The Victim: A Romance of the Real Jefferson Davis

Jefferson Davis had created the most compact and terrible engine of war set in motion since Napoleon founded the Empire of France. It had been done under conditions of incredibl...

Baton Rouge seethed with excitement on the day of Jennie's arrival. Every wagon and dray was pressed into service. The people were hauling their cotton to be burned on the commo...

David Yulee, Stephen K. Mallory and Benjamin Fitzpatrick had each closed his portfolio and with slow measured tread marched down the crowded aisle and out of the Chamber never a...

On the banks of the Potomac General Scott had massed against Beauregard the most formidable army which had ever marched under the flag of the Union. Its preparation was consider...

From the moment Captain Welford had discovered the plot of the prisoners to coöperate with Kilpatrick and Dahlgren he was morally sure that Miss Van Lew had been their messenger...

Socola dismissed his hope of a speedy end of the war and devoted himself with new enthusiasm to his work. His eyes were sleepless--his ear to the ground. The information on cond...

The death of Jackson was to Jefferson Davis an appalling disaster. He had never seriously believed the Southern people could win their unequal struggle against the millions of t...

At midnight on the day of the evacuation the President and his Cabinet left Richmond for Danville. He still believed that Lee might cut his way through Grant's lines and join hi...

A wave of fierce anger swept the North. The fall of Sumter was the one topic on every lip. Men stopped their trade, their work, their play and looked about them for the nearest...

Richmond now entered the shadows of her darkest hour. Three armies were threatening from the west commanded by Fremont, Milroy, and Banks, whose forces were ordered to unite. Mc...

"You'll be delighted with Mrs. Davis, too," the girl informed him with enthusiasm. "His second love affair you know--this time, late in life, he married the young accomplished g...

"Not the first time either. Mrs. Davis told me that when the Senator was so ill with neuralgia and came near losing his sight, Seward came every day, sat in the darkened room an...

Disaster followed disaster for the South now in swift succession. The United States Navy, not content with the supremacy of the high seas, set to work with determination to buil...

When Grant crossed the Rapidan with his army of one hundred forty-one thousand one hundred and sixty men Lee faced him with sixty-four thousand. The problem of saving Richmond f...

The conspirators who had complained most bitterly of Davis for the appointment of Lee to the command of the army before Richmond when McClellan was thundering at its gates, now...

He was surprised at the strange quiet which the spirit of the new President had communicated to the people. There was no loud talk, no braggadocio, no threats, no clamor for war...

The fight to establish the right of the Confederacy to arm its allies under letters of marque and reprisal had been won by the Southern President. The first armed vessel sailing...

Long before Jennie Barton arrived in Richmond Socola had waked to the realization of the fact that he had been caught in the trap he had set for another. He had laughed at his g...

From the moment he breathed his spirit into the army he made it a rapid, compact, accurate and terrible engine of war. The contemptible assault of the Richmond _Examiner_ fell h...

The Confederacy had concentrated its forces of the upper waters of the Mississippi on Island Number 10 near New Madrid. The work of putting this little Gibraltar in a state of p...

On February 22, 1862, Jefferson Davis committed the one irretrievable mistake of his administration. He consented to his inauguration as permanent President of the Confederacy u...

Jefferson Davis not only refused to remove Albert Sidney Johnston from his command in answer to the clamor of his critics, he wrote his general letters expressing such unbounded...

From the moment Virginia seceded from the Union it wan a foregone conclusion that Richmond would be the capital of the new Confederacy--not only because the great Virginian was...

A little tug puffed up and drew alongside the steamer. She took off Alexander H. Stephens, General Joseph Wheeler and Burton Harrison. Stephens and Wheeler were sent to Fort War...

His mother was largely responsible for his conceit. She honestly believed that he was the handsomest man in America. For more than six years--in fact, since his eighteenth birth...

Socola left Briarfield with the assurance of the President-elect of the Confederacy that he might spend a week with the Bartons and yet be in ample time for the inauguration at...

Jennie Barton sat alone on the roof of her aunt's house at two o'clock on the morning of April 13. The others had gone to bed, certain that the rumors were false. She had someho...

The raid of Dahlgren and Kilpatrick had sent a thrill of horror through Richmond. The people had suddenly waked to the realization of what it meant to hold fifteen thousand desp...

The appearance of this Congress was curiously plain and uninteresting. With the exception of J. L. M. Curry of Alabama and Barksdale of Mississippi there was not a man among the...

In February, 1864, both North and South were straining every nerve for the last act of the grand drama of blood and tears. The Presidential election would be held in November to...

Captain Welford had entered the Secret Service of the Confederacy believing firmly that Socola was a Federal spy. He would not make known his suspicions until he had secured evi...

Socola lost no time in applying for a position. The one place of all others he wished was a berth in the War Department. It was useless to try for it. No foreigner had ever been...

When Socola rose the following morning he determined to throw every scruple to the winds and devote himself to Jennie Barton with a zeal and passion that would leave to his Sout...

The Secretary of War invited Socola to join him at the White House after the Cabinet meeting which President Buchanan had called at the unusual hour of ten at night. He had wait...

When Socola had finished his work developing the history and character of Conover and his crew of professional perjurers there was a sudden collapse in the machinery of the Bure...

Socola followed with a nod of approval. Their walk led to the highest of the city's seven hills. But few were stirring at this hour--half-past seven. The people were busy at sup...

Dick Welford had played directly into the hands of his enemy. When Socola called at the Barton home to pay his respects to Miss Jennie and wish them health and happiness and suc...

From the moment Dick Welford had seen Socola bowing and smiling before Jennie Barton he had hated the man. He hated foreigners on general principles, anyhow. This kind of foreig...

While the prisoner fought to save his reason in the dungeon at Fortress Monroe, his wife was denied the right to lift her hand in his defense. No communication was allowed betwe...

Socola read the story of the chaining of the Confederate Chieftain with indignation. His intimate association with Jefferson Davis had convinced him of his singular purity of ch...

"I just ran down, sir, to ask you to wait and go in Senator Davis' party. He has been threatened with arrest by the cowards who are at the present moment in charge of the Govern...

While General Joseph E. Johnston was devoting his energies to a campaign to change the date of his commission and his friends organizing their opposition to the President at Ric...

Captain Richard Welford reached Richmond from the Western army two days after Lee had driven McClellan under the shelter of the navy. He had been wounded in battle, promoted to...

Jennie Barton had refused to listen to Captain Welford's accusation of treachery against her lover but the seed of suspicion had been planted. It grew with such rapidity her pea...

The first aggressive act of the President of the Confederacy revealed his alert and far-seeing mind. His keen eye was bent upon the sea, with an instinctive appreciation of the...

He was two days finding her. She had offered her services to Mrs. Hopkins in the Alabama hospital. He sent in his card and she refused to see him. He asked an interview with Mrs...

Carriages drawn by sleek, high-bred horses dashed through the broad streets with excited haste. The black coachman on the box held his reins with a nervous grip that communicate...