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diff --git a/old/67301-0.txt b/old/67301-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 2a74577..0000000 --- a/old/67301-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6819 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Southern Soldier Stories, by George -Cary Eggleston - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Southern Soldier Stories - -Author: George Cary Eggleston - -Illustrator: R. F. Zogbaum - -Release Date: February 1, 2022 [eBook #67301] - -Language: English - -Produced by: Carlos Colon, David E. Brown, The University of North - Carolina at Chapel Hill and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was - produced from images generously made available by The - Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOUTHERN SOLDIER -STORIES *** - - - - - -SOUTHERN SOLDIER STORIES - - - - -[Illustration] - - - - -[Illustration: J. E. B. STUART--THE CAVALIER.] - - - - - Southern Soldier Stories - - By - George Cary Eggleston - Author of “A Rebel’s Recollections,” etc., etc. - - With Illustrations by R. F. Zogbaum - - New York - The Macmillan Company - London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd. - 1898 - - _All rights reserved_ - - - - - Copyright, 1898, - By The Macmillan Company. - - - _Norwood Press - J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith - Norwood Mass. U.S.A._ - - - - - TO “JOE” - - I DEDICATE THIS BOOK TO THE “JOE” SO OFTEN - MENTIONED IN THESE STORIES - HE WAS MY LOVED COMRADE IN ARMS, AND A - SHARER IN ALL MY WAR EXPERIENCES - HE IS NOW - - Dr. Joseph W. Eggleston - - OF RICHMOND, VIRGINIA - - - - -PREFACE - - -The use of the first personal pronoun singular in any of these stories -does not of necessity mean that the author had anything to do with the -events chronicled. - -“I tell the story as ’twas told to me.” - - - - -CONTENTS - - - PAGE - - How Battles are Fought 1 - - Joe 7 - - Around the Camp-fire 11 - - An Unfinished Fight 18 - - A Family that had no Luck 22 - - William 25 - - A Cradle Captain 29 - - Who is Russell? 31 - - “Juanita” 48 - - Scruggs 52 - - Joe on Horseback 55 - - A Rather Bad Night 57 - - The Women of Petersburg 70 - - Ham Seay 74 - - Old Jones’s Dash 76 - - A Woman’s Hair 80 - - A Midnight Crime 85 - - A Little Rebel 90 - - Twenty-one 97 - - A Beef Episode 104 - - Bernard Poland’s Prophecy 107 - - A Breach of Etiquette 121 - - The Lady of the Green Blind 124 - - Youngblood’s Last Morning 128 - - Billy Goodwin 133 - - Manassas 137 - - My Last Night on Picket 143 - - Griffith’s Continued Story 147 - - A Cheerful Supper of Cheers 155 - - How the Tar Heels Stuck 157 - - “Little Lamkin’s Battery” 159 - - Curry 171 - - Gun-boats 175 - - Two Minutes 179 - - Si Tucker--Coward and Hero 182 - - War as a Therapeutic Agent 188 - - “Notes on Cold Harbor” 191 - - A Plantation Heroine 203 - - Two Incidents in Contrast 206 - - How the Sergeant-major told the Truth 210 - - Two Gentlemen at Petersburg 215 - - Old Jones and the Huckster 220 - - A Dead Man’s Message 223 - - A Woman’s Last Word 225 - - An Incomplete Story 228 - - Random Facts 231 - - My Friend Phil 237 - - - - -ILLUSTRATIONS - - - J. E. B. Stuart--The Cavalier _Frontispiece_ - - FACING PAGE - - “Get up here and do your duty” 30 - - A Good-bye to a Friend 56 - - She was singing “Dixie” 91 - - The last that was seen of Bernard Poland 119 - - A Dead Man’s Message 224 - - - - -SOUTHERN SOLDIER STORIES - - - - -HOW BATTLES ARE FOUGHT - -_A PREFATORY EXPLANATION FOR THE BENEFIT OF THOSE WHO KNOW NOTHING -ABOUT THE MATTER_ - - -When squads or scouting parties meet each other, they either fight in -an irregular fashion or they run away. - -With a systematic battle it is different. - -Before a systematic battle, one army selects some place at which to -resist the advance of the other. - -The advancing army usually cannot leave the other aside and go on by -another route to the capital city which it wants to reach, because, if -it did, the army left aside would quickly destroy what is called the -advancing army’s “communications.” - -To destroy these communications would be to cut off supplies of food, -ammunition, and everything else necessary to an army. - -The army which takes the defensive selects some point that can be most -easily defended,--some point where a river or a creek, or a line of -hills, or something else, serves to give it the advantage in a fight. - -The enemy must either attack that army there, and drive it out of its -position, or it must “flank” it out, if it is itself to go forward. - -To “flank” an army out of position is not merely to pass it by, which, -as explained above, might be dangerous, but to seize upon some point or -some road, the possession of which will compel that army to retire. - -Thus, when General Lee could not be driven out of his works at -Fredericksburg by direct attack, General Hooker marched his army up -the river, and by crossing there placed himself nearer Richmond than -General Lee was. This compelled General Lee to abandon his position at -Fredericksburg, and to meet General Hooker in the open field; otherwise -there would have been nothing to prevent General Hooker from going to -Richmond, with a part of his greatly superior force, leaving the rest -of it to check any operations Lee might have undertaken against his -communications. - -It is in some such fashion as this that every battle is brought about. -One side is ever trying to get somewhere, and the other side is ever -trying to prevent it from doing so. Incidentally, each army is trying -to destroy the other. - -When one army has planted itself in a position of its choice, and the -other advances to attack it, this is what happens:-- - -The army that is standing still throws out lines of pickets in front to -watch for the enemy’s advance and report it. - -The enemy, as he advances, also throws out a cloud of skirmishers to -“feel” of the position and avoid traps and ambushes. - -A line of battle often extends over several miles in length, covering -all available ground for attack or defence. - -Before the advancing general can determine against what part of his -adversary’s line to hurl his heaviest battalions, he must study the -conditions along that line; namely, by means of his skirmishers. - -In the same way the general who is awaiting attack tries to discover -through his skirmishers what his enemy’s plan of battle is, and at what -points he most needs to concentrate his own men. - -While awaiting this information he posts his men--cavalry, artillery, -and infantry--wherever he thinks they will be most useful, having -reference all the time to their rapid movement during the battle from -one part of the line to another, as occasion may demand. - -He also holds a considerable part of his army “in reserve.” That is to -say, he stations it at points a little in rear of the line of battle, -from which he can order all or any part of it to any point where -strength may be needed. - -In a great battle, involving large bodies of troops, each corps or -division commander must do in a smaller way what the general-in-chief -does on a larger scale. Each has charge of the battle on a certain part -of the line. Each must take care of things within his own jurisdiction, -and be ready at a moment’s notice to respond to the demand of the -commanding general for troops with which to help out elsewhere. - -These are the generalities. Let us now come to the battle itself. - -When the skirmishers of the advancing army meet the skirmishers of the -resisting army, there is apt to be some pretty hot fighting for a time, -and sometimes the artillery is considerably involved in it. But this is -not the real thing; it is a mere preliminary to the actual battle. - -The army that is standing on the defensive holds its lines in -position--every battery placed where it will do the most good, and -every infantryman lying down and taking the utmost advantage of every -tree stump, log, or inequality of the ground, to protect himself as -much as possible. - -The men on horseback are either in front with the skirmishers, minutely -observing the strength and movements of the enemy, or, having finished -that work, are thrown out at the two ends of the lines, called -“flanks,” to watch there for possible movements of the enemy that might -be otherwise unobserved. They are within call of any part of the line -where need of them may arise. - -While the skirmishers are doing their work, the heaviest strain of war -falls on the nerves of the men in line of battle. - -They have nothing to do but wait. - -They wait with the certain knowledge that in a few minutes the -advancing army will throw men forward, and thus convert its skirmish -line into a line of attack; while on their own side they know that -their skirmish line, after making all of discovery that temporary -resistance can accomplish, will fall back, and that then the crucial -conflict will begin. - -Then comes the uproar of battle,--the dust, the blood, the advance, -the retreat, the shock of arms, the murderous volleys of the infantry, -the thunder storm of artillery; in short, the final desperate -conflict of determined men for the mastery, all of them directed by -cool-headed commanders, sitting on their horses at points of vantage -for observation, and directing a reinforcement here, a withdrawal of -men there, the hurrying of artillery to one point, an onset of cavalry -at another, and at a critical moment an up-and-at-them charge with the -bayonets. That usually ends matters one way or the other at the point -involved. For only two or three times in any war do men with fixed -bayonets on one side actually meet in physical shock men armed with -fixed bayonets on the other. - -Wherever there is advantage on either side, the general commanding -that side throws troops forward in as heavy masses as possible to make -the most of it. If one line or the other be broken, every conceivable -effort is made to convert the breach into victory. And if victory -comes, the cavalry thunder forward in pursuit and in an endeavor to -convert the enemy’s defeat into rout. - -This is only a general description. I hope that no old soldier on -either side will read it. It is not intended for such as they. It is -written _virginibus puerisque_, and for other people who don’t know -anything about the subject. It is printed here in the hope that it may -enable such persons a little better to understand these stories of -strenuous conflict. - - - - -JOE - - -Joe was very much in earnest at Pocotaligo, South Carolina, where a -great little battle was fought on the 22d of October, 1862. - -That is to say, Joe was not quite seventeen years old, was an -enthusiastic soldier, and was as hot headed as a boy well can be. - -We had two batteries and a few companies of mounted riflemen--three -hundred and fifty-one men all told--to oppose the advance of five -thousand. We had only the nature of the country, the impassability -of the marshes, and the long high causeways to enable us to make any -resistance at all. - -Before the battle of Pocotaligo proper began, we went two miles below -to Yemassee and there made a stand of half an hour. - -Our battery, numbering fifty-four men, received the brunt of the attack. - -Joe had command of a gun. - -His men fell like weeds before a scythe. Presently he found himself -with only three men left with whom to work a gun. - -The other battery was that of Captain Elliot of South Carolina; and -Captain Elliot had just been designated Chief of Artillery. Elliot’s -battery was really not in action at all. Joe seeing Captain Elliot, -and being himself full of the enthusiasm which insists upon getting -things done, appealed to the Chief of Artillery for the loan of some -cannoneers with whom to work his gun more effectively. Captain Elliot -declined. Thereupon Joe broke into a volley of vituperation, calling -the captain and his battery cowards, and by other pet names not here to -be reported. - -I, being Joe’s immediate chief, as well as his elder brother, commanded -him to silence and ordered him back to his gun. There he stood for -fifteen minutes astride a dead man and pulling the lanyard himself. At -the end of that time we were ordered to retire to Pocotaligo. - -Joe was flushed, powder grimed, and very angry; so angry that even -I came in for a part of his displeasure. When I asked him, in order -that I might make report for the section, how many shots he had fired, -he blazed out at me: “How do I know? I’ve been killing Yankees, not -counting shots.” - -“How many rounds have you left in your limber-chest, Joe?” I asked. - -He turned up the lid of the chest, and replied: “Five.” - -“And the chest had fifty, hadn’t it, when you went into action?” - -“Of course.” - -“Then you fired forty-five, didn’t you?” - -“Oh, I suppose so, I don’t know! Confound these technicalities, anyhow! -I’m _fighting_, not counting! Do your own arithmetic!” - -It wasn’t a very subordinate speech for a sergeant to make to the -commander of his section, but Joe was my brother, and I loved him. - -At Pocotaligo he fought his gun with superb devotion and effect. But he -remained mad all over and clear through till two o’clock that night. At -that hour I was able to persuade him that he had been indiscreet in his -remarks to the Chief of Artillery. - -“Maybe I was,” he said, grasping my hand; “but you’re not to worry, old -fellow; I’ll stand the consequences, and you’re the best that ever was.” - -Nevertheless I did worry, knowing that such an offence was punishable -without limit in the discretion of a court-martial. It was scarcely -sunrise the next morning when I appeared at Captain Elliot’s -headquarters. I had ridden for half an hour, I suppose, my mind all -the time recalling a certain military execution I had seen; but this -morning I imagined Joe in the rôle of victim. I had not slept, of -course, and my nerves were all on edge. - -I entered headquarters with a degree of trepidation which I had never -felt before. - -Captain Elliot was performing his ablutions as well as he could, with a -big gourd for basin. He nodded and spoke with his head in the towel. - -“Good fight, wasn’t it? We have a lot of those fellows to bury this -morning. Pretty good bag for three hundred and fifty-one of us, and it -was mainly your battery’s cannister that did it.” - -I changed feet and said, “Y--e--s.” - -I thought to myself that that was about the way _I_ should take to “let -a man down easy” in a hard case. - -The captain carefully removed the soap from his ears, then turning to -me said: “That’s a _fighter_, that brother of yours.” - -“Yes,” I replied; “but, captain, he is very young, very -enthusiastic, and very hot-tempered; I hope--I hope you’ll -overlook--his--er--intemperateness and--” - -“THUNDER, MAN, DO YOU SUPPOSE I’VE GOT ANY GRUDGE AGAINST A FELLOW THAT -FIGHTS LIKE THAT?” roared the gallant captain. - -As I rode back through the woods, it seemed to me about the brightest -October morning that I had ever seen, even in that superb Carolina -climate. - - - - -AROUND THE CAMP-FIRE - - -It was a kind of off-night, the 23d of October, 1862, twenty-four hours -after the battle of Pocotaligo, on the South Carolina coast. - -We had to stop over there until morning, because the creek was out of -its banks, and we couldn’t get across without daylight. There were only -about a dozen of us, and we had to build a camp-fire under the trees. - -After supper we fell to talking, and naturally we talked of war things. -There wasn’t anything else to talk about then. - -There was the long-legged mountaineer, with the deep voice, and the -drawl in his speech which aided the suggestion that he kept his voice -in his boots and had to pump it up when anything was to be said. -Opposite him was the alert, rapid-speaking fellow, who had come in as a -conscript and had made a superb volunteer,--a fellow who had an opinion -ready made on every subject that could be mentioned, and who was -accustomed to wind up most conversations with a remark so philosophical -as to seem strangely out of keeping with the rest of the inconsequent -things that he had said. Then there were the two mountaineers who -never said anything because they never had anything to say. They had -reached that point of intellectual development where the theory is -accepted that there ought to be thought behind every utterance; and -under this misapprehension they abstained from utterance. - -Joe was there, but Joe wasn’t talking that night. Joe was surly and -sullen. He had had to kill his horse at Pocotaligo the day before, and -all the honors he had harvested from that action had not reconciled -him to the loss. The new horse he had drawn was, in his opinion, “a -beast.” Of course all horses are beasts, but that isn’t precisely what -Joe meant. Besides, he had received a letter from his sweetheart just -before we left camp,--she’s his wife now, and the mother of his dozen -or more children,--in which that young woman had expressed doubts as -to whether, after all, he was precisely the kind of man to whom she -ought to “give her life.” Joe was only seventeen years of age at that -time, and he minded little things like that. Still again, Joe had the -toothache. Besides that, we were hungry after our exceedingly scant -meal of roasted sweet potatoes. Besides that, it was raining. - -All the circumstances contributed to make us introspective and -psychological in our conversation. - -The long-legged mountaineer with the deep voice was telling some -entirely inconsequent story about somebody who wasn’t known to any of -us, and none of us was listening. After a while he said: “He was that -sort of a feller that never felt fear in his life.” - -From Joe: “There never was any such fellow.” - -The long mountaineer: “Well, that’s what he _said_, anyhow.” - -From Joe: “He lied, then.” - -“Well,” continued the long-legged mountaineer, “that’s what he said, -and he sort o’ lived up to it. If he had any fear, he didn’t show it -till that time I was tellin’ you about, when he went all to pieces and -showed the white feather.” - -“There,” growled Joe, “what did I tell you? He was lying all the time.” - -The postscript philosopher on the other side of the fire broke in, -saying: “Well, maybe his breakfast went bad on him that morning. An -overdone egg would make a coward out of the Duke of Wellington.” - -Joe made the general reflection that “some people locate their courage -in their transverse colons.” - -“What’s a transverse colon?” asked one of the mountaineers. Joe got up, -stretched himself, and made no answer. Perhaps none was expected. - -“Well,” asked the long-legged mountaineer, “ain’t they people that -don’t feel no fear?” - -The glib little fellow quickly responded: “Let’s find out. Let’s hold -an experience meeting. I suppose we’re a pretty fairly representative -body, and I move that each fellow tells honestly how he feels when he -is going into battle; for instance, when the skirmishers are at work -in front, and we know that the next two minutes will bring on the -business.” - -“Infernally bad,” growled Joe; “and anybody that pretends to feel -otherwise lies.” - -The postscript philosopher replied: “I never saw _you_ show any fear, -Joe.” - -“That’s because I’m too big a coward to show it,” said Joe. - -Even the two reticent mountaineers understood that. - -One of them was moved to break the silence. At last he had, if not a -thought, yet an emotion to stand sponsor for utterance. - -“_I_ always feel,” said he, “as though the squegees had took hold of -my knees. There ain’t anything of me for about a minute--exceptin’ a -spot in the small of my back. I always wish I was a woman or a baby, or -dead or something like that. After a while I git holt of myself and I -says to myself, ‘Bill, you’ve got to stand up to the rack, fodder or no -fodder.’ After that it all comes sort of easy like, you know, because -the firin’ begins, and after the firin’ begins you’re doin’ somethin’, -you see, and when you’re fightin’ like, things don’t seem so bad. I -s’pose you’ve all _noticed_ that.” - -From Joe: “In all the works on psychology it has been recognized as -a universal principle, that the mind when occupied with a superior -consideration is able to free itself from considerations of a lesser -sort.” - -The mountaineer looked at him helplessly and said nothing. - -The postscript philosopher began: “I shall never forget my first -battle. It wasn’t much of a battle either, but it was lively while it -lasted. Unfortunately for me it was one of those fights where you have -to wait for the enemy to begin. I was tender then. I had just left -home, and every time I looked at the little knickknacks mother and the -girls had given me to make camp life comfortable,--for bless my soul -they thought we _lived_ in camp,--every time I looked at these things I -grew teary. There oughtn’t to be any bric-à-brac of that kind given to -a fellow when he goes into the army. It isn’t fit. It worries him.” - -He was silent for a minute. So were the rest of us. We all had -bric-à-brac to remember. He resumed: - -“We were lying there in the edge of a piece of woods with a sloping -meadow in front, crossed by a stone wall heavily overgrown with vines. -At the other edge of the meadow was another strip of woods. The enemy -were somewhere in there. We knew they were coming, because the pickets -had been driven in, and we stood there waiting for them. The waiting -was the worst of it, and as we waited I got to feeling in my pockets -and--pulled out a little, old three-cornered pincushion. Conscience -knows I wouldn’t have pulled out that pincushion at that particular -minute to have won a battle. I’ve got it now. I never had any use for -a pincushion because I never could pin any two things together the way -a woman can, but a man can’t make his womenkind believe that: I’ve -kept it all through the war, and when I go back home--if it suits the -Yankees that I ever go back at all--I’m going to give it as a souvenir -to the little sister that made it for me. And I’m going to tell her -that it was that pincushion, little three-cornered thing that it is, -that made a man out of me that day. - -“My first thought as I pulled it out was that I wanted to go home and -give the war up; but then came another kind of a thought. I said, ‘The -little girl wouldn’t have given that pincushion to me if she hadn’t -understood that I was going off to fight for the country.’ So I said to -myself, ‘Old boy, you’ve got to stand your hand pat.’ And now whenever -we go into battle I always brace myself up a little by feeling in my -breeches pocket and sort of shaping out that pincushion.” - -From Joe: “It’s a good story, but the rest of us haven’t any -pincushions. Besides that, it’s raining.” I couldn’t help observing -that Joe drew that afternoon’s letter out of his pocket and fumbled it -a little, while the long-legged mountaineer was straightening out his -limbs and his thoughts for his share in the conversation. He said in -basso profundo: “The fact is I’m always so skeered just before a fight -that I can’t remember afterwards how I did feel. I know only this much, -that that last three minutes before the bullets begin to whistle and -the shells to howl, takes more out of me than six hours straightaway -fightin’ afterwards does.” - -From Joe: “There must be a lot in you at the start, then.” - -There were still two men unheard from in the experience meeting. Some -one of us called upon them for an expression of opinion. - -“I donno. I never thought,” said one. - -“Nuther did I,” said the other. - -“Of course you didn’t,” said Joe. - -Then the postscript philosopher, rising and stretching himself, -remarked: “I reckon that if any man goes into a fight without being -scared, that man is drunk or crazy.” - -Then we all lay down and went to sleep. - - - - -AN UNFINISHED FIGHT - - -Jack Swan was the best swordsman in the regiment--probably the best in -the army. Jack was a Marylander, who came south singing “My Maryland,” -and heartily believing in the assertion of that song that - - “She breathes, she burns, she’ll come, she’ll come, - Maryland, my Maryland!” - -Like most men from border states he represented a house divided against -itself. In his case the division was peculiarly distressing. - -He was an enthusiastic Southerner. His twin brother was an equally -enthusiastic Union man. The one was in the one army as a matter of -conscience, and the other in the other for precisely the same reason. -It was always a grief to Jack that this separation had come between him -and the curly-headed twin brother, with whom he had slept in infancy, -and who had been his comrade until that terrible fratricidal war had -parted them. - -He used to talk with us about it around the camp-fire, and was -especially sad over it when any of us managed to get off for a day or -a week to visit our homes. His home was beyond the lines; and in all -that country for which he was fighting there was no human being whom he -could call kin. - -He had this comfort, however, that his brother and he were never likely -to meet in the conflict of arms. For to avoid that the brother had -betaken himself to the West and was serving in Mississippi. But there -was always the terrible chance that in the shifting of troops they two -might some day, unknown to each other, be fighting on opposite sides -of the same field. That, in fact, is what happened at Brandy Station, -and it happened more dramatically than either of the brothers had -anticipated. - -The conflict at Brandy Station was perhaps the greatest cavalry fight -of the war. It was the one contest in which large bodies of armed and -trained horsemen, under the greatest cavalry leaders on either side, -met fairly in conflict with little or no interference from troops of -other arms. - -It was the only contest of the kind, so far as I know, in which highly -expert swordsmen met each other fairly in single combat. There was on -both sides a chivalric feeling akin to that of the “knights of old,” -which prompted men not to interfere when two well-matched cavaliers met -each other with naked blades. - -Jack Swan was naturally eager for a fray of this sort. He knew and -mightily rejoiced in his superb skill with the sabre. - -He watched anxiously for his opportunity. Presently it came. - -A singularly lithe young fellow from one of the Northern regiments met -and slew, in the open field, one of our officers. Thereupon Jack turned -to his captain and said: “If I have your leave, captain, I’d like to -try conclusions with that young fellow myself. He seems to know how to -handle sharp steel.” - -The captain nodded assent, and Jack put spurs to his horse. The two men -met in midfield. They crossed swords as a couple of gladiators might, -while a thousand eyes watched anxiously for the result. - -It was manifestly to be a contest of experts, a battle of the giants, -for both men were above the average in height and weight, and both knew -every trick of the sabre. - -Their swords drew fire from each other’s edge at the first onset. - -Then they paused strangely and looked at each other. Then Jack -deliberately threw his sabre upon the ground and uncovered his head. - -His adversary could have run him through on the instant, but the action -of Jack seemed to give him pause. He stopped with his sword poised at -the tierce thrust. He leant forward eagerly and gazed into the calm -eyes of the Confederate. Then he, too, abandoning his purpose, threw -his weapon to the ground. - -We were all eagerness and curiosity; and neither our eagerness nor our -curiosity was relieved when the two men grasped each other’s hand, -swung their horses around, and each returned unarmed to his own line. - -When Jack rode up he had just six words of explanation to make. - -“That man,” he said, “is my twin brother.” - -That seemed to be all there was to say. “Blood is thicker than water.” - - - - -A FAMILY THAT HAD NO LUCK - - -There were two instances of supreme heroism in the Civil War. One was -upon the one side, the other upon the other. - -One was the charge of Pickett’s Southerners at Gettysburg. The other -was the heroic series of assaults, made by the Northern troops on -Marye’s Heights, at Fredericksburg. - -General Lee’s works in the last-named battle were high up on the hill. -Crossing the field in front of them was a sunken road--a perfect -breastwork already formed. The main body of the army was in the works -above; but a multitude of us were thrown forward into the sunken road. - -The enemy knew nothing of this geographical peculiarity. But their -first advance revealed the impossibility of breaking Lee’s lines at -that point. The column that advanced was swept away as with a broom -before it got within firing distance of the works it supposed itself -to be attacking. The men knew what that meant. Wiser than their -general, they saw the necessity of selecting some other point of -attack. Nevertheless when their commander persisted, they six times -came unflinchingly to an assault which every man of them knew to be -hopeless. This may not have been war, but it was heroism. - -We who faced them there honored it as such. - -Just as we tumbled into the sunken road, an old man came in bearing -an Enfield rifle and wearing an old pot hat of the date of 1857 or -thereabouts. With a gentle courtesy that was unusual in war, he -apologized to the two men between whom he placed himself, saying: “I -hope I don’t crowd you, but I must find a place somewhere from which I -can shoot.” - -At that moment one of the great assaults occurred. The old man used his -gun like an expert. He wasted no bullet. He took aim every time and -fired only when he knew his aim to be effective. Yet he fired rapidly. -Tom Booker, who stood next to him, said as the advancing column was -swept away: “You must have shot birds on the wing in your time.” - -The old man answered: “I did up to twenty year ago; but then I sort o’ -lost my sight, you know, and my interest in shootin’.” - -“Well, you’ve got ’em both back again,” called out Billy Goodwin from -down the line. - -“Yes,” said the old man. “You see I had to. It’s this way: I had six -boys and six gells. When the war broke out I thought the six boys -could do my family’s share o’ the fightin’. Well, they did their best, -but they didn’t have no luck. One of ’em was killed at Manassas, -two others in a cavalry raid, and the other three fell in different -actions--’long the road as you might say. We ain’t seemed to a had -no luck. But it’s just come to this, that if the family is to be -represented, the old man must git up his shootin’ agin, or else one o’ -the gells would have to take a hand. So here I am.” - -Just then the third advance was made. A tremendous column of heroic -fellows was hurled upon us, only to be swept away as its predecessors -had been. Two or three minutes did the work, but at the end of that -time the old man fell backward, and Tom Booker caught him in his arms. - -“You’re shot,” he said. - -“Yes. The family don’t seem to have no luck. If one o’ my gells comes -to you, you’ll give her a fair chance to shoot straight, won’t you, -boys?” - - - - -WILLIAM - - -It was during the long waiting time. - -The battle of Manassas had been fought in July, and for months -afterward, there was nothing for us to do. We had failed to assail -Washington, and the enemy was not yet sufficiently recovered from his -demoralization--the completest that ever overcame an army--to assail us. - -We had time, therefore, to quarrel among ourselves. - -Two men had met in a glade in a thicket some distance from the camp. -They were taking their quarrel very seriously, and had met to fight it -out without the formality of seconds or other familiar frills of the -duello. They crossed sabres. - -It was then that Billy Gresham broke through the bushes and interposed. - -Billy was a recognized “character.” He was a phenomenal egotist, but he -rarely used the first personal pronoun singular. Instead of saying “I” -or “me,” he usually said “William.” But he said it with an unctuousness -and appreciation of its significance that cannot be described in words. - -Also Billy Gresham always did what he pleased, without a thought of -having to give an account of his conduct to anybody. His extraordinary -loquacity was a perfect safeguard against any possible challenge of -resentment. He could talk anybody down and close the conversation at -his own sweet will. The worst that his adversary could do was to laugh -at him, and Billy didn’t mind that in the least. He regarded it rather -as a grateful tribute to his humor. - -Just as the two men crossed swords, Billy broke through the bushes, -and interposed his blade--with a very good imitation of stage -heroism--between the combatants. Then, with all the authority of an -expert in a matter he knew nothing about, he proceeded to lay down laws -of his own extemporaneous invention for the governance of single combat. - -“Stop, gentlemen!” he cried out. Then, laying his sword on the ground -between them, he said: “You must not cross my sword with yours, -gentlemen. To do that would be to put an affront upon William which -only blood could efface, and it must be the blood of the offender--not -the gore of private William Gresham.” - -The two men had come to a pause, of course. Equally of course, they -were smiling at the ridiculousness of Billy Gresham’s interference and -the absurdity of his chatter. - -Still their purpose to fight remained in undiminished intensity. Seeing -this, Billy resumed his talk. - -“If you are determined to fight,” he said, “you can do so. Far be -it from William to interrupt a prearranged engagement for mutual -dissection between two of his friends. But William always likes to have -a little money up on the probabilities.” - -Then pulling out a pocket-book, which was fat with humorous newspaper -clippings, but which both men knew to contain nothing more valuable, -he caressed it lovingly and said: “Before you proceed, William wants -to bet one hundred dollars to ten with one or both of you--you can -make it a thousand dollars to a hundred, if you prefer--that neither -of you two sublimated idiots can give William a reasonable excuse for -this quarrel. Come now, before you enter upon the business of mutual -slaughter, make a bet that will provide in some degree for the loved -ones dependent on you.” - -By that time both men were laughing, for, after all, their quarrel was -a trifling one. They would not have quarrelled at all if the intensity -of the nervous strain put upon them by the war had been relieved by -active duty. - -“Now,” said Billy, “William has another bet to make. He offers a -hundred to one that if the colonel catches you fellows at this sort -of idiotic performance, he’ll take the ‘honor’ out of both of you by -making you grub stumps for weeks to come. Put up your swords and shake -hands, or else take the bets.” - -The absurdity of the situation ended it. Billy remarked: “Now let -William give you a tip. There is the enemy to fight; and if William -does not hopelessly misunderstand the temper of George B. McClellan’s -army, they will give us all the fighting we want without anything of -this sort.” - -It was Billy who, at the end of the war, protested his loyalty to the -Southern cause by vowing that he would never send a letter unless -it could go under cover of a Southern postage-stamp. I am credibly -informed that for thirty odd years he has kept this vow. - -It must have spared him a great deal of trouble. - - - - -A CRADLE CAPTAIN - - -They said we had robbed the cradle and the grave to recruit our army. - -We had. - -The cradle contingent acquitted itself particularly well. - -He was a very little fellow. He was said to be fourteen years old. -He didn’t look it. In his captain’s uniform he suggested the need of -a nurse with cap and apron. But when it came to doing the work of a -soldier the impression was different. - -It was in 1864, late summer. We were in the trenches outside a -fortification engaged in bombarding Fort Harrison, below Richmond. The -enemy had captured that work, and it was deemed necessary to drive him -out. To that end we had been sent from Petersburg to the north side of -James River, with twenty-two mortars to rain a hundred shells a minute -into the fort preparatory to the infantry charge. - -A gun-boat had been ordered up the river to help in the bombardment. -The gun-boat mistook _us_ for Fort Harrison and opened upon our -defenceless rear. Its shells were about the size and shape of a street -lamp, and they wrought fearful havoc among us. - -The Cradle Captain had charge of the signal operator--a stalwart -mountaineer of six feet four or so. - -The Cradle Captain ordered him to mount upon the glacis and signal -the ship to cease firing. The man was not a coward; but the fire was -terrific. He hesitated. That Cradle Captain leaped like a cat upon the -glacis, which the shells were splitting every second. He pulled out two -pistols. He presented one at each side of the mountaineer’s head. Then -in a little, childish, piping voice he said: “Get up here and do your -duty, or I’ll blow your brains out.” - -We rejoiced that the lead, which at that moment laid the little -soldier low, came from the enemy’s guns, and not from our own mistaken -comrades. The Cradle Captain was glad, too, for as he was carried away -on a litter, he laughed out between groans: “It wasn’t our men that did -it, for I had made that hulking idiot get in that signal all right, -anyhow.” - -[Illustration: “GET UP HERE AND DO YOUR DUTY.”] - - - - -WHO IS RUSSELL? - - -I saw him for the first time in 1862. - -We were stationed on the coast of South Carolina, and never was there -an idler set of soldiers than we. - -We were in the midst of a great war, it is true, and ours was a -fighting battery with dates on its battle banner; but on the coast we -had literally nothing to do. The position of our camp was determined -by military geography, and it could not be changed. A fight was -possible any day, and now and then a fight came. But we knew in advance -precisely where it must be waged, and until our foemen chose to bring -it about, we had no occasion for marching or bivouacking. They were on -the sea islands. We were on the mainland. We had no means of crossing -to the islands. They could cross to the mainland whenever they pleased. -When they came, it was our business to meet them and keep them from -reaching the line of railroad along the coast. - -Every little stream and every little inlet was bordered by an -impassable morass, which could be crossed only by way of a high and -narrow causeway. The places where the roads crossed the streams were, -therefore, the predestined battlefields. We were stationed with -reference to these crossings. - -We idled away the time, and like all idle people near a small railroad -station we knew of the comings and goings of everybody in the country -round about. - -Everybody, that is to say, except Russell. - -His coming was a mystery. In fact, he did not come at all. He simply -appeared one evening as a looker-on at roll-call. - -There was no way by which he could have come to Pocotaligo except by -train; and we knew that he had not come by train. The whole body of us -regularly attended the incoming of every train, and promptly pumped all -the news out of every arriving passenger. - -Russell had not come by train. Therefore Russell had not come at all. -Yet there he was. - -He was a comely young fellow. So shapely were his limbs and so exact -the proportions of his frame that no one, without a second look at -him, would have realized his symmetry, his extraordinary strength, or -his activity. His head was a study for the sculptor. In limbs, torso, -features, complexion, and bearing he stood there in the Southern sunset -a very model of manly beauty. - -When the roll-call was ended, he came up to me, and, touching his hat -gracefully, introduced himself. - -“My name is William Russell. I shall be obliged if you will let me -remain with your men over night. I shall probably ask to enlist -to-morrow.” - -His words were simple enough, and his manner was that of a modest -gentleman; but there was that in his voice that fascinated me beyond -measure. Had any other stranger come up to me with a like request, I -should have questioned him closely, and possibly have turned him over -for the night to the hospitality of one of the messes. With Russell I -did nothing of the sort. He was a gentleman visiting our camp. I could -do no less than invite him to sup and lodge with me. He had sought no -such hospitality, but when I offered it, he frankly accepted it. - -I found him to be a particularly agreeable guest. He talked fluently, -but modestly, on all subjects as they arose. Before my brother officers -came into my quarters for our nightly game of whist, I had discovered -that Russell was not only a man of broad general education, but one -thoroughly familiar with English, German, and French literature as -well. We learned very indirectly that he had travelled extensively, -and that travel had wrought in him its perfect work in making him an -agreeable companion. - -The next morning he expressed a wish to enlist with us. He persisted -in this, in spite of our assurances that our rude, uncultivated -mountaineers were not fit companions for him. - -After his enlistment he carefully avoided everything like presumption -upon our previous hospitality, or upon his own evident superiority. He -knew the distinction between officers and enlisted men, and he observed -it with a rigidity wholly unknown in our rather democratic service. I -was glad sometimes to seek him out when I wanted a companion, and on -such occasions he responded promptly to my invitations, but he never -once came to my quarters, or those of any other officer, uninvited. - -He was always quiet and modest, and it was only by accident that we -learned little by little how many and varied his accomplishments were. -It was not only that he never boasted; he was even shy of letting us -find out for ourselves how many things he could do surprisingly well. - -The men had built a number of gymnastic structures, and of afternoons -their contests of strength and skill were attended by everybody in the -neighborhood. For more than a month Russell looked on as a casually -interested spectator. One afternoon, however, some of our best gymnasts -were trying to accomplish a new and rather difficult feat. When they -were ready to abandon the attempt as hopeless, Russell modestly said -to the most persistent one among them: “I think if you will reverse the -position of your hands you can do that.” - -The man reversed his hands, but awkwardly. - -“Not that way; let me show you,” said Russell. And going to the bars he -quickly did the thing himself with no apparent exertion whatever. Then, -as if in mere wantonness of strength and skill, he went rapidly through -a series of gymnastic feats of the most difficult sort imaginable, -ending the performance with a number of somersaults that would have -done honor to an acrobat. When he had done, we all clapped hands and -shouted our applause. Russell simply blushed as a woman might and went -to his hut. - -I never knew him to touch the bars again, so averse was he to anything -like display. - -When I ventured to ask him in private one day how and where he had -acquired his skill, he replied: “Oh, I have no skill to speak of in the -matter. It’s merely a trick or two I picked up at a German university.” - -In this way we learned one thing after another about the man, though -he vouchsafed us no information concerning his past history, except so -much as we had discovered in mustering him into service. That consisted -of but one fact: that William Russell was born in Kentucky; and that -isolated fact was a falsehood, as Russell afterwards informed me. - -One day, some months after his enlistment, there was an explosion in -camp. - -A chief of caisson had been tinkering with a shell from the enemy’s -camp which had not burst. It exploded in his hands, literally blowing -one of them off midway between the wrist and the elbow. When I came to -the poor fellow he was lying on the ground, the blood spurting from the -severed artery. - -The surgeon and all my brother officers had ridden away, no one knew -whither, and I was completely at a loss to know what to do. Before I -had time to decide anything, Russell pushed his way through the throng, -drew out his handkerchief, knotted it, and quickly tightened it around -the man’s arm. - -“Will you please hold that steadily?” said he in the calmest possible -voice to one of the excited men. Then turning to me and touching his -cap, he said: “Will you allow me to go to the surgeon’s quarters for -some necessary things? I think I may help this poor fellow.” - -“Certainly,” I replied, “if you can do anything for him, do it by all -means.” - -He walked rapidly, but without a sign of excitement, to the hospital -tent, and returned almost immediately with some bottles, bandages, and -a case of instruments. - -Turning to me he said: “Will you do me the favor to put your finger on -the corporal’s pulse and observe its beating carefully? If it sinks or -becomes irregular, please let me know immediately.” - -With that he saturated a handkerchief with chloroform, and using a -peremptory form of speech for the first time in my experience of him, -he ordered one of the men to hold it to the wounded corporal’s nose. - -“What are you going to do?” I asked in astonishment. - -“I am going to amputate this man’s arm, if you have no objection,” he -returned, as he opened the case of instruments. And he did amputate -it in a most skilful manner, as the surgeon testified on his return. -The operation over, Russell gave minute directions for the care of the -wounded man. - -My astonishment may well be imagined. The men, however, were not -surprised. Their faith in Russell was unbounded already. They had so -often seen him do as an expert things that nobody had imagined him -capable of doing at all, that they had come to think him equal to any -emergency, as indeed it seemed that he was. - -For myself, I am free to confess that my curiosity was sharply piqued. -I determined to question Russell in detail about himself and his past -at the first opportunity. When the opportunity came, however, the -man’s modest dignity so impressed me that I could not bring myself to -do anything so rude and discourteous. I contented myself with saying: -“Why, Russell, I didn’t know you were a surgeon?” - -“I can hardly claim to be that,” he replied, “though I gave some little -attention to the subject while I was abroad.” - -It then occurred to me to suggest the propriety of his asking for -a surgeon’s commission, as it really seemed a pity that a man so -accomplished as he should remain a private in a company made up almost -entirely of illiterate mountaineers. He refused to entertain the idea -for a moment, saying: “I am entirely contented with my lot and do not -care to change.” - -One day, not long after this occurrence, I was playing at chess -with Russell. Apropos of something or other, I told him an anecdote -illustrative of Japanese character. - -“Pardon me,” he replied, “but you are misinformed,” and straightway -he proceeded to tell me many interesting facts with regard to the -Orientals, all of which were evidently the result of personal -observation. I presently discovered, as I thought, that Russell had -been an officer in the United States navy, and that he had gone to -Japan with Commodore Perry’s expedition. - -When a month or two later our battery was sent to a little place -immediately on the water, and a good deal of boat service was expected -of us, our first care was to train our mountaineers in the use of oars -and sails. With the exception of Russell, Joe, and myself, not a man -in the battery knew the difference between a mast and a keel. It was -determined, therefore, to divide the company into boat’s crews for -drill, and to make of Russell chief drill sergeant. - -When the order providing for this was read on parade, Russell said -nothing. But I had hardly reached my quarters before he came, cap in -hand, asking to see me in private. - -“I must beg you to excuse me from this boat-drill duty; I really can’t -do it.” - -“But you must,” I returned. “The men must be taught to handle the -boats, and your skill and experience are quite indispensable.” - -“But I have no skill or experience in the matter,” he replied. “The -truth is I do not even know the nomenclature of a boat. I do know the -bow from the rudder, but that is the extreme limit of my knowledge on -the subject.” - -This, from an ex-naval officer, was certainly rather odd, but I could -not bring myself to question this modest gentleman further on the -subject, or even to suspect his veracity, in which I had learned to -repose the most implicit confidence. - -He was not at all averse to boating duty in itself. On the contrary, -when an oar was put into his hands, his supple muscles lent themselves -with a will to the severe physical strain. The man seemed even to -rejoice in the opportunity thus given him to bring his magnificent -strength into play. When his fellows quitted the boats in utter -weariness he, still fresh, would betake himself to a little shell and -row her about for hours in mere wantonness of unexpended vitality. - -But he knew nothing of boating. He was as awkward as possible at first. -He learned rapidly, however, and soon became a graceful oarsman and an -expert sailor. - -I was puzzled. I could not reconcile the man’s stories of naval service -with his evident ignorance of everything pertaining to a boat. Yet I -could not doubt the truthfulness of any of his statements. Nobody who -knew his gentleness, his modesty, and his translucent integrity as I -did could possibly entertain doubt of his truthfulness. The man’s face -was of itself a certificate of his entire trustworthiness. His conduct -and his manners were unexceptionable always. The man himself was the -embodiment of truth. - -Accordingly, when I observed some tattoo marks on his arm one day, -which he told me were put there while he was in the navy, it did not -occur to me to question him as to the truth of that story. On the -contrary, I thought at the moment of a possible explanation of the -whole matter: Perhaps he had been a surgeon in the service, and if so -his technical ignorance of boating was not altogether unaccountable. I -was surprised, however, to see that the letters on his arm were not “W. -R.” but “W. W.”--a fact of which he volunteered an explanation. - -“My name is not Russell,” he said, “but Wallace. Though for a good many -years I have preferred to use my mother’s rather than my father’s name.” - -As a matter of course I asked him no rude questions. He was altogether -too much a gentleman for me to think of such a thing. I accepted his -explanation and respected his wish to be called “Russell” still. He -imposed no pledge of secrecy upon me, but I kept his secret sacredly, -respecting it as a confidential communication from one gentleman to -another. - -I had hardly settled it in my own mind that Russell’s connection with -the navy had been in the capacity of a surgeon, when he came one day -with the request that he might be allowed to go to Charleston for the -purpose of standing an examination for admission to the navy as an -officer. - -This time, I confess, I was astonished. And so I went with him to -Charleston and before the board. To my surprise, he passed his -examination so brilliantly, that he was commissioned at once and put -in command of a newly built gun-boat. Shortly afterwards he handled -his vessel so well in a fight off the harbor as to secure an official -compliment and a promotion. - -About a week after that event I learned that he had deserted the navy -and was among the missing. Apparently the poor fellow was a man running -away from his past, and nothing was so disastrous to him as distinction. - -I thus lost sight of Russell, and until August, 1873, I heard no more -of him. I was editing a weekly family newspaper in New York at that -time, and oddly enough I was just beginning to write this sketch of my -singular acquaintance when Russell himself walked into my office at 245 -Broadway and asked me if I remembered him. He was well dressed, in a -quiet drab suit, and was scarcely at all changed. He told me that he -was married and was living at a certain number in West 43d Street; that -he was practising law, being senior member of the firm of Wintermute -and Russell, for that his real name was Wintermute, and that his -partner, Russell, was a cousin on the mother’s side. - -He gave me the firm’s card, and begged me to call upon him, both at his -house and at his office, which of course I promised to do. - -I called first at the house. It was a well-built one of pressed brick, -and seemed to wear something of Russell’s own air of quiet dignity, -standing as it did in a row of more pretentious brown-stone mansions. -The door-plate--for door-plates were then still in use--bore the simple -word, “Wintermute.” - -“Is Mr. Wintermute at home?” I asked. - -“Commander Wintermute is in his library,” answered the lackey, laying -special stress upon the naval title. - -“Ah, certainly, Commander Wintermute,” I answered. “I had forgotten. -Will you give him my card? I am an old friend.” - -I was shown into the parlor,--a conspicuously tasteful -apartment,--furnished exactly as I should have expected Russell to -furnish it. - -After a little the door opened, and an elderly gentleman, obviously -English, entered, holding my card in a puzzled way before his -spectacled nose. - -“Pardon me,” he said. “The servant must have misunderstood you. He -announced you as an old friend.” - -“Yes,” I replied, “I asked for Commander Wintermute.” - -“I am he,” replied the gentleman. “Though I certainly fail to recognize -either your name or your face. There must be a mistake.” - -“There certainly seems to be,” I answered, “unless there is another -gentleman in your family. The one I am seeking is William Wintermute, -whose mother’s name was Russell.” - -“Then I am certainly the man,” responded my companion. “My name is -William Wintermute and my mother’s name was Russell. There is no other -gentleman living in the house, and so far as I have ever heard there is -no other William Wintermute anywhere.” - -There was nothing to be done except to apologize and take my leave, -which I did as gracefully as I could under the circumstances. - -At last I was angry with Russell. I had been puzzled by him often -enough. This time I was filled with resentment. - -I at once sought out the law office of Wintermute and Russell. The -card, which I had preserved, gave me all necessary information as to -its whereabouts, and I was not long in finding it. Mr. Wintermute was -there. So was Mr. Russell. But neither was the man for whom I was -looking. Neither had ever heard of him. - -I was still left puzzling over these questions:-- - -Who is Russell? - -Is he after all a liar? - -Or is he merely a remarkable coincidence? - - * * * * * - -In June or July, 1874, I published the foregoing sketch in a little -monthly magazine printed in an obscure college town in Illinois, which -had a circulation of only a few hundred copies, and lived just five -months in all. - -It was called the _Midland Monthly Magazine_, and was issued by a -student in the college at Monmouth, Illinois. - -Everything that related to Russell was sure in some way to blossom -out with all sorts of strange coincidences. This did so. In spite of -the obscure way in which my account of the man was published, I had -no doubt whatever that it would sooner or later result in some new -revelation of or concerning him. - -It did so, of course. - -The obscure student’s magazine somehow found its way to Bordentown, New -Jersey, and into the hands of an editor there. The editor was impressed -by the story and reprinted it. It thus fell into the hands of the -Reverend Lansing Burroughs, pastor of the First Baptist Church of that -town, and late captain of Confederate States Artillery. - -I was not surprised when I received from the Reverend Lansing -Burroughs, etc., the following letter:-- - - BORDENTOWN, N. J., Sept. 5, 1874. - - MY DEAR SIR: I have just finished reading a sketch published over - your name (copied from somewhere, I suppose) in our local paper, - entitled “Who is Russell?” It petrifies me with astonishment. For - thirteen years past the question which has bothered me most seriously - has been, “Who is Russell?” alias “Wallace,” alias “Wintermute,” - for by all these and some other names have I known the mysterious - individual. If you have been writing only a fancy sketch, I must - tackle one of the strangest problems in mental philosophy. If your - story is one of experience, then must I see you and compare notes. I - fancy I can horrify you with the story of what Russell once told me - had been his history.... - - Yours very truly, - LANSING BURROUGHS, - _Pastor of the First Baptist Church, Bordentown, N. J. - Late captain Confederate States Artillery_. - -Now it was just like Russell that an account of him, published in a -short-lived magazine, of a purely local circulation, out in Illinois, -should in some inscrutable way have fallen into the hands of the editor -of a little country paper in New Jersey; that this editor should have -copied it into his paper; and that one of his readers should happen to -be the one other man in existence who was puzzling over the questions -with which the sketch ended. - -But this was not all. There was still another coincidence. There was -that in my correspondent’s letter which revealed to me a fact of which -he was apparently unconscious; namely, that this Reverend Lansing -Burroughs was an old college mate of my own, whom I had not seen or -heard from for sixteen years. Such a coincidence was altogether natural -and proper, however, growing as it did out of matters connected with -Russell. - -I had some further correspondence with the Reverend Mr. Burroughs, and -finally we met by appointment and went to Mouquin’s for luncheon and -to compare notes. A careful analysis of dates proved beyond doubt that -_his_ Russell was _my_ Russell. But our experiences were of a very -different sort. Mr. Burroughs had never once had a meeting with the -mysterious man which did not bring calamity of some sort upon himself. -So far as I was concerned, no ill beyond annoyance and embarrassment -had ever come of my acquaintance with him. - -The Reverend Mr. Burroughs declares to me his firm conviction that the -quiet, singularly shy, well-behaved, modest gentleman, so unusually -gifted, especially in the way of a phenomenal genius for lying, is in -plain terms THE DEVIL. - -As to this, Mr. Burroughs is by profession an expert, and I am not. -I therefore venture no opinion. I merely continue to ask, “Who is -Russell?” - - - - -“JUANITA” - - -I was on guard one night in the autumn of 1861. - -It was only ordinary camp guard and not picket duty. - -We had fallen back from the line of Mason’s and Munson’s hills, -and were camped well in the rear of Fairfax Court House, which now -constituted our most advanced outpost. - -The army were fortified at Centreville. We had got tired of waiting for -McClellan to make the advance for which we were so eagerly ready. We -were evidently preparing to go into winter quarters. - -We of Stuart’s cavalry were still posted six or eight miles in advance -of the main army; but after our summer, passed twenty miles in front, -we felt snug and comfortable at “Camp Cooper.” - -Nevertheless, when I saw three rockets--red, white, and blue--go up far -to the front, it occurred to me that the fact might mean something. - -At any rate, I was lonely on post. I had sung “Juanita” under my -breath,--and that it wasn’t permitted to sing out loud on post was -probably a rule not made with any invidious reference to my voice, -though it might well have been,--I say I had sung “Juanita” under my -breath till I had exhausted the capabilities of entertainment that -reside in that tender musical composition. - -So, for the sake of diversion, if for nothing else, I called out: -“Corporal of the guard, post number six.” - -When the corporal came and I reported what I had seen, he moodily -growled something about there being no orders to “report on Yankee -fireworks.” Nevertheless, he communicated my report to higher authority. - -Fifteen minutes later a hurried messenger came, summoning me at once to -General Stuart’s headquarters, half a mile in front. - -Mounting, I rode at a gallop. That was the only gait which Stuart -tolerated, except in going _away_ from the enemy. - -As I rode out of camp I heard “Boots and Saddles” sounded from all the -bugles of all the regiments. - -I knew then that “something was up.” “Boots and Saddles” always meant -something when Stuart gave the order. - -When I dismounted at headquarters, Stuart himself was waiting, although -it was three o’clock in the morning. His plume and golden spurs -gleamed through the dark. - -“Tell me quick!” was all he had to say. I answered sententiously: -“Three rockets went up: red to right, white to left, and blue in the -middle.” - -“You mean _our_ right and left, or the enemy’s?” he asked eagerly. - -“Ours,” I answered. - -He turned quickly and gave hurried orders to staff-officers, orderlies, -and couriers. Then turning to me, he said: “_You ride with me._” I -appreciated the attention. - -Five minutes later a great column of cavalrymen were riding at a gallop -towards the front. And just as daylight dawned we broke into a charge -upon a heavy force of the enemy. - -The hostile force was slowly advancing, not expecting us, and we struck -it in flank, taking it completely by surprise. - -The demoralization of the Manassas, or Bull Run panic had not even yet -gone out of the Northern troops. We made short work of their advance -and sent them quickly into disorderly retreat. - -One of Stuart’s couriers was killed in the charge. I remember, because -he rode beside me, and his head fell clean from his body, and the sight -sickened me, so that I fought harder for the minute than I thought I -could. - -As the enemy broke, Stuart stopped his horse, slapped his thigh, and -turning to me laughing, and with that indifference to rank which always -characterized him under excitement, exclaimed: “They haven’t got over -it yet, have they?” - -The Manassas panic always did impress Stuart as an irresistible joke. - -A moment later he said: “I’m glad you reported those rockets. Always -report whatever you see. Even a shooting star may mean something at -headquarters.” - -But I have never ceased to wonder why we guards that night had no -orders to look out for red, white, and blue rockets, since they meant -so much. If they had not been reported by a tired and lonely sentinel, -we should have been run over in our tents by a force of ten thousand -men. - -A celebrated writer says: “War is a hazard of possibilities, -probabilities, luck, and ill luck.” - -It was luck that night that a sentry was tired of singing “Juanita” -under his breath. - - - - -SCRUGGS - - -Scruggs lived throughout the war in that debatable land between the -lines in Northern Virginia, where it was always a wonder that anybody -could live at all. - -And Scruggs lived well, too. He was not able to work, because in order -to keep out of the army he had found or feigned a physical disability -of some kind. - -We always knew that we could get accurate information concerning the -enemy by going to Scruggs for it. He frequented their camps as freely -as he did ours. He kept his eyes open. He always knew all the important -facts, and he was always eager to tell them. - -When we went after this information Scruggs was sure to be nowhere -visible, and none of his family could ever tell where he might be. But -after he had had opportunity to find out with certainty to which side -we belonged, Scruggs would come out of his hiding-place, and tell us -precisely at what points the enemy was encamped, what his strength was, -and what his disposition to activity appeared to be. - -Then he would tell us how nearly his family were starving by reason of -the fact that the enemy had raided his place and carried off all his -supplies. In common gratitude we could do nothing less than replenish -his larder with whatever we might happen to possess. - -Scruggs’s information was always accurate, always full, and always -scrupulously truthful. - -When a party of the enemy went up to Scruggs’s to inquire about us, -Scruggs pursued precisely the same policy. First making sure to which -side the party belonged, he would come forth and tell all that he knew -with regard to the position and strength of our posts; he would add -that little piece of misinformation,--most precious to him,--that we -had stripped him bare of sustenance, and they would generously relieve -his necessities again. - -In all this Scruggs was scrupulously truthful, except for the little -lie about provisions, and it was all absolutely impartial. If such -virtues count for anything in war, Scruggs was entitled to full credit -for them. - -But one day our commander grew suspicious of Scruggs. On the same day -the commander of the Federal outposts began also to suspect Scruggs. - -After a little investigation our commandant made up his mind to hang -Scruggs for a spy. About the same time the Federal commandant, after -a like investigation, came to a similar determination with regard to -Scruggs. - -The two hanging parties met at Scruggs’s house. As usual, Scruggs was -not there. But the two parties engaged each other at once. They were -about of equal numbers, and they fought valiantly for a time, neither -understanding, of course, that they were there on precisely similar -errands. - -After a little our party began to doubt whether Scruggs was worth -the contest or not, and retired a little way. The Federals, with a -like contempt for Scruggs, retired about the same distance. After a -few shots at long range both parties went back to their camps, each -commander feeling that, “After all, Scruggs has never failed to give us -all the information he could, and has never yet deceived us on a single -point.” - -After both parties had gone Scruggs came out of his hiding-place and -remarked to his eldest daughter: “You see, Prudence, what it is for a -feller to be always truthful.” - -And, by the way, Scruggs never did get himself hanged. - - - - -JOE ON HORSEBACK - - -Joe was not quite seventeen years old. He could ride anything that -happened to possess a back. He therefore had a great love for his -horse--the noblest one in the battery. - -During the preliminary skirmish in advance of Pocotaligo, on that -terrible 22d of October, 1862, his gun detachment was cut to pieces in -a fearful way, until he had to work his piece with three men, serving -as a cannoneer himself. When we retired from the skirmish line at -Yemassee to Pocotaligo proper, and it was obvious that we must fight -enormous odds in order to prevent the enemy from crossing the causeway -we were defending, I suggested to Joe that he dismount, as the rest of -us had done, and take to a tree. - -Joe resented the suggestion with the remark: “My place is on horseback. -I’m a sergeant.” - -Two minutes later a cannon-ball carried away his horse’s tail. Five -seconds afterwards another cannon-ball carried off the beast’s left -forefoot. Feeling that the horse was sinking under him, Joe dismounted -to see what the damage had been. As he stooped to look at the -dismembered foot, still another cannon-ball passed just over his head, -split his saddle, and broke the poor animal’s back. Thereupon Joe -turned, presented his pistol at the horse’s head, averted his eyes and -fired. - -Then he took a horse out of the battery and mounted him, remarking: “I -still contend that as a sergeant my place is on horseback.” - -The boy was crying, but none of us made remark upon the incongruity. - -Joe was mentioned in general orders for his gallantry that day, but the -fact had no reference to this matter of the horse. - -[Illustration: A GOOD-BYE TO A FRIEND.] - - - - -A RATHER BAD NIGHT - - -We were living in the deserted village. That is to say, our battery of -light artillery was stationed at Bluffton, South Carolina. - -At ordinary times Bluffton had a population of about three thousand -souls. At the time of which I write it had no population at all. - -It was a town built upon a high bluff overlooking an arm of the sea, or -more properly a great bay, broken by multitudinous islands into various -inlets. Hilton Head lay within sight, twelve miles away, and all the -waters of the great island-studded bay were navigable. - -Bluffton never had any business to do. It had no shops, no factories, -no anything but planters’ residences. Its houses were all elegant and -all comfortable. Its streets were shaded by great spreading trees, not -planted in symmetrical rows, but growing wherever they pleased, in the -midst of the thoroughfares. - -Bluffton was exposed to the direct assault of gun-boats or expeditions -of any sort. So, early in the war, its entire population left and went -to points in the interior. At the time I write of, in 1863, there -was not a soul in the town except the men of the battery to which I -belonged. - -Our captain was commandant of outposts. I was adjutant of the same. - -Our support consisted of two or three small troops of cavalry. Their -camps were several miles in rear of our own. These cavalrymen did all -the picketing. In the event of an attack we and they were charged with -the duty of harassing the advance of the enemy and delaying him on his -march to the railroad, seventeen miles away, long enough for troops to -be sent down from Charleston or up from Savannah. - -It was a wild, free, gypsy-like life. We lived in the handsomely -furnished houses, made free use of the very rich libraries, fished, -played at chess, shot deer and turkeys in the woods, dozed upon -“joggling boards” in sea-breeze-swept piazzas, and altogether did -nothing most industriously and delightfully. - -There was one duty to be done, and that a very important one. It was -necessary for some officer to make the grand rounds of the pickets -every night. This task devolved upon me about once a week. The pickets -were stationed at all available points of observation below, all -points from which the channels could be seen. To visit them required -an all night’s ride, which in that country is by no means an agreeable -undertaking. - -The weeds rise above the head of a horseman, and the dew drips as -rain might, from every leaf. The night rider becomes water soaked and -chilled to the very bones, even during the fierce summer weather. -During the autumn and winter a night ride on this subtropical coast -brings with it a degree of suffering from cold which the fiercest -Northern winter never produces. - -But it was absolutely necessary to visit the picket posts. Upon their -efficiency depended our safety and that of the railroad we were set -to defend. If a single picket slept, a fleet of gun-boats or ship’s -launches might come to Bluffton wholly unannounced. The battery, -without support at hand, would fall helpless into the enemy’s hands, -and the railroad communication, on which the safety of Charleston and -Savannah depended, would be broken. - -It was Christmas Eve, crisp and cool. A heap of fat hard pine was -blazing in the great fireplace in our quarters. The negro servant was -busy in the kitchen without. Our guests, half a dozen officers from the -cavalry companies, were already assembled. We had invited them to dine -with us upon a haunch of venison, a wild turkey, fish, oysters, crabs, -shrimps, etc., all of which, except the first two, could be taken at -any time within a hundred yards of the door. Our little party-giving -promised to be a thoroughly successful bit of hospitality. - -Curry, the cook, had just begun to put the dinner on the table when a -messenger came to report that Lieutenant C----, the officer appointed -to make the picket rounds that night, was ill and could not go. It was -my turn next and there was no escape. At the holiday season pickets -especially need watching. I knew very well it would never do to leave -them unvisited that night. There was nothing for it, therefore, but to -turn the guests over to my messmate, the captain, and order my horse. - -My guide--for without a guide no one could possibly find his way at -night through parts of that country--was a dull, taciturn fellow, with -whom I found it impossible to maintain a conversation. My twelve miles’ -ride to the farthest picket post, which I visited first, was therefore -a very disagreeable substitute for the jovial, social evening I had -planned. - -By the time I had reached Bear’s Island, I was wet to the skin with -dew and stiff with cold. It was about ten o’clock when we rode across -the causeway from the mainland to the island, and the first thing I -observed was the utter darkness of the place. Ordinarily the pickets on -this post kept up a little fire behind a screen at which to warm and -dry themselves during the night. Approaching from the rear, I always -saw this fire when I crossed the causeway, the screen standing between -it and the water on the other side. To-night, however, everything was -dark, and it was with some little difficulty that we found our way -across the island to the picket post. - -“What’s the matter, sergeant?” I asked. “Where’s your fire to-night?” - -“I had to put it out and move away from it,” he replied. “They are -loading up two gun-boats and three transports just across the creek -there, and they threw two or three charges of grape-shot over here an -hour or two ago. They killed one of my men, poor fellow. I’ve been -watching them and was on the point of sending a man up with the alarm. -I’m glad you’ve come to take the responsibility off my shoulders.” - -By this time I had brought my glass to bear upon the pier upon the -other side of the inlet, or creek, as it is commonly called, and saw -that the sergeant was right. Three transports were rapidly receiving -troops, cavalry, artillery, and infantry, while two rather formidable -looking gun-boats were sullenly steaming up and down in front. - -The inlet was nearly a mile wide, and as the enemy showed few lights -and dim ones, the sergeant without a glass had not been able to -discover the number of troops taken on board. I soon made out that at -least five field batteries had been shipped, and that the transports -were almost full of troops, while a battalion of infantry, a squadron -of cavalry, and two batteries remained on shore, apparently waiting for -those on board to be so disposed as to afford room for them. - -I rapidly weighed all the probabilities in my mind. There were two and -only two possible purposes in this embarkation of troops. It was a -formidable expedition against the railroad, via Bluffton, or else it -was merely a removal of troops from one point on the coast to another. -If the first were the object, the vessels would steam up the inlet; if -the other, they would put to sea. - -But if it were merely a transfer of troops, why were the transports -crowded in this way, and why were the convoying gun-boats there? -There was no enemy off the coast, except storms; and as storms were -conspicuously disregarded in the overloading of the steamers, it seemed -to me clear that the expedition was bound for Bluffton. - - * * * * * - -“How many men have you, sergeant?” I asked. - -“Two,” he replied. - -“Trusty fellows?” - -“As good as ever threw a leg over a saddle.” - -“Send them to me,” I said. - -When they came, I asked: “Are your horses good ones?” - -“Pretty good.” - -“Mount, then,” I said to one, “and ride as fast as you can to -Buckingham Ferry. Wait with the pickets there till the fleet comes -within sight. Then send a man to Bluffton to announce the fact. Stay -yourself till the fleet has passed, observing which creek it takes. -As soon as you satisfy yourself on that point, ride to Bluffton and -report.” - -Then turning to the other, I said: “You go to Hunting Island and do the -same thing. Tell the sergeants there to follow their standing orders -in all other regards. Be quick, now, both of you. I’ll expect you at -Bluffton at the right time.” - -As the men galloped away, I walked to the place where the sergeant was -still standing, and said: “Sergeant, you and I will stay here till the -fleet leaves. Then we’ll ride straight to Bluffton on a full run and -give the alarm in time.” - -“It’s already leaving,” he replied. “And look! it’s steaming straight -up the creek.” - -Looking, I saw that it was as he said. The two gun-boats abreast led -the column, the three transports following. - -“It’s time for us to be riding, then,” I said, hastily springing into -my saddle. “But we can beat them by two hours, as the creek is crooked -and they must sound all the way for want of buoys.” - -We galloped across the island; but when we came to the little creek we -found an unexpected obstacle in our way. The tide had risen well-nigh -to the flood, and was exceedingly high in consequence of a strong -wind that had been blowing on shore all day. The strip of marsh which -separated the island from the mainland was completely covered with -water, and even the causeway leading across it was submerged. The two -men sent to alarm the pickets had reached the place only a little while -earlier than we. We found them hunting for some landmark or other by -which to find out where the causeway lay. - -The sergeant thought he knew its locality and direction. He boldly -plunged in. The rest of us followed. - -Just what we did, or where we went, or how it all happened, none of -us ever knew. But we rode off the submerged track, about midway the -stream, and found ourselves floundering in the water, some of us on -our horses, and some of us under them. It was the darkest night I ever -knew. Once in the water we could see no shore anywhere. Naturally, each -took the direction in which he thought the desired bank lay. And it -seemed that no two of us agreed in our views on this point except by -accident. - -My horse swam pretty well and finally made the edge of the water. But -the bottom was a quagmire, and sinking in it he could not extricate -himself. To relieve him I slipped off his back and into the water, but -it proved too late. With every frantic struggle the poor beast sank -deeper, and within a minute he lay lifeless in the water, half buried -in the mud of the bottom. - -My own situation was a perilous one. My feet sank at once in the slimy -ooze. To save myself I threw my body forwards. Succeeding in freeing my -feet, I swam until the water was too shallow for swimming. After that, -by crawling on my belly, I managed to avoid sinking and smothering in -the mud. - -It was half an hour, however, before I stood upon firm ground again, -and then I did not know which side of the marsh I had reached. - -I was covered with slime, stiff with cold, and utterly exhausted by -my exertions. Of myself, however, I thought little. I was anxious -only about the sleeping battery at Bluffton. If the alarm were not -given,--and unless some one or other of our party had succeeded in -getting across with his horse, it could not be,--Bluffton would be -taken completely by surprise. The battery would be captured. A rapid -march would take the enemy to the railroad, either at Grahamville or at -Hardeeville, before any force could be sent to oppose. Our defence of -an essential line of communication would fail. Even if the two men from -the picket post had got out on the other side, they would go not to -Bluffton, but to Buckingham Ferry and Hunting Island, as I had ordered. -It was not at all certain that the fleet would pass either of those -points. It could sail up other creeks quite as easily, particularly on -such a tide as that. - -With these thoughts in my mind I felt the need of bestirring myself. I -was not long in discovering that we were still on the island, and not -on the mainland. Following the margin of the water, I presently came -to the two men who had been with the sergeant on picket. One of them -was stuck in the mud, and the other was trying to draw him out with a -pole. Both of them had lost their horses. The sergeant and my guide had -escaped with their steeds, and I found both of them on the island, a -little further up the shore. - -The guide was utterly demoralized with fright, or cold, or both. So I -took his horse and ordered him to wait on the island till morning, and -then to make his way to whatever point he should find it easiest to -reach. The sergeant and I determined to make another effort to get to -Bluffton and give the alarm. - -“Run back to the other side of the island,” said he to one of his men, -“and see if the fleet is still in sight and what it is doing. We must -let our horses blow a little, and you can get back by the time we are -ready to start.” - -The man went, and his comrade, having nothing better to do, went with -him. Presently one of them returned, bringing the news that the fleet -was making its way up a narrow creek from which, as we knew, neither -the Buckingham Ferry nor the Hunting Island picket could see it. As -those were the only posts from which after seeing it a man could get -to Bluffton in time to give the alarm, the sergeant and I were more -than ever determined to make our way thither at all hazards. Luckily -the road from Bear’s Island to Bluffton was the easiest one in all that -country to find, and the one I happened to know best. So that even if -the sergeant should not get across the marsh, I was confident of my -ability to make the journey alone. - -“Now,” said the sergeant, “if I get across I won’t wait for you, but -will go right on; if you succeed, don’t wait for me. It’s no time for -ceremony. It’s better one of us should drown than that the other should -be delayed.” - -“Spoken like a man and a soldier, sergeant,” said I. “Now for it.” -And with that we again essayed to follow the submerged track. About -midway the sergeant’s horse went down as before; and just as I was -about to call out something encouraging to him the guide’s horse, which -I was riding, plunged headforemost into the salt water, throwing me -completely over his head. - -For a moment I was senseless from a blow received either from the hoof -of the sergeant’s horse, or by falling against one of the timbers of -the causeway. When I came to myself I was clinging to the tail of the -sergeant’s horse, while the sergeant, as I presently discovered, was -holding by one of the stirrups. - -How long we remained in the water, I do not know, but it must have been -nearly an hour. The poor horse swam around in a purposeless way, not -knowing where to go, until finally he sank exhausted beneath the tide. -Cool as the night was the salt water was tepid as it always is on that -coast. Otherwise I should not now be alive to tell of that Christmas -Eve. - -We got out at last and found ourselves on the island again. Despairing -now--for without horses it was simply impossible to get to Bluffton -until long after the time when our coming would be of any use--we -trudged doggedly across the island, that we might wait and listen at -the water’s edge for the booming of the cannon. - -Two more utterly wretched young men no Christmas morning ever dawned -upon. - -“See there,” said the sergeant, halting suddenly. “There’s the fleet, -and bless my soul it’s putting to sea.” - -It was true enough. No attack was to be made after all. We had spent -the night drowning horses, and nearly drowning ourselves for nothing. - -Why the fleet had steamed several miles up the creek before putting to -sea, I have never been able to guess. But I vividly remember that its -prank subjected me to a twelve miles’ walk that morning, and compelled -me to substitute quinine and dogwood-root-bark bitters that day for the -Christmas dinner I had planned. - - - - -THE WOMEN OF PETERSBURG - - -We went into Petersburg in June, 1864, with the horses at a brisk trot, -and the men on foot at a double quick. - -The enemy’s battalions were already at the other end of Sycamore -Street, and it was our task to drive them back before they should be -reinforced. - -Nevertheless those good women of Petersburg ministered to us. They -knew that we had been marching all night and that we were in a -famishing condition. They knew also that we must not waste a moment if -Petersburg, the key to Richmond, was not to be lost. - -So they formed themselves in platoons--God bless them!--bearing gifts -of sandwiches and coffee. - -We could not stop even to take, much less to eat, the food they -offered, so they thrust their platoons between ours and marched -backward as fast as we marched forward, serving their food and drink to -us as we went. - -Every now and then a Federal shell would come bowling down the street, -but these alert women would jump it as nimbly as if its passage -had been a prearranged figure in the dance. Not one of them showed -the slightest fear. Not one of them faltered for a moment in her -ministrations in consideration of herself. There was not one of them, -I think, who would not have gone with us into the crash of the battle -itself; but by the time we had refreshed ourselves a little, we were -so near to the aggressive enemy’s lines, that we cried aloud with one -voice the order for the womenkind to go back. - -A minute later we were in the thick of the struggle for Petersburg. The -enemy was not in such force as we had supposed, and we had fortunately -arrived some hours in advance of General Grant’s ponderous divisions. -After fifteen minutes of hard fighting the enemy retired beyond the -Jerusalem turnpike and we spent the night in beginning that thin line -of earthworks which was destined for eight months to come to hold at -bay a force two or three times as strong in numbers as our own. - -At any hour during all that eight months the Federal forces could have -broken through our lines at any point they pleased, if they had been -resolute. - -Anybody who will look at the old works to-day, as I have recently -done, and consider the facts dispassionately, can see this clearly for -himself. Our enemies had behind them, and running parallel with their -lines, a system of roads that was out of our sight. They had resources -practically illimitable. They had in front of them an attenuated line -of men, stretched out for twenty miles, and without the possibility of -reinforcement from any source. They could have concentrated any force -they pleased at any point they pleased and at any time they pleased, -without the possibility of our discovering what they were doing. They -could have made an irresistible attack upon any point of our line at -will. They did not do it. And so the fight went on. - -During all those weary months the good women of Petersburg went about -their household affairs with fifteen-inch shells dropping occasionally -into their boudoirs or uncomfortably near to their kitchen ranges. Yet -they paid no attention to any danger that threatened themselves. - -Their deeds of mercy will never be adequately recorded until the angels -report. But this much I want to say of them--they were “war women” -of the most daring and devoted type. When there was need of their -ministrations on the line, they were sure to be promptly there; and -once, as I have recorded elsewhere in print, a bevy of them came out to -the lines only to encourage us, and, under a fearful fire, sang Bayard -Taylor’s “Song of the Camp,” giving us as an encore the lines:-- - - “Ah, soldiers, to your honored rest, - Your truth and valor bearing, - The bravest are the tenderest, - The loving are the daring.” - -With inspiration such as these women gave us, it was no wonder that, -as I heard General Sherman say soon after the war: “It took us four -years, with all our enormous superiority in resources, to overcome the -stubborn resistance of those men.” - - - - -HAM SEAY - - -Ham Seay had a hæmorrhage that morning--a hæmorrhage from the lungs. - -But Ham Seay had the fastest horse in the company, and he knew how to -ride a horse for all that was in him of achievement. - -When the news came that Stuart wanted to communicate as quickly as -possible with the commandant at Fredericksburg, Ham Seay volunteered to -carry the message. - -“But you’re ill,” said Stuart. - -“That doesn’t matter,” said Ham. “I can ride my horse, and my horse is -a good one.” - -“But you’re ill,” said Stuart again. “And I don’t want to send an ill -man on such a journey as this.” - -Then Ham Seay rose in the majesty of his manhood. - -“General,” he said, “I am a doomed man. I cannot live long to render -service in the war. I want to render what service I can. I want to -carry this message. It will do me no harm. It will not shorten the few -days I have yet to live. It will make my life worth something.” - -So Stuart gave him the message to a general fifty miles away. - -Ham Seay mounted, and said to his comrades: “Good-by, boys. I may never -see you again; but I’ll do this errand all right, or die trying.” - -He rode his horse with urgency, but with discretion. He had but one -object in view, and that was to get the message to its destination in -the briefest possible number of hours. - -He delivered his communication. He died half an hour afterwards. His -horse had died before Ham did. But both had done their duty. - - - - -OLD JONES’S DASH - - -Old Jones was a queer character. He was also a queer figure. He never -had a uniform. He wore a yellow coat and a pair of light blue trousers. -He wore a pot hat of the fashion, I should say at a guess, of the year -1812. - -He was a graduate of West Point, but he had resigned from the army -twelve years before the war began, and therefore was not entitled to -what they called “relative rank.” - -He was a cynic and a misanthrope. He was still more pronouncedly a -misogynist. He did not believe in men. He positively disbelieved in -women. He was ready at any time to affront a man and to treat a woman -with conspicuous contempt. He hated life, and was ready to give it up -at any moment which might suit the decrees or the aspirations of Fate. -He was ready to fight anything in the world, or anybody, under any -circumstances, or upon any issue. - -That is why he got himself cashiered toward the end of the war. - -But we are dealing with the beginning of the war. At the beginning of -the war he organized a company of cavalry and got himself elected its -captain. In the regular order of promotion he soon came to be colonel -of the regiment. It was at this time that the events recorded in the -present story occurred. - -When McClellan took command of the Army of the Potomac, after the -stampede at Manassas, it was under the demoralization of the fearful -panic. It was a part of McClellan’s program to send his men out on -expeditions of attack in order to accustom them to the idea of standing -fire. As the end of the summer of 1861 drew near, he had begun, -seriously, to threaten our position at Centreville. - -He would send out men in considerable force and compel us to meet them -with serious intent. Usually Stuart was able very quickly to discover -the sham character of these advances. But once in a while they were so -well disguised as to be mistaken for serious attacks. - -One day in the autumn the greatest of all these advances began. The -enemy came forward with every possible appearance of intending an -assault on the Confederate position at Centreville. - -There were cavalry, infantry, and artillery in the column; and when -they reached our picket lines there was every appearance of serious -conflict in prospect. - -As we sat there on our horses in front of the line, Stuart came along -and said to Colonel Jones: “Colonel, I wish you’d take a dozen or -twenty men, get into the rear of that force, and find out how much it -means.” - -Jones detailed the requisite number of us from the right of our -company, with Captain Irving in command of them. By riding three or -four miles to the right, we were able to get in rear of the Federal -force. We soon found that there was no baggage train, no commissary -train, no quartermaster’s train, and no ammunition train--in short, -that the advance was not intended as a serious attack. - -By the time that we had found out all this, we were within fifty yards -of the rear of the Federal lines, and almost immediately opposite the -point where we had left our own command. We were pretty well hidden by -the underbrush of the woods, as we stood there and looked. - -Presently old Jones turned to Charlie Irving and said: “The whole -thing’s an egg-shell, isn’t it?” - -“Yes,” said Charlie; “an egg-shell easily crushed.” - -Jones thought a moment, and then said, with his nasal drawl: “I wish I -could communicate with Stuart. I’d break through that line and save the -trouble of the ride around.” - -The young captain’s eyes snapped with that peculiar sense of humor -and that daring which were his principal characteristics, as he said: -“Why not break through anyhow, colonel? Don’t you think Stuart would -understand? I’ve never found him slow in getting to windward of things.” - -“Well, if you say so, captain, I guess we’ll do it. It’ll save the -horses, anyhow. Attention, men!” with a slow drawl. “Draw--sabres! -Forward--march! Trot--march! Gallop--march! CHARGE!” - -We went through that egg-shell with an enthusiasm which was _not_ a -reflection of the drawling commands of our colonel. - -Captain Irving was right: Stuart was not slow in getting to windward -of things. He ordered a charge and doubled up that column like a -telescope. - - - - -A WOMAN’S HAIR - - -After the battle of Manassas or Bull Run, fought July 21, 1861, Stuart -made his headquarters in the neighborhood of Fairfax Court House, with -pickets at Falls Church, Vienna, and other points ten miles or so to -the front. - -Suddenly, with a strong force, he occupied Mason’s and Munson’s hills, -almost under the guns of the Washington fortifications, and very much -farther in advance than outposts generally are. - -It has since been a puzzle to many military critics to guess why he -did this unusual thing. Perhaps this story may throw some light on the -problem. - -Our company was on picket at Falls Church. Half a dozen of us kept -watch at the edge of the woods on the top of the hill, while the rest -of the boys took their ease in rear. - -It was in that early stage of the war when to shoot at men seemed to -many civilians a species of sport--a sort of pursuit of big game. - -This Falls Church post was a favorite rendezvous for this species of -sportsmen from Washington. Our position was an exposed one. Men not -in the army, and even women, liked to ride out from Washington, crouch -behind a pile of logs, and “take a crack” at the rebels. - -Now and then they made a widow and some orphans, and since this was -merely a matter of diversion and entertainment for them, with no other -principle involved, it seemed almost too bad. - -Finally Charlie Irving got “tired,” as he put it, of “playing partridge -for those people to shoot at.” Charlie Irving was our captain. He was a -man who never said much, but always meant a good deal. - -The next morning he made the detail for post duty at the front upon a -new principle. We had been nine days on picket, and it had been his -custom to detail the men for post duty in front in alphabetical order. -This morning he selected us without reference to our “turns,” and with -sole reference to the speed and endurance of our horses. - -“Now, boys,” he said, with that easy familiarity which made us call him -“Charlie,” because we had all gone hunting together as comrades before -the war; “now, boys, we’re going to capture that picket post to-day, -and if I find a civilian among them, I’m going to hang him to that -chestnut tree for murder.” - -We knew that he would do what he said, and we were all in hearty -sympathy with his purpose. - -About ten o’clock in the morning the sharp-shooting began. Our captain -instantly divided us into two squads, and without military formalities -said: “Now, boys, ride to the right and left and corner ’em.” - -That was the only command we received, but we obeyed it with a will. -The two sharp-shooting citizens who were there that morning escaped on -good horses, but we captured the pickets. - -Among them was a woman--a Juno in appearance, with a wealth of raven -black hair twisted carelessly into a loose knot under the jockey cap -she wore. - -She was mounted on a superb chestnut mare, and she knew how to ride. - -She might easily have escaped, and at one time seemed about to do so, -but at the critical moment she seemed to lose her head and so fell into -our hands. - -When we brought her to Charlie Irving she was all smiles and -graciousness, and Charlie was all blushes. - -“You’d hang me to a tree, if I were a man, I suppose,” she said. “And -serve me right, too. As I’m only a woman, you’d better send me to -General Stuart, instead.” - -This seemed so obviously the right way out of it that Charlie ordered -Ham Seay and me to escort her to Stuart’s headquarters, which were -under a tree some miles in the rear. - -When we got there Stuart seemed to recognize the young woman. Or -perhaps it was only his habitual and constitutional gallantry that made -him come forward with every manifestation of welcome, and himself help -her off her horse, taking her by the waist for that purpose. - -Ham Seay and I being mere privates were ordered to another tree. But we -could not help seeing that cordial relations were quickly established -between our commander and this young woman. We saw her presently take -down her magnificent back hair and remove from it some papers. They -were not “curl papers,” or that sort of stuffing which women call -“rats.” Stuart was a very gallant man, and he received the papers with -much fervor. He spread them out carefully on the ground, and seemed to -be reading what was written or drawn upon them. - -Then he talked long and earnestly with the young woman and seemed to be -coming to some definite sort of understanding with her. - -Then she dined with him on some fried salt pork and some hopelessly -indigestible fried paste which we called bread. - -Then he mounted her on her mare again and summoned Ham Seay and me. - -“Escort this young lady back to Captain Irving,” he said. “Tell him to -send her to the Federal lines under flag of truce, with the message -that she was inadvertently captured in a picket charge, and that as -General Stuart does not make war on women or children, he begs to -return her to her home and friends.” - -We did all this. - -The next day, Stuart with a strong force advanced to Mason’s and -Munson’s hills. - -From there we could clearly see a certain house in Washington. It had -many windows, and each had a dark Holland shade. - -When we stood guard we were ordered to observe minutely and report -accurately the slidings up and down of those Holland shades. - -We never knew what three shades up, two half up, and five down might -signify. But we had to report it, nevertheless, and Stuart seemed from -that time to have an almost preternatural advance perception of the -enemy’s movements. - -That young woman certainly had a superb shock of hair. - - - - -A MIDNIGHT CRIME - -THE CRIMINAL’S OWN ACCOUNT OF IT - - -As there is no law that can now reach my crime, I may as well tell all -about it. - -Soon after we sat down before Petersburg, in the summer of 1864, I -was sent on a little military mission accompanied by Johnny Garrett, -into the land of desolation--that part of Northern Virginia which lay -sometimes in the possession of one army, sometimes in possession of the -other, but was mostly left in nobody’s possession at all, and open to -raids from both sides. - -That region had been swept by fire and sword for nearly four years. It -had been tramped over by both armies, and latterly had been subjected -to that process of destruction which Sheridan had in mind when he said -of another region that “the crow that flies over it must carry his -rations with him.” - -How anybody managed to live at all in such a region has always been a -puzzle, but a few people did. - -We had slept, Johnny Garrett and I, by the side of a fence the night -before, and without breakfast we had been riding all day. Late in the -afternoon we made up our minds to go for supper and lodging to a great -country house which I had frequently visited as a guest in the days -of its abundance. As we rode through the plantation, decay manifested -itself on every hand. There was a small, straggling crop in process of -growth, but sadly ill attended. There were no animals in sight except -five sheep that we saw grazing on a hillside. - -As we turned the corner of the woodland the mansion came into view. -Only its walls were left standing. Fire had destroyed the rest. At the -gate we met an old negro serving-man, whom I had known in the palmy -days as Uncle Isham. - -When I had seen him last he was in livery. As I saw him _now_ he was in -rags. - -Some eager, hurried inquiries as to the family brought out the fact -that the mistress of the mansion with her two grown daughters was -living in one of the negro quarters in rear of the burned house, and -that he, alone, remained as a servant on the plantation. - -“Dey took all de res’ off No’th, an’ dey tried to take Isham, too. But -Isham he slip’ de bridle one night, an’ he came back heah to look after -ole missus an’ de girls. So heah I is, an’ heah Ise gwine to stay.” - -We did not remain to hear Isham’s account of his adventures, but -hurried on to find out the condition of things with the family. There -were but two rooms--one below, and the other above stairs--in the hut -in which they were living. Yet the proud woman who was thus reduced -showed no shame of her poverty, but gloried in it rather, as the old -soldier glories in the scars received in his country’s service. - -She welcomed us with as warm a show of hospitality as she had ever made -in the old days of lavish entertainment. - -After our first inquiries concerning their welfare, she said to us -laughingly: “I wouldn’t keep you to-night, but would send you on to -a better place, if I knew any better in the neighborhood. As it is, -you’ll have to sleep under the trees for lack of room; but you boys are -rather used to that. As for supper, I can give you some corn-bread and -some sorghum molasses. The bread won’t be very good, because our supply -of salt has run out, and of course as the cows have all been killed I -can’t give you butter. But there’s enough bread and sorghum, anyhow.” - -“How long since you had meat?” I asked. - -“About three weeks,” she replied. “That is to say, since the last big -raiding party came by.” - -“Have you no pigs left?” - -“No, we haven’t a living animal of any kind.” - -“Whose sheep are those I saw as I rode up?” - -“They belong to a neighbor,” she answered. “They’re what’s left of a -large flock. When the raiders were here those five sheep ran into the -bushes and escaped. But even if they were ours, you know, we couldn’t -kill one.” - -I remembered then that a law of the Confederacy made it a crime -severely punishable to slaughter a sheep, even one’s own. They were -wanted by the government for their wool to clothe the army. - -Waiving all this aside as a matter of small moment, our hostess pressed -us again to dismount for supper. - -At this point Johnny Garrett lied: - -“Oh, we can’t stay to supper, and the fact is we couldn’t eat if we -did. It’s only half an hour since we ate the best part of a ham out of -our haversacks. And besides we’ve got to get to Gordonsville to-night.” - -I am afraid I was accessory after the fact to the telling of that lie. -At least I didn’t contradict it. - -We pushed on a little way till we had got out of sight of the house. -Then we stopped by mutual consent under a tree and dismounted. - -“The grass is pretty good,” I said, “and we’ll let the horses crop it -while we wait for it to get good and dark.” It did not seem necessary -to mention what we were to wait for darkness for. - -“Yes,” said Johnny, “there are the sheep, and I’ll keep an eye on them.” - -When it was thoroughly dark we committed a double crime. - -It was sheep stealing as well as a violation of the other law, but we -were not in a mood to consider such things just then. Under cover of -the darkness we killed the fattest sheep in the lot, dressed it as well -as we could, and then by the light of some matches I wrote a little -note on a leaf from my memorandum book. It said simply this:-- - -“There is no law to forbid some hungry women to eat a sheep that -somebody else has killed in violation of law.” - -Pinning this to the carcass we carried the mutton to the house, and -hung it to a tree where it would be seen with the dawn. - -We felt as well about this thing as if we had been engaged in some -highly moral act. - - - - -A LITTLE REBEL - - -It was an odd kind of a situation. It was in 1862, and we were on the -coast of South Carolina defending the railroad line between Charleston -and Savannah. - -We had no infantry supports, and artillery is supposed to be helpless -without such supports. But as there was nothing on the other side, -except those pestilent sharp-shooters in the Hayward mansion, we did -not need support. - -It was our business to shell that mansion, burn it, and drive the -sharp-shooters out. I may say, parenthetically, that we didn’t like the -business. Mr. Hayward, who was familiarly known as “Tiger Bill,” had -been the friend of our battery ever since we had succeeded in putting -out a fire that had burnt some thousands of panels of fence for him. -It is true that his friendship for us was in the main a reflex of his -enmity to the Charleston Light Dragoons and the Routledge Mounted -Riflemen. He favored us mainly to spite them. Nevertheless he favored -us. He sent a wagon every morning to our camp loaded with vegetables, -fruits, suckling pigs, and whatever else his dozen plantations might -afford. - -[Illustration: SHE WAS SINGING “DIXIE.”] - -Naturally, we did not like the job of burning one of his country -houses. But as business is business, so in war orders are orders. - -Half a dozen shells did the work. Flames burst from the house in every -direction, and the enemy’s sharp-shooters who had been using it as -a vantage ground rapidly retreated across the cotton fields to the -woodlands beyond under fire of our guns. - -Our captain, a great bearded warrior, six feet four inches high, and as -rough as men are made in appearance, was suddenly seized with a tender -thought. Turning to me, he said: “There may be some poor devil wounded -in that house and likely to be roasted. Let’s ride over there and see.” - -We put spurs to our horses, dashed through the sharp-shooters’ fire, -and a few minutes later began exploring the lower quarters of the -house, the fire being above. We found nothing till we came to the -cellar. There we discovered a little girl, anywhere from two to three -years old,--I’m not a good judge of little girls’ ages,--sitting in a -little rocking-chair, and singing “Dixie.” - -The captain grabbed her suddenly and ran to the open air with her, for -the volumes of smoke were rapidly penetrating to the cellar. When he -got her out, he said: “Who are you?” - -She replied, in a piping little voice, “I’m _Lulalie_.” - -Whether this meant that her name was Lula Lee, or Eulalie, or what, we -could not make out. - -“Where is your mamma?” asked the captain. - -“She’s dead--she died when I was born.” - -“Where is your papa?” - -“I don’t know. Those ugly other people took him away. When he saw ’em -coming, he took me to the cellar, and told me to stay there so the -shellies wouldn’t hit me.” - -“Where’s your maumey?” (Maumey meaning in South Carolina “negro nurse.”) - -“I don’t know,” she answered. “Those ugly other people took all the -colored folks away.” - -Just then the battery advanced with its colors flying. Looking up the -little girl recognized the Confederate battle banner and said: “That’s -_my kind of a flag_. I don’t like that ugly other striped thing.” - -Manifestly the child was without protectors. We adopted her in the name -of the battery. - -When we returned to the camp several serious questions arose. Jack -Hawkins, one of the ex-circus clowns of the battery, suggested that -first of all we must secure a chaperone for her. When asked what -he meant by that, he said with lordly superiority: “Well, you see, -chaperone is French for nurse. We want a nurse for this little child.” - -“Nonsense,” said Denton, the other ex-circus clown, “you don’t know any -more about the proprieties than you do about French. Chaperone means -somebody to look after a church, and this little girl isn’t even a -chapel. We’ll look after her, and we don’t want no nurse to help.” - -The captain, with his long beard, was holding the little child in his -arms all this time, and she suddenly turned around to him and seizing -his beard said: “I like your big whiskers. They are like my papa’s. You -don’t bite, because you’ve got hair on your face?” - -“No, dear,” he replied, “I don’t bite such as you.” - -But he was very much given to biting, all the same--as the enemy had -more than once found out. - -“First of all,” said Denton, who was nothing if not practical, “the -little girl’s got to have some clothes.” - -Denton was a tailor, as well as a clown, and naturally his thoughts -were the first to run in that groove. - -“I ain’t much used to making girl’s clothes, but a tailor’s a tailor, -and if anybody’ll provide me the materials, I’ll undertake to fix up -some gowns for her.” - -Tom Booker, who was much given to riding around the country, said at -once: “I know where the mortal remains of an old store repose, up at -Gillisonville, about nine miles away. If I had any money--” - -Every man thrust his hand into his pocket, and each drew out what he -had. The sum total was more than adequate. When Tom returned a few -hours later there were no “mortal remains” of that store left. He -brought back with him thirty-seven yards of highly colored calico, of -different patterns, one red blanket, a box full of galloon trimming, -something that he called “gimp,” two bolts of domestic, three cans of -tomatoes, and two bottles of chow-chow, besides a dozen quarter cases -of sardines and two kegs of cove oysters. - -He dumped the merchandise on the ground with the remark: “There, I’ve -closed that store.” - -Denton made some invidious remarks reflecting upon Tom’s taste in the -selection of calicoes, etc., adding the suggestion that there was -galloon enough and “gimp” enough in the invoice “to upholster all the -women in Charleston for the next six months--if they liked that kind of -thing.” - -Nevertheless, he set to work with a will. Within a day or two the -little lady was provided with gowns and night-gowns, and underclothes -sufficient in quantity, at least, though perhaps not made strictly -in accordance with the latest fashions in gear of that kind. Indeed, -Denton had succeeded in making her look very much hindsidebefore. -The little girl’s gowns all buttoned down in front. But the little -girl was pleased with what she called the “gownies” and sometimes the -“pritties.” Their barbaric colors tickled her taste so much that Denton -decided to make her a cloak out of the flaming red blanket. - -When it was put on her, her glory was complete. She said: “It looks -like my kind of a flag,” referring to the red of the battle banner. - - * * * * * - -She was taken away from us presently by a committee of good women of -the neighborhood. She became the protégée of a lady whose whole life -had been given to caring for other people, including our battery. - -Denton, however, put in a claim to the privilege of continuing to -fashion her clothes. - -“You see I’ve got the whole stock of that store on my hands; and since -I learned dress-making, I’ve a fancy to perfect myself. And you see -I’ve got fond of the little girl.” - -A couple of tears trickled down the hoary old sinner’s cheek, and Mrs. -Hutson consented. - -Every day after roll-call the captain sent a delegation to the Hutsons’ -house to ask after the battery’s child. Every day when we drilled at -the guns the little girl herself came in her barbaric costume to see -what she called her “shooties,” meaning the cannoneers. - -We had to part with our little girl presently, we being under orders, -and she stationed. As we moved away from the station on our flat cars, -she stood upon the platform, and waved “her kind of a flag” at us, -crying, throwing kisses, and calling out: “Good-by, you good shooties.” - -I think the morals of the battery were distinctly better after this -little episode. - - - - -TWENTY-ONE - - -After the battle of Bull Run, or Manassas, as we called it, the region -north of Fairfax Court House was a No-man’s land. - -Little by little we occupied it during that summer, even to Mason’s -and Munson’s hills. But the process of occupation was slow. When we -pressed forward immediately after the battle all that region was _terra -incognita_. - -About half the people inhabiting it were loyal to one side; about half -to the other. So in asking information we had to be circumspect. - -But we had assurance that the Hopes were loyal to our side. So when -Lieutenant Billy Wilds was sent out with a party of us, on scouting -duty, he naturally went to the Hope mansion for information. - -He got it in abundance. Charlotte Hope, the daughter of the house, -came out to give it to us, and she was very enthusiastic. She was a -brunette, full of life, full of health, and full of enthusiasm for the -cause. Besides, she knew how to sit gracefully on a rail fence. She had -a rich contralto voice that had narrowly escaped being a bass. She -was beautiful to her finger tips. She “had a way with her” that was -fascinating beyond belief. - -As she sat there on the rail fence, explaining the geography of the -region round about, we all fell in love with her as troopers should, so -far at least as to be ready to do any conceivable deed of derring-do -in her behalf. But Lieutenant Wilds fell in love with her in fuller -fashion, as was afterwards made manifest. - -She sat there on the fence curled up most entrancingly and expounded -the geography of the country with great minuteness. But when she tried -to tell us just where a certain strong Federal post was, which we very -much wanted to attack, she grew impatient of words. - -Turning to a negro boy she said: “Saddle Saladin. I’ll go and show -them.” - -Three minutes later she was in the saddle. Half an hour afterwards -Charlie Irving, our captain who had joined us and taken command, -gently ordered her to the rear. As I have related in another book of -reminiscences she refused to obey. She said: “I believe you are going -to charge those fellows, and I want to see the fun.” - -Well, she saw the fun. We made the charge. At the end of it Lieutenant -Wilds was more in love with her than ever. - -As we escorted her back to her home she broke into song. Her song was -the old English ballad which begins:-- - - “In days of old, when knights were bold, - And barons held their sway.” - -As she sang, she laid special stress upon two passages in the ballad. -One was the line where the hero says:-- - - “I’ll live for love or die.” - -The other was, where as death overcomes him he sings:-- - - “I’ve kept the vow I swore.” - -The song seemed, whether prophetically or otherwise, to have entered -this young girl’s soul and to have taken possession of her spirit. - -It was not long afterwards that we learned that our gallant young -lieutenant was engaged to be married to Charlotte Hope. The marriage -was to take place as soon as the war was over. At that time we regarded -this as a postponement of only a few months at most. We expected to win -then and we expected to win quickly. - -Whenever Lieutenant Wilds was sent upon a scouting expedition, he found -it imperatively necessary to call at the Hope mansion for geographical -and other information, though by this time we had all become familiar -with every road and footpath in that quarter of Virginia. - -It was a little fiction we were all pleased to love him for. One day -about a month later, while we were waiting in the yard for Lieutenant -Wilds to secure the necessary geographical information indoors, a -Federal force attacked us. The lieutenant came out promptly, swung -himself into the saddle, and ordered a charge. We fought there under -the cherry trees for full fifteen minutes. At the end of the contest -the enemy was driven away, and we pursued--but three of our saddles -were empty. - -One of them was that of Lieutenant Wilds. - - * * * * * - -It was Charlotte’s wish that Lieutenant Wilds should be buried in the -family grave-yard of the Hopes. It was also her wish that his company -should attend the funeral. - -We brought two other companies along to stand guard and prevent any -possible interruption of the ceremonies. We buried our comrade with all -military honors. We fired the conventional salute over the grave. - -Then we proceeded to attack a military force which had come up, intent -upon disturbing the obsequies. - -But before we moved off, Charlotte, who had been dry-eyed from the -first, came to one of us and said: “He was just twenty-one. It will -take just twenty-one to pay for him.” - - * * * * * - -It was only two or three days later when Charlie Hopper rode into the -camp on a magnificent chestnut-sorrel mare. We did not know him. - -He said he didn’t want to enlist. He merely wanted to join the company. -He explained that if he enlisted he would be a man under pay. And he -didn’t want pay, he said, for the work he wanted to do. Only give him -rations and a chance and he would be satisfied. - -His idea of a chance soon developed itself. He wanted to be as -continually as possible in the presence of the enemy, anywhere, anyhow. -He wanted to shoot all the “Yankees” he could. For that purpose he had -brought with him the first Whitworth rifle I ever saw, with its long -range, its telescopic sights, and its terrible accuracy of fire. - -He seemed about sixteen years old. He didn’t tell us anything about -himself, not even where he came from. But he had a long talk, and a -confidential one, with Charlie Irving. After that Charlie paid him -special attention. He detailed him upon every scouting expedition that -had “business” in it. Sometimes when scouting expeditions were slack, -the young fellow would go off by himself and remain for a day or two in -close proximity to the enemy’s lines. - -Each day he wore upon his breast a little tag with a number on it. - -One day when the number had reached seventeen, he and I lay together -behind a sycamore log, shooting at a peculiarly pestilent picket post. -After one of his shots he called out, “Eighteen.” The next shot was -simultaneous, he and I firing together. The man at whom we fired fell -forward over his log, evidently dead. - -Charlie Hopper turned to me and said: “You fired at the same moment I -did; it’s a disputed bird. I can’t count him.” - -Full of curiosity I asked: “What do you mean, Hopper?” - -He answered: “Nothing--Just counting--Settling a score!” - -It was only a few days later when we were at Falls Church. Young -Hopper’s score read twenty, when he asked permission to ride out and -personally encounter an officer who had separated himself from his -command. The permission was given. Hopper leaped upon his mare, drew -his sword, and galloped toward the officer. They met in mid field. The -officer fired just as the boy clove him to the saddle. Hopper fell -forward on his horse and rode back to the lines. - -As he rolled off the saddle, he said: “I’m done for, boys, but I’ve -made it twenty-one without counting a single disputed bird.” Then, -feebly, he broke into song, singing,-- - - “I’ve kept the vow I swore.” - -Before we buried him in the _Hope cemetery_ the next day, the captain -told me that Charlie Hopper was none other than Charlotte Hope. - -But I had guessed the secret that day when she had refused to count the -“disputed bird.” - - - - -A BEEF EPISODE - - -We had no rations at Bluffton, in South Carolina. - -The sea was there with its multitudinous fish, and crabs and shrimps, -and with its mountainous banks of oysters. There were turkeys and deer -and squirrels in the woods, and quail and marsh fowl in the fields. We -were expected to take care of ourselves. - -But one cannot shoot turkeys, or deer, or squirrels with a -twelve-pounder Napoleon. And as for the sea food, while we rejoiced in -it for a time, we became desperately weary of it after a while. - -We began, therefore, to frequent Bull Island. Bull Island lay near -Hilton Head, which the enemy occupied. Bull Island had been abandoned -at the beginning of the war, and the cattle on the plantations there -had gone wild, breeding as buffalo might. - -Here was a source of supply. We resolved to avail ourselves of it. -About twice a week we sent expeditions over there in whale-boats, and -killed a bullock or a cow or two, dressed the meat and brought it home, -taking care to bring the skin also, in order that our half-crazy -doctor might experiment on it with his new process for quick tanning. -As an incident, I may remark that not one of us ever got a pair of -boots out of those hides. - -The enemy on Hilton Head were also more or less in lack of beef. They, -too, discovered Bull Island, and frequented it with a purpose similar -to our own. - -One day Joe went over there with sixteen men in a boat carrying -that number of oars, and pretty well rigged for sailing. He had no -sooner got his command into the cane-brake in search of cattle, than -he discovered a party of Federals immediately in front of him. In -the dense growth of the forest he could have no idea whatever of -his enemy’s strength. His one thought was, to avoid the capture of -his force. To that end he must make as brave a show of strength as -possible. He therefore ordered his little squad of men to scatter -themselves out over a line of three or four hundred yards, and to keep -up as continuous a fire as possible. - -The enemy’s line seemed to be of about equal length, and their fire -about the same as his. It was a little before ten o’clock in the -morning when this thing began, and it was not until after dusk that the -two forces sneaked simultaneously to their boats. - -Neither had any beef, and each discovered that the other was -numerically about equal to itself. - -So far as we were ever able to discover, nobody had been killed or -wounded on either side. A day had been wasted in futile firing through -the cane. Both sides had been disappointed of their provisions. - -Neither had injured the other, neither had gained any benefit, and the -cattle had had a good time. - -Thirty years afterwards Joe and the sergeant on the other side met, -and one said to the other: “After all it would have been better if we -had turned our backs on each other that day. There were cattle on both -sides.” The other answered: “Yes, but that would have been the wise way -of peace; we were engaged in the barbarism of war.” - - - - -BERNARD POLAND’S PROPHECY - - -I do not pretend to understand it at all. - -The best theories I have ever been able to form, whether physiological -or psychological, or a mixture of the two, have utterly failed to -account to my mind for the facts in Bernard Poland’s case. - -I tell the story, therefore, without trying to explain it. - -In the year 1857 I became a student in a Virginian college not far from -Richmond. When I took possession of my quarters in the building three -or four days before the session began, I was an entire stranger to -every one there. As I had already spent two years in another college, -I knew the importance of using circumspection in the choice of friends -in such a place, so that I was in no hurry to make acquaintances. It -was my deliberate purpose, indeed, to avoid all intercourse with my -fellow-students, until such time as I should discover who and what they -were. - -But one morning--the next after my arrival, I think it was--as I sat in -the great stone portico, two students, evidently old acquaintances, -and both of them members of the college during the previous year, stood -near me discussing some matter or other, I forget what. - -The younger was bantering and teasing the other by expressing all sorts -of unconventional, radical, and even revolutionary opinions, which his -friend took the trouble seriously to combat, greatly to the younger -man’s amusement, as I could see. Their conversation did not impress -me in the least, except as it revealed to me something in the younger -man’s mind and character which fascinated me unaccountably. - -His age was about the same as mine. His scholarship was about equally -advanced, as I learned when we entered the same class. Like myself he -had been an omnivorous reader; but where I had read with a disposition -to select and criticise and differ, he appeared to have read with the -most hospitable mind I ever knew. He gave at least a _quasi_-belief to -everything that literature had to offer for his entertainment. He was -very slender, even to frailty of body. He had a thin and not handsome -face, rather sharp features, lips on which there was a singularly -joyous smile, and great gray eyes filled with an extraordinary sadness. -The mouth and eyes contradicted each other so flatly, that during all -the years of our acquaintance I was never quite able to persuade myself -that they properly belonged to the same countenance; that one or the -other portion of the face was not always hiding behind a mask. The -effect was indescribable; and among all the men and women I have ever -known I have seen nothing else like it. - -I knew nothing about the man except as I had caught from conversation -that his name was Bernard Poland. Yet the moment I saw him, and -listened to his chatter, I made up my mind that he should be my closest -friend. I felt that between him and me there would grow up that -intellectual sympathy which is the only secure basis of friendship -between men. - -Not that he and I were at all alike in any way. Indeed, two more -utterly unlike personalities it would be difficult to find or imagine. -I was serious; he playful, always. I was robust and inclined to plume -myself somewhat upon my muscularity; while he was delicate both in -frame and health, and cared next to nothing for any of the rougher -sports in which I took almost an insane delight. Intellectually, too, -we were exact opposites, as I have already hinted. I was inclined -to doubt and to question all things, rejecting all that I failed -to comprehend and account for; he was something of a mystic--not -superstitious, but abounding in faith, and still more in the -possibilities of faith. - -He was never quite ready, dogmatically, to reject anything, however -incapable of proof it might be, so long as it was also incapable of -positive and conclusive refutation. - -He was not credulous exactly, yet he scouted no superstition which was -not either manifestly or demonstrably absurd. - -All this I learned afterwards, however. At present I was not even -acquainted with him, though I had made up my mind to introduce myself -after the free and easy manner that obtains among schoolmates. - -When he had finished his bantering talk with his fellow-student, he -walked away to his room, which was in sight as I sat there in the -portico. The other student strolled down the roadway leading to the -great gates. He had no sooner gone than Bernard Poland came out again, -and walking up to me said: “You and I ought to be friends, and will be, -I think. My name is Bernard Poland. What’s yours? This is a singular -way to introduce oneself, but I can’t help it. The moment I saw you -sitting there I made up my mind that you and I would be chums. What do -you say, old fellow?” - -To say that I was astonished is to express my feelings feebly. I was -startled, almost frightened, at his words, which were identically -those that I had been revolving in my mind as a possible or impossible -introductory address to him. - -We were friends at once. And though I have known many other -friendships, I have known none closer or more satisfactory than that -then formed with Bernard Poland. We became, as he said, “Chums.” - -During the long vacation Bernard spent many weeks with me at my home, -and I in turn visited him in a delightful old Virginian house, where -father, mother, brother, and sister held him in tenderest regard as -their chief object of affection. - -After our college days were done we missed no opportunity of spending -a day or a week together, our affection suffering no diminution and -knowing no change. - -One day in 1859, or about that time, we were riding together over -a beautiful region in Northern Virginia. We talked of a hundred -things, as was our custom. Among them a number of metaphysical and -psychological things came up for discussion. - -“Do you know,” said Bernard presently, “I sometimes think prophecy -isn’t so strange a thing after all as most people think it. I really -see no reason why any earnest man might not be able to foresee the -future now and then in moments of exaltation.” - -“There’s reason enough to my mind,” I replied, “in the fact that future -events do not exist as yet. We cannot know that which is not, though we -may shrewdly guess it at times. But when we do, we are only arguing -from known or suspected causes to their necessary consequences. And -that is in no proper sense prophecy at all.” - -“Your argument is good enough, but the premises are bad, I think,” -replied my friend, meditatively, his mouth wreathed with a smile, but -his great sad eyes looking solemnly into mine. - -“How so?” I asked. - -“Why! I doubt the truth of your assumption that future events do not -exist as yet.” - -“Well, go on; I’m ready to hear your explanation or your theory or -whatever else it is,” said I, laughingly. - -“Oh, I don’t know that the idea is mine at all. I suppose that -others have gone over the ground before me, though I think, perhaps, -my application of the thought is new. What I have in mind is this: -Past and Future are only divisions of TIME. They do not belong at -all to Eternity. We, living in Time, cannot divest ourselves of its -trammels. We cannot conceive of any event without assigning a Time -relation to it; without investing it with the trammels and harness and -paraphernalia of Time. To us every event must be Past, or Future, with -reference to other events. But is there, in reality, any such thing as -a Past or a Future? If there is any such thing as Eternity, it now is -and always has been and ever must be. Time is a mere delusion: a false -medium, through which we look at things askant. As there can be no such -thing as Time in Eternity, there can be no such thing there as a Past -or a Future event. If Eternity is anything more than Time exaggerated -and extended,--if, indeed, there is any such thing as Eternity,--it is -not subject to the laws and conditions of Time. There can be no Past -and no Future there; but only an Eternal NOW. - -“The absolute truth is not that which we see through a distorting -medium of Time, but that which we should see if we were in Eternity and -freed from the illusions of Time. To beings who see thus clearly and -truthfully, all things must exist in an eternal Present. All things -that have been or shall be, _now are_. What we call ‘Memory,’ is only -a mode of consciousness, and to know a Future event is a precisely -similar mode of consciousness. Memory and prevision are only different -ways of knowing a fact that now is. I see no reason to regard the one -as any more truly impossible than the other. - -“I grant that in its ordinary Time-clogged state the mind is not -capable of discovering those occurrences which to us seem future ones. -But it seems to me that there are, or at least may be, conditions of -mind in which one rises above the trammels of Time and sees things as -they are. Every true poet is at times a prophet by reason of this -exaltation of soul. And all the well-attested prophets are poets of the -first order.” - -My friend had no opportunity to finish, nor I to reply to his -wire-drawn metaphysics, as we were joined at this stage of the -conversation by an acquaintance of the earth earthy, whose talk was of -crops. - -When he quitted us we were nearing a line of hills to which Bernard -directed my attention. - -“There!” he exclaimed. “That would make a magnificent battlefield.” - -I knew his enthusiastic fondness for the study of military history and -the details of battles. In common with most other people who have seen -nothing of war, I had never been able to picture a battle in my mind; -and in reading history I had always found it difficult to comprehend -the topographical descriptions of battlefields, or to understand the -influence of hill and dale, of copse and stream, upon the issue of a -combat. Bernard had mastered the whole subject. He had often moulded in -soft earth for my instruction miniature, but exact, representations of -many famous battlefields. - -The ground we were on was a chain of hills crossing a public -thoroughfare, and my friend soon grew enthusiastic in his account of -how one army would be posted here, and the other there; how the flanks -of each would rest upon certain protected points and how the attacking -force would try to carry this or that position. - -“If the attacking general knows his business,” he said, “he will strain -every nerve to drive his adversary from that little knoll there. And -if he succeeds in planting a battery or two there, properly supported, -his enemy will have to charge him out of the place or reconstruct his -own lines, and to reconstruct them will cost him half the value of his -position.” - -A new look came into Bernard’s face. The smile had gone from his -lips, the great sad look was in his eyes. Gazing at me with intense -earnestness, he cried out: “He _must_ drive them back. If they once -hold that knoll--” - -Bernard paused, grew very pale, and then said with some difficulty with -his vocal organs: “Let’s gallop away from here.” - -I followed his retreating form, and when we drew rein again, we were a -full mile distant from the place of this field lecture. My friend had -meantime regained his color and composure, but the old smile had not -yet returned to his lips. - -“Are you ill, Bernard?” I asked. - -“No, I am quite well, thank you.” - -“Then what--” - -“I’ll tell you all about it if you won’t laugh at me,” he said, his -lips resuming something of their ordinary expression. “The fact is, all -that was prophecy, or prevision, or what you please to call it. While -I was explaining an imaginary and possible battle, it became real. -THAT BATTLE IS A FACT. I saw the two armies as plainly as I see you, -and when the enemy planted that battery there on the hill, driving our -forces away, I was among the troops ordered to charge them as a forlorn -hope, and _I fell right there, in front of the guns, riddled with -canister shot_. I was ahead of the line, for some reason, and just as I -fell our men were driven back by a counter-charge right over my body. -My friend, prevision is possible. Prevision is a fact. The battle, the -charge, the counter-charge, and my death, right there, are what we call -Future events. But I know them now as well as I know anything else. I -saw it all. I know it for truth.” - -I was horrified. I tried to draw his mind away from the distressing -picture he had conjured up. He seeing my purpose said: “I am not -demented, and this doesn’t trouble me in the least. It is all fact, but -I am not unhappy about it. I turned pale, it is true--any man would -with half a dozen canister shot passing through his body. But I am not -frightened, not demoralized, and not in the least apprehensive. I don’t -know when all this is to happen, and as our country is at peace with -all the world, I think it is not likely that the battle will come soon. -BUT IT WILL COME. Be sure of that. Now let’s talk of something else.” - -With that he resolutely dismissed the subject, and he never referred to -it again. - - * * * * * - -During the terrible campaign of 1864, the command to which I belonged, -after a hard day’s march, was sent at ten o’clock at night to take post -upon the line. - -All night long we lay there expecting the furious onset of the enemy, -whose plan it seemed to be to keep us perpetually marching or fighting. - -With the early dawn came the battle. And as daylight revealed the -features of the newly chosen battlefield, I recognized it as precisely -the one that Bernard and I had ridden over several years before. On my -right, less than half a mile away, a furious struggle was in progress. -I looked and saw our troops driven back from the little eminence on -which he and I had stood. The enemy hurried two batteries forward, and -planting them there opened a fierce, enfilading fire upon that part of -the line in which I stood. - -I saw at once that if those batteries should remain there, we must -retire and reconstruct our lines. We stood our ground, however, in the -hope that the critical position might be recovered. Quickly an attempt -was made to that end. A heavy body of infantry was thrown forward -with desperate impulse, and straining my eyes with an intensity of -eagerness, which I had never felt before, I saw one slender form in -advance of the line. A dense volume of powder smoke immediately shut -out the view. - -When it cleared away the enemy’s batteries were still there. Our men -had been repulsed. A minute later a second charge was made and it -proved successful. - -But I knew that I had lost a friend there. - -The battle over, I scanned every list of killed and wounded I could -find, but could learn nothing of my friend from them. I had every -reason to believe that he was not there at all. He had been taken -prisoner some months before and paroled. When I had last heard from -him he was quietly pursuing his studies at home while waiting for his -exchange. - -I tried to console myself with this and with the reflection that the -partial fulfilment of his prophecy was quite accidental and constituted -no reason for assuming its complete fulfilment. - -We were on the march or in action all the time, too; and I had plenty -of occupation with which to drive depressing thoughts from my mind. - -We finally sat down before Petersburg, and the eternity of an eight -months’ siege began. I was sent to Richmond on some military errand, -and while there availed myself of the opportunity to visit some friends. - -[Illustration: THE LAST THAT WAS SEEN OF BERNARD POLAND.] - -“Where is Bernard?” I asked as lightly as I could, of one who was -intimate with his family. - -“Haven’t you heard?” he replied. “The poor fellow was exchanged in the -spring, was elected first lieutenant of a company, and was killed, it -is supposed, in one of the battles, I forget which. He was in command -of his company, when it was ordered to charge some field batteries on -a little hill, and his men say he was last seen ten or a dozen feet in -advance of the line, just before a counter-charge drove them back. As -the counter-charge was preceded immediately by a volley of canister, -the smoke hid him from view. But there seems to be no doubt that he -fell there, riddled with canister shot.” - -A few days later I received a letter from one of Bernard’s brother -officers, in which, after recapitulating the facts already set forth, -he went on to say: “Before we were ordered to the charge, Bernard -specially requested me, in the event of his death that day, to write -you an exact description of the spot on which he fell. He said, ‘He -will remember it.’ Though what he meant by that, I have never been able -to guess. But in loyalty to the love I bore him, I have taken this -first opportunity to comply with the last request he made on earth.” - -The author of that letter who now occupies a prominent position in -public life will understand, after reading this sketch, what Bernard -meant in saying that I would remember the spot on which he fell. - - - - -A BREACH OF ETIQUETTE - - -We had marched nearly all night, in order to join Jeb Stuart at the -time appointed. This was in the early summer of 1861. - -We regarded ourselves with more or less of self-pity, as -sleep-sacrificing heroes, who were clearly entitled to a full day’s -rest. - -Jeb Stuart didn’t look at it in that way at all. He was a soldier, -while we were just beginning to learn how to be soldiers. These things -make a difference. - -We hadn’t got our tents pitched when he ordered us out for a scouting -expedition under his personal command. - -Our army lay at Winchester. The enemy was at Martinsburg, twenty-two -miles away. Stuart, with his four or five hundred horsemen, lay at -Bunker Hill, about half-way between but a little nearer to the enemy -than to his supports. That was always Stuart’s way. - -In our scouting expedition that day, we had two or three “brushes” with -the enemy--“just to get us used to it,” Stuart said. - -Finally we went near to Martinsburg, and came upon a farmhouse. The -farm gave no appearance of being a large one, or one more than -ordinarily prosperous, yet we saw through the open door a dozen or -fifteen “farm hands” eating dinner, all of them in their shirt-sleeves. - -Stuart rode up, with a few of us at his back, to make inquiries, and we -dismounted. Just then a slip of a girl,--not over fourteen, I should -say--accompanied by a thick-set, young bull-dog, with an abnormal -development of teeth, ran up to us. - -_She distinctly and unmistakably “sicked” that dog upon us._ But as -the beast assailed us, the young girl ran after him and restrained his -ardor by throwing her arms around his neck. As she did so, she kept -repeating in a low but very insistent tone to us: “Make ’em put their -coats on! Make ’em put their coats on! Make ’em put their coats on!” - -Stuart was a peculiarly ready person. He said not one word to the -young girl as she led her dog away, but with a word or two he -directed a dozen or so of us to follow him with cocked carbines into -the dining-room. There he said to the “farm hands”: “Don’t you know -that a gentleman never dines without his coat? Aren’t you ashamed of -yourselves? And ladies present, too! Get up and put on your coats, -every man jack of you, or I’ll riddle you with bullets in five seconds.” - -They sprang first of all into the hallway, where they had left their -arms; but either the bull-dog or the fourteen-year-old girl had taken -care of that. The arms were gone. Then seeing the carbines levelled, -they made a hasty search of the hiding-places in which they had -bestowed their coats. A minute later they appeared as fully uniformed, -but helplessly unarmed Pennsylvania volunteers. - -They were prisoners of war at once, without even an opportunity to -finish that good dinner. As we left the house the young girl came up -to Stuart and said: “Don’t say anything about it; but the dog wouldn’t -have bit you. He knows which side _we’re_ on in this war.” - -As we rode away this young girl--she of the bull-dog--cried out: “To -think the wretches made us give ’em dinner! And in their shirt-sleeves, -too!” - - - - -THE LADY OF THE GREEN BLIND - - -The house looked a little bit odd, but we made allowances for the -times, although this was in 1861, soon after the battle of Manassas. - -There were seven windows in front, and they all had white shades except -one. That one had a dark green Holland blind. We remarked on the fact -when the blind was put up, but we thought little of it until we were -instructed one day to watch that blind at night and report its doings. - -There was a Federal picket post near the house. - -We reported many of the performances of that blind without any visible -results. But one night it was suddenly drawn entirely down, having -before been rolled entirely to the top. When that was reported to the -company’s headquarters under a tree, a little way in the rear, the -captain immediately ordered us to mount. - -We rode at a swinging gallop up to the house, and under quietly given -orders seized the eleven horses that were tied in the grounds. A -moment later a force of dismounted cavalrymen came out of the house -with a woman in charge. It was pitch dark, even to us. To men right -from the light, and standing within the glare of the doorway, the night -must have been absolutely blinding. - -We could have shot down the whole detachment without difficulty, but we -understood in a moment that there was a woman to be rescued, and in a -volley her danger would have been as great as theirs. - -We waited therefore for orders. - -Then it was that the captain invented a totally new cavalry manœuvre, -with a marching command wholly unknown to the books on tactics. He said -to us in a low, quiet, but incisive voice: “Form quickly in two single -files; advance and split the girl out. I’ll take her on my crupper.” - -It was a pretty manœuvre, and as Charlie rode out between the two -single files with the young woman on the crupper, we cheered quite as -lustily as we fired. Then we didn’t know exactly what to do. We had an -appreciation of the fact that Charlie wanted to get the woman out of -range as quickly as possible. But we also had a realizing sense, drawn -from experience, of Charlie Irving’s extreme reluctance to ride away -from an enemy who could be faced. - -It was Field Mann, the orderly sergeant, who saw the right way out. He -called out to us, in quite unmilitary language: “Don’t retreat, boys, -Charlie’s sure to come back as soon’s he’s got her safe; meantime we’ll -fight ’em. Form in line under the cherry trees.” - -We had them at a disadvantage. They were still in the glare of light -from the windows, while we were in the darkness, and we were sixty -mounted men to eleven cavalrymen, whose horses had been captured. -Moreover we had carbines, and they had none. - -By the time we had made an alignment under the trees, and before Field -Mann could give another order, the captain came running up on foot, -leaped into the saddle of one of the captured horses, and quickly gave -a command that completely surrounded the house. - -We had those men penned; but just then their comrades at the -neighboring picket post discovered that there was trouble on hand, and -advanced upon us. - -It was an exciting fight there in the darkness and under the trees, -so exciting that Stuart quickly sent two other companies to our -reinforcement. - -At the end of an hour, we marched back with some prisoners; the rest of -our foes had scattered and disappeared. When we got to the camp-fires -behind the hills, Charlie Irving dismounted, and greeting the lady, -who was laboriously mending a torn gown with a hairpin, said: “I hope -you managed to ride Selim? He’s a demon sometimes, and not at all -courteous to ladies. But there was nothing for it but to trust you to -him.” She murmured something courteous in reply. Then turning with -blazing eyes to the Federal officer who had been in command of the -party, she asked: “What were you going to do with me, if I hadn’t been -rescued?” - -He replied: “I suppose you would have been hanged as a spy.” - -And it was true. - -After breakfast the next day--I remember that breakfast consisted of -some green corn taken from a neighboring field and roasted in the ashes -with the husks on, and by the way that’s the best way to cook green -corn--we escorted the lady back to her home, and under Stuart’s orders -stationed two cavalry companies in front as a guard. - -There is no doubt, I suppose, that the lady was a spy, and that her -green window blind had communicated much valuable information. - -But no; there was no courtship, no marriage, no honeymoon, no romance, -to follow. The lady was forty-five, if a day; and besides that, Irving -was already engaged to a girl down South. - - - - -YOUNGBLOOD’S LAST MORNING - - -We were all well used to seeing men shot, but this was different. - -It was a soft, warm, mellow autumn morning. It was a day suggestive of -all gentleness. A purple, Indian-summer haze enveloped the earthworks -and the camps. Nature had issued an invitation to peace and repose. -The cannon were not at work. Nobody on either side had been tempted -to bombard anybody else. Even the mortars and the sharp-shooters were -still. - -It was not the kind of morning for the bloody work of war. - -Yet a young man was to be killed within the hour. He was to be killed -deliberately, in cold blood, by sentence of a court-martial, and with -great pomp and ceremony; and nobody, even in his heart, could say nay -to the justice of the sentence. - -For Youngblood had done an infamous thing. - -There were many desertions to the enemy about that time. The war was -manifestly drawing to a close, and men who lacked self-sacrificing -devotion were getting tired of its hardships and privations. In order -to stop these desertions, orders had been issued that any soldier -arresting another in the act of going to the enemy should have a thirty -days’ furlough. - -Youngblood was on picket one day with another man. He proposed to that -other man that they both should desert, and they started together -toward the enemy’s lines. According to Youngblood’s story, it was his -purpose to arrest his comrade, and thus earn a furlough at the expense -of the other fellow’s life. Whether this story was true or not doesn’t -much matter. The other fellow arrested him. - -In any case, he deserved to pay the penalty he did. He was tried, -convicted, and sentenced. The sentence was approved by all the -authorities, including the war department. This morning it was to be -carried out. - -It was about ten o’clock, Youngblood’s regiment was formed into three -sides of a hollow square. Near the entrance to the square, on the -right, rested Youngblood’s coffin. Beside it was Youngblood’s grave. - -Presently an ambulance drove up, bearing the prisoner and his attendant -guards. As he stepped lightly and lithely from the ambulance, we saw -him to be a fine specimen of young manhood. He was twenty-three or -twenty-four years of age; tall, well built, and full of elastic vigor. -He was handsome, too, and of refined and gentle countenance. - -There was no sign of flinching in him: nothing that denoted the coward -which his explanation of his crime had shown him to be. - -It seemed something more than a pity to put a fellow like that to death. - -He took his place in front of the guards and just in rear of the band, -and the dead march began. - -He walked alone. - -Slowly, and with cadenced step, the procession moved around inside the -square. And as it passed me, I was curious to observe the condemned -man’s behavior. His step was as steady and as firm as that of any man -in the guard. I looked at his hands to see if there were any convulsive -clutching of the fingers. There was none. I doubt if any man in all -that regiment felt so calm in mind or so well poised in nerve as -Youngblood looked. - -Having completed the seemingly endless march around the three closed -sides of the square, the procession turned to the right, and crossed -its open end to the point of execution. - -There an officer stepped forward and read to Youngblood the findings -and sentence of the court which had condemned him, with the formal -endorsements approving them and ordering the sentence executed. The -guard which had the prisoner in charge divided to the right and left, -and Youngblood was left standing alone in front of his coffin, and -beside his open grave. - -At the word of command he knelt upon the coffin and folded his arms -across his chest. Again at the word of command twelve soldiers stepped -out in front of him with guns in their hands. Six of these guns carried -ball cartridges, and six were blank. No man in the firing squad was -permitted to know whether his gun had a bullet in it or not. - -The officer in command spoke scarcely above his breath, but so hushed -was the time that his words were audible to the three thousand men -there assembled, as he said to each alternate man: “Fire at his head,” -and to the intervening man: “Fire at his chest.” Then turning his back, -which was perhaps not an officer-like thing to do, the lieutenant gave -in a husky voice the word of command. - -“Ready, aim, fire.” - -There was a sharp crack from twelve rifles fired simultaneously. There -was a whirr and whistle of six bullets that had passed through the head -or chest of the doomed man, and hurtled off into the fields beyond. -Army rifles fire with tremendous force. - -The dead man’s body rose to its feet and fell limply forward. - -Five minutes later all that was left of Youngblood was buried beneath -six feet of earth. - -There was no merriment in any of the camps that day, or the next, or -the next. Even our scant rations were not much relished by those of us -who had witnessed this scene. - -And yet, as I said at the beginning, we were all well used to seeing -men killed. - - - - -BILLY GOODWIN - - -I never have known whether Billy Goodwin was a brave man or not. - -He was certainly not afraid of anything; but the absence of fear from -his composition was so complete that I was always in doubt whether he -was entitled to credit for never yielding to that emotion. - -His fearlessness seemed like the color of his sandy hair and his pale -blue eyes--something over which he had no control. - -At Cold Harbor, in 1864, when an artillery duel was going on, plus -a tremendous sharp-shooter fire, Billy, with his back to the enemy, -lazily lounged upon the breastworks. All the rest of us were crouching -behind them. - -I remember as an incident that he was eating a sandwich. It was -composed of two halves of a hard-tack biscuit and a slice of raw -pickled pork--his entire rations for the day. He was carefully holding -his hand under his chin, in order to save all the crumbs. We weren’t -wasting crumbs in those days. - -A lieutenant, who had already been mentioned in orders for gallantry, -cautiously pushed up his head to peer over the breastworks on which -Goodwin was sitting. Billy placed his hand upon the prematurely bald -head of the lieutenant, shoved him down, and said: “Keep below the -dirt, or you’ll get a bullet through your billiard ball. Don’t you know -this is no time to be exposing yourself?” - -I have elsewhere celebrated Billy. In doing so I have suggested that, -while he had a high sense of personal duty, he had no sense whatever of -personal danger. - -On that terrible 30th of August, 1864, when the mine was exploded at -Petersburg, Goodwin was detailed to act as courier for General Lee and -General Beauregard. - -A Northern negro soldier had broken somehow out of the crater and -through the lines. He rushed madly into headquarters. He struck -frantically at General Lee with his bayonet. General Beauregard parried -the blow with his sword. The negro turned and ran out of the door. -Beauregard, in his excitement, called out to Goodwin, “Go and kill that -man!” - -Stepping quickly, as was his custom, Billy gave pursuit. A few moments -later he returned. He presented himself in all his superb length -of limb. He gave the military salute to General Beauregard. When -that officer asked: “What is it, orderly?” Billy replied: “I beg -respectfully to report that I have killed that man in accordance with -orders.” - -That was Billy. As a soldier he was a good kind. He obeyed all orders -without questioning them. He did all his duties as he understood them. -But, as I have said, I have never been able to determine whether he was -really a brave man, or whether he was merely a man so constituted as to -be insensible to personal danger. - -But I will say this for Billy, which may help to decide this point,-- - -We were marching from Spottsylvania to Cold Harbor. We marched for -fifty-six hours at the double quick. Now and then we had to fight at -the quadruple quick. We had no food. We had no sleep. We had no rest. - -Near the end of this tremendous strain Billy came to me under a tree, -where I was snatching a five minutes’ repose. He said, with an air of -great mystery: “I’ve got a coon for my mess. I bought it of a nigger -back there. So I don’t want this piece of corn-bread. I wish you’d take -it. I know you’re hungry.” - -We did not readily accept food from each other in those days, lest we -starve each other. - -I struggled to resist this proffer, but Billy insisted on that coon as -satisfying all his personal wants. At last, therefore, I accepted the -three or four ounces of powder-grimed corn-bread which he pressed upon -me. - -I learned afterwards that Billy had lied. - -There wasn’t any coon. - - - - -MANASSAS - - -I call it Manassas. - -That is the name we Southerners gave it. We won that battle more -completely and more conspicuously than any other battle was won by -either side during the Civil War. - -It is the right of the victor always to name the action. We named it -Manassas. In the North it is called Bull Run. - -We reached Manassas after two days and nights of ceaseless marching, at -ten o’clock on the evening of the 20th of July, 1861. - -We knew that trouble was at hand; otherwise Stuart would not have swung -us at such a breakneck speed across the mountains from the valley to -this point. We were six hundred strong. - -Six hundred young Virginians, cradled in the saddle, and who had shot -wild turkeys as soon as we were able to digest them. There was another -battalion of cavalry present, under Colonel Radford, numbering perhaps -three hundred men. But the story had gone forth in the Northern army -that we were thirty thousand of the finest horsemen ever known since -the days of the Mamelukes. - -That story had its part in creating the panic at Manassas. - -I believe we were good horsemen. There were men among us who might -have given the Mamelukes points, both in horsemanship and in the use -of the sabre. But if our nine hundred men had been the thirty thousand -reported, we should have thundered into Washington on the night of -Sunday, July 21, 1861, and would have ended the war then and there, -in spite of the presidential stupidity which feared that “aggression” -might anger a people with whom we were at war. - -We lay that night in an open field, each man having his horse tethered -to his left arm, and each man booted, spurred, sabred, and pistolled -for instant action. - -The bugle sounded no reveille that morning. A shell from the enemy’s -camp, which fell in the midst of the regiment, saved the bugler the -trouble. - -With a laugh, which was almost a chuckle, Stuart called out: “That’s -‘boots and saddles,’ boys,” and in an instant we were on our horses. - -The first great battle of the war had begun. - -It was not until noon, or nearly that, that the cavalry had any real -work to do. I didn’t look at my watch, but it must have been about -noon when Stuart swept us at a tremendous pace through a regiment or -two of Zouaves, and back again over the same ground. I saw no Zouaves -for the reason that there was too much dust to see anything; but it was -understood when the charge was over, that we had driven them back. And -half a dozen empty saddles in our own ranks attested the fact that they -had not been driven back without a stubborn and manly resistance. - -A little later, we cavalrymen were ordered up to the support of some -batteries that had temporarily run out of ammunition. Our reputation as -Mamelukes sufficed at that point to prevent a charge, so that our real -work in the battle did not begin until the panic in McDowell’s army set -in. - -Then Stuart rose in his stirrups and shouted at the top of his voice: -“They’re licked, boys! They’re licked! They’re licked!” - -Then hastily he rattled off orders. The substance of them was that we -were to divide the cavalry into squads of ten and twenty men each, and -proceed at once in pursuit. - -“If there aren’t officers, and non-commissioned officers enough, let -anybody command a squad. This is business.” - -As the several squads started at a gallop after the enemy, Stuart -called out to each: “Attack any force you find. There is no cohesion -left among ’em.” - -In that command he struck the key-note of the whole situation. Seasoned -soldier that he was, he knew that without cohesion, soldiers are -helpless, and numbers count for nothing. - -We plunged forward across every ford and along every road that led -from Bull Run towards Centreville. At every point we found “chaos come -again.” - -A squad of ten men, armed only with sabres and pistols, but backed by -the Mameluke tradition, would call out to eighty or a hundred fully -armed infantry: “Throw down your arms, or we’ll put you to the sword! -Throw down your arms, or we’ll put you to the sword!” - -The panic-stricken men would obey the order instantly, disregarding the -fact that with a single volley they might have swept the insolent squad -instantly out of existence. - -It was not merely that the army was panic stricken. It was encumbered -at every step by a multitude of embarrassing picnickers,--a multitude -of men and women who had come out from Washington to see us -exterminated and to join in a triumphal march to Richmond. These people -had brought out with them more superfluous provisions than our army had -eaten for a fortnight. They abandoned their luxuries in the middle of -the road and ran. They left champagne enough unopened for a regiment -to swim in. They fled precipitately, adding at every step by their own -insensate fear to the panic that had already overtaken the troops. - -Men cut horses out of vehicles that held helpless women, and madly -mounting them abandoned their charges and their duties, in order to -escape a present and impending danger to themselves. Fortunately for -their charges, the Southerners were not making war on women. - -Every woman was instantly assured of her own personal safety. Every -horse that was left behind was hitched at once to a vehicle, and the -vehicle loaded with women was started under an assurance of safe -conduct towards Washington. When the supply of abandoned horses fell -short, it was made good by animals from our batteries, and now and -then by the riderless horse of one of the Mamelukes who had received a -mortal wound. - -Along the roads we found many dead men, for whose deaths no coroner -would have been able to account--men utterly destitute of wounds, who -had died clearly either of fright, or of exhaustion, or of both. - -At Cub Run, an ambulance or a caisson broke down on the bridge and -obstructed it. The obstruction almost instantly caused a congestion of -two or three thousand panic-stricken soldiers and picnickers on the -hither side of the stream. - -Then came Kemper with his guns. He was as black as a negro with powder -smoke. His cannoneers were equally begrimed. From the top of a hill, -not more than two hundred yards distant,--pistol-shot range,--he opened -fire with canister. The effect upon the crowd was instantaneous and -almost startling. Its constituent members dispersed as a covey of -partridges does when a shot-gun is fired into its lurking place. Some -of them ran up the creek. Some of them ran down the creek. Some of them -plunged into the creek, and crossed or drowned, as the case may be. - -It was just then that Stuart rode up and cried out: “We’ll go into -Washington to-night, boys. And my headquarters will be at Willard’s -Hotel.” - -It was just then also that couriers came, bearing the paralyzing -presidential order to stop the pursuit at Cub Run. - -It was just then that the despondency of the Mamelukes began. - -A little later it rained. - - - - -MY LAST NIGHT ON PICKET - - -My period of service in the cavalry was about to expire. I was not -tired of the cavalry service; on the contrary, I was very much in love -with it. Any full-blooded man must have been so under such leadership -as Stuart’s. - -But for reasons pertaining to Joe, I had sought and obtained a transfer -to the artillery. - -Joe was just sixteen. - -The infantry regiment in which he had gone out had been so cut -to pieces in a fierce fight that it was dissolved. Joe and a -bullet-riddled flag were about all there was left of it. - -Therefore Joe had enlisted in a battery of artillery. He was as brave -a fellow as is made, and as cantankerous and self-assertive as a brave -boy is apt to be. I felt it necessary to be with him to keep him -from being unnecessarily killed or court-martialled, and to exercise -over him that mature, paternal influence which the superior age of -twenty-one justified. - -This was my last night of cavalry service. It was late autumn in 1861. -The company was ordered on picket at Fairfax Court House. The enemy -was very urgent just then, and gave us a good deal of trouble on the -picket lines. - -I was ordered to a post underneath a very broad and low spreading tree, -so that when I sat upon my horse I was not visible from the thicket in -front, and would not have been even if it had been broad daylight. - -That thicket was full of sharp-shooters, and when I went on post about -seven o’clock in the evening, I was instructed to preserve absolute -silence in self-protection, and warned that it would probably not be -possible to relieve me until morning. - -My mare was a restless creature at ordinary times, but she had learned -the whole art of picket duty. If I had been anywhere else, she would -have champed the bit, and pawed the ground, and snorted in her -restlessness. Standing there at night, with a bullet whistling over her -head every minute or two, she was as still as the traditional mouse. - -I sat there all night on her back with pistols drawn, and in a silence -such as nobody but a picket thus placed ever maintains. - -Just as the day was dawning, or rather just as the gray in the eastern -sky began to suggest the possibility of dawn, a sergeant crawling on -his belly approached me from the rear. In a whisper I called out, “Who -goes there?” He, also in a whisper, let me know his identity. He had -come to order my withdrawal from the post. - -Not until we had reached a point a hundred yards in the rear was -anything further said. There I found the company drawn up in line with -Charlie Irving at its head. - -“Many shots from the thicket?” asked Charlie. - -“Two or three to the minute,” I answered, “throughout the night.” - -“All right,” he replied, “we’ll scoop those fellows in; they’re getting -to be obnoxious.” - -Then in a low tone he told us precisely what we were to do, and we -were to do it without further orders. He was to lead, of course, but -he wanted to give as few commands as possible, in order to make his -movement successful. - -Silently we moved off over the soft turf to the left. Crossing the road -below the thicket we struck a gallop and quickly surrounded the space -occupied by the sharp-shooters. It was the work of but a few minutes -to close in upon and capture them. Two of our saddles were emptied in -the operation, and five of the sharp-shooters were left unburied in the -brush; the rest we took with us to headquarters, another company having -replaced us on picket. - -Among the prisoners was one little fellow, apparently not over fifteen -or sixteen years of age. His features were clear cut and delicate and -his clothing was worn as if it had belonged to somebody else. - -When we had got well to the rear and the daylight was broad, Charlie -Irving looked at the little fellow and said: “How old are you, my boy?” - -“Twenty-two,” he replied, “but I’m a girl.” - -That girl was sent back under a flag of truce. We didn’t know what else -to do with her. - - - - -GRIFFITH’S CONTINUED STORY - - -It was in the early summer of 1864. We were in the trenches at -Spottsylvania. - -It had been raining continuously all day, with now and then a heavy -downpour, just to remind us that a little rain ought not to matter to -old soldiers. By the use of fragments of fence rail and such other -sticks as we could secure to stand upon, we managed to avoid sinking -below our ankles into the soft, red, Virginian mud. - -It was a little after two o’clock in the morning, but we were all awake -and on duty. For it was not General Grant’s purpose at that time to -allow us much of repose. We had stood in the trenches and in the rain -all day, and we must stand in the trenches and in the rain all night, -and as much longer as it might please the enemy to keep us there. - -The night was one of the blackest I have ever known. There was -no possibility of sending couriers anywhere, and all orders had, -therefore, to be passed from mouth to mouth up and down the lines. - -Every few minutes a great downpour of bucketfuls would come; and, -worse still, every now and then the enemy would rush forward in the -darkness and come upon us at pistol-shot range without notice. - -It was Ulysses S. Grant we were fighting, and that was the line on -which he was going to “fight it out, if it took all summer.” - -We felt the need of entertainment, so somebody called out to a -sergeant: “Tell us a story.” - -“No, no,” said Johnny Garrett, “let Griffith tell a story, for he never -finishes, and this is a long night.” - -The suggestion was applauded and insisted upon. Whether Griffith -blushed or not, it was much too dark to see; but after a little -chaffing he consented to tell the story. Just as he began Billy -Goodwin, who always wanted to gamble on everything, offered to bet -three to one that he would never finish. - -“Shut up, Goodwin,” said Johnny Garrett, “and let him begin, anyhow. If -he don’t get through by the middle of the night, I’ll negotiate the bet -with you.” - -Thereupon Griffith began. - -“Well, ’taint much of a story--only a bear story.” - -“Bet two to one he never gets to the bear,” said the incorrigible -Goodwin. - -“Be quiet, will you?” cried some one at the right of the company. The -man next to him mistook this adjuration for a command sent down the -line; so, to the astonishment of everybody to the left of us, the word -was passed from mouth to mouth: “_Be quiet, will you! Be quiet, will -you! Be quiet, will you!_” - -“Well,” said Griffith, “’twas about six year ago, or maybe seven. No, -lemme see--’twas the same year that Jim Coffee married Mirandy Adams. -Must have been eight year ago, I s’pose.” - -Just then came the order down the line: “Perfect silence! Enemy -advancing!” - -The next minute a line of bayonets broke out of the fog in front of us, -and a flaring fire blazed forth in our faces. The charge upon us was a -determined one, and for full three minutes it required all our efforts -to repel it. After that the artillery silenced all conversation by -pouring a shower of shot and shell into the retiring assailants. - -“Still ready to make that bet,” said Billy Goodwin. But Griffith began -again undaunted. He was a phlegmatic person, whose mind was never -driven from its not very large purposes by any shock--even that of a -shower of canister. - -“Well, as I wuz a-sayin’, it wuz about six or eight year ago--it don’t -really matter, I s’pose, how long ago it wuz--” - -“No,” said Billy Goodwin, “let her rip.” - -“Well, as I wuz a-sayin’--” Just then the enemy charged again. - -Griffith had captured a Henry rifle two days before, in the battle of -the Wilderness, and it was loaded with fourteen ball cartridges. With -that deliberation which characterized him in everything, he delivered -those fourteen shots in the face of the enemy, who by that time had -retired. Then he turned and began to fill the magazine of his rifle -again, saying: “Well, you see, as I wuz a-sayin’, Peter Coffee he taken -a cawntract for a bridge over Tye River. Now Peter always pertended -that he knew how to lay out bridge work. Of course I knew better. I’d -been to Fletcher Massie’s school with him, and I knew just how little -’rithmetic he knew. Fletch, he carried me through the rule o’ three, -and you can’t lay out bridge work till you’ve _bin_ through the rule o’ -three.” - -The day was dawning, and just then came an order for us to move to the -right, the extreme right, four or five miles away. We marched at once. -Grant was making his celebrated move by the left flank. - -When we got into position, it was necessary to throw up such earthworks -as we could with our bayonets, using fence rails for revetments. This -occupied us during most of the day, and scattered as we were, we were -not able to listen to the remainder of Griffith’s story. - -That afternoon, to our surprise, we received a ration of three-quarters -of a pound of flour to each man. When we had baked it, I happened to go -by Tom Booker’s position and saw him eating the entire cake. Tom looked -at me pitifully as I remonstrated with him for eating three days’ -rations in advance, and he said with tears in his voice if not in his -eyes: “I know it, but I’m go’n’ t’ fill my stomach once, if I starve -for it. I _wish_ I was a woman or a baby.” - -A few minutes later came the order to move; our battery was at that -time unhorsed. It had been planned to leave it in the rear, because -its guns could not be moved for lack of horses, but with one voice the -men had demanded the privilege of taking rifles and going with the -battalion as sharp-shooters. - -On this march the battalion was the rear guard of the army, and our -rifle-armed battery was the rear guard of the battalion. - -For fifty-six hours we marched without food or sleep, pausing every -fifteen minutes to fight awhile, and then double-quicking to catch up. - -There was no chance for Griffith in all this. But when we got to Cold -Harbor, and went into the works, Billy Goodwin at a favorable moment -insisted that he should resume his story. - -“You see I’ve got three bets on it,” said Billy. - -Just then a grape-shot passed through George Campbell’s foot, and -distracted our attention for a time. Then came General Field, who -ordered us to burn a barn in front that was full of sharp-shooters. -The first two or three shots from the battalion did the business. -The sharp-shooters ran with all their might across a thousand yards -of space, while we poured upon them the sharpest rifle fire we could -deliver. Some of them got to cover, and some of them didn’t. - -It was not till we moved to Bottom’s Bridge that Griffith had a chance -to resume his story. There we were all sick from having eaten boiled -potato vines, for lack of other food. Being too ill to go to sleep, we -demanded a continuation of the story. - -“Well, as I wuz a-sayin’,” said Griffith, “I’d gone clean through the -rule o’ three in Fletch Massie’s school, and Peter Coffee he knew it. -As I told yuh, he’d taken the cawntract to lay out this bridge work; so -he got his wife to write to me to come up and do the ’rithmetic. Well, -just as I wuz startin’ up, Bill Linsey says to me,--you know he kept -a store down there at Arrington, he says to me, says he, ‘Griffith, -there’s a runlet o’ cider that’s got twenty gallon in it. Can you lif’ -it?’ I says, ‘Yes, I can lif’ it and drink out o’ the bung, if you’ll -let me drink es much es I please.’ I lifted it and took a big swallow -of the sweet stuff, then I says, ‘I can carry it up the mountain,’ says -I, and he says, says he, ‘On your back?’ says he, an’ I says, ‘Yes, -on my back,’ says I. An’ he says, says he, ‘Well, you can have it ef -you’ll agree to carry it up the mountain on your back, and not take no -lift frum nobody.’” - -Just then a battery, three thousand yards away, opened on us, and we -had to run to cover, every man of us with his hands on his stomach, in -physical memory of the potato vines. Our guns were not in position, -and all we could do was to ensconce ourselves behind big trees. As the -artillery fire kept up, General Alexander rode to this point of the -lines and ordered up three batteries of rifled cannon; by the time they -had finished their little controversy with the enemy, we had recovered -from the potato tops sufficiently to go to sleep. So Griffith’s story -was to be “continued in our next.” - -Our “next” came only after we got to Petersburg. There our battery -took charge of the mortars of the army. Griffith was one of the men I -selected when asked to volunteer for a particularly perilous mortar -service. He might or might not be able to tell a story, but he could -stand fire as well as any man I ever knew. - -About four o’clock one morning, when we had been engaged in a fierce -bombardment all night, the fire ceased for a time, and Billy Goodwin -demanded the rest of that bear story. - -“You see I’ve got seven bets on that story,” said Billy, “and I don’t -want to win any man’s money unfairly. One bet is that he won’t ever get -to the bear, and I don’t want to take any man’s money without givin’ -him a chance.” - -“Well, wait a minute,” I replied, “till I start up the fire; we’ve got -to have some breakfast.” - -The fire was out. - -“Somebody must go up,” I said, “to the next fort and get a chunk of -fire. It won’t do to get fire by shooting a mortar,”--which was our -usual way,--“because if we do that, we’ll start this bombardment again.” - -“I’ll go,” said Griffith, “and then I’ll tell the rest of that story.” - -There was a fearful hail of bullets between the two forts. The cannon -were silent, but the musketry fire was incessant. Griffith started off, -crouching as he went up the path so as to expose as little as possible -of his person. - -That was the last I ever saw of him. - -As he was borne off on the litter, he sent word to me that he “hoped I -hadn’t any bets on that bear story.” - - - - -A CHEERFUL SUPPER OF CHEERS - - -As Commissary it was Haskell’s business to see to it that we had plenty -to eat; but the seven days’ fights below Richmond were on, and Haskell -was, first of all, a fighter,--a thing uncommon in Commissaries and -Quartermasters. - -Instead of attending to his pork and meal wagons in the rear, he went -to the front. - -There he was active in a degree that commanded the respect of his -general. He interested himself so much in the movements of troops, and -in the controversy with the enemy, that he forgot all about the wagons. - -In this service he had his right arm shot off by a cannon-ball. - -When night came, and we wanted something to eat, there was a good deal -of growling because we had nothing. But when the story was told of how -our Commissary had fought, and how he had lost an arm in the fighting, -a fellow with more humor than appetite got up and cried: “I move that -we sup on three cheers and a tiger for the Commissary that fights.” - -The three cheers were given. - -As soon as his wound was healed, Haskell was made a major and placed in -command of the battalion. - -There may have been many better Commissaries than Haskell, but there -were no better fighting majors. - - - - -HOW THE TAR HEELS STUCK - - -The sergeant-major sat there on his horse in the drenching rain. -There was nothing to do but to endure. The three days of fighting in -the Wilderness in that early summer of 1864, and the three nights of -sleeplessness had considerably undone his nerves. - -But for the first time in his life he realized that he had a hope at -least for an opportunity. He had a lieutenant’s command. He hoped for a -chance to make himself a lieutenant, in fact. With two guns, twenty-six -men, and twenty-four horses under his command, and wholly detached from -his battery, he had hope, that gray foggy morning, that he might have -an opportunity. Yet here he was, standing behind a hill, soaking wet, -and with no apparent prospect. - -Three times the infantry had been ordered forward to the top of that -hill. Three times they had been swept away as with a broom. - -The hill was clearly untenable. - -Then came General Alexander. - -“Have you nerve, courage, backbone? Do you want an opportunity?” - -The sergeant-major answered, “Yes.” - -“Then take your guns to the top of that hill and STAY THERE.” - -The sergeant-major gave the necessary orders, and advanced at once, -feeling that he and his men were lambs sent to the slaughter. - -When he appeared on top of the hill, twenty batteries and ten thousand -riflemen opened upon him. But his orders were to “stay there,” and the -sergeant-major wanted to be a lieutenant. - -His horse sank under him at the first fire. His men went down like -grass before the scythe. - -But he STAYED THERE. - -About that time a North Carolina general rode up to his brigade and -called aloud: “Men, are you going to allow these guns to be captured? -They say we North Carolinians have tar on our heels; let’s show them -that tar _sticks_. Forward! March!” - -Five minutes later that hill was occupied by three thousand North -Carolinians, the tar on whose heels STUCK. Half a dozen more batteries -were ordered up, and the young sergeant-major was directed to move his -guns by hand to the rear. - -_By hand._ Because of his twenty-four horses only two remained alive; -while there were only thirteen left out of his twenty-six men to handle -the guns by hand. This is what we called “life” in the Confederate -army. - - - - -“LITTLE LAMKIN’S BATTERY” - - -For twenty-four hours I had had a man on my mind. - -He had been court-martialled and was sentenced to be shot. He was in -the guardhouse. - -I know of no good reason why I should have objected to his execution; -he certainly deserved all that he was to get. But I had been his -counsel before the court-martial, and it is never a pleasant thing for -a lawyer to have his client executed. - -He belonged officially to me. I had assumed a responsibility for him, -and I felt that it would not be fully discharged if he should be led -out and shot. - -I had known Beavers for a very brief time; but as his counsel I had -learned much from him in confidence as to his career. He was a person -of elective affinities. It was his habit to desert. He had served on -both sides and in many capacities. He always fought well on whichever -side he might happen to be serving. As a gambler, he always “played his -game for all it was worth.” - -Why he had deserted back and forth in this way without any cogent -reason, I never knew. I used to think sometimes that he had done so at -first just to try how a new style and color of uniform might suit his -particular kind of beauty. His beauty was not in itself conspicuous. - -I learned from him incidentally that his various reasons for desertion -from one side to the other had not been of a kind that would have -controlled the action of a less fastidious man. - -On one occasion he had deserted because he smelt mutton from the -camp-kettles of the enemy. He had a predilection for mutton. - -I learned that he returned to us once, because one night, when he was -not quite himself, a comrade had put him to bed and reversed the order -of his blankets. Beavers explained to me with great particularity -that a certain gray blanket had been placed on top of a certain brown -one. He could not be expected to remain with a regiment under such -conditions. - -At last he had been caught in the act of deserting. He had been tried, -and, in spite of such legal acumen as I could bring to bear, had been -convicted, sentenced, and the next day but one was to be shot. - -Now that he was sure to die, he seemed to make no more of the fact than -of any other indifferent thing. I do not mean that he was careless of -his fate. He took everything seriously. But facts were to him facts, -and he did not worry over them. He did not think it worth while. - -So when he was sentenced to death, he adjusted his blankets in the -proper order so that he might not have a nightmare, and slept the sleep -of the contented. - -With all my contempt for Beavers I was sorry that he was to die. There -was something in the reckless character of the man that appealed to me. -Something that made me feel that it was a pity that this abundant life -should be extinguished by a rifle shot. - -I had been thinking all night. I had thought of every argument in his -favor. I had searched my mind to see if any point had been neglected. -Early in the night I had gone to Beavers, and asked him for the aid of -suggestion--suggestion that might lead to information. But here again -his habits balked me. He said: “I’m gambling in this case on your -brains.” - -I might myself have been willing to do that, but I was gambling with -Beavers’s life for a stake. - -Beavers was of course just that kind of man, whom a self-respecting -person feels it his duty to despise; but somehow I could not quite -despise Beavers. His coolness appealed to me strongly. His bravado -seemed a sort of bravery. His readiness to meet the consequences, and -pay the penalties of his own misdeeds, was a thing hard to distinguish -from heroism. - -He had no principles, of course. He did not pretend to have any. But -he had certain methods of thought which seemed to serve him in lieu of -principles. - -It was just before dawn. I had not slept. As I lay in my tent with -the flaps thrown back, all that was discernible was the rather -spectral-looking tented city with its precise white rows. I had become -so nervous, staring through the dark at the place where I knew the tent -pole to be, that at last I turned out for good. I tightened my belt. It -was our habit to sleep in our clothes--for reasons. - -The first gray of the morning touched the camp, and looking down the -row I saw a fragile figure moving from one tent to another, and pausing -occasionally in uncertainty. At first I could not be certain whether -it was a woman or not. Finally the figure straightened up and stood -looking towards the guardhouse; it was that of a woman. - -I had not seen a woman in two months. - -The camp was silent with that quietude that is so impressive just -before the dawn. - -After staring at the guardhouse for a moment, while I stood staring -at her, the woman turned her eyes and we stood looking at each other. -After halting a moment she came staggering up the narrow lane between -the two rows of tents, making a peculiar, nervous movement with her -hands, but saying nothing. She stood for a few moments a little way -from the tent door, clasping and unclasping her hands. - -I saw that she was ill. She reeled up against the tent pole, and would -have fallen had I not caught her by the arm. I seated her on a log, all -the seat there was. After a moment she revived a little, and said in a -faint voice, “Beavers.” - -At that moment reveille sounded. The woman was too evidently ill for me -to leave her. I sent a sergeant to attend the roll-call. I directed our -cook to provide the woman with coffee and food. - -Then I questioned her a little. She had walked twenty-two miles over -railroad ties. - -She was Beavers’s wife. - -She said to me: “You are his counsel, I believe?” - -“Yes,” I replied, “and I have done everything I could to save him.” - -“No, you have not,” she answered. “You have not made the point that -he was never legally enlisted as a soldier, I’ll warrant! He’s over -forty-five and can’t be conscribed. He was pardoned out of the -penitentiary on condition that he should enlist, but the court-martial -had no proof of that. There’s nothing whatever to show that he’s a -soldier; and if he ain’t a soldier, he can’t be punished for desertion. -I’ve come to tell you, for he would never think of it.” - -I jumped to my feet. I called a sentinel, and told him to take the -woman to the guardhouse and make her as comfortable as possible. I -mounted my horse and galloped to the station. I roused the telegraph -operator two hours before his time. He was a sleepy fellow, but he was -accustomed to taking imperative messages out of hours. I gave him this -one to the war department:-- - - Beavers to be shot to-morrow morning. No proof whatever he was - ever soldier. If not soldier, could not have deserted. Too old for - conscript law, and no proof of enlistment except Governor Letcher’s - telegram. Telegram not under oath, not legal testimony. Witness not - subjected to cross-examination. As counsel, I demand stay in this - man’s case. - -I rode back to the guardhouse, and found that a new member had been -added to the battery. The company was known as Lamkin’s Battery. - -We named the new member “_Little_ Lamkin’s Battery,” to distinguish it, -I suppose, from the big one. - -Beavers sat all that morning with his wife’s hand in his, and Little -Lamkin’s Battery in his arms. - -He said it looked like its mother. He’d “gamble on that.” - -Not until within an hour of the time appointed for Beavers’s execution -did there come a reply from the war department. But when it came it was -thoroughly satisfactory. It read thus:-- - - Legal points conclusive. Release Beavers and restore him to duty. - Duplicate sent to General Walker. - -Soon after that Beavers deserted, blankets and all, to “the other -enemy”--that was his form of speech, not mine. - -The next time I saw him was under peculiar circumstances. - -In July, 1865, I went on board the steamer _Morning Star_, at Portland, -four miles below Louisville, Kentucky. - -I was two or three hours in advance of the sailing of the boat. Only -a few people were scattered about the front of the cabin. I went to -the clerk, paid for my room and passage, and pocketed thirty dollars -in change. A moment later the porter came in with my trunk. I put my -hand in my vest pocket to get the dollar due him, but found my thirty -dollars gone. - -I had all the feelings which a man always has when he finds that his -pocket has been picked--which include the feeling of helplessness. - -There was on board a brigade of troops going South. They were late -enlisters, who had seen none of the fighting. The men were on the deck -below, of course. The officers, though their transportation orders -called only for deck passage, were by courtesy permitted in the cabin. -There were a dozen or twenty of them, mainly rough lumbermen, or -something of that kind. They evidently wanted to see a fight. So they -concluded to pick that fight with me. - -One of them came up to me where I was reading a novel, and began the -trouble by saying: “You’re a rebel.” - -“No,” I replied. “I was a rebel while the rebellion lasted, but I have -taken the oath of allegiance, and am at present a loyal citizen of the -United States.” - -“Well, you _were_ a rebel,” he said, with more offence in his tone than -in his words; “and I want to know what you are doing here in the North.” - -“I’m not in the North,” I replied; “but in the middle of a river that -separates the North from the South.” - -By this time half a dozen others of the crowd had gathered in front of -me with angry faces. It was manifestly their purpose to make trouble, -and I saw no use in trying to ward it off. They were planning a fight; -and whether it was to be a safe one or not, it seemed to me a good time -to begin it. - -I sprang to my feet and faced them. I was utterly unarmed, while they -carried their weapons. I grasped a chair as the only means of defence -at hand, and with remarks which are better not repeated, perhaps, told -them to come on. - -Just at that moment a stateroom door opened behind me, and two warm -hands thrust two pistols into my grasp. The next moment a stalwart -figure, armed in the same way, stood beside me, and, presenting two -pistols, called out: “Hands up, gentlemen! The first man that moves -dies. You’re twenty to two of us, but--” - -Some language followed. - -The men threw up their hands. - -Without taking his eyes off his adversaries or lowering his weapons, my -comrade called out: “Mr. Clerk, send for the captain.” - -When the captain came, my comrade reported that these men had made an -unwarranted assault upon an inoffensive passenger, and said: “They have -no business in the cabin, anyway. As a first-class passenger, I call on -you to send ’em below, where they belong.” - -The captain was willing enough. He had been three times arrested during -the war for aiding “rebel sympathizers.” A minute later these officers -had become deck passengers. - -Then I turned to my deliverer, and to my astonishment he was Beavers. -He had grown stout, and was resplendent in a suit of clothes with -checks so broad that it might easily have taken two persons to show the -pattern; otherwise he was the same old nonchalant, reckless Beavers, -ready to gamble upon any chance and to pay his losses though the -payment might be with his life. - -I made my identity known to him of course. He replied immediately: -“Why, of course, I reckonized you long before this thing occurred, and -I have been trying to get an excuse for speaking to you. Because you -see when you came aboard in mufti I didn’t know who you was, and so I -lifted thirty dollars out of your clothes. I wouldn’t have done it if -I’d a’ known it was you, and now I want to hand it back. I could just -as easily have picked that other fellow’s pocket--the one that picked -the quarrel with you. I never go back on my friends, never! And I’ve -never forgot how you got me out of that scrape.” - -He handed me back the thirty dollars and I thanked him. He said: “Don’t -mention it.” He added, though I never knew what he meant by it: “I’ll -square the whole thing with that other feller. He’s got more’n thirty -dollars in _his_ wad.” - -I naturally felt a little warm towards Beavers. I owed him my life. -Therefore when he suggested some alcoholic celebration of the incident -I compromised on a cigar. However little you may esteem a man, it is -difficult to snub him a few minutes after he has saved your life. - -Beavers went to the baggage-master and said something to him which I -didn’t hear. The baggage-master shook his head in dissent. - -“Oh, that’s all right,” said Beavers; “it’s five dollars to you, old -man.” - -“Oh, well, that’s different,” said the baggage-master, and two minutes -later Beavers was searching one of his trunks. Presently he came up -with a wad of papers in his hand and we returned to the cabin. There -he spread out some architectural designs for a gorgeous monument, and -said: “Look at that. That’s the design of the monument I’ve just put up -over that wife of mine. She was a mighty good sort, and I’ve spent good -money to give her a proper send-off. I’ve paid five thousand dollars to -the architect for the design, and fifteen thousand dollars to have it -built. You see business is good with me just now. I’ve got a faro bank -at Louisville and another at Evansville and two at Cairo, and another -at St. Louis, and three at Memphis and one at Vicksburg, and two at New -Orleans. As for me I _run the river and make what there is in it_.” - -Suddenly a thought occurred to him. - -“By the way,” he said, “you remember about Little Lamkin’s Battery? -Well, he’s on board.” Beckoning to a negro nurse, he said: “Bring that -little rascal here.” - -A few minutes later the nurse returned, having a peculiarly bright, -three-year-old boy in charge, whom I greeted as an old friend. After -talking with the little chap for a few moments I turned to Beavers and -said: “What are you going to make out of him, Beavers?” - -“Something better than his father is,” he replied, “for his mothers -sake; and that reminds me you’re just out of the war and you’ve got -your way to make. It won’t do for you to know _me_. If you ever meet -me goin’ up and down the river, I’ll cut you dead and don’t you say -nothing.” - - - - -CURRY - - -Curry was our mess cook. - -He was a great rascal, but one of the best cooks in the world. And -besides he was discriminative in his rascality. He never did any -dishonest thing towards us; but he was capable of any conceivable -crime, if he could commit it in our behalf. - -He was a pure-blooded negro of the brown or semi-copper-colored -variety. He was without a trace of beard, as that variety of negro -usually is. His voice was a falsetto. - -His devotion was dog-like. If the state of South Carolina held anything -that his mess needed, and there was any conceivable way in which it -could be got, he got it. Frankly without morals,--unless devotion to -his mess was a moral sentiment,--and illimitable in resource as he was, -he generally so managed matters that we should live well. - -We would buy a pig or a lamb, and have a fore quarter for dinner. The -next day Curry would give us a hind quarter. The next day another fore -quarter; and so on until that member of the mess who had a statistical -mind would begin to reflect that there are really only four quarters to -an animal, while we had had from fifteen to twenty quarters from this -one. Then Curry would be summoned, and indignantly asked: “Where have -you been getting all this meat we have been eating?” - -The question never disturbed Curry in the least. He was always ready -with the answer: “I buyed it from one man, sir.” - -When asked who the man was, he never knew. And when questioned as to -payment, he always assured us that the “one man, sir,” was coming that -afternoon for his money. - -The “one man, sir,” always came that afternoon. His charge was always -the same: $2.50 in Confederate currency, or something less than -twenty-five cents in real money. - -The pretence was a bit flimsy, but it answered Curry’s purpose. His -mess was well fed, and he was not caught in his raids upon the pig-pens -and sheep-folds thereabouts. - -Curry was a slave, and we hired him from the estate to which he -belonged as a chattel. One day we were ordered to move from South -Carolina to Virginia. Curry came to us and asked to be taken with us. -When we explained to him that we could not legally take him out of the -state, he deliberately proposed to run away in order to go with us. -Having no alert perception of the difference between crime and good -conduct, he could not see why we should not abet him in this proposed -violation of law. But when we made it clear to him that, for reasons -inscrutable to his mind, we could not permit him to go with us out of -the state, he fell into melancholy. - -That night we had some roast pig for dinner; and Curry had not “buyed -it from one man, sir.” - -The only reply he would make to our questionings was: “I done got it -fur de mess, sir. De mess has been good to me.” - - * * * * * - -Early next morning--the day on which we were to leave--the enemy landed -below, and we were ordered forward to meet them. As we unlimbered in -battery and opened fire, Curry rode up on an antique mule, stolen for -the occasion from the battery blacksmith. Leaping from his steed he -went to the gun that was most short-handed, took a vacant place, and -began fighting like an artilleryman. When the head of the mess rode up -to him and said: “What are you doing here, Curry?” - -His reply was: “Ise takin’ a hand.” - -The fight was hot for ten minutes. At the end of it poor Curry lay -stretched upon the grass--a bullet through his chest. One of us went -to him and said something--no matter what. He looked up and said: “I -can’t go wi’ de mess to Virginy. You’ll have to take some no ’count -nigger. But Ise fought wi’ de mess anyhow, and you’ll find de res’ o’ -dat pig hangin’ up de chimbly.” - - - - -GUN-BOATS - - -A gun-boat went aground one night in an inlet off Chisholm’s Island, -near Port Royal, South Carolina. - -As soon as the news came to us, we set out to attack her. - -We marched all night, and in the early gray of the dawn we reached the -palmetto-studded island. The gun-boat had, in the meantime, got off the -bar on the high tide, and was riding quietly at anchor, four hundred -yards from the nearest available point on the shore. - -I had command of two field pieces. Captain Elliot, the chief of -artillery, ordered me to inspect the vessel and “act according to -circumstances.” He said: “If you find her too strong to be attacked -with field guns, retire quietly across the island. If you find her -not too strong, attack her, and I will send you any reinforcements -necessary.” - -I took Joe with me. - -We crawled up to the brink of the stream, and took a good look in the -gray morning light. - -But that look didn’t tell either of us anything. Neither of us knew -enough about naval architecture and armament to have the slightest -idea whether the boat out there in the stream was formidable or -otherwise. - -“Well, what do you think, Joe?” I asked. “I don’t think,” he answered; -“I don’t know anything about it; but my notion is that we’d better give -her a shot or two, anyhow.” - -“Well, the way I look at it,” said I, “is this: Elliot and those other -fellows know, and we don’t. They’ll see her from some point of view. -If they think her not formidable, and we don’t attack, they’ll blame -us. If we attack, and she proves too formidable--well, we’ve got good -horses and we can run. Order up the guns, Joe.” - -A minute later we opened fire with two twelve pounders. By one of those -freaks of extraordinarily good luck, which so often save men from -disaster in war, our first shot severed the gun-boat’s rudder post. Our -second shell passed through her boiler and exploded in her furnace; not -only setting fire to her, but with the escaping steam driving the men -from the gun decks. This left her with only one available gun--a swivel -on the poop. - -But that was a sixty-four pound howitzer, one or two shots from which -would have swept us off that island like so much dust. Our good luck -continuing, however, that gun burst at the first fire. - -The ship had been a formidable, heavily armed gun-boat, carrying -several eight-inch rifles; but she had been destroyed by two field -pop-guns. She slipped her cables, and drifted around the point with -fire bursting from every port hole. We quickly limbered up and galloped -to another point of attack. - -We found the ship’s company escaping over the sides in the boats and -rowing for the marsh beyond. We opened upon them at short range, sank -several of the boats, and then shelled the marsh for scatterers. - -When I learned later from Captain Elliot how formidable that ship had -been, I was filled with a great contempt for gun-boats. I was anxious -to get a chance at a gun-boat every morning before breakfast. - -I got it presently. With that same section I was ordered a few days -later to Combahee Ferry. There was a gun-boat there. My orders were the -same as before. - -This gun-boat was a little, low, insignificant looking sloop. She -seemed to me almost contemptibly easy game. I galloped my guns to -within four hundred yards of her, and ordered them in battery. - -We opened fire. The gun-boat for a time paid no attention to us. But -by the time that we had thrown three or four shells at her, she lazily -undertook to attend to our case, in much the same way that a man -brushes a pestilent fly from his nose. - -She opened on us with one of those great guns which pitch shells about -the size of a normal nail keg two or three miles, apparently without -effort. - -Her first shot revealed to me the fact that I had entirely -misunderstood gun-boats. - -It was obvious that a single one of those shells, should it burst -anywhere in the neighborhood of my guns, would put a final end to that -section of artillery and to all that went to constitute it. - -During the next five minutes we bumped those guns at a gallop over the -old cotton rows, until we reached the cover of the woodland. - -Whether that little sloop carried one gun or twenty, I never knew. -But the rapidity of her fire, as we crossed that old cotton field, -convinced me, for the time being, that she carried at least a hundred. - - - - -TWO MINUTES - - -He spent the evening singing “Lorena.” - -He had had a sort of day-off that day, and had visited all of his -friends. - -The author of that song had made it read:-- - - “A hundred weeks have passed, Lorena,” - -but our guest improved upon that, and made the lover rather aged by -singing it:-- - - “A hundred _years_ have passed, Lorena, - Since last I held thy hand in mine.” - -This was the only positive evidence we had that he had been calling. - -He stayed with us that night, and was not feeling well enough the -next day even to sing “Lorena.” The next day after that he found some -serious work to do. - -The way of it was this: He was a third lieutenant in the engineers. It -was after the great mine explosion at Petersburg, and the engineers -were busily engaged at that time using all their devices for the -discovery of other mines. They had found one in process of construction -in front of General Grade’s lines. They had proceeded at once to run -a deeper tunnel under this one. They had loaded the end of it, just -underneath the enemy’s works, with an incredible amount of gunpowder, -and on that morning it was to be fired. - -A slow-match had been brought from the powder to the mouth of the mine. -It was lighted, and a period of waiting ensued. The match had evidently -gone out. Where, nobody knew or could guess. The general in command -of that part of the line turned to the captain of engineers and said: -“The mine must be blown up at once; will you go in and light the match -again?” - -The captain hesitated, saying: “I don’t know; it may go off at any -moment.” - -Thereupon he who had sung “Lorena” stepped forward, touched his cap to -the general, and said: “With your permission, _I_ will go in and fire -it.” - -“Thank you,” said the general; “go.” - -The man picked up the torch and started into the mine. It seems that -the slow-match had gone out within a very short distance of the powder -magazine. But disregarding that he touched the torch to it, set it off -again, and ran with all his might for the mouth of the opening. - -It was two minutes’ work. The mine went off just before he reached the -outlet, and the air pressure literally blew him out of it. He fell -sprawling on his face. He was considerably bruised and scratched in his -contact with the gravelly ground, but he was not in any serious way -injured. Picking himself up, grimed as he was, he took off his cap, -and dusting himself like a schoolboy who has fallen in the street, he -approached the commanding officer and said: “General, I have the honor -to report that I have fired the mine and that it has gone off.” - -The general touched his cap and replied: “I had observed that fact, and -I thank you very much. I beg to say that I will make an official report -of the circumstance.” - -Two days later we all touched our caps to a freshly made -brigadier-general of the engineers. The captain who had hesitated -remained a captain. - - - - -SI TUCKER--COWARD AND HERO - - -I was in command of Fort Lamkin, a mortar fort, in rear of General -Bushrod Johnson’s lines at Petersburg in 1864. - -The fort was named for our immediate commander, from whose command we -had been detached for this service. - -One day Lamkin himself came to me when I was at his headquarters. He -was obviously in trouble. - -“This boy, Si Tucker,” he said, “is the son of one of the best friends -I ever had in the world. The boy is a coward. He literally _lives_ in -a rat hole. I have repeatedly pulled him out by the legs, only to have -him crawl back again the moment I let go of his ankles. I don’t know -what to do. It’s my duty, of course, to prefer charges of cowardice -against him; and if I do, he will certainly be shot--and his father is -my best friend.” - -He paused meditatively, and then said with eagerness in his voice: “Why -can’t you take him?” - -I agreed at once. I told him I would take the boy with me to my pits, -and make “either a soldier or a stiff” out of him within the next -twenty-four hours. I was under no obligations to his father; I had -never even met any of his relatives, and I had seen too many years of -service to have much patience with cowardice. - -The boy was sent for and ordered to go with me. We walked down towards -Blandford church. At the proper point we turned out of the Jerusalem -plank road across the fields towards Fort Lamkin. Half-way there and on -the top of a little hill, which was especially exposed to the gaze of -the sharp-shooters, I made Si Tucker sit down by my side. There we came -to an understanding. - -I told him that he had been assigned to me to be shot out of hand, or -to be court-martialled for cowardice, which at that particular juncture -of the war meant very much the same thing. I explained to him that he -was about to join a detachment, composed exclusively of men specially -selected for their courage--every one of them a volunteer for what was -deemed a peculiarly dangerous service. - -I explained further that I should require him to do his duty as they -did theirs. - -“You have managed to make for yourself,” I said, “the reputation of a -coward. You have now one last chance to redeem yourself. You must do -that, or you must die.” - -The sharp-shooters were, in the meantime, picking at us most -uncomfortably as we sat there. My experience as an old soldier strongly -suggested to me that we ought to move. The position was of that kind -that military men call untenable. Nevertheless, I thought it best to -keep Si Tucker there a minute longer, for purposes of observation, if -nothing else. - -“At our pits,” I said, “we have one uniform rule of procedure. When a -bombardment begins, the men go to their guns. I take my stand on top -of the magazine mound to watch the enemy’s fire and direct our own. If -I see that a mortar shell is about to fall into one of the gun pits, I -call out the pit number, and the men run into the bomb-proof until the -explosion is over. No man ever goes into a bomb-proof till this order -is given. You must do as the rest do. If you run to a bomb-proof before -I have given the order, it will be my imperative duty to shoot you then -and there; and I shall certainly discharge that duty. Do you fully -understand that, Si?” - -He thought he did, and as the sharp-shooters were by this time becoming -pestilently personal in their attentions, we resumed our walk. - -Half an hour after our arrival at Fort Lamkin, a bombardment began. - -I didn’t want to shoot that boy. I distinctly preferred to make a -soldier rather than a “stiff” out of him. So, instead of taking my -customary stand on the mound of earth over the magazine, I ordered Joe -to that post, and placed myself in the gun pit to which Si Tucker had -been assigned, taking care to stand between him and the mouth of the -bomb-proof. I spoke to him as I passed. - -“Remember what I told you. If you forget, it is instant death.” - -He remembered. For nearly two hours he stood there quaking and -quivering, but not daring to seek safety by retreat to a bomb-proof. - -By the time that the outburst was over, Si Tucker had learned his first -lesson in war. He had learned to realize that a man may endure a lot of -very savage fire, and yet come out of it alive. - -A few hours later, when the guns were at work again, Si was steady -enough in his nerves to carry shells to the guns. The next day he was -even able during a bombardment to cut fuses--a delicate operation -requiring a steady hand. - -Within two or three days he had become as good a soldier as we had in -all that band of men specially picked for their unflinching courage. - -When the great mine explosion occurred a few weeks later, I had -occasion to rebuke Si Tucker for a fault quite unrelated to cowardice. -We had been ordered to go with our mortars as near as possible to the -crater, and to drop a continual rain of shells among the thousands of -helpless fellows in that awful pit. - -It was cruel, ghastly work. But it was war. And a poet has justly -characterized war as a “brain-spattering, windpipe-slitting art.” Or as -General Sherman once said,--and he knew,--“War is all hell.” - -We were within sixty yards of the crater. Each one of our mortars was -belching from three to five shells a minute into that hole; but Si -Tucker’s enthusiasm was not satisfied. Having no personal duty to do at -the moment, he began plugging shells with long fuses, lighting them, -running with them to the margin of the pit, and tossing them in as hand -grenades. He was greeted by a tremendous volley of musketry at each -repetition of this performance, but he did it three times before we -could stop him. - -That evening, near the gloaming, he did another thing. The lines had by -that time been restored. The men in the crater--those of them who had -not been killed--had been driven back to the Federal side. We became -aware of the fact that a poor fellow of our own was lying grievously -wounded near the Federal side of the fifty yards that separated our -works from the enemy’s. He had been lying there through all that long, -fierce summer day. The explosion at daylight had cast him there. - -His groans and his cries for help and for water were piteous in the -extreme. We listened to them heartbroken but helpless--all but Si -Tucker. - -Si began stripping off his clothes; we thought he had gone mad. But -when we asked him why he was stripping himself, he replied: “Never you -mind.” - -With that, stripped to the skin, he leaped over the works, ducked -his head low, and ran through that hailstorm of bullets to where the -wounded man lay. Grasping him quickly, he slung him upon his back like -a bag of meal, and ran back with all his might. - -As he crossed the works he fell headlong. - -The surgeon found three bullets in his body. - -Nobody in the battery ever remembered after that, that Si Tucker had -once been a coward. - -After all, it is perhaps mainly a question of nerves. - - - - -WAR AS A THERAPEUTIC AGENT - - -Doctor Towns was a wealthy gentleman in Mississippi. - -For a good many years he had employed Miss R---- of Massachusetts -as governess for his daughters. She had lived all these years as an -honored member of his family, with every social opportunity that -Mississippi society afforded. - -At last the two girls outgrew the need of a governess. One of them was -sent abroad to study art at Nuremberg. The other got married. - -Upon the occurrence of this event Doctor Towns went to the young lady, -Miss R----, and suggested that as her services had been of incalculable -value to his daughters he was anxious to secure for her, now that -they no longer needed her, an equally good situation in some other -gentleman’s family. - -He explained that he had already written to a friend in Alabama -strongly recommending her, and that his friend desired her to come on -at once. - -Apparently this pleased Miss R---- very greatly. She packed her trunks -that night with the aid of the colored maid who had been assigned to -her service. She was to leave in the morning. - -In the morning word came down from her chamber that she was unable to -get up. Every attention and every sympathy was shown her, and after a -day or two Doctor Towns, finding himself baffled to discover disease of -any kind, sent for another physician. The other physician was equally -unsuccessful. The simple fact was that the young woman could not get -out of her bed. Why she could not get out of her bed was a problem that -the medical men were wholly unable to solve. The young woman’s appetite -was excellent, and all her functions seemed to be in an entirely normal -condition. - -Nevertheless, she could not get up. - -Week after week she lay there, attentively waited upon by the servants, -assiduously visited by the family, sympathetically condoled with by -friends, but still utterly unable to arise from her bed. Her salary was -continued all the while, of course. - -The servants at last became suspicious. - -To their minds it seemed incredible that she should live so long and -so comfortably without exercise. They suspected that she got up in the -night and walked the floor. To test this they gently sprinkled her -floor with pulverized starch while she slept, and then turned out the -lights. But weeks of experimentation of this character utterly failed -to reveal that the young woman ever got out of her bed. - -She read the newspapers with great diligence every day, and she read -all the new books that came out, for they all came to Doctor Towns’s -household. - -She even wrote now and then, lying there in bed, for newspapers and -magazines with which she had established connections. She was a -brilliant woman, and her matter was acceptable in the market. - -She lay thus, for eighteen months. Then came secession. - -The newspapers were filled with it. When at last war became an obvious -fact, and escape from the South to any Northern person disinclined -to Southern policies was manifestly a matter of but a few days, Miss -R---- suddenly, I may almost say miraculously, recovered. She got up -one morning and packed her trunks before six o’clock. At seven, when -the family breakfast was served, she appeared in the dining-room, and -calmly asked: “Will you kindly send me to the railroad station, Doctor -Towns? I’m going North to-day.” - -No explanation was ever asked or ever given. - -Miss R---- went North. That was all. - - - - -“NOTES ON COLD HARBOR”[1] - - -I always think of our arrival at Cold Harbor as marking a new phase of -the war. - -By the time that we had reached that position, we had pretty well got -over our astonishment and disappointment at the conduct of General -Grant. - -I put the matter in that way because, as I remember, astonishment and -disappointment were the prevailing emotions in the ranks of the army -of Northern Virginia when we discovered, after the contest in the -Wilderness, that General Grant was not going to retire behind the river -and permit General Lee to carry on a campaign against Washington in the -usual way, but was moving to the Spottsylvania position instead. - -We had been accustomed to a program which began with a Federal advance, -culminated in one great battle, and ended in the retirement of the -Union army, the substitution of a new Federal commander for the one -beaten, and the institution of a more or less offensive campaign on -our part. - -This was the usual order of events, and this was what we confidently -expected when General Grant crossed into the Wilderness. But here was a -new Federal general, fresh from the West, and so ill informed as to the -military customs in our part of the country, that when the battle of -the Wilderness was over, instead of retiring to the north bank of the -river, and awaiting the development of Lee’s plans, he had the temerity -to move by his left flank to a new position, there to try conclusions -with us again. - -We were greatly disappointed with General Grant, and full of curiosity -to know how long it was going to take him to perceive the impropriety -of his course. - -But by the time that we reached Cold Harbor, we had begun to understand -what our new adversary meant, and there, for the first time I think, -the men in the ranks of the army of Northern Virginia realized that the -era of experimental campaigns against us was over; that Grant was not -going to retreat; that he was not to be removed from command because he -had failed to break Lee’s resistance; and that the policy of pounding -had begun, and would continue until our strength should be utterly worn -away, unless by some decisive blow to the army in our front, or some -brilliant movement in diversion,--such as Early’s invasion of Maryland -a little later was intended to be,--we should succeed in changing the -character of the contest. - -We began to understand that Grant had taken hold of the problem of -destroying the Confederate strength in the only way that the strength -of such an army, so commanded, could be destroyed, and that he intended -to continue the plodding work till the task should be accomplished, -wasting very little time or strength in efforts to make a brilliant -display of generalship in a contest of strategic wits with Lee. We at -last began to understand what Grant had meant by his expression of a -determination to “fight it out on this line, if it takes all summer.” - -Our state of mind, however, was curiously illustrative of the character -of the contest, and of the people who participated in it on the part of -the South. The Southern folk were always debaters, loving logic, and -taking off their hats to a syllogism. - -They had never been able to understand how any reasonable mind could -doubt the right of secession, or fail to see the unlawfulness and -iniquity of coercion, and they were in a chronic state of astonished -incredulity, as the war began, that the North could indeed be about to -wage a war that was manifestly forbidden by unimpeachable logic. - -In the same way, at Cold Harbor, we were all disposed to waste a good -deal of intellectual energy in demonstrating to each other the absurd -and unreasonable character of General Grant’s procedure. We could show -that he must have lost already in that campaign more men than Lee’s -entire force, and ought, logically, to acknowledge his defeat and -retire; that having begun the contest with an overwhelming advantage in -point of numbers, he ought to be ashamed to ask for reinforcements; and -that while continuing the process of suffering great losses, in order -to inflict much smaller losses on us, he could ultimately wear us out, -it was inconceivable that any general should consent to win in that -unfair way. - -In like manner we were prepared to prove the wicked imbecility of -his plan of campaign--a plan that could only end by placing him in a -position below Richmond and Petersburg, which he might just as well -reach by an advance from Fort Monroe, without the tremendous slaughter -of the Wilderness, Spottsylvania, etc. - -In view of General Grant’s stolid indifference to considerations of -this character, however, there was nothing for us to do but fight the -matter out. - -We had no fear of the ultimate result, however plainly our own -perception of facts pointed to the inevitable destruction of our power -of resistance. We had absolute faith in Lee’s ability to meet and repel -any assault that might be made, and to devise some means of destroying -Grant. There was, therefore, no fear in the Confederate ranks of -anything that General Grant might do; but there was an appalling and -well-founded fear of starvation, which indeed some of us were already -suffering. From the beginning of that campaign our food-supply had been -barely sufficient to maintain life, and on the march from Spottsylvania -to Cold Harbor it would have been a gross exaggeration to describe it -in that way. - -In my own battery, three hard biscuits and one very meagre slice of fat -pork were issued to each man on our arrival, and that was the first -food that any of us had seen since our departure from Spottsylvania, -two days before. The next supply did not come till two days later, and -it consisted of a single cracker per man, with no meat at all. - -We practised a very rigid economy with this food, of course. We ate the -pork raw, partly because there was no convenient means of cooking it, -but more because cooking would have involved some waste. We hoarded -what we had, allowing ourselves only a nibble at any one time, and -that only when the pangs of hunger became unbearable. - -But what is the use of writing about the pangs of hunger? The words are -utterly meaningless to persons who have never known actual starvation, -and they cannot be made other than meaningless. Hunger to starving -men is wholly unrelated to the desire for food as that is commonly -understood and felt. It is a great agony of the whole body and soul as -well. It is an unimaginable, all-pervading pain, inflicted when the -strength to endure pain is utterly gone. It is the great, despairing -cry of a wasting body--a cry of flesh and blood, marrow, nerves, bones, -and faculties for strength with which to exist and to endure existence. -It is a horror which, once suffered, leaves an impression that is never -erased from the memory, and to this day the agony of that campaign -comes back upon me at the mere thought of any living creature’s lacking -the food it desires, even though its hunger be only the ordinary -craving, and the denial be necessary for the creature’s health. - -When we reached Cold Harbor, the command to which I belonged had been -marching almost continuously day and night for more than fifty hours -without food; and, for the first time, we knew what actual starvation -was. It was during that march that I heard a man wish himself a -woman,--the only case of the kind I ever heard of,--and he uttered the -wish half in grim jest, and made haste to qualify it by adding “or a -baby.” - -Yet we recovered our cheerfulness at once after taking the first nibble -of the crackers issued to us there, and made a jest of the scantiness -of the supply. One tall, lean mountaineer, Jim Thomas by name, who -received a slight wound every time he was under fire, and was never -sufficiently hurt to quit duty, was standing on a bank of earth slowly -munching a bit of his last cracker and watching the effect of some -artillery fire which was in progress at the time, when a bullet carried -away his cap and cut a strip of hair from his head, leaving the scalp -for a space as bald as if it had been shaved with a razor. He sat -down at once to nurse a sharp headache, and then discovered that the -cracker he had held in his hand was gone, leaving a mere fragment in -his grasp. At first he was in doubt whether he might not have eaten it -unconsciously; but he quickly discovered that it had been knocked out -of his hand and crushed to bits by a bullet, whereupon as he sat there -in an exposed place, where the fire was unobstructed, he lamented his -loss in soliloquy. - -“If I had eaten that cracker half an hour ago, it would have been -safe,” he said. “I should have had none left for next time, but I have -none left as it is. That shows how foolish it is to save anything. -Whew! how my head aches. I wish it was from overeating, but even the -doctor couldn’t lay it to that just now. The next time I stand up to -watch the firing, I’ll put my cracker--if I have any--in a safe place -down by the breastworks, where it won’t get wounded, poor thing! By the -way, here’s a little piece left, and that’ll get shot while I sit here -talking.” And with that he jumped down into the ditch, carefully placed -the mouthful of hardtack at the foot of the works, and resumed his -interested observation of the artillery duel. - -Trifling of that kind was constant among the men throughout that -terrible campaign from the Wilderness to Petersburg, and while it -yielded nothing worth recording as wit or humor, it has always seemed -to me the most remarkable and most significant fact in the history of -the time. It revealed a capacity for cheerful endurance which alone -made the campaign possible on the Confederate side. - -With mercenary troops or regulars the resistance that Lee was able to -offer to Grant’s tremendous pressure would have been impossible in such -circumstances. The starvation and the excessive marching would have -destroyed the morale of troops held together only by discipline. No -historical criticism of our Civil War can be otherwise than misleading -if it omits to give a prominent place, as a factor, to the character -of the volunteers on both sides, who, in acquiring the steadiness and -order of regulars, never lost their personal interest in the contest, -or their personal pride of manhood as a sustaining force under trying -conditions. If either side had lacked this element of personal heroism -on the part of its men, it would have been driven from the field long -before 1865. It seems to me the most important duty of those who now -furnish the materials out of which the ultimate history of our Civil -War will be constructed to emphasize this aspect of the matter, and -in every possible way to illustrate the part which the high personal -character of the volunteers in the ranks played in determining the -events of the contest. For that reason I like to record one incident -which I had an opportunity to observe at Cold Harbor. - -Immediately opposite the position occupied by the battery to which I -belonged, and about six or eight hundred yards distant across an open -field, lay a Federal battery, whose commander was manifestly a man -deeply in earnest for other and higher reasons than those that govern -the professional soldier: a man who fought well, because he fought in -what he felt to be his own cause and quarrel. - -His guns and ours were engaged almost continuously in an artillery -duel, so that I became especially interested in him, particularly -as the extreme precision of his fire indicated thoroughness and -conscientiousness of work for months before the campaign began. -One day--whether before or after the great assault, I cannot now -remember--that part of our line which lay immediately to the left of -the position occupied by the battery to which I belonged was thrown -forward to force the opposing Federal line back. It was the only large -movement in the way of a charge over perfectly open ground that I ever -had a chance to observe with an unobstructed view, and merely as a -spectator. - -When we, with a few well-aimed shells, had fired a barn that stood -between the lines, and driven a multitude of sharp-shooters out of it, -the troops to our left leaped over our works and with a cheer moved -rapidly across the field. The resistance made to their advance was not -very determined,--probably the Federal line at that point had been -weakened by concentration elsewhere,--and after a brief struggle our -men crossed the slight Federal earthworks and pressed their adversaries -back into the woods and beyond my view. It was a beautiful operation -to look at, and one, the like of which, a soldier rarely has an -opportunity to see so well; but my attention was specially drawn to -the situation of the artillery commander, to whom I have referred as -posted immediately in our front. His position was the pivot, the point -where the Federal line was broken to a new angle, when that part of it -which lay upon his right hand was pressed back while that on his left -remained stationary. - -He fought like a Turk or a tiger. - -He directed the greater part of his fire upon the advancing line of -Confederates, but turned a gun every few minutes upon our battery, -apparently by way of letting us know that he was not unmindful of our -attentions, even when he was so busily engaged elsewhere. - -The bending back of the line on his right presently subjected him to a -murderous fire upon the flank and rear,--a fire against which he had -no protection whatever,--while we continued a furious bombardment from -the front. His position was plainly an untenable one, and so far as I -could discover with a strong glass, he was for a time without infantry -support. But he held his ground and continued to fight in spite of all, -firing at one time as from two faces of an acute triangle. - -His determination was superb, and the coolness of his gunners and -cannoneers was worthy of the unbounded admiration which we, their -enemies, felt for them. Their firing increased as their difficulties -multiplied, but it showed no sign of becoming wild or hurried. Every -shot went straight to the object against which it was directed; every -fuse was accurately timed, and every shell burst where it was intended -to burst. I remember that in the very heat of the contest there came -into my mind Bulwer’s superb description of Warwick’s last struggle, -in which he says that around the king-maker’s person there “centred a -little WAR,” and I applied the phrase to the heroic fellow who was so -superbly fighting against hopeless odds immediately in front of me. - -Several of his guns were dismounted and his dead horses were strewn in -the rear. The loss among his men was appalling, but he fought on as -coolly as before, and with our glasses we could see him calmly sitting -on his large gray horse directing his gunners and patiently awaiting -the coming of the infantry support, without which he could not withdraw -his guns. It came at last, and the batteries retired to the new line. - -When the battalion was gone and the brief action over, the wreck that -was left behind bore sufficient witness of the fearfulness of the fire -so coolly endured. The large gray horse lay dead upon the ground; but -we preferred to believe that his brave rider was still alive to receive -the promotion which he had so well won. - - - - -A PLANTATION HEROINE - - -It was nearing the end. - -Every resource of the Southern states had been taxed to the point of -exhaustion. - -The people had given up everything they had for “the cause.” - -Under the law of a “tax in kind,” they had surrendered all they could -spare of food products of every character. Under an untamable impulse -of patriotism they had surrendered much more than they could spare in -order to feed the army. - -It was at such a time that I went to my home county on a little -military business. I stopped for dinner at a house, the lavish -hospitality of which had been a byword in the old days. - -I found before me at dinner the remnants of a cold boiled ham, some -boiled mustard greens, which we Virginians called “salad,” a pitcher of -butter-milk, some corn-pones and--nothing else. - -I carved the ham, and offered to serve it to the three women of the -household. But they all declined. They made their dinner on salad, -butter-milk, and corn-bread, the latter eaten very sparingly, as I -observed. The ham went only to myself and to the three convalescent -wounded soldiers, who were guests in the house. - -Wounded men were at that time guests in every house in Virginia. - -I lay awake that night and thought over the circumstance. The next -morning I took occasion to have a talk on the old familiar terms with -the young woman of the family, with whom I had been on a basis of -friendship in the old days that even permitted me to kiss her upon due -and proper occasion. - -“Why didn’t you take some ham last night?” I asked urgently. - -“Oh, I didn’t want it,” she replied. - -“Now, you know you’re fibbing,” I said. “Tell me the truth, won’t you?” - -She blushed, and hesitated. Presently she broke down and answered -frankly: “Honestly, I did want the ham. I have hungered for meat for -months. But I mustn’t eat it, and I won’t. You see the army needs all -the food there is, and more. We women can’t fight, though I don’t see -at all why they shouldn’t let us, and so we are trying to feed the -fighting men--and there aren’t any others. We’ve made up our minds not -to eat anything that can be sent to the front as rations.” - -“You are starving yourselves,” I exclaimed. - -“Oh, no,” she said. “And if we were, what would it matter? Haven’t -Lee’s soldiers starved many a day? But we aren’t starving. You see we -had plenty of salad and butter-milk last night. And we even ate some of -the corn-bread. I must stop that, by the way, for corn-meal is a good -ration for the soldiers.” - -A month or so later this frail but heroic young girl was laid away in -the Grub Hill church-yard. - -Don’t talk to me about the “heroism” that braves a fire of hell -under enthusiastic impulse. That young girl did a higher act of -self-sacrifice than any soldier who fought on either side during the -war ever dreamed of doing. - - - - -TWO INCIDENTS IN CONTRAST - - -INCIDENT NUMBER ONE - -The Masters place at Amelia Court House was a dream of beauty. Major -Masters himself was a man of exquisite taste, and his wife and daughter -had been devoted for years to the creation of beauty there. - -They had had the expert aid of Thomas Giles. Thomas Giles was a -lawyer by profession, but being a man of large wealth, and having -nobody dependent upon him, he had devoted a considerable share of his -attention for years to his two fancies--architecture and landscape -gardening. - -It had been his long-continued custom to spend his time from Friday -afternoon till Monday of each week at the Masters place, developing -its possibilities of beauty. He had spent both his own money and that -of Major Masters very lavishly in this endeavor, and the result was a -notable one. - -When the Federal army reached the court house in hot pursuit of General -Lee, during that last retreat which ended the war, there was a rush -made by the soldiers for comfortable camping grounds on the Masters -place. One man had even begun to cut down a stately tree for firewood, -when the general commanding rode up. Taking in the situation at a -glance, the general turned to one of his aids and said: “Take a squad -of twenty men, and drive everybody out of that place quick. Then tell -the adjutant-general to post a close guard around it and allow no man -to enter it during our stay, upon any pretence whatever.” - -Then, turning to his staff as the officer rode away to execute his -orders, he said: “That place has cost years of growth as well as years -of intelligent endeavor to create it. As we are not vandals, I shall -not suffer it to be destroyed.” - -I regret that I cannot here record the name of that officer. I would if -I knew it. - - -INCIDENT NUMBER TWO - -At McPhersonville, on the coast of South Carolina, there lived a young -woman of extraordinary learning. - -The fame of her learning, especially in botany, had even crossed the -ocean; and it was she whom Baron Von Humboldt had selected to prepare -for him--for use in his writings--an account of the flora of that -region. - -In recognition of her scholarly service, Baron Von Humboldt had sent to -her--each volume inscribed with his own hand--the only copy ever owned -in the United States of the German government’s magnificent édition de -luxe of “Cosmos.” - -It was a work published without regard to expense, and in narrowly -limited edition, at a fabulous price per copy. - -When the final collapse came, and Sherman’s army was sweeping northward -from Savannah, a detachment under the command of a lieutenant visited -the house of this young woman. Building a bonfire in the front yard, -it proceeded to destroy all the food that it could find. Then, in a -spirit of pure vandalism, the lieutenant ordered his men to bring out -and burn the books in that superb library. The young woman was in tears -and terror, of course, but her scholarly impulses rose superior to her -timid, feminine instincts. She went up to the lieutenant, coarse brute -that he was, and begged for the preservation of her unique “Cosmos.” - -She explained to him what it was and how much it meant to scholarship. -She begged him to take it with him and present it to Yale, or Harvard, -or Princeton, or to the Astor library, or to any other institution of -learning to which it might become a possession of glory. - -_He slapped her in the face, and with his own hands threw the precious -volumes into the fire._ - -A nation at war must select its human instruments with regard to their -capacity for fighting, and with very little regard to anything else. -Whether the officer be a gentleman or a blackguard is a matter that -counts for little so long as he knows how to fight. - -But I regret that I cannot here record the name of _this_ officer also. - - - - -HOW THE SERGEANT-MAJOR TOLD THE TRUTH - - -So far as I know, the sergeant-major never told a lie in his life; but -he came very near it that night at Grahamville. - -Grahamville is a village on the Charleston and Savannah railroad, and -this was in 1862, when the enemy held the sea islands along that coast. -Whenever they landed and advanced toward the railroad, it was our -business to march down and meet them at such points of vantage as the -marshes and causeways afforded. - -The battery had been stationed at Grahamville about two months, and, as -the enemy had been inactive all that time, there was nothing whatever -to do; nothing, that is to say, except to practise with pistols on the -bullet-proof hide of an antique alligator, which used to lie upon a -log in the swamp in front of us sunning himself and apparently rather -enjoying the impingement of bullets upon his ribs. We had pretty well -exhausted that amusement; so when the news came that there was to be a -dance at Tucker’s,--about twelve miles in rear of Grahamville,--the -captain, the one lieutenant on duty, and the surgeon promptly accepted -the invitation. They omitted the formality of sending to headquarters -for leave of absence. They simply went. - -The sergeant-major, who carried on a voluminous correspondence with -various young women in different parts of the Confederacy, had letters -to write and preferred to remain behind. Besides that, his boots were -broken out on both sides, and his linen coat--the only thing he had -that was cool enough for such an occasion in such a climate--had only -one button on it, and that one a black one sewed on with white thread. -The sergeant-major rather valued himself upon his personal pulchritude, -and preferred solitude in the camp to any unfavorable exhibition of -himself and his wardrobe. So the sergeant-major was left in command of -the battery. - -It was on that particular night, of course, that the enemy concluded -to make a threatening landing on the coast below. Hurried orders -came from General Clingman for the battery to move forward at once. -The sergeant-major received the orders, had the assembly blown, and -promptly moved forward with the guns. He was a very earnest and -conscientious young man. That is why he came so near telling lies that -night. He was fond of his officers and very much devoted to their -welfare. It would have gone hard with them had their absence become -known to the commanding general. - -As the sergeant-major rode along in the murkiness of a cloudy, Southern -midnight at the head of the battery, General Clingman rode up and -asked, “Where’s your captain?” - -“He’s in rear,” said the sergeant-major. Now, strictly speaking, -this was the exact truth. The captain was in rear--twelve or fifteen -miles in rear! Nevertheless the sergeant-major felt an uncomfortable -consciousness that his words conveyed to the mind of the general an -impression that was not quite accurate. When the general inquired -about the one other officer supposed to be on duty at that time, the -sergeant-major replied: “He also is somewhere in rear at the moment.” -You see the sergeant-major was getting used to this sort of thing. - -The general replied; “Well, it’s no matter, you can take the orders and -communicate them.” - -Thereupon he gave instructions as to the disposition of the guns in -case of a fight. After that he rode to the front. It was his habit to -be at the front as his force approached an enemy. - -An hour or two later our returning cavalry reported that the enemy had -returned to his island camp. Our long night march had gone for nothing. -We were a little bit disappointed, but as we had marched during all -the hours of darkness, and as the gray was beginning to split the -eastern sky, we were not very reluctant to turn back towards camp and -breakfast. - -But when, soon after the return march began, the sergeant-major saw the -general riding up, he felt a trifle uneasy. You see he was not yet an -artist in prevarication. His life-long habit of telling the truth sat -heavily upon him. Nevertheless, when the general asked for the captain -and lieutenant, the sergeant-major said, with as much of nonchalance -as he could assume: “They’re somewhere in _front_, I think, general,” -and the general rode away satisfied. When the battery reached camp, -the officers had just returned from the dance at Tuckers. They were -frantic with apprehension and rage at finding their command gone to -fight the enemy and they not with it. They were minutely questioning -the camp servants as to the movement. And when the sergeant-major rode -up at the head of the column of guns, they assailed him with a volley -of questions, which, if they had been shells, would have struck the -enemy off any field: the sergeant-major rather enjoyed this part of the -proceeding. - -“What kind of a time did you have at Tucker’s?” he asked. - -“Oh, confound Tucker’s!” answered the captain. “Speak, can’t you, man, -and tell us about this thing. Did the general ask after us, and what -did you tell him?” - -“Well,” answered the sergeant-major, “he did ask, and I told him the -truth, but not the whole truth. My conscience is a little bit bruised -and sore over it, and the next time you fellows go off to a dance -without letting the general know, I’m going to tell him the whole -truth. Is there anything to eat?” - - - - -TWO GENTLEMEN AT PETERSBURG - - -At that point where the great mine was blown up at Petersburg, the -lines of the two armies were within fifty yards of each other. - -In the fearful slaughter that ensued, the space between the rival -breastworks was literally piled high with dead men, lying one on top of -the other. Only in one other place, namely, at Cold Harbor, was there -ever so much of slaughter within so small a space. - -It was evident, apart from all considerations of decency, that for the -comfort of both sides some arrangement must be made for the burial -of these dead men. Neither side could have lived long in its works -otherwise. - -Accordingly, a cartel was arranged between General Grant and General -Lee. It was stipulated that there should be a cessation of hostilities -for a specified number of hours for the purpose of burying the dead. - -It was arranged that two lines should be formed twelve feet apart in -the middle of the space between the works; that one line should be -composed of Federal sentinels, the other of Confederates; that the -space between these two lines should be a neutral ground, accessible to -both sides; but that no person from either side should cross the line -established by the other side. It was agreed that the dead men who had -fallen within the Confederate line should be dragged to the neutral -ground by Confederate soldiers, and there delivered to Federal troops -to be carried within their lines for burial. - -There were no Confederate dead there, of course. All of our men who had -been killed were killed within our own works. So every corpse on our -side of the neutral ground was dragged by a rope to that common space -and there delivered to its official friends. - -It was specially stipulated in the cartel that no officer or soldier on -either side should take advantage of the truce to appropriate property -of any kind lying upon the field, whether upon the one or the other -side of the neutral ground. Swords, pistols, sashes, everything of the -kind must, by agreement, be left precisely where they were. - -Many of us, of course, went out to the neutral ground to look over the -situation. There was a certain gruesome delight even in standing upon -ground, where for a month or more it had been impossible for a twig -or a blade of grass to grow without instant decapitation, and where -for months to come it would be equally impossible for anything having -material substance to exist. The very turf itself had been literally -skinned from the surface of the earth by a continuous scything of -bullets. For a month it had been impossible for any soldier on either -side even to shoot over the breastworks, for he who tried to do so -was sure to be instantly destroyed. The fire on either side had to be -through carefully sand-bag-guarded port holes. And even the port holes -had to be protected by hanging blankets behind them to conceal the sky, -lest their darkening by a human head should invite a hailstorm of alert -and waiting bullets. - -Of course every man who, during the truce, wandered over this perilous -space for an hour, must have been impressed, if he had any imagination -at all, with the historical interest of the occasion. Every one desired -naturally to carry away some memento of the event. Only one man yielded -to this impulse, and he did so thoughtlessly. He was a captain of -Confederate infantry. - -He saw lying on the ground a star that had been cut by a bullet from -some officer’s coat collar. - -It was a worthless bauble, valuable only as a souvenir. He picked it up -and pocketed it. Instantly he was arrested by the Confederate guards -and taken before the officer in command of the Confederate line. - -That officer immediately and with great dignity went to the Federal -commander and said: “I desire under the terms of the cartel to -surrender this officer to you for such punishment as a court-martial of -your army may see fit to inflict. He has violated the cartel.” - -“What has he done?” asked the Federal officer. - -“He has taken possession of property left upon the field, contrary to -the terms of the truce.” - -“Would you mind telling me,” asked the Federal officer, “the exact -nature and extent of his offence?” - -A little explanation followed, the Confederate commander remaining -stern and uncompromising in his determination to deliver the man for -punishment, asking no favors or mercies for him, and offering no -apologies for that which he deemed a breach of honor. - -When the Federal officer had learned the exact facts of the -situation, he made the usual military salute and said to the -Confederate commander: “I thank you. You have been very honorable -and very punctilious, but the officer’s fault has been merely one of -inadvertence. I beg to return him to you with the assurance that we -have no desire to punish so brave a man as he must be, in order to -hold his commission in your army, for an act that involved no intention -of wrong.” - -Here were two brave men--two gentlemen--met. Naturally they understood -each other. - - - - -OLD JONES AND THE HUCKSTER - - -It is a fixed principle of military law that no person is allowed to -sell supplies within the lines of a camp without permission of the -commandant. - -It is also a fixed principle of military law that he must sell only at -prices approved by the commandant. - -I shall never forget how I first learned of these military rules. We -were at Camp Onward and old Jones had just become our colonel. - -One day a farmer came to the camp with a heavily laden wagon. It was in -the summer of 1861, when food in Northern Virginia was abundant, and -when our money was as good as anybody’s. - -Our farmer had among his supplies, dressed turkeys, suckling pigs, -lamb, mutton, watermelons, cantaloupes, string beans, Lima beans, green -peas, and in brief almost all those things that we read about on the -bill of fare of a swagger hotel, kept on the “American Plan.” - -He had butter also, and lard. He had eggplants and pumpkins, and a -great many other things. - -We were a rather hungry lot, and were strongly inclined to buy of him. - -But this farmer had evidently made up his mind to get comfortably rich -off that single wagon load of provisions. Two years later we should not -have been surprised at his prices, but at that time we were appalled. -Nevertheless, some of us were buying with the recklessness of men -who do not know at what hour a bullet may draw a red line below all -accounts. - -Just then old Jones came out in his yellow coat and his pot hat, -looking greatly more like a farmer than the wagon man did. Speaking -through his nose, and with that extraordinary deliberation which always -made his conversation a caricature of human speech, he asked: “What are -you chargin’ for turkeys? What are you chargin’ for butter?” And so on -through the list, receiving a reply to each query, and carefully noting -it in his thoroughly organized mind. - -Then he turned to one of the men and said: “Send the regimental -commissary to me.” - -When the commissary came he said to him: “Take these supplies, and -distribute them equitably among the different messes according to their -numbers.” - -By this time the farmer had become alarmed. He said: “Who’s goin’ to -pay for all this?” - -“I am,” said old Jones. “In my own way.” - -“Well, hold on,” said the farmer. - -“No, I reckon we won’t hold on,” said old Jones. - -“But I’ll send for the colonel of the regiment,” said the farmer. - -Then old Jones replied with a relish: “I am the colonel of this -regiment. And I have ordered these food supplies distributed to the -men in the messes. The regimental commissary will obey my orders. -And as soon as your wagon is emptied, you will get out of this camp -in a considerable of a hurry,”--perhaps he used a shorter word than -“considerable,”--“or I’ll hang you in front of headquarters. There’s no -court of appeals in this camp. Now git!” as the last of the supplies -were taken out of the wagon by the regimental commissary. - -We were all a little bit sorry that the poor farmer should lose his -entire load. And yet we sympathized with old Jones’s remark as he -walked away. - -“I’ll teach these thieves that they can’t loot a camp that I’m a -runnin’.” - - - - -A DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE - - -Dick Fulcher was the best natured man in the battery, and he was -nothing else. - -He was entirely ignorant and entirely content to be so. He could -neither read nor write, and we could never persuade him to try to -learn. He had nothing resembling pride in his composition apparently, -nothing that it would do to call a character. - -One morning the alarm came that the enemy had landed below, and we were -ordered hurriedly forward. Fulcher had just taken post as stable-guard, -and was, therefore, under no obligation of duty to go. He quietly threw -down the musket he was carrying, and, going up to the sergeant-major, -said: “Major, can’t I be taken off guard? I want to go with the battery -into the fight.” - -His request was granted, of course. He was number four at Joe’s gun; -number four is the man who pulls the lanyard, or string, that fires -the gun. When we unlimbered to the front on Yemassee Creek, within -pistol-shot range of the advancing enemy, Fulcher was laughing as -usual, and apparently as indifferent to the work he was doing as he -had been to everything else, since we had first known him. - -I remember wondering, as I watched him, why a man who felt so little -interest in the dangerous business had gone out of his way as he had -done to engage in it. - -The fire of the enemy was terrific in its destructiveness from the -first. Within the first three minutes we had lost ten men and a score -of horses. Among the men was Fulcher. He had fallen, shot through the -body, just as the command was given to him to “fire.” - -Lying there upon the ground, with his life ebbing away, he made a -feeble effort to pull the lanyard; but his strength was too far gone, -and Joe, being short of men, took his place. He had to stand astride -the poor dying fellow, in order to do his work, for Fulcher’s wound was -beyond the possibility of a surgeon’s help. - -After two or three more shots of the gun, Joe heard Fulcher feebly -calling to him: “Joe--Joe.” Inclining his ear, Joe received this last -message: “I’m done for, sergeant. But won’t you just write to my father -and tell him I died like a man? I’d like him to know that about his -only boy.” - -Joe wrote the letter and it was blotted with tears. - -After all, it is hard to guess what a man is made of till you know his -motives. - -[Illustration: A DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE.] - - - - -A WOMAN’S LAST WORD - - -The city of Richmond was in flames. - -We were beginning that last terrible retreat which ended the war. Fire -had been set to the arsenal as a military possession, which must on no -account fall into the enemy’s hands. - -As the flames spread, because of a turn of the wind, other buildings -caught. The whole business part of the city was on fire. To make things -worse, some idiot had ordered that all the liquor in the city should be -poured into the gutters. - -The rivers of alcohol had been ignited from the burning buildings, and -in their turn had set fire to other buildings. It was a time and a -scene of unutterable terror. - -As we marched up the fire-lined street, with the flames scorching the -very hair off our horses, George Goodsmith--the best cannoneer that -ever wielded a rammer--came up to the headquarters squad, and said: -“Captain, my wife’s in Richmond. We’ve been married less than a year. -She is soon to become a mother. I beg permission to bid her good-by. -I’ll join the battery later.” - -The permission was granted readily, and George Goodsmith put spurs to -his horse. He had just been made a sergeant, and was therefore mounted. - -It was in the gray of the morning that he hurriedly met his wife. -With caresses of the tenderest kind, he bade her farewell. Realizing -for a moment the utter hopelessness of our making another stand on -the Roanoke, or any other line, he said in bitterness of soul: “Why -shouldn’t I stay here and take care of you?” - -The woman straightened herself and replied: “I would rather be the -widow of a brave man than the wife of a coward.” - -That was their parting, for the time was very short. Mayo’s bridge -across the James River was already in flames when Goodsmith perilously -galloped across it. - -Three or four days later, for I never could keep tab on time at that -period of the war, we went into the battle at Farmville. Goodsmith was -in his place in command of the piece. - -Just before fire opened he beckoned to me and I rode up to hear what he -had to say. - -“I’m going to be killed, I think,” he said. “If I am, I want my wife to -know that she is the widow of a--_brave man_. I want her to know that -I did my duty to the last. And--and if you live long enough, and this -thing don’t kill Mary--I want you to tell the _little one_ about his -father.” - -Goodsmith’s premonition of his death was one of many that were -fulfilled during the war. - -A moment later a fearful struggle began. At the first fire George -Goodsmith’s wife became the “widow of a brave man.” His body was heavy -with lead. - -His son, then unborn, is now a successful broker in a great city. -There is nothing particularly knightly or heroic about him, for this -is not a knightly or heroic age. But he takes very tender care of his -mother--that “widow of a brave man.” - - - - -AN INCOMPLETE STORY - - -When General Field came to Cairo, Illinois, after the war, I welcomed -him with especial heartiness. - -I was a little bit lonely, lacking comrades in sympathy with me. - -General Field had been my drillmaster at Ashland, at the war’s -beginning. Later, after he became a great general, I had many times -been of his following in raids and scouts, and other military -expeditions. - -Like all the rest of us at the end of the war, General Field was very -poor. He had come to Cairo to engage in business, and had not been able -to bring his family with him. So he rented a bachelor room in the bank -building in which my office was situated, and we two used to spend the -evenings together in front of my office fire. - -At that time General Don Carlos Buell was operating a coal mine in -Kentucky, some distance up the Ohio River. He sold his coal through the -commission house for which I was attorney. - -When he came to Cairo, he, also, usually spent his evenings in my -office. - -One evening General Field was smoking a long pipe before my fire, and -he and I were chatting about war times--we hadn’t yet got far enough -away from the war to regard any other topic as worthy of intelligent -conversation. - -“The saddest part of it all, to us of the old army at least,” said -General Field, “is the breaking up of old friendships. There’s Buell, -now. He and I once tented together, messed together, slept under the -same blankets together, and, without any blankets at all, under the -same frozen sky; marched together, fought together, suffered together, -and endured together. Once we thought of each other as brothers might. -Now, if we should meet, he would refuse even to shake my hand. He would -regard me as a rebel--to him _anathema maranatha_.” - -At this moment came a knock at the door. I opened it, and to my -consternation there stood General Buell. - -My first impulse was to say to him that I was overengaged that evening, -and couldn’t see him. My second was to invite him to my bedroom for a -special conference, for which I could profess to have been longing. My -third was to fabricate the story of a telegram, which should call him -immediately to the house of the head of the firm. - -Feeling that none of these devices would answer the purpose, I thought -of the coal-shed below; but I remembered that there was no gas-burner -there, and the night was rather a dark one. - -Meantime, General Buell was catching cold in the hall. So at last -I invited him in, taking pains to call him only by his title, not -mentioning his name. As he entered, Field, who was always scrupulous -in attention to the little niceties of courtesy, arose to receive the -stranger. - -When the two gentlemen had bowed to each other,--for it was no part of -my purpose to introduce them, if I could help it,--I turned to General -Buell and said: “General, I’m afraid there is a little discrepancy in -the measurement of those last coal barges. If you have your memorandum -book with you, we’ll go to the outer office and straighten the thing -up. The book-keepers are bothered about it.” - -Alas! My little device came to nothing. Buell had caught sight -of Field, and Field had looked upon Buell. Though years of hard -campaigning had intervened since they had last met, each recognized the -other instantly, and after a moment’s hesitation each threw himself -into the other’s arms. - -“Why, it’s Buell!” - -“Why, it’s Field!” - -I can’t tell the rest of this story, because I didn’t stay to see it. I -don’t like to see two men hugging each other with tears in their eyes. - - - - -RANDOM FACTS - -ILLUSTRATIVE OF SOUTHERN SOLDIER CONDITIONS - - -We soldiers of the Southern army lacked many things. Sometimes we -lacked almost everything. We did not always have clothes, but when we -had any, they were apt to be good ones; they were made of cadet gray -cloth, imported from England through the blockade. And those Englishmen -have a habit of making uncommonly good cloths. - -We were often without shoes; but when we had shoes, they also came from -England, and were thoroughly good, both in material and make. - -But towards the end of the war, we lacked many essential things. We -lacked medicines for one thing, and quinine, especially. I remember -that one gentlewoman was deemed a peculiar patriot, because she got -through the lines with one hundred and forty ounce bottles of quinine -hung inside her hoop-skirt. - -For lack of that and other drugs, our surgeons had to resort to many -substitutions. Some of these were discoveries of permanent value. That -is why the medical profession has studied with interest the records of -our Southern surgeon-general’s department, now in possession of the war -department at Washington. - -These records, it is said, contribute more than any other like -documents to the science of medicine. - -Another thing that we terribly lacked was gunpowder--the one supreme -agent of all warfare. Our fire was often compulsorily made as light as -possible, in order to spare our cartridge boxes. - -To supply this rudimentary need, the women of the country diligently -dug up the earthen floors of all their smokehouses, and all their -tobacco barns, and rendered out the nitre they contained. Some of them -even destroyed their tobacco crops by boiling, in order to extract the -precious salt necessary to the destruction of their enemy. - -In the cities, our womenkind were requested to preserve and deliver to -government collectors all those slops that contain nitre. - -It was in this way alone that we got gunpowder enough to maintain -resistance to the end. And we had equally to pinch in other ways in -order that we might continue to be “fighting men.” - -All the window-weights in all the houses, and all the other leaden -things that could be melted down, were converted into bullets. Even -then we ran dreadfully short towards the end of the war. At Petersburg, -good soldiers felt it to be their duty to spend all their spare time -in collecting the multitudinous bullets with which the ground was -everywhere strewn. These battered missiles turned into the arsenals -were remoulded and came back to us in the form of effective, fixed -ammunition. - -When we marched to meet Grant in the Wilderness, in the spring of -1864, we were about the most destitute army that ever marched to -meet anybody, anywhere. We had nothing to transport, and we had no -transportation. - -At the beginning of every campaign it is customary for the commanding -general to issue an order, setting forth the allotment of baggage -wagons to officers and men. Just before we marched that spring some wag -in the army had printed and circulated a mock order from General Lee, a -copy of which now lies before me. - - - GENERAL ORDERS, NUMBER 1. - HEADQUARTERS, ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA, - April 20, 1864. - - The allotment of baggage wagons to the officers and men of the Army - of Northern Virginia during the coming campaign will be as follows:-- - - To every thirty officers.... No baggage wagon. - - To every three hundred men.... Ditto. - - (Signed) ROBERT E. LEE, General. - -This order was a good-natured forgery, of course. Nevertheless it was -carried out to the letter. The fact is that we had no baggage and no -baggage wagons. The only baggage wagons I ever heard of in connection -with that campaign were a few that General D. H. Hill summoned for a -special occasion. His musicians put in a petition at the beginning -of the summer’s work for wagons to carry their instruments. He -assented instantly, and ordered the wagons brought up. As soon as the -instruments were comfortably deposited within them, he turned to his -quartermaster and said: “Send those wagons to Richmond.” Then turning -to his adjutant he said: “Have muskets issued to these men immediately.” - -General D. H. Hill was not a man from whose orders anybody under him -was disposed to appeal. - -We entered that campaign stripped almost to the buff. We had no -tents, even for the highest officers. We had no canteens. We had no -haversacks. We had no knapsacks. We had no oilcloths to sleep on. -We had no tin cups. We had almost no cooking utensils and almost no -blankets. We had no shoes, and our socks had long ago been worn out. We -had an average of one overcoat to every thousand men. - -It was in this condition of destitution that we entered the battles in -the Wilderness. The Federal army was as much oversupplied as we were -underfurnished with all the necessaries of campaigning. What with a -perfectly equipped quartermaster’s department, a sanitary commission -volunteering superfluous tin cups and everything else and with other -sources of lavish supply, public and private, every Federal soldier -entered the campaign carrying about three times as much as any soldier -should carry. The moment there was fighting to be done, they shed all -these things--as a man throws off his overcoat when there is work to do. - -In the shiftings and changes of position that occurred during that most -irregular of all possible contests, we were thrown often into positions -where the shedding had been done. The first thought of every man of us -was to equip himself with such necessaries as were lying about. It took -us a week to get rid of the superfluous plunder, and reduce ourselves -again to the condition of soldiers in light marching order. - -The one worst lack of all we could not supply in this way. That was the -lack of food. It was an army of starving men that fought those battles -in the Wilderness. It was an army of starving men that confronted Grant -at Spottsylvania. It was an army of starving men that faced the guns at -Cold Harbor, at Bottom’s bridge, and all the way to Petersburg. Not -until we were established in the works there, did any man have enough -food in a week to supply his physical needs for a day. I have elsewhere -in these stories illustrated this fact somewhat, but as it was the -central fact in connection with that campaign, it seems to me important -here to state it in its fulness. - -At Petersburg we began to get something like regular rations, though -they were very meagre and of extremely bad quality. It was, perhaps, -under the influence of this prolonged starvation and hard work that -the men fell victims to the great religious revival of that time. It -was the ecstasy of anchorites. It proved, if anything ever did, the -efficacy of fasting as an inducement to fervid prayer. Saint Simeon -Stylites perched on top of his tower was no better subject of religious -enthusiasm than were these worn out and starved veterans, whose -cause was an object of perpetual worship. They believed no longer in -themselves; they no longer looked even to their generals for results. -The time and the mood had come when they trusted God alone to give them -victory. Starvation had made them devotees. - - - - -MY FRIEND PHIL[2] - - -To begin with, Phil was black. - -The reader will please understand that the word “black” is here used -in its literal, and not in its conventional, sense. Phil was actually -as well as ethnologically black. There was no trace of a lighter tint -anywhere in his complexion. Not a suspicion of brown appeared in his -cheeks, and even his great thick lips, protruding far beyond the -outposts of his nose, were as sable as the rest of his face. It was -all a dead black, too, unaccompanied by that lustre which, by surface -reflection, relieves the shadow upon commonplace African faces. - -And nobody knew all this better than Phil did. - -“Phil ain’t none o’ yer coffee-colored niggas,” he would say in moments -of exultation, when his mood was to straighten his broad shoulders and -boast a little. “Phil ain’t none o’ yer coffee-colored niggas, ner none -o’ yer _alapacker_ niggas, nuther. Ise black, I is. Dat’s sho’. Ain’t -got no bacon-rind shine in _my_ skin; but I jes’ tell yer what, mastah, -Phil kin jes’ take the very shut offen dem shiny niggas an’ hoff an’ -hoff niggas, when’t comes to de wuk. Drive? Kin I? Kin Phil drive? What -yer mean, mastah, by axin’ such a question?” - -Nobody had asked Phil such a question; but Phil had some remarks -that he wanted to make on the subject of his accomplishments in this -respect, and was disposed to answer what he wished somebody would ask. - -“Drive? Co’se I kin. Der never was a hoss ner mule yit whatever had -a mouf an’ two laigs dat Phil can’t han’le, an’ yer better b’lieve, -mastah, Phil can plaunt de wheel ’twix’ de acorn an’ de shell.” - -If I report Phil’s boastings, it is only because they constitute too -large a proportion of what he said to be omitted. I do so to confirm, -not to gainsay them, or to hold their author up to ridicule. - -He was my friend, the faithfulest one I ever knew, and now he is dead. - -If he boasted now and then, no one could have had a better right. His -was the pride of performance, and not the vanity of pretension. - -Phil was a Virginian--and a gentleman in his way--and a slave, though -I doubt if he ever suspected his gentility, or felt his bondage as a -burden in the least. He had no aspirations for freedom or for anything -else, I think, except jollity and comfort. I do not say that this was -well, but it was a fact. - -My acquaintance with Phil began when I was a half-grown boy. Until that -time I had lived in a free state, so that when I had returned to the -land of my fathers, and become an inmate of the old family mansion in -one of the south-side counties of Virginia, the plantation negro was a -fresh and very interesting study to me. - -On the morning after my arrival, as I lay in the antique carved -bed assigned to me, wondering at the quaint picturesqueness of my -surroundings, and the delightful strangeness of the life which I was -now in contact with for the first time, a weird, musical sound, of -singular power and marvellous sweetness, floated through the open -dormer windows, borne upon the breath of such a June morning as I -had never before seen. I listened, but could make nothing of it by -guessing. It was music, certainly, at least a “concord of sweet -sounds.” It rose and fell like the ground swell of the sea, and was as -full of melody and sweetness as is the song of birds, but it was as -destitute as they of anything like a tune. It began nowhere, and went -nowhither. I had no memory of anything with which to compare it, and -could conceive of no throat or instrument capable of producing such a -sound. On the great piazza below, at the front of the house, sat the -master of the mansion. Of him I straightway made inquiry. - -“What is that?” I asked curiously. - -“Phil,” answered my uncle. - -“And who is ‘Phil,’ and what on earth is he doing, and especially how -is he doing it?” - -“He is calling the hogs, and you may be sure he is doing it well. If -you’ll walk up to that skirt of woods, you can put your other questions -to him in person. He is not shy or difficult of approach. Introduce -yourself--be sure to tell him whose son you are.” - -My uncle’s face wore an amused smile as I walked away. He could imagine -the sequel. - -In the edge of the timber stood a tall, broad-shouldered, brawny -negro man. He was singularly ugly, but with a countenance so full of -good humor that I was irresistibly attracted by it from the first. At -his feet stood great baskets of corn, and around him were gathered a -hundred or more swine, busily eating the breakfast he was dispensing. -As I approached, his hat--what there was of it--was doffed. I was -greeted with a fabulous bow, apparently meant to be half a tribute of -respect, and half a bit of buffoonery, indulged in for my amusement or -his own. - -“Good mawnin’, young mastah. I hope I see you well dis mawnin’.” - -“Thank you, I’m very well,” I replied. “You’re Phil, I suppose?” - -“You’re right, fo’ dis wunst, young mastah. Ise Phil toe be sho’. Ax -der hawgs--dey done know me.” - -“Well, Phil, I’m glad to make your acquaintance. I’m your mas’ Jo’s -son.” - -“What dat? Mas’ Jo’s son! MAS’ JO’S SON!! MY MAS’ JO’S SON!!! Lem me -shake han’s wid you, mastah. Jes’ to think! MAS’ JO’S SON! An’ Phil -done live to shake han’s wid mas’ Jo’s son. Why, my young mastah, I -done raise your father! Him an’ me done play ma’bles togeder many and -many a time. We was boys togeder right heah, on dis very identumcal -plauntation. Used to go in swimmin’ togeder, an’ go fishin’ an’ steal -de mules out’n de stables Sundays, an’ ride races wid ’em and git -cotched, too, sometimes when ole mastah git home from chu’ch. MY -MASTAH. But Ise glad to see yer.” - -All this while the great giant was wrenching my hand well-nigh off, -laughing and weeping alternately, and stamping with a delight which -could find no other vent than in physical exertion. I was naturally -anxious to divert the conversation into some other and less personal -channel, and managed to do so presently by asking Phil to give me a -specimen of his hog-calling cry, which I wished to hear near at hand. -That performance over, we talked again. I began by saying I had never -heard any one call hogs in that way before. - -“Dat’s jes’ it, mastah,” he replied. “Folks don’t understan’ de -_science_ o’ hog-callin’. Dey says ‘p-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-r’og,’ when de hogs -ain’t po’ at all, but fat as buttah. Dey got to git ‘hog’ in some ways -so dey thinks. But dey ain’t no sense in dat. Hogs don’t understan’ -dat. Dey can’t talk an’ don’t understan’ de meanin’ o’ talk words. You -mus’ jes’ let ’em know dat when you wants ’em to come youse gwine to -make a noise, de like o’ which ain’t in heaven or yuth. Den dey gits to -knowin’ what dat means. Dat’s my way. When I fetch a yell at ’em, dey -jes’ raise der yeahs, an’ say to der se’f: ‘Dat dar’s Phil, fo’ sho’, -an’ Phil’s de big, ugly, black nigga wid de bauskets o’ cawn.’ When you -says ‘Phil,’ you mean mastah’s big nigga what wuks in de fiel’, an’ -plays de banjo, an’ goes fishin’; but when de hogs says ‘Phil,’ dey -mean a big black fella, wid a big yell into him, _an’_ de bauskets o’ -cawn. An’ you bettah b’lieve dat makes ’em jump up an’ clap dey han’s -fo’ joy, jes’ like de nigga does when he gets religion ’nuff to make -him shout, an’ _not_ ’nuff to keep him offen the hen roos’s. If a nigga -gits ’nuff religion to keep him from stealin’, it’s a mistake. Dey -don’t never mean to do it, and when dey does, dey ain’t glad a bit, -an’ dey hurries up an’ sends de surplage back.” - -Phil’s respect for what he called “niggas” was exceedingly small, and -it was his greatest pleasure in life to demonstrate their inferiority -and emphasize their shortcomings in a hundred ways. - -He was “head man” of the hoe hands--which is to say he hoed the leading -row of tobacco hills, and was charged with the duty of superintending -the work of the others. It was his delight to keep his work so far in -advance that he must now and then set his hoe in the ground, and walk -back to inspect the progress, and criticise the performance of slower -workers than he. In all this there was no spice of uncharitableness or -malice, however. He wished his fellows well, and had no desire to hurt -their feelings; but he keenly enjoyed the fun of outdoing them, and -laughing at their inability to cope with him. - -It was during wheat harvest, however, that Phil was in his full glory. -The rapidity with which he could “cradle” wheat was a matter of -astonishment to every one who knew him, and, what was more wonderful -still, he was able to maintain a distinctly “spurting” speed all day -and every day. - -“Phil,” his master would say, as the men entered the field on the first -day, “I want no racing now; it’s too hot.” - -“Now you heah dat, you slow niggas! Mastah says Phil mustn’t kill his -niggas, an’ de onliest way to save yo’ lives is fer yer not to try to -follow me. Jes’ take yo’ time, boys. Race a little among yo’selves, if -yer want to, but don’ yer try to get a look at de heels o’ my boots, if -yer don’ want to go to de bushes an’ has any intrus’ in mastah.” - -A negro, exhausting himself in a race, lies down in the bushes to cool -off and recuperate, and hence the winner of the race is said to send -the others “to the bushes.” - -Phil’s preliminary remarks were sure to exasperate his fellows and put -them on their mettle. Silently they would determine to “push” him, -and the utmost vigilance of the master was taxed to prevent dangerous -overexertion. If the reapers were left alone for half an hour, several -of them would be sure to overtask their strength, and retire exhausted -to the friendly shade of the nearest thicket. But they never succeeded -in coming up with Phil, or in so tiring him that he was not ready for a -dance or a tramp when night came. - -He was a strong man, rejoicing in his strength always; but there was -one thing he would not do--he would not work for himself. - -His master was one of those who hoped for gradual emancipation, as -many Virginians did, and thought it his duty to prepare his negroes -for freedom, so far as it was possible for him to do so. Among other -means to this end, he encouraged each to make and save money on his own -account. Each was expected to cultivate a “patch” of his own. Their -master gave them the necessary time and the use of the mules whenever -their crops needed attention. - -In this way he thought to train them in habits of voluntary industry -and thrift; and some of them, having no necessary expenses to bear, -accumulated very pretty little hoards of cash from the sale of their -crops every year. But Phil would not raise a crop for himself. - -“What I want to raise a crop for?” he would ask. “I don’ want no money, -on’y a quarter sometimes to buy a banjo string or a fish line, an’ I -get plenty o’ quarters pitched at me when I hol’ de gentlemen’s hosses. -I don’ want no money, an’ I wouldn’t know what to do wid it if I had -it. My mastah takes good care o’ me, an’s long as dar’s a piece o’ -meat in de smokehouse, Phil knows he’s gwine to have plenty to eat. I -ain’t gwine to earn no money an’ be cas’in’ ’flections on my mastah. -My mastah gives me mo’ clo’es ’an I kin war out; an’ _what de devil_ I -want to be makin’ money for, I donno.” - -It was of no use to argue the matter. His mind was quite made up, and -there was no possibility of changing it. - -Phil’s marital philosophy was unique. He changed wives half a dozen -times while I knew him, but one set of rules governed his choice in -every instance. There were certain qualifications of a rather singular -sort, which he deemed essential in a wife. She must not live on the -plantation for one thing, or on one of those immediately adjoining, -“’Cause den we’re sho’ to see too much o’ one anoder, an’ ’ll git tired -o’ de ’rangement.” In the second place he would marry none but _old_ -women, “’Cause de young ones is no ’count anyway. Dey don’ half take -car’ o’ dey husban’s stockin’s and things. ’F you want holes in yer -stockin’s an’ buttons off yer shut collahs, jes’ you marry a young -gal.” The third requisite was that the wife should be a slave, and -the daughter of slaves on both sides. This qualification he insisted -upon, even in the choice of masculine associates. His contempt for -“free niggas” was supreme, almost sublime. He neglected no possible -opportunity of villifying them, and practised no sort of economy in his -expenditure of invective upon them. - -Most of the negroes--in Virginia, at least--were very religious. -Naturally their religion was intensely emotional in its -character,--ecstatic, sombre, gloomy,--and quite as naturally it was -largely colored with superstition. But religion of this kind had no -charm for Phil, who, as the reader may possibly have guessed, prided -himself on being strictly logical in all his views and actions. - -“Bro’ Ben,” he said to one of his fellows one day, “youse done got -religion, I heah. Anyway, your face is twict as long as it ought to be. -Has yer got religion fo’ sho’?” - -“Now, Phil, I don’t want none o’ your wickedness. Bless de Lord, Ise -_got_ religion.” - -“Oh, you _is_ got it, is you? Now lemme ax yer a question or two. Youse -got religion, yer say?” - -Ben: “Yes, Ise got religion.” - -Phil: “Well, den, you’re gwine to heaven after while--when yer dies?” - -Ben: “Yes, Ise got de ’surance o’ dat, bro’ Phil.” - -Phil: “An’ you’d ’a’ gone to hell, if you hadn’t got de ’surance, as -you calls it, wouldn’t you?” - -Ben: “If I’d ’a’ died in my sins, course I’d ’a’ gone to hell.” - -Phil: “Well now fo’ a nigga what’s jes’ made his ’rangements to keep -out’n hell an’ git into heaven, youse got de mos’ onaccountable long -face I ever did see, an’ dat’s all about it.” - -When Ben had retired in disgust, I remonstrated with Phil. - -“What do you tease Ben for, Phil?” I asked. “You know better than to -make fun of religion.” - -“Course I do, mastah, an’ dat’s jes’ it. Ben ain’t got no religion, an’ -I knows it. He’s jes’ puttin’ on dat solemncholy face to fool de good -Lord wid. Ben’ll steal, mastah, whenever he gits a chaunce. He ain’t -got no mo’ religion ’n a hog. Sho. What he know ’bout religion, goin’ -down under de hill to pray, an’ all dat nonsense? Couldn’t git him to -sing a song or whistle a tune now on no account whatsumever, but he -ain’t no better nigga for dat. Didn’t I see? He shouted mighty loud -las’ night, but he shu’ked his wuk dis mawnin’ an’ didn’t half curry -his mules; an’ religion dat don’t make a nigga take good car’ o’ po’ -dumb creeters like mules ain’t wuth nuthin’ at all, no way yo’ kin fix -it. When dey keeps de row up jes’ a little better, an’ don’t cover up -no weeds dey ought to cut down, an’ takes good car’ o’ mules, an’ quits -stealin’, den I begins to ’spect ’em o’ havin’ de real religion. But -dey can’t fool Phil wid none o’ dere sham solemncholies.” - -Phil was a trifle hard and uncharitable, perhaps, in his judgments -upon his fellows in a matter of this kind; but there was, at any rate, -no hypocrisy in his composition. And what is more singular still, I -was never able to discover any trace of superstition in his conduct. -He laughed to scorn the signs and omens with which the other negroes -were perpetually encouraged or affrighted. Friday was as lucky a day -as any in his calendar. He would even make his fire with the wood of a -lightning-riven tree, and stranger still, was not afraid, as all the -rest were, on the occasion of a funeral, to bring away the shovels used -in the church-yard, without waiting till the moon and stars had shone -upon them. - -“How is it, Phil,” I once asked him, “that you don’t believe in any of -the luck signs?” - -“Do you b’lieve in ’em, mastah?” he asked in reply. - -“No, of course not, but all the black folks do, except you.” - -“Mastah, ain’t you foun’ out yit dat niggas is bawn fools? When my -mastah wants de hogs changed from one piece o’ woods to annuder, he -don’t go to makin’ blin’ signs to me, but he comes an’ tells me what he -wants; an’ de good Lord what made de wuld, he ain’t a-goin’ to make no -blin’ signs, nuther. He’s done tole us in de good book an’ in all de -wuld aroun’ us what to do. He’s put sense in our heads to un’erstan’ -what he means, an’ he ain’t gwine to govern de univarse wid a lot o’ -luck signs, like a nigga would do it. ’Sides, Ise done all de unlucky -things heaps o’ times, an’ ain’t never had no bad luck yit.” - -When the war came, Phil was a stanch Southerner in all his feeling, -and firmly held to his faith in the success of his side, even to the -end. The end crushed him completely. When his master explained to the -colored people their new condition of freedom, and proposed to engage -them for wages, Phil stoutly refused. - -“De odder folks may do as dey pleases, mastah, but Phil’s gwine to be -your nigga jes’ as he always was. I ain’t gwine to be free nohow. I -ain’t got no free nigga blood in me. I never saw no free nigga what -wasn’t hungry; an’ I don’t know no free nigga what _won’t steal_; -more’n dat, I never know’d a free nigga what wouldn’t sneak up on birds -an’ _shoot ’em on de groun’_. I tell you, I ain’t gwine to be no sich -folks as dem. Ise your nigga, an’ Ise gwine to be jes’ dat. I’ll do my -wuk, an’ I ain’t goin’ to take no wages, an’ you’ll take car’ o’ me -jes’ as you always did, on’y don’t never call me no free nigga. Ise a -slave, I is, an’ Ise got de bes’ mastah in ole Virginy, an’ I ain’t -fool ’nough to want to change de sitiwation.” - -His master explained to him the necessity of the case, and showed him -how impossible it was, by any mutual agreement, to alter the fact of -freedom, or to escape its consequences. - -“You must accept wages, Phil, for I may die or go into bankruptcy, and -you may grow old or get ill; and if I should be poor or dead, then -there would be nobody to take care of you. You must work for wages and -take care of your money, so that it may take care of you.” - -“Mastah, do you mean to tell Phil dat de law makes me a free nigga -whedder or no?” - -“Yes, Phil.” - -“Den stick yo’ fingers in yo’ years, mastah, ’cause Ise gwine to swear. -_Damn_ de law. Dat’s what I say about dat. An’ now Ise jus’ gwine to -die, an’ dat’s all about it.” - -The poor fellow walked away with bowed head and tear-stained face. -The broad, stalwart shoulders were bent beneath the weight of -responsibility for himself. He was a strong man, physically, but the -merest child in character, and the feeling that he no longer had any -one but himself to lean upon, was more than he could bear. The light of -cheerfulness and good humor went out of his face. The joyousness of his -nature disappeared, and before the summer had ripened into autumn, poor -Phil lay down and died of a broken heart. - - - - -OLD TIMES IN MIDDLE GEORGIA. - -BY - -RICHARD MALCOLM JOHNSTON. - -Cloth. 12mo. Price, $1.50. - - “This is a collection of short stories: they are human nature, - genial, graceful, and truthful, and are simply beautiful pictures - of a real life and full of interest. The reader who dips into one - of these stories does not want to lay aside the book until it is - completed.”--_The Inter-Ocean_, Chicago. - - “We predict for Mr. Johnston’s book a popularity hardly equalled by - any Southern production of recent years.”--_The Herald_, Augusta, Me. - - “The book will please all readers who love quaint humor and true - pathos and a good literary style.”--_The News_, Tacoma, Wash. - - “Short but delightful stories by Richard Malcolm Johnston, each - brimful of its own peculiar flavor of ludicrousness, strangeness, or - novelty in some form, and all seasoned by the strikingly quaint and - expressive vernacular.”--_The Tribune_, Detroit, Mich. - - THE MACMILLAN COMPANY, - 66 Fifth Avenue, New York. - - - - -YANKEE SHIPS AND YANKEE SAILORS: Tales of 1812. - -BY - -JAMES BARNES, - -_Author of “Naval Engagements of the War of 1812,” “A Loyal Traitor,” -“For King and Country,” etc._ - -With Numerous Illustrations by R. F. ZOGBAUM and CARLTON T. CHAPMAN. - -Crown 8vo. Cloth, gilt top. $1.50. - -COMMENTS. - - “There are passages in this book which are as strong and captivating - as the work of the best writers of the day; to mariners and those who - love the sea and ships these tales will appeal irresistibly. - - “Each story is a gem by itself. It is told with a directness and - a strength which carries conviction. All are based upon actual - occurrences, Mr. Barnes tells us, and while some of the incidents - related may come under the head of tradition, yet most of them are - historical facts, and he has worked up each tale so cleverly, so - compactly, so entertainingly, that they may, one and all, be taken - for models of their kind.”--_Seaboard._ - - “Good stories well told are those of ‘Yankee Ships and Yankee - Sailors,’ They deal with the gallant defenders of such vessels as - the _Chesapeake_, the _Vixen_, the fiery little _Wasp_, and grand - ‘_Old Ironsides_.’ All the stories are told in a spirited style - that will quicken the blood and the love of country in every Yankee - heart.”--_New England Magazine._ - - THE MACMILLAN COMPANY, - 66 Fifth Avenue, New York. - - - - -ON MANY SEAS. - -_THE LIFE AND EXPLOITS OF A YANKEE SAILOR._ - -BY - -FREDERICK BENTON WILLIAMS. - -EDITED BY HIS FRIEND - -WILLIAM STONE BOOTH. - -12mo. Cloth. $1.50. - - -COMMENTS OF THE PRESS. - - “Every line of this hits the mark, and to anyone who knows the - forecastle and its types the picture appeals with the urgency of old - familiar things. All through his four hundred and more pages he is - equally unaffected and forcible, equally picturesque. To go through - one chapter is to pass with lively anticipation to the next. His book - is destined to be remembered.”--_New York Tribune._ - - “The book reads like a romance, but is at the same time realistic - history, before which the fancy ships and the fancy sailors of the - novelist are pale and faded.”--_Baltimore Sun._ - - “The charm of the book is its simplicity and truth. The author, as - I happen to know, can spin thrilling yarns by the hour, and this - book of his is simply one long yarn of his life. A seaman every inch - of him, he writes as only a sailor can. No landsman, no amateur - yachtsman, could write a book like this. The entire book bears the - stamp of truth, and in this age of literary shams that is a crowning - merit.”--_New York Herald._ - - THE MACMILLAN COMPANY, - 66 Fifth Avenue, New York. - - - - -AMERICAN HISTORY - -TOLD BY CONTEMPORARIES. - - BY - ALBERT BUSHNELL HART, - _Harvard University_. - - The Set of Four Volumes, $7.00. - Each Volume sold Separately, Price $2.00. - - -VOL. I. Era of Colonization, 1493-1689. - - _Published 1897._ - - -VOL. II. Building of the Nation, 1689-1783. - - _Ready shortly._ - - -VOL. III. National Expansion, 1783-1844. - - _In Preparation._ - - -VOL. IV. Welding of the Nation, 1845-1897. - - _In Preparation._ - -Professor T. H. WOOD, of Worcester Academy, Worcester, Mass., says of -Volume I.:-- - - “_The plan and the contents are alike admirable. The set will be a - necessity for libraries and for teachers of American History._” - - THE MACMILLAN COMPANY, - 66 Fifth Avenue, New York. - - - - -FOOTNOTES: - - -[1] These notes were originally printed in the great war book of the -Century Company, entitled: “Battles and Leaders of the Civil War.” They -are here reprinted by the courteous and very generous permission of the -Century Company. - -[2] This story was first printed in the _Galaxy_ for December, 1875. -It is here reprinted by courteous permission of Colonel William Conant -Church, now of the _Army and Navy Journal_, under whose editorship -the _Galaxy_ was made a conspicuous and honorable factor in American -literature. - - - - -TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES: - - - Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_. - - Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. - - Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized. - - Archaic or alternate spelling has been retained from the original. - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOUTHERN SOLDIER STORIES *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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