this the General's honest
rage begins to mount.

" You bear witness, Major," he cries — " you
bear witness how Calhoun is trying me ! But
by the living heavens, I'll uphold the law ! "
Then, shaking the ponderous tome at Wizard
Lewis, his finger marking the place — " Here ! ^
I've been reading what old John Marshall said
in the case of Aaron Burr. He makes treason
in its definition as plain as a pikestaff. A man
can't think treason ; he can't talk treason ; he can
only act treason. It requires an act — an overt
act! Calhoun is safe while he only talks or
conspires. But let one of his followers perform
one act of opposition to the law, even if it be no
293

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

more than hand on sword hilt or just the snap-
ping of a fireless flint against an empty rifle-
pan, and I have him. There would be the overt
act demanded by old Marshall; and he goes on
to say that the overt act, once committed, at-
taches to all of the conspirators and becomes
the act of each. I shall keep my ear as well
as my eye, Major, on Calhoun's State of South
Carolina; and, at the first crackling of a treas-
onable twig beneath a traitorous foot, into a
felon's cell goes he. Then we shall see what a
hempen noose will do for him and his ' Nulli-
fication.' "

The General, the better to deliver this long
oration, gets up and walks the floor. Having
concluded, down he drops into his chair again,
and to grubbing at old John Marshall.

The General and Wizard Lewis decide that
a perfect White House silence concerning
" Nullification " is the proper course. The
General will sit mute, and never by so much
as the arching of a bushy brow intimate what
he will do, should Statesman Calhoun push his
treason to that last extreme — that overt act of
opposition to the Federal law and its enforce-
ment, demanded by the great Chief Justice.
And so, while arises all this turmoil of treason
294

THE FEDERAL UNION

in the Senate and South Carolina, the White
House is as voiceless as a tomb.

While the General is silent, he Is in no sort
Idle. He makes secret preparations to bruise
the head of the serpent of secession with a heel
of steel. He sends General Scott to South Caro-
lina. Into Castle Pinckney he conveys thou-
sands of rifles. One by one his warships drop
into Charleston harbor, until, with broadsides
trained upon the town, sc6res of them ride at
ominous anchor.

The General gets word to his ever-reliable
Coffee. In those well-nigh twenty years which
have come and gone since the English were
swept up In fire at New Orleans, the hunting-
shirt men in the General's country of Tennes-
see have Increased and multiplied. Their num-
bers are such that at the end of twenty days the
energetic Coffee stands ready to cataract twenty- ''^^
five thousand of them into South Carolina
at the lifting of the General's bony finger,
and follow these In forty days with twenty-five
thousand more. Not content with his fifty
thousand hunting-shirt men from Tennessee,
the General arranges for an equal force from
North Carolina and Georgia.

If ever a people stood within the shadow of
20 295

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

doom it is our treason-forging ones of South
Carolina in these days of Nullilication, Colum-
bia Conventions, Minute Men, and Blue Cock-
ades.

Some of them are not so dim of eye but
what they perceive as much, and begin to catch
their breath. Still a wrong, once it be set roll-
ing like a stone down hill, is difficult to over-
take and stop. So, while the heart of would-be
Treason beats a little faster, and its cheek turns
a little whiter, as inklings of what the wordless
General is doing begin to creep about among
Palmetto-rattlesnake coteries, the work of mak-
ing ready for black revolt proceeds.

In Washington, that grim silence of the
White House grows oppressive. There be
prudent ones, among the nullifying adherents
of Statesman Calhoun, who are willing to play
the part of traitor if no peril attend the role.
They are highly averse to the character if it
promise to thrust their sensitive necks into gal-
lows danger. The questions everywhere on the
whispering lips of these timid treason mongers
are:

" What is the Jackson intention? What will
the President do? Will he look upon Nullifi-
cation as merely some minor sin of politics?
296

THE FEDERAL UNION

Or, will he treat it as stark treason, and fall
back on courts and hangman's ropes?"

No one answers, for no one knows. As for
the General himself, his lips are as dumb as
a statue's. Traitors may go wrong, or go
right; he will light no lamp for their guidance.
The awful suspense is carrying many of the
treason mongers to the brink of hysteria. Even
Statesman Calhoun, morbid and ambition-mad,
is made to pause. He himself begins to wonder
if it would not be as well and as wise to meas-
ure in advance those iron-bound anti-treason
lengths to which the General stands ready to

go-
To help them in their perplexity, Statesman

Calhoun and his Nullifying followers evolve a
cunning scheme. In its amiable execution, it
should lay bare, they think, the purposes of
the General. Statesman Calhoun and his co-
conspirators have long ago laid claim to the
dead Jefferson as their patron saint of " Nul-
lification," asserting that precious tenet to be
his invention. They decide to give a dinner
in honor of the departed publicist. The din-
ner shall take place on the dead Jefferson's
birthday at the Indian Queen. The General
shall come as a guest. Statesman Calhoun and
297

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

his co-conspirators will be there. Statesman
Calhoun will offer a toast, declaratory of those
superior rights over the Federal government
which he asserts in fav^or of the separate States.
It shall be a Nullification toast, one redolent
of a State's right to secede from the Federal
Union.

Statesman Calhoun having launched his fire-
ship of sentiment, the General will be requested
to give a toast. Should he comply, it is be-
lieved by Statesman Calhoun and his co-con-
spirators that he will in partial measure at
least unlock his plans. If he refuse — why then,
under the circumstances, his refusal will be
pregnant of meaning. In either event, he will
be beneath the batteries of five hundred eyes,
and much should be read in his face.

That Jefferson dinner is an admirable device,
one adapted to draw the General's fire. Its
authors go about felicitating themselves upon
their sagacity in evolving it.

" What say you, Major? " asks the General,
when he receives the invitation upon which so
much of national good or ill may pend; *' what
say you? Shall we humor them? You know
what these Calhoun traitors are after."

"True!" responds Wizard Lewis; "they
298

THE FEDERAL UNION

want to count us, and measure us, in that busi-
ness of their proposed treason."

" I'll tell you what I think," says the Gen-
eral, after a pause. " I'll fail to attend; but
you shall go, and be counted in my stead. Also,
since they'll expect a toast from me, I'll send
them one in your care. I hope they may find
it to their villain liking — they and their arch-
traitor Calhoun! "

The Indian Queen is a crowded hostelry that
Jefferson night. The halls and waiting rooms
are thronged of eminent folk. Some are there
to attend the dinner; others for gossip and to
hear the news. As Wizard Lewis climbs the
stairs to the banquet room on the second floor,
he encounters the lion-faced Webster coming
down.

" There's too much secession in the air for
me," says the lion-faced one, shrugging his
heavy shoulders.

" If that be so," returns Wizard Lewis, *' it's
a reason for remaining,"

Wizard Lewis mingles with the groups in
the corridors and parlors, for the banquet hall
is not yet thrown open. Among these, he nods
his recognition of Colonel Johnson, of Ken-
tucky, tall of form, grave of brow, he who slew
299

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

Tecumseh; Senator Benton, once of that safe
receptive cellar; the lean Rufus Choate, eaten
of Federalism and the worship of caste; Tom
Corwin, round, humorous, with a face of ruddy
fun; Isaac Hill, gray and lame, the General's
Senate friend from New Hampshire whose in-
sulted credit started the war on Banker Biddle's
bank; Editor Noah, of New York, as Hebraic
and ^s red of head as Absalom ; the quick-eyed
Amos Kendall; Editor Blair, who conducts the
Globe, the General's mouthpiece in Washing-
ton; the reckless Marcy, who declares that he
sees " no harm in the aphorism that ' to the vic-
tor belong the spoils of the enemy.' ''

The dinner is spread. The decorations are
studied in their democracy. Hundreds of can-
dles in many-armed iron branches blaze and
gutter about the great room. The high ceil-
ings and the walls are festooned of flags. The
stars and stripes are draped over a portrait of
the dead Jefferson. Here and there are hung
the flags of the several States. With peculiar
ostentation, and as though for challenge, next
to the national colors flows the Palmetto-
rattlesnake flag of South Carolina — Statesman
Calhoun's emblem.

The dinner is profuse, and folk of appetite
300

THE FEDERAL UNION

and fineness declare it elegant. There Is none
of your long-drawn courses, so dear to Whigs
and Federalists. Black servants come and go,
to shift plates and knives, and carve at the call
of a guest. At hopeful Intervals along the
tables repose huge sirloins, and steaming rounds
of beef. There are quail pies; chickens fried
and turkeys roasted; pies of venison and rab-
bits, and pot pies of squirrels; soups and fishes
and vegetables; boiled hams, and giant dishes
of earthenware holding baked beans; roast
suckling pigs, each with a crab-apple in his
jaws; corn breads and flour breads, and pan-
cakes rolled with jellies; puddings — Indian,
rice, and plum; mammoth quaking custards.
Everywhere bristle ranks and double ranks of
bottles and decanters ; a widest range of drinks,
from whisky to wine of the Cape, is at every-
body's elbow. Also on side tables stand wooden
bowls of salads, supported by weighty cheeses;
and, to close in the flanks, pies — mince, pump-
kin, and apple; with final cofi^ee and slim,
long pipes of clay In which to smoke tobacco
of Trinidad.

As the guests seat themselves. Chairman Lee
proposes :

'* The memory of Thomas Jefferson.'*
301

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

The toast is drunk, in silence. Then, with
clatter of knife and fork, clink of glasses, and
hum of conversation, the feast begins.

The General's absence Is a daunting surprise
to many who do not know how to construe it.
Wizard Lewis, through Chairman Lee, pre-
sents the General's regrets. He expected to be
present, but is unavoidably detained at the
White House. The " regrets " are received
uneasily; the General's absence plainly gives
concern to more than one.

As the dinner marches forward, " Nullifica-
tion " and secession are much and loudly talked.
They become so openly the burden of conversa-
tion and are withal so loosely in the common
air, that sundry gentlemen — more timorous
than loyal perhaps — make pointless excuses,
and withdraw.

Statesman Calhoun sits on the right hand
of Chairman Lee. The festival approaches the
glass and bottle stage, and toasts are offered.
There are a round score of these; each smells
of secession and State's rights. The speeches
which follow are even more malodorous of
treason than the toasts.

The hour is hurrying toward the late.
Statesman Calhoun whispers a word to Chair-
302

THE FEDERAL UNION

man Lee; evidently the urgent moment is at
hand.

Statesman Calhoun hands a slip of paper
to Chairman Lee. There falls a stillness;
laughter dies and talk is hushed.

Chairman Lee rises to his feet. He pays
Statesman Calhoun many flowery compliments.

" The distinguished statesman from South
Carolina," says Chairman Lee in conclusion,
" begs to propose this sentiment." He reads
from the slip : " ' The Federal Union ! Next to
our liberty, the most dear ! May we all remem-
ber that it can only be preserved by respecting
the rights of the States, and distributing equally
the burdens and the benefits of that Union ! ' "

The stillness of death continues — marked
and profound; for, as Chairman Lee resumes
his seat, Wizard Lewis rises. All know his re-
lations with the General; every eye is on him
with a look of interrogation. Now when the
Calhoun toast has been read, they scan the face
of Wizard Lewis, representative of the absent
General, to note the effect of the shot. Wiz-
ard Lewis is admirable, and notably steady.

" The President," says Wizard Lewis,
" when he sent his regrets, sent also a senti-
ment."

303

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

Wizard Lewis passes a folded paper to
Chairman Lee, who opens it and reads :

*' * The Federal Union ! It must be pre-
served ! ' "

The words fall clear as a bell — for some,
perhaps, a bell of warning. Statesman Cal-
houn's face is high and insolent. But only for
a moment. Then his glance falls; his brow
becomes pallid, and breaks into a pin-point
sprinkle of sweat. He seems to shrink and sear
and wither, as though given some fleeting pic-
ture of the future, and the gallows prophecy
thereof. In the end he sits as though in a kind
of blackness of despair. The General is not
there, but his words are there, and Statesman
Calhoun is not wanting of an impression of the
terrible meaning, personal to himself, which
underlies them.

It is a moment ominous and mighty — a mo-
ment when a plot to stampede history is foiled
by a sentiment, and Treason's heart and Trea-
son's hand are palsied by a toast of seven
words. And while Statesman Calhoun, white
and frightened and broken, is helpless in the
midst of his followers, the General sits alone
and thoughtful with his quiet White House
pipe.

304

THE FEDERAL UNION

For all the plain sureness of that toast, the
would-be rebellionists now crave a surer sign.
A member of Congress from South Carolina,
polite and insinuating, calls on the General.

" Mr. President," says the insinuating sign-
seeking one, suavely deferential, " to-morrow I
go back to my home. Have you any message
for the good folk of South Carolina? "

" Yes," returns the General grimly, his hard
blue eyes upon the insinuating one, while his
heavy brows are lowered in that falcon-trick of
menace — " yes; I have a message for the ' good
folk of South Carolina.' You may say to the
' good folk of South Carolina ' that if one of
them so much as lift finger in defiance of the
laws of this government, I shall come down
there. And I'll hang the first man I lay hands
on, to the first tree I can reach."

XXIV
THE ROUT OF TREASON

CHAPTER XXIV

THE ROUT OF TREASON

DEMOCRACY goes not without its de-
fects, and there be times when that
very freedom wherewith it invests
the citizen spreads a snare to his feet. For a
chief fault, Democracy is apt to mislead am-
bitious ones, dominated of ego and a want of
patriotism in even parts. Such are prone to
run liberty into license in following forth the
appetites of their own selfishness, and forget
where the frontiers of loyalty leave off and
those of black treason begin.

In a democracy, for your clambering nar-
rowist to turn traitor is never a far-fetched task.
Being free to speak as he politically will and,
per incident, think as he politically will, he finds
it no mighty journey to the perilous assumption
that he may act as he politically will. Know-
ing his duty to guard the temple, he argues
therefrom his right to deface it. Treason fades
309

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

into a mere abstraction — a crime curious in this,
that it is impossible of concrete commission.

Statesman Calhoun is among these ill-guided
ones of topsy-turvy patriotism. Blurred by
ambition, soured of disappointment, license and
liberty have grown with him to be unconscious
synonyms. The laws against treason carry
only a remonstrance, never a warning, and — as
he reads them — but deplore that civic villainy,
while threatening nothing of grief for what
dark souls shall be guilty of it. In this frame
the General's stark sentiment, " The Federal
Union ! It must be preserved ! " and that sub-
sequent hanging promise which, by the mouth
of the suave insinuating one, he sends to " the
good folk of South Carolina," go beyond sur-
prise with Statesman Calhoun, and provide a
shock. It is as though, walking in a trance of
treason, he knocks his head against the White
House wall; his awakening is rudely, painfully
complete. That dream of a separate nation,
with himself at its head, gives way to hangman
visions of rope and gallows tree; and, from
bending his energies to methods by which he
may take South Carolina out of the Union, he
gives himself wholly to the more tremulous
enterprise of keeping himself out of jail.
310

THE ROUT OF TREASON

Some hint of that recent literature, which the
General found so interesting, gets abroad, and
many go reading the lucid dictum of old Mar-
shall, Treason as a crime becomes better un-
derstood; and — by Statesman Calhoun at least
— better feared. Moved of these fears, States-
man Calhoun sends message after message into
his restless Palmetto-rattlesnake State of South
Carolina commanding, nay imploring, a present
suspension of " Nullification." His Palmetto-
rattlesnake adherents, while not understanding
the danger which fringes them about, have al-
ready found enough that is alarming in the
very air; and, for their own safety as much
as his, are heedful to regard that prayer for a
" Nullification " passivity. The South Caro-
lina shouting ceases; the Minute Men rest on
their traitorous arms; the manufacture of blue
cockades is abandoned; while the Columbia
convention devotes itself to innocuous adjourn-
ments from innocent day to day.

While Palmetto-rattlesnake affairs are thus
timidly quiescent, the Senate itself — having
read old Marshall, and being, moreover, some-
what instructed by the watchful attitude of the
General, who sits in the White House a figure
of frowning menace, both relentless and fateful
21 311

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

— devotes itself to the scaffold extrication of
Statesman Calhoun, Machiavelli Clay leads
the rescue party. His is of an opposite politi-
cal church to that of Statesman Calhoun; but
the pair meet on the warm, common ground of
a deathless hatred of the General. Under the
mollifying guidance of Machiavelli Clay, Sena-
tor after Senator surrenders those pet schedules
of tariff desired of his own people, and puts
the surrender on the expressive basis of " saving
the neck of Calhoun."

When every possible tariff cut has been ar-
ranged, and Congress adjourns, Statesman Cal-
houn makes his memorable homeward flight.
Horse after horse he rides down, night becomes
as day; for Death crouches on his crupper, and
he must stay the Nullifying hand of South
Carolina to save his own neck. He succeeds
beyond his deserts, and comes powdering into
Columbia, worn and wan and anxious, yet none
the less ahead of that " overt act " whereof old
Marshall spoke, and for which the somber Gen-
eral waits.

Once among his own treason-hatching co-
terie, Statesman Calhoun loses no moments, but
breaks up the " Nullification " nest. Secession
dies in the shell, and the Columbia convention,
312

THE ROUT OF TREASON

with more speed even than it displayed in pass-
ing It, repeals that " Ordinance of Nullifica-
tion." Thereupon Statesman Calhoun draws
his breath more freely, as one who has been
grazed by the sinister fangs of Fate; while the
Inveterate General heaves a sigh of regret.

Wizard Lewis overhears the sigh, and ques-
tions it. At this the General explains his dis-
appointment.

" It would have been better," says he, " had
we shed a little blood. This Is not the end.
Major; the serpent of treason Is only bruised,
not slain. Had Calhoun run his course, a
handful of hundreds might have died. As af-
fairs stand, however, the country must one day
wade knee-deep In blood to save itself. These
men are not honest. Their true purpose is the
downfall of the Union. Their present pretext
Is tariff; next time It will be slavery."

By way of bringing the iniquity of " Nul-
lification " before the people, together with his
views concerning It, the General seizes his big
iron pen, and scratches off a proclamation.

" I consider," says he, " the power to annul
a law of the United States, assumed by one
State, incompatible with the existence of the
Union, contradicted expressly by the Constltu-

313

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

tion, unauthorized by either Its letter or Its
spirit, inconsistent with every principle upon
which it was founded, and destructive of the
great object for which It was formed."

The country, reading the General's exposi-
tion of the Union and its Gibraltar-like char-
acter, breaks into bonfires, oratory, dinners,
barbecues, parades, and what other schemes of
jubilation are practiced by a free people. That
Is to say the country breaks Into these sundry
jubilant things, If one except the truant State of
South Carolina. In that Palmetto-rattlesnake-
ridden commonwealth there prevails a sulky
silence. No bonfires blaze, no barbecues scorch,
no dinners smoke, no parades march. Baffled
In its would-be treasons, afraid to stretch forth
Its nullifying hand lest the sword of retribu-
tion strike It off at the wrist, it comports itself
like a spoiled child thwarted, and upholds its
little dignity with a pout. No one heeds, how-
ever; and, beyond an occasional baleful glance
from the General, the rest of the world leaves
it to recover from that pout In its own time and
way.

When Congress reconvenes. Statesman Cal-
houn creeps back to his Senate place. But the
perils through which he has passed have left

3^^

THE ROUT OF TREASON

their furrowing traces, and now he offers noth-
ing, says nothing, does nothing. His heart is
water; his evil potentialities have oozed away.
Haunted of that hangman fear which still hag-
rides him, he abides mute, motionless, impo-
tent, like some Satan in chains.

To further wound Statesman Calhoun, and
in the mean, protesting teeth of Machiavelli
Clay, the Senate expunges from its record the
vote of censure it once passed upon the Gen-
eral. The resolution to expunge is offered by
Senator Benton who, as against a far-off Nash-
ville hour when only a generous cellar saved
him from the General's saw-handle, is to-day the
latter's partisan and friend. The General is
hugely pleased by the censure-expunging resolu-
tion, and has what Senate ones supported it —
being fairly the whole Senate, when one forgets
Machiavelli Clay, and our chained, embittered
Satan, Statesman Calhoun — to a grand dinner
in the East Room.

And now the official times wag prosperously
with the General. His friends are everywhere
dominant, his enemies everywhere in retreat.
Also his hair, from iron gray, fades to milk-
white.

Since nothing peculiar presses upon him in
315

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

the way of opposition, the General falls ill. He
makes little of this, however; and cures himself
with tobacco, coffee, calomel, and lancets, while
outraged doctors groan. Likewise, he burns
midnight oil in planning with Wizard Lewis
the elevation of Vice-President Van Buren,
who he is resolved shall have the presidency
after him.

While thus the General lays his Van Buren
plans, misguided admirers bombard him with
such marks of their regard as a phaeton built
of unbarked hickory, and a cheese weighing
fourteen hundred pounds. The latter sturdy
confection Is trundled Into the White House
kitchen, from which coign of vantage It sends
on high a perfume so utterly urgent that none
may stay In the White House until It Is re-
moved. Following its going, the executive win-
dows are thrown open throughout a wind-swept
afternoon, to the end that the last suffocating
reminder of that cheese shall be eliminated.

The General's hours as President are draw-
ing to a close. His hopes touching a succes-
sor carry through triumphantly, and Vice-Presi-
dent Van Buren is selected to follow him.
Neither Machiavelli Clay for the Whigs, nor
Statesman Calhoun among the Democrats, has
316

7 7 2.^^(^ ^><-^ ^^C-^-^^c^

THE ROUT OF TREASON

the courage to offer his own name to the
people.

Statesman Calhoun, aiming to subtract as
much as he may from the fortunes of nominee
Van Buren, produces a bolting ticket, headed
by one Mangum; and, for Mangum, Palmetto-
rattlesnake South Carolina — still in a tearful
pout — wastes Its lonely arrow in the air. It
was, it will be, ever thus with South Carolina,
who might do herself a good, and come to some
true notion of her own peevish Inconsequence,
if she would but take a long, hard look In the
glass. She is as one who attends the fairs, but
so over-esteems herself as to defeat every bar-
gain she might make. Her best chances are cast
away, a cheap sacrifice to vanity, since no one
will either buy her or sell her at the figure she
sets on herself. Thus, too, will it continue.
Her frayed prospects, already behind a fashion,
are to wax more shopworn and more threadbare
as the years unfold.

Nominee Van Buren is elected to succeed the
General In the White House, and every friend
of the latter votes for the little polite man of
KInderhook. The General Is delighted, since
the elevation of nominee Van Buren provides
for a continuation of his darling policies.

317

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

Wizard Lewis is delighted, because the new
situation permits the return of himself and his
beloved General to their homes by the Cumber-
land. Nor does it detract from the satisfac-
tion of either that, with the presidential com-
ing of the Kinderhook one, the final door of
political hope is barred fast in the faces of
Machiavelli Clay and Statesman Calhoun; for
both the General and Wizard Lewis hate these
two as though that hatred were a religious rite.
At last dawns President Van Buren's in-
auguration morning, and the General stands for
the last time before a people whose good and
whose honor he has so jealously guarded. Of
this farewell appearance, poet Willis writes:

"The air was elastic; the day bright and
still. More than twenty thousand people had
assembled. The procession, the General and
Mr. Van Buren riding uncovered, arrived a
little after noon. Their carriage, drawn by
four grays, paused. Descending from it at the
foot of the steps, a passage was made through
the crowd, and the tall white head of the old
chieftain went steadily up. The crowd of dip-
lomats and senators to the rear gave way. A
murmur of feeling rose up from the moving
mass below, as the infirm old General, coming
as he had from a sick chamber which his physi-

318

THE ROUT OF TREASON

cians had thought it impossible he should leave,
stood bowed before the people."

In his address the General touches many
things. He closes by saying: " My own race is
nearly run. Advanced age and failing health
warn me that I must soon pass beyond the reach
of human events. I thank God my life has
been spent in a land of liberty, and that He
gave me a heart wherewith to love my country.
Filled with gratitude, I bid you farewell."

XXV

THE GRAVE AT THE
GARDEN'S FOOT

CHAPTER XXV

THE GRAVE AT THE GARDEN's FOOT

THE General wends his slow way home-
ward, and is two months about the
journey. His progress, broken by
many stops, is like both a triumph and a fu-
neral; for double ranks of worshipers line the
route and sob or cheer as he passes. The
harsh horse-face is seamed of care and worn
by sickness; but the slim form is still erect and
lance-like, and the blue eyes gleam as hawkishly
dangerous as when, behind his low mud walls
with the faithful Coffee and his hunting-shirt
men, he broke down England's pride at New
Orleans. Everywhere the people press about
him; for republics are not ungrateful, and for
once in a way of politics it is the setting, not
the rising sun upon which all eyes are centered.
In the end he reaches home, and his country
of the Cumberland, as on many a former day,
opens its arms to receive him.

323

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

And now the General, for all his sickness and
his well-nigh threescore years and ten, must
bend himself to his labors as a planter; for he
has come back very poor. He has his acres
and his slaves; but debts have piled themselves
high, and the tooth of decay can do a devas-
tating deal in eight years.

The General goes to work as though life is
just begun. The fences are renewed, the build-
ings repaired, while the plow breaks fresh fur-
rows in fields that have lain fallow too long.
To finance his plans, he borrows ten thousand
dollars from Editor Blair. Later, by a huddle
of months. Congress repays him that one-
thousand-dollar fine, of which a quarter of a
century before he was mulcted in New Orleans.
This latter, interest swollen, is twenty-seven
hundred dollars — a sum not treated lightly in
this hour of his narrowed fortunes !

All goes prosperously. The generous soil, as
though for welcome to the General, grants such
crops of cotton that the wondering Cumberland
folk, as once they did aforetime, come miles to
view his fields. When not busy with his plant-
ing, the General is immersed In politics. Each
day he rides down to Wizard Lewis four miles
below; or Wizard Lewis rides those four miles
324

GRAVE AT GARDEN'S FOOT

up to the Hermitage. Being together, the pair,
over pipe and moderate glass, sagely consider
the state of the nation.

Down by the General's gate is a large-
stomached mail box. Each morning finds it
stuffed to suffocation with sheaves of letters and
papers tied in bundles. Also there are shoals
and shoals of visitors. For the General's home
is a Mecca of politics, to which pilgrims of
party turn their steps by ones and twos and tens.
Some come to do the stark old General honor;
some are one-time comrades, or friends who
rose up around him on fields of party war. For
the most, however, and because humanity is
selfish before it is either just or generous, the
visitors are oflice-seeking folk, who ask the
magic of the General's signature to their ap-
peals.

These selfish ones become, in their vermin
number and persistency, a very plague. They
wring from the suffering General the follow-
ing:

" The good book, Major," says he to Wiz-
ard Lewis, " tells us that at the beginning there
were in Eden a man, a woman, and an office
seeker who had been kicked out of heaven for
preaching ' Nullification ' ! To judge of the

325

V/HEN MEN GREW TALL

visiting procession, as it streams in and out of
my front gate, I should say that the latter in
his descendants has increased and multiplied far
beyond the other two."

The French king forgets and forgives those
grievous five millions, and dispatches an artist
of celebration to paint the General's portrait.
The artist finds the latter of a mind to humor
the French king. The portrait is painted — a
striking likeness! — and the gratified artist car-
ries it victoriously across seas to his royal
master.

The Glheral becomes concerned in keeping
England from stealing Oregon, and writes let-
ters to the Government at Washington in pro-
test against it.

" Oregon or war! " is his counsel.

Just as deeply does he involve himself for
the admission of Texas into the Union, declar-
ing that of right the nation's boundary should
be, and, save for the criminal carelessness of
Statesman Adams on the occasion of the last
treaty with Spain — made in a Monroe hour —
would be, the Rio Grande. Statesman Adams,
now in his icy old age, makes a speech in Bos-
ton and denies this; whereat the General retorts
in an open letter that Statesman Adams is " a
326

Andrew Jackson
From a portrait made at The Hermitage, April 15, 1845.

GRAVE AT GARDEN'S FOOT

monarchist in disguise," a " traitor," a " falsi-
fier," and his " entire address full of statements
at war with truth, and sentiments hostile to
every dictate of patriotism."

Machiavelli Clay foolishly invades the Cum-
berland country on a broad mission of personal
politics, and he like Statesman Adams makes a
speech. Machiavelli Clay, however, does not
talk of Oregon, or Texas, or what shall be the
nation's foreign policy, whether timid or war-
like. His is wholly and solely a party oration,
and in it he pays left-handed tribute to Aaron
Burr, dead a decade. Machiavelli Clay escapes
no better with his offensive eloquence than does
Statesman Adams. The perilous old General
from his Hermitage is instantly out upon him
with another open letter, of which the closing
paragraph says:

" How contemptible does this lying dema-
gogue appear, when he descends from his high
place in the Senate, and roams over the country
retailing slanders against the dead."

The General is much refreshed by these out-
bursts, and, in that contentment of soul which
follows, resolves to join the church. Long ago
he promised the blooming Rachel, fast asleep
22 327

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

at the foot of the garden, that once he be free
from the muddy yoke of politics he will accept
religion, and now he keeps his word. He unites
himself with the congregation which worships
in that little chapel, aforetime built for the
blooming Rachel, and, upon his coming into the
fold, there arises vast rejoicing throughout the
ardent length and breadth of Cumberland Pres-
byterianism.

The pastor. Dominie Edgar, calls often at
the Hermitage; for he feels that the General
may require some special spiritual grooming.
One day he observes that convert's saw-handles,
oiled and neat and ready for blood, on a man-
tel, prayerfully crossed beneath a portrait of
the blooming Rachel. The good dominie Is
shocked, but does not show it. He picks up
one of the saw-handles.

" This has seen service, doubtless," he re-
marks tentatively.

"Ayl" responds the General grimly; "It
has seen good service."

Dominie Edgar puts the saw-handle back in
place, and his curiosity pushes no farther afield.
He rightly conjectures it to be the weapon
which cut down the slanderous Dickinson, and
mentally holds that it will more advantage the
328

GRAVE AT GARDEN'S FOOT

soul of his convert to touch as scantily as may
be upon topics so ferocious. Shifting his
ground, Dominie Edgar asks:

"General, do you forgive your enemies?"

" Parson," says the convert, " I forgive my
enemies, and welcome. But I shall never " —
here he points up at the portrait of the bloom-
ing Rachel, which seems to lovingly follow his
every motion with its painted patient eyes — *' I
shall never forgive her enemies. My feud shall
follow them, and the memory of them, to the
end of time."

Dominie Edgar sits down with his convert
to show him the error of his obdurate ways.
He lectures cogently. It is to be feared, how-
ever, that his doctrinal seed of forgiveness falls
upon hard, intractable ground; for, while the
convert says never a word, the lecture serves but
to light again in those blue eyes what lamps of
hateful battle burned there on a certain fierce
May morning in that popular Kentucky wood.

The long days come and go, and the Gen-
eral lives on in fortune, peace, and honor.
Then the end draws down ; for the General has
run his threescore years and ten, and well-nigh
ten years more. Wizard Lewis sits by his
bedside, and never leaves him.
329

WHEN MEN GREW TALL

" I want to go, Major," murmurs the Gen-
eral to Wizard Lewis; " for she is over there."
He raises his eyes to the portrait of the bloom-
ing Rachel, and looks upon it long and lovingly.
*' Major! " — ^Wizard Lewis presses the thin
hand — " see that they make my grave by her
side at the garden's foot! "

The General drifts into a stupor, Wizard
Lewis holding fast his hand. The good dom-
inie Edgar is on his knees at prayer. From the
porch outside the sick room are heard the sobs
and moans of the mourning blacks.

Wizard Lewis attempts to recall the dying
General.

" What would you have done with Cal-
houn," he asks, " had he persisted in his ' Nul-
lification ' designs? "

The blue eyes rouse, and sparkle and glance
with old-time fire.

*' What would I have done with Calhoun? "
repeats the General, his voice renewed and
strong; "Hanged him, sir! — hanged him as
high as Haman ! He should have been a warn-
ing to traitors for all time! "

The sparkle subsides; the blue eyes close
again in the dullness of coming death. Wizard
Lewis holds the poor thin hand, while Dom-
330

GRAVE AT GARDEN'S FOOT

inie Edgar prays on to the accompaniment of
the sobbing and the moaning of the sorrowing
blacks.

The prayer ends; the good dominie rises to
his feet.

"Do you know me, General?" he whis-
pers. The dim eyes are lifted to those of Dom-
inie Edgar. The latter goes on : " The love of
the Lord is infinite! In it you shall find
heaven ! "

The General turns with looks of love to the
portrait of the blooming Rachel.

" Parson," says he, " I must meet her there,
or it will be no heaven for me."

The General's head droops heavily forward.
Dominie Edgar falls upon his knees, and the
voice of his praying goes upward with the
moaning and the sobbing of the slaves. Wiz-
ard Lewis places his hand on the General's
breast. He sighs, and shakes his head. That
mighty heart, all love, all iron, is still.

(1)

THE END

^Extremely entcrtainingf because it is full of char-
dictcfistic anecdotes/'— HARRY THURSTON PECK.

The Man Roosevelt: A Portrait Sketch.

By Francis E. Leupp, Washington Correspondent of
the New York Evening Fast. Illustrated from Photographs.
i2mo. Cloth, $1.25 net; postage, 12 cents additional.

" Mr. Leupp has done the country a distinct and most important
service in enabling the American people to see Mr. Roosevelt as one
sincere and enlightened man." — TJu Washington Post,

" It is frank, critical, straightforward, yet gives a picture of Theodore
Roosevelt that will increase admiration of the man. The book through-
out impresses the reader with its great moderation and strict adherence
to truth." — The San Francisco Argonaut.

" Mr. Leupp's book has an undeniable interest apart from the imme-
diate appeal of his subject. His pen is one long trained in the art of
picturesque presentation, and its cunning does not fail him here."

— The Nation,

" A book of the times, our own American times, we should call this.
The author has not in any way glossed his estimate, but has told the
brave tnith about the real President Roosevelt." — 7'he Boston Courier,

■ " For the task he has undertaken Mr. Leupp is exceptionally well
equipped. He is a trained observer and critic, and his book is full of
passages which throw a novel and interesting light on the President's
career and character." — The Nezu York Tribune.

"A sane, well-balanced, interesting study of Mr. Roosevelt's char-
acter and career. Though frankly favorable, it is critical in spirit and
discriminating in its praise." — Chicago Record-Herald.

" The book is in no sense a ' life ' of the President ; it is an attempt,
a successful attempt, to throw light upon Mr. Roosevelt's personality,
motives, and methods." — Public Opinion.

" A book well worth the writing and publishing, and well worth the
reading by any citizen, whatever his political views."

— The Washington Star,

" Mr. Leupp's book, like nearly all intensely personal and well,
written narratives, is exceedingly interesting." — The Brooklyn Citizen.

D. APPLETONAND COMPANY, NEW YORK,

A PICTURESQUE BOOK OF THE SEA.

A Sailor's Log.

Recollections of Forty Tears of Naval Life. By Rear-
Admiral Robley D. Evans, U. S. N. Illustrated.
Large i2mo. Cloth, |2.oo.

"It is essentially a book for men, young and old ; and the
man who does not enjoy it is lacking in healthy red blood." —
Chicago Bookseller.

"A profoundly interesting book. There is not a line of bra-
vado in its chapters, nor a carping criticism. It is a book which
will increase the esteem and high honor which the American feels
and willingly awards our naval heroes." — Chicago Inter-Ocean.

"It would be difficult to find an autobiography possessing
more interest than this narrative of forty years of active naval serv-
ice. It equals the most fascinating novel for interest ; it contains
a great deal of material that has a distinct historical value. . . ,
Altogether it is a most delightful book." — Brooklyn Eagle.

"His is a picturesque personality, and he stands the supreme
test by being as popular with his officers and men as he is with
the public generally. His life has been one of action and adven-
ture since he was a boy, and the record of it which he has pre-
pared in his book 'A Sailor's Log' has noT a dull line in it from
cover to cover. It is all action, action, and again action from the
first page to the last, and makes one want to go and • do things '
himself. Any boy between ritteen and nineteen who reads this
book and does not want to go to sea must be a sluggish youth.
. . . The book is really an interesting record of an interesting
man." — New York Press.

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK.

UNLIKE ANY OTHER BOOK.

A Virginia Girl in the Civil War.

Being the Authentic Experiences of a Confederate
Major's Wife who followed her Husband into Camp at
the Outbreak of the War, Dined and Supped with General
J. E. B. Stuart, ran the Blockade to Baltimore, and was
in Richmond when it was Evacuated. Collected and
edited by Myrta Lockett Avary. i2mo. Cloth, $1-25
net ; postage additional.

"The people described are gentlefolk to the back-bone, and the reader
must be a hard-hearted cynic if he does not fall in love with the ingenuous
and delightful girl who tells the story." — New York Sun.

" The narrative is one that both interests and charms. The beginning of
the end of the long and desperate struggle is unusually well told, and how
the survivors lived during the last days of the fading Confederacy forms a
vivid picture of those distressful times." — Baltimore Herald.

"The style of the narrative is attractively informal and chatty. Its
pathos is that of simplicity. It throws upon a cruel period of our national
career a side-light, bringing out tender and softening interests too little visi-
ble in the pages of formal history. " — New York World.

" This is a tale that will appeal to every Southern man and woman, and
can not fail to be of interest to every reader. It is as fresh and vivacious,
even in dealing with dark days, as the young soul that underwent the hard-
ships of a most cruel war." — Louisville Courier-yournal.

" The narrative is not formal, is often fragmentary, and is always warmly
human. . . . There are scenes among the dead and wounded, but as one
winks back a tear the next page presents a negro commanded to mount a
strange mule in midstream, at the injustice of which he strongly protests." —
New York Telegram.

"Taken at this time, when the years have buried all resentment, dulled
all sorrows, and brought new generations to the scenes, a work of this kind
can not fail of value just as it can not fail in interest. Official history moves
with two great strides to permit of the smaller, more intimate events ; fiction
lacks the realistic, powerful appeal of actuality ; such works as this must be
depended upon to fill in the unoccupied interstices, to show us just what
were the lives of those who were in this conflict or who lived in the midst of
it without being able actively to participate in it. And of this type ' A Vir-
ginia Girl in the Civil War' is a truly admirable e^^zm^Xt.."— Philadelphia
Kecord.

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK.

** EVERY AMERICAN SHOULD READ IT.''

— The Ne<ws, Providence,

The Life and Times of Thomas Jefferson.

By Thomas E. Watson, Author of "The Story of
France," " Napoleon," etc. Illustrated with many Portraits
and Views. 8vo. Attractively bound, $2.50 net ; postage,
17 cents additional.

Mr. Watson long since acquired a national reputation in connection
with his political activities in Georgia. He startled (he public soon
afterward by the publication of a history of France, which at once
attracted attention quite as marked, though different in kind. His book
became interesting not alone as the production of a Southern man
interested in politics, but as an entirely original conception of a great
theme. There was no question that a life of Jefferson from the hands of
such a writer would command very general attention, and the publishers
had no sooner announced the work as in preparation than negotiations
were begun with the author by two of the best-known newspapers in
America for its publication in serial form. During the past summer the
appearance of the story in this way has created widespread comment
which has now been drawn to the book just published.

Opinions by some of the Leading Papers.

" A vastly entertaining polemic. It directs attention to many undoubtedly
neglected facts which writers of the North have ignored or minimized."

— The New York Times Saturday Review of Books.

"A noble work. It may well stand on the shelf beside Morlev's
•Gladstone' and other epochal biographical works that have come into
prominence. It is deeply interesting and thoroughly fair and just."

— 77/1? Globe- Democrat^ St. Louis.

" The book shows great research and is as complete as it could possibly be
and every American should read it."— 7",*^ Xews, Providence.

"A unique historical work."— r^,? Commercial Advertiser, New York.

"Valuable as an historical document and as a witness to certain great facts
in the past life of the South which have seldom been acknowledged by
historians."— TV/if Post, Louisville.

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK

AN AMERICAN ADMIRAL.

Forty-five Years Under the Flag.

By WiNFiELD Scott Schley, Rear- Admiral, U. S. N.
Illustrated. 8vo. Cloth, uncut edges, and gilt top, $3.00 net.

About one-third of Admiral Schley's volume is devoted to the Spanish
War, in which he became so great a figure. He tells his own story in
simple and effective words. His recollections are constantly reinforced
by references to dispatches and other documents.

Readers will be surprised at the extent of Admiral Schley's experi-
ences. He left the Naval Academy just before the outbreak of the Civil
War and saw service with Farragut in the Gulf. Three chapters are
devoted to Civil War events. His next important service was rendered
during the opening of Corea to the commerce of the world, and the
chapter in which he describes the storming of the forts is one of thrilling
interest. Aqother important expedition in his life was the rescue of
Greely, to which three chapters are devoted. Two other chapters per-
tain to the Revolution in Chili, and the troubles growing out of the
attack upon some of Admiral Schley's men in the streets of Valparaiso.

Altogether the book contains thirty-eight chapters. It has been illus-
trated from material furnished by Admiral Schley and through his sug-
gestions, and makes an octavo volume of large size. It will appeal to
every true-hearted American.

The author says in his preface : " In times of danger and duty the writer
endeavored to do the work set before him without fear of consequences. With
this thought in mind, he has felt moved, as a duty to his wife, his children,
and his name, to leave a record of his long professional life, which has not
been without some prestige, at least for the flag he has loved and under which
he has served the best years of his life."'

" Rear-Admiral W. S. Schley's 'Forty-five Years Under the Flag' is the
most valuable contribution to the history of the American Navy that has been
written in many a year." — New York Times.

" The author's career is well worthy of a book, and he has every reason for
pride in telling of his forty-five active years in all parts of the world."

—Edwin L. Shiiman in the Chicago Record-Herald.

"It is a stirring story, told with the simple directness of a sailor. Its read-
ing carries the conviction of its truthfulness. The Admiral could not have
hoped to accomplish more." — Chicago Evening Post.

" He has told his own story, in his own way, from his own viewpoint, and
goes after his detractors, open and above board, with his big g:uns."

— Washington Post.

" It is a work that will interest everyone, from the sixteen-year-old school-
boy who is studying history and loves tales of stirring adventure to the grand-
sire whose blood still pulses hotly with patriotic pride at the recounting of
valiant deeds of arms under our starry flag." — Boston American.

' ' The Admiral tells the story well. His is a manly and straightforward
style. He leaves nothing to doubt, nothing open to controversy."

— Baltimore Sun.

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK.

VIVID, MOVING, SYMPATHETIC HUMOROUS.

A Diary from Dixie.

By Mary Boykin Chesnut. Being her Diary from
November, 1861, to August, 1865. Edited by Isabella D.

Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary. Illustrated. 8vo. Orna-
mental Cloth, $2.50 net; postage additional.

Mrs. Chesnut was the most brilliant woman that the South
has ever produced, and the charm of her writing is such as to
make all Southerners proud and all Northerners envious. She was
the wife of James Chesnut, Jr., who was United States Senator
from South Carolina from 1859 to 1861, and acted as an aid to
President Jefferson Davis, and was subsequently a Brigadier-Gen-
eral in the Confederate Army. Thus it was that she was intimately
acquainted with all the foremost men in the Southern cause.

" In this diary is preserved the most moving; and vi\-id record of the South-
ern Confederacy of which we have any knowledge. It is a piece of social
history of inestimable value. It interprets to posterity the spirit in which the
Southerners entered upon and strugf.ded through the war that ruined them.
It paints poignantly but with simplicity the wreck of that old world which had
so much about it that was beautiful and noble as well as evil. Students of
American life have often smiled, and with reason, at the stilted and extrava-
gant fashion in which the Southern woman had been described south of Mason
and Dixon's line— the unconscious self-revelations of Mary Chesnut explain,
if they do not justify, such extravagance. For here, we cannot but believe,
is a creature of a fine type, a ' very woman,' a very Beatrice, frank, impetuous,
loving, full of sympathy, full of humor. Like her prototype, she had preju-
dices, and she knew little of the Northern people she criticised so severely ;
but there is less bitterness in the e pages than we might have ex{>ected. Per-
haps the editors have seen to that. However this may be they have done
nothing to injure the writer's own nervous, unconventional style- a style
breathing character and temperament as the flower breathes fragrance."

— New York Tribune.

"It is vritten straight from the heart, and with a natural grace of style
that no amount of polishing could have imparted." — Chicago Record-Herald.

"The editors are to be congratulated ; it is not every day that one comes
on such material as this long-hidden diary." — Louisville Evening Post.

" It is a book that would have delighted Charles Lamb."

— Houston Chronicle.

D . A P P L E T O X AND COMPANY, NEW YORK.

A NOVEL THAT IS ALL TRUE.

Bethany : A Story of the Old South.

By Thomas E. Watson, author of " The Life
and Times of Thomas Jefferson," etc. Illustrated.
i2mo. Ornamental Cloth, $1.50.

" Few writers of the present day have reached the deserved literary emi-
nence and prominence that has been achieved by Thomas E. Watson, Presi-
dential candidate of the People's Party, author of ' The Life and Times of
Thomas Jefferson' and other important historical works. Mr. Watson is a
student, historian, and biographer, as well as a finished orator. It comes in
the nature of a pleasant surprise, therefore, to find that this brilliant author
has turned his attention to fiction. Probably no writer of the present day
brings just such broad knowledge, scholarly attainments, and intimate style
into the composition of his books as does Mr. Watson. He is particularly
qualified to bring to a successful termination any literary work he may attempt.
In ' Bethany ' he tells in his brilliant style of the old South as he knew it in
his bojhood. This work is only in part fiction. Mr. Watson has succeeded
admirably in picturing the life of the people of Georgia during the anti-
slavery controversy and the war itself. In doing this he has written a book
that throbs with human emotions on every page and pulsates with strong,
virile life in every sentence. Mr. Watson has written ' Bethany ' from the heart
as well as from the head. With broad comprehension and unfailing accuracy
he has drawn characters and depicted incidents which deserve to be considered
as models of the people."

"The Hon. Thomas E. Watson of Georgia is a man of many parts.
Above all he is still able to learn, as those who will compare the second part
of his ' Story of France ' with the first may easily see. In ' Bethany : A Story
of the Old South,' he plunges into romance, it seems to us with complete suc-
cess. The story is told directly, clearly, in excellent English, and is as vivid a
oicture of a Southern family during the war as anyone could wish for."

— New York Sun.

"As a ' true picture of the times and the people,' as of war and its horrors,
the book wiU be welcomed by both North and South. Clear, simple, occa-
sionally abrupt, the story is always subordinated to the historical facts that lie
back of it. Yet it cannot be gainsaid that each illumines the other, nor that
' Bethany ' possesses distinct value as a just and genuine contribution to the
literature of the present ' Southern revival.' "—Chicago Record- Herald.

"The love-story of the young soldier and his faithful sweetheart is a per-
fect idyll of old plantation life, and its sad ending fits properly into the tragedy
of that fearful war." — St. Louis Globe- Democrat.

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK.

A STORY OF AMERICAN LIFE.

David Harum.

Illustrated Edition. With 70 full-page and
text pictures by B. West Clinedinst, and other
text designs by C. D. Farrand, and a biography
of the author by Forbes Heermans. i2mo.
$1.50.

" What seems to us to be the final judgment of 'David Harum ' is
given in the Xorth American Review by no less a personage than John
Oliver Hobbes. This review strikes at the root of the matter.

"' It would not be presumptuous to say,' opines Mrs. Craigie, 'well
remembering the magnificent ability of certain English authors of the
present day, that not one could create a character which would win the
whole English population as David Harum has won the American
public. The reason is plain. With so many class distinctions, a na-
tional figure is out of the question. A national hero — yes; but a man
for " winterin' and summerin' with" — no. Social equality and inde-
pendence of thought, in spite of all abortive attempts to introduce the
manners and traditions of feudal Europe, are in the very air of the
United States. One could not find an American man or woman of the
true st(jck who had not known intimately, or who did not count among
his or her ancestors, connections, relatives, a David Harum. The type,
no doubt, is getting old : becoming more and more "removed" from the
younger generation. In the course of the next twenty years it may
become so changed as to seem extinct, but it is a national figure — cer-
tainly the most original, probably the purest in blood. And the spirit
of Harum is the undying spirit — no matter how much modified it may
eventually become by refinement, travel, and foreign influence — of the
American people. Individuals may change, but the point of view
remains unalterable. ' " — New York Mail and Express.

" ' David Harum ' is one of those extremely rare and perfectly fresh
creations in current ficiion which really enrich our literature. In brief,
it is a masterpiece, and one that deser\'es an immense popularity. No
words can adequately describe its wholesome, sparkling humor, its quaint
and endearing originality, its genuine Yankee wit and native shrewdness.
A well-nigh perfect work it is^a creation which will take a permanent
place among American literary portraits." — Literary Review.

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK.

AN INSPIRING BOOK.

The Young Man and the World.

By Albert J. Beveridge, U. S. Senator from Indiana,
Author of "The Russian Advance," i2mo. Ornamental

Cloth, $1.50 net.

This book will go into every household where there is a son and a
mother. It is a talk with the young man about the young man of
the young man's country by its most prominent young man.

Plowboy at 12 ; logger at 14 ; graduated from college, De Pauw, at 23 ;
plainsman, law clerk, lawyer ; U. S. Senator at 36 — that is what Senator
Beveridge, poor and without a pull, has done by sheer pluck and hard
work. And his steady conservative work in the Senate has won him the
equal regard of older men also. His name spells success.

Bishop Charlns C. McCabe says : " I wish that 20,000,000 copies of
the book might be published."

John Afitchell%z.y& : "I trust it may have a place in the life and
in the home of every young man."

Alfred Henry Lewis says : " It is a sparkling well-head of courage,
optimism, and counsel."

Senator William P. Frye says: "I have no hesitation in com-
mending it to the young men of our country."

Speaker J. G. Cannon says : " It is a very interesting book by a
very interesting man."

Representative Champ Clark says : " It is very worthy the perusal
of every youth in the land."

David War field says : " If the reader heeds its precepts
' It must follow as the night the day
Thou canst not then be false to any man.'

Hamlet, Act 1, Sc. S."

James Rudolph Garfield says : " I have read it with a great deal of
interest."

President Edzviti H. Hughes says : " Any young man who reads
this book cannot fail to be made stronger and better."

President W. E. Stone says : " It is brim full of suggestions which
every young man should know and heed."

General Charles King says : " Here is a book our American youth
may study with his Bible."

A cowboy in Arizona writes : " It is the embodiment of every-
thing honorable, noble, and upright in life."

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK

REVISED NEW EDITION.

The Presidents of the United States.

By JoHW FiSKE, Cakl Schurz, Robert C. Winthkop, Daniel G.
GiLMAN, William Walter Phelps, George Ticknor Curtis, George
Bancroft, John Hav and others. Edited by General James Grant
Wilson. New and revised edition with complete life of William McKinley
and sketch of Theodore Roosevelt. Illustrated with steel engraving^s and
photogravures. 8vo. Cloth. $3.50. Half Morocco, or Half Calf, f6.oo.

This book has been the standard authority for many years and
justly so. Its list of contributors lifts it far above the commonplace,
and infinitely removes it from the possibility of political coloring or
sectionalism. The article on President McKinley gives a brief and
accurate resume of the Spanish war while the book as a whole is a
composite review of the constitutional history of the United States
with the White House as the keynote.

"A book well worth owning, for reading and for reference." — The Outlook.

"Such a work as this can not fail to appeal to the pride of patriotic Americans."
— Chicago Dial.

"A monumental volume, which no American who cares for the memor\' of tlie
public men of his country can afford to be without." — Ne-w York Mail and Exprtss.

"A valuable addition to both our bioRraphical and historical literature, and
meets a want long recognized." — Baton Advertiser.

" A book which every one should read over and over again. . . . We have care-
fully run tlirough it, and laid it down with the feeling that some such book ought to
find its way into every household." — New York Herald.

"General Wilson has performed a public service in presenting this volume to the
public in so attractive a shape. It is full of incentive to ambitious youth ; it abounds
in encouragement to every patriotic heart." — Charleston News and Courier.

" It is precisely the book which ought to have a very wide sale in this countrj' —
a book which one needs to own rather than to read and lay aside. No common-
school library or collection of books for young readers should be without it." —
The Churchman.

"These names are in themselves sufficient to guarantee adequacy of treatment
and interest in the presentation, and it is safe to say that such succinct biographies
of the complete portrait callerj' of our Presidents, written with such unquestioned
ability, have never before been published." — Harijord Courant.

"Just the sort of book that the American who wishes to fix in his mind the
varying phases of his countrj-'s history as it is woven on the warp of the adminis-
trations will find most useful. Everj-thing is presented in a clear-cut way, and no
plensanter excursions into history can be found than a study of 'The Presidents of
the United States.' " — Philadelphia Press.

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK.

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