[Illustration: THE GUNBOAT'S REPLY TO THE HOME GUARDS.]
_CASTLEMON'S WAR SERIES._
RODNEY, THE OVERSEER
BY
HARRY CASTLEMON,
AUTHOR OF "GUNBOAT SERIES," "ROCKY MOUNTAIN SERIES,"
"FOREST AND STREAM SERIES," ETC., ETC.
_Four Illustrations by Geo. G. White._
PHILADELPHIA:
PORTER & COATES.
COPYRIGHT, 1892,
BY
PORTER & COATES.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. A DISGUSTED HOME GUARD, 1
II. CAPTAIN TOM SMELLS POWDER, 28
III. THE CONSCRIPT'S FRIEND, 54
IV. LIEUTENANT LAMBERT'S CAMPAIGN, 82
V. HOW IT RESULTED, 109
VI. CAPTAIN ROACH LAYS DOWN THE LAW, 136
VII. A PERPLEXING SITUATION, 164
VIII. HOUNDS ON THE TRAIL, 189
IX. UNCLE SAM'S LOST BOYS, 216
X. NED GRIFFIN BRINGS NEWS, 242
XI. THE ESCAPED PRISONERS' STORY, 270
XII. A HAIL AT THE BARS, 297
XIII. CAPTAIN TOM SHOWS HIS GRATITUDE, 328
XIV. RODNEY KEEPS HIS PROMISE, 353
XV. RODNEY PASSES INSPECTION, 380
XVI. CAPTAIN RANDOLPH RECEIVES ORDERS, 406
XVII. CONCLUSION, 431
RODNEY, THE OVERSEER.
CHAPTER I.
A DISGUSTED HOME GUARD.
"I don't say that you fellows played the part of cowards by firing
into that unarmed boat, but you acted like born idiots, and it would
serve you just right if the citizens of Baton Rouge should come out
here in a body and lynch the last one of you. Why do you not wait for
orders from me instead of roaming about the country acting on your own
responsibility? I know what the Confederacy expects this company to do
and you don't."
"Now jest listen at you, Tom Randolph."
"Yes, listen when your commanding officer speaks, and remember that
there is a handle to my name and that I expect you to use it as often
as you address me."
"Well, _Cap'n_ Randolph, if that suits you any better; though it's
mighty little you ever done to deserve the title. When this company of
ourn was first got up didn't you say that we was going to make all the
Union men about here hunt their holes?"
"Yes, I did; and I would have done it in a soldier-like manner if you
had obeyed my orders, as you promised to do when you were sworn into
the service. But when you made up your minds that you knew more than
your captain and set out to have your own way, you got yourselves into
hot water directly, and I am very glad of it. If you have come to your
senses and will promise that from this time on you will obey my orders
to the letter, and quit going off on raids unless I send you, I will do
the best I can for you; but the minute you take the bits in your teeth,
as you have been doing for the last few months, that minute I will
throw you over and the conscript officer can take you and welcome. And
mark my words, this is the last warning I shall give you. The last one
of you ought to be court-martialled and shot."
It was a motley group of men and boys, perhaps a score of them in
all, who were gathered at the foot of the wide steps that led up to
the front door of Mr. Randolph's plantation house, and one could have
told at a glance that they were as excited and angry as was the young
officer in Confederate uniform on the gallery above, who shook his
fists at them over the railing, and addressed them in the imperious
language we have just recorded. The most of the group were dressed
like soldiers, and that was what they claimed to be; but whether they
belonged to the Union or Confederate army it would have been hard to
tell, for their clothing was an odd mixture of the uniforms of both.
It would have been quite as hard to tell whether they belonged to the
artillery, infantry, or cavalry, for the distinguishing colors of these
three branches of the service were about equally represented. These
men and boys called themselves Home Guards; and they were members of
the independent company that Tom Randolph and his father raised and
equipped after Tom failed to get himself elected second lieutenant of
Captain Hubbard's Rangers. You remember something about that, do you not?
When the war excitement was at its height in the spring of 1861,
and Rodney Gray, Marcy Gray's cousin, left the military academy at
Barrington because he could not study while others were going into
the Southern army and making ready to fight for the cause in which
they honestly believed, he was bound by a compact he had made with
some other red-hot rebels in his class to enlist within twenty-four
hours after he reached home provided he could get to a recruiting
office in that time. The uniform he wore at school was gray, and so
was the one adopted by those who were determined to break up the
government because they could no longer do as they pleased with it;
and impulsive Rodney Gray, carried away by the excitement of the hour,
declared that he would not wear any other color until the South had
gained her independence. He found it easy to keep the first part of
his promise, for it so happened that he came home in time to join an
independent company of cavalry that was being raised in his immediate
neighborhood, and which was intended to be so very select that no
applicant could get into the company if a single member of it objected
to him.
Among the prominent citizens of Mooreville who took a deep interest in
the organization (they all claimed Mooreville as their home, although
some of them lived from three to a dozen miles outside of it), and used
both money and influence to help it along, was Mr. Randolph, Tom's
father. If any young fellow who stood well in the community hesitated
to send in his name because he could not raise money enough to buy a
horse and fit himself out as well as the other Rangers were fitted out,
Mr. Randolph was prompt to come to his aid with the assurance that if
he would go ahead and enlist, money need not stand in his way, for
the horse, uniform, weapons, and all other necessary things would be
forthcoming. He scoured the country for miles around for recruits, and
did so much in other ways to aid the company that when the Rangers made
their first camp, and hoisted above it the flag under which they hoped
to ride to victory, they named it Camp Randolph.
This gentleman was so rabid a Secessionist that he was utterly
unreasonable. In fact, some of his warmest friends declared that he was
about half crazy. He had no clearer conception of the sufferings and
trials that he and those who believed as he did were bringing upon the
people of the South than the most ignorant negro on his plantations.
The men of the North belonged to an inferior race and did not know how
to fight. They were going to be whipped without any trouble at all, and
when the Southern troops had covered themselves with glory by taking
and holding Washington, while Jefferson Davis dictated terms of peace
to the Lincoln hirelings, he wanted all the Mooreville boys there to
witness the grand and imposing spectacle, and that was why he urged
them to enlist. That was about what Mr. Randolph said, and no doubt he
was honest with himself as well as with the recruits he brought into
Captain Hubbard's company; but events proved that he had another object
in view and one that he did not think it best to speak of.
Tom Randolph, who was twenty-four years of age, was as conceited an
ignoramus as there was in that part of Louisiana; but he had an idea
that he was very bright, and capable of filling any office he could
get. At first he declared his intention of going to the front as
captain of the Rangers. It would be no more than right that he should
have the highest place in return for what his father had done for the
company; but when Mr. Randolph told him that _that_ would be aiming
a little too high, that Bob Hubbard, who had really done more hard
work for the company than anybody else, would certainly be chosen
captain, and that it would look better and be better if Tom would
accept something a little lower down and work his way up, the young
man decided that he would be a candidate for the second lieutenant's
place. He was sure he would get it and so was his father; but he
didn't. Although the Rangers _did_ not know anything about soldiering,
they did know what sort of men they wanted for officers, and Tom
received but twelve votes out of sixty-five—his own and those of the
eleven recruits his father had brought into the company. Then there
was trouble in the camp, and if Tom and his father had possessed
the physical power they would have thrashed every Ranger in it. But
there was one thing about it: if they could not have a voice in the
management of the company they would not only cease to support it, but
would do their best to break it up; and Tom acted upon this rule or
ruin policy by withdrawing from the ranks almost as soon as the result
of the ballot was announced, his example being followed by the eleven
recruits who had voted for him.
"Now let's see how they will get on with their Partisan Rangers," Tom
said to his father that night. "There's almost too much social equality
in that company anyway to suit me. I have noticed it ever since I have
been in it. Who is their second lieutenant, the man they shoved into my
place? A common book-keeper who never in his life had the price of a
pickaninny in his pocket."
Tom hoped and believed that by withdrawing from the company he had
inflicted a blow upon it from which it would never recover; but to his
surprise and disgust the Rangers went ahead with their plans as if
nothing had happened. Rodney Gray, the only member of the organization
who knew anything about military matters, was made first duty sergeant
and drill-master; and under his skillful management the Rangers
changed so rapidly from awkward greenhorns to soldiers, and became so
proficient in the school of the company, that the deserters, with the
single exception of Tom Randolph himself, began to repent their hasty
action, and ask one another what they could do to induce the Rangers
to take them back again. They knew they could not look to Mr. Randolph
for an outfit, for he took Tom's defeat as a deliberate insult to
his family, and instead of promoting enlistments in the company was
doing all he could to stop them. The only one they could turn to for
help was Rodney Gray's father—a man who had said and done nothing of
consequence to show that he was in favor of partisan organizations,
and who was looked upon with suspicion by his neighbors because he put
no faith in the final success of the secession movement, and did not
hesitate to say that the South would be whipped as she deserved to be
for trying to break up the government. There were thousands of wealthy
and influential men in Louisiana who believed as he did; and yet they
did more to help the soldiers than the blatant rebels who were fierce
for a fight at the beginning, but went over to the Federals at the
first opportunity, and became "spies and informers for the sake of the
loaves and fishes that fell into their hands." The sequel proved that
the recruits went to the right man, for six of the eleven were fitted
out at Mr. Gray's expense. And he did not boast of it either, as Mr.
Randolph and Tom had done.
Captain Hubbard's Rangers, as the company was always called, got on
very well until they began looking around for someone to swear them
into the service and order them to the front, and then the trouble
began. They first applied to the commanding officer at New Orleans; but
he declined to have anything to do with them unless they would give
up their independent organization, and that was something the Rangers
were determined they would not do to please anybody. They formed their
company in the first place because they were led to believe that the
Richmond government was in full sympathy with such organizations, which
would be allowed full liberty of action when sworn into the service of
the State; but such would by no means be the case if they permitted
themselves to be sworn into the service of the Confederacy. As one of
the Rangers expressed it: "If they were going to give their liberty up
to a new government they might as well have stayed under the old."
Tom Randolph was delighted when he heard of this state of affairs, and
the Rangers themselves were much depressed; but Rodney Gray was sure he
saw a way out of the difficulty when he received a letter from his old
schoolmate and chum, Dick Graham, who lived in Missouri. In that letter
Dick said he belonged to an organization of partisans who were known
as State Guards. Their immediate commander was General Price, but they
were required to take oath to obey Governor Jackson and nobody else. In
plain English this meant that while the State Guards were willing to
look out for the secession movement in Missouri and keep all Yankee
invaders off her soil, they did not intend to go into any other State
unless they felt like it, or permit the Richmond authorities to control
their movements in any way. That was exactly the kind of partisans that
Captain Hubbard and his men wanted to be; and when Rodney Gray said
that if the Governor of their own State would not accept them as a
company, they had a perfect right to offer themselves to the Governor
of another, and that it might be a good plan to ask General Price if he
would take the Rangers just as they were, Captain Hubbard was glad to
act upon the suggestion. So, without delay, a telegram was sent to Dick
Graham's father in St. Louis, and in due time the answer came back:
Price will accept. Company officers and independent organization to
remain the same.
To quote from Rodney, this brought the matter squarely home to the
Rangers, who were compelled to decide upon some course of action
without loss of time. A business meeting of the company (and a stormy
one it turned out to be) was held that very day; and although Captain
Hubbard and Rodney carried their point, it was only by a small majority
of votes that the Rangers consented to leave their own State and go
into the service of another.
Believing it to be a good plan to strike while the iron was hot,
Captain Hubbard and one of his officers at once set out for New Orleans
to find a boat that would take the company to Little Rock; but in the
meantime the Governor of Louisiana got wind of the affair through spies
in the telegraph office in Mooreville, and tried to upset the designs
of the Rangers by having them sworn in by General Lacey, who was a
Confederate officer. He would have succeeded too had it not been for
quick-witted Rodney Gray, who cautioned his comrades not to answer to
their names when the roll was called. He did more. When his own name
was called he rode to the front and centre and surprised and angered
the general, a veteran of the Mexican War, who had never learned to
recognize any organizations outside of those mentioned in the Army
Regulations, by stating that the company was an independent one whose
members, while willing and eager to be sworn into the service of their
State, did not desire to enter the service of the Confederate States.
They enlisted as partisans, and partisans they wished to remain.
Upon hearing this the veteran was astounded. He declared, by the
shade of the great and good Washington, that he did not know what the
country was coming to, flung the roll-book on the ground at the feet
of Rodney's horse, and rode away in a huff; and that was the last of
Captain Hubbard's Rangers. They broke ranks then and there and never
held a company meeting afterward.
The next morning Rodney Gray, who was determined to be a partisan and
nothing else, started for Missouri with no companion but his horse,
and eventually succeeded in finding his friend Graham in spite of all
the efforts that were made, both by Union men and rebels, to stop him.
Of course Tom Randolph was happy over the way things had turned out,
and one would think he ought to have been satisfied; but he was not.
Every one of the Rangers who voted against him when he ran for second
lieutenant made an enemy of Tom, and he showed it as often as the
opportunity was presented. He felt particularly spiteful toward Rodney
Gray, whose services as drill-master had been publicly acknowledged by
the gift of an elegant sword from the company, and he began persecuting
him the moment he learned that Rodney had decided to leave the State
and go to Missouri. With the aid of a friend of his, Drummond by name,
who had charge of the telegraph office in Mooreville, he paved the
way for Rodney's arrest in St. Louis by sending a description of him
and his horse to Mr. Randolph's agent, a Yankee cotton factor, who
lived in that city; but this scheme, which might have brought Rodney's
soldiering to an end before it was fairly begun, was frustrated by a
"student" in Drummond's office whose name was Griffin, and who went
all the way to Baton Rouge by night to warn Rodney of the plots that
had been laid against him. Acting on his friendly hints Rodney did not
go to St. Louis as he had intended, but left the boat at Cedar Bluff
Landing in Missouri; and from there, after some exciting experiences
with a squad of emergency men who happened to come in with a prisoner
during the night, he set off across the country to find General Price
and Dick Graham.
He had undertaken something from which the boldest man might have
shrunk without any fear of being accused of timidity; but he came
through with flying colors as we have said, did a soldier's duty side
by side with his friend Dick for fifteen dreary months, was discharged
with him at Tupelo after the evacuation of Corinth, and brought Dick
home with him to his father's house at Mooreville, where they were both
resting at the time this story begins. Even after they were discharged,
and had begun telling each other that their troubles and trials as
soldiers were all over, they met with an adventure that under almost
any other circumstances might have proved a serious thing for them.
Shortly after they left Camp Pinckney on their way home, they ran into
a squad of Union troopers, who covered them with their carbines and
told them to come in out of the rain. They were prisoners for the
first time, but did not remain so any longer than it took their captors
to read their discharges. The boys' hearts overflowed with gratitude
when the good-natured corporal who commanded the squad jerked his thumb
over his shoulder and told them to "git," and Rodney hinted that the
time might come when they could repay his kindness. Strange as it may
appear the time did come, and perhaps we shall see if Rodney remembered
and kept his promise.
Rodney Gray was the only one of Captain Hubbard's Rangers who became
a partisan. The Governor's attempt to have them sworn into the
Confederate service against their will broke them up completely, and so
disgusted some of their number that they declared they never wanted to
see a man with a star on his collar again; but they could not remain
at home while all their friends were making haste to go to the front
for fear that the fun would all be over and the Yankees whipped before
they could get there, and in the end every one of them became what he
repeatedly declared he never would be—a Confederate soldier. Then
it was that Tom Randolph and his father began to bestir themselves.
There was a good deal of pressure brought to bear upon every young man
and boy in the South about that time, and those who would not put on
a gray jacket or do something else to show their zeal for the cause
were coldly treated and sometimes snubbed; but Tom Randolph escaped
all this, and even raised himself higher in the estimation of some of
the Mooreville people by procuring, through his father's influence, a
captain's commission in the State militia, with authority to recruit
a company of mounted men who were to act as Home Guards. Tom knew the
commission was coming and prepared for it by ordering a fine uniform
and horse equipments of the latest and most expensive pattern, not
forgetting an officer's sword which on its scabbard bore an inscription
to the effect that the weapon was presented by his affectionate
relatives, and on the blade the old Spanish legend:
Draw me not without a cause,
Nor sheath me with dishonor.
"That is a good motto, my son," said Mr. Randolph, when Tom drew the
weapon and proudly showed it as though his father had never seen it
before, "and I trust you will bear it constantly in mind."
"The cause of the South is a righteous cause, for it is the cause of
freedom the world over," shouted Captain Randolph, pounding the table
with his fist and ignoring the fact that his father held more than four
hundred men, women, and children in bondage at that moment. "To cease
fighting for that cause at the bidding of the tyrant Lincoln would be
dishonor; and the stain upon our record as a nation would be so deep
and black that it _never_ could be wiped out. When once I have drawn
this beautiful sword in defence of the _rights_ of my country, it shall
never be sheathed until every Yankee south of Mason and Dixon's line
has been driven back where he belongs."
The eloquent soldier pounded the table with his fist; everyone in the
room, negro servants and all, applauded; and one of the latter ventured
to say, in tones that of course were not intended to reach the officer's
ears: "Say, you niggahs! What'll you bet dem Yankees don't run fit to
kill derselves when dey see Mass' Tom comin'?" As to Tom, he smiled
complacently and said to himself: "That was a better speech than Rodney
Gray delivered when those Rangers gave him that frog-sticker of his."
Knowing Rodney Gray and Dick Graham as well as you ought to know them
by this time, what do you think they would have thought if they had
been in that room and listened to Tom's words? Before twenty minutes
had passed away he appeared upon the streets of Mooreville in the full
glory of his captain's suit and with his horse duly caparisoned; but
having no company to command he prudently left his sword at home.
It was Tom's wish and his father's to bring the strength of the company
up to a hundred men; but Tom found it harder work to raise a small
fraction of that number than it was to get his commission from the
Governor. Everyone who presented himself was accepted, and that too
without reference to his social standing or his ability to pass the
surgeon; and when all other expedients to promote enlistments had been
tried, Mr. Randolph came to the front, as he had done in the case of
the Rangers, with the offer to arm and equip all recruits who could not
furnish their own outfit. This helped matters along amazingly; and when
fifty men had been enrolled Captain Randolph ordered them to appear in
one of his father's fields on a certain afternoon, armed and equipped
as the law directed, for "company inspection." No one knew just what
the order meant, but the men were all in the field at the appointed
time; and when Tom came to look at them as they sat in their saddles
facing him, after making an awkward and ineffectual effort to fall
in line, he was disgusted with them and with himself too. Until that
moment he had no idea that he had been enrolling so unpromising a body
of men. _Men!_ They looked more like lazy vagabonds, as indeed the most
of them were. Rodney Gray himself could not have made soldiers of them.
The next half hour was an ordeal that Captain Tom never wanted to pass
through again; but we will let him describe it in his own way.
"They were the worst looking fellows I think I ever saw," Tom told his
father and mother when he reached home after the "inspection" was over.
"I brought them together because I wanted to see how they looked, and
how I would look riding at their head; and to tell the honest truth,
if a stranger had come into that field when they first tried to draw
themselves up in line I believe I should have put spurs to my horse and
galloped away rather than be seen in their company."
"Why, what was the matter with them?" inquired his mother, who took as
deep an interest in the organization as Tom himself, and was anxious
that it should win a name for him after the rebuff he had received
at the hands of Captain Hubbard's Rangers. "You knew they were not
gentlemen when you asked them to give in their names. There are few of
that sort left in the country, more's the pity."
"I know that; but I hoped they might have pride enough to make a
half-way respectable appearance at inspection," answered Captain Tom.
"In the first place, no two of them were mounted, armed, or dressed
alike. In the next, they came just as they had been at work in the
field in the forenoon, and I don't believe that half of them had taken
the trouble to wash their faces or comb their hair."
"They looked just as we see them on the streets every day, I suppose,"
said Mr. Randolph.
"Just the same, only worse," replied Tom, who was almost mad enough
to cry every time he thought of it. "Here was a man mounted on the
heaviest kind of a plough horse and carrying a long squirrel rifle
on his shoulder, and beside him was one on a little runt of a mule
and armed with a heavy double-barrel deer-killer. Not a few of them
had chicken or turkey feathers stuck in their slouch hats for plumes,
and some had pipes in their mouths; and when I said that no smoking
would be allowed in the ranks, they did not hesitate to tell me that
I need not think I could boss them around as Rodney Gray had bossed
the Rangers while he was acting as their drill-master, for that was
something they would not submit to."
"Why the—the impudence!" exclaimed Mrs. Randolph; while her husband
looked down at the floor and told himself that that was about what
might have been expected of such men as he and Tom had been able to
bring into the Home Guards.
"That's the kind of soldiers they are," continued Captain Tom. "They
know I haven't the power to enforce my commands, and so they intend to
do pretty near as they please. The only reason they joined was because
they wanted an excuse for keeping out of the army, and get the horses
and weapons that were promised them."
"And food," added Mrs. Randolph.
"Food!" exclaimed her husband. "I didn't promise them any food except
in case they were ordered to some other part of the State, and then I
said I would look out for the families of those who were too poor to
make provision for them."
"Well, a rough looking fellow who said he was a member of the company
came to the kitchen yesterday and asked for some bacon on the strength
of that promise, and I gave it to him," said Mrs. Randolph.
"I'll bet he played a game on you," said Captain Tom.
"That's a pretty state of affairs!" exclaimed the father, profoundly
astonished. "Don't give another mouthful to him or anybody else on the
strength of promises I made to that company. As long as they stay about
here they will earn their own food or go hungry."
"That's the kind of soldiers they are," repeated Tom. "They enlisted
because they are afraid to go into the army and too lazy to work, and
not because they care a picayune for the Confederacy. And after I had
brought them in line as well as I could, and told one man to take his
pants out of his boots and be sure that those boots were blacked the
next time he came out to inspection, and ordered another to put his hat
on straight and quit carrying his gun flat on his shoulder as he would
if he were hog hunting in the woods, they made up their minds that they
would elect officers. When I told them that I hadn't brought them
together for any such purpose, and that we would postpone the matter
until the company had been brought up to its full strength, they didn't
pay the least attention to me."
"It's a rabble—a mob and nothing else," cried Mrs. Randolph, who
looked as angry as her son felt. "It is the one wish of my heart to see
you take a proud position among the noble defenders of your country,
but you will never have anything more to do with those ruffians with my
consent. Whom did they choose for officers?"
Tom mentioned the names of two of the meanest men in the country for
miles around, and his angry mother continued:
"A common overseer and an acknowledged chicken and hog thief! My son,
you must not appear again in the company of those men."
"I don't intend to," replied Tom, jumping to his feet and striding up
and down the room. "Although I despise every man in Captain Hubbard's
company, and have ever since they defeated me for the second lieutenancy,
I must acknowledge that they were a fine looking body of men, and I
somehow got it into my head that my Home Guards would look and act just
like them; but they don't, and I am so disappointed that I don't see how
I can ever get over it. I'll hold fast to my commission and rank, but
I'll have nothing more to do with that company of Home Guards."
Slowly and sadly Captain Tom ascended to his room, where he took off
his fine uniform and arrayed himself in the citizen's suit he had
vowed never to put on again until he had helped the South gain her
independence. Then he put his handsome sword into its cloth case, stood
it up in the darkest corner of his closet, and closed the door. He felt
like a monarch who had lost his crown.