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diff --git a/44492-0.txt b/44492-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f378d9a --- /dev/null +++ b/44492-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4184 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 44492 *** + + WHIP AND SPUR + + BY + + COL. GEORGE E. WARING, JR. + + + NEW YORK + DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY + MCMIV + + + COPYRIGHT, 1897 + BY DOUBLEDAY & McCLURE CO. + + + + +CONTENTS. + + + PAGE + + VIX 7 + + RUBY 34 + + WETTSTEIN 67 + + CAMPAIGNING WITH MAX 93 + + HOW I GOT MY OVERCOAT 138 + + TWO SCOUTS 162 + + IN THE GLOAMING 186 + + FOX-HUNTING IN ENGLAND 201 + + + + +WHIP AND SPUR. + +VIX. + + +When the work on the Central Park had fairly commenced, in the spring +of 1858, I found--or I fancied--that proper attention to my scattered +duties made it necessary that I should have a saddle-horse. + +How easily, by the way, the arguments that convince us of these +pleasant necessities find their way to the understanding! + +Yet, how to subsist a horse after buying one, and how to buy? The +memory of a well-bred and keen-eyed gray, dating back to the earliest +days of my boyhood, and forming the chief feature of my recollection +of play-time for years; an idle propensity, not a whit dulled yet, to +linger over Leech's long-necked hunters, and Herring's field scenes; +an almost superstitious faith in the different analyses of the bones +of the racer and of the cart-horse; a firm belief in Frank Forester's +teachings of the value of "blood,"--all these conspired to narrow +my range of selection, and, unfortunately, to confine it to a very +expensive class of horses. + +Unfortunately, again, the commissioners of the Park had extremely +inconvenient ideas of economy, and evidently did not consider, in +fixing their schedule of salaries, how much more satisfactory our +positions would have been with more generous emolument. + +How a man with only a Park salary, and with a family to support, could +set up a saddle-horse,--and not ride to the dogs,--was a question that +exercised not a little of my engineering talent for weeks; and many an +odd corner of plans and estimates was figured over with calculations of +the cost of forage and shoeing. + +Stable-room was plenty and free in the condemned buildings of the +former occupants, and a little "over-time" of one of the men would +suffice for the grooming. + +I finally concluded that, by giving up cigars, and devoting my energies +to the pipe in their stead, I could save enough to pay for my horse's +keep; and so, the ways and means having been, in this somewhat vague +manner, provided, the next step was to buy a horse. To tell of the days +passed at auction sales in the hope (never there realized) of finding +goodness and cheapness combined,--of the stationery wasted in answering +advertisements based on every conceivable form of false pretence; to +describe the numberless broken-kneed, broken-winded, and broken-down +brutes that came under inspection,--would be tedious and disheartening. + +Good horses there were, of course, though very few good saddle-horses +(America is not productive in this direction),--and the possible +animals were held at impossible prices. + +Those who rode over the new Park lands usually rode anything +but good saddle-horses. Fast trotters, stout ponies, tolerable +carriage-horses, capital cart-horses, there were in plenty. But +the clean-cut, thin-crested, bright-eyed, fine-eared, steel-limbed +saddle-horse, the saddle-horse _par excellence_,--may I say the only +saddle-horse?--rarely came under observation; and when, by exception, +such a one did appear, he was usually so ridden that his light was +sadly dimmed. It was hard to recognize an elastic step under such an +unelastic seat. + +Finally, in the days of my despair, a kind saddler,--kept to his daily +awl by a too keen eye for sport, and still, I believe, a victim to +his propensity for laying his money on the horse that ought to win +but don't,--hearing of my ambition (to him the most laudable of all +ambitions), came to put me on the long-sought path. + +He knew a mare, or he had known one, that would exactly suit me. She +was in a bad way now, and a good deal run down, but he always thought +she "had it in her," and that some gentleman ought to keep her for the +saddle,--"which, in my mind, sir, she be the finest bit of 'orse-flesh +that was hever imported, sir." That was enough. "Imported" decided my +case, and I listened eagerly to the enthusiastic story,--a story to +which this man's life was bound with threads of hard-earned silver, and +not less by a real honest love for a fine animal. He had never been +much given to saving, but he was a good workman, and the little he had +saved had been blown away in the dust that clouded his favorite at the +tail of the race. + +Still, he attached himself to her person, and followed her in her +disgrace. "She weren't quite quick enough for the turf, sir, but she be +a good 'un for a gentleman's 'ack." + +He had watched her for years, and scraped acquaintance with her +different owners as fast as she had changed them, and finally, when she +was far gone with pneumonia, he had accepted her as a gift, and, by +careful nursing, had cured her. Then, for a time, he rode her himself, +and his eye brightened as he told of her leaps and her stride. Of +course he rode her to the races, and--one luckless day--when he had +lost everything, and his passion had got the better of his prudence, he +staked the mare herself on a perfectly sure thing in two-mile-heats. +Like most of the sure things of life, this venture went to the bad, +and the mare was lost,--lost to a Bull's Head dealer in single driving +horses. "I see her in his stable ahfter that, sir; and, forbieten +she were twelve year old, sir, and 'ad 'ad a 'ard life of it, she +were the youngest and likeliest of the lot,--you'd swore she were a +three-year-old, sir." + +If that dealer had had a soul above trotting-wagons, my story would +never have been written; but all was fish that came to his net, and +this thoroughbred racer, this beautiful creature who had never worn +harness in her life, must be shown to a purchaser who was seeking +something to drive. She was always quick to decide, and her actions +followed close on the heels of her thought. She did not complicate +matters by waiting for the gentleman to get into the wagon, but then +and there--on the instant--kicked it to kindlings. This ended the +story. She had been shown at a high figure, and was subsequently sold +for a song,--he could tell me no more. She had passed to the lower +sphere of equine life and usefulness,--he _had_ heard of a fish-wagon, +but he knew nothing about it. What he did know was, that the dealer was +a dreadful jockey, and that it would never do to ask him. Now, here was +something to live for,--a sort of princess in disgrace, whom it would +be an honor to rescue, and my horse-hunting acquired a new interest. + +By easy stages, I cultivated the friendship of the youth who, in +those days, did the morning's sweeping-out at the Bull's Head Hotel. +He had grown up in the alluring shades of the horse-market, and his +daily communion from childhood had been with that "noble animal." To +him horses were the individuals of the world,--men their necessary +attendants, and of only attendant importance. Of course he knew of this +black she-devil; and he thought that "a hoss that could trot like she +could on the halter" must be crazy not to go in harness. + +However, he thought she had got her deserts now, for he had seen her, +only a few weeks before, "a draggin' clams for a feller in the Tenth +Avener." Here was a clew at last,--clams and the Tenth Avenue. For +several days the scent grew cold. The people of the Licensed Vender +part of this street seemed to have little interest in their neighbors' +horses; but I found one man, an Irish grocer, who had been bred a +stable-boy to the Marquis of Waterford, and who did know of a "poor old +screw of a black mare" that had a good head, and might be the one I was +looking for; but, if she was, he thought I might as well give it up, +for she was all broken down, and would never be good for anything again. + +Taking the address, I went to a stable-yard, in what was then the very +edge of the town, and here I found a knowing young man, who devoted his +time to peddling clams and potatoes between New York and Sing Sing. +Clams up, and potatoes down,--twice every week,--distance thirty miles; +road hilly; and that was the wagon he did it with,--a heavy wagon with +a heavy arched top, and room for a heavy load, and only shafts for a +single horse. In reply to my question, he said he changed horses pretty +often, because the work broke them down; but he had a mare now that +had been at it for three months, and he thought she would last some +time longer. "She's pretty thin, but you ought to see her trot with +that wagon." With an air of idle curiosity, I asked to see her,--I had +gone shabbily dressed, not to excite suspicion; for men of the class I +had to treat with are usually sharp horse-traders,--and this fellow, +clam-pedler though he was, showed an enthusiastic alacrity in taking +me to her stall. She had won even his dull heart, and he spoke of her +gently, as he made the most of her good points, and glossed over her +wretched condition. + +Poor Vixen (that had been her name in her better days, and it was to +be her name again), she had found it hard kicking against the pricks! +Clam-carts are stronger than trotting-wagons, and even her efforts had +been vain. She had succumbed to dire necessity, and earned her ignoble +oats with dogged fidelity. She had a little warm corner in her driver's +affections,--as she always had in the affections of all who came to +know her well,--but her lot was a very hard one. Worn to a skeleton, +with sore galls wherever the harness had pressed her, her pasterns +bruised by clumsy shoes, her silky coat burned brown by the sun, and +her neck curved upward, it would have needed more than my knowledge of +anatomy to see anything good in her but for her wonderful head. This +was the perfection of a horse's head,--small, bony, and of perfect +shape, with keen, deer-like eyes, and thin, active ears; it told the +whole story of her virtues, and showed no trace of her sufferings. Her +royal blood shone out from her face, and kept it beautiful. + +My mind was made up, and Vixen must be mine at any cost. Still, it +was important to me to buy as cheaply as I could,--and desirable, +above all, not to be jockeyed in a horse-trade; so it required some +diplomacy (an account of which would not be edifying here) to bring the +transaction to its successful close. The pendulum which swung between +offer and demand finally rested at seventy-five dollars. + +She was brought to me at the Park on a bright moonlight evening in +June, and we were called out to see her. I think she knew that her +harness days were over, and she danced off to her new quarters as gay +as a colt in training. That night my wakefulness would have done credit +to a boy of sixteen; and I was up with the dawn, and bound for a ride; +but when I examined poor Vix again in her stable, it seemed almost +cruel to think of using her at all for a month. She was so thin, so +worn, so bruised, that I determined to give her a long rest and good +care,--only I must try her once, just to get a leg over her for five +minutes, and then she should come back and be cared for until really +well. It was a weak thing to do, and I confess it with all needful +humiliation, but I mounted her at once; and, although I had been a +rider all my days, this was the first time I had ever really ridden. +For the first time in my life I felt as though I had four whalebone +legs of my own, worked by steel muscles in accordance with my will, but +without even a conscious effort of will. + +That that anatomy of a horse should so easily, so playfully, handle +my heavy weight was a mystery, and is a mystery still. She carried me +in the same high, long-reaching, elastic trot that we sometimes see a +young horse strike when first turned into a field. A low fence was near +by, and I turned her toward it. She cleared it with a bound that sent +all my blood thrilling through my veins, and trotted on again as though +nothing had occurred. The five minutes' turn was taken with so much +ease, with such evident delight, that I made it a virtue to indulge her +with a longer course and a longer stride. We went to the far corners of +the Park, and tried all our paces; all were marvellous for the power so +easily exerted and the evident power in reserve. + +Yes, Frank Forester was right, blood horses are made of finer stuff +than others. My intention of giving the poor old mare a month's rest +was never carried out, because each return to her old recreation--it +was never work--made it more evident that the simple change in her +life was all she needed; and, although in constant use from the first, +she soon put on the flesh and form of a sound horse. Her minor bruises +were obliterated, and her more grievous ones grew into permanent +scars,--blemishes, but only skin deep; for every fibre of every muscle, +and every tendon and bone in her whole body, was as strong and supple +as spring steel. + +The Park afforded good leaping in those days. Some of the fences +were still standing around the abandoned gardens, and new ditches +and old brooks were plenty. Vixen gave me lessons in fencing which a +few years later, in time of graver need, stood me in good stead. She +weighed less than four times the weight that she carried; yet she +cleared a four-foot fence with apparent ease, and once, in a moment +of excitement, she carried me over a brook, with a clear leap of +twenty-six feet, measured from the taking-off to the landing. + +Her feats of endurance were equal to her feats of strength. I once +rode her from Yorkville to Rye (twenty-one miles) in an hour and +forty-five minutes, including a rest of twenty minutes at Pelham +Bridge, and I frequently rode twenty-five miles out in the morning and +back in the afternoon. When put to her work, her steady road gallop +(mostly on the grassy sides) was fifteen miles an hour. + +Of course these were extreme cases; but she never showed fatigue +from them, and she did good service nearly every day, winter and +summer, from her twelfth to her fifteenth year, keeping always in good +condition, though thin as a racer, and looking like a colt at the end +of the time. Horsemen never guessed her age at more than half of what +it actually was. + +Beyond the average of even the most intelligent horses, she showed +some almost human traits. Above all was she fond of children, and would +quiet down from her wildest moods to allow a child to be carried on the +pommel. When engaged in this serious duty, it was difficult to excite +her, or to urge her out of a slow and measured pace, although usually +ready for any extravagance. Not the least marked of her peculiarities +was her inordinate vanity. On a country road, or among the workmen of +the Park, she was as staid and business-like as a parson's cob; but +let a carriage or a party of visitors come in sight, and she would +give herself the prancing airs of a circus horse, seeming to watch +as eagerly for some sign of approval, and to be made as happy by it, +as though she only lived to be admired. Many a time have I heard the +exclamation, "What a beautiful horse!" and Vix seemed to hear it too, +and to appreciate it quite as keenly as I did. A trip down the Fifth +Avenue in the afternoon was an immense excitement to her, and she was +more fatigued by it than by a twenty-mile gallop. However slowly she +travelled, it was always with the high springing action of a fast trot, +or with that long-stepping, sidelong action that the French call _á +deux pistes_; few people allowed her to pass without admiring notice. + +Her most satisfactory trait was her fondness for her master; she +was as good company as a dog,--better, perhaps, because she seemed +more really a part of one's self; and she was quick to respond to my +changing moods. I have sometimes, when unable to sleep, got up in the +night and saddled for a ride, usually ending in a long walk home, with +the bridle over my arm, and the old mare's kind face close beside my +own, in something akin to human sympathy; she had a way of sighing, +when things were especially sad, that made her very comforting to have +about. So we went on for three years, always together, and always very +much to each other. We had our little unhappy episodes, when she was +pettish and I was harsh,--sometimes her feminine freaks were the cause, +sometimes my masculine blundering,--but we always made it up, and were +soon good friends again, and, on the whole, we were both better for +the friendship. I am sure that I was, and some of my more grateful +recollections are connected with this dumb companion. + +The spring of 1861 opened a new life for both of us,--a sad and a short +one for poor Vix. + +I never knew just how much influence she had in getting my commission, +but, judging by the manner of the other field officers of the regiment, +she was evidently regarded as the better half of the new acquisition. +The pomp and circumstance of glorious war suited her temper exactly, +and it was ludicrous to see her satisfaction in first wearing her +gorgeous red-bordered shabrack; for a time she carried her head on one +side to see it. She conceived a new affection for me from the moment +when she saw me bedecked with the dazzling bloom that preceded the +serious fruitage of the early New York volunteer organizations. + +At last the thrilling day came. Broadway was alive from end to end +with flags and white cambric and sad faces. Another thousand were +going to the war. With Swiss bugle-march and chanted Marseillaise, we +made our solemn way through the grave and anxious throng. To us it was +naturally a day of sore trial; but with brilliant, happy Vixen it was +far different; she was leaving no friends behind, was going to meet no +unknown peril. She was showing her royal, stylish beauty to an admiring +crowd, and she acted as though she took to her own especial behoof +every cheer that rang from Union Square to Cortlandt Street. It was the +glorious day of her life, and, as we dismounted at the Jersey ferry, +she was trembling still with the delightful excitement. + +At Washington we were encamped east of the Capitol, and for a month +were busy in getting settled in the new harness. Mr. Lincoln used to +drive out sometimes to our evening drill, and he always had a pleasant +word--as he always had for every one, and as every one had for her--for +my charming thoroughbred, who had made herself perfectly at home with +the troops, and enjoyed every display of the marvellous raiment of the +regiment. + +On the 4th of July we crossed the Potomac and went below Alexandria, +where we lay in idle preparation for the coming disaster. On the 16th +we marched, in Blenker's brigade of Miles's division, and we passed the +night in a hay-field, with a confusion of horses' feed and riders' bed, +that brought Vix and me very closely together. On the 18th we reached +the valley this side of Centreville, while the skirmish of Blackburn's +Ford was going on,--a skirmish now, but a battle then. For three nights +and two days we lay in the bushes, waiting for rations and orders. +On Sunday morning McDowell's army moved out;--we all know the rest. +Miles's thirteen thousand fresh troops lay within sight and sound of +the lost battle-field,--he drunk and unable, even if not unwilling, to +take them to the rescue,--and all we did was, late in the evening, to +turn back a few troopers of the Black Horse Cavalry, the moral effect +of whose unseen terrors was driving our herds, panting, back to the +Potomac. Late in the night we turned our backs on our idle field, and +brought up the rear of the sad retreat. Our regiment was the last to +move out, and Vix and I were with the rear-guard. Wet, cold, tired, +hungry, unpursued, we crept slowly through the scattered _débris_ of +the broken-up camp equipage, and dismally crossed the Long Bridge in a +pitiless rain, as Monday's evening was closing in. O, the dreadful days +that followed, when a dozen resolute men might have taken Washington, +and have driven the army across the Chesapeake, when everything was +filled with gloom and rain and grave uncertainty! + +Again the old mare came to my aid. My regiment was not a pleasant one +to be with, for its excellent material did not redeem its very bad +commander, and I longed for service with the cavalry. Frémont was going +to St. Louis, and his chief of staff was looking for cavalry officers. +He had long known Vixen, and was kind enough to tell me that he wanted +_her_ for the new organization, and (as I was her necessary appendage), +he procured my transfer, and we set out for the West. It was not +especially flattering to me to be taken on these grounds; but it was +flattering to Vixen, and that was quite as pleasant. + +Arrived at St. Louis, we set about the organization of the +enthusiastic thousands who rushed to serve under Frémont. Whatever +there was of ostentatious display, Vixen and I took part in, but this +was not much. Once we turned out in great state to receive Prince +Plon-Plon, but that was in the night, and he didn't come after all. +Once again there was a review of all the troops, and that _was_ +magnificent. This was all. There was no coach and four, nor anything +else but downright hard work from early morning till late bedtime, from +Sunday morning till Saturday night. For six weeks, while my regiment of +German horsemen was fitting up and drilling at the Abbey Race-track, +I rode a cart-horse, and kept the mare in training for the hard work +ahead. + +At last we were off, going up the Missouri, sticking in its mud, +poling over its shoals, and being bored generally. At Jefferson +City Vixen made her last appearance in ladies' society, as by the +twilight fires of the General's camp she went through her graceful +paces before Mrs. Frémont and her daughter. I pass over the eventful +pursuit of Price's army, because the subject of my story played only +a passive part in it. At Springfield I tried her nerve by jumping her +over the dead horses on brave Zagonyi's bloody field; and, although +distastefully, she did my bidding without flinching, when she found it +must be done. The camp-life at Springfield was full of excitement and +earnestness; Price, with his army, was near at hand (or we believed +that he was, which was essentially the same). Our work in the cavalry +was very active, and Vix had hard service on insufficient food,--she +seemed to be sustained by sheer nervous strength. + +At last the order to advance was given, and we were to move out at +daybreak; then came a countermanding order; and then, late in the +evening, Frémont's farewell. He had been relieved. There was genuine +and universal grief. Good or bad, competent or incompetent,--this is +not the place to argue that,--he was the life and the soul of his +army, and it was cruelly wronged in his removal. Spiritless and full +of disappointment, we again turned back from our aim;--then would have +been Price's opportunity. + +It was the loveliest Indian-summer weather, and the wonderful opal +atmosphere of the Ozark Mountains was redolent with the freshness of a +second spring. As had always been my habit in dreamy or unhappy moods, +I rode my poor tired mare for companionship's sake,--I ought not to +have done it,--I would give much not to have done it, for I never rode +her again. The march was long, and the noonday sun was oppressive. She +who had never faltered before grew nervous and shaky now, and once, +after fording the Pomme-de-Terre in deep water, she behaved wildly; but +when I talked to her, called her a good girl, and combed her silken +mane with my fingers, she came back to her old way, and went on nicely. +Still she perspired unnaturally, and I felt uneasy about her when I +dismounted and gave her rein to Rudolf, my orderly. + +Late in the night, when the moon was in mid-heaven, he came to my +tent, and told me that something was the matter with Vixen. My adjutant +and I hastened out, and there we beheld her in the agony of a brain +fever. She was the most painfully magnificent animal I ever saw. +Crouched on the ground, with her forelegs stretched out and wide apart, +she was swaying to and fro, with hard and stertorous breath,--every +vein swollen and throbbing in the moonlight. De Grandèle, our quiet +veterinary surgeon, had been called while it was yet time to apply the +lancet. As the hot stream spurted from her neck she grew easier; her +eye recovered its gentleness, and she laid her head against my breast +with the old sigh, and seemed to know and to return all my love for +her. I sat with her until the first gray of dawn, when she had grown +quite calm, and then I left her with De Grandèle and Rudolf while +I went to my duties. We must march at five o'clock, and poor Vixen +could not be moved. The thought of leaving her was very bitter, but +I feared it must be done, and I asked De Grandèle how he could best +end her sufferings,--or was there still some hope? He shook his head +mournfully, like a kind-hearted doctor as he was, and said that he +feared not; but still, as I was so fond of her, if I would leave him +six men, he would do his best to bring her on, and, if he could not, he +would not leave her alive. I have had few harder duties than to march +that morning. Four days after, De Grandèle sent a message to me at our +station near Rolla, that he was coming on nicely, and hoped to be in +at nightfall. "Vixen seems to be better and stronger." At nightfall +they came, the poor old creature stepping slowly and timidly over the +rough road, all the old fire and force gone out of her, and with only a +feeble whinny as she saw me walking to meet her. We built for her the +best quarters we could under the mountain-side, and spread her a soft +bed of leaves. There was now hope that she would recover sufficiently +to be sent to St. Louis to be nursed. + +That night, an infernal brute of a troop horse that had already killed +Ludlow's charger, led by some fiendish spirit, broke into Vixen's +enclosure, and with one kick laid open her hock joint. + +In vain they told me that she was incurable. I could not let her die +now, when she was just restored to me; and I forced from De Grandèle +the confession that she _might_ be slung up and so bound that the wound +would heal, although the joint must be stiff. She could never carry me +again, but she could be my pet; and I would send her home, and make her +happy for many a long year yet. We moved camp two miles, to the edge +of the town, and she followed, painfully and slowly, the injured limb +dragging behind her; I could not give her up. She was picketed near my +tent, and for some days grew no worse. + +Finally, one lovely Sunday morning, I found her sitting on her haunches +like a dog, patient and gentle, and wondering at her pain. She remained +in this position all day, refusing food. I stroked her velvet crest, +and coaxed her with sugar. She rubbed her nose against my arm, and was +evidently thankful for my caresses, but she showed no disposition to +rise. The adjutant led me into my tent as he would have led me from the +bedside of a dying friend. I turned to look back at poor Vixen, and she +gave me a little neigh of farewell. + +They told me then, and they told it very tenderly, that there was no +possibility that she could get well in camp, and that they wanted me +to give her over to them. The adjutant sat by me, and talked of the +old days when I had had her at home, and when he had known her well. +We brought back all of her pleasant ways, and agreed that her trouble +ought to be ended. + +As we talked, a single shot was fired, and all was over. The setting +sun was shining through the bare November branches, and lay warm in +my open tent-front. The band, which had been brought out for the only +funeral ceremony, breathed softly Kreutzer's touching "Die Kapelle," +and the sun went down on one of the very sad days of my life. + +The next morning I carved deeply in the bark of a great oak-tree, at +the side of the Pacific Railroad, beneath which they had buried my +lovely mare, a simple VIX; and some day I shall go to scrape the moss +from the inscription. + + + + +RUBY. + + +I was a colonel commanding a regiment of German cavalrymen in South +Missouri, and must have a horse; it was desirable to be conspicuously +well mounted, and so it must be a showy horse; being a heavy weight and +a rough rider, it must be a good horse. With less rank, I might have +been compelled to take a very ordinary mount and be content: my vanity +would not have availed me, and my rough riding must have ceased. + +But I was chief ruler of the little world that lay encamped on the +beautiful banks of the Roubie d'Eaux; and probably life was easier to +all under me when I was satisfied and happy. I am not conscious of +having been mean and crabbed, or of favoring those who favored me to +the disadvantage of those who did not. I cannot recall an instance of +taking a bribe, even in the form of a pleasant smile. It was probably +easier, in the long run, to be fair than to be unfair, and therefore +the laziest private ever ordered on extra duty could not lay his hand +on his heart and say he thinks it was done because he was not diligent +in foraging for turkeys and hens for my private mess. I had very early +in life been impressed with the consciousness that the way of the +transgressor is not easy; and as I wanted my way to be easy, I fell +into the way of not transgressing. + +This may not have been a very worthy motive to actuate the conduct of +a military commander; but perhaps it was as good as the average in our +Department of the Southwest, where, if the truth must be told, virtue +did not have it all its own way,--we were different from troops farther +east; and although it made me sometimes wince to have my conduct +ascribed to a noble uprightness of purpose, and showed that it would +really have been more honest not to have been quite so good, yet one +should perhaps be satisfied with having carried out one's intention of +treating every man in the command, officer or soldier, as nearly as he +should be treated as the interests of the public service, the good of +the individual himself, and one's own personal convenience would allow. + +Therefore, I say, I am not conscious of having favored those who +favored me, to the disadvantage of those who did not; neither do I +think that (at this stage of our acquaintance) the Grafs and Barons +and simple Mister Vons, of whom the command was so largely composed, +entertained the hope of personal benefit when they laid their +kindnesses at my accustomed feet, and tried to smooth my way of life. + +The headquarters' mess was generally well supplied,--and no questions +asked. My relations with most of the command were kindly, and it +apparently came to be understood--for German cavalrymen are not without +intelligence--that the happiness of the individual members of the +regiment depended rather on the happiness of its colonel than on any +direct bids for his favor. Be this as it may, I am not conscious of +having received such direct appeals, and I am entirely conscious of the +fullest measure of happiness that my circumstances would allow; not an +ecstasy of delight,--far from that,--but a comfortable sense of such +well-fed, well-paid, well-encamped, and pleasantly occupied virtue as +had left nothing undone that my subordinates could be made to do, and +did nothing that my conditions rendered difficult. My own good-humor +was equalled by that of the regiment at large, and the beetling sides +of the Ozark valleys nowhere sheltered a happier campful of jolly good +fellows than the Vierte Missouri Cavalry. + +We lay on the marvellous Roubie d'Eaux, at its source; no such +babbling brook as trickles from the hillside springs of New England, +but a roaring torrent, breaking at once from a fathomless vent in the +mountain. The processes of formation with these South Missouri rivers +are all hidden from sight, but, far away in the topmost caves of the +Ozark hills, the little streamlets trickle, and unite for a larger and +ever larger flow, gorging at last the huge caverns of the limestone +rock and bursting upon the world a full-grown river. Within our camp +this wonderful spring broke forth, and close at hand was a large +grist-mill that it drove. We were a self-sustaining community,--in +this, that we foraged our own corn and ground our own meal. With +similar industry we provided ourselves with fish, flesh, and fowl. + +The trees were bare with the November frosts, but the Indian summer had +come, and, day after day, it bathed every twig and spray with its amber +breath, warming all nature to a second life, and floating the remoter +hills far away into a hazy dreamland. + +But personally, notwithstanding all this, I was not content: I was +practically a dismounted cavalryman. Indeed, it would even have been +a pity to see a colonel of infantry riding such brutes as fell to my +lot, for good weight-carriers were rare in that section. I had paid a +very high price for a young thoroughbred stallion (afterwards, happily, +sold for a large advance), only to find him a year too young for his +work, and the regiment had been scoured in vain for an available mount. +I would have gone any reasonable length, even in injustice, to secure +such an animal as was needed. It was not easy to make up one's mind to +order a soldier to give up a horse he was fond of, and some soldier had +an especial fondness for all but the worthless brutes. My reluctance to +do this was perhaps not lessened by the fact that it was forbidden for +officers to ride United States horses. It finally became evident that +the chances were very small of ever finding a suitable animal, and I +even went out, on one shooting excursion, mounted on a mule. + +Up to this time the regiment had been all that could be asked, but +now it seemed to contain a thousand ill-tempered, sore-headed men. +The whole camp was awry. Some of the officers intimated that this was +all the fault of the adjutant; that the orders from headquarters had +lately been unusually harsh. This officer, when remonstrated with, +insisted that he had only transmitted the exact orders given him, and I +knew that my own action had always been reasonable,--on principle so. +Sometimes one almost wished himself back in civil life, away from such +constant annoyances. + +We had in the regiment one Captain Graf von Gluckmansklegge, who was +in many respects the most accomplished and skilful officer of us all. +His life had been passed in the profession, and he had only left his +position of major in a Bavarian Uhlan regiment to draw his sabre in +defence of "die Freiheit," in America, as senior captain of the Fourth +Missouri Cavalry. He was an officer of Asboth's selection, and had +many of that veteran's qualities. Tall, thin, of elegant figure, as +perfect a horseman as good natural advantages and good training could +make, and near-sighted, as a German cavalry officer must be, he was +as natty a fellow as ever wore an eye-glass and a blond mustache. He +was, at the same time, a man of keen worldly shrewdness and of quick +judgment,--qualities which, in his case, may have been sharpened by +long practice at those games of chance with which it has not been +unusual for European officers to preface their coming to draw their +sabres in defence of "die Freiheit" in America. + +With Gluckmansklegge I had always been on friendly terms. Among the +many lessons of his life he had learned none more thoroughly than +the best way to treat his commanding officer; and there was in his +manner an air of friendly deference and of cordial submission to rank, +accompanied by a degree of personal dignity, that elevated the colonel +rather than lowered the captain,--a manner that probably makes its way +with a newly fledged officer more surely than any other form of appeal +to his vanity. One sometimes saw a brand-new second-lieutenant made +happier than a king by this same touch of skill from an old soldier +in his company, whom he knew to be far his superior in all matters of +service. To be quite frank, if I have an element of snobbishness in my +own organization, it has been more nurtured into life by the military +deference of better soldiers than myself under my command than by all +other influences combined; thus modified do the best of us become in +the presence of unmerited praise. + +One evening Gluckmansklegge came to my tent door: "Escoose, Col-o-nel, +may I come?" And then, flinging out his eye-glass with a toss of the +head, he went on, with his imperfect English, to tell me he had just +learned from his lieutenant that I could find no horse to suit me; +that he had a good one strong enough for my weight, and, he thought, +even good enough for my needs. He had bought him in St. Louis from the +quartermaster, and would I oblige him by trying him? He was quite at my +service, at the government price, for he, being lighter, could easily +replace him. Did I remember his horse,--his "Fuchs"? "He is good, nice, +strong horse, an he yoomp!--yei!!" + +I did remember his horse, and I had seen him "yoomp." It had long +been a subject of regret to think that such an animal should be in +the regiment, yet not on my own picket-line. It was well known that +great prices had been offered for him, only to make Gluckmansklegge +fling his eye-glass loose, and grin in derision. "Fuchs is--how you +call?--'heelty,' an gesund; wenn you like, your Ike will go to my +company to bring him." I did like, and I had no scruples against +buying him for one hundred and twenty-five dollars. Ike, a handsome +contraband, went early the next morning with a halter for the Fuchs, +and I was up bright and betimes to try him. + +I had only seen the horse before under the saddle, perfectly equipped, +perfectly bitted, and perfectly ridden, an almost ideal charger. There +was a great firebrand scar on the flat of each shoulder, where he had +been fired for a cough,--so said Gluckmansklegge;--others intimated +that this effaced a U. S. brand; but, except this, not a sign of a +blemish. In form, action, style, color (chestnut), and training he +was unexceptionably good, and might well excite the envy of all good +horsemen who saw him _under the saddle_. Knowing him so well, I went +rather eagerly to the picket-line to refresh myself with the added +sensation that the actual ownership of such a horse must give. + +There stood the new purchase,--a picture of the most abject misery; +his hind legs drawn under him; the immense muscles of his hips lying +flabby, like a cart-horse's; his head hanging to the level of his +knees, and his under-lip drooping; his eyes half shut, and his long +ears falling out sidewise like a sleepy mule's. I had bought him for a +safe price, and he would probably do to carry Ike and the saddle-bags; +but I felt as far as ever from a mount for myself, and went back to my +tent wiser and no happier than before. + +Presently Ike appeared with the coffee, and asked how I liked the new +horse. + +"Not at all." + +"Don't ye? well now, I reckon he's a consid'able of a hoss." + +I sent him to look at him again, and he came back with a very +thoughtful air,--evidently he had been impressed. At last he said, +"Well now, Colonel, I don't reckon you bought that hoss to look at him +on the picket-line, did ye?" + +"No, Ike, or he should be sold out very cheap; but he is not the +_kind_ of horse I supposed he was; he ought to work in a mule-team." + +"Well now, Colonel, mebbe he is; but you can't never tell nothin' about +a hoss till you get him between ye; and I reckon he's a consid'able of +a hoss, I reckon he is." + +Ike was wise, in his way, and his way was a very horsy one,--so my +hopes revived a little; and when Gluckmansklegge came up on a capital +little beast he had been handling (secretly to replace the Fuchs), +I had the new venture saddled and brought round. He came blundering +along, head and ears and tail down, and stood like a leathern horse +for me to mount, Gluckmansklegge dropping his eye-glass and grinning. +It was as well to find out first as last whether he had anything in +him or not, and I gathered up the curb-rein, which brought his head +into superb position and settled him well back upon his haunches; but, +as the movement had been made with dignity, I gave him both heels, +firmly,--when we went sailing!--how high I don't know, probably not +fifteen feet, but it seemed that, and covering a good stretch to the +front. It was the most enormous lift I had ever had, and (after an +appreciable time in the air), when he landed square on all four feet, +it was to strike a spanking, even trot, the bit playing loose in his +mouth, his head swaying easily with his step, and his tail flying. I +had never been more amazed in my life than by the wonderful grace and +agility of this splendid brute. As he trotted along with his high, +strong, and perfectly cadenced step, he showed in the swing of his head +all the satisfaction of an athlete turning, conscious, lightly away +from the footlights, after his especial _tour de force_. + +As Gluckmansklegge rode up, he said, "Well, Col-o-nel, how you like? +Nice pretty strong horse, what?" + +And then, his English failing him, he fell, through an attempt at +French, into German, in which his tongue was far more ready than my +ear. Still it was easy to gather enough to understand some of the +processes by which the animal's natural qualifications for his work had +been developed into such unusual accomplishments; and then he glided +into the complimentary assertion that no one but the colonel of his +regiment could ever have hoped to buy him at any price,--and of course +he did not consider it a sale. His original outlay, which he could +not afford to lose, had been reimbursed; but the true value of the +horse, his education, he was only too glad to give me. And then, the +pleasure of seeing his colonel suitably mounted, and the satisfaction +of seeing the horse properly ridden, really threw the obligation on +his side. Then, with his inimitable _naïveté_, he not only expressed, +but demonstrated, in every look and gesture, more delight in watching +our movements than he had felt in his own riding. "Praise a horseman +for his horsemanship, and he will ride to the Devil." Gluckmansklegge +(I did not suspect him of a desire for promotion) pointed to a strong +rail-fence near by, and suggested that the combination of man and +horse for that sort of thing was unusual. Whether it was a banter or +a compliment, it would have been impossible for any man who properly +esteemed himself and his riding to stop to consider. Turned toward the +fence, the Fuchs, checking his speed, seemed to creep toward it, as a +cat would, making it very uncertain what he proposed; but as he came +nearer to it, that willingness to leap that an accustomed rider will +always recognize communicated itself to me, and, with perfect judgment, +but with a force and spirit I had never hoped to meet in a horse of +this world, he carried me over the enormous height, and landed like a +deer, among the stumps and brush on the other side, and trotted gayly +away, athlete-like again, happier and prouder than ever horse was +before. + +Sitting that evening at my tent door, opposite the spring, bragging, +as the custom is, over the new purchase, it occurred to me that that +stream of water and that bit of horse-flesh had some qualities alike; +so I christened the latter "Roubie d'Eaux," which was soon translated +and shortened to "Ruby,"--a name henceforth familiar throughout the +regiment. + +To become my property was the only thing needed to make him perfect, +for Ike was born in a racing stud in Kentucky, and had practised all +the arts of the craft, up to the time when, being both jockey and "the +stakes" in a race he rode, he was lost to a Missouri gentleman of +fortune, and became a body-servant. He was once confidential:-- + +"Well, now, Colonel, you see, this is how it was: I hadn't nothin' +ag'in my master,--he was a right nice man; but then, you see, he +drinked, and I didn't know what might become of me some time. Then, +you see, I knowed this man was stiddy, an' he'd jess done bought a +yallar gal I kinder had a notion for, an' so,--don't ye see why?--well, +the hoss could have won the _race_ fast enough, but then, you see, my +master,--well, he was a drinkin' kind of a man, an' I thought I might +as well fix it. I knowed I was up for stakes, an' that's how I come to +Missouri; I ain't no Missouri man _born_, but that's how it was." + +He had become a good body-servant without forgetting his stable +training, and his horses bore testimony to his skill and fidelity. +After going through the routine of a well-regulated stable, he gave +each horse a half-hour's stroking with the flat of his hands, brisk and +invigorating; and the result was a more blooming condition and more +vigorous health than is often seen in horses on a campaign. The best +substitute that could be secured for a stable was a very heavy canvas +blanket, covering the horse from his ears to his tail and down to his +knees, water-proof and wind-proof. It was a standing entertainment with +the less dignified members of the mess to invite attention to Ruby +as he stood moping under this hideous housing. Certainly I never saw +him thus without thinking that his time had at last come, and that he +surely would never again be able to carry me creditably. Yet, as Ike's +devotion continued, he grew better and better, commanding daily more of +the respect and admiration of all who knew him, and attaching himself +to me more and more as we learned each other's ways. + +One never loves but one horse entirely, and so Ruby never quite filled +Vixen's place; but as a serviceable friend, he was all that could be +desired. The unsupplied want of my life, that had made me restless +and discontented, was now satisfied, and my duties became easy, and +my pastimes (the principal times of South Missouri warfare) entirely +agreeable. + +It was no slight addition to these sources of contentment to feel that +the command had at last awakened to a sense of its dereliction, and +was fast reforming its ways. I had hardly owned Ruby for a fortnight +before the old cheerfulness and alacrity returned to the regiment, and +by the time we broke up our camp on the Roubie d'Eaux and went over to +Lebanon for the shooting season, the entire organization was in a most +satisfactory condition. + +Our life in Lebanon was an episode of the war that we shall not +soon forget. To the best of my knowledge and belief, after Price had +retreated from Pea Ridge, the only organized forces of armed Rebels +to be found north of the White River were local bands of jay-hawkers, +whose rebellion was mainly directed against the laws of property, +and the actuating motive of whose military movements was "nags." The +stealing of horses, with the consequent application of Lynch law, was +all that the native male population had to keep them out of mischief, +for weeks and weeks together. There was just enough of this sort of +armed lawlessness to furnish us with a semblance of duty; not enough +seriously to interrupt our more regular avocations. + +Lebanon is on the high table-land of the Ozarks, in the heart of a +country flowing with prairie-hens and wild turkeys, and bountifully +productive of the more humdrum necessaries of life. Thanks to the +fleeing of Rebel families, we found comfortable quarters without too +severely oppressing those who had remained. What with moving the +court-house away from the public square, leaving the space free for a +parade, and substituting a garrison flag-staff for the town pump, we +kept our men from rusting; and when, after a time, we had established +a comfortable post-hospital and a commodious military prison, Lebanon +was as complete and well-ordered a station as could be found in +South Missouri. I had the questionable honor and the unquestionable +comfort of holding its command from the end of January to the end of +April,--three dreamy months, that seem now to have been passed in a +shooting-lodge, under favorable auspices. + +As a legacy of the "Hundred Days," when the "Fourth Missouri" was the +"Frémont Hussars," we had an able-bodied and extremely well-selected +regimental band, that soothed our over-tasked senses when we came in +from our work in the fields, gathering where our enemies had sown, and +(under the suspended game-laws of the State) shooting grouse and quail +in the early spring. + +Naturally, most of my official duties were such as could be performed +by an extremely well-regulated adjutant; and I usually passed his busy +half-hour (in private) with Ruby. There had been an impetuosity about +the horse at the outset which it was desirable to quell, and I rode him +regularly in a nicely fenced kitchen-garden, where, after he learned +that fences are not always intended for leaping-bars, he fell slowly +into the routine of the training-school, and easily acquired a perfect +self-command and _aplomb_ that enabled him, under all circumstances, to +await his rider's instructions. + +I wish that less account had been made, in the writings of those +whose horse-stories have preceded mine, of the specified feats of +their animals. The _rôle_ of a horse's performances is necessarily +limited, and it is probably impossible for a well-constituted mind to +recite the simple story of his deeds without seeming to draw largely +on the imagination. Consequently, an unexaggerated account of what +Ruby actually did (and I cannot bring my mind to an embellishment of +the truth) would hardly interest a public whose fancy has been thus +pampered and spoiled. But for this, these pages could be filled with +instances of his strength and agility that would almost tax belief. +Suffice it to say that while, like most good high leapers, he would +cover but a moderate breadth of water, he would get over anything +reasonable in the shape of a fence that could be found about the town. + +I was a heavy weight,--riding nearly two hundred pounds,--and +necessarily rode with judgment. If there was a low place in a fence, +we never chose a high one; but, at the same time, if there were no +low places, we took the best we could find. Ruby seemed to know that +the two of us were solid enough to break through any ordinary pile of +rails, and what we could not jump over we jumped _at_. More than once +did he carry away the top rail of a snake fence with his knees, and +land fair and square on the other side; but it was a very high leap +that made this necessary. + +He would jump on to the porch of the quartermaster's office (approached +from the ground by four steps), and then jump over the hand-rail and +land on the ground below again, almost wagging his tail with delight at +the feat. + +His ear was quicker than mine for the peeping of quail and for the +drumming of grouse, and, in the absence of a good dog, there is no +doubt that my pot (for which alone I have been said to hunt) was better +filled by reason of his intelligence in the field, and because he would +allow one to shoot from the saddle. The birds never mistook me for a +sportsman until I was quite in among them, blazing away. + +In coming home from the prairie, we generally rode round by the way of +a certain sunken garden that stood a couple of feet below the level +of the road. A five-foot picket-fence that stood at the roadside had +fallen over toward the garden, so that its top was hardly four feet +higher than the road. This made the most satisfactory leap we ever +took,--the long, sailing descent, and the safe landing on sandy loam, +satisfied so completely one's prudent love of danger. + +I think I missed this leap more than anything at Lebanon when, finally, +we set out for Arkansas. + +We made our first considerable halt early in May, at Batesville, +on the White River,--a lovely, rose-grown village, carrying, in the +neatly kept home of its New England secessionists, evidence that +they remembered their native land, where, in their day, before the +age of railroads, the "village" flourished in all its freshness and +simplicity. It had now acquired the picturesque dilapidation, in the +manner of fences and gates and defective window-panes, that marked +the Southern domicile during the war. Ruby had strained himself quite +seriously during the march, and had been left to come on slowly with +the quartermaster's train. This left me quite free for the social life, +such as it was, to which we--the only available men that had been seen +there since Price gathered his forces at Springfield--were welcomed +with a reserved cordiality. Our facilities for forming a correct +opinion of society were not especially good, but I fancied I should +have passed my time to as good advantage in the saddle. + +We soon left for an active expedition in the direction of Little Rock, +of which it is only necessary to say, here, that it lasted about a +month, and brought the writer acquainted with some very unsatisfactory +horses,--a fact which heightened his pleasure, on striking the White +River bottom again, at finding that Ruby had been brought over the +ferry to meet him. Tired as I was, I took a glorious brisk trot through +the Canebrake Road, with a couple of leaps over fallen trees, that +revived the old emotions and made a man of me again. + +While we lay at Batesville we were unusually active in the matter of +drill and reorganization; and this, with our engagements in the town, +kept us too busy for much recreation; but Ludlow and I managed to work +in a daily swim in the White River, with old saddles on our horses, +and scant clothing on our persons. Talk of aquatic sports! there is +no royal bath without a plucky horse to assist; and a swim across +the swift current at Batesville, with a horse like Ruby snorting and +straining at every stroke, belittled even the leaping at Lebanon. + +From Batesville we commenced our memorable march to join the fleet +that had just passed Memphis, following down the left bank of the river +to Augusta, and then striking across the cotton country to Helena,--a +march on which we enjoyed the rarest picturesqueness of plantation +life, and suffered enough from heat and hunger and thirst, and +stifling, golden dust to more than pay for it. + +Helena was a pestiferous swamp, worth more than an active campaign to +our enemies, filling our hospitals, and furrowing the levee bank with +graves. It was too hot for much drilling, and we kept our better horses +in order by daybreak races. With the local fever feeling its way into +my veins, I was too listless to care much for any diversion; but Ike +came to me one evening to say that he "reckoned" Ruby was as good a +horse as anybody had in the "camps," and he might as well take a hand +in the games. I told him I had no objection to his being run, if he +could find a suitable boy, but that both he and I were too heavy for +race-riding. + +"I don't weigh only about a hundred and a half," said the ambitious man. + +"Well, suppose you don't, that is ten pounds too much." + +"I reckon a man can ride ten pound lighter 'n he is if he knows how +to ride; anyhow, if Rube can't skin anything around here, I don't know +nothin' about horses." + +"Ike, did you ever run that horse?" + +"Well, Colonel, now you ask me, I did jest give Dwight's darkey a +little brush once." + +Conquering my indignation and my scruples, I went over, just for the +honor of the establishment, and made up a race for the next day. + +I have seen crack race-horses in my time, but I never saw more +artistic riding nor more capital running than that summer morning on +the River Road at Helena, just as the sun began to gild the muddy +Mississippi. The satisfaction of this conquest, and the activity with +which new engagements were offered by ambitious lieutenants, who little +knew the stuff my man and horse were made of, kept off my fever for +some weeks; but I steadily declined all opportunity of racing with +horses outside of our command, for I had been reared in a school of +Puritan severity, and had never quite overcome my convictions against +the public turf. A corporal of an "Injeanny rege_ment_" took occasion +to crow lustily--so I heard--because "one of them French coveys" was +afraid to run him a quarter for five dollars. It appeared that a +cleanly European was always supposed by this gentry to be French; and +in the army at large I was better known by the company I kept than by +my New England characteristics. + +Naturally, Ike thought that, while Ruby was engaged in this more +legitimate occupation, he ought not to be ridden for mere pleasure; +and it was only when a visitor was to be entertained, or when I went +out on plea of duty, that I could steal an opportunity to leap him; +but he took one fence that fairly did him credit. It was a snake fence +measuring four feet and two inches, with a deep ditch on each side cut +close to the projecting angles of the rails. Ruby carried me over the +first ditch into the angle between the rails, then over the fence into +the narrow space on the other side, and then over the second ditch into +the field. It was the most perfect combination of skill, strength, and +judgment that was possible to horse-flesh; and I think Gluckmansklegge, +who was with me and had suggested the venture, despaired of ever +getting his promotion by any fair means, when we rejoined him by the +return leap and rode safely to camp. + +Unhappily, even entire satisfaction with one's horse is powerless to +ward off such malaria as that of the camp at Helena, and in due time I +fell ill with the fever. The horse was turned over to the care of the +quartermaster, and Ike and I came wearily home on sick-leave. + +Late in the autumn we returned to St. Louis, where one of the German +officers told me that the regiment had joined Davidson's army at "Pilot +K-nopp"; and after the Hun, our new adjutant, arrived from the East, we +set out for headquarters, and took command of the cavalry brigade of +Davidson's army. + +From November until January we were tossed about from post to post, +wearing out our horses, wearying our men, and accomplishing absolutely +nothing of value beyond the destruction of an enormous amount of +the rough forage, which would otherwise have been used to feed +"nags,"--stolen or to be stolen,--and would have thus tended to foster +the prevailing vice of the region. + +At last we settled down in a pleasant camp at Thomasville,--a good +twelve miles away from Davidson,--and were at rest; it was only those +near him who suffered from his fitful caprices, and he was now encamped +with the infantry. + +Pleasant as we found it with our little duty and much sport, I can +never look back to Thomasville without sorrow. To say that I had +acquired a tenderness for Ruby would not be strictly just; but I felt +for him all the respect and admiration and fondness that is possible +short of love. Vix had been my heroine, and my only one; but Ruby was +my hero, and I depended on him for my duty and my pleasure more than I +knew. With his full measure of intelligence he had learned exactly his +_rôle_, and he was always eager, whenever occasion offered, to show the +world what a remarkably fine horse I had,--being himself conscious, not +only of his unusual virtues, but, no less, of the praise they elicited. + +One sunny Southern day, toward the end of January, Davidson had ridden +over, with his following, to dine with us; and as we were sitting +before our mess-tent, mellow with after-dinner talk of our guns and +our dogs and our horses, the General was good enough to remember that +he had seen me riding a chestnut that he thought much too finely bred +for field work: had I been able to keep him? Then Ruby was discussed, +and all his successes were recalled, first by one friend and then by +another, until Davidson needed ocular proof of our truthfulness. + +Ike had taken the hint, and brought Ruby round in due time,--glistening +like gold in the slanting rays of the setting sun, but blundering along +with his head down and ears drooping in his old, dismal way. + +"O no, I don't mean that horse," said Davidson; "I mean a very +high-strung horse I have seen you ride on the march." + +"Very well, General, that is the animal; he keeps his strings loose +when he is not at his work." + +"No, I have seen you riding a far better horse than that; I am too old +a cavalryman to be caught by such chaff." + +To the great glee of the Hun, whose faith in Ruby was unbounded, +Davidson's whole staff turned the laugh on me for trying to deceive the +General just because he had been dining. + +I mounted, and started off with one of Ruby's enormous lifts, that +brought the whole company to their feet. It was the supreme moment with +him. Full of consciousness, as though he knew the opportunity would +never come again, and quivering in anticipation of his triumph, he was +yet true to his training, and held himself subject to my least impulse. + +We had lain in our camp for more than a week, and there was not a +vestige left of the recently substantial fences,--only the suggestive +and conspicuous gateways that stood to mark the march of our armies +from the Chesapeake to the Indian Nation. But Ruby built fences in his +imagination higher than any he had ever faced, and cleared them without +a scratch, landing close as though the Helena ditch were still to be +taken. + +It would take long to tell all he did and how perfectly he did it; he +went back at last to his canvas blanket, loaded with adulation, and as +happy as it is given a horse to be. + +In his leaping he had started a shoe, and Ike took him in the morning +to the smith (who had taken possession of an actual forge), to have it +reset. A moment later, the Hun cried, "My God, Colonel, look at Ruby!" + +Hobbling along with one hind foot drawn up with pain, he was making +his last mournful march, and we laid him that day to rest,--as true a +friend and as faithful a fellow as ever wore a chestnut coat. + +He had reared in the shop, parted his halter, and fallen under a +bench, breaking his thigh far up above the stifle. + + + + +WETTSTEIN. + + +It is a pleasant thing to be a colonel of cavalry in active +field-service. There are circumstances of authority and responsibility +that fan the latent spark of barbarism which, however dull, glows in +all our breasts, and which generations of republican civilization +have been powerless to quench. We may not have confessed it even +to ourselves; but on looking back to the years of the war, we +must recognize many things that patted our vanity greatly on the +back,--things so different from all the dull routine of equality +and fraternity of home, that those four years seem to belong to a +dreamland, over which the haze of the life before them and of the +life after them draws a misty veil. Equality and Fraternity! a pretty +sentiment, yes, and full of sensible and kindly regard for all mankind, +and full of hope for the men who are to come after us; but Superiority +and Fraternity! who shall tell all the secret emotions this implies? To +be the head of the brotherhood, with the unremitted clank of a guard's +empty scabbard trailing before one's tent-door day and night; with the +standard of the regiment proclaiming the house of chief authority; +with the respectful salute of all passers, and the natural obedience +of all members of the command; with the shade of deference that even +comrades show to superior rank; and with that just sufficient check +upon coarseness during the jovial bouts of the headquarters' mess, +making them not less genial, but void of all offence,--living in this +atmosphere, one almost feels the breath of feudal days coming modified +through the long tempestuous ages to touch his cheek, whispering to him +that the savage instinct of the sires has not been, and never will be, +quite civilized out of the sons. And then the thousand men, and the +yearly million that they cost, while they fill the cup of the colonel's +responsibility (sometimes to overflowing), and give him many heavy +trials,--they are his own men; their usefulness is almost of his own +creation, and their renown is his highest glory. + +I may not depict the feelings of others; but I find in the recollection +of my own service--as succeeding years dull its details and cast the +nimbus of distance about it--the source of emotions which differ widely +from those to which our modern life has schooled us. + +One of the colonel's constant attendants is the chief bugler, or, +as he is called in hussar Dutch, the "Stabstrompaytr"; mine was the +prince of Trompaytrs, and his name was Wettstein. He was a Swiss, whose +native language was a mixture of guttural French and mincing German. +English was an impossible field to him. He had learned to say "yes" and +"matches"; but not one other of our words could he ever lay his tongue +to, except the universal "damn." But for his bugle and his little gray +mare, I should never have had occasion to know his worth. Music filled +every pore of his Alpine soul, and his wonderful Swiss "Retreat" must +ring to this day in the memory of every man of the regiment whose +thoughts turn again to the romantic campaign of South Missouri. What +with other buglers was a matter of routine training was with him an +inspiration. All knew well enough the meaning of the commands that +the company trumpets stammered or blared forth; but when they rang +from Wettstein's horn, they carried with them a _vim_ and energy that +secured their prompt execution; and his note in the wild Ozark Hills +would mark the headquarters of the "Vierte Missouri" for miles around. +From a hill-top, half a mile in advance of the marching command, I +have turned the regiment into its camping-ground and dismounted it in +perfect order by the melodious telegraphy of Wettstein's brazen lips +alone. + +That other chief attribute of his, Klitschka, his little beast, +stayed longer with me than his bugle did, and is hardly less identified +with the varied reminiscences of my army life. I bought her, as a +prize, with the original mount of the regiment, in Frémont's time, +and was mildly informed by that officer that I must be careful how +I accepted many such animals from the contractor, though a few for +the smaller men might answer. Asboth, Frémont's chief of staff, with +a scornful rolling up of his cataract of a mustache, and a shrug of +his broad, thin shoulders, said, "Whyfor you buy such horses? What +your bugler ride, it is not a horse, it is a cat." His remark was not +intended as a question, and it ended the conversation. Months after +that, he eagerly begged for the nine-lived Klitschka for one of his +orderlies; being refused him, she remained good to the end. She was an +animal that defied every rule by which casual observers test the merit +of a horse; but analytically considered she was nearly perfect. Better +legs, a better body, and a better head, it is rare to see, than she +had. But she lacked the arched neck and the proud step that she needed +all the more because of her small size. By no means showy in figure +or in action, it took a second look to see her perfect fitness for +her work. Her color was iron-gray, and no iron could be tougher than +she was; while her full, prominent eye and ample brain-room, and her +quick paper-thin ear, told of courage and intelligence that made her +invaluable throughout four years of hard and often dangerous service. +Like many other ill-favored little people, she was very lovable, and +Wettstein loved her like a woman. He would never hesitate to relax +those strict rules of conduct by which German cavalrymen are supposed +to govern themselves, if it was a question of stealing forage for +Klitschka; and he was (amiable fellow!) never so happy as when, from a +scanty supply in the country, he had taken enough oat-sheaves to bed +her in and almost cover her up, while other horses of the command must +go hungry; and was never so shaken in his regard for me as when I made +him give up all but double rations for her. + +Double rations she often earned, for Wettstein was a heavy youth, +with a constitutional passion for baggage out of all proportion to +his means of transportation. Mounted for the march, he was an odd +sight. Little Klitschka's back, with his immense rolls of blankets and +clothing before and behind, looked like a dromedary's. Planted between +the humps, straight as a gun-barrel, the brightest of bugles suspended +across his back by its tasselled yellow braid, slashed like a harlequin +over the breast, his arms chevroned with gorgeous gold,--Wettstein, +with his cap-front turned up so as to let the sun fall full on his +frank blue eyes and his resolute blond mustache, was the very picture +of a cavalry bugler in active campaign. + +Smoking, gabbling, singing, rollicking, from morning until night, +and still on until morning again if need be, he never lost spirit nor +temper. He seemed to absorb sunshine enough during the day to keep +every one bright around him all night. When at last his bugle had been +stilled forever, we long missed the cheer of his indomitable gayety; +wearying service became more irksome than while his bubbling mirth had +tempered its dulness; and even little Klitschka, although she remained +an example of steady pluck, had never so potent an influence as while +he had put his own unfailing mettle into her heels. After she was +bequeathed to me, she was always most useful, but never so gay and +frisky as while she carried her own devoted groom. No day was too long +for her and no road too heavy; her brisk trot knew no failing, but she +refused ever again to form the personal attachment that had sealed her +and Wettstein to each other. + +The two of them together, like the fabled Centaur, made the complete +creature. He with the hardened frame and bright nature of his Alpine +race, and she with her veins full of the mustang blood of the Rocky +Mountains, were fitted to each other as almost never were horse and +rider before. Their performances were astonishing. In addition to a +constant attendance on his commander (who, riding without baggage, +and of no heavier person than Wettstein himself, sometimes fagged out +three good horses between one morning and the next), the Trompaytr +yet volunteered for all sorts of extra service,--carried messages +over miles of bad road to the general's camp, gave riding-lessons and +music-lessons to the company buglers, and then--fear of the guard-house +and fear of capture always unheeded--he never missed an opportunity for +the most hazardous and most laborious foraging. + +He was a thorough soldier,--always "for duty," always cleanly, always +handsome and cheery, and heedlessly brave. If detected in a fault +(and he was, as I have hinted, an incorrigible forager), he took +his punishment like a man, and stole milk for himself or fodder for +Klitschka at the next convenient (or inconvenient) opportunity, with an +imperturbability that no punishment could reach. + +Once, when supplies were short, he sent me, from the guard-house where +he had been confined for getting them, a dozen bundles of corn-blades +for my horses; not as a bribe, but because he would not allow the +incidents of discipline to disturb our friendly relations; and in the +matter of fodder in scarce times he held me as a helpless pensioner, +dependent on his bounty. When in arrest by my order, his "Pon chour, +Herr Oberist," was as cordial and happy as when he strolled free past +my tent. Altogether, I never saw his like before or since. The good +fortune to get such a bugle, such a soldier, and such a mount combined, +comes but once in the lifetime of the luckiest officer. It was only +his uncouth tongue that kept him from being pilfered from me by every +general who had the power to "detail" him to his own headquarters. + +So universal, by the way, was this petty vice of commanding officers, +that one was never safe until he adopted the plan, in selecting a +staff officer, of securing his promise to resign from the service, +point-blank, if ordered to other duty, and more than one offended +general has been made indignant by this policy. With Wettstein, I felt +perfectly easy, for the average capacity of brigadier-generals stopped +far short of the analysis of his dual jargon. Several tried him for +a day, but they found that his comprehension was no better than his +speech, and that his manifest ability was a sealed book to them. He +always came home by nightfall with a chuckle, and "Le général versteht +mich nicht. Je blase 'marrrsch' für 'halt.'" + +So it was that, for a couple of years, this trusty fellow trotted at +my heels through rain and shine, by day and by night, with his face +full of glee, and his well-filled canteen at the service of our little +staff. Mud and mire, ditches and fences, were all one to him and +Klitschka; and in Vix's day they followed her lead over many a spot +that the others had to take by flank movement. + +Our work in Missouri was but little more than the work of subsistence. +We were a part of an army too large for any Rebel force in that region +to attack, and too unwieldy to pursue guerillas with much effect. But +now and then we made a little scout that varied our otherwise dull +lives; and at such times Wettstein always attached himself to the most +dangerous patrolling party, and Klitschka was usually the first to +bring back news of the trifling encounters. + +At last, in February, 1863, when we had lain for a month in delicious +idleness in the heart of a rich country, literally flowing with +poultry and corn-fodder, I, being then in command of a division of +cavalry, received an order from Davidson to select six hundred of the +best-mounted of my men, and to attack Marmaduke, who was recruiting, +ninety miles away, at Batesville on the White River in Arkansas. His +main body, three thousand five hundred strong, lay in the "Oil-Trough +Bottom," on the other side of the river. A brigade of Western infantry +was to march as far as Salem (thirty miles), and to support us if +necessary; though we afterward found that at the only moment when +we might have had grave occasion to depend on them, they were, with +an inconsistency that was not the least attribute of our commanding +officer, withdrawn without notice to us. + +We were to go in light marching order, carrying only the necessary +clothing, and rations of salt and coffee. Wettstein's ideas of +lightness differing from mine, I had to use some authority to rid poor +Klitschka of saucepans, extra boots, and such trash; and after all, +the rascal had, under the plea of a cold, requiring extra blankets, +smuggled a neatly sewn sausage of corn, weighing some fifteen pounds, +into one of his rolls. Eager men, too, whose horses were out of trim, +had to be discarded, and the whole detail to be thoroughly overhauled. +But the jovial anticipation of seeing Batesville once more--a New +England village planted on a charming hillside in Arkansas, where we +had sojourned with Curtis the summer before, and where we all had the +pleasant acquaintance that even an enemy makes in a town from which +the native men have long been gone, and only the women remain--made +the work of preparation go smoothly, and long before dawn Wettstein's +bugle summoned the details from the several camps. There was a ringing +joyousness in his call, that spoke of the cosey, roaring fire of a +certain Batesville kitchen to which his bright face and his well-filled +haversack had long ago made him welcome, and prospective feasting gave +an added trill to his blast. + +The little detachments trotted gayly into line, officers were assigned +for special duty, temporary divisions were told off, and a working +organization was soon completed. Before the sun was up, such a Ra, +t't'ta, t't'ta, _t't'ta_! as South Missouri had never heard before, +broke the line by twos from the right, and we were off for a promising +trip. Marmaduke we knew of old, and personal cowardice would have +deterred no one from joining our party, for he could be reached from +our stronger army only by a complete surprise; and in a country where +every woman and child (white, I mean) was his friend and our enemy, a +surprise, over ninety miles of bad roads, seemed out of the question. +Indeed, before we had made a half of the distance, one of his flying +scouts told a negro woman by the roadside, as he checked his run to +water his horse, "There's a hell's-mint o' Yanks a comin' over the +mountain, and I must git to Marmyjuke"; and to Marmaduke he "got," half +a day ahead of us, only to be laughed at for a coward who had been +frightened by a foraging-party. + +The second night brought us to Evening Shade, a little village where +one Captain Smith was raising a company. They had all gone, hours ahead +of us, but had left their supplies and their fires behind them, and +these, with the aid of a grist-mill (for which an Illinois regiment +furnished a miller), gave us a bountiful supper. At daybreak we set out +for our last day's march, still supposing that Marmaduke's men would +put the river between themselves and us before night, but confident +of comfortable quarters at Batesville. A few miles out, we began to +pick up Rebel stragglers, and Wettstein soon came rattling through the +woods, from a house to which he had been allowed to go for milk, with +the story of a sick officer lodged there. Following his lead with a +surgeon and a small escort, I found the captain of the Evening Shade +company lying in a raging fever, with which he had found it impossible +to ride, and nearly dead with terror lest we should hang him at once. +His really beautiful young wife, who had gone to enliven his recruiting +labors, was in tears over his impending fate. While we were talking +with him concerning his parole, she bribed Wettstein with a royal pair +of Mexican spurs to save his life, evidently thinking from his display +of finery that he was a major-general at the very least. The kind +fellow buckled the spurs on my heels, and they evidently gave me new +consequence in his eyes as we rode on our way. + +Presently we struck a party of about twenty-five, under a Captain +Mosby, who had been making a circuit after conscripts and had had no +news of us. After a running fight, during which there occurred some +casualties on the other side, we captured the survivors of the party +and sent them to the rear. + +From midday on, we heard rumors of a sally in strong force from +Batesville, and were compelled to move cautiously,--straggling parties +of Rebel scouts serving to give credibility to the story. At sunset +we were within six miles of the town; and, halting in the deep snow +of a large farm-yard, I sent a picked party of thirty, under Rosa, to +secure the ferry, if possible,--Wettstein and Klitschka accompanying to +bring back word of the result. After two anxious hours, he came into +camp with a note from Rosa: "Marmaduke is over the river and has the +ferry-boat with him; three of his men killed. Wettstein did bravely." +The poor fellow had a bad cut on his arm and was in pain, but not a +moment would he give himself until brave little Klitschka, smothered in +bright straw, was filling herself from the smuggled bag of corn. Then +he came to the surgeon and had his wounded arm duly dressed. Although +evidently suffering and weak from loss of blood, he gave us a cheering +account of Rosa's fight, and dwelt fondly on the supper he had bespoken +for us at good Mrs. ----'s house, where we had quartered in the summer. +At nine o'clock, after Klitschka had fed and the patrols had come in, +we set out on our march. It was still snowing hard, and even the dead +men that marked Rosa's recent ride were fast being shrouded in purest +white. One of them Wettstein pointed out as the man with whom he had +crossed sabres, and he asked permission to stay with the party detailed +to bury him, for he had been a "braff homme." With his tender sympathy +for friend or foe, he was a truer mourner than a dead soldier often +gets from the ranks of his enemy. Even this sad ride came to an end, as +all things must, and at the edge of the town soldierly Rosa stood, to +report that the pickets were posted and our quarters ready. Giving him +a fresh detail to relieve his pickets, and asking his company at our +midnight supper, we pushed on to our chosen house. Here we found all +in order, save that the young lady of the family had so hastily put on +the jacket bearing the U. S. buttons of her last summer's conquests, +that she failed quite to conceal the C. S. buttons on a prettier one +under it. She and her mother scolded us for driving the Rebel beaux +from town, when there was to have been a grand farewell ball only the +next night; but they seemed in no wise impressed with regret for the +friends who had been killed and wounded in the chase. It turned out +that Marmaduke had grown tired of reports that we were marching on him +in force, and would not believe it now until his own men rode into +town at nightfall with the marks of Rosa's sabres on their heads. The +place had been filled with the officers of his command, and he with +them, come for their parting flirtations before the ball. They were to +march to Little Rock, and their men were nearly all collected in the +"Bottom," over the river. On this sudden proof of the attack, they made +a stampede for the flat-boat of the rope-ferry, and nearly sunk it by +over-crowding, the hindmost men cutting the rope and swimming their +horses across the wintry torrent. + +We had full possession of the town, and were little disturbed by +the dropping shots from the Rebel side. We visited on our unfaithful +friends such punishment as enforced hospitality could compass, and, +on the whole, we hadn't a bad "time." The morning after our arrival +we levied such contributions of supplies as were necessary for our +return march, and, in order that the return might not look like a +retreat, we loaded two wagons with hogsheads of sugar (which would be +welcome in Davidson's commissariat), and made every arrangement for the +establishment of the camping of the whole army in the country back of +the town; for our force was so small that, with our tired horses, it +would have been imprudent to turn our backs to Marmaduke's little army, +if he supposed us to be alone. + +Keeping the town well picketed and making much show of laying out an +encampment, we started the teams and the main body of the command at +nightfall, holding back a hundred men for a cover until a later hour. + +During the evening the Rebels on the south side of the river became +suspiciously quiet, and there was, apparently, some new movement on +foot. The only possible chance for an attack was by Magnus's ferry, +ten miles below, where the boat was so small and the river so wide +that not more than twenty horses could be crossed in an hour, and our +sharpshooters were sufficient to prevent the removal of the Batesville +boat to that point. Still it was important to know what was going on, +and especially important to prevent even a scouting-party of the enemy +from harassing the rear of our tired column by the shorter road from +Magnus's to Evening Shade; and I started at nine o'clock (when the moon +rose), with twenty men, to go round that way, directing the remainder +of the rear-guard to follow the main body at midnight. + +The ride to Magnus's was without other adventure than bad roads and +almost impassable bayous always entail, and in a few hours we reached +the plantation, where I had a former ally in an old negro who had done +us good service during Curtis's campaign. He said that the Rebels had +left the Bottom, and were going to Little Rock, but, as a precaution +he took a canoe and crossed over to the house of another negro on the +south bank, and returned with a confirmation of his opinion. As it +was very important to know whether the only enemy of Davidson's army +had really withdrawn from his front, and, as this might be definitely +learned through the assistance of an old scout who lived in the edge of +the Bottom, it seemed best to cross the river to give him instructions +for his work. + +I took Ruby, my best horse. He was a sure reliance under all +circumstances, and he and I knew each other perfectly. We were at home +in every foot-path in the country, having had many a summer's swim in +this very river; and now, accompanied only by Wettstein and Klitschka, +I went on to the ferry-boat. It was what is known as a "swing" ferry. A +stout rope is stretched between trees on the opposite shores, and the +boat is attached to a couple of pulleys arranged to traverse the length +of this rope. The attaching cords--one at each end of the up-stream +side of the boat--are long enough to allow it to swing some rods down +the stream; by shortening one of the ropes and lengthening the other, +the boat is placed at an angle with the swift current, which propels it +toward one shore or the other, the pulleys keeping pace in their course +on the main rope. + +The main rope was rough from long use, and often the pulleys would +halt in their course, until the pull of the advancing boat dragged them +free. Then the rickety craft, shivering from end to end, would make a +rapid shoot, until another defective place in the rope brought her to +again. At each vibration, the horses nearly lost their feet, and the +surging stream almost sent its muddy water over the gunwale. It was a +long and anxious trip,--the rotten guy-rope hardly serving to hold us +to our course. At last we reached the shore and rode on to Craikill's +house in the Bottom. He had been "conscripted," and forced to go with +the army, so his wife told us, and she had seen him march with the rest +on the Fairview Road for Little Rock. The last bird had flown, and we +could safely march back at our leisure. + +Wettstein filled his pipe, emptied his haversack for the benefit of +Craikill's hungry children, and, cheery as ever, followed me to the +ferry. On the way over he had been as still as a mouse, for he was too +old a soldier to give an enemy any sign of our approach. But, as we +set out on the return trip, in the cold moonlight, he sang the "Ranz +des Vaches," fondled his little mare, and, unmindful of his wounded +arm, gave way to the flow of spirits that the past few days' duty had +checked. I never knew him more gay and delightful; and, as we stood +leaning on our saddles and chatting together, I congratulated myself +upon the possession of such a perpetual sunbeam. + +We were barely half-way across, when, suddenly, coming out of the +darkness, riding half hidden in the boiling, whirling tide, a huge +floating tree struck the boat with a thud that parted the rotten +guy-rope, and carried us floating down the stream. For a moment there +seemed no danger, but a branch of the tree had caught the corner of the +boat, and the pulleys had become entangled in the rope. When this had +been drawn to its full length, and the tree felt the strain, the boat +dipped to the current, filled, and sank under our feet. I called to +Wettstein to take Klitschka by the tail, but it was too late; he had +grasped the saddle with the desperation of a drowning man, and made +her fairly helpless. The boat soon passed from under us, and, relieved +of our weight, came to the surface at our side; but, bringing the rope +against poor Wettstein's wounded arm, it tore loose his hold, and soon +went down again in the eddy, and Klitschka was free. + +"Adieu, Herr Oberist; tenez Klitschka pour vous! Adieu!" And that +happy, honest face sank almost within reach of me. The weight of his +arms prevented his rising again, and only an angry eddy, glistening in +the moonlight, marked his turbid grave. + +Ruby, snorting, and struggling hard with the current, pulled me safely +to the shore, and little Klitschka followed as well as her loaded +saddle would permit. For the moment, with my own life and the lives of +two tried companions to care for, I thought of nothing else; but as I +sat drying at Magnus's roaring hearth the direst desolation overwhelmed +me. Very far from home,--far even from the home-like surroundings of +my own camp,--I had clung to this devoted fellow as a part of myself. +He was a proven friend; with him I never lacked the sympathy that, in +the army at least, is born of constant companionship, and he filled a +place in my life that dearer friends at home might not find. He was the +one comrade whose heart, I was sure, was filled only with unquestioning +love for me. Henceforth I must look for support to companions who saw +me as I was, who knew my faults and my weaknesses, and whose kind +regard was tempered with criticism. The one love that was blind, that +took me for better or for worse, had been, in an instant, torn from my +life, and I was more sad than I can tell. + +But Duty knows no sentiment. A saddened party, we mounted, to join the +main command; and, as we rode on through the rest of that desolate +night, no word passed to tell the gloom that each man felt. + +The petty distinctions of earthly rank were swallowed up in a feeling +of true brotherhood, and Wettstein--promoted now--rode at our head as a +worthy leader, showing the way to a faithful performance of all duty, +and a kindly and cheerful bearing of all life's burdens; and, through +the long and trying campaigns that followed, more than one of us was +the better soldier for the lesson his soldierly life had taught. + + + + +CAMPAIGNING WITH MAX. + + +Union City was not a city at all; it was hardly a village, and +"Disunion" would have been its fairer designation. It lay in the woods +at the crossing of two railroads, one pointing toward Mobile and one +toward Memphis, but neither leading anywhere. There was a tradition +that trains had once been run upon each, but many bridges had had to be +rebuilt to make the short line to Columbus passable, and the rest was +ruin; for Forrest had been there with his cavalry. + +The land was just so much raised above the broad swamp of Northwestern +Tennessee that whiskey with men to drink it, and a Methodist Church +South with people to attend it, were possible. With these meagre +facilities for life, and the vague inducement of a railroad-crossing. +Union City had struggled into an amphibious subsistence; but it had +never thriven, and its corner-lots had but feebly responded to the +hopes of its projectors. + +For many a mile around, the forests and swamps were well-nigh +impenetrable, and the occasional clearings were but desolate oases +in the waste of marsh and fallen timber. The roads were wood-trails +leading nowhere in particular, and all marked a region of the most +scanty and unfulfilled promise. + +General Asboth, seeing (by the map) that it commanded two lines of +railroad, sent us to occupy this strategic point, and we gradually +accumulated to the number of twenty-five hundred cavalry and four +thousand infantry, drawing our regular supplies from Columbus; +and occupying our time with a happy round of drills, inspections, +horse-races, cock-fights, and poker. It was not an elevating existence, +but it was charmingly idle, and we passed the serene and lovely autumn +of 1863 in a military dreamland, where nothing ever came to disturb +our quiet, or to mar our repose with the realities of war. We built +ourselves houses, we shot game for our tables, we made egg-nog for our +evenings, and we were happy. The charm of camp-life--with just enough +of occupation and responsibility, and with enough improvement in the +troops for a reward--made even this wilderness enjoyable. I had the +advantage of seniority and command, and the physical comforts that +naturally gravitate toward a commanding officer did not fail me. + +My house, built with the mouse-colored logs of a Rebel block-house, +covered with the roof of the post-office, and floored and ceiled with +the smoke-mellowed lining of the Methodist church, was broad and low +and snug. Its windows, also taken from the sanctuary in question, were +set on their sides, and gave to each of the two rooms wide, low-browed +outlooks into the woods and over the drill-ground, that would have made +worse quarters agreeable. The bricks of an abandoned domestic fireside +built a spacious fireplace across an angle of each of the rooms, and +the clay of the locality plastered all our chinks "to keep the wind +away." I have seen more pretentious houses and more costly, but never +one in which three chosen spirits--I had, in a happy moment, selected +Voisin and the Hun for my staff--got more that is worth the getting +out of the simple and virtuous life of a cavalry headquarters. We were +at peace with all the world (Forrest was in Mississippi), our pay +was regular, our rations were ample,--and Asboth had been ordered to +Pensacola. + +Old A. J., his successor,--every inch a soldier, and a good fellow +to the very core,--used sometimes to roll up his camp mattress and +run down from Columbus for an inspection. Those are marked days in +our memories. He was a lynx in the field, and wry buttoning roused +him to articulate wrath; but he unbuckled his sabre at the door, and +brought only geniality within,--a mellow geniality that warmed to the +influences of our modest hospitality, and lasted far into the night; +and then, when the simple and inoffensive game was over, and its scores +were settled, the dear old boy--usually with a smile of conquest +wandering through his gray beard--would unroll his bundle before the +fire and sleep like a baby until reveille. Happy, happy days,--and +still happier nights! + +Naturally, in such a life as we led at Union City, our horses formed +a very important element in our occupation and in our amusements. Soon +after our arrival at Columbus,--an event which had taken place a few +months before,--a spanking mare that I had bought to replace Ruby had +gone hopelessly lame, and it became again important to all who were +concerned in my peace of mind, that a satisfactory substitute should be +found for her. I had still in my stable a little thoroughbred (Guy), +who, though excellent in all respects, was a trifle under my weight, +and not at all up to the rough riding that was a necessary part of our +army life. He could go anywhere, could jump any practicable barrier, +was fleet and sound, and in all respects admirable, but he was made for +a lighter weight than mine, and, except for show and parade riding, +must mainly be used to carry Ike and the saddle-bags, or to mount a +friend when a friend favored me. + +In a second search, in which most of the officers of the regiment +took a lively interest, there was found, in Frank Moore's Battalion +of the Second Illinois Cavalry, a tall, gaunt, lean, haggard, +thoroughbred-looking beast, which had been captured from Merryweather's +men in Western Tennessee. He was not a handsome horse, nor was he to +the ordinary eye in any respect promising; but a trial showed that he +had that peculiar whalebone character, and wiry, nervous action, which +come only with blood, and without which no horse is really fit for the +saddle. The chances were very much against him. He did not possess the +first element of beauty, save in a clean-cut head, a prominent eye, +a quick ear, a thin neck, sloping shoulders, high withers, and the +brilliant activity that no abuse had been able to conquer. He was held +in abeyance until a careful examination of the two thousand horses at +the post showed that, even as he stood, he had no equal there for my +purposes. Since he had come into the army he had been in the possession +of a private soldier, who had done much scouting duty, and he had been +initiated (successfully) into the scrub-racing which Illinois soldiers +much affected. The serious amount of one hundred and forty dollars was +hazarded in the venture, and he was transferred to our stable. That +increment of value which always follows the purchase of a new horse +came rapidly in his case, and it needed only a few gallops on the +breezy bluffs beyond Fort Halleck, to install him as prime favorite +among the headquarters' mess. + +He was deemed worthy of the noble name of Max, and under Ike's careful +grooming he returned daily toward the blooming condition that only +Second Illinois abuse had been able to subdue. In an early race with +the Hun we were ingloriously beaten; but the Hun rode a marvellous +little blood mare, blooming with hundreds of bushels of oats, and with +two years of careful handling. Max, though beaten, was not discouraged, +and seemed to say that with time and good treatment he would be ready +for a more successful trial. + +During his period of tutelage, and while he was kept from all excessive +exertion, he was inducted into the mysteries of the art, to him quite +new, of jumping timber. Columbus had been occupied by Rebel and Union +soldiers since the outbreak of the war, and its fences, far and wide, +had all disappeared; but nowhere in the world was there a greater +variety nor a more ample stock of fallen trees, whose huge boles made +capital leaping-bars; and over these, almost daily, for some months, +beginning with the smaller ones and going gradually to the largest +we could find, Max learned to carry a heavy weight with a power and +precision that even Ruby could not have excelled. + +During all this time, ample feed, good shelter, regular exercise, and +a couple of hours of Ike's hand-rubbing daily, worked an uninterrupted +improvement in limb and wind and sinews and coat, until, by the time we +were ordered to Union City, Max had become the pride of the camp. He +was over sixteen hands high, of a solid dark bay color, glistening like +polished mahogany, and active and spirited as a horse in training for +the Derby. + +At Union City the headquarters' horses were stabled under a capital +shed, close at hand, and all that master's eye and servant's labor +could accomplish for their care and improvement was lavished upon them; +so that, during our long months' stay, we were among the best-mounted +men in the Western army. Our pleasure-riding and our work lay through +swampy wood-roads, over obstructions of every sort, and across the +occasional grass farms, with their neglected rail-fences. The weather +was almost uninterruptedly fine, our few visiting neighbors were miles +away from us, the shooting was good, and the enjoyment we got from +our vagabond life in camp was well supplemented by the royal rides we +almost daily took. + +Naturally, in a camp full of idle men given largely to sport, the +elevating entertainment of horse-racing played a prominent part. Both +Max and Guy were conspicuous by their successes until, long before the +close of our leisurely career, but only after they had hung my walls +with spurs and whips and other trophies of their successful competition +with all comers, both were ruled out by the impossible odds they were +obliged to give. The actual military service required was only enough +to convince me that Max was a beast of endless bottom and endurance, +and that, accidents apart, he would need no help in any work he might +be called on to perform. For the rest of the war, with much duty of +untold severity, I habitually rode no other horse for light work or for +hard, for long rides or for short ones, on the march or on parade; and +with all my sentiment for his charming predecessors, I had to confess +that his equal as a campaigner had never come under my leg. He would +walk like a cart-horse at the head of a marching column, would step +like a lord in passing in review, would prance down the main street of +a town as though vain of all applause, would leap any fence or ditch or +fallen timber to which he might be put, would fly as though shot from +a gun in passing along the line; and when, whether early or late, he +was taken to his stable, would eat like a hungry colt and sleep like a +tired plough-horse. In all weathers and under all circumstances he was +steady, honest, intelligent, and ready for every duty. I had ridden +before, at home and in the army, horses ideally good; I have ridden +since, over the hunting country of Warwickshire and Northamptonshire, +horses that were counted of the best, but never, before or since, have +I mounted such a magnificent piece of perfectly trained and perfectly +capable horse-flesh. + +On one occasion, at Union City, word was brought in that a flag of +truce from Faulkner had arrived at our picket line, and I rode out +for a parley over a trifling matter of an exchange of prisoners. +The officer in charge of the flag, with the company escorting him, +had originally come from our neighborhood and had belonged to +Merryweather's "band." As Max trotted up to their bivouac, he was +greeted with cries of recognition, and a lieutenant of the company was +kind enough to warn me that I had shown them a stronger inducement +than they had hitherto had to make an attack on our position; for, +since Frank Moore had captured the horse I rode, they had determined +to regain him at any risk. Happily, this laudable wish was never +fulfilled, and Max remained, in spite of the devices they may have laid +for his recapture. + +During the five months of our stay at this post, we made some hard +scouts in a hard country, and we held a good part of West Tennessee +under strict surveillance, but the most memorable feature of all our +scouting was generally the welcome dismounting under the wide eaves of +our own house; not, I hope, that we had grown effeminate, but a week's +tramp through the woods of West Tennessee offers little that memory +can cherish, and prepares one for a sensation on the near approach of +comfort. + +But five months of such life is enough, and I was not sorry when the +order came that I must go for a soldier again. + +Sherman was about to advance eastward from Vicksburg, destroy the +lines of railroad by which Forrest received supplies from the fertile +prairie region of Northern Mississippi, and strike the Rebellion in +the pit of its stomach. A. J. was to take all my infantry down the +river, and the cavalry was to move to Colliersville, on the line of the +Memphis and Charleston Railroad, and join a considerable cavalry force +gathering there under Sooy Smith and Grierson; thence we were to move +southeasterly through Mississippi, to engage Forrest's forces and to +meet Sherman's army at the crossing of the Mobile and Ohio Railroad at +Meridian. + +We lay in camp more than a week, ready to move, but awaiting orders. +The country (a very wet one) was frozen hard and covered with snow. +Our order to march and the thaw came together, on the 22d of January. +We were to cross the Obion River (and bottom) at Sharp's Ferry, +twenty-three miles southwest of our camp. The command consisted of the +Fourth Missouri (with a battery), Second New Jersey, Seventh Indiana, +Nineteenth Pennsylvania, and Frank Moore's Battalion of the Second +Illinois; in all about twenty-five hundred well-mounted men present for +duty. The roads were deep with mud and slush, and every creek was "out +of its banks" with the thaw. We reached the ferry only at nightfall of +the 23d, over roads that had hourly grown deeper and more difficult. +Two regiments had crossed, through floating ice (eight horses at a +trip), by a rope-ferry, and at nine o'clock in the evening, under a +full moon and a summer temperature, I crossed with staff and escort. +The river was already so swollen that we landed in two feet of water, +and still it was rising. + +Our camp was fixed five miles away on the upland. The first mile was +only wet and nasty, and the trail not hard to follow. Then we came to +the "back slough," thirty feet wide, four feet deep, and still covered +with four inches of ice. Those who had gone before had broken a track +through this, and swept the fragments of ice forward until near the +shore they were packed in for a width of ten feet or more, and to the +full depth of the water. I can make no stronger statement than that we +all got through safely, only wet to the skin. How it was done I do not +pretend to know. Some went in one way and some in another. All I can +assert is that my stalwart old Max, when he found himself standing, +belly deep, in broken ice, settled quietly on his haunches and took my +two hundred pounds with one spring on to dry land four feet higher than +his starting-point, and twelve feet away,--but then, Max always was +a marvel. Guy, who carried Ike, scrambled over the top of the broken +ice as only he or a cat could do. The others fared variously. All were +drenched, and some were hurt, but all got to the shore at last. Then +came the hour-long tug to get my ambulance through with its store of +tent-hold goods and we started for our remaining four miles. The trail, +even of cavalry, is not easily followed by moonlight when covered +with half a foot of water, and we lost our way; reaching camp, after +fourteen miles of hard travel, at four o'clock in the morning. + +The river was still rising rapidly, and word was brought that Kargé, +with more than half the brigade, would have to make a détour of fifty +miles and cross the Three Forks of the Obion far to the eastward, +joining us some days later, near Jackson. So we idled on, marching a +few miles each day, camping early, cooking the fat of the land for our +evening meal, cultivating the questionable friendship of the Rebel +population by forced contributions of subsistence, and leading, on the +whole, a peaceful, unlaborious, and charming picnic life. Finally, +taking Kargé again under our wing, we pushed on, resolutely and +rapidly, over flooded swamps, across deep, rapid rivers, and through +hostile towns, to our rendezvous; whence, under the command of two +generals, and as part of an army of eight thousand well-mounted cavalry +and light artillery, and all in light marching order, we started for +our more serious work. + +The chief in command was a young and handsome, but slightly nervous +individual, who eschewed the vanities of uniform, and had about himself +and his horse no evidence of his military character that could not be +unbuckled and dropped with his sword-belt in case of impending capture. +He was vacillating in his orders, and a little anxious in his demeanor, +but he had shown himself cool and clear-headed under fire, and seemed +resolutely bent on the destruction of the last vestige of Forrest's +troublesome army. It would be tedious to tell all the adventures of +our forward expedition; how we marched in three columns over different +roads, each for himself, and with only a vague notion where and how +we should meet, and how we should support each other. As it afterward +proved, the details of the order of march had been given to the +commanders of the other brigades, while I had been forgotten; so that +the whole advance was vexed with cross-purposes and with the evidences +of a hidden misunderstanding. The _contretemps_ that thus came about +were annoying, and, in one instance, came near being serious: as we +were going into camp at Prairie Station, my advance reported having +come in sight of the camp-fires of the enemy; a skirmish-line was sent +forward, and only on the eve of engaging did they discover that we were +approaching Hepburn's Brigade, of our column, which had reached the +same point by another road. + +The first days of our march in Mississippi were through Tippah County, +as rough, hopeless, God-forsaken a country as was ever seen outside +of Southern Missouri. Its hills were steep, its mud was deep, its +houses and farms were poor, its facilities for the subsistence of a +protecting army like ours were of the most meagre description, and +its streams delayed us long with their torrents of bottomless muddy +water, fast swelling from the thaw that had unlocked the snow of all +the deep-buried hills and morasses of their upper waters. We built +ferry-boats and swamped them, built bridges and broke them, and slowly +and painfully, horse by horse, transferred the command across the nasty +riverbeds. Tippah Creek detained us and kept us hard at work all day +and all night, and we reached the Tallahatchee at New Albany barely in +time to ford our last man across before it rose to an impassable depth. +And then for two days we pressed forward, in company with the whole +column, through the rough, rocky, and wooded country, reaching Okolona +only at nightfall. + +Here we struck the marvellous prairie region of Northeastern +Mississippi, literally a land flowing with milk and honey. An +interminable, fertile, rolling prairie lay before us in every +direction. The stern rule of the Confederacy had compelled the planters +to offset every small field of cotton with a wide area of corn, until +the region had become known as the granary of the Southern army. +Not only must every land-owner devote his broadest fields to the +cultivation of the much-needed cereal, but one tenth of all his crop +must be stacked for public use in cribs at the side of the railroad. + +It was an important incident of our mission to destroy everything +which directly or indirectly could afford subsistence to the Rebel +forces; and during the two days following our arrival at Okolona, while +we marched as far south as West Point, the sky was red with the flames +of burning corn and cotton. On a single plantation, our flanking party +burned thirty-seven hundred bushels of tithe corn, which was cribbed +near the railroad; no sooner was its light seen at the plantation +houses than hundreds of negroes, who swarmed from their quarters to +join our column, fired the rail-built cribs in which the remaining +nine-tenths of the crop was stored. Driven wild with the infection, +they set the torch to mansion house, stables, cotton-gin, and quarters, +until the whole village-like settlement was blazing in an unchecked +conflagration. To see such wealth, and the accumulated products of such +vast labor, swept from the face of the earth, gave to the aspect of war +a saddening reality, which was in strong contrast to the peaceful and +harmless life our brigade had thus far led. In all this prairie region +there is no waste land, and the evidences of wealth and fertility +lay before us in all directions. As we marched, the negroes came _en +masse_ from every plantation to join our column, leaving only fire and +absolute destruction behind them. It was estimated that during these +two days' march two thousand slaves and one thousand mules were added +to our train. + +The incidents of all this desolation were often sickening and +heart-rending; delicate women and children, whom the morning had found +in peace and plenty, and glowing with pride in the valor of Southern +arms and the certainty of an early independence for their beloved +half-country, found themselves, before nightfall, homeless, penniless, +and alone, in the midst of a desolate land. + +Captain Frank Moore, the Cossack of our brigade, went at night to +an outlying plantation, of which the showy mansion-house stood on a +gentle acclivity in the edge of a fine grove. Here lived alone with an +only daughter, a beautiful girl, a man who had been conspicuous in his +aid to the Rebellion, and whose arrest had been ordered. The squadron +drew up in front of the house and summoned its owner to come forth. He +came, armed, sullen, stolid, and determined, but obviously unnerved by +the force confronting him. Behind him followed his daughter, dressed +in white, and with her long light hair falling over her shoulders. The +sight of the hated "Yanks" crazed her with rage, and before her father +could reply to the question with which he had been accosted, she called +to him wildly, "Don't speak to the villains! Shoot! shoot them down, +shoot them down!" wringing her hands, and screaming with rage. The +excitement was too much for his judgment, and he fired wildly on the +troops. He was riddled through and through with bullets; and as Moore +turned away, he left that fine house blazing in the black night, and +lighting up the figure of the crazy girl as she wandered, desolate and +beautiful, to and fro before her burning home, unheeded by the negroes +who ran with their hastily made bundles to join the band of their +deliverers. Moore's description of this scene in the simple language +that it was his unpretending way to use, gave the most vivid picture we +had seen of the unmitigated horror and badness of war. + +As an instrument of destruction in the enemy's country, our raid had +thus far been more successful than we could have anticipated; but we +had come for even more serious business than this, and there were +already indications that its main purpose would be a failure. Our +commander had evidently no stomach for a close approach to the enemy, +and his injunctions at Colliersville that we were to try always to +"Fight at close quarters!" "Go at them as soon as possible with the +sabre!" and other valorous ejaculations, were in singular contrast to +the impressions he evinced as the prospect of an actual engagement drew +near. + +Forrest was in our front with about our own number of cavalry, but +without artillery, of which we had twenty good pieces. The open country +offered good fighting ground, and gave to our better drilled and more +completely organized forces a decided advantage, even without our +great odds in artillery. There lay before us a fair opportunity for +dispersing the most successful body of cavalry in the Rebel service; +and, could we effect a junction with Sherman, we should enable him +to divide the Confederacy from Vicksburg to Atlanta. One of the most +brilliant and damaging campaigns of the war seemed ready to open. Its +key lay in our successful engagement, on a fair field, with an inferior +force. Yet all of us who were in a position to know the spirit with +which we were commanded were conscious of a gradual oozing out at the +finger-ends of the determination to make a successful fight; and it +was a sad night for us all when, at West Point, with our skirmish-line +steadily engaging the Rebel outposts, an order came that we were to +fall back before daybreak toward Okolona. + +The brigade commanders and their staffs had had severe duty in the +scattered work of destruction, and even Max, tough though he was, had +been almost overworked with constant galloping to and fro, and with the +frequent countermarching our varying orders had required. Still he was +better than his comrades, and many a man was anxious for his mount, +should our retreat be pressed. + +Early in the morning we were on our way toward the rear,--about +eight thousand cavalry, ten sections of artillery, two thousand +pack-mules, and an unnumbered cloud of fugitive slaves mounted on +their masters' mules, often two or three on each, and clustering +under our shadow as their only means of escape to the happy land of +freedom. In an organized advance, all of this vast hanging on could be +kept at the rear and in good order; but on a retreat the instinct of +self-preservation always attacks first the non-combatant element, and +during all the days that followed, we found our way constantly blocked +with these throngs of panic-stricken people. + +No sooner had we turned tail than Forrest saw his time had come, and +he pressed us sorely all day and until nightfall, and tried hard to +gain our flanks. A hundred times we might have turned and given him +successful battle, but, at every suggestion of this, we received from +our general, who was well in advance of the retiring column, the order +to push forward and give our rear a free road for retreat. Midnight +found us again in the vicinity of Okolona, and the next daybreak showed +the enemy's long column filing out of the woods and stretching well on +toward our right flank. + +Even the plains of Texas could offer no field better suited for a +cavalry engagement, and it was with satisfaction that we received, at +five o'clock in the morning, an order to prepare at once for a fight; +but our men were barely mounted and in line when an order came to turn +our backs upon this open field, and to retreat with all expedition +toward Memphis. + +When we left Okolona we left hope behind, for our road struck at once +into a wooded, hilly country, full of by-ways and cross-roads known to +the enemy and unknown to us, and we well knew that this movement would +double Forrest's power and divide our own. Then, for a long day, tired +and hungry from the hard work and constant movement we had just gone +through, and with our horses half-fed and overworked, we pushed on, our +rear often attacked and sometimes broken, our mule-train and negroes +thrown into frequent confusion, one of our brigades demoralized and put +to flight, and the enemy still pressing our rear and reaching for our +flanks. At last, towards night, it became evident that a stand must be +made or all would be entirely lost, and at Ivy Farm, near Pontotoc, we +found a broad, open hill-top, with large fields, high fences, and stout +log-houses, which offered an opportunity. By this time the command +was too widely separated, and some of it too much disorganized, for +the concentration of even a whole brigade, but a part of Hepburn's +and a part of my own were disentangled from the corral of fugitives +and brought into line. Both of our generals were upon the field, and +to our surprise both seemed brave and resolute; and this not with the +resolution of despair, for the actual immediate necessity of fighting +often steadies nerves which are easily shaken by the anticipation +of danger. Brave they were, but not always of the same mind, and +conflicting orders continued to add to our embarrassment and insecurity. + +It is not worth while to detail all the incidents of the opening of +the short engagement; it was ended by the only legitimate cavalry +charge made by the "Vierte Missouri" during the whole of its four +years' history. + +We had withdrawn from the line where we had been fighting on foot, had +mounted, formed, and drawn sabre; the road about one hundred yards in +front of us was swarming with Rebels, who crept along the fence-lines +and in the edge of the bordering woods, and kept up a steady rain of +fire well over our heads, where we heard that _pfwit_--_pfwit_--_pfwit_ +of flying bullets which, happily, has no relative in the whole chorus +of sounds, and which is heard above all the din of battle, and is felt +through every remotest nerve. + +At the command "Forward," excitement ran down the line, and there was +a disposition for an immediate rush. But "Steady--right dress--trot!" +in a measured tone, taken up in turn by the company officers, brought +back all the effect of our three years' discipline of the drill-ground. +Later, "Steady--gallop--right dress!" accelerated the speed without +disturbing the alignment, and then, at last, "Charge!" and with a +universal yelling and brandishing of sabres we went forward like the +wind. I then felt how mad a venture we had undertaken, for before us +was the enemy, it is true, but the enemy behind a high and stout, +staked and ridered rail-fence. As we drew very near this, still under +heavy fire, which now at the short range was telling, the command +became conscious that the six-foot fence would withstand our shock, +and it wavered. I turned to my bugler to sound the recall, when I saw +him out of the corner of my eye, his white horse rearing literally +to his full height and falling backward with a crash that must have +killed the poor boy at once. The recall was not needed: the regiment +had turned and was running. The officers, being the best mounted +and generally the lightest weights, soon reached the front, and +"Steady--right dress--trot! Steady--right dress--trot!" was repeated +along the line, until the drill-ground precision was regained, and then +"By fours--right about--wheel!" and we stood facing the enemy again, +ready for another advance. Max had been struck by a grazing bullet and +had been plunging heavily, but the wound was not serious and he was +soon quieted. We now saw that our charge, futile though it seemed, +had done its work. The advance of the enemy was checked; the sight of +troops that could retire and re-form for a new attack seemed to have a +stunning effect upon them. Practically the engagement was ended. + +Subsequently, one of Forrest's staff officers told the Hun that the +size of the division which had charged was variously estimated at from +five to ten thousand, but that he had been accustomed to such things +and knew that we were not more than two thousand. In fact, we were less +than six hundred. Forrest's report of the battle of Pontotoc states +that the engagement was ended "by a cavalry charge of the enemy, which +was repulsed." + +There was still some sharp scrimmaging, and we had to make two or +three more squadron and company charges to drive away small attacks +upon our retreating guns; but the battle, as a battle, was over, and +Forrest's whole advance had been stopped and ended by six hundred +Fourth Missouri Dutchmen, galloping, yelling, and swinging their +sabres at several thousand men well secured behind a rail-fence. I had +before, in drill-ground charges, seen old soldiers and experienced +officers jump down and run away from a fence on which they were sitting +to watch the advance of charging cavalry which they knew must wheel +before coming within five rods of them; but I had never supposed that +hot-blooded soldiers, in the full excitement of a successful attack, +could be unnerved and turned by the roar and thundering oncoming of a +regiment that could by no possibility reach them. Our first setting out +had driven back a thin skirmish-line which had to cross the fence under +high speed; this, doubtless, aided in the _débâcle_; the charge had +stunned them, but it was the rally that stopped the pursuit. + +The rest of our march was without interesting incident all the way to +Memphis, but it was almost incessant, day and night; without incident, +that is, that it is worth while to tell here, but our days and nights +upon the road were filled with annoyance and disgust, and with a store +of unhappy and ludicrous memories that will last the lifetime of all +who knew them. + +One day, at New Albany, Max and I were feeding and sleeping in +the door of an old mill while the command was slowly crossing the +antiquated bridge over the Tallahatchie, when I was awakened by +Grierson's riding up in great alarm, calling upon me "for God's sake" +to use the ford as well as the bridge, for Hepburn was being cut to +pieces in the rear, and I must give him the full road for his retreat. +I had always been a respectful subordinate, but none of us were then +in the best temper; I did not believe a word of it, and I frankly +told him so. Even old Max pricked up his ears and snorted as if in +derision. Almost as we were talking, there came an aid from Hepburn +saying that he had found a good supply of forage and would be glad to +go into camp for the night. But there was no camp to be thought of for +that tired crew; the bogey of incessant pursuit loomed up portentously +close upon our rear-guard, and sent its shadow deep into the bowels +of our commander, who was miles away in the advance, and who would +allow us only the fewest possible hours in the very dead of night for +hasty cooking and scant repose. We were a worn and weary lot as we +finally went into camp at the rear of the town; worn and weary, sadly +demoralized, and almost dismounted. I had lost fifteen hundred good +horses, and my men, who had been eager and ready for a successful +campaign, were broken in spirit and sadly weakened in discipline. + +All who had been compelled to bear the brunt of the hard work now +needed for themselves and their horses absolute rest for days; but +being called into the city the morning after our arrival, my eyes were +greeted with the spectacle of General Sooy Smith, no longer ill, and +with no trace of shame or annoyance on his face. He had shed his modest +and prudent attire, and shone out with all the brass radiance of a +full-fledged major-general. From this time until the Fourth Missouri +cavalry was mustered out of service, our headquarters were in the +immediate neighborhood of Memphis, and our life was much more active +than it had been at Union City. + +Not very much is to be said for Max during this time, except in +connection with the Sturgis expedition, beyond the fact that we lay +long in the immediate vicinity of the race-course, which we repaired +and used faithfully, and, so far as he was concerned, with eminent +success. The more frequent necessity for duty, the great labor of +remounting, reorganizing, and redrilling the command, united with +the greater publicity of our position to lay some restraint on our +mode of life, and to make our conduct more circumspect. Still we +were not miserable, and the neighborhood of a large town has, to a +well-regulated headquarters' mess, its compensations as well as its +drawbacks. + +Sturgis's expedition to Guntown and back--especially back--has passed +into history, and its unwritten memories will always remain with those +who took part in it. + +Guntown is far away in Northeastern Mississippi. It is not laid down on +the map of the country, but it lies just across the Tishamingo Creek, +and it consists mainly of two plantation houses and a school-house. +Our stay there was not long, and we were too much occupied to study +the locality minutely, but it is my impression that the most important +incident in its history was connected with our visit. + +We were a force of about nine thousand infantry, cavalry, and +artillery,--some black and some white, some good and some bad,--sent +out by Sherman as a tub to the Forrest whale; a diversion to keep this +commander from joining Hood in Northern Georgia; though I doubt if +even General Sherman in his moments of wildest enthusiasm anticipated +just the issue that followed. Our march out was not rapid, and it was +well ordered. We were allowed to take our train, and old John Ellard's +four stupendous mules drew our headquarters' wagon, well laden with +the comforts we had accumulated during a long service, including a +brand-new, well-furnished, and abundantly stored camp-chest that had +just arrived from St. Louis. So far as the comforts of a home for five +youngsters can be stored in one mule-wagon, we were well supplied for +a campaign of any length; and judging from the mess-tables to which we +were invited, others of the command were no less well provided. In due +time we reached the town of Ripley, a rather pretty New-England-looking +village, but, like all Southern towns at that time, entirely devoid of +men and overflowing with women of the most venomous and spiteful sort, +who did all in their power to add to the interest of the Sunday evening +we passed in their company. + +We had some light skirmishing on our arrival, but whoever it was that +attacked us withdrew and left us in undisturbed possession of the +comfortable rooms and fireplaces of the town. Our next day's march +brought us to a large open plantation on a commanding hill, whence our +evening scouting-parties soon found the enemy posted in some force and +apparently disposed for an engagement. + +It seemed always Forrest's plan to select his own fighting-ground, and +the plan of our commanders to gratify him. Sturgis committed the usual +folly of trying to hold every inch he had gained, and of forming his +line of battle on the head of the column and under fire. + +We breakfasted at three in the morning, and marched at half past +four. My command had the advance. The enemy allowed himself to be +easily driven until half past eight, when he made some show of +resistance. At this time the last of our regiments could hardly have +left the camping-ground, and probably a judicious retreat would have +drawn Forrest's whole force back to the open country we had left. +But "retreat" was not yet written on our banners (of that day), and +orders came from our general to support the advance-guard, form line +of battle, and hold our position. So far as the cavalry brigade was +concerned this was easily done, and we got into good line near the +edge of a wood without difficulty. Here, for four mortal hours, or +until half past twelve, we carried on a tolerably equal warfare, both +sides blazing away at each other with little effect across the six +hundred yards of cleared valley that lay between two skirts of wood. +So far as the endurance of our troops was concerned, this engagement +could have been kept up until nightfall, though our ranks were slowly +thinning. Several desperate charges were made on our position, and were +repulsed with considerable loss to both sides. Pending the arrival +of the infantry it would have been folly for us to attempt a further +advance, but had we been properly supported, or, better, had we at once +fallen back upon our support, we might have given, as the _post bellum_ +reports of Forrest's officers show, a better ending to the day's work. +It was only at half past twelve, when our ammunition was reduced to +five rounds per man, and when our battery had fired its last shot, that +the infantry began to arrive, and then they came a regiment at a time, +or only so fast as the Forrest mill could grind them up in detail. + +They had taken our place, and we had withdrawn to their rear, where +we were joined by one after another of the defeated or exhausted +infantry regiments. Little by little the enemy pressed upon us, +gaining rod after rod of our position, until finally our last arriving +troops, a splendid colored regiment, reached the field of battle at +double-quick, breathless and beaten by their own speed, barely in time +to check the assault until we could cross the creek and move toward +the rear. The retreat was but fairly begun when we came upon our train +of two hundred wagons piled pell-mell in a small field and blocked in +beyond the possibility of removal. With sad eyes we saw John Ellard +cut his traces and leave all that was dear to us--tents, camp-chest, +poker-table, and all that we cherished--to inevitable capture. The +train was _our_ tub to the whale; and while Forrest's men were sacking +our treasures, and refilling the caissons of all our batteries, which +they had captured, we had time to form for the retreat, more or less +orderly according as we had come early or late off the field. The +demoralizing roar of our own guns, and the howling over our heads of +our own shells, together with the sharp rattle of musketry in our rear, +hastened and saddened the ignominious flight of the head of our column, +though, for some reason, the enemy's advance upon us was slow. + +All that long night we marched on, without food and without rest. At +early dawn we reached Ripley, where we paused for breath. Max had been +ridden almost uninterruptedly for twenty-four hours, and for four hours +had done the constant hard work that the supervision of a long line in +active engagement had made necessary; and he was glad to be unsaddled +and turned for fifteen minutes into a scantily grown paddock, where he +rolled and nibbled and refreshed himself as much as ordinary horses do +with a whole night's rest. The ambulances with our groaning wounded +men came pouring into the village, and to our surprise, those women, +who had so recently given only evidence of a horrified hatred, pressed +round to offer every aid that lay in their power, and to comfort our +suffering men as only kind-hearted women can. + +With the increasing daylight the pursuit was reopened with vigor, and +on we went, and ever on, marching all that day, our rear-guard being +constantly engaged, and hundreds of our men being captured, thousands +more scattering into the woods. My lieutenant-colonel, Von Helmrich, +who had been for twenty-eight years a cavalry officer in Germany, and +who, after thirteen months in Libby Prison, had overtaken us as we were +leaving Memphis, was recaptured and carried back to Richmond,--to die +of a good dinner on his second release, ten months later. At nightfall, +the pursuit growing weak, we halted to collect together our stragglers, +but not to rest, and after a short half-hour pushed on again; and all +that interminable night, and until half past ten the next morning, +when we reached Colliersville and the railroad, reinforcements, and +supplies, we marched, marched, marched, without rest, without sleep, +and without food. The cavalrymen were mainly dismounted and driving +their tired jades before them, only Max and a few others carrying their +riders to the very end, and coming in with a whinny of content to the +familiar stables and back-yards of the little town. + +Most other officers whose service had been as constant as mine had had +extra horses to ride for relief; but I had never yet found march too +long for Max's wiry sinews, and trusted to him alone. He had now been +ridden almost absolutely without intermission, and much of the time +at a gallop or a rapid trot, for fifty-four hours. I had had for my +own support the excitement and then the anxious despair of responsible +service, and Ike had filled his haversack with hard-bread from John +Ellard's abandoned wagon; an occasional nibble at this, and unlimited +pipes of tobacco, had fortified me in my endurance of the work; but Max +had had in the whole time not the half of what he would have made light +of for a single meal. I have known and have written about brilliant +feats of other horses, but as I look over the whole range of all the +best animals I have seen, I bow with respect to the wonderful courage, +endurance, and fidelity of this superbly useful brute. + +There is an elasticity in youth and health, trained and hardened by +years of active field-service, which asserts itself under the most +depressing circumstances. Even this shameful and horrible defeat and +flight had their ludicrous incidents, which we were permitted to +appreciate. Thus, for instance, during a lull in the engagement at +Guntown, I had seated myself in a rush-bottomed chair under the lee of +a broad tree-trunk; a prudent pig, suspecting danger, had taken shelter +between the legs of the chair, leaving, however, his rear unprotected. +Random bullets have an odd way of finding weak places, and it was due +to one of these that I was unseated, with an accompaniment of squeal, +by the rapid and articulate flight of my companion. + +During our last night's march, my brigade having the advance, and I +being at its rear, Grierson ordered me to prevent the pushing ahead +of the stragglers of the other brigades, who were to be recognized, +he reminded me, by their wearing hats (mine wore caps). The order +was peremptory, and was to be enforced even at the cost of cutting +the offenders down. Grierson's adjutant was at my side; we were all +sleeping more or less of the time, but constantly some hatted straggler +was detected pushing toward the front, and ordered back,--the adjutant +being especially sharp-eyed in detecting the mutilated sugar-loaves +through the gloom. Finally, close to my right and pushing slowly to +the front, in a long-strided walk, came a gray horse with a hatted +rider,--an india-rubber poncho covering his uniform. I ordered +him back; the adjutant, eager for the enforcement of the order, +remonstrated at the man's disobedience; I ordered again, but without +result; the adjutant ejaculated, "Damn him, cut him down!" I drew my +sabre and laid its flat in one long, stinging welt across that black +poncho: "----! who are you hitting?" Then we both remembered that +Grierson too wore a hat; and I tender him here my public acknowledgment +of a good-nature so great that an evening reunion in Memphis over a +dozen of wine won his generous silence. + +One might go on with interminable gossip over incidents of camp and +field for which at this late day only scant interest is felt; but +nothing that I could say more would probably aid my purpose, which has +been simply by a trifling sketch to recall the jollity, the comfort, +the suffering, and the misery of campaign life, and to show how in the +field more than anywhere else one learns to cherish and to depend upon +a faithful and honest and willing comrade like my royal old Max. + + + + +HOW I GOT MY OVERCOAT. + +(CIRCUMSTANTIALLY TRUE.) + + +The war was not quite over, but my regiment was old enough to have +grown too small for a colonel, and I sat, the dismalest of all men, +a "mustered-out" officer, sated with such good things as a suddenly +arrested income had allowed me, over an after-dinner table in a little +room at the Athenæum Club. My coffee was gone to its dregs; the closing +day was shutting down gloomily in such a weary rain as only a New York +back-yard ever knows; and I was wondering what was to become of a man +whom four years of cavalry service had estranged from every good and +useful thing in life. The only career that then seemed worth running +was run out for me; and, worst of all, my pay had been finally stopped. + +The world was before me for a choice, but I had no choice. The only +thing I could do was to command mounted troops, and commanders of +mounted troops were not in demand. Ages ago I had known how to do other +things, but the knowledge had gone from me, and was not to be recalled +so long as I had enough money left with which to be unhappy in idle +foreboding. I had not laid down my life in the war, but during its +wonderful four years I had laid down, so completely, the ways of life +of a sober and industrious citizen, and had soaked my whole nature so +full of the subtile ether of idleness and vagabondism, that it seemed +as easy and as natural to become the Aladdin I might have dreamed +myself to be as the delver I had really been. With a heavy heart, then, +and a full stomach, I sat in a half-disconsolate, half-reminiscent, +not wholly unhappy mood, relapsing with post-prandial ease into that +befogged intellectual condition in which even the drizzle against the +window-panes can confuse itself with the patter on a tent roof; and +the charm of the old wanderings came over me again, filling my table +with the old comrades, even elevating my cigar to a brier-wood, and +recalling such fellowship as only tent-life ever knows. + +Such dreaming is always interrupted, else it would never end; mine was +disturbed by a small card on a small salver, held meekly across the +table by the meekest of waiters. + +The card bore the name "Adolf zu Dohna-Schlodien," and a count's +coronet,--a count's coronet and "zu" (a touch above "von")! I +remembered to have seen a letter from my adjutant to the Prussian +Consul in Philadelphia, asking him to obtain information about a +handsome young musical "Graf zu" something, who was creating a +sensation in St. Louis society, and the "zu" seemed to indicate this as +the party in question; he had spoken of him as having defective front +teeth, which seemed to be pointing to the "color and distinguishing +marks," known in Herd Book pedigrees, and human passports,--a means of +identification I resolved to make use of; for my experience with the +German nobility in America had been rather wide than remunerative. + +The "Herr zu" had waited in the hall, and was standing under the full +light of the lamp. He was very tall, very slight, and very young, +apparently not more than twenty, modestly dressed, and quiet in his +manner. He was not strikingly handsome, though very well looking. His +hands were the most perfect I ever saw, and the ungloved one showed +careful attention. There was no defect noticeable in his front teeth. +He bowed slightly and handed me a letter. It was from Voisin, my former +adjutant, but it was not exactly a letter of introduction. At least, +it was less cordial than Voisin's letters of introduction were wont to +be. Yet it was kind. Without commending the Count as a bosom friend, he +still said he was much interested in him, had reason to believe in him, +was sorry for him, had given him material aid, and was very desirous +that he should pull through some pecuniary troubles, which he could do +only by enlisting in the Regular Army, and receiving his bounty. From +this he would give me money to release his baggage, which was valuable, +from some inconveniences that were then attending it in St. Louis. +Would I get him enlisted? He said he would enlist, and would prefer to +be known under the name Adolph Danforth. The gentleman himself took +early occasion to express this preference. + +I debated a little what to do. He was not introduced as a friend, only +as a person in need of help; yet Voisin believed in him, and he had +asked a service that he would not have asked for an unworthy man. I +engaged him in conversation and got him to smile. It was a very frank +smile, but it displayed a singular defect far up on the front teeth. +This decided me. He was the same Graf zu whose position had been asked +of the Prussian Consul, and I knew he had learned that the Graf zu +Dohna-Schlodien, an officer in the Gardecorps Kürassier, was of the +highest nobility and of a family of great wealth. There was evidently +no technical reason why the poor fellow should not be received +cordially and well treated. So we went back to the smoking-room, and +with fresh coffee and cigars opened an acquaintance which resulted not +altogether uneventfully. + +He was not obtrusive. His story was not forced upon me; but as I +already had its thread, I was able to draw it from him in a natural +way, and he told it very frankly, though halting a little at its more +important turnings, as if wondering how its development would strike +me. There was just enough of hesitancy over a harrowing tale to throw +on myself the responsibility of learning it. + +He had been brought up by the tenderest of mothers at the castle of +Schlodien (I think in Silesia), had early joined the Cuirassiers of the +Body Guard, had fought a fatal duel in which he had been the aggressor, +and had been condemned to the Fortress of Spandau. Only his mother's +great influence (exercised without the knowledge of his stern and much +older father, who was then on his distant estates) had secured for him +an opportunity to escape. He had come directly to America, and had +remained near Boston until he received intimation (again the result +of his mother's influence with Baron Gerolt, the Prussian Minister at +Washington) that his return under the Extradition Treaty was being +urged at the solicitation of the family of his fallen antagonist. He +had then taken refuge in a remote town in South Missouri, where he +amused himself with shooting. His mother had written to him but once, +and had not been able to send him money. He had at last returned to +St. Louis, where he had contracted some small debts which Voisin and +another kind friend had assumed. To reimburse them and to gain more +perfect seclusion, he had resolved to enlist in the Regular Army. It +was a sad conclusion of his career, but as an honorable man (and a +pursued one) he had no choice but to accept it. + +It was the old story,--_noblesse oblige_. There was but one way out +of a sad affair, and--like a very Graf zu--this stripling, who had been +born and bred to a better fate, faced the penalty of his misfortune +without flinching. I tried infinite suggestions, but nothing else +offered the immediate money which alone could relieve him of debt and +restore him his wardrobe and the portraits of his mother and sister, +which with a few well-worn letters, were all he had to cheer him in his +exile. We sat till far into the night and until my kindest sympathies +were fully aroused by the utter and almost childlike simplicity and +frankness with which the poor boy told of his sorrows. I had been +taught by a very ample experience to look with much caution on German +counts and barons,--an experience that, if it was worth what it had +cost, I could not prize too highly; but here was an entirely new type, +a combination of the gentlest breeding with an unsophistication that +argued more of a mother's care than of garrison influences, and an +utter absence of the devil-may-care manner that army life in Germany +had hitherto seemed to give. With the improvidence of one who had +never known the lack of money, he had lodged himself at the Everett +House; and as I left him at its door, I resolved to lose no time in +getting him enlisted and stopping an expense that would only add to +his troubles. The next day I saw the official who had charge of the +making up of the city's quota, and easily arranged for the examination +of my candidate. Dohna begged me to secure his admission to a command +whose officers would be able to appreciate his difficult position, and +a weary time I had of it. At last it was all arranged; he had passed, +with much shock to his sensibilities, the surgeon's examination, and +had been enrolled in a company of Regular Infantry, whose captain +(then serving on the general staff of the department) had acquired a +sympathy for him not less than my own. His bounty (over seven hundred +dollars) he put into my hands, and he went with me to Adams's Express +office, where we sent more than half the sum to St. Louis,--the full +amount of his indebtedness. One specified trunk was to be sent to the +Everett House, and the rest of his luggage--which Voisin had described +as valuable--to me. I received by an early mail the receipt of the St. +Louis express-office for it, and found it most convenient to let it lie +for the present, addressed to me personally, at the office in New York. +It would be useless to Dohna in the army, and I was to take care of it +for him. + +The captain of the company in which he was enlisted secured him a +furlough for ten days, and, to show his gratitude, he invited us both +to dine with him at the Everett. We sat down at seven, and we sat long. +The best that either cellar or kitchen afforded was spread before us in +wasteful profusion, and our host, temperate in his sipping, but eating +with the appetite of youth, seemed only to regret the limit of our +capacity. As we walked across the square, filled and with the kindest +emotions, we planned means for so occupying the remaining days of the +furlough as to allow but little opportunity for money-spending. His +company was at Fort Trumbull, and after he joined he would be safe. + +The next day being Saturday, I took him to my father's house in the +country, where his unfortunate story was already known, and where as +much real interest was felt in him as the good people of Connecticut +ever accord to a duellist. He had a friend living farther out on the +New Haven road, and he took an early train to see her (this was a new +feature), returning to me in the evening. I met him at the depot. He +wore the superb uniform overcoat of the Gardecorps Kürassier, long, +flowing, and rich, with a broad, scarlet-lined fur collar. It was +caught across the throat with a scarlet snood, and hung loosely from +the shoulders. It made his six feet two really becoming. At home he +was easy but very quiet, saying little but saying it very well, and +he won as much confidence as the stain on his moral character would +allow. Like most of his class, he knew and cared absolutely nothing +for what interests the New England mind, and he would early have +palled on our taste but for his music. His performance was skilful; he +played difficult music, and he played it very well, but without vanity +or apparent consciousness. When not occupied in this way, and when +not addressed, he neither spoke nor read, apparently he did not even +think, but relapsed into a sad and somewhat vacant reticence. But for +our knowledge of his misfortunes, he would have been uninteresting. +On Sunday he gave me a new confidence. His friend up the road was +an Everett House acquaintance, made when he first came from Boston. +She was an angel! She knew his sad story, and she had given him her +Puritan heart. In the trying days to come I was to be the link that +should bind them in their correspondence. She must not know of his +degraded position, and all letters were to pass under cover to me. Even +_noblesse_ did not hide the tears that this prospect of long separation +wrung from him, and he poured out his grief with most touching +unrestraint. This was the one sorrow of his life that even his trained +equanimity could not conquer. It made me still more respect his simple, +honest nature and his unfeigned grief. I was doubly sorry that this +last trial of separated love should be added to his cup of bitterness. +In our long Sunday talk he told me of his home, and showed me the +singularly beautiful photographs of his mother and sister, and--quite +incidentally--one of himself in the full uniform of his regiment, +bearing on its back the imprint of a Berlin photographer. He evinced a +natural curiosity about the mode of our garrison life, and I prepared +him as gently as I could for a decided change from his former customs. +It was, of course, depressing to him, but he bore the prospect like +a man, and gave it no importance as compared with his more essential +downfall. He had seen enough of our troops to be especially uneasy at +the prospect of an ill-fitting uniform. In the matter of linen he was +well provided, but he was really unhappy over the thought of adapting +his long and easy figure to a clothing-contractor's idea of proportion. +So it was arranged that he should go to my tailor and be suitably clad, +according to regulation of course, but also according to measure. He +proposed, too, to leave his overcoat for some repairs and to be cared +for while he should have no use for it. I gave the tailor assurances of +prompt payment. + +One fine morning Dohna came to my room in his new rig and bade me a +brave good-by. He was off for Fort Trumbull. I felt an almost parental +sorrow over his going, and had much misgiving as to his ability to +face his ill-bred soldier comrades. There came soon after a letter +to say that he was well treated personally, only the rations were so +horrible; pork and salt beef and beans and molasses. He could not eat +such things, and he was growing faint for want of food. I had seen such +dainty appetites cured too often to have any fear on this score, and +only replied in general terms of encouragement, and asked for frequent +letters. These came. There were no incidents of his life that were not +described almost with wonder, for a noble officer of the Gardecorps of +the king of Prussia knows really nothing of the ways of life of the +men he is supposed to command. Often there were thick letters for the +_fiancée_, and answers to these (also thick) had often to be forwarded. +I felt the enthusiastic glow natural to one who carries alone the +tender secrets of younger lovers, and was not altogether unhappy under +the subjective romance of my mediation. + +Sometimes there were touching tales of trouble. Once he had been +detailed to the "police" squad, and had to clean spittoons and do other +menial work. This was a touch of reality that fairly opened his eyes to +his abasement, and he wrote much more sadly than ever before, making +me sad, too, to think how powerless I was to help him in any way. A +few days later he sent a wail of real agony. While he had been out on +drill, some scoundrel had broken into his satchel and had stolen all +his papers,--his letters from his mother, her photograph, and those +of his sister and his sweetheart, and all the bundle of affectionate +epistles over which he had pored again and again in his desolation. The +loss was absolutely heart-breaking and irreparable, and he had passed +hours sitting on the rocks at the shore, pouring bitter tears into the +Thames. This was a blow to me too. I knew that Dohna was of a simple +mind, and utterly without resources within himself; but he was also of +a simple heart, and one could only grieve over this last blow as over +the sorrows of a helpless little child. However, I wrote all I could +to encourage him, and was gratified, though a little surprised, to see +how soon he became cheerful again, and how earnestly he seemed to have +set about the work of becoming a really good soldier. After a time the +captain of his company--still in New York and maintaining a lively +interest in the poor fellow's case--procured an order for him to go to +Annapolis to be examined for promotion. He was already a sergeant, and +a pretty good one. He stopped in New York a few days on his way through +for some refitting,--again at my tailor's. On his way back he stopped +again to tell of his failure. I was delicate about questioning him too +closely, but I learned enough to suppose that different ideas as to +practical education are entertained by a board of army examiners and by +a fond young mother in the remote castle of Schlodien; but I encouraged +him to believe that a little more study would enable him to pass the +second examination that had been promised him, and he rejoined his +company. + +In the general mustering-out Voisin had been set free and had joined +me in New York, and had, naturally, participated in all my interest in +the quondam Count. He gradually, as an adjutant should, assumed the +correspondence, which was voluminous, and by the time we were informed +that Dohna was detailed for recruiting duty in the city, neither he +nor I was glad to know it. Something more than a feeling of regretful +sympathy is necessary to the enjoyment of frequent companionship, +and we both felt that the fact of having credit with a tailor was a +dangerous element in the possible future combinations. However, Dohna's +arrival at our room followed close upon the announcement of the order. +He was still simple in his way and of modest deportment, but he seemed +to have accepted his new life almost too entirely, and he had come to +look not very much out of place among his comrades. Their quarters +were in a basement in Chambers Street, back of the City Hall, where we +occasionally dropped in to see him. After a while he was always out +when we called, and once when I stopped to give him a foreign letter, +sent to my care, I was told that he had not been there for a week, but +one of the men volunteered to find him. He came that night to the club +for his letter, in civilian's dress, and appeared much as he did when +I first saw him, except that he had two beautiful false teeth, in the +place of the defective ones. I gave him his letter, a long one from +Berlin, from his father. He showed Voisin the postscript, in which it +was stated that a box containing a breech-loading shot-gun, a dozen +shirts, and a draft for five hundred thalers would be forwarded by the +Hamburg line to my care. On the strength of this he hoped it would not +inconvenience us to advance him a couple of hundred dollars. It was +thus far inconvenient that we were obliged to decline, which gave him +no offence, and he invited us to dine with him the following day at the +Everett House. + +At this point, in view of the extreme youth and inexperience of our +friend, we took occasion to read him a short homily on the value of +economy, and to urge him immediately to leave the Everett, return to +his barracks in Chambers Street, and as he valued his future peace +of mind to avoid running in debt; mildly hinting that, if found in +the public streets without his uniform, he would be very likely to +get himself into trouble. He begged that we would not expose him, and +promised to return that very night. Then for some time we lost sight +of him; his captain said that, so far as he knew, he was attentive +to his duty with the recruiting squad, and he certainly kept out of +our way. The box from Germany did not arrive. No more letters came, +and we had no occasion to seek him out. It was evident that he was no +longer unhappy, and so our interest in him, though still warm, remained +inactive. + + * * * * * + +One night I was awakened, quite late, by Voisin, sitting on the side +of my bed, big-eyed and excited, and with a wonderful story to tell. +He had been, at the request of the counsel of the Prussian Consul, +to the detectives' rooms at police headquarters. Here he had been +questioned as to his knowledge of one Adolph Danforth, _alias_ Graf zu +Dohna-Schlodien, _alias_ Fritz Stabenow, and had subsequently had an +interview with that interesting youth in the lock-up. + +The glory had all departed. He had been there forty-eight hours, was +unwashed, uncombed, stolid, comfortable, and quite at home. There was +no remnant left of the simple and modest demeanor of the well-bred +aristocrat. It was hard to see a trace of likeness to the Kürassier +officer with whose photograph we were familiar. The obligations of +_noblesse_ seemed to be entirely removed, and there was nothing left +but plain, ignoble Fritz Stabenow. An examination of his pockets +developed a singular folly. He had kept every scrap of paper on which +a word had ever been written to him. Tailors' bills, love-letters, +duns, photographs of half a dozen different girls, all were huddled +together. He had a package of the Count Dohna cards and the plate +from which they had been printed,--made in Boston; a letter of credit +from a banking-house in Berlin to its New York correspondent had the +copperplate card of the firm on the paper, but the paper was ruled as +a German banker's paper never is, and the plate from which the card +had been printed (also made in Boston) was in the envelope with it. A +letter from plain father Stabenow enclosed photographs of still plainer +mother and sister Stabenow, which were a sad contrast to the glory of +the Countess Dohna's picture. The father's letter was full of kindly +reproof and affectionate regret. "Ach! Fritz, ich hätte das von Dir +nicht gedacht,"--"I never thought that of you"; but it was forgiving +too, and promised the remittance, clothing, and gun I have spoken of +before. The papers, for the loss of which such tears had been shed +at Fort Trumbull, were all there in their well-worn companionship +with a soiled paper-collar, and that badge of dawning civilization, a +tooth-brush. + +Here were also two photographs, one of the statue of Frederick the +Great in Berlin on the card of a St. Louis photographer, and another of +himself in Prussian uniform, on the card of a Berlin photographer. The +pictures had been "lifted" and changed to the different cards. A more +careful neglect of track-covering was never known. The evidence of all +his deceptions had been studiously preserved. + +Voisin had given him a dollar to buy some necessary articles, and had +left him to his fate. + +The disillusion was complete, and I saw that I had been swindled +by a false count even more completely than I ever had been by real +barons,--which is much to say. + +Voisin had gathered from the Consul's lawyer that this Stabenow, a +valet of the veritable Count Dohna, had been one of a party who had +robbed him and committed other serious crimes, and he had fled to +this country, with his master's uniform, a valuable wardrobe, and +costly jewels. He had here undertaken to personify the Count, and +had had on the whole not an unhappy time, especially since he came +to New York in recruiting service. He had finally been arrested on +the complaint of a lady, one of the many whom he had attempted to +blackmail, by threatening exposure through letters they had written +him in the kindest spirit. Fortunately this one had had the good sense +to refer the matter to her husband, who brought the interesting career +to a close. He had obtained several thousand dollars in this way +from different persons, and had contracted considerable debts in all +directions. The Everett House was an especial sufferer. + +I felt that my claim was secured by the luggage at the express-office, +and I called for it the next day. The gentlemanly clerk of the +establishment blandly showed me my name, neatly written in a strange +Teutonic hand, to a receipt for the property. Just then I had +information that a box addressed to my care was lying at the Hoboken +office of the German steamers. Indiscreetly mentioning this fact to the +Prussian Consul's lawyer, I was informed that it would be necessary to +take the box in evidence, and I prudently refrained from making further +efforts for its recovery. + +It was with a chastened spirit that I paid a considerable bill at my +tailor's and ordered the overcoat sent to my address; and it was with +only mitigated satisfaction that I heard of the sending in irons to his +company in California of deserter Stabenow. + +If the Herr Lieutenant Graf zu Dohna-Schlodien of the Gardecorps +Kürassier is still living, I beg to inform him that his overcoat--the +only memento of a grave _Schwindelei_--is now a comfortable wrap to a +Rhode Island farmer, who hopes that its rightful owner is as snugly +clad in his winter rides about Versailles. + + + + +TWO SCOUTS. + + +In the desultory and sporadic warfare carried on in the Southwest, +the scout--or "skeout," according to the dialect of the region--was a +very important element of our organization, and it is amusing now to +recall the variety of odd-fish of every description who applied for the +remunerative employment that this branch of the service afforded. + +The interest of our life at Union City was not a little enhanced by two +specimens of this genus with whom we had much to do,--Pat Dixon and +"The Blind Preacher." + +One day the guard brought in a suspicious character from the +picket-line. He was about twenty-five years old, long, lank, and +dusky,--a sort of half-Indian, half-Irish looking fellow, with +uncombed hair and an over-prominent quid of tobacco. He rode the +usual "nag" of the country,--an animal with more blood than bone and +more vice than beauty. He dismounted, passed his bridle over his arm, +and "squatted,"--the usual posture of the country. "The Hun," the +professional bully of all our culprits, took this creature in hand, and +presently came in with a suggestion that I had better see him alone. +He followed me cautiously to one side, leading his horse with him, and +squatted again when we had halted at a safe distance from curious ears. + +"I'm Pat Dixon. I live down Troy way on the North Fork. Ye see, when +this yer muss fust broke out I didn't go to take no sides in it. But +Merryweather's men they come along a little 'fore sun-up, last month +was a year, an' they taken the only nag we had left. I'd had him hid +out all summer, but some derned skunk done found him out. I heern the +cusses a trampin' roun' an' I was goin' to take a crack at 'em for +'good mornin',' but, you see, I knowed if I did they'd just burn the +old woman out, an' she don't git along but porely, anyhow, so I didn't. +They _con_scripted the old man the year afore, an' he hain't been heern +on sence. So I come to the conclushin that I wa'n't agoin' to stan' no +such treatmint as that--by King! an' I jest took to the bresh, an' I +reckon I've pestered them 'uns right smart. I ain't agoin' afoot long +as theys hosses in West Tannisy,--you bet! I was agoin' to jine you +Yanks, but thinks sez I: 'Old Pat, you kin do a heap better in the +bresh nor what you kin in no army,' and so I stuck to it. O, now, I'm +squar'! Frank Moore can tell you all 'bout me; I ain't no gum-game, I +ain't. If you want a skeout, I'm on hand, an' I don't want no pass, I +kin git 'roun' in this kentry. + +"Which? _hoss?_ Well, 't ain't much of a nag, but theys more on 'em +roun', an' if this 'un tuckers out I'll git somethin' to ride. I ain't +goin' afoot.--no, mam!" + +This was very much the sort of talk "Mr." Forrest's emissaries used in +seeking our services for his purposes; so, partly to secure ourselves +on this point, and partly to give Dixon a good character should he +go out from our camp in his professional capacity, he was sent for a +few days to the guard-house, until Frank Moore should return from an +expedition. I believe Frank knew most of the vagabonds of Obion County, +and he at once certified that this was no other than Pat Dixon; that +his story was true; and that, while his controlling motives were not +perhaps such as one would most admire, his unconquerable hatred of +Merryweather's men and all their confederates might be relied on with +implicit confidence; so Pat was engaged as an employé of our Secret +Service Department, and sent outside the lines with a conspicuous +assurance, as he left his fellow-prisoners, that if found again within +our reach he would be hanged forthwith for a spy. I was riding on the +road he took, and he gave me a leering wink as he departed,--with +instructions to watch the movements of all guerilla bands in our front, +and to bring speedily any information he might obtain. + +During the remaining months of our stay he was almost ubiquitous. +Every scouting-party that we sent out in any direction, though entirely +without notice to him, was pretty sure to meet him with important +information, just when information was most needed. + +This part of his work was done perfectly, but he seemed to regard his +relation with us as a warrant for unending private iniquities. After +his own code of morals he was a strictly virtuous man, but his code was +of an extremely loose and pliable character. It is probably safe to say +that he never murdered a Union man, and that, unless sorely tempted by +the difference in value of the animals, he never forcibly exchanged +horses with a Union widow; neither, I believe, did he commit any +offence against a known Rebel when there was a probability of his being +found out and caught; but the complaints that came to us of the manner +in which he vented his private wrongs and carried on the feuds of his +ancestors gave us frequent annoyance. Sometimes it seemed necessary to +recall his commission and declare him an outlaw, but just then there +would transpire some particularly brilliant achievement that showed him +invaluable for our purposes. + +More than once, when our patrols reported the immediate presence of +the enemy, Pat would turn up with the assurance that it was only +so-and-so's "band," who had come into the neighborhood on a visiting or +a marauding expedition, but with no intention of putting themselves in +our way; and invariably we found his report to be correct. Indeed, so +frequently did this happen that we became almost too confident in his +assistance, and when an excitable picket shot at a donkey or a cow in +the night-time, although the patrol of the guard went through the usual +routine of investigation, we felt that there could be no serious attack +or Dixon would have notified us. + +How he obtained his information we could not guess, and his own +account of the matter was never satisfactory; but I believe that no +considerable force of the enemy ever crossed the Memphis and Charleston +Railroad (the whole State's width to the south of us) without our +being speedily notified; and through this means we were several times +enabled to telegraph to Columbus early information of contemplated +raids,--information that was not always heeded, as the surprise of +Paducah (on the Ohio River) several days after our warning sufficiently +proved. + +One ambition of this worthy man had to remain unsatisfied. How little +this was due to the fact that we at the headquarters were all perfectly +mounted, modesty makes it improper to state here; but in our frequent +meetings as we rode outside the lines, he rarely failed to tell of +some particularly fine horse belonging to some particularly bad man +and especially virulent Rebel, which it would really be a virtue to +"confisticate." The worthy fellow was not satisfied with his own +conspicuous appropriations; he would fain have mounted our regiments on +the weedy screws which the Rebel impressments had left for the horsing +of the crippled region of Western Tennessee. Possibly, too, he may have +had some lurking fear that there was a suspicion of iniquity in his +thefts, and longed for the reassurance of similar conduct on the part +of true men like ourselves. + +It was, of course, not long after the commencement of this active +campaign against the rights of ownership, that we began to receive +assurances on every hand that unless we could do something to repress +Pat Dixon's vagabondage an outraged people would take the law into +their own hands, and avenge the wrongs he had inflicted. With a +laudable desire to prevent unnecessary bloodshed, I told him one day of +the state of feeling against him, urging him to be more circumspect and +to conduct himself like a decent man, else he would be hanged the first +time he was caught; intimating, too, that it would be improper for us +to continue to employ him to such needless injury to an inoffensive +people. His reply was characteristic. + +"Inoffensive, _which_? Mebbe you know these people an' mebbe you +don't. I do! and a dern'der lot of unhung cutthroats an' hoss-thieves +you can't find nowheres. As for hangin', you needn't give yourself no +worryment 'bout that. They're safe enough to hang me if they ketch me, +an' I guess I sha'n't hang no higher if I go right on my own gait. If +you don't want to employ me you needn't; theys enough corn an' bacon in +th' Obion bottom to keep me awhile yet, and money ain't no 'count down +here; but, by King! if I kin git a chance to tell you anything that +them 'uns don't want you to know, you bet your skin I'll do it, an' you +kin trust me every time, for I ain't goin' to lie,--not to your side, +not if I know it. Why, you talk to me about inikities. I don't want to +do no man any hurt; but my old dad _he_ was _con_scripted, an' me an' +my brother Jake had to take to the bresh to save ourselves, an' then +Jake he was shot in cold blood right afore my eyes, an' I made up my +mind then an' there that I wouldn't give no quarter to the whole State +of West Tannisy till this war was over an' ther' was some stronger hand +than mine to do jestis an' to furnish revenge. That's all I've got to +say about it. You needn't give yourself no oneasiness 'bout my doin's, +I'll answer for the hull on 'em; an' p'r'aps the last thing you'll hear +of Pat Dixon will be that he's hangin' to a tree somewheres down Troy +way. I know I'm booked for that if I'm ketched, and till I am ketched +I'm goin' my own gait." + +We had become too much accustomed to this state of feeling among the +scanty Union population of the Southwest to be so shocked by it as we +ought to have been, and it was not without sympathy with Dixon's wrongs +that I let him go, with an earnest caution that he should mend his +ways, if only for his own sake. + +It remains only to say that he _did_ go his own gait, and that he went +it with a desperation and an _élan_ that I have never known equalled; +and that, months later, after our snug quarters at Union City had been +turned over to a feeble band of home-guards, word came that they had +been burned to the ground, and that Pat Dixon, betrayed at last into +the hands of the enemy, had been hanged in the woods near Troy. We +could find no fault with the retribution that had overtaken him; for, +viewed with the eyes of his executioners, he had richly merited it: but +we had learned to like him for his frank and generous qualities, and to +make full allowance for the degree to which his rough, barbaric nature +had been outraged and inflamed by the wrongs inflicted on his family. + + * * * * * + +A returning patrol one afternoon led to the parade-ground a sorry +horse drawing an open wagon in which were a man and a woman. The woman +had a cold-blooded, stolid look, and her eyes were filled with the +overflowing hatred we so often inspired among her sex at the South. Her +husband was dressed in black, and wore a rather scrupulously brushed +but over-old silk hat. In his hand was a ponderous and bulging cotton +umbrella. + +They had been taken "under suspicious circumstances" at a house a few +miles outside the lines,--the suspicion attaching only to the fact that +they were not members of the family and seemed to have no particular +business in that region. When asked for an explanation, the woman said +she had nothing to say but that her husband was a blind clergyman +intending to fulfil an engagement to preach, and that she had driven +him, as was her habit. He said nothing. It was a rule of our system to +follow Hoyle's instructions, and "when in doubt to take the trick": +this pair were remanded to the guard-house. + +As they turned away, the reverend gentleman said, in a feeble voice, +that if he could see me alone later in the evening, when he had +recovered from the shock of his capture, I might be willing to talk +with him. In the evening the Hun repaired to the dismantled warehouse +where the prisoners were lodged, to hold conversation with the +new-comers. When he came to the clergyman he found him so low spoken +that their talk fell almost to a whisper, but it was whispered that +he was to be taken alone, and subsequent disclosures led to his being +brought to headquarters. He there informed me that he was a minister +of the Methodist church, Canadian by birth and education, but married +to a lady of that region, and had been for some years engaged there in +his capacity as a circuit preacher. He was quite blind, and found it +impossible to make his rounds without being driven. + +His sympathies were with the North, and he was burning to make himself +useful in the only way left him by his infirmity. His wife was of +a suspecting disposition, and their peaceful consorting required +that she should always accompany him; but, unfortunately, she was a +violent secessionist, and he had been compelled, in the interest of +the peaceful consorting above named, to acknowledge sympathy with her +views, and to join her in her revilings of the Union army. + +All this made his position difficult, yet he believed that, if the +opportunity were given him, he could hide his intention even from her, +and could gather for us much useful information. + +He was a welcome visitor at the houses of the faithful, far and near, +and warmed their hearts with frequent and feeling exhortation, as he +gathered his little meetings at his nightly stopping-places. He was now +about starting for the southern circuit, and had appointments to preach +and to pray at every town between us and Bolivar. + +Evidently, if this man were honest in his intentions, he could be of +great service, but I suggested the difficulty that having once started +for an appointed round he could not return to bring us any information +he might receive. To this he replied that his wife believed him to be +in Forrest's service, and that he could at any time come as a spy into +our lines. + +It seemed a very questionable case, but, after consultation with Voisin +and the Hun, it was determined to give him a trial, to prevent his wife +from seeing more than was necessary of our position, and to believe so +much as we liked of the information he might give us. The conditions of +the engagement were agreed upon, and after a severe public admonition, +and threats especially appalling to his wife, he was sent outside the +lines, with hints of the serious consequences that would follow his +second capture. + +We were never quite sure that his wife was wrong in crediting him +with complicity with Forrest; but the worst that could be said of him +(and this was very likely true) was that he was pre-eminently a man +of peace, and if he gave information to both sides, it was always +information in compliance with the injunctions of his sacred calling. +The Rebel forces several times crossed into Tennessee, and came toward +us in numbers that indicated foul intentions, but, from the time +our pious friend first visited us, they invariably withdrew without +an engagement. Frequently small expeditions of our own forces went +scouting to the southward, and were checked and turned back by the +reports of this benevolent man. + +He may have kept us from the successful fulfilment of some bloody +intentions, but we had occasion to know from other sources that he +sometimes kept small detachments of our troops from falling in with +overpowering numbers of the enemy. Be the theory what it may, from +November until February there was no conflict of arms in all the +counties we traversed, and neither side advanced to within deadly range +of the other. + +The processes of this emissary were hidden and curious. He was +employed in a much more regulated manner than Dixon, and we generally +knew his whereabouts. Every interview had with him, either within our +own camp or when we were abroad, had to be so skilfully managed that no +suspicion, even in the eyes of his catlike wife, should attach to him. +He never came into our lines except as an unwilling prisoner, and was +never sent without them without dire admonition as to the consequences +of his return. + +On one occasion Pat Dixon reported that a detachment of Forrest's +command, about three hundred strong, had crossed the railroad and was +moving north in the direction of our camp. At this time the preacher +was near us, and I had an interview with him. He doubted the report, +but would investigate. I told him we would start the next day, with +five hundred men, in the direction of Trenton,--where he was to hold a +prayer-meeting at the house of one of Forrest's captains. The meeting +was held, and after it was over, the subject of the advance was talked +over very freely by the officers present, he sitting in a rapt state of +unconsciousness--his thoughts on higher things--at the chimney-corner. +Pleading an early appointment at McKenzie's Station for the following +day, he left as soon as the moon was up, and drove to the house of a +friend in the village. His wife supposed that he was coming with a +false report to lead us into a trap laid for us. + +We arrived at McKenzie's at one o'clock in the morning, after a +detestably cold, hard ride, and took up our quarters in a half-finished +and half-furnished house, where we struggled the whole night through in +the endeavor to get heat out of a fire of wet dead-wood. Early in the +morning the Hun started out, in his fiercest mood, with a small escort, +seeking for information and hunting up suspicious characters. At +breakfast-time he came upon a large family comfortably seated at table, +with our preacher and his wife as guests. + +He was asked to "sit by." "Thank you; I have come for more serious +business. Who is at the head of this house? I should like to see you +alone, sir." The trembling, invalided paterfamilias was taken into an +adjoining room, and put through the usual course of questions as to his +age, place of birth, occupation, condition as to literacy, the number +of negroes owned, the amount of land, what relatives in the Rebel army, +to what extent a sympathizer with the Rebellion, when he had last +seen any Rebel soldiers or scouts or guerillas or suspicious persons +of any description, and so on, through the tortuous and aggravating +list that only a lawyer could invent. Questions and answers were taken +down in writing. The sterner questions were spoken in a voice audible +to the terror-stricken family in the adjoining room. The man, of +course, communicated nothing, and probably knew nothing, of the least +consequence. He was sent to a third room and kept under guard. His case +disposed of, his wife was examined in like manner, and then the other +members of the family. Finally, the coast being clear, our emissary +was sent for. He came into the room chuckling with delight over +this skilful exercise of the art of deceit, in which he was himself +such an adept, and laying his hand on the Hun's arm, said, "My dear +fellow, I respect you. This has been the most brilliant dodge I ever +knew,--capital,--capital!" And he then went on to recount all that he +had heard the evening before. A large detachment of Forrest's command +was advancing under Faulkner's leadership, and they doubtless had by +this time a full report of our position, for he had met acquaintance on +the road who had reported it to him. If we were able to engage a body +of three thousand men without artillery, we might find them that night +in Trenton,--he was confident that that was about their number. + +The family were now notified that they had been guilty of a great +offence in harboring a known spy of the enemy; but they insisted +that they knew him only as a devout and active minister, and had no +suspicion, nor could they believe, that he had the least knowledge of +or interest in either army. With due warning as to the consequences +of a repetition of their crime, they were allowed to return to their +breakfast, and their guest was brought under guard to headquarters. + +Being satisfied, after a close examination of the report, that it +would be imprudent to remain so far from our camp, which could be best +reached from Trenton by another road, we left a party of observation, +and returned to Union City, directing our scout to go to the vicinity +of Trenton and bring to our detachment any information he might obtain. +Twelve hours after our arrival home, the detachment returned with the +news that Faulkner, with a large force, had moved toward Mayfield, +Kentucky, and the event proved that every item of the intelligence we +had received had been substantially correct. + +In this manner we were enabled to learn pretty definitely the +character of any movement of the enemy anywhere in Western Tennessee, +and so far as we had opportunity to investigate the reports they +generally proved to be essentially true. These two scouts were worth +more as a source of information, than would have been two regiments of +cavalry in active service. Sometimes our Methodist friend acted under +definite orders, but more often only according to his own judgment of +what was necessary. + +A few days before Christmas we received word that Forrest in person +was in Jackson, with a large force, and we moved against him with +nearly the whole body of our troops, under the command of old A. J. +himself. We reached Jackson at night, after three days' hard marching, +only to find that Forrest's army had left that morning, destroying +the bridges over the swollen rivers and making organized pursuit +impossible. We took up quarters for some days in the town, where we +enjoyed the peculiarly lovely climate of the "sunny South" with the +thermometer seven degrees below zero, six inches of snow on the ground, +and a howling wind blowing. Our own mess was very snugly entertained +at the house of a magnate, where we had an opportunity to study the +fitness of even the best Southern architecture for an Arctic winter +climate. + +On New Year's day, as we were sitting at a sumptuous dinner, and +mitigating so far as we could the annoyance to our hosts of being +invaded by a rollicking party of Northern officers, Voisin, who had +been called out, returned to the table to tell me that a man and a +woman would like to see me in my room. I was not prompt to respond, and +asked who they were. He replied, "O, who can tell? I suppose somebody +with a complaint that our men have 'taken some hams of meat' ["meat" +being the Tennessee vulgate for hog flesh only], or something of that +sort; the man seemed to have something the matter with his eyes." And +he gave me a large and expressive wink. + +Ensconced, with such comfort as large and rattling windows permitted, +before our blazing fire, sat our serene Methodist friend and his sullen +wife. Taking me aside, he told me that he had passed the previous +evening at a private house between Jackson and Bolivar in religious +exercises, which were attended by Forrest and officers of his command. +After the devotions there was much cheerful and unrestrained talk as +to the plans and prospects of the future campaign, disclosing the +fact that as there seemed no chance of doing efficient service in +Tennessee, the whole body would move at once to Central Mississippi +and operate in connection with the army in Georgia. This report, which +we had no reason to disbelieve, decided A. J. to abandon a difficult +and unpromising pursuit, and to return to Union City and Columbus. We +found, on our return, a communication from the headquarters at Memphis +to the effect that Forrest had crossed the railroad and gone far south +into Mississippi. + +We had no further service of importance or interest in this region. +"Jackson's Purchase" was thenceforward quite free from any considerable +body of the enemy; and when our clergyman found, a few weeks later, +that we were all ordered to the south, he came for a settlement of his +accounts, saying that he had been able to deceive his wife only up to +the time of our interview at Jackson, and as his life was no longer +safe in the country, he must depart for the more secure region of his +former home in Canada,--where let us hope that he has been allowed to +answer the behests of his sacred vocation with a mind single to his +pious duties, and that domestic suspicion no longer clouds his happy +hearthstone. + +Happily, neither A. J. nor Forrest himself had further occasion for his +peaceful intervention, the fortunate absence of which may have had to +do with the notable encounter between these two generals at Tupelo. + + + + +IN THE GLOAMING. + + +The sun had gone, and above the dreamy blue of the far-lying woods, +the early evening had hung the sky with mellow, summery, twilight +loveliness. + +The casements of the old house at Whittington glowed ruddy and warm +through their marvellous clustering ivy, and it was the idlest luxury +to hang over the crumbling road-wall, peopling its suggestive chambers +with the spirits of their long-gone tenants. It is a farm-house now, +and there is no available record to tell the stranger the story of +its more glorious days. No rigid history hampers the fancy, and the +strolling lover of the by-ways and roadsides of our dear Mother England +may let his imagination run with flowing rein, sweeping away the +hayricks and marigold beds, and calling back the peacocks and bagwigs +of the halcyon days. + +Perhaps for the last time in my life I was taking the breath of an +English twilight,--sweetest to those whose childhood and youth have fed +on the rhyme and tale the green old land has sent to her world-wide +brood, and who come, in riper life, to find the fancies of early years +warm and living on every side, in hedge and field, in cowslip and +primrose, in nightingale and lark. The thick-coming impressions such +musing brings are vague and dreamy, so that there seemed a shade of +unreality in the quiet voice that bade me "Good evening," and added, +"Yes, it is an engaging old house, and it has a story that you may be +glad to hear." + +It was not from perversity that I turned the subject, but no tale of +real life could have added interest to the fancies with which the old +manse had clad itself in the slowly waning day. Wayside impressions +lose their charm if too much considered, and, as my new companion was +walking toward Lichfield, I was glad to turn away and join him,--ending +a long day's tramp with the slow and quiet gait that his age compelled. +There was the least shade of the uncanny in his bearing, and his speech +was timorous and gentle. His threadbare and seedy look betokened a +native unthrift, but there was an undercurrent of refinement in his +mien and in his manner, and a trusting outlook from his large blue eyes +that made him the fittest of companions for a summer evening's walk in +a country filled with the mingled flavor of history and romance. + +He was a man of the intensest local training. To him "the County of +the City of Lichfield" was of more consequence than all Staffordshire +besides, and far more than all England and all that vague entity called +the World. Even the County of the City of Lichfield was large for his +concentrated attachment: he knew it as one must know a small town in +which he has passed the whole of a long life; but his heart lay within +the cathedral close, and the cathedral close lay deep within his +heart,--deep and warm, with its history and its traditions, its romance +and its reality, so interlaced that he had long since ceased to ask +what was real and what unreal. All was unreal in the sense of being of +more than worldly consequence in his estimation, and all real as a part +of the training of his whole life. + +To him Lichfield Cathedral was no mere pile of sculptured stone, built +round with the facts of recorded history; it was the fairy handiwork +of times and scenes long past, its walls raised by the hand of pious +enthusiasm, shattered and cemented by the strife and blood of the civil +war, hallowed by the returning glory of the Restoration, blessed by the +favor of royal presence, and now made admirable in his daily sight by +the dignity and grace of those holy men its dean and chapter. + +As it was the cathedral I had come to see, and as I had come for no +architect's measurements, for no student's lore, only to bathe in the +charmed atmosphere of its storied past, I had fallen upon a guide +after my own heart, and it was as pleasant as it was easy to lend full +credence to all he so honestly believed and told. + +In early life he had had gentler training, but he had long been a Poor +Brother of the Hospital of St. John the Baptist in Lichfield, and had, +for many years, held, by seniority, the right of presenting a rose, on +St. John's nativity day, to the heirs of William Juvenis (goldsmith), +who, by grants made in consideration of this ceremony, had secured +perennial prayers for the souls of his ancestors and a fragrant memory +for his own. + +Hedged about by the traditionary customs and quaint observances of an +ancient charitable foundation, deadened in a way, if you please, by the +aristocratic pauperism of his condition, my gentle companion had grown +to his present dreamy estate. + +As we reached Stow Pool, near the old parish church of St. Chad, he +pointed out the spring of pure water where, twelve hundred years ago, +this future Bishop of Lichfield--who during his hermit life supported +himself on the milk of a doe--was wont to pray naked in the water, +standing upon the stone still seen at the bottom of the well, and where +St. Ovin heard the angels sing as his good soul passed away. + +Then, with the trusting look of a little child, the Poor Brother went +on to tell of the virtues and good deeds of this holy life;--how +even the King of the Mercians, struck with remorse for the crimes he +had committed, visited the saint in person, yielded to his eloquent +persuasion, became a convert to the true faith, and banished all +idolatry from his realm; how he became the head of the church of +Lichfield and laid its strong foundations of piety and faith; and how +his virtues so outlived him that his very tomb swallowed the ill-humors +of diseased minds resorting to its serene presence, that the dust +from his grave healed all ills of man and beast, and that the shrine +built in his honor after his canonization was so sought by numberless +devotees that Lichfield itself began thereupon to increase and flourish. + +To our left, as he ceased, the evening's lingering glow gilded the +silent pool, where lay the unrippled reflection of the three spires of +the cathedral, hardly more unsubstantial than the fairy silhouette that +stood clean-cut against the sky, and dividing with the reality the rapt +admiration of the Poor Brother of St. John's. + +We stood by the water's edge, and he turned toward the phantom spires +reversed within it, his talk wandering back to the days of the church's +troubles,--when the cathedral close was a fortress, with strong walls +and well-filled moat; when the beautiful west gate, which only our +own age was vile enough to destroy, kept stout ward against the outer +world, and protected the favored community who formed within the walls +a county independent of Lichfield and of Staffordshire. Within the +sacred pale no law had force save that of the Ecclesiastical Court, and +then, as now, none could there be taken for debt or crime save on the +warrant of the dean and chapter. + +He knew by heart the long list of bishops, and would gladly have held +me to hear of the good deeds of Langton and Hackett. He was fairly +launched in his favorite enthusiasm, and told warmly the more striking +features of the church's history, but he told them rapidly lest I +should reach the storied pile with less than a full appreciation of its +traditional interest. + +From his nervous lips I learned how King Richard II. kept Christmas +revels here with a splendor that lavished two hundred tuns of wine, +and roasted two thousand oxen, whose bones are still found in Oxenbury +field hard by; how Elizabeth passed three whole days in the close; and +how the solidity of its fortification, the consummate grace and finish +of its architecture, the richness of its sculpture, and the surpassing +beauty and magnificence of the nine windows of its lady chapel marked +it as the crowning glory of the Western Church, until the dark days +of the Revolution lowered. Then its sore trials were recounted, and +I learned of the fanatical attack of Lord Brooke, "with his horde of +impious Roundheads," made by strange fatality on St. Chad's day; of the +shooting of Lord Brooke by "Dumb Dyott," who was perched in the steeple +with a fowling-piece that now hangs over the fireplace of Colonel +Dyott's house; of the surrender of the close by Lord Chesterfield; of +the sack and bout that followed; of the recapture by Prince Rupert. + +He told of the foul desecration by the Roundheads, who used every +species of havoc, plunder, and profanation,--pulling down the sacred +effigies which were the glory of the western front, hacking to pieces +the curious carvings of the choir, mashing the noses of the monumental +statues, destroying the valuable evidences and records of the church +and the city, shattering the glass of the costly windows,--save only +that of the marvellous nine of the lady chapel, which a pious care was +said to have removed to a place of safety. They kept courts of guard in +the cross aisles, broke up the pavements, and every day hunted a cat +with hounds throughout the church, delighting in the echoes from the +vaulted roof; they wrapped a calf in linen, and "in derision and scorn +of the sacrament of baptism," sprinkled it at the font and gave it a +name. + +How the King, after the defeat of Naseby, came from Ashby-de-la-Zouche, +and passed the night in the close,--how Cromwell's defaming crew +completed the work of demolition and desecration, and smashed the old +bell called "Jesus," with its legend "I am the bell of Jesus, and +Edward is our King; Sir Thomas Heywood first causéd me to ring,"--how, +finally, the chapter-house alone had a roof under which service might +be said,--how the good Hackett on the first day of his bishopric set +his own servants and his own coach-horses at work removing the rubbish, +and never tired until in eight years' time the magnificence of the +cathedral was restored, except for the forever irreparable loss of the +decorations, and especially of the lady chapel windows, which all the +cost of the restoration would not have sufficed to renew,--how the +church was reconsecrated with great pomp and solemnity,--all this he +told me in detail, and he would gladly have told more, for this Poor +Brother had made these few rich historic acres nearly his whole world, +and had peopled it with all who throughout the long ages had marred it +or had made it. To have given "two good trees" for the rebuilding of +the church was a title to his lasting and grateful recognition. + +But the light was fast waning, and the cathedral must be seen now or +perhaps never. It was already past the hour for closing, but one of +the vergers had formerly been a Poor Brother of St. John's, and my +companion went to him to secure our admission. + +I stood before the west front of the cathedral, which was then bathed +in the lingering light of the after-day, its great central window +gleaming as though the altar lamps were still burning behind it, and +the western spires almost losing themselves in the sky. The quaint +effigies that fill the niches across the whole façade lost their +grotesqueness in the dusk, and seemed really the sacred sculptures they +were meant to be. Fair though this rich front must be at high midday, +it needs for its full beauty the half-light of a Northern evening. As +seen on that rarest of all evenings, it was a fit introduction to the +subdued glory which greeted us in the dim religious light to which we +entered as the great central door closed behind us. + +We stood, uncovered and reverent, beneath the vaulted nave, looking +down the long curved aisle, bordered by the majesty of the clustered +columns, through the light illuminated screen of the choir, full upon +the sculptured and gem-set alabaster reredos, above and beyond which +stood the famed group of windows of the lady chapel, mellowed by the +light of the streaming full moon. + +Rich in the blended mosaic of the floor, in the dimmed canopy overhead, +in the lightly arched gallery of the triforium, in the mellow +cross-lights of the side windows, in the sombre carvings of the choir, +and above all in the marvellous glass of the chapel, it was the very +perfection of a worshipful church. + +It was too nearly dark to examine the details of the decoration, and we +wandered down the aisles, remarking here and there the bruised statues +of the tombs, and halting before the sleeping children of Chantrey to +marvel how much somnolent repose can be cut in chiselled stone. + +"But come," said the gentle Brother, "we have only light enough left +for the storied glass which alone of all the richness of the old church +outlived its desecration, and, as by a miracle, was preserved to tell +these later generations of the higher art our forefathers' sons forgot." + +As he spoke, we stood within the charmed light of the nine windows of +the apse,--windows which have perhaps no remaining equals in the world, +and before which one can only bow in admiration and regret for an art +that seems forever lost. Holding me fast by the arm, he went on:-- + +"In the restoration of the church, the spandrels of the old windows +were rebuilt, and the frames were set with plain glass, to the sad +defacement of the edifice; and so they stood for nigh two hundred +years, no art being equal to their worthy replacement, and no ancient +store to the supplying of so large a demand. + +"But listen, now, how the hand of Heaven sheltered its own, and how +true servants of the Church are ever guided to reclaim its lost +splendor. + +"A few years ago, a canon of the cathedral, travelling in Flanders, +wishing to contribute to the renewed work of restoration, visited the +dismantled convent of Herkenrode in the ancient bishopric of Liege. +Here he sought among the rubbish of the lumber-room for wood-carvings +which might be used in the rebuilding of the prebendal stalls. His +search discovered many boxes of colored glass, the origin of which no +one knew, and whose existence even had been forgotten. Thinking to +embellish some of the curious triangular windows above the triforium, +he purchased the whole store for two hundred pounds of our money, and +presented it to the dean and chapter as a tribute of affectionate +devotion to the cathedral. There was more than he had supposed, and the +large figures of some of the fragments indicated a coherent design. + +"This chapel was fenced off from the aisles, and here the canon's wife +and daughter, devoting themselves to the solution of the puzzle, slowly +pieced out the varying connections. They worked patiently for weeks, +with a steadily increasing excitement of success, until [and here his +grasp grew tremulous and close], lying collated on this pavement where +we stand, only a bit wanting here and there, marking the exact sizes +of the varied openings, the grand old Lichfield windows, perfect as +you see them now in this softened moonlight, had come back to enrich +forevermore the dear old church to whose glory they had shone in the +bygone centuries, and whose sore trials their absence had so long +recalled. + +"Kind stranger," said he, "this is a true tale. Sceptics have +questioned it, but it is true! true! And I thank Heaven that it has +been permitted to me, who have grown old in the love of this sacred +pile, to live to see, in this crowning act of its restoration, the +higher help the hand of man has had in performing its holy work." + +His upturned blue eyes were moistened with tears, and his voice +trembled with emotion. I led him gently away and to the doorstep of +the Hospital of St. John the Baptist, where we parted in silence, and +forever. + +Supping at the Swan Inn, I took the late train for Liverpool and home, +bringing with me an ideal Lichfield, to which it would perhaps have +been rash to hold the light of a Lichfield day. + + + + +FOX-HUNTING IN ENGLAND. + + +On entering the Regent Hotel at Leamington the first object that +attracts attention, after the stuffy old porter who hobbles about +to see some one else handle the luggage, is a small frame, over the +smoking coal-fire, which contains the following notice, decorated with +an old cut of a fox's mask:-- + + MERRY & CO.'S HUNTING APPOINTMENTS, AND GUIDE TO THE DIFFERENT COVERTS. + + December 30, 1872. + + WARWICKSHIRE,--at 10.45. + + _Days._ _Meet at_ _Miles._ _To go through_ + M. Goldicote House. 11. Wellerbourne and Loxley. + Tu. Radway Grange. 12. Tachbrook and Kineton. + W. Snitterfield. 7. Warwick and Stratford Road. + Th. Red Hill. 13. Warwick and Snitterfield. + F. Pebworth. 16. Warwick and Stratford. + + NORTH WARWICKSHIRE,--at 11. + + M. Solihull. 14. Warwick and Hatton. + Tu. Cubbington Gate. 2. Lillington. + Th. Stoneleigh Abbey. 4. On Kenilworth Road. + F. Tile Hill. 9. By Kenilworth Castle. + + PYTCHLEY,--at 10.45. + + M. Naseby. 26. Princethorpe and Rugby. + Tu. Hazlebeach. 31. Dunchurch and Crick. + W. Dingley. 33. Rugby and Swinford. + F. Cransley. 36. Maidwell. + S. Swinford. 19. Princethorpe and Rugby. + + ATHERSTONE,--at 11. + + M. Coombe. 12. Bubbenhall and Wolston. + W. Harrow Inn Gate. 20. Coventry and Nuneaton. + F. Brinklow Station. 12. Bubbenhall and Wolston. + S. Corley. 14. Stoneleigh and Coventry. + + BICESTER,--at 10.45. + + M. Fenny Compton. 12. Radford and Ladbrook. + Tu. Trafford Bridge. 19. Southam and Wormleighton. + Th. Hellidon. 14. Southam and Priory Marston. + S. Steeple Claydon. 40. Gaydon and Banbury. + +Twenty-two meets in the week, all within easy reach, by road or +rail. Let us dine and decide. At table we will leave the _menu_ to +the waiter; but let him bring for consideration during the meal the +list of _meets_. "Brinklow Station, twelve miles"; that seems the most +feasible thing in the catalogue for the morrow, and who has not heard +that the Atherstone is a capital pack? But then the Pytchley is even +better known, and the train reaches Rugby in time for the meet. Let +the choice be decided with the help of coffee and cigars and possible +advice, during the soothing digestive half-hour in the smoking-room. +Dinner over, wander away through the tortuous, dim passage that leads +to the sombre hall where alone in English inns the twin crimes of +billiards and smoking are permitted, and, while writhing under the +furtive glances of the staid and middle-aged East-Indian who evidently +knows you for an American, and who is your only companion, decide, +with your nation's ability to reach conclusions without premises, +whether it shall be Pytchley or Atherstone. Don't ask your neighbor: +he is an Englishman, and have we not been told that Englishmen are +gruff, reticent men, who wear thick shells, and whose warm hearts can +be reached only with the knife of a regular introduction? However, you +must make up your mind what to do, and you need help which neither +the waiter nor the porter can give; the "gentlemanly clerk" does not +exist in England (thank Heaven!) and you have not yet learned what an +invaluable mine of information "Boots" is,--faithful, useful, helpful, +and serviceable to the last degree. I salute him with gratitude for +all he has done to make life in English hotels almost easier and more +home-like than in one's own house. It is safe to advise all travellers +to make him an early ally, to depend on him, to use him, almost to +abuse him, and, finally, on leaving, to "remember" him. Not yet having +come to know the Boots, I determined to throw myself on the tender +mercies of my stern, silent companion, and I very simply stated my +case. My stern, silent companion was an exception to the rule, and he +told me all I wanted to know (and more than I knew I needed to know) +with a cordiality and frankness not always to be found among the genial +smokers of our own hotels. His voice was in favor of the Atherstone as +being the most acceptable thing for the next day. + +Ford, the veterinary surgeon of Leamington, had, on several +occasions, done good service for friends who had gone before me over +the hedges of North Warwickshire, and I went to him for advice about a +mount. Here I found that I had made a mistake in not engaging horses in +advance. To get a "hunter" for the next day would be impossible, but +he would do what he could for a few days hence. All he could promise +for the morning would be to lend me a horse of his own, a thoroughbred +mare, not up to my weight, but tough and wiry, and good for any amount +of road-work. He kindly volunteered to arrange for our going by the +first train to Coventry, only a couple of miles from Brinklow (it +turned out to be nine miles), so that we should arrive fresh on the +ground. At seven o'clock in the morning he came to my room to say +that everything was arranged, and that I should find the mare at the +station in an hour. Swallowing a glass of milk as a stay-stomach,--my +usual habit,--I put myself, for the first time since the war ended, +into breeches and boots, and drove to the station. On a turn-out stood +a "horse-box," one of the institutions of England,--a three-stabled +freight-car for the transportation of horses. Paying five shillings for +a horse-ticket to Coventry (only twice the cost of my own seat), I saw +the mare snugly packed into one of the narrow stalls and made fast for +the journey. Passing through a beautiful farming country, we came in +due time to the quaint old town of Coventry, where several horse-boxes, +coming from Birmingham and other stations, were discharging their +freight of well-bred hunters. As we rode from this station another +hard-shelled Englishman in brown top-boots and spotless white leather +breeches accosted me pleasantly, reminding me that we had come from +London together the day before, and asking, as he had recognized me for +an American, if he could be of service to me. + +"Pray how did you know that I am from America?" + +"Only by your asking if you should change 'cars' at Rugby. An +Englishman would have said 'carriages.'" + +"Very well; I am glad my ear-mark was no greater. Can you direct me to +a hotel where I can get a bite before I go on?" + +"Certainly: you will find the Angel very comfortable; take the next +street to the right, and you will soon reach it. Good morning; it is +nine miles to the meet, and I will move on slowly. Command me if I can +help you when you come up." + +I did find the Angel comfortable, (as what English inn is not?) and +soon fortified myself with cold pheasant and sherry,--a compact +and little-burdensome repast to ride upon,--served in a cosey old +coffee-room by the neatest and most obliging of handmaidens. + +On the road I fell in with straggling groups of horsemen, in red coats +and black coats, leather breeches and cords, white tops and black; +all neat and jaunty, and all wearing the canonical stove-pipe hat. My +little mare was brisk, and I had no hard riding to save her for, so I +passed a dozen or more of the party, getting from each one some form or +other of pleasant recognition, and finally from a handsome young fellow +on a very spicy mount, "Excuse me, are you going to Brinklow? You must +turn to the right." + +Confound these Englishmen, thought I, where is their traditional +coldness and reserve? And I reined up for a chat. + +My companion came from the vicinity of Birmingham. Like so many of +his class, he devotes three days a week to systematic hunting, and +he was as enthusiastic as an American boy could have been in telling +me all I wanted to know about the sport. To get hold of a grown man +who had never seen a foxhound seemed an event for him, and my first +instructions were very agreeably taken. Our road ran past the beautiful +deer-stocked park of Coombe Abbey, where the green grass of a moist +December and the thick clustering growth of all-embracing ivy carried +the fresh hues of our summer over the wide lawn and to the very tops +of the trees about the grand old house. The few villages on our way +were neither interesting nor pleasant, but the thatched farm-houses and +cottages, and the wonderful ivy, and the charming fields and hedges +were all that could have been asked. + +And then the roadsides! and the stiles and the foot-paths, and the +look of age and the richness of the well-kept farms; and again and +everywhere the ivy clinging fast to each naked thing, and clothing it +with luxuriant beauty! + +There is in all our hearts an inherited chord that thrills in the +presence of this dear old home of our race. Not this spot and not these +scenes, but the air, the tone, the spirit of it all,--these are as +familiar to our instincts as water to the hen-brooded duckling. + +Brinklow Station has the modern hideousness and newness of railroad +stations everywhere in country neighborhoods, and it was pleasant to +leave it behind and follow the gay crowd down a sloping and winding +road into the real country again, and into a handsome and well-kept +park, beyond which there stood a fine old house of some pretension, and +well set about with terraced lawn and shrubbery,--a charming English +country-seat. + +Here my eyes were greeted with the glory of my first "meet," and a +glory it was indeed! Pictures and descriptions had suggested it, but +they had only suggested it. This was the reality, and it far exceeded +my anticipation. The grounds were fairly alive with a brilliant +company of men and women,--happy and hearty, and just gathered for the +day's sport. Red coats, white breeches, and top-boots were plenty, +and the neat holiday air of the whole company was refreshing and +delightful. Scattered about singly and in groups, mounted, on foot, +and in carriages, were a couple of hundred people of all ages and of +all conditions. Chatting from the saddle and over carriage-doors, +lounging up and down the Drive, or looking over the hounds, the +company were leisurely awaiting the opening of the ball. They had +come from a circuit of twenty miles around, and they appeared to be +mainly people who habitually congregate at the cover-side throughout +the hunting-season, and to be generally more or less acquainted with +each other. The element of coquetry was not absent; but coquetry is +apparently not a natural product of the English soil, and that sort +of intercourse was not conspicuous. The same number of handsome young +men and women would be more demonstrative at a similar gathering +in America. A similar gathering, however, would not be possible in +America. We have no occasion on which people of all sorts come so +freely and so naturally together, interested in a traditional and +national sport, which is alike open to rich and poor, and meeting, +not for the single occasion only, but several times a week, winter +after winter, often for many years. Noblemen, gentlemen, farmers, +manufacturers, professional men, snobs, cads, errand-boys,--everybody, +in short, who cared to come seemed to have the right to come, and, so +far as the hunt was concerned, seemed to be on an equal footing. Of +course the poorer element was comparatively small, and mainly from the +immediate neighborhood. The _habitués_ of a hunt are seldom below the +grade of well-to-do farmers. Servants from the house were distributing +refreshments, riders were mounting their hunters, grooms were adjusting +saddle-girths, too fiery animals were being quieted, and there was +generally an air of preparation about the whole assemblage. + +A little at one side, kept well together by the huntsman and a couple +of whippers-in, were the hounds (the Atherstone pack), about forty of +them, or, technically, "twenty couples," strong-limbed, large-eared, +party-colored, wholesome-looking fellows. They attracted much attention +and elicited frequent commendation, for they were said to be the very +finest pack in England,--as was also each of the three other packs that +I saw. To the unskilled eye, and simply viewed as dogs, they were not +remarkable; but it was a case in which the judgment of an unskilled +person could have no value. + +The horses appealed to me much more strongly. Certainly I had never +before seen together the same number of the same average excellence; +and some of them were fit to drive one wild with envy. There was, on +the whole, less of the "blood" look than would be expected by a man who +had got his ideas of the hunting-field from Leech's drawings, but there +was a good deal of it, nevertheless, and in its perfection too; and +where it was wanting there was plenty of bone to make up for it. + +At eleven the hounds were led out to the cover, and the whole field +followed slowly and irregularly and at some distance. There were about +one hundred and fifty mounted for the hunt. Perhaps one third of these +wore scarlet coats, white breeches, and top-boots; another third had +black coats and some of them black boots; and the remainder of the +field was made up of half a dozen ladies, a few stout old gentlemen of +seventy or so on stout old cobs of discreet age, little boys on smart +ponies, farmers and tradesmen and their clerks mounted on whatever they +could get, and men of every intermediate grade, and with all sorts of +horses. A certain amount of riff-raff, not mounted at all, but good +on their pins and ready for a run, were hanging about for a chance to +pick up a whip or a hat, or to catch a horse, or brush a muddy coat, or +turn an honest shilling in any way that might offer in the chances of +the day. Some of these fellows, rigged out with the cast-off clothing +of their betters, sported red coats, black velvet caps, and leather +leggings. One added to all this gorgeousness the refinement of bare +feet. + +The hounds were taken into the cover, a brambly, tangled wood near by, +which had probably been planted and made a little wilderness to serve +as a cover for foxes. + +They soon found a fox, drove him to the open, and followed him out of +the wood with a whimpering sort of cry which was disappointing after +the notion that the "full cry" of the books had given, and which is +heard in the very different fox-hunting of our Southern woods. The run +lay up a steepish hill, several fields wide and across an open country. +One bold rider (not a light one), mounted on a staving black horse, +went to the right of the cover, and made a splendid leap up hill, +over a stiff-looking hedge, and landed at the tail of the pack. The +"master" and his assistants had got away with the hounds. The rest of +the field went to the left, waiting their turns, through a farm-gate. +Once through, some twenty of them dashed up the hill, cleared a clever +hedge, and kept the pack in sight. The rest took an easier place, +where a farm laborer had pulled away the stakes by which a gap had +been filled. Here there was much very light jumping, and much more of +waiting until predecessors had made it lighter. In the mean time other +gaps were found, and it was not many minutes before all were through; +but during these minutes the fox, the hounds, and the harder riding men +were putting a wide space between themselves and us, who were at the +tail of the field. Yet there were some in the party who did not look +like laggards, and whose horses were good enough for any work such a +country could give them. + +Even when across the gap, these men went with the rest of us, by +gates and lanes, toward a point to which it was thought by the knowing +ones that the fox would double,--and the knowing ones were right. +Gradually, as their judgment indicated, they left the roads and took to +the fields. This course was taken by three well-mounted young ladies. +I followed the gate-openers for about half an hour, when, coming out +on a high-road, I concluded that, with seventeen miles to ride home, +it was only just to my little mare to give the thing up and head for +Leamington. The hounds were far away on my right and quite out of sight. + +Having come to look on and learn, I had probably seen and heard all +that day had in store for me,--surely enough for one's first day at +fox-hunting. When I had ridden for a few minutes I saw, far across +the fields, that the hounds had turned to the left and were making +for my road. Pressing forward, I came up in time to see them cross to +the front, and go scurrying away over the grass, nosing out the scent +as they ran. There had been a check, and "the field" was well up. The +road was lower than the fields, and was bordered by a ditch at each +side. From this the ground rose a little, and on each bank stood a +three-and-a-half-foot thorn hedge. Neither leap was difficult, but the +one out of the road was not easy. Here I sat and saw fully a hundred +horsemen, dressed in the gay colors of the hunting-field and mounted +as men rarely are mounted out of England, all, horses as well as men, +eager and excited in the chase, flying over hedge and ditch into the +carriage-way and over ditch and hedge into the higher field, beyond +and away, headlong after the hounds, every man for himself, and every +man for the front, and on they went over another hedge, and out of +sight. In the thick of the flight were two ladies, riding as well and +as boldly as the men, and two men were brushing their hats in the road, +their empty saddles keeping well up with the run. More than satisfied +with this climax of my first day's experience, I trotted out for home. +The result of the run I never heard, and I leave its description where +I lost sight of it. A mile farther on I did see a fagged-looking fox +making his rapid way across my road again, and sneaking off under the +hedge toward a thicket, and I halted to listen to what sounded like the +horn of a huntsman at check over the hill to the left; but possibly the +conclusion I drew was not a correct one. + +I wish that words could give an idea of the life and action of the +headlong flight I had just seen; but the inadequacy of all I had read +to convey it to me makes it seem useless to try. Photography and +description may, in a measure, supply the place of travel; but he who +would realize the most thrilling intensity of eager horsemanship must +stand in a hedge-bound English lane, and see with his own eyes, and +for the first time in his life, a hundred gayly dressed and splendidly +mounted fox-hunters flashing at full speed across his path; and it is +worth the while to see. + +Rain never fell on a more lovely country than that part of Warwickshire +through which my wet way lay. For ten miles of the seventeen it rained, +gently as it rains with us in April; nor is our grass more green in +April than this was in Christmas week. The all-prevailing ivy was +filled with berries, and the laurustinus was already in bloom. + +No born Englishman could have cared less for the soaking rain; and, +wet to the skin, tired to the bone, and stiff to the marrow, I have +rarely been more exuberant than when I gradually regained the use of my +legs in the half-mile walk to the hotel, resolving that not even the +glories of American citizenship should ever keep me away from England +in winter were I only able to afford the luxury of regular hunting. But +the exuberance was moral rather than physical. I had not been so tired +for years,--stiff as an old horse, after over thirty miles of really +hard riding (the last seventeen miles in two hours). The cure was a +hot bath and a dish of hot soup, followed by a log-like sleep of two +hours on a sofa before a blazing hot fire, a sharp half-hour's walk, +a very plain dinner, and a couple of hours' chat with my interested +East-Indiaman in the smoking-room: the cure was complete; and all that +was left of the day's sport was its brilliant recollection. + + * * * * * + +My second day was near Stratford-on-Avon,--on _Ay_-von, the misguided +English call it. The meet was to be at Goldicote House, one of the +"fixtures" of the Warwickshire Hunt. There were about a hundred +persons, including a few ladies, and one little bareheaded "blue-coat" +school-boy (from Charles Lamb's school), who, with his folded umbrella, +long skirt, low shoes, and yellow hose, was in for as much sport as +his Christmas holiday could give him. As a farther penalty for want of +forethought, I was reduced to riding a friend's coach-horse. However, +the reduction was not great, for whether by early instruction or by +inheritance, he was more than half a hunter, and gave me a capital +look at the whole day's chase; while his owner, on a most charming +black blood mare, being out of condition for hard riding, kindly +applied himself to urging me to severer work than one likes to do +with a borrowed horse. He introduced me to a venerable old gentleman +in a time-and-weather-stained red coat, velvet cap, and well-used +nether gear, mounted on a knowing-looking old gray, and attended by +his granddaughter. He could not have been less than eighty years old, +and his days of hard riding were over; but constant hunting exercise +every winter for over sixty years had protected him wonderfully well +against the ravages of time, and it is rare to see an American of +sixty so hale and hearty, and so cheerful and jolly. I was told that +if I would take him for my leader, I would see more of the run than I +could in any other way with such a mount as I had. He seemed to know +the habits of the foxes of South Warwickshire as thoroughly as he did +every foot-path and gate of the country, and he led us by cross-cuts to +the various points to which Reynard circled, so that we often had the +whole field in sight. It was not an especially interesting day, and the +fox got away at last, among a tangle of railway lines that blocked our +passage. My old mentor, who had given me much valuable instruction in +the details of hunting, was vastly disgusted at the result, and broke +out with, "Ah! it's all up with old England, I doubt; these confounded +railways have killed sport. There's no hunting to be had any longer, +for their infernal cutting up the country in this way. I've hunted with +these hounds under fifteen different masters, but I've about done, and +I sha'n't lose much,--it's all up. However, I suppose we could never +pay the interest on the national debt without the railways; but it's +all up with hunting." At that, he called away the young lady, bade me +a melancholy "good-by," and rode half sadly home. I galloped back to +Stratford with my handsome old host,--a little more knowing in the ways +of the field, but without yet having had a fair taste of the sport. + + * * * * * + +Seven miles from Peterborough, in the dismal little village of +Wansford, near the borders of Northamptonshire and Huntingdonshire, is, +perhaps, the only remaining old posting-inn in England that is kept up +in the unchanged style of the ante-railroad days. The post-horses are +gone, but the posting-stables are filled with hunters; the travelling +public have fled to the swifter lines, and Wansford is forever deserted +of them; but the old Haycock keeps up its old cheer, and Tom Percival, +who boasts that he has had the Princess Victoria for a guest, and has +slept five dukes in one night, has little occasion to complain of +neglect. The good wine that needs no bush still makes his cellar known, +and no one should criticise English cooking until he has dined once at +the Haycock. Nowhere is the inn-maid of whom we have read so much to be +found in such simple, tidy, and courtesying perfection; and nowhere, in +short, can one find so completely the solid comfort of hostelry life. +Half old farm-house and half wayside-inn; with a marvellous larder, +through whose glass-closed side the guest sees visions of joints and +jams and pastry in lavish profusion; backed by a stable-yard where boys +are always exercising good horses; and flanked by a yardful of quaint +clipped yews,--the old house at Wansford (in spite of its dull-looking +road front) is worth a visit from those who would get out of the sight +and sound of steam, and see the old, old country life of England. +The visitor is not numbered and billeted and pigeon-holed, as in the +modern hotel; but the old fiction of host and guest is well kept up. +Your coming should be announced in advance; and you are received as +in some sort a member of the family, whose ways are made to conform +more or less to the wishes of yourself and your convives, mainly young +swells from London, who are few, and who are there, as you are, not for +business, but for rest, good living, and regular sport. Three packs +of hounds are within reach; and on the days when none of the meets is +near, there is always the "larking"--the training of young horses--to +supply a good substitute, so far as the riding goes. One who cares for +hunting pure and simple, rather than for the gayer life of Leamington +and Cheltenham, cannot do better than to make the season, or a part of +it, at the Haycock, with regularly engaged horses for as many days in +the week as he may choose to ride. It costs,--but it pays. One is none +the less welcome among the guests for being an American. + +I there had a day with the George Fitz William hounds. Not being, as +yet, quite at home in the field, I took a wise old horse, "Cock Robin," +who was well up to my weight, and who, as Percival told me, would +teach me more than I could teach him. He was sent on early with the +other hunters, and I took a "hack" to ride to cover. We were a party +of four, and we went through the fields and the lawns and the rain, +to where the meet was fixed for eleven o'clock, at Barnwell Castle, a +fine old Norman ruin,--square and low, with four large corner towers +draped in magnificent ivy. It was a dreary morning, and not more than +sixty were out; but among these, as always, there were ladies, and +there was more than the usual proportion of fine horses. One cover +was drawn blank, and we moved to another, where a fox was found, and +whence the run was sharp and too straight for a prudent novice to see +very much of it; and it was some minutes before Cock Robin and his +rider came up with the hounds, who had come to a check in a large wood. +Throughout the day there was a good deal of waiting about different +covers, between which the fox ran back and forth. Finally he broke away +for a long, quick burst over the fields, which lay to the left of a +farm-road down which we were riding, and which was flanked by a high +and solid-looking hedge. Near the head of the party was a well-mounted +blonde of seventeen, who had hitherto seemed to avoid the open country +and to keep prudently near to her mother and her groom. The sight of +the splendid run, fast leaving us behind, was too much for her, and she +turned straight for the hedge, clearing it with a grander leap than I +had seen taken that day, and flying on over hedges and ditches in the +direct wake of the hounds. A young German who followed her said, as +we rode back to the Haycock, "It is vort to come from America or from +Owstria to see zat lofely Lady ---- go over ze cowntry"; and it was. + +Luck often favors the timid; Cock Robin and I were quite alone--he +disgusted, and I half ashamed with my prudence--when the fox, who had +found straight running of no avail, came swerving to the right over +the crest of a distant hill, closely followed by the hounds, and, in +splendid style, by the first flight of the field. Soon he crossed a +brook which was fenced in with rails, and the horsemen all had to make +a long détour, so that I, who had been last, now became first. I had +the fox and the hounds all to myself; my horse was fresh, and the way +was easy. My monopoly lasted only a moment, but it was not a moment of +tranquillity. Finding an open gate and bridge, I followed the pack into +a large low field, surrounded on three sides by the wide brook. The fox +was turned by this and ran to the right along the bank; at the corner +of the field he turned again to the right, still keeping by the edge of +the stream; this gave the hounds an immense advantage, and cutting off +the angle, they came so closely upon him that with still another turn +of the brook ahead of him, he had but one chance for his life, and that +was a desperate one for a tired fox to consider. He did not consider, +but went slap at the brook, and cleared it with a leap of nearly twenty +feet. The foremost hounds whimpered for a moment on the bank before +they took to the water, and when they were across Reynard was well out +of sight, and they had to nose out his trail afresh. He brought them +again to a check, and finally, after half an hour's skirmishing, he ran +down a railway cutting in the wake of a train, and got away. + +Incidentally, here was an opportunity for an English gentleman to show +more good temper and breeding than it is one's daily lot to see. He was +one of a bridgeful of horsemen watching the hounds as they vainly tried +to unravel the fox's scent from the bituminous trail of the locomotive, +when, full of eager curiosity, one of the ladies, middle-aged and not +"native and to the manner born," but not an American, rode directly +on to his horse's heels. To the confusion of my lady, the horse, like +a sensible horse as he was, resented the attack with both his feet. +His rider got him at once out of the way, and then returned, bowing +his venerable head in regretful apology, and trusting that no serious +harm had been done. "How can you ride such a kicking brute!" was the +gracious acknowledgment of his forbearance. + +In this storied little island one is never for long out of the presence +of places on the traditions of which our life-long fancies have been +fed. Our road home lay past the indistinct mass of rubbish, clustered +round with ivy and with the saddest associations, which was once +Fotheringay Castle; and as we turned into the village my companions +pointed out the still serviceable but long-unused "stocks" where the +minor malefactors of the olden time expiated their offences. + +We reached the Haycock at three, a moist but far from unpleasant body +of tired and dirty men, having ridden, since nine in the morning, over +fifty-five miles, mostly in the rain, and often in a shower of mud +splashed by galloping hoofs. By six o'clock we were in good trim for +dinner, and after dinner for a long, cosey talk over the events of the +day, and horses and fox-hunting in general. My own interest in the +sport is confined mainly to its equestrian side, and I am not able to +give much information as to its details. Any stranger must be impressed +with the firm hold it has on the affections of the people, and with the +little public sympathy that is shown for the rare attempts that are +made to restrict its rights. + +It would seem natural that the farmers should be its bitter +opponents. It can hardly be a cheerful sight, in March, for a thrifty +man to see a crowd of mad horsemen tearing through his twenty acres of +well-wintered wheat, filling the air with a spray of soil and uprooted +plants. But let a non-riding reformer get up after the annual dinner +of the local Agricultural Association and suggest that the rights of +tenant-farmers have long enough lain at the mercy of their landlord and +his fox-hunting friends, with the rabble of idle sports and ruthless +ne'er-do-weels who follow at their heels, and that it is time for them +to assert themselves and try to secure the prohibition of a costly +pastime, which leads to no good practical result, and the burdens of +which fall so heavily on the producing classes,--and then see how his +brother farmers will second his efforts. The very man whose wheat was +apparently ruined will tell him that in March one would have said the +whole crop was destroyed, but that the stirring up seemed to do it +good, for he had never before seen such an even stand on that field. +Another will argue that while hunting does give him some extra work in +the repair of hedges and gates, and while he sometimes has his fields +torn up more than he likes, yet the hounds are the best neighbors he +has; they bring a good market for hay and oats, and, for his part, he +likes to get a day with them himself now and then. Another raises a +young horse when he can, and if he turns out a clever fencer, he gets a +much larger price for him than he could if there were no hunting in the +country. Another has now and then lost poultry by the depredations of +foxes, but he never knew the master to refuse a fair claim for damages; +for his part, he would scorn to ask compensation; he likes to see the +noble sport, which is the glory of England, flourishing, in spite of +modern improvements. At this point, and at this stage of the convivial +cheer, they bring in the charge at Balaklava, and other evidences that +the noble sport, which is the glory of old England, breeds a race of +men whose invincible daring always has won and always shall win her +honor in the field;--and Long live the Queen, and Here's a health to +the Handley Cross Hunt, and Confusion to the mean and niggardly spirit +that is filling the country with wire fences and that would do away +with the noble sport which is the glory of old England! Hear! hear!! +And so it ends, and half the company, in velvet caps, scarlet coats, +leathers and top-boots, will be early on the ground at the first meet +of the next autumn, glad to see their old cover-side friends once more, +and hoping for a jolly winter of such healthful amusements and pleasant +intercourse as shall put into their heads and their hearts and into +their hearty frames and ruddy faces a tenfold compensation for the +trifling loss they may sustain in the way of broken gates and trampled +fields. + +I saw too little to be able to form a fair opinion as to the harm +done; but when once the run commences no more account is made of wheat, +which is carefully avoided when going at a slow pace, than if it were +so much sawdust; fences are torn down, and there is no time to replace +them; if gates are locked, they are taken off the hinges or broken; if +sheep join the crowd in an enclosure and follow them into the road, no +one stops to see that they are returned: we are after the hounds, and +sheep must take care of themselves. I saw one farmer, in an excited +manner, open the gates of his kitchen-garden and turn the hounds and +twenty horsemen through it as the shortest way to where he had seen the +fox go; his womenfolk eagerly calling "Tally-ho!" to others who were +going wrong. I have never seen a railroad train stopped because of the +conductor's interest in a passing hunt, but I fancy that is the only +thing in England that does not stop when the all-absorbing interest is +once awakened. + +Whatever may be the effect on material interests, the benefit of this +eager, vigorous, outdoor life on the health and morals of the people +is most unmistakable. Such a race of handsome, hale, straight-limbed, +honest, and simple-hearted men can nowhere else be found as in the wide +class that passes as much of every winter as is possible in regular +fox-hunting; and to make an application of their example, we could well +afford to give over many of our fertile fields to ruthless destruction, +and many of our fertile hours to the most senseless sport, if it would +only replace our dyspeptic stomachs, sallow cheeks, stooping shoulders, +and restless eagerness with the hale and hearty and easy-going life +and energy of our English cousins. Hardly enough women hunt in England +to constitute an example; but those who do are such models of health +and freshness as to make one wish that more women had the benefit of +such amusement both there and here. It is very common to see men of +over sixty following the hounds in the very _élite_ of the field; they +seem still in the vigor of youth. At seventy many are yet regular at +their work; and it is hardly remarkable when one finally hangs up his +red coat only at the age of eighty. Considering all this, it almost +becomes a question whether, patriotism to the contrary notwithstanding, +it would not be a good thing for a prosperous American, instead of +settling down at the age of forty-five to a special partnership and a +painful digestion, to take a smaller income where it would bring more +comfort, and by a judicious application of the pig-skin to rehabilitate +his enfeebled alimentation. + +Fox-hunting is a costly luxury if one goes well mounted and well +appointed. It can hardly be made cheap, even when one lives in his +own house and rides his own horses. With hotel bills and horse-hire, +it costs still more. As an occasional indulgence it is always a good +investment. My own score at the Haycock was as follows,--by way of +illustration, and because actual figures are worth more than estimates. +(I was there from Thursday afternoon until Sunday morning, went out +with a shooting-party on Friday, dined out on Friday night, and hunted +on Saturday.) + + THE HAYCOCK INN. + + £ _s._ _d._ + Jan. 2. Dinner and wine, 10 6 + Bed and fire, 3 6 + " 3. Breakfast, 2 6 + Apartments,[A] bed and fire, 5 0 + Attendance,[B] 1 6 + Jan. 4. Breakfast, 2 6 + Dinner and wine, 10 6 + Apartments, bed and fire, 5 6 + Attendance, 1 6 + " 5. Breakfast, 2 6 + + STABLE. + + Conveying luggage from station, 2 6 + Dog-cart to Sharks Lodge, 10 6 + " " " Oundle, 12 6 + " " " Peterborough, 8 0 + + THOMAS PERCIVAL. + + Jan. 4. Hire of hunter to Barnwell, 4 4 0 + " hack " " 10 6 + +[A] The run of the house. + +[B] We are apt to consider this a petty swindle, but it has the +advantage that you get what you pay for. + +Eight pounds, twelve shillings, and sixpence; which being interpreted +means $47.30 in the lawful currency of the United States. The hunter +and hack for one day cost $23.52. + +An American friend living with his family in Leamington (much more +cheaply than he could live at home), kept two hunters and a hack, and +hunted them twice a week for the whole season (nearly six months) at a +cost, including the loss on his horses, which he sold in the spring, of +less than $1,500. I think this is below the average expense. + +The cost of keeping up a pack of hounds is very heavy. The hounds +themselves, a well-paid huntsman, two or three whippers-in, two +horses a day for each of these attendants (hunting four days a week, +this would probably require four horses for each man), and no end of +incidental expenses, bring the cost to fully $20,000 per annum. This is +sometimes paid wholly or in part by subscription and sometimes entirely +by the Master of the Hounds. One item of my friend's expenses at +Leamington was a subscription of ten guineas each to the Warwickshire, +North Warwickshire, Atherstone, and Pytchley hunts. Something of this +sort would be necessary if one hunted for any considerable time with +any subscription pack, but an occasional visitor is not expected to +contribute. + +A stranger participating in the sport need only be guided by common +modesty and common-sense. However good a horseman he may be, he cannot +make a sensation among the old stagers of the hunting-field. Probably +he will get no commendation of any sort. If he does, it will be for +keeping out of the way of others,--taking always the easiest and safest +road that will bring him well up with the hounds, not flinching when a +desperate leap must be taken, and following (at a respectful distance) +a good leader, rather than trying to take the lead himself. However +promising the prospect may be, he had better not do anything on his own +hook; if he makes a conspicuous mistake, he will probably be corrected +for it in plainer English than it is pleasant to hear. + + * * * * * + +One of the memorable days of my life was the day before New-Year's. +Ford had secured me a capital hunter, a well-clipped gelding, over +sixteen hands high, glossy, lean, and wiry as a racer. "You've got +a rare mount to-day, sir," said the groom as he held him for me to +get up; and a rare dismount I came near having in the little measure +of capacity with which Master Dick and I commenced our acquaintance, +before we left the Regent. He was one of those horses whose spirits +are just a little too much for their skins, and all the way out he +kept up a restless questioning of his prospect of having his own way. +Still he was in all this, as in his manner of doing his work when he +got into the open country, such a perfect counterpart of old Max, who +had carried me for two years in the Southwest, that I was at home at +once. If I had had a hunter made to order, I could not have been more +perfectly suited. + +The meet (North Warwickshire) was at Cubbington Gate, only two miles +from Leamington, and a very gay meet it was. The road was filled with +carriages, and there was a goodly rabble on foot. About three hundred, +in every variety of dress, were mounted for the hunt, a dozen or so +of ladies among them. Three of these kept well up all day, and one of +them rode very straight. The hounds were taken to a wood about a mile +to the eastward of Cubbington, where they soon found a fox, which led +us a very straight course to Princethorpe, about three miles to the +northeast. + +I had done little fencing for seven or eight years, and the sort +of propulsion one gets in being carried over a hedge is sufficiently +different from the ordinary impulses of civil life to suggest at first +the element of surprise. Consequently, though our initial leap was a +modest one, I landed with only one foot in the stirrup and with one +hand in the mane; but I now saw that Dick was but another name for Max, +and this one moderate failure was enough to recall the old tricks of +the craft. As the opportunity would perhaps never come again, this one +was not to be neglected, and I resolved to have one fair inside view +of real fox-hunting. Dick was clearly as good a horse as was out that +day; the leaping was less than that to which we were used among the +worm-fences, fallen timber, and gullies of Arkansas and Tennessee; and +there was but a plain Anglo-Saxon name for the only motive that could +deter me from making the most of the occasion. Mr. Lant, the Master of +the Hounds, was not better mounted for his lighter weight than was I +for my fourteen stone; and his position as well as his look indicated +that he would probably go by the nearest practicable route to where the +fox might lead, so we kept at a safe distance behind him and well in +his wake. The hesitation and uncertainty which had at first confused my +bridle-hand being removed, my horse, recognizing the changed position +of affairs, settled down to his work like a well-trained and sensible +but eager beast as he was. From the covert to Princethorpe we took +seven fences and some small ditches, and we got there with the first +half-dozen of the field, both of us in higher spirits than horse and +rider ever get except by dint of hard going and successful fencing. + +Here there was a short check, but the fox was soon routed out again and +made for Waveley Wood, a couple of miles to the northwest. + +Waveley Wood is what is called in England a "biggish bit of timber," +and the check here was long enough to allow the whole field to come up. +As we sat chatting and lighting our cigars, "Tally-ho!" was called from +the other side of the cover, and we splashed through a muddy cart-road +and out into the open just as the hounds were well away. Now was a ride +for dear life. Every one had on all the speed the heavy ground would +allow. In front of us was a "bullfinch" (a neglected hedge, out of +which strong thorny shoots of several years' growth have run up ten or +twelve feet above it). I had often heard of bullfinches, and no hunting +experience could be complete without taking one. It was some distance +around by the gate, the pace was strong, and the spiny fringe had just +closed behind Mr. Lant's red coat as he dropped into the field beyond. +"Follow my leader" is a game that must be boldly played; so, settling +my hat well down, holding my bridle-hand low, and covering my closed +eyes with my right elbow, with the whip-hand over the left shoulder, I +put my heart in my pocket and went at it, and through it with a crash! +An ugly scratch on the fleshy part of the right hand was the only +damage done, and I was one of the very few near the pack. Dick and I +were now up to anything; we made very light of a thick tall hedge that +came next in order, and we cleared it like a bird; but we landed in a +pool of standing water, covering deeply ploughed ground, the horse's +forefeet sinking so deeply that he could not get them out in time, and +our headway rolled us both over in the mud, I flat on my back. Dick +got up just in time for his pastern to strike me in the face as I was +rising, giving me a cut lip, a mouthful of blood, and a black and blue +nose-bridge. My appearance has, on occasions, been more respectable +and my temper more serene than as I ran, soiled and bleeding, over the +ploughed ground, calling to some workmen to "catch my horse." + +I was soon up and away again. There seemed some confusion in the run, +and the master being out of sight, I followed one of the whips as he +struck into a blind path in a wood. It was a tangled mass of briers, +but he went in at full pace, and evidently there was no time to be +lost. At the other side of the copse there was a set of low bars, and +beyond this a small, slimy ditch. My leader cleared the bars, but +his horse's hind feet slipped on the bank of the ditch, and he fell +backwards with an ugly kind of sprawl that I had no time to examine, +for Dick took the leap easily and soon brought me into a field where, +on a little hillock, and quite alone, stood the huntsman, dismounted, +holding the dead fox high in his left hand, while with his long-leashed +hunting-crop he kept the hungry and howling pack at bay. The master +soon came up, as did about a dozen others, including a bright little +boy on a light little pony. The fox's head (mask), tail (brush), and +feet (pads) were now cut off and distributed as trophies under the +master's direction. The carcass was then thrown to the pack, that +fought and snarled over it until, in a twinkling, the last morsel had +disappeared. This was the "death,"--by no means the most engaging part +of the amusement. From the find to the killing was only twenty-five +minutes, into which had been crowded more excitement and more physical +happiness than I had known for many a long day. + +The second cover drawn was not far away. With this fox we had two +hours' work, mainly through woods at a walk and with the hounds +frequently at fault, but with some good leaping. Finally he was run to +earth and abandoned. + +We then went to a cover near Bubbenhall, but found no fox, and then, +with the same luck, to another east of Baggington. It was now nearly +four o'clock, growing dusk, and beginning to rain. The hounds started +for their kennels, and Dick and I took a soft bridle-path skirting the +charming road that leads, under such ivy-clad tree-trunks and between +such hedges as no other land can show, through Stoneleigh Village and +past Stoneleigh Abbey to Leamington, and a well-earned rest. + + * * * * * + +My memorandum for that day closes: "Horse, £2 12_s._ 6_d._; Fees, +2_s._; and well worth the money." + + +THE END. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Whip and Spur, by George E. Waring + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 44492 *** |