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The Crisis: Colfax
Missouri was saved for the Union by Frank Blair and Nathaniel Lyon. Under their leadership the Germans of St. Louis captured a camp of the golden youth of St. Louis mobilizing as Confederates. Colfax was among those taken, but refused a parole and escaped to the Southern army. These disturbing events brought Brice and Virginia together again. He sought to render the Carvels service, which Virginia resented. Mrs. Brice and Virginia, however, soon became interested in the nursing of wounded soldiers and of Judge Whipple, whom a fatal illness had overtaken. Brice as a lieutenant was in the battle about Vicksburg and found Colfax badly wounded in the captured city. He sent him north to St. Louis, where he was nursed by Virginia. Colfax had distinguished himself by daredevil exploits of great usefulness to his cause. Virginia was enthused by his patriotic devotion to the cause she loved and their engagement was the result. Brice was wounded in the campaigns after Vicksburg and also returned to St. Louis.
The climax of the story comes at the deathbed of Judge Whipple. Colonel Carvel, though in the rebel army, returns to see his daughter. Hearing of Whipple's illness, he visits Whipple's office, where he finds Virginia and Colfax. In the latter's hurried withdrawal to chase a spy who proves to be Eliphalet Hopper, Virginia and Brice, unexpectedly to each, are thrown together. She is surprised into a betrayal and full realization of her interest in him. Hopper eludes Colfax and creeps into Whipple's outer office. By corrupt transactions with Federal quartermasters he has become a rich man and the real owner of the Carvel business. He finds Virginia alone and threatens, unless she marries him, to betray her father to the Union authorities as a spy. Brice appears, strikes Hopper down, defies him with a counter-threat of prosecution for corruption. This rids the story of Hopper. Colfax goes South after Virginia has broken their engagement. He is subsequently captured as a spy. Brice identifies him and then intervenes with Sherman to save his life. Meantime, Brice is sent by Sherman to City Point with despatches. There he meets Lincoln again. Lincoln remembers him and invites him to become his aide.
The story closes with the visit of Virginia to Lincoln at the White House, for the pardon of Colfax. Lincoln had heard of the circumstances, sees Virginia, and brings in Brice. After a conversation in which there is revealed to Virginia the constant sorrow of Lincoln's soul and his deep sympathy for the Southern people, he pardons Colfax and leaves Brice and Virginia to that mutual confession of love of which each had long been conscious. They were married at once, but their honeymoon was darkened with the sudden taking off of the Great American.
The story is well told. The plot is not forced and maintains one's interest to the end. Stephen Brice is almost too perfect. The author speaks feelingly of the anxiety of novelists to avoid this danger. Virginia's character is perhaps better done, because easier to endow with attractive failings. Judge Whipple and Colonel Carvel are admirably drawn.
The story weaves in an accurate and valuable description of the causes of the war and of the kind of people that fought the war. St. Louis, the confluence of the two streams of western immigration from the North and the South, was the place of study the mixing but conflicting elements of our people before the Civil War. It was the author's home. He reveals their faults and their virtues with impartial pen. He maintains the just balance. He avowedly and really takes the Lincoln view of the contest, which, as he truly says, has now become the American view both North and South.
The picture of Lincoln is inspiring. The glimpses of Sherman, Grant, and Lyon are vivid and true to life.
The book is written in a most entertaining style. It is charming and sustained in its interest as a love story. It is a great historical novel.