But there was, after the New Year, a sudden stoppage of active movements on both sides. The terrific crash of hostile cannon—the continuous roar of opposing small arms—and the groan of the Federal mixed with the death-cry of the Confederate, were all suddenly stilled. The fearful tornado of war that had swept for many months the once-smiling Southland—leaving its wake only the blackened track of ruin piled thick with stiffened corpses!—was suddenly hushed; as though the evil powers that had raised it must pause to gather fresh strength, before once more driving it in a fiercer and deadlier blast.
In the West, we had lost in the early year the strong position of Arkansas Post with its large accumulation of stores and its garrison of over 3,000 men; but the Queen City still sat defiant and unharmed, the hostile fleet and army having left its fruitless task; and the twin stronghold of Port Hudson showed another row of ugly teeth, into range of which no Federal force seemed yet ready to venture.
On the Atlantic seaboard, too, the prospects, at this time, appeared more cheering. Girt as it was, with one unbroken line of watchful cruisers, with every port apparently sealed by blockade—southern ingenuity and pluck still defied them and ran in precious stores of arms, clothing and medicines. General Beauregard had taken active command of South Carolina and Georgia; and had put the defenses of both coasts—especially of Charleston and Savannah—into such a state of fitness as quite satisfied the Government and made the people of those states calm and confident in his ability to protect them and theirs. General Gustavus W. Smith—the friend and comrade of General Joe Johnston—had, like him, been rewarded for his sacrifices in coming South, and his able exertions afterward, by the coldness and neglect of the Government. But like him, too, he forgot personal wrongs; and, when ordered to North Carolina, threw his whole energy and skill into the works of defense for the coast and for that vital artery of railroad, on which the life of the South depended.
Butler still waged his peculiar warfare upon unarmed men and weak women in the soft nest he had made himself, at New Orleans; but Mobile reared her defiant crest and took into her bosom peaceful vessels laden with stores of priceless utility, only to send them out again—bristling with rifled cannon, fleet-winged and agile, ready to pounce upon the Federal shipping.
In the Middle West, Johnston's presence had acted like oil upon the darkening waters of trouble and despair. There had been no record of fresh disaster, or fresh mismanagement; the troops were recruiting, resting and increasing in numbers and efficiency; the cavalry, mobilized under Van Dorn—at last placed in his proper sphere—had done efficient and harassing, if desultory warfare, upon the enemy's small posts and communications. Pegram—by his effective raid through Kentucky—had shown that her people there were not forgotten by their brothers beyond; and his skillful retreat—laden with heavy droves of cattle and in the face of a superior force—gained him high praise from his superior officers.
And so the people watched and waited—hopeless no longer, but quite recovered from the prostration of the rapid, heavy and continuous blows of the previous autumn. Steadfast and buoyant, as they were ever, the masses of the South once more turned their backs upon past disaster, looking eagerly through the dark cloud for the silver lining they felt must be beyond.
And again, as ever, they turned their eyes toward Virginia—stately and calm amid the shock of battle. And they hoped not in vain; for over her blackened fields—furrowed by shot and shell, drenched with blood of best and bravest, but only more sacred for the precious libation—was again to ring the clarion shout of victory that ever swelled from the lines of Stonewall Jackson!
CHAPTER XXVI.
THE FAILURE IN FINANCE.