Miss Ravenel's conversion from secession to loyalty

by John William De Forest

"Perhaps I have. I believe I have, unless you go into this cotton. I bought them to induce you to go into it. I thought you would oblige a man who relieved you from forty or fifty duns. I took a four thousand dollar risk on you, Colonel."

Carter scowled and stopped smoking. He did not know what Walker could do with him; he did not much believe that he legally could do anything; his creditors never had done more than dun him. But High Authority might perhaps be led to do unpleasant things: for instance, in the way of relieving him from his position, if the fact should be forced upon its notice, that so responsible an officer as the chief quartermaster of the Gulf Department was burdened by private indebtedness. At all events it was unpleasant to have a grasping, intriguing, audacious fellow like Walker for a creditor to so large an amount. It would be a fine thing to get out of debt once for all; to astonish his duns (impertinent fellows, some of them) by settling every solitary bill with interest; to be rich once for all, without danger of recurring poverty; to be rich enough to force promotion. Other officials—quartermasters, paymasters, etc.—were going in for cotton on the strength of Government deposits. The influenza had caught the Colonel; indeed it was enough to corrupt any man's honesty to breathe the moral atmosphere of New Orleans at that time; it could taint the honor derived from blue ancestral blood and West Point professional pride.

Carter did not, however, give way to his oily Mephistopheles during this interview. Walker's victory was not so sudden as Mrs. Larue's; his temptation was not so well suited as hers to the character of the victim; the love of lucre could not compare as a force with le divin sens du génésiaque. It was not until Walker had boldly threatened to bring his claims before the General Commanding, not until the army had well nigh reached the Red River, not until the chance of investment had almost passed, that the Colonel became a speculator. Once resolved, he acted with audacity, according to his temperament. But here, unfortunately for the curious reader, we enter upon cavernous darkness, where it is impossible to trace out a story except by hazardous inference, our only guides being common rumor, a fragment of a letter, a conversation half-overheard, and other circumstances of a like unsatisfactory nature. Before giving my narrative publicity I feel bound to state that the entire series of alleged events may be a fiction of the excited popular imagination, founded on facts which might be explained in accordance with an assumption of Carter's innocence, and official honor.

I am inclined to believe, or at least to admit, that he drew a large sum (not less than one hundred thousand dollars) of the Government money in his charge, and placed it in the hands of his agent for the purchase of cotton from the planters of the Red River. It is probable that Walker expected to complete the transaction within a month, and to place the cotton, or the proceeds of it, in the hands of his principal early enough to enable the latter to show a square balance on his official return at the close of the current quarter. Such claims as might come in during this period could be put off by the plea of "no funds," or the safer devices of, "disallowed,"—"papers returned for correction," etc., etc. That the cotton could be sold at a monstrous profit was unquestionable. At New Orleans there were greedy capitalists, who had not been lucky enough to get into the Ring, and so accompany the expedition, who were anxious to pay cash down for the precious commodity immediately on its arrival at the levee, or even before it quitted the Red River. No body entertained a doubt of the military and commercial success of the great expedition, with its fleet, its veteran infantry, its abundant cavalry, all splendidly equipped, and its strategic combination of concentric columns. Even rabid secessionists were infected by the mania, and sought to invest their gold in cotton. It is probable that Carter's hopes at this time were far higher than his fears, and that he pretty confidently expected to see himself a rich man inside of sixty days. I am telling my story, the reader perceives, on the presumption that rumor has correctly stated these mysterious events.

If the materials for the tale were only attainable it would be a delightful thing to follow the corpulent Walker through the peaceful advance and sanguinary retreat of the great expedition. It is certain that from some quarter he obtained command of a vast capital, and that, in spite of his avoirdupois, he was alert and indefatigable in seeking opportunities for investment. Had Mars been half as adroit and watchful in his strategy as this fat old Mercury was in his speculations, Shreveport would have been taken, and Carter would have made a quarter of a million. But the God of Lucre had great reason to grumble at the God of War. It was in vain that Mercury lost fifty pounds of flesh in sleepless lookout for chances, in audacious rides to plantations haunted by guerrillas, shot at from swamps, and thickets, half starved or living on raw pork and hardtack, bargaining nearly all night after riding all day, untiring as a savage, zealous as an abolitionist, sublime in his passion for gain. Mars incautiously stretched his splendid army over thirty miles of road, and saw it beaten in detachments by a force one quarter smaller, and vastly inferior in discipline and equipment. There was such a panic at Sabine Cross Roads as had not been seen since Bull Run. Cavalry, artillery, and infantry, mingled together in hopeless confusion, rushed in wild flight across the open fields, or forced their way down a narrow road encumbered with miles of abandoned baggage wagons. Through this chaos of terror advanced the saviours of the day, the heroic First Division of the Nineteenth Corps, marching calmly by the flank, hooting and jeering the runaways, filing into line within grape range of the enemy, and opening a withering fire of musketry which checked until nightfall the victorious, elated, impetuous Rebel masses. Then came an extraordinary midnight retreat of twenty miles, and in the afternoon of the next day a hardly-won, unimproved victory. The First Division of the Nineteenth Corps, and seven thousand men of the Sixteenth Corps, the one forming the right and the other the left, resisted for hours the violent charges of the rebels, and then advanced two miles, occupying the field of battle. The soldiers were victorious, but the General was beaten. A new retreat was ordered, and Mercury went totally to grief.

The obese Walker was last seen by loyal eyes on the night which followed the barren triumph of Pleasant Hill. He had had his horse shot under him in the beginning of the fighting at Sabine Cross Roads, while in advance of the column; had effected a masterly retreat, partly on foot and partly on a Government mule which he took from a negro driver, who had cut it loose from an entangled wagon; had fed himself abundantly from the havresacks of defunct rebels on the field of victory; and then had heroically set to work to make the best of circumstances. Believing with the confidence of his sanguine nature that the army would advance in the morning, he started on his mule, accompanied by two comrades of the Ring, for the house of a neighboring planter, to whom it is supposed that he had advanced cash for cotton. No one knows to this day what became of him, or of his funds, or investments, or fellow adventurers. All alike disappeared utterly and forever from the knowledge of the Union army when the three rode into that night of blood and groans beyond the flickering circle of light, thrown out by the camp fires.

The news of the calamity, we may suppose, nearly paralyzed Carter. Defalcation, trial by court-martial, disgraceful dismissal from the service, hard labor at Tortugas, ball and chain, a beggared family, a crazed wife, must have made up a terrific spectre, advancing, close at hand, unavoidable, pitiless. It would be a laborious task to analyze and fully conceive the feelings of such a man in such a position. Naturally and with inexorable logic followed the second act of the moral tragedy. A deed which some men would call merely a blunder led straight to another deed which all men would call a crime. He could not, as men have sometimes done, hope to annul his indebtedness by the simple commission of murder. Irresistible necessity drove him (if our hypothetical tale is correct) into a species of wickedness which was probably more repugnant to his peculiarly educated conscience than the taking of human life.

Carter wanted, we will say, one hundred and ten thousand dollars to make himself square with the United States and his private creditors. Looking over the Government property for which he had receipted and was responsible, he found fifteen steamboats, formerly freight or passenger boats on the Mississippi and its branches, but now regular transports, part of them lying idly at the levee, the others engaged in carrying reinforcements to the army at Grande Ecore or in bringing back the sick and wounded. If ten of these boats were sold at an average of ten thousand dollars apiece and re-bought at an average of twenty-five thousand dollars apiece, the transaction would furnish a profit of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, which would settle all his debts, besides furnishing collusion-money. First, he wanted a nominal purchaser, who had that sort of honor which is necessary among thieves, fortune enough to render the story of the purchase plausible, and character enough to impose on the public. Carter went straight to a man of known fortune, born in New Orleans, high in social position, a secessionist who had taken the oath of allegiance. Mr. Hollister was a small and thin gentleman, with sallow and hollow cheeks, black eyes, iron gray hair, mellow voice, composed and elegant manners. His air, notwithstanding his small size, was remarkably dignified, and his expression was so calm that it would have seemed benignant but for a most unhappy eye. It was startlingly black, with an agitated flicker in it, like the flame of a candle blowing in the wind; it did not seem to be pursuing any object without, but rather flying from some horrible thought within. What intrigue or crime or suffering it was the record of it is not worth while to inquire. There had been many dark things done or planned in Louisiana during the lifetime of Mr. Hollister. His age must have been sixty-five, although the freshness of his brown morning suit, the fineness and fit of his linen, the neat brush to his hair, the clean shave on his face, took ten years off his shoulders. As he dabbled in stocks and speculations, he had his office. He advanced to meet the chief quartermaster, shook hands with respectful cordiality, and conducted him to a chair with as much politeness as if he were a lady.

"You look pale, Colonel," he said. "Allow me to offer you a glass of brandy. Trying season, this last summer. There was a time when I never thought of facing our climate all the year round."

Taking out of a cupboard one of the many bottles of choice old cognac with which he had enriched his wine-cellar, before the million of former days had dwindled to the hundred thousand of to-day, he set it beside a pitcher of ice-water and some glasses which stood on a table. The Colonel swallowed half a tumbler of pure brandy, and dashed some water after it. The broker mixed a weak sling, and sipped it to keep his visitor in countenance.