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CHAPTER XI.

The Dramatic Flight of General Toombs into

F

Exile.

OLLOWING the surrender at Appomattox the last breath of the Confederacy was drawn in the old Heard house at Washington, Georgia, where the farewell meeting of the Confederate Cabinet was held somewhat hastily on May 5, 1865.

The Confederate chief executive, with the members of his official household, had first retreated from Richmond to Greensboro, North Carolina, where the bristling bayonets of General Johnston's army still bore aloft the Confederate colors; but the safety which this asylum furnished was soon destroyed by the victorious fire of General Sherman, who, having "blazed" his destructive march to the sea, now pointed his flaming columns toward the north.

Hastening over the border line into upper South Carolina, and crossing the Savannah headwaters into Eastern Georgia, Mr. Davis succeeded in eluding the torch-bearer and bent his fugitive footsteps toward the historic town. which had been for generations the ancestral home of General Toombs.

General Toombs held no civic position at this time, having already quit the Cabinet; but it was nevertheless

an appropriate and perhaps not altogether an accidental circumstance that the man whose genius had been so effective in kindling the revolutionary fires should now be asked to furnish the couch on which the cause was to expire.

Care-worn and travel-stained, the principal actors in this pathetic scene were not long in dissolving the government whose checkered career was now about to close. The arresting officers were in hot pursuit and the air of the neighborhood was thick with danger. General Toombs did everything in his power to insure the protection as well as the comfort of his guests, and when the meeting was over he offered to furnish whatever funds or supplies were needed to speed them upon the perilous homeward journeys which they were now obliged to take.

Forgetful of former disagreements, he seemed to be specially concerned about Mr. Davis, and even offered at the peril of his own life to see him safely escorted to the Chattahoochee river. But this was characteristic of the gallant Toombs. The fiery Rupert was ever the magnanimous and generous prince, and the flinty spark of impatient temper was by no means the only match which could kindle the furnace in the heart of Hotspur. But Mr. Davis thankfully declined the proffered service, and graciously assured him that his wants were fully met. It may also be observed in this connection as an item of wayside interest that Mr. Davis had received from General Lee the voluntary tender of Old Traveler; but he had no occasion for making use of the famous war-horse which had so often borne the figure of the South's great hero in the charge of battle.

Events were now moving on apace. The authorities

at Washington were anxious to capture the principal leaders involved in the uprising which had now been quelled; and the so-called arch-conspirators who were specially wanted at this time were Jefferson Davis, Alexander H. Stephens and Robert Toombs.

Mr. Davis was overtaken in Irwin county, Georgia. on the tenth of May, and carried to Fortress Monroe on the coast of Virginia, where he was put into irons.

Two days later Mr. Stephens was seized at his home in Crawfordville and taken to Fort Warren, in Boston Harbor.

But General Toombs

This abruptly broken sentence suggests that the plans of the government were not entirely executed. Prison fetters and dungeon damps were not to be the portion of General Toombs. The man who bore the imperial stamp was not to wear the servile badge; and the story of how the unconquered Georgian eluded the most vigilant search of the Federal officers and was soon bounding upon the high seas between Europe and America, is one of the dramatic episodes of the Civil War.

We are indebted to Mr. Pleasant A. Stovall, the brilliant biographer of General Toombs, for the most complete account we have anywhere seen in print of this thrilling incident; and we follow the main outlines of Mr. Stovall's narrative. On the same day that witnessed the arrest of Mr. Stephens there appeared at Washington, Georgia, under command of General Wilde, a squad of soldiers, most of them negroes, whose objective purpose was the arrest of General Toombs; and one of this motley number carried on the point of his bayonet an old

photograph of the General, which had been procured for purposes of identification. It happened that General Toombs was at this time in his private office at his home residence; and catching wind of what was in the air, he hurriedly moved toward the rear of his plantation as the column of blue-coats filed into his front yard. He had little time for conference with Mrs. Toombs; but this clear-headed and courageous woman was not to be outwitted.

Stepping up to the front door the commanding officer rang the bell, and Mrs. Toombs herself responded.

"Where is General Toombs?" he inquired, not without deference, but with more iron than velvet.

"General Toombs is not here," she replied calmly, speaking the literal truth.

Other questions were put, but Mrs. Toombs could not be intimidated by brass buttons into giving information which might imperil her husband; and she purposely prolonged the parley in order to gain time and to increase as much as possible the distance between General Toombs and danger. The man in regimentals was becoming impatient. Finally he said:

"Madam, unless General Toombs is produced I shall burn this house."

If Mrs. Toombs was now alarmed she evinced no signs of her trepidation in her face; and she merely replied in the same fearless tone:

"Then you will have to burn it, sir.'

Search was instituted, furniture moved and papers burned, but no further damage was done. Evidently the officer saw that threats were powerless, and with baffled resolution he withdrew, leaving the mansion unmolested.

Among the sympathetic onlookers who had witnessed these proceedings with indignant but suppressed uneasiness was a youth still short of twenty-one, who had been in the artillery service under General Longstreet, and who was now to play an important part in aiding General Toombs to accomplish his flight. This adventurous young Confederate was Charles E. Irvin. First satisfying himself that the incendiary threat of the Federal officer was not to be executed, he began to devise ways and means for assisting the fugitive.

Some intuitive guide seemed to direct him. Making for the point on the horizon in which General Toombs had disappeared, he went to the house of Mr. T. G. Wingfield, where he gained sufficient information for immediate purposes and left word for General Toombs to let him know where to meet him with proper outfit and equipment for traveling. It was not the purpose of General Toombs to quit Washington without putting himself again in touch with his family. He knew that he could find secure harbor in the outskirts of the town with almost any of his friends and neighbors, all of whom would be only too anxious to give him safe shelter until he could further plan his movements. But Lieutenant Irvin's forethought and dispatch served him in good time. About two o'clock in the night the young officer received word from General Toombs directing him to meet him with his horse the next morning at seven o'clock at a point eighteen miles distant on the Broad river. This Lieutenant Irvin did. But he was also resolved to accompany General Toombs on his perilous expedition, let come what might. The horse which he brought for General Toombs was Gray Alice, the General's favorite, which he had ridden. while serving the Confederacy in the saddle.

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