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Page 83
The attack began at five o'clock and at eight everything was over; the
Germans had been driven into the slough of Chickahominy swamp to the
northeast of Richmond (where McClellan lost an army) and slaughtered here
to the last man; whereupon the mountaineers, having done what they came
to do, started back to their mountains.
Meantime Richmond was burning, and my poor friend Ryerson and I were
facing new dangers.
"Come on!" he cried with new hope in his eyes. "We've got a chance, half
a chance."
Our one thought now was to reach the prison before it was too late, and
we ran as fast as we could through streets that were filled with
terrified and scantily clad citizens who were as ignorant as we were of
what was really happening. A German guard at the prison gates recognised
Ryerson, and we passed inside just as a shell struck one of the tobacco
factories along the river below us with a violent explosion. A moment
later another shell struck the railway station and set fire to it.
Screams of terror arose from all parts of the prison, many of the inmates
being negroes, and in the general confusion, we were able to reach the
unused wing where Edison was confined.
"Give me that big key--quick," whispered Ryerson. "Wait here."
I obeyed and a few minutes later he beckoned to me excitedly from a
passageway that led into a central court yard, and I saw a white-faced
figure bundled in a long coat hurrying after him. It was Thomas A.
Edison.
Just then there came a rush of footsteps behind us with German shouts and
curses.
"They're after us," panted Randolph. "I've got two guns and I'll hold 'em
while you two make a break for it. Take this key. It opens a red door at
the end of this passage after you turn to the right. Run and--tell my
sister I--made good--at the last."
I clasped his hand with a hurried "God bless you" and darted ahead. It
was our only chance and, even as we turned the corner of the passage,
Ryerson began to fire at our pursuers. I heard afterwards that he wounded
five and killed two of them. I don't know whether that was the count, but
I know he held them until we made our escape out into the blazing city.
And I know he gave his life there with a fierce joy, realising that the
end of it, at least, was brave and useful.
CHAPTER XXVI
RIOTS IN CHICAGO AND GERMAN PLOT TO RESCUE THE CROWN PRINCE
The first weeks of January, 1922, brought increasing difficulties and
perplexities for the German forces of occupation in America. With
comparative ease the enemy had conquered our Atlantic seaboard, but now
they faced the harder problem of holding it against a large and
intelligent and totally unreconciled population. What was to be done with
ten million people who, having been deprived of their arms, their cities
and their liberties, had kept their hatred?
The Germans had suffered heavy losses. The disaster to von Hindenburg's
army in the battle of the Susquehanna had cost them over a hundred
thousand men. The revolt of Boston, the massacre of Richmond, had
weakened the Teuton prestige and had set American patriotism boiling,
seething, from Maine to Texas, from Long Island to the Golden Gate. There
were rumours of strange plots and counter-plots, also of a new great army
of invasion that was about to set sail from Kiel. Evidently the Germans
must have more men if they were to ride safely on this furious American
avalanche that they had set in motion, if they were to tame the fiery
American volcano that was smouldering beneath them.
In this connection I must speak of the famous woman's plot that resulted
in the death of several hundred German officers and soldiers and that
would have caused the death of thousands but for unforeseen developments.
This plot was originated by women leaders of the militant suffrage party
in New York and Pennsylvania (the faction led by Mrs. O. H. P. Belmont
not approving) and soon grew to nation-wide importance with an enrolled
body of twenty thousand militant young women, each one of whom was
pledged to accomplish the destruction of one of the enemy on a, certain
Saturday night between the hours of sunset and sunrise.
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