A Little Traitor to the South

A WAR-TIME COMEDY
With a
TRAGIC INTERLUDE

By

Cyrus Townsend Brady

The Illustrations are by A. D. Rahn
Decorations by C. E. Hooper.

NEW YORK
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS

Copyright, 1903,
By CYRUS TOWNSEND BRADY.

Copyright, 1904,
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

Set up and electrotyped. Published February, 1904. Reprinted
August, 1904; March, September, 1907; April, 1908; April, 1909.

Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing & Co.—Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.

To "Patty"

Most Faithful and Efficient of Coadjutors

PREFACE

"The tragic interlude" in this little war-time comedy of the affections really happened as I have described it. The men who went to their death beside the Housatonic in Charleston harbor were Lieutenant George F. Dixon of the Twenty-first Alabama Infantry, in command; Captain J. F. Carlson of Wagoner's Battery; and Seamen Becker, Simpkins, Wicks, Collins, and Ridgway of the Confederate Navy, all volunteers. These names should be written in letters of gold on the roll of heroes. No more gallant exploit was ever performed. The qualities and characteristics of that death trap, the David, were well known to everybody. The history of former attempts to work her is accurately set down in the text of the story. Dixon and his men should be remembered with Decatur, Cushing, Nields, and Hobson.

The torpedo boat was found after the war lying on the bottom of the harbor, about one hundred feet from the wreck of the Housatonic, with her bow pointing toward the sloop of war and with every man of her crew dead at his post,—just as they all expected.

I shall be happy if this novel serves to call renewed attention to this splendid exhibition of American heroism. Had they not fought for a cause which was lost they would still be remembered, as, in any event, they ought to be.

For the rest, here is a love story in which the beautiful Southern girl does not espouse the brave Union soldier, or the beautiful Northern girl the brave Southern soldier. They were all Southern, all true to the South, and they all stayed so except Admiral Vernon, and he does not count.

CYRUS TOWNSEND BRADY.

Brooklyn, N. Y.,
February, 1904.

CONTENTS

      Chapter

• Hero versus Gentleman15
• She Hates them Both33
• A Strife in Magnanimity51
• Opportunities Embraced65
• What happened in the Strong Room81
• An Engine of Destruction103
• The Hour and the Man115
• Death out of the Deep125
• Miserable Pair and Miserable Night141
• A Stubborn Proposition157
• The Confession that Cleared171
• The Culprit is Arrested185
• Companions in Misery199
• The Woman Explains223
• The General's Little Comedy241

ILLUSTRATIONS

• "Miss Fanny Glen detested a masterful man"Frontispiece
• "'Ah, Sempland, have you told your little tale?'"43
• "The door was suddenly flung open"95
• "Poor little Fanny Glen ... she had lost on every hand"153
• "'You were a traitor to the South!' said
  General Beauregard, coldly"191
• "'Would they shoot me?' she inquired"219

A Little Traitor to the South