Chapter XXVIII: A Letter of Business

“This war’s duration can be more surely calculated from the moral progress of the North than from the result of campaigns in the field. Were the whole North to-day as one man on the moral issues underlying the struggle, the Rebellion were this day crushed. God bids us, I think, _be just and let the oppressed go free_. Let us do his bidding, and the plagues cease.”—_Letter from a native of Richmond, Va._

The following letter belongs chronologically to this stage in our history:—

_From F. Macon Semmes, New York, to T. J Semmes, New Orleans._

“DEAR BROTHER: I have called, as you requested, on Mr. Charlton in
regard to his real estate in New Orleans. Let me give you some account
of this man. He is taxed for upwards of a million. He inherited a good
part of this sum from his wife, and she inherited it from a nephew,
the late Mr. Berwick, who inherited it from his infant daughter, and
this last from her mother. Mother, child, and father—the whole Berwick
family—were killed by a steamboat explosion on the Mississippi some
fifteen or sixteen years ago.

“In the lawsuit which grew out of the conflicting claims of the
relatives of the mother on the one side, and of the father on the
other, it was made to appear that the mother must have been killed
instantaneously, either by the inhalation of steam from the explosion,
or by a blow on the head from a splinter; either cause being
sufficient to produce immediate death. It was then proved that the
child, having been seen with her nurse alive and struggling in the
water, must have lived after the mother,—thus inheriting the mother’s
property. But it was further proved that the child was drowned, and
that the father survived the child a few hours; and thus the father’s
heir became entitled to an estate amounting to upwards of a million of
dollars, all of which was thus diverted from the Aylesford family (to
whom the property ought to have gone), and bestowed on a man alien in
blood and in every other respect to all the parties fairly interested.

“This fortunate man was Charlton. The scandal goes, that even the wife
from whom he derived the estate (and who died before he got it) had
received from him such treatment as to alienate her wholly. The
nearest relative of Mrs. Berwick, _née_ Aylesford, is a Mrs.
Pompilard, now living with an aged husband and with dependent
step-children and grandchildren, in a state of great impoverishment.
To this aunt the large property derived from her brother, Mr.
Aylesford, ought to have gone. But the law gave it to a stranger, this
Charlton. I mention these facts, because you ask me to inform you what
manner of man he is.

“Let one little anecdote illustrate. Mr. Albert Pompilard, now some
eighty years old, has been in his day a great operator in Wall Street.
He has made half a dozen large fortunes and lost them. Five years ago,
by a series of bold and fortunate speculations, he placed himself once
more on the top round of the financial ladder. He paid off all his
debts with interest, pensioned off a widowed daughter, lifted up from
the gutter several old, broken-down friends, and advanced a handsome
sum to his literary son-in-law, Mr. Cecil Purling, who had found, as
he thought, a short cut to fortune. Pompilard also bought a stylish
place on the Hudson; and people supposed he would be content to keep
aloof from the stormy fluctuations of Wall Street.

“But one day he read in the financial column of the newspaper certain
facts that roused the old propensity. His near neighbor was a rich
retired tailor, a Mr. Maloney, an Irishman, who used to come over to
play billiards with the venerable stock-jobber. Pompilard had made a
visit to Wall Street the day before. He had been fired with a grand
scheme of buying up the whole of a certain stock (in which sellers at
sixty days at a low figure were abundant) and then holding on for a
grand rise. He did not find it difficult to kindle the financial
enthusiasm of poor Snip.

“Brief, the two simpletons went into the speculation, and lost every
cent they were worth in the world. Simultaneously with their
break-down, Purling, the son-in-law, managed to lose all that had been
confided to his hands. The widowed daughter, Mrs. Ireton, gave up all
the little estate her father had settled on her. Poor Maloney had to
go back to his goose; and Pompilard, now almost an octogenarian, has
been obliged, he and his family, to take lodgings in the cottage of
his late gardener.

“The other day Mr. Hicks, a friend of the family, learning that they
were actually pinched in their resources, ventured to call upon
Charlton for a contribution for their relief. After an evident inward
struggle, Charlton manfully pulled out his pocket-book, and
tendered—what, think you?—why, a ten-dollar bill! Hicks affected to
regard the tender as an insult, and slapped the donor’s face. Charlton
at first threatened a prosecution, but concluded it was too expensive
a luxury. Thus you see he is a miser. It was with no little
satisfaction, therefore, that I called to communicate the state of his
affairs in New Orleans.

“He lives on one of the avenues in a neat freestone house, such as
could be hired for twenty-five hundred a year. There is a stable
attached, and he keeps a carriage. Soon after he burst upon the
fashionable world as a millionnaire, there was a general competition
among fashionable families to secure him for one of the daughters. But
Charlton, with all his wealth, did not want a wife who was merely
stylish, clever, and beautiful; she must be rich into the bargain. He
at last encountered such a one (as he imagined) in Miss Dykvelt, a
member of one of the old Dutch families. He proposed, was accepted,
married,—and three weeks afterwards, to his consternation and horror,
he received an application from old D., the father-in-law, for a loan
of a hundred thousand dollars.

“Charlton, of course, indignantly refused it. He found that he had
been, to use his own words, ‘taken in and done for.’ Old Dykvelt,
while he kept up the style of a prince, was on the verge of
bankruptcy. The persons to whom Charlton applied for information,
knowing the object of the inquiry and the meanness of the inquirer,
purposely cajoled him with stories of Dykvelt’s wealth. Charlton fell
into the trap. Charlotte Dykvelt, who was in love at the time with
young Ireton (a Lieutenant in the army and a grandson of old
Pompilard), yielded to the entreaties of her parents and married the
man she detested. She was well versed in the history of his first
wife, and resolved that her own heart, wrung by obedience to parental
authority, should be iron and adamant to any attempt Charlton might
make to wound it.

“He soon found himself overmatched. The bully and tyrant was helpless
before the impassive frigidity and inexorable determination of that
young and beautiful woman. He had a large iron safe in his house, in
which he kept his securities and coupons, and often large sums of
money. One day he discovered he had been robbed of thirty thousand
dollars. He charged the theft upon his wife. She neither denied nor
confessed it, but treated him with a glacial scorn before which he
finally cowered and was dumb. Undoubtedly she had taken the money. She
forced him against his inclination to move into a decent house, and
keep a carriage; and at last, by a threat of leaving him, she made him
settle on her a liberal allowance.

“A loveless home for him, as you may suppose! One daughter, Lucy
Charlton, is the offspring of this ill-assorted marriage; a beautiful
girl, I am told, but who shrinks from her father’s presence as from
something odious. Probably the mother’s impressions during pregnancy
gave direction to the antipathies of the child; so that before it came
into the world it was fatherless.

“Well, I called on Charlton last Thursday. As I passed the little
sitting-room of the basement, I saw a young and lovely girl putting
her mouth filled with seed up to the bars of a cage, and a canary-bird
picking the food from her lips. A cat, who seemed to be on excellent
terms with the bird, was perched on the girl’s shoulder, and
superintending the operation. So, thought I, she exercises her
affections in the society of these dumb pets rather than in that of
her father.

“I found Charlton sitting lonely in a sort of library scantily
furnished with books. A well-formed man, but with a face haggard and
anxious as if his life-blood were ebbing irrecoverably with every
penny that went from his pockets. On my mentioning your name, his eyes
brightened; for he inferred I had come with your semiannual
remittances. He was at once anxious to know if rents in New Orleans
had been materially affected by the war. I told him his five houses
near Lafayette Square, excepting that occupied on a long lease by Mr.
Carberry Ratcliff, would not bring in half the amount they did last
year. He groaned audibly. I then told him that your semiannual
collections for him amounted to six thousand dollars, but that you
were under the painful necessity of assuring him that the money would
have to be paid all over to the Confederate government.

“Charlton, completely struck aghast, fell back in his chair, his face
pale, and his lips quivering. I thought he had fainted.

“‘Your brother wouldn’t rob me, Mr. Semmes?’ he gasped forth.

“‘Certainly not,’ I replied; ‘but his obedience is due to the
authorities that are uppermost. The Confederate flag waves over New
Orleans, and will probably continue to wave. All your real estate has
been or will be confiscated.’

“‘But it is worth two hundred thousand dollars!’ he exclaimed, in a
tone that was almost a shriek.

“‘So much the better for the Confederate treasury!’ I replied.

“I then broached what you told me to in regard to his making a _bona
fide_ sale of the property to you. I offered him twenty thousand
dollars in cash, if he would surrender all claim.

“‘Never! never!’ he exclaimed. ‘I’ll run my risk of the city’s coming
back into our possession. I see through your brother’s trick.’

“‘Please recall that word, sir,’ I said, touching my wristbands.

“‘Well, your brother’s _plan_, sir. Will that suit you?’

“‘That will do,’ I replied. ‘My brother will pay your ten thousand
dollars over to the Confederacy. But I am authorized to pay you a
tenth part of that sum for your receipt in full of all moneys due to
you for rents up to this time.’

“‘Ha! you Secessionists are not quite so positive, after all, as to
your fortune!’ he exclaimed. ‘You’re a little weak-kneed as to your
ability to hold the place,—eh?’

“‘The city will be burnt,’ I replied, ‘before the inhabitants will
consent to have the old flag restored. You’d better make the most, Mr.
Charlton, of your opportunity to compound for a fractional part of the
value of your Southern property.’

“It was all in vain. I couldn’t make him see it. He hates the war and
the Lincoln administration; but he won’t sell or compound on the terms
you propose. And, to be frank, I wouldn’t if I were he. It would be a
capital thing for us if he could be made to do it. But as he is in no
immediate need of money, we cannot rely on the stimulus of absolute
want to influence him as we wish. I took my leave, quite disgusted
with his obstinacy.

“The fall of Sumter seems to have fired the Northern heart in earnest.
I fear we are going to have serious work with these Yankees. Secretary
Walker’s cheerful promise of raising the Confederate flag over Faneuil
Hall will not be realized for some time. Nevertheless, we are bound to
prevail—I hope. Of course every Southern man will die in the last
ditch rather than yield one foot of Southern soil to Yankee
domination. We must have Maryland and the Chesapeake, Fortress Monroe,
and all the Gulf forts, Western Virginia, Missouri, Kentucky,
Delaware,—every square inch of them. Not a rood must we part with. We
can whip, if we’ll only think so. We’re the master race, and can do
it. Can hold on to our niggers into the bargain. At least, we’ll talk
as if we believed it. Perhaps the prediction will work its fulfilment.
Who knows?

“Fraternally yours,
F. M. S.”