The Great Diamond Hoax and Other Stirring Incidents in the Life of Asbury Harpending. Asbury Harpending
mass on the low ground where it could not fight effectively, and be at the mercy of artillery fire. Then it must either surrender or be wiped out. The first step was accomplished by the initial bayonet charge. The second required more time.
The battle raged into the afternoon. The field was covered with dead and dying, but the strategy of General Johnston was rapidly bearing fruit. The gunboats were almost silenced, the Federal columns showed apparent signs of disintegration. Another hour would have seen a total rout. General Johnston had been everywhere, the directing genius, exposing himself to needless dangers. Just in the moment of triumph, he fell headlong from his horse.
It seemed as if the news of this irreparable loss spread through the army like wildfire and caused, not a demoralization, but a general pause. Beauregard took command, evidently under a great mental strain. To the surprise of many, he gave orders to retire. I heard him say: “To-morrow we will be across the Tennessee river, or in hell.”
He had another guess. Early the next morning General Buell crossed the Tennessee with thirty-five thousand fresh troops, and all day we were fighting our way back to the strong position at Corinth. The great opportunity was lost.
CHARLES S. FAIRFAX
Last Lord Fairfax in direct male descent
[Reproduced from an
old photograph.]
Thus I saw the bloodiest battle of the war and I think the most decisive—far more so than Gettysburg. Had Johnston overwhelmed Grant at Shiloh, met Buell with an army flushed with victory, with no gunboats to contend with, there might have been another tale to tell. With Tennessee liberated, Kentucky and Missouri might have joined the Confederate cause and influenced the final outcome profoundly. When I look back at the long series of mishaps and unforeseen misfortunes that seemed to haunt the Lost Cause, I cannot but conclude that God’s will was there. After many years of bitter recollections, we are all of one mind—that the outcome was best for the country, and best of all for the South.
I saw General Johnston’s body on the field, where he fell. The wound that caused his death was of a trifling nature. A rifle ball had cut an artery in his leg. A surgeon with a tourniquet could have stopped the hemorrhage. But he never sought assistance. He stood by his post like a true soldier, and slowly bled to death.
History has classed Johnston as a great military genius. Years after, the Government of the United States erected a shaft with a suitable inscription on the spot where he fell at Shiloh. His tomb, with a noble equestrian statue, is in New Orleans. Most of his direct descendants live in California, the State that he saved from the desolation of war.
Concerning the battle of Shiloh, I have better testimony than my own. A score of years later, I met General Grant in New York. Out of an acquaintance, an intimate friendship developed. During his first financial embarrassment, of which the world never knew, I piloted him to a safe haven. Grant’s genius was entirely one-sided. In matters of business, he was the veriest child. He had tied himself up in Wall Street ventures and was facing ruin when he sought my advice. I took his account to my brokers, Henry Clews & Company, where I had a balance of nearly two millions to my credit, and, by careful nursing, brought him out, not only even, but ahead. The General and I often spoke of Shiloh, and he admitted, with a soldier’s frankness, that only Johnston’s death saved his command. He also added that he learned a lesson in war that fateful day, the most important in his long experience.
In this era of good-will and reconciliation, when the old boys in blue and gray are meeting in comradeship on the scenes of their former struggle, why cannot someone write a trustworthy and impartial history of the great drama—the greatest of our national life—which our boys and girls may read and learn the truth? The text-books of our schools are still deformed by a spirit of intolerance and prejudice, most unfortunate and misleading in an age that has happily outlived the bitterness that divided us in the past.
U. S. monument and marker on battlefield of Shiloh, indicating spot where General Johnston fell.
CHAPTER VIII.
Nephew of Celebrated English Leader Takes Hand in Conspiracy, and Also Figures in Amusing Near-Duel.
I did not return to California after my visit to the seat of war until late in the month of July, 1862. Everything seemed in regular shape for outfitting a privateer. But again the Comstock Lode interfered. Speculation was fast and furious. Of those who subscribed to the fund of $250,000 to carry on the enterprise only two remained steadfast, Mr. Ridgley Greathouse and myself. Greathouse was connected with some of the well-known families of the South and of California. He was a man of unusual courage and determination. We laid our heads together and decided to go ahead alone.
At this point we gained an unexpected ally. As he cuts quite a figure in this story, especially in the great diamond hoax, I might as well explain the strange way in which we met.
Mr. Alfred Rubery was a young English gentleman of fortune and culture, with the roving disposition and love of venture that was part of the make of high-strung Englishmen of his day. Traveling in the South just before the war, he had acquired an admiration for its aristocracy. Thus happened something that seemed paradoxical. Rubery was the favorite nephew of John Bright, the great English statesman and publicist. It was due to his influence and leadership among the laboring masses that England declined to interfere in favor of the Confederate States when its industries were ruined and the industrial classes starving, because the cotton staples from the South, on which they depended, were suddenly cut off. Thus, while John Bright, across the Atlantic, was resolutely upholding the North, his dear nephew in San Francisco was openly expressly sympathy for the South.
Sectional feeling at that period was so intense that the slightest word brought on a quarrel. One evening Rubery met a young officer, Lieutenant Tompkins, stationed at Fort Point, scion of a prominent family of New York. Somehow the subject of the war was broached. High words followed, and Tompkins made a remark that touched Rubery’s honor. The latter simply said, “You will hear from me, sir,” and left the room.
The code duello was still in full force. Though a cause of instant dismissal from the army, no officer would hesitate for a moment to refuse satisfaction to a gentleman who considered himself aggrieved. Rubery sought a friend of mine and asked him to bear his challenge. He was on the point of leaving for Oregon to attend to some of my business. For that reason he turned the young Englishman over to me.
ALFRED RUBERY
Nephew of John Bright, the great British publicist
[Reproduced from an
old photograph.]
Now, when a man chose his second, he placed his life entirely in his hands. It became at once my duty to examine certain details. The challenged party had the right to name the weapons, and I knew Tompkins to be an expert swordsman. I asked my man about his saber experience. He admitted that he had some knowledge of carving ham, but as to carving anything else he was as ignorant as a child. I tried him at pistol practice and found that, with extra good luck, at ten paces he could hit a barn.
To go into a duel under such conditions was downright madness. I told Rubery that I could not suffer him to be a chopping-block for a Yankee or to be coolly potted while he was shooting at the sun. I advised him that he must take time to practice with swords and pistols. But the Englishman would not be denied. I never saw a man so determined. He said he would rather die a thousand times than survive an unresented public insult. Having no alternative, I carried Rubery’s challenge to Tompkins at Fort Point.
Lieutenant Tompkins referred me to his friend, Quartermaster Judson, whom I met without delay. I found he had little