When it was too late, the sleepy administration opened its eyes. Not liking the looks of things, it shut them again. When it was too late, there were windy declarations and some feeble temporizing; but all thinking men felt that the crisis had come and nothing could avert it. The earthquake that had rumbled so long in premonitory throes suddenly yawned in an ugly chasm, that swallowed up the petty differences of each side. One throb and the little lines of party were roughly obliterated; while across the gulf that gaped between them, men glared at each other with but one meaning in their eyes.
That solemn mummery, the "Peace Congress," might temporarily have turned the tide it was wholly powerless to dam; but the arch seceder, Massachusetts, manipulated even that slight chance of compromise. The weaker elements in convention were no match for the peaceful Puritan whom war might profit, but could not injure. Peace was pelted from under her olive with splinters of Plymouth Rock, and Massachusetts members poured upon the troubled waters oil—of vitriol!
When the "Peace Commissioners" from the southern Congress at Montgomery came to Washington, all felt their presence only a mockery. It was too late! they came only to demand what the government could not then concede, and every line they wrote was waste of ink, every word they spoke waste of breath. Southern congressmen were leaving by every train. Families of years residence were pulling down their household gods and starting on a pilgrimage to set them up—where they knew not, save it must be in the South. Old friends looked doubtfully at each other, and wild rumors were rife of incursions over the Potomac by wild-haired riders from Virginia. Even the fungi of the departmental desks, seeming suddenly imbued with life, rose and threw away their quills—and with them the very bread for their families—to go South. It was the modern hegira!
A dull, vague unrest brooded over Washington, as though the city had been shadowed with a vast pall, or threatened with a plague. Then when it was again too late, General Scott—"the general," as the hero of Lundy's Lane and Mexico was universally known—virtually went into the Cabinet, practically filling the chair that Jefferson Davis had vacated. Men felt that they must range themselves on one side, or the other, for the South had spoken and meant what she said. There might be war; there must be separation!
I was lounging slowly past the rampant bronze Jackson in Lafayette Square when Styles Staple joined me.
"When do you start?" was his salutation.
"When do I start?" Staple's question was a sudden one.
"Yes, for the South? You're going of course; and the governor writes me to be off at once. Better go together. Eh? Night boat, 4th of March."
Now the governor mentioned was not the presiding executive of a southern state, but was Staple pére, of the heavy cotton firm of Staple, Long & Middling, New Orleans. Staple fils had been for years a great social card in Washington. The clubs, the legations, the avenues and the german knew him equally well; and though he talked about "the house," his only visible transaction with it was to make the name familiar to bill-brokers by frequent drafts. So I answered the question by another:
"What are you going to do when you get there?"