Before the Dawn: A Story of the Fall of Richmond

by Joseph A. Altsheler

He descended at last from the peaks and entered a tiny hamlet of the backwoods, where he found among other things a two-weeks-old Richmond newspaper. Looking eagerly through its meager columns to see what had happened while he was buried in the hills, he learned that there was no new stage in the war—no other great battle. The armies were facing each other across their entrenchments at Petersburg, and the moment a head appeared above either parapet the crack of a rifle from the other told of one more death added to the hundreds of thousands. That was all of the war save that food was growing scarcer and the blockade of the Southern ports more vigilant. It was a skilful and daring blockade runner now that could creep past the watching ships.

On an inside page he found social news. Richmond was crowded with refugees, and wherever men and women gather they must have diversion though at the very mouths of the guns. The gaiety of the capital, real or feigned, continued, and his eye was caught by the name of Lucia Catherwood. There was a new beauty in Richmond, the newspaper said, one whose graces of face and figure were equaled only by the qualities of her mind. She had relatives of strong Northern tendencies, and she had been known to express such sympathies herself; but they only lent piquancy to her conversation. She had appeared at one of the President's receptions; and further on Prescott saw the name of Mr. Sefton. There was nothing by which he could tell with certainty, but he inferred that she had gone there with the Secretary. A sudden thought assailed and tormented him. What could the Secretary be to her? Well, why not? Mr. Sefton was an able and insinuating man. Moreover, he was no bitter partisan: the fact that she believed in the cause of the North would not trouble him. She had refused himself and not many minutes later had been seen talking with the Secretary in what seemed to be the most confidential manner. Why had she come back to Richmond, from which she had escaped amid such dangers? Did it not mean that she and the Secretary had become allies more than friends? The thought would not let Prescott rest.

Prescott put the newspaper in his pocket and left the little tavern with an abruptness that astonished his host, setting out upon his ride with increased haste and turning eastward, intending to reach the railroad at the nearest point where he could take a train to Richmond.

His was not a morbid mind, but the fever in it grew. He had thought that the Secretary loved Helen Harley: but once he had fancied himself in love with Helen, too, and why might not the Secretary suffering from the same delusion be changed in the same way? He took out the newspaper and read the story again. There was much about her beauty, a description of her dress, and the distinction of her manner and appearance. The President himself, it said, was charmed with her, and departing from his usual cold reserve gave her graceful compliments.

This new reading of the newspaper only added more impetus to his speed and on the afternoon of the same day he reached the railroad station. Early the next morning he entered Richmond.

His heart, despite its recurrent troubles, was light, for he was coming home once more.

The streets were but slightly changed—perhaps a little more bareness and leanness of aspect, an older and more faded look to the clothing of the people whom he passed, but the same fine courage shone in their eyes. If Richmond, after nearly four years of fighting, heard the guns of the foe once more, she merely drew tighter the belt around her lean waist and turning her face toward the enemy smiled bravely.

The President received the despatch bearer in his private room, looking taller, thinner and sterner than ever. Although a Kentuckian by birth, he had been bred in the far South, but had little of that far South about him save the dress he wore. He was too cold, too precise, too free from sudden emotion to be of the Gulf Coast State that sent him to the capital. Prescott often reflected upon the odd coincidence that the opposing Presidents, Lincoln and Davis, should have been produced by the same State, Kentucky, and that the President of the South should be Northern in manner and the President of the North Southern in manner.

Mr. Davis read the despatches while their bearer, at his request, waited by. Prescott knew the hopeless tenor of those letters, but he could see no change in the stern, gray face as its owner read them, letter after letter. More than a half-hour passed and there was no sound in the room save the rustling of the paper as the President turned it sheet by sheet. Then in even, dry tones he said:

"You need not wait any longer, Captain Prescott; you have done your part well and I thank you. You will remain in Richmond until further orders."