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The Little Lady of Lagunitas

R >> Richard Henry Savage >> The Little Lady of Lagunitas




For the senators, representatives, and agents in Washington
confidentially report that the code of honor is needed to restrain
the Northerners under personal dragooning. Yankee self-assertion
comes at last.

Around the real leaders of thought their vassals are ranged. Davis,
Toombs, Breckinridge, Yancey, Pryor, Wigfall, Wise, and others
direct. Herbert, Keith, Lamar, Brooks, and a host of cavaliers are
ready with trigger and cartel. The tone at Washington gives the
keynote to the Californian agents of the Southern Rights movement.
There are not enough Potters, Wades, and Landers, as yet. The
Northern mind needs time to realize the deliberation of Secession.

The great leaders of the free States are dead or in the gloomy
retirement of age. Webster and Clay are no more. There are yet men
of might to fight under the banners streaming with the northern
lights of freedom. Douglas, Bell, Sumner, Seward, and Wade are drawing
together. Grave-faced Abraham Lincoln moves out of the background
of Western woods into the sunrise glow of Liberty's brightest day.

On the Pacific coast, restraint has never availed. Here, ancestry
and rank go for naught. Here, men meet without class pride. The
struggle is more equal.

California's Senator, David C. Broderick, was the son of an humble
New York stone-cutter. He grapples with his wily colleague, Senator
Gwin.

It is hammer against rapier. Richard and Saladin. Beneath the
banners of the chieftains the free lances of the Pacific range
themselves. Neither doubts the courage of the opposing forces. The
blood of the South has already followed William Walker, the gray-eyed
man of destiny, to Sonora and Nicaragua. They were a splendid
band of modern buccaneers. Henry A. Crabbe found that the Mexican
escopetas are deadly in the hands of the maddened inhabitants of
Arispe. Raousset de Boulbon sees his Southern followers fall under
machete and revolver in northern Mexico. The Southern filibusters
are superbly reckless. All are eager to repeat the glories of Texas
and Mexico. They find that the Spanish races of Central America
have learned bitter lessons from the loss of Texas. They know of the
brutal conquest of California. The cry of "Muerte los Americanos!"
rings from Tucson to Darien. The labors of conquest are harder now
for the self-elected generalissimos of these robber bands. "Extension
of territory" is a diplomatic euphemism for organized descents of
desperate murderers. The wholesome lessons of the slaughter in Sonora,
the piles of heads at Arispe, and the crowded graves of Rivas and
Castillo, with the executions in Cuba, prove to the ambitious
Southrons that they will receive from the Latins a "bloody welcome
to hospitable graves."

As the days glide into weeks and months, the thirst for blood of
the martial generation overcrowding the South is manifest. On the
threshold of grave events the leaders of Southern Rights restrain
further foreign attempts. The chivalry is now needed at home. Foiled
in Cuba and Central America, restrained by the general government
from a new aggressive movement on Mexico, they decide to turn
their faces to the North. They will carve out a new boundary line
for slavery.

The natural treasury of the country is an object of especial
interest. To break away peaceably is hardly possible. But slavery
needs more ground for the increasing blacks. It must be toward
the Pacific that the new Confederacy will gain ground. Gold, sea
frontage, Asiatic trade, forests and fisheries,--all these must
come to the South. It is the final acquisition of California. It
was APPARENTLY for the Union, but REALLY for the South, that the
complacent Polk pounced upon California. He waged a slyly prepared
war on Mexico for slavery.

As the restraints of courtesy and fairness are thrown off at
Washington, sectional hostilities sweep over to the Western coast.
The bitterness becomes intense. Pressing to the front, champions
of both North and South meet in private encounters. They admit of
neither evasion nor retreat.

Maxime Valois is ready to shed his blood for the land of the palmetto.
But he will not degrade himself by low intrigue or vulgar encounter.

He learns without regret of the extinction of the filibusters in
Sonora, on the Mexican coast, Cuba, and Central America. He knows
it is mad piracy.

Valois sorrows not when William Walker's blood slakes the stones
of the plaza at Truxillo. A consummation devoutly to be wished.

It is for the whole South he would battle. It is the glorious half
of the greatest land on the globe. For HER great rights, under HER
banner, for State sovereignty he would die. On some worthy field,
he would lead the dauntless riflemen of Louisiana into the crater
of death.

THERE, would be the patriot's pride and the soldier's guerdon of
valor. He would be in the van of such an uprising. He scorns to be
a petty buccaneer, a butcher of half-armed natives, a rover and
a robber. In every scene, through the days of 1859, Valois bears
himself as a cavalier. Personal feud was not his object.

In the prominence of his high position, Valois travels the State.
He confers with the secret councils at San Francisco. He is ready
to lead in his regions when needed. The dark cabal of Secession
sends out trusty secret agents, even as Gillespie and Larkin called
forth the puppets of Polk, Buchanan and Marcy to action. Valois
hopes his friends can seize California for the South. Fenced off
from Oregon and the East by the Sierras, there is the open connection
with the South by Arizona.

A few regiments of Texan horse can hold this great gold-field for
the South. Valois deems it impossible for California to be recaptured
if once won. He knows that Southern agents are ready to stir up
the great tribes of the plains against the Yankees. The last great
force, the United States Navy, is to be removed. Philip Hardin
tells him how the best ships of the navy are being dismantled, or
ordered away to foreign stations. Great frigates are laid up in
Southern navy-yards. Ordnance supplies and material are pushed
toward the Gulf. Appropriations are expended to aid these plans.
The leaders of the army, now scattered under Southern commanders,
are ready to turn over to the South the whole available national
material of war. Never dreaming of aught but success, Valois fears
only that he may be assigned to Western duties. This will keep him
from the triumphal marches over the North. He may miss the glories
of that day when Robert Toombs calls the roll of his blacks at Bunker
Hill Monument. In the prime of life and vigor of mind, he is rich.
He has now a tiny girl child, gladdening sweet Senora Dolores. His
domain blossoms like the rose. Valois has many things to tie him
to San Joaquin. His princely possessions alone would satisfy any
man. But he would leave all this to ride with the Southern hosts
in their great northward march. Dolores sits often lonely now, on
the porch of the baronial residence which has grown up around the
Don's old adobe mansion. Her patient mother lies under the roses,
by the side of Don Miguel.

Padre Francisco, wearied of the mental death in life of these
lonely hills, has delayed his return to France only by the appeals
of Maxime Valois. He wants a friend at Lagunitas if he takes the
field. If he should be called East, who would watch over his wife
and child? Fran‡ois Ribaut, a true Frenchan at heart, looks forward
to some quiet cloister, where he can see once more the twin towers
of Notre Dame. The golden dome of the Invalides calls him back. He
sadly realizes that his life has been uselessly wasted. The Indians
are either cut off, chased away, or victims of fatal diseases. The
Mexicans have fallen to low estate. Their numbers are trifling.
He has no flock. He is only a lonely shepherd. With the Americans
his gentle words avail nothing. The Catholics of the cities have
brought a newer Church hierarchy with them. "Home to France," is
his longing now.

In the interior, quarrels bring about frequent personal encounters
between political disputants. The Northern sympathizers, stung
by jeer, and pushed to the wall, take up their weapons and stand
firm--a new fire in their eyes. The bravos of slavery meet fearless
adversaries. In the cities, the wave of political bitterness
drowns all friendly impulses. Every public man takes his life in
his hand. The wars of Broderick and Gwin, Field and Terry, convulse
the State. Lashed into imprudence by each other's attacks, David
C. Broderick and David S. Terry look into each other's pistols.
They stand face to face in the little valley by Merced Lake.
Sturdy Colton, and warm-hearted Joe McKibbin, second the fearless
Broderick. Hayes and the chivalric Calhoun Benham are the aids
of the lion-hearted Terry. It is a meeting of giants. Resolution
against deadly nerve. Brave even to rashness, both of them know
it is the first blood of the fight between South and North. Benham
does well as, with theatrical flourish, he casts Terry's money on
the sod. The grass is soon to be stained with the blood of a leader.
This is no mere money quarrel. It is a duel to the death; a calm
assertion of the fact that neither in fray, in the forum, nor on
the battle-field, will the North go back one inch. It is high time.

Broderick, the peer of his superb antagonist, knows that the
pretext of Terry's challenge is a mere excuse. It is first blood in
the inevitable struggle for the western coast. With no delay, the
stout-hearted champions, friends once, stand as foes in conflict.
David Terry's ball cuts the heart-strings of a man who had been his
loving political brother. His personal friend once and a gallant
comrade. Broderick's blood marks the fatal turning-off of the
Northern Democrats from their Southern brothers. As Terry lowers
his pistol, looking unpityingly at the fallen giant, he does not
realize he has cut the cords tying the West to the South. It was
a fatal deed, this brother's murder. It was the mistake of a life,
hitherto high in purpose. The implacable Terry would have shuddered
could he have looked over the veiled mysteries of thirty years
to come. It was beyond human ken. Even he might have blenched at
the strange life-path fate would lead him over. Over battle-fields
where the Southern Cross rises and falls like Mokanna's banner, back
across deserts, to die under the deadly aim of an obscure minion
of the government he sought to pull down. After thirty years, David
S. Terry, judge, general, and champion of the South, was destined
to die at the feet of his brother-judge, whose pathway inclined
Northwardly from that ill-starred moment.

Maxime Valois saw in the monster memorial meeting on the plaza,
that the cause of the South was doomed in the West. While Baker's
silver voice rises in eulogy over Broderick, the Louisianian sees
a menace in the stern faces of twenty thousand listeners. The shade
of the murdered mechanic-senator hovers at their local feast, a
royal Banquo, shadowy father of political kings yet to be.

The clarion press assail the awful deed. Boldly, the opponents of
slavery draw out in the community. There is henceforth no room for
treason on the Western coast. Only covert conspiracy can neutralize
the popular wave following Broderick's death. Dissension rages until
the fever of the Lincoln campaign excites the entire community. The
pony express flying eastward, the rapidly approaching telegraph,
the southern overland mail with the other line across the plains,
bring the news of Eastern excitement. Election battles, Southern
menace, and the tidings of the triumph of Republican principles,
reach the Pacific. Abraham Lincoln is the elected President.

Valois is heavy-hearted when he learns of the victory of freedom
at the polls. He would be glad of some broad question on which to
base the coming war. His brow is grave, as he realizes the South
must now bring on at moral disadvantage the conflict. The war
will decide the fate of slavery. Broderick's untimely death and
the crushing defeat of the elections are bad omens. It is with shame
he learns of the carefully laid plots to seduce leading officers
of the army and navy. The South must bribe over officials, and
locate government property for the use of the conspirators. It
labors with intrigue and darkness, to prepare for what he feels
should be a gallant defiance. It should be only a solemn appeal to
the god of battles.

He sadly arranges his personal affairs, to meet the separations
of the future. He sits with his lovely, graceful consort, on the
banks of Lagunitas. He is only waiting the throwing-off of the
disguise which hides the pirate gun-ports of the cruiser, Southern
Rights. The hour comes before the roses bloom twice over dead
Broderick, on the stately slopes of Lone Mountain.






BOOK III

GOING HOME TO DIXIE: STARS AND STRIPES, OR STARS AND BARS?

CHAPTER X

A LITTLE DINNER AT JUDGE HARDIN'S.--THE KNIGHTS OF THE GOLDEN
CIRCLE.





The rain drips drearily around Judge Hardin's spacious residence
in San Francisco. January, 1861, finds the sheltering trees higher.
The embowered shade hides to-night an unusual illumination. Winter
breezes sigh through the trees. Showers of spray fall from acacia
and vine. As the wet fog drives past, the ship-lights on the bay
are almost hidden. When darkness brings out sweeping lines of the
street-lamps, many carriages roll up to the open doors.

A circle of twenty or thirty intimates gathers in the great
dining-room. At the head of the table, Hardin welcomes the chosen
representatives of the great Southern conspiracy in the West. His
residence, rarely thrown open to the public, has grown with the
rise of his fortunes. Philip Hardin must be first in every attribute
of a leading judge and publicist. Lights burn late here since the
great election of 1860. Men who are at the helm of finance, politics,
and Federal power are visitors. Editors and trusted Southrons drop
in, by twos and threes, secretly. There is unwonted social activity.

The idle gossips are silent. These visitors are all men, unaccompanied by
their families. Woman's foot never crosses this threshold. In the
wings of the mansion, a lovely face is sometimes seen at a window.
It is a reminder of the stories of that concealed beauty who has
reigned years in the mansion on the hill.

Is it a marriage impending? Is it some great scheme? Some new
monetary institution to be launched?

These vain queries remain unanswered. There is a mystic password
given before joining the feast. Southerners, tried and true, are
the diners. Maxime Valois sits opposite his associate. It is not
only a hospitable welcome the Judge extends, but the mystic embrace
of the Knights of the Golden Circle. In feast and personal enjoyment
the moments fly by. The table glitters with superb plate. It is
loaded with richest wines and the dainties of the fruitful West. The
board rings under emphatic blows of men who toast, with emphasis,
the "Sunny South." In their flowing cups, old and new friends are
remembered. There is not one glass raised to the honor of the starry
flag which yet streams out boldly at the Golden Gate.

The feast is of conspirators who are sworn to drag that flag at
their horses' heels in triumph. Men nurtured under it.

Judge Hardin gives the signal of departure for the main hall. In
an hour or so they are joined by others who could not attend the
feast.

The meeting of the Knights of the Golden Circle proceeds with
mystic ceremony. The windows, doors, and avenues are guarded. In
the grounds faithful brothers watch for any sneaking spy. Every man
is heavily armed. It would be short shrift to the foe who stumbles
on this meeting of deadly import.

It is the supreme moment to impart the last orders of the Southern
leaders. The Washington chiefs assign the duties of each, in view
of the violent rupture which will follow Lincoln's inauguration.

Fifty or sixty in number, these brave and desperate souls are ready
to cast all in jeopardy. Life, fortune, and fame. They represent
every city and county of California.

Hardin, high priest of this awful propaganda, opens the business
of the session with a cool statement of facts. Every man is now
sworn and under obligation to the work. Hardin's eye kindles as
he sees these brothers of the Southern Cross. Each of them has a
dozen friends or subordinates under him. To them these tidings will
be only divulged under the awful seal of the death penalty. There
are scores of army and navy officers with high civil officials on
the coast whose finely drawn scruples will keep them out until the
first gun is fired, Then these powerful allies, freed by resignation,
can come in. They are holding places of power and immense importance
to the last. The Knights are wealthy, powerful, and desperate.

As Valois hears Hardin's address, he appreciates the labor of years,
in weaving the network which is to hold California, Arizona, and
New Mexico for the South. Utah and Nevada are untenanted deserts.
The Mormon regions are neutral and only useful as a geographical
barrier to Eastern forces. Oregon and Washington are to be ignored.
There the hardy woodsmen and rugged settlers represent the ingrained
"freedom worship" of the Northwest. They are farmers and lumbermen.
All acknowledge it useless to tempt them out of the fold. Oregon's
star gleams now firmly fixed in the banner of Columbia. And the
great Sierras fence them off.

The speaker announces that each member of the present circle will
be authorized, on returning, to organize and extend the circles
of the Order. Notification of matters of moment will be made by
qualified members, from circle to circle. Thus, orders will pass
quickly over the State. The momentous secrets cannot be trusted
to mail, express, or the local telegraphs.

Hardin calls up member after member, to give their views. The
general plan is discussed by the circle. Keen-eyed secretaries note
and arrange opinions and remarks.

Hardin announces that all arrangements are made to use all initiated
members going East as bearers of despatches. They are available
for special interviews, with the brothers who are in every large
Northern city and even in the principal centres of Europe.

Ample funds have been forthcoming from the liberal leaders of the
local movement. Millions are already promised by the branches at
the East.

Wild cheers hail Judge Hardin's address. He outlines the policy, so
artfully laid out, for the cut-off Western contingent. In foaming
wine, the fearless coterie pledges the South till the rafters
ring again. The "Bonnie Blue Flag" rings out, as it does in many
Western households, with "Dixie's" thrilling strains.

The summing up of Hardin is concise: "We are to hold this State
until we have orders to open hostilities. Our numbers must not
be reduced by volunteers going East. Our presence will keep the
Yankee troops from going East. We want the gold of the mines here,
to sustain our finances. We have as commanding General, Albert
Sidney Johnston, the ideal soldier of America, who will command
the Mississippi. Lee, Beauregard, and Joe Johnston will operate in
the East. The fight will be along the border lines. We will capture
Washington, and seize New York and Philadelphia. A grand Southern
army will march from Richmond to Boston. Another from Nashville to
Cincinnati and Chicago. Johnston will hold on here, until forced to
resign. Many officers go with him. We shall know of this, and throw
ourselves on the arsenals and forts here, capturing the stores and
batteries. The militia and independent companies will come over
to us at once. With Judge Downey, a Democratic governor, no levies
will be called out against us. The navy is all away, or in our
secret control. Once in possession of this State, we will fortify
the Sierra Nevada passes. We are prepared. Congress has given us
$600,000 a year to keep up the Southern overland mail route. It
runs through slave-holding territory to Arizona. Every station and
relay has been laid out to suit us. We will have trusty friends
and supplies, clear through Arizona and over the Colorado. At the
outbreak, we will seize the whole system. It is the shortest and
safest line."

Hardin, lauding the skilful plans of a complacent Cabinet officer,
did not know that the Southern idea was to connect Memphis direct
with Los Angeles.

It was loyal John Butterfield of New York, who artfully bid for a
DOUBLE service from Memphis and St. Louis, uniting at Fort Smith,
Arkansas, and virtually defeated this sly move of slavery.

Judge Hardin, pausing in pride, could not foresee that Daniel
Butterfield, the gallant son of a loyal sire, would meet the
chivalry of the South as the Marshal of the greatest field of modern
times--awful Gettysburg!

While Hardin plotted in the West, Daniel Butterfield in the East
personally laid out every detail of this great service, so as to
checkmate the Southern design, were the Mississippi given over to
loyal control.

The afterwork of Farragut and Porter paralyzed the Southern line
of advance; and on the Peninsula, at Fredericksburg, at Resaca
and Chancellorsville, Major-General Daniel Butterfield met in arms
many of the men who listened to Hardin's gibes as to the outwitted
Yankee mail contractors.

Hardin, complacent, and with no vision of the awful fields to come,
secure in his well-laid plans, resumes:

"Thus aided through Arizona we will admit a strong column of Texan
dragoons. We shall take Fort Yuma, Fort Mojave, and the forts in
Arizona, as well as Forts Union and Craig in New Mexico. We will
then be able to control the northern overland road. We will hold
the southern line, and our forces will patrol Arizona. Mexico will
furnish us ports and supplies.

"Should the Northerners attempt to push troops over the plains,
we will attack them, in flank, from New Mexico. We can hold, thus,
New Mexico, Arizona, southern Utah, and all of California, by our
short line from El Paso to San Diego. We are covered on one flank
by Mexico."

The able brethren are ready with many suggestions. Friendly spies
in the Department at Washington have announced the intended drawing
East of the regular garrisons. It is suggested that the forts, and
in fact the whole State, be seized while the troops are in transit.

Another proposes the fitting out of several swift armed steam
letters-of-marque from San Francisco, to capture the enormous Yankee
tonnage now between China, Cape Horn, Australia, and California.
The whaling fleet is the object of another. He advises sending a
heavily armed revenue cutter, when seized, to the Behring Sea to
destroy the spring whalers arriving from Honolulu too late for
any warning, from home, of the hostilities.

A number of active committees are appointed. One, of veteran
rangers, to select frontiersmen to stir up the Indians to attack
the northern overland mail stations. Another, to secretly confer
with the officers of the United States Mint, Custom-House, and
Sub-Treasury. Another, to socially engage the leading officers of
the army and navy, and win them over, or develop their real feelings.
Every man of mark in the State is listed and canvassed.

The "high priest" announces that the families of those detailed
for distant duty will be cared for by the general committee. Each
member receives the mystic tokens. Orders are issued to trace up
all stocks of arms and ammunition on the coast.

The seizure of the Panama Railroad, thus cutting off quick movement
of national troops, is discussed. Every man is ordered to send
in lists of trusty men as soon as mustered into the new mystery.
Convenient movements of brothers from town to town are planned
out. Only true sons of the sunny South are to be trusted.

In free converse, the duty of watching well-known Unionists is
enjoined upon all. Name by name, dangerous men of the North are
marked down for proscription or special action. "Removal," perhaps.

With wild cheers, the Knights of the Golden Circle receive the
news that the South is surely going out. The dream long dear to the
Southern heart! Any attempt of the senile Buchanan to reinforce
the garrisons of the national forts will be the signal for the
opening roar of the stolen guns. They know that the inauguration
of Lincoln on March 4, 1861, means war without debate. He dare not
abandon his trust. He will be welcomed with a shotted salute across
the Potomac.

When the move "en masse" is made, the guests, warmed with wine and
full of enthusiasm, file away. Hardin and Valois sit late. The
splashing rain drenches the swaying trees of the Judge's hillside
retreat.

Lists and papers of the principal men on both sides, data and
statistics of stock and military supplies, maps, and papers, are
looked at. The deep boom of the Cathedral bell, far below them,
beats midnight as the two friends sit plotting treason.

There is something mystical in the exact hour of midnight. The rich
note startles Hardin. Cold, haughty, crafty, and able, his devotion
to the South is that of the highest moral courage. It is not the
exultation which culminates rashly on the battle-field. These lurid
scenes are for younger heroes.

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