Miss Ravenel's Conversion from Secession to Loyalty (Historical Novel). John William De Forest
The regular army, he said, had not been troubled with any such kind of fellows. The brahminism of West Point and of the old service revolted from such vulgar associations. It required the fiery breath of many fierce battles, in which the gallantry of volunteers shone conspicuous, to blow this feeling into oblivion.
One day the Colonel related in confidence to the Doctor a circumstance which had given him peculiar disgust. The Governor having permitted him to nominate his own Lieutenant-Colonel, he had selected an ex-officer of a three months' regiment who had shown tactical knowledge, and gallantry. The field position of Major he had finally resolved to demand for Colburne. Hence an interview, and an unpleasant one, with the chief magistrate of Barataria.
"Governor," said Carter, "I want that majority for a particular friend of mine, the best officer in the regiment and the best man for the place that I know in the State."
The Governor was in his little office reclining in a high-backed oaken chair, and toasting his feet at a fire. He was a tall, thin, stooping gentleman, slow in gait because feeble in health, with a benign dignity of manner and an unvarying amiability of countenance. His eyes were a pale blue, his hair a light chestnut slightly silvered by fifty years, his complexion had once been freckled and was still fair, his smile was frequent and conciliatory. Like President Lincoln he sprang from the plain people, who were to conquer in this war, and like him he was capable of intellectual and moral growth in proportion to enlargement of his sphere of action. A modest, gentle-tempered, obliging man, patriotic in every impulse, devout in the severe piety of New England, distinguished for personal honor and private virtues, he was in the main a credit to the State which had selected him for its loftiest dignity.
He had risen from his chair and saluted the Colonel with marked respect. Although he did not like his moral ways, he valued him highly for his professional ability and courage, and was proud to have him in command of a Baratarian regiment. To his shy spirit this aristocratic and martial personage was in fact a rather imposing phenomenon. Carter had a fearful eye; by turns audaciously haughty and insolently quizzical; and on this occasion the Governor felt himself more than usually discomposed under its wide open, steady, confident stare. He seemed even a little tremulous as he took his seat; he dreaded to disagree with the representative of West Point brahminism; and yet he knew that he must.
"Captain Colburne."
"Oh—Captain Colburne," hesitated the Governor. "I agree with you, Colonel, in all that you say of him. I hope that there will be an opportunity yet of pushing him forward. But just now," he continued with a smile that was apologetical and almost penitent, "I don't see that I can give him the majority. I have promised it to Captain Gazaway."
"To Gazaway!" exclaimed Carter. A long breath of angry astonishment swelled his broad breast, and his cheek would have flushed if any emotion could have deepened the tint of that dark red bronze.
"You don't mean, I hope, Governor, that you are resolved to give the majority of my regiment to that boor."
"I know that he is a plain man," mildly answered the Governor, who had begun life himself as a mechanic.
"Plain man! He is a plain blackguard. He is a toddy-mixer and shoulder-hitter."
The Governor uttered a little troubled laugh; he was clearly discomposed, but he was not angry.
"I am willing to grant all that you say of him," he answered. "I have no personal liking for the man. Individually I should prefer Captain Colburne. But if you knew the pressure that I am under—"
He hesitated as if reflecting, smiled again with his habitual gentleness, folded and unfolded his hands nervously, and proceeded with his explanation.
"You must not expose our little political secrets, Colonel. I am obliged to permit certain schemes and plots which personally I disapprove of. Captain Gazaway lives in a very close district, and influences a considerable number of votes. He is popular among his class of people, as you can see by the ease with which he filled his company. He and his friends insist upon the majority. If we refuse it we shall probably lose the district and a member of Congress. That is a serious matter at this time when the administration must be supported by a strong house, or the nation may be shipwrecked. Still, if I were left alone I would take the risk, and appoint good officers and no others to all our regiments, satisfied that success in the field is the best means of holding the masses firm in support of the Government. But in the meantime Burleigh, who is our candidate in Gazaway's district, is defeated, we will suppose. Burleigh and Gazaway understand each other. If Gazaway gets the majority, he promises to insure the district to Burleigh. You see the pressure I am under. All the leading managers of our party concur in urging upon me this promotion of Gazaway. I regret extremely that I can do nothing now for your favorite, whom I respect very much. I hope to do something for him in the future."
"When an election is not so near at hand," suggested Carter.
"Here," continued the Governor, without noticing the satire, "I have been perfectly frank with you. All I ask in return is that you will have patience."
"'Pon my honor, I can't of course find fault with you personally, Governor," replied the Colonel. "I see how the cursed thing works. You are on a treadmill, and must keep stepping according to the machinery. But by—! sir, I wish this whole matter of appointments was in the hands of the War Department."
"I almost wish it was," sighed the Governor, still without a show of wounded pride or impatience.
It was this conversation which the Colonel repeated to the scandalized ears of Doctor Ravenel, when the latter urged the promotion of Colburne.
"I hope you will inform our young friend of your efforts in his favor," said the Doctor. "He will be exceedingly gratified, notwithstanding the disappointment."
"No," said the Colonel. "I beg your pardon; but don't tell him. It would not be policy, it would not be soldierly, to inform him of any thing likely to disgust him with the service."
CHAPTER VIII.
THE BRAVE BID GOOD-BYE TO THE FAIR.
Another circumstance disgusted Colonel Carter even more than the affair of the majority. He received a communication from the War Department assigning his regiment to the New England Division, and directing him to report for orders to Major-General Benjamin F. Butler. Over this paper he fired off such a volley of oaths as if Uncle Toby's celebrated army in Flanders had fallen in for practice in battalion swearing.
"A civilian! a lawyer, a political wire-puller! a militiaman!" exclaimed the high-born southern gentleman, West Point graduate and ex-officer of the regular army. "What does such a fellow know about the organization or the command of troops! I don't believe he could make out the property returns of a company, or take a platoon of skirmishers into action. And I must report to him, instead of he to me!"
Let us suppose that some inconceivably great power had suddenly created the Colonel a first-class lawyer, and ordered the celebrated Massachusetts advocate to act under him as junior counsel. We may conjecture that the latter might have been made somewhat indignant by such an arrangement.
"I'll make official application to be transferred to some other command," continued Carter, thinking to himself. "If that won't answer, I'll go to the Secretary myself about it, irregular as personal application may be. And if that won't answer, I'll be so long in getting ready for the field, that our Major-General Pettifogger will probably go without me."
If Carter attempted to carry out any of these plans, he no doubt discovered that the civilian General was greater than the West Point Colonel in the eyes of the authorities at Washington. But it is probable that old habits of soldierly obedience prevented him from offering much if any resistance to the will of the War Department, just as it prevented him from expressing his dissatisfaction in the presence of any of his subordinate officers. It is true that the Tenth was an unconscionable long time in getting ready for the field, but that was owing to the decay of the enlisting spirit in Barataria, and Carter seemed to be as much fretted