CHAPTER III. THE GATHERING TEMPEST.
The clouds which had long been hovering portentously in our skies now began to spread and to blacken all around the heavens. This was greatly intensified on all sides by the daring raid of John Brown, of Ossawattomie, Kansas. Locating on a farm near Harper's Ferry, Va., he organized a movement looking toward a general slave insurrection. Seizing the Armory of the United States Arsenal buildings, all of which were destroyed during the war, he inaugurated his scheme, and for a few hours had things his own way. But troops were rapidly concentrated; Brown's outside workers were captured or shot; the Arsenal building was fired into; one of his sons was killed, another mortally wounded, and when the doors were forced Brown was found kneeling between their bodies. His arrest, trial, and execution were speedily accomplished, but all the thunders of a coming storm henceforth rolled all around the heavens.
At the South, the leaders used the excitement created by this affair to consolidate public opinion in their section and to cast opprobrium on the Republicans at the North. They saw that their ascendancy in the national councils was hastening to a close, and that if they were to carry out their cherished plans for a dissolution of the Union, and for the establishment of a Southern Confederacy, they must strike the blow during the Administration of Mr. Buchanan. Meanwhile Washington ran riot with costly entertainments in society and secret suppers, at which the Abolitionists of the North and the Secessionists of the South, respectively, plotted and planned for the commencement of hostilities.
One of the neutral grounds, where men of both parties met in peace, was the superbly furnished gambling-house of Pendleton, on Pennsylvania Avenue, known to its frequenters as "The Hall of the Bleeding Heart," though he preferred the appellation, "The Palace of Fortune." Pendleton belonged to one of the first families of Virginia, and his wife, a most estimable lady, was the daughter of Robert Mills, the architect of the Treasury. His rooms were hung with meritorious pictures, and the art of wood-carving was carried to great perfection in the side-boards, secretaries, and tables, which served the various purposes of the establishment. The dining and supper tables were loaded with plate of pure metal. The cooking would not have shamed the genius of Soyer, and it was universally admitted that the wines were such as could have been selected only by a connoisseur. This incomparable provider had ten thousand dollars invested in his cellar and his closet.
The people who nightly assembled to see and to take part in the entertainments of the house consisted of candidates for the Presidency, Senators and Representatives, members of the Cabinet, editors and journalists, and the master workmen of the third house, the lobby. Pendleton's, in its palmiest days, might have been called the vestibule of the lobby. Its most distinguished professors might be found there. They lent money to their clients when the "animal scratched too roughly," that is to say, when the play ran against them, and they became "broke," as they sometimes did. Pendleton himself was an operator in the lobby. His professional position gave him great facilities. He assisted in the passage of many useful bills of a private nature, involving considerable sums of money. A broker in parliamentary notes is an inevitable retainer of broker votes.
In the outer parlors, as midnight approached, might have been seen leading members of Congress, quietly discussing the day's proceedings, the prospects of parties, and the character of public men. A few officers of the army added to the number and variety of the groups which occupied this apartment. Here all were drinking, smoking, and talking, generally in a bright and jocose vein. Servants were gliding about with cigars, toddies, cocktails, and "whisky-straights" on little silver trays. Among them were two "old Virginny" darkies, very obliging and popular, who picked up many quarters and halves, and not a few "white fish," representing one dollar each.
But the third room was the haunt of the tiger! The company around the faro table would be playing mostly with counters of red, circular pieces of ivory, called fish, or chips, each of which represented five dollars. A few who were nearly "broke" would be using the white ones of one-fifth the value. The players were silent as the grave, because some of them were "in great luck," and large piles of red chips were standing upon different cards to abide the event of the deal, but, alas! the close of the deal was unfavorable, and before the little silver box, from which the cards were drawn, yielded the last of the pack, the most of the red piles had been drawn to the bank side. But some of them had doubled, and the owners drew them down as capital for the chances of the next deal. If one had great good fortune and some prudence, while possessor of the red piles before named, he would leave the house with his few hundreds or thousands of dollars; but the chances were that between midnight and dawn the gamesters would all retire minus the money they had brought into the place, and all they had been able to borrow from friends.
There were, however, exceptions. The largest amount ever won from the proprietor at Pendleton's was twelve hundred dollars, for a stake of one hundred dollars. When Humphrey Marshall was appointed Minister to China by President Pierce, in 1852, he lost his "outfit" and six months' pay, and was forced to accept a loan from Pendleton to enable him to reach the scene of his diplomatic labors. When Pendleton died, Mr. Buchanan attended his funeral, and several leading Democratic Congressmen were among his pall-bearers. His effects, including the furniture of his gambling-house, were sold at auction, attracting crowds of the most fashionable people in Washington, and probably for the first time since the descent of Proserpine, the gates of Hades were passed by troops of the fair sex.
Vice-President Breckinridge turned his back on the Union with marked regret. One night, as a supper-party at Colonel Forney's, Mr. Keitt, of South Carolina, undertook to ridicule the Kentucky horse raisers. Breckinridge stood it for awhile, but Keitt persisted in returning to the blue-grass region for a location to his stories, and finally Breckinridge retorted. He described a recent visit to South Carolina, and his meeting there with several of the original Secessionists. One of them, who was a militia officer in Keitt's own district, had just returned from a muster arrayed in faded regimentals of blue jeans, with a dragoon's sword trailing at his side and a huge fore-and-aft chapeau surmounted with a long feather. He was full of enthusiasm for the cause and descanted with particular eloquence upon what he called the wrongs of the South. "'I tell you, sah,' said he," continued Breckinridge, "'we cannot stand it any longer; we intend to fight; we are preparing to fight; it is impossible, sah, that we should submit, sah, not for a single hour, sah.' I asked him, 'What are you suffering from?' and he replied: 'Why, sah, we are suffering under the oppression of the Federal Government. We have been suffering under it for twenty-five years and more, and we will stand it no longer.'" Breckinridge then turned toward Keitt, and continued, "I advise my young friend here from South Carolina to visit some of his constituents before undertaking to go to war with the North, and advise them to go through the Northern states to learn what an almighty big country they will have to whip before they get through." Breckinridge was sincere in this remark, yet not many months had elapsed before he was forced into secession by the agitators.
The re-opening of the slave-trade, by which negroes could be imported and sold for very low prices, was one of the allurements held out to the poor whites of the South. A cargo was actually brought in a yacht called the Wanderer, commanded by Captain Corrie, who obtained the requisite capital for the enterprise by obtaining the passage of a large claim for the military services of a South Carolina organization in the War of 1812. Marshal Rynders suspected the destination of the Wanderer when she was about to leave New York, but he was persuaded to let her go. A few months later she landed near Brunswick, in Georgia, three hundred and fifty negroes, who were speedily distributed over the Gulf States. One or two were seized by United States Marshals, but they were soon taken from them. The experiment was a success.
While the two House of Congress were convulsed by sectional strife there was no cessation in the presentation of jobs, some of which were disgraceful schemes for plundering the Treasury. The most active advocates of these swindles, and of some more meritorious legislation which they were paid to advocate, were the lady lobbyists. Some of them were the widows of officers of the army or navy, others the daughters of Congressmen, and others had drifted from home localities where they had found themselves the subjects of scandalous comments. The parlors of some of these dames were exquisitely furnished with works of art and bric-a-brac, donated by admirers. Every evening they received, and in the winter their blazing wood fires were surrounded by a distinguished circle. Some would treat favored guests to a game of euchre, and as midnight approached there was always an adjournment to the dining-room, where a choice supper was served. A cold duck, a venison pie, broiled oysters, or some other exquisitely cooked dish with salads and cheese, generally constituted the repast, with iced champagne or Burgundy at blood-heat. Who could blame the Congressman for leaving the bad cooking of his hotel or boarding-house, with an absence of all home comforts, to walk into the parlor web which the adroit spider lobbyist had cunningly woven for him.
Washington was enlivened during the recess of Congress by a visit from the "Chicago Zouaves," a volunteer organization which had been carefully trained by its young commander, Captain E. E. Ellsworth, in a novel drill based on the quick movements of the Moors. The staid old military organizations were magnetized by the rapid, theatrical manner in which the Zouaves executed the manual and several gymnastic company movements. Their uniform was loose scarlet trousers, gaiter boots, and buff-leather leggings, a blue jacket trimmed with orange-colored braid, and a red cap with orange trimmings; their scarlet blankets were rolled on the top of their knapsacks. They drilled as light infantry, and moved like electric clocks. The entire drill lasted nearly three hours, including stoppages for rest, a few moments each time, and, although performed under a scorching sun on the hot sand, and comprising a series of vigorous exercises, the men stood it well, and attended strictly to their business.
The step of the Zouaves was in itself a peculiarity and strongly suggestive of thorough pedestrian and gymnastic preparation. The diminutive stature of the men and their precision in accomplishing the allotted length of the step, gave to it something of a steady loping movement, but yet so firm and springy that the effect was most animated. Another feature in the general excellence of the Zouaves was noted in their method of handling their arms, which, instead of the inanimate and gingerly treatment so observable even among finely drilled companies when executing the manual, were grasped with a nervous energy of action and shifted with a spirit which was thrillingly suggestive of a will, as well as the power, to act. The visitors were quite boyish in appearance, and mostly of small stature, falling even below the ordinary size of short men in our cities.
Captain Ellsworth was in appearance the most youthful of his corps, but he had a finely marked countenance and a self-reliant manner. The corps visited Mount Vernon, and was received at the White House by President Buchanan and Miss Lane. After witnessing an exhibition of their performance, the President made a patriotic and prophetic little speech to Captain Ellsworth, concluding by the remark: "We wish you prosperity and happiness in peace—should war come, I know where you will be." Within a short year the gallant officer lay in a soldier's grave.
Owen Lovejoy, a Representative from Illinois, was one of the prominent Republican orators. He was a man of considerable brains and a good deal of body, and his style of utterance was of the hyper-intense school. On one occasion he begun his speech at the top of a voice of most prodigious compass, and kept on in the same strain, which, mildly described, might be characterized as a roar. When some waggish member on the Southern side cried, "Louder!" the effect upon the audience was convulsing. There stood Lovejoy, with his coat off and his collar open, his big, bushy head thrown back like a lion at bay, and brandishing his arms aloft, while his whole body rocked and quivered with excitement, hurling his denunciations not at the slave-power this time, but at the Secessionists. His tremendous voice rang through the hall like the peal of a trumpet, and when he described the insults to the old flag he was truly eloquent.
The Southern conspirators endeavored to secure the co-operation of the Indians, and delegations from several tribes were successively brought to Washington, where they "went the grand rounds" of the haunts of dissipation. They were dirty, disgusting-looking fellows, without one particle of the romance about them with which Cooper has invested the Indian character. Several tribes joined the Southern Confederacy, and fought desperately against the Union, which had for years before paid them liberal annuities.
[Facsimile] Th. Jefferson THOMAS JEFFERSON was born at Shadwell, Albemarle County, Va., April 2d, 1743; was a member of the Virginia Legislature, 1769; was Delegate to the Continental Congress, 1775; re-entered the Virginia Legislature, 1777; was member of Congress, 1783; was Secretary of State under Washington, 1789-1793; was Vice-President with Adams, 1797-1801; was President of the United States, 1801-1809; died July 4th, 1826.