Vignette: Blood of Tyrants and Patriots

By Duncan Clacher.

On the Sea Lion Press Forums, we run a monthly Vignette Challenge. Contributors are invited to write short stories on a specific theme (changed monthly).

The theme for the 70th contest was Public Domain.

Letter from Dr. Benjamin Franklin to General George Washington​

Paris, May 3 1777​

Sir,

Count Dracula of Transylvania, a nobleman of distinguished military lineage in his Country and famous for his own Bravery and Ferocity as an officer of the Habsburg Imperial Army, will have the Honour of delivering this letter into your Excellency’s Hands. He goes to America with a true Zeal for our Cause, and a View of engaging in it and rendering it all the Service in his Power. The Count has been recommended to me by several Persons of Worth here; as a Man of Knowledge and Experience in Military Affairs. He has the Advantage of speaking English with great fluency and also speaks French, German and some other European Languages and the Latin. I have acquainted him that you are rather overstock’d with Officers, and that his obtaining Employment in your Army is an Uncertainty: But his Zeal for the American Cause is too great for any Discouragements I can lay before him, and he goes over at his own Expense, bringing with him the whole of his Household and his Wealth to be put at our disposal, which is a Mark of Attachment that merits our Regard. I therefore cannot but wish that our Service may be made agreeable to him. With the most perfect Esteem, I have the Honour to be Your Excellency’s most obedient and most humble Servant

B. Franklin​

Letter from Dr. Benjamin Rush (Surgeon General) to General George Washington​

Princetown [N.J.] January 9. 1778.​

Sir,

Having already written to your Excellency on the deteriorating State of our hospitals, I now feel it incumbent upon myself to make an account of the new and unfamiliar wasting illness that has arisen among the body of the troops.

The malady has superficial similarities with the early stages of consumption, the patient growing fatigued and developing a deathly pallor to their skin. This is not, however, accompanied by fever or flux as one would expect if it were consumption. They simply grow weaker and weaker until their heartbeat is but a faint murmur before the end. Examination of the corpse also shows a recession of the gums, making the teeth seem larger, though the relation to the other symptoms remains unclear, I include it for completeness’ sake.

While the disease does not seem to spread epidemically, the numbers are growing and I fear it will become as great a detriment to the Health of our army as Typhoid and Pneumonia have proven. Reviewing the cases, the only pattern to its spread seems to follow the movements of the legion of cavalry officers formed under the Brigadier General Count Dracula’s command.

I make no accusations against General Dracula’s character, but I think it possible he and his countrymen (the greater number of which remain under his command), may have brought this illness with them from their Native Country. I would humbly recommend that you write to the General on the matter at your earliest Convenience and seek his insight in this matter.

For the time being, I would recommend some manner of Quarantine be arranged for those afflicted whereby they are billeted together and any further spread of the disease is hopefully curtailed.With the most perfect esteem I have the honor to be your Excellency’s most Obedient and devoted Servant

B: Rush​

Letter from General George Washington to Brigadier General Dracula​

Head Quarters [Valley Forge], 28th January 1778​

Sir,

Following your replies to my letters of the 14th and 18th, as well as your evening visits to me since, it seems proper I should give you my answer as asked.

In spite of the skepitcism I first expressed, you have persuaded me by your word and demonstration that you are such a creature as you have claimed. While I have read of ‘vampires’ in the writings of Calmet and heard tales out of New England, I had dismissed these as the products of antiquated superstition and backwoods ignorance. I cannot, however, doubt my own senses. I have seen for myself your prodigious strength, your transformations and your mastery of the elements. These talents you have brought to bear in the service of our cause and now you seek to share them. While I will confess my conscience is not entirely conciliated to it, our situation remains sufficiently dire and your offer so advantageous, that I cannot find it in myself to decline. Moreover, your words and the forthrightness with which you spoke gives me no reason to doubt your loyalty to our cause. Therefore, in addition to your present calvary command, I authorise you (by your own efforts or through your female relations) to continue the recruitment of ‘vampires’ into your service.

This authorisation is limited to those already under your official command and those already sick and injured beyond the point of recovery. Our army cannot afford the loss of otherwise able men and, if they must die, it seems best they should remain able to continue to wage war beyond that point. Indeed, I can see many potential means by which ‘vampire’ soldiers may be effectively utilised and I request you to attend me again at Head Quarters to discuss these matters further, as well as how matters may be arranged so as not to bring your nature to wider attention. I am Sir Your most Obedient servant

Go: Washington​

Preamble to the Constitution of ‘The Society of the Dragon’ (est. 1783)​

It having pleased the Supreme Governor of the Universe, in the proceeding of human affairs to cause the separation of the Colonies of North America from the domination of Great Britain, and after a bloody conflict of seven years, to establish them Free, Independent and Sovereign States, connected by alliances founded on reciprocal advantage with some of the great Princes and Powers of the Earth.

To perpetuate therefore, as well the remembrance of this vast event, as the mutual friendship which have been formed under the pressure of common danger, and cemented by bonds of blood - The Officers of General Dracula’s Legion do hereby, in the most solemn manner, constitute and combine themselves into one Society of Friends, to endure as long as they, or any of their posterity judged worthy of becoming members, shall endure.

The Officers of General Dracula’s Legion possessing high veneration for the Memory of the Societas Draconistarum, that great order of Chivalry that counted our Commander’s forefathers among its ranks, think they may with propriety denominate themselves the Society of the Dragon.

General Dracula (Retd.) to the Baron Karnstein of Styria​

Piccadilly, Westminster, May 8. 1825​

My Old Friend,

I have returned across the ocean for a short while. Though favouring privacy in New York, my apparent age had begun to draw comment. Dracula is dead for the time being. I am travelling under the name De Ville and intend to visit my native soil and set my remaining estate there in order. Soon, I shall return to New York as a long-lost heir and my properties there will be restored to me in full.

I am now an American in my heart and I intend to see out the long years in the midst of the whirl and rush of my new nation, to share its life, its change, its death, and all that makes it what it is. My bloodline grows in number and many I have placed in offices of power and influence. Washington never turned, but in accepting my assistance he made himself my creature and his successors have refused me nothing. I am moulding the country to suit my needs and I hope yours as well.

When the time comes, I implore you to return with me, as I am imploring all of our kin in Europe. Even now the western frontier is opening, vast lands waiting to be conquered. Why should we elders scrape and fight for insignificant mountain valleys, when we may all have great open ranges to hunt upon?

For the moment, I tarry in London, which proves a most stimulating city. In other circumstances, I could have made a new home here but now I am too much the American to feel at ease elsewhere. I shall pass through your lands in my travels and I will repeat my entreaties to you then. I do not expect to win you to the cause of Liberty right away but merely ask you to grasp the material advantages of emigration.

Your friend and fellow soldier,

DRACULA​

PS. Please give my regards to your lady wife and to dear Carmilla. There are many splendid New York debutantes I would be all too happy to introduce her to.

An Account by Quincey P. Morris of Texas, recorded in phonograph by Dr. John Seward of England (25 May, 1893)​

Before I go on, I must state clearly that I was not yet alive to witness these events. But my Pappy was there for the whole business and he told me the yarn every year since I was knee high to a grasshopper. I’m going to tell it to you as close to his telling as I am able.

Mr. Dracula (my Pappy always called him Mr. Dracula) came down to Texas from New York back in ’48, after the Mexican War wrapped up. They’d call him a carpetbagger these days, but that would be doing him an injustice. He was already living high on the hog up North, rich as Vanderbilt and only getting richer off the railroads (Mr. Dracula has a great passion for the railroads, always did). He didn't come to Texas to make money, that's for certain, though he certainly did in the end. I think in Texas he saw what he had seen in America to begin with, a new and exciting beginning.

My Pappy was Mr. Dracula’s ‘man in Texas’, so to speak. Made sure he got a lay of the land ahead of time and met the right people to get things done. Helped him buy up railway shares and choice ranch land. Mr. Dracula was so impressed he took my Pappy on as his ranch manager and right-hand man.

Life was good until 1860 and Lincoln got elected. Mr. Dracula was never an abolitionist (having negroes on the ranch was convenient for his diet), but he was a Union man to the core and when talk of secession began he was having none of it and said as much to those who would listen. Even before the secession convention met in Austin, he was writing to the old men of the Legion and those who had become Sons of the Dragon in years since, to ready themselves for battle. There were many guests at the ranch that winter. Each arrived by night and disappeared by morning. They got their orders and awaited their general’s signal.

When the first Confederate recruiters came around, Mr. Dracula made it very plain that neither he nor any man in his employ would be serving in that ‘rebel army’. The Lieutenant in command made it clear he would be returning with a warrant for the arrest of all who refused to serve. Mr. Dracula made it clear in turn that the Lieutenant would live to regret it.

Both men were good to their word, as my Pappy told it. The Lieutenant did return to the ranch, with a warrant and an armed patrol to boot. When he didn’t return, his commander sent out another patrol. They found the Lieutenant and the rest out by the ranch gate, stuck up on wooden spikes and writhing in the morning sun. Still alive and surely regretting. Mr. Dracula was sat out to greet the new arrivals, cup of blood in hand.

Plenty has been written about what followed: The Night Attack on Austin, heads on spikes outside the Governor's mansion, Mr. Dracula's Telegram to Lincoln and the Trail of Blood. The long and short of it was that Texan secession was nipped in the bud and the Confederacy caught in a pincer. All at the cost of the Big Secret. Vampires were out in the open. Mr. Dracula valued his privacy with good reason, but when forced to make the choice, he chose his country over it.

I know you English have a horror of vampires and I would say that the behaviour of your Messrs. Ruthven and Varney may warrant that view. But us Americans see matters differently. We’ve had Mr. Dracula and his kin with us since Valley Forge. They helped make America what it is today! They’re in our blood, no pun intended, and their style of handling matters suits us very well when the chips are down. Texas under Mr. Dracula was tough living but those were tough times and we’re tough men. It’s not as if he didn’t give Texas back when the war was over.

Mr. Dracula is a good man and, maybe more importantly, he’s a good American.

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