CAPTAIN TOM SMELLS POWDER.
For a long time Captain Randolph remained firm in his resolution to
have nothing more to do with the Home Guards. Although he did not
formally throw up his command of the company he kept away from it
as much as he could, and never ordered it to appear for drills and
inspections; but by so doing he did not by any means escape being
taken to task for the lawless acts of which his men were guilty. The
company well deserved the name that Mrs. Randolph had applied to it,
and one could not reasonably expect that they would conduct themselves
as the high-toned Mooreville Rangers would have done under the same
circumstances. It had never occurred to them to inquire what their
duties would be when they were sworn into the service of the State, and
it is extremely doubtful if their captain could have enlightened them
on that point; but in their ignorance they took it for granted that
they had been given liberty to do as they pleased, and acting under the
leadership of their lieutenants, Lambert, the overseer, and Moseley,
the chicken and hog thief, they very soon made themselves known to and
feared and hated by the citizens for miles around. Tom heard of their
exploits now and then, and although he stamped his feet and shook
his clenched hands in the air, he did nothing to show his authority.
At last things came to such a pass that Captain Tom, to quote from
Rodney's friend Griffin, who was closely watching the movements of the
Home Guards, "had to fish or cut bait."
Bright and early one morning a couple of angry planters galloped
furiously into Mr. Randolph's front yard, threw themselves from their
horses, leaving the animals to tramp down the flower beds or stand
still as they pleased, entered the house without knocking, and made
their way through the hall into the dining room, where the family sat
at breakfast. Without giving anybody time to express surprise at their
abrupt entrance or to inquire into the nature of their business, they
stalked around the table to the chair in which Tom was sitting and
shook their fists in his face pretty close to his nose.
"Look-a-here, young feller," said the one whose rage would permit
him to speak first, "what do you mean by sending them vagabonds of
yourn, them Home Guards, into gentlemen's houses to turn things up
topsy-turvy?"
The men looked so dangerous that Captain Tom turned white with alarm,
but could not utter a word. He understood the charge and knew he was
innocent, but he could not say so.
"When that company of yourn was first got together you took pains to
spread it around that you were going to use them to clean out the Union
men," the planter almost shouted. "That was all right and I didn't have
a word to say against it, for I thought they oughter be driven out; but
why don't you confine yourselves to searching the houses of Union men,
and let good and loyal Confederates like me and my neighbor alone? We
are as strong for the South and as ready to fight for her as you are;
and I tell you once for all——"
By this time Tom's father and mother had recovered themselves in some
measure, but Tom himself was still so frightened that he could not
speak. The former arose and placed chairs for the visitors, and Mrs.
Randolph told the girl to lay plates for them, adding that if they
would sit down and tell their story while drinking a cup of coffee, she
was sure her son could clear himself of the serious accusations they
had brought against him. If their houses had been raided by the Home
Guards they might rest assured that a Randolph was in no way to blame
for it. This calmed the storm and made the visitors look as though they
felt a little ashamed of themselves; but they sat down and told their
story.
"It seems that that man Lambert, who always was too lazy and trifling
to earn an honest living, has give up his situation as overseer on Miss
Randall's place, and took to raiding through the country on his own
hook," said the planter who had thus far done all the talking. "We
have heard of him a time or two, but so long as he stole from Union men
and pestered them it was all right; but last night he jumped down on me
and Boswell, and that is a little more than we can stand."
"I don't see what made him do that," exclaimed Tom, who had by this
time found his tongue. "He knows you are good Confederates."
"Of course he knows it, and when we reminded him of it he didn't try
to deny it; but he allowed we had guns in the house, and that them
dangerous things couldn't be permitted to stay in the country except in
the hands of soldiers. So he came to our houses and searched them; and
as he had about a dozen men in his gang we couldn't help ourselves."
"As sure as I live I never gave him orders to search anybody's
premises," declared Tom.
"I don't reckon you ever gave him much orders of any sort," replied the
planter, with a look on his face which showed that he knew about how
much authority Tom had over the Home Guards.
"And bear this in mind," added his companion: "when we found that we
couldn't say or do anything to stop them, and that they were dead set
on having the guns, we offered to bring 'em out ruther than have them
dirty vagabonds rummaging over our things; but that didn't by no means
suit Lambert. Him and his men must go in themselves so as to be sure of
getting everything in the shape of weapons there was. And when they got
into my house where do you suppose was the first place they went to?"
added Boswell, with suppressed fury.
"I have not the slightest idea," replied Mrs. Randolph, when the man
stopped and looked around as if he expected an answer.
"To the bed," said Tom, who had heard that it was a good plan for
raiders to look between mattresses for things they wanted to find.
"No, they didn't. They went straight to my wife's bureau," said Boswell
fiercely. "That was a pretty place to look for guns, wasn't it, now?"
Tom was thunderstruck. He knew that the Home Guards had been denounced
as robbers because they had ransacked the dwellings and smoke-houses
of Union men, and had thought nothing of it, for Union men had no
rights, and were not in the least deserving of sympathy; but this was a
different matter altogether. It would never do to let such a story as
that get to the ears of the Governor.
"Perhaps they looked into the bureau for revolvers," he managed to say
at length.
"No, they didn't. They looked for rings and breastpins and bracelets
and the like; but they didn't find none, for my wife was sharp enough
to put the whole business into her pocket as soon as she see that they
were set on coming into the house. All the same, they got a rifle that
cost me $125 in gold in New Orleans in good times, and a shot gun that
is worth almost twice as much. And I'll tell you what's a fact, Tom
Randolph: I want them guns back. They're mine, and if I don't get 'em
I'll raise a fuss."
"And while you are getting them you might as well tell Lambert to hand
over the two guns he stole from me," said the other visitor, "and
that if he ever pokes his long nose inside my door again I'll send the
contents of one of 'em into it. I say nothing about the hams they took
from my smoke house, but they mustn't try to take any more. I reckon me
and Boswell were a little too fast in accusing you of sending Lambert
to search our houses, but you being the captain, you know, why—really
you had oughter make them fellers go a little slower. What do you think
of the situation anyhow, Mr. Randolph? And how long will it be before
we shall have Washington?"
Mr. Randolph and his wife were glad to have the conversation turned
into another channel, and so was Captain Tom, who did not want to hear
any more about Lieutenant Lambert and his exploits. He was ill at ease
as long as the visitors remained; but they went away as soon as they
had drunk their coffee, and seemed as glad to go as the Randolphs were
to have them.
Tom did not eat a hearty breakfast that morning, for the fear that
the Governor might get wind of Lambert's latest raid and revoke his
commission, added to the difficulties he saw in his way of complying
with the demands his late visitors had made upon him, took away his
appetite. He must restore those guns to their owners—there were no
two ways about that; but how should he go to work to get them? His
first thought was to present himself before Lambert in full uniform
and, by virtue of the authority conferred upon him by his captain's
commission, which stated in plain language that he was to be obeyed
by all persons under him, demand the return of the stolen property
forthwith. That was the way any other captain would have gone about it,
Tom thought; but he was afraid that bluster might not prove successful
in his case. He had reason to fear (and it was one of the heaviest
trials he was called upon to bear) that he did not stand as high in the
estimation of some of his men as he did in his mother's; that he had on
one or two occasions been compared to a wagon's fifth wheel in point
of usefulness, and it would be just like the insubordinate Lambert to
refuse point blank to obey his orders. That would be unfortunate, for
it would show to the world, and perhaps to the Governor, that Tom was
not the real captain of the Home Guards. After looking at the matter
from all sides he made up his mind that conciliation would be his best
policy, and when he rode away to seek an interview with his lieutenant
he wore citizen's clothes and left his sword behind. He found Lambert
at his quarters on the Randall plantation, where he continued to live,
although he had turned the work over to the field hands and seldom took
the trouble to see how it was going on, and he was just getting ready
to mount the horse that had been brought to his door.
"Hallo, lieutenant!" began Tom, with more familiarity and
good-fellowship than he had ever before exhibited in addressing the man.
"Morning, cap'n," replied the overseer, who might have responded to
the salutation in a very different way if Tom had not been respectful
enough to put a handle to his name. "Want to see me?"
"I came over on purpose to have a friendly talk with you," said Tom.
"Look here, old fellow; you will play smash if you don't stop raiding
the premises of such men as Boswell and Wallace. What induced you to do
it?"
"Aint I got a right to look for we'pons?" demanded Lambert.
"You have authority from me," answered Tom, with some emphasis on the
two last words, "to search the houses of Union men, but you have no
right to enter the dwellings of Confederates."
"Look-a-here, cap'n. I knowed that them two men had guns in hiding."
"But you didn't expect to find them in bureau drawers, did you?"
"Eh?" exclaimed the overseer. He looked somewhat abashed for a moment
and then continued: "When I search a house I search it. I look into
every hole and corner in it."
"That is perfectly right when you search houses belonging to the
enemies of your country; but it is all wrong when you enter the houses
of our friends. Such work will turn them against us—make enemies
of them. I saw Boswell and Wallace this morning and they are mad as
hornets. They want their guns back."
"Well, the next time you see 'em just ask if they'll have 'em now or
wait till they get 'em. I want them guns myself to keep the Yankees
from getting 'em."
"The Yankees!" said Tom contemptuously. "You don't think they will ever
get this far South, do you?"
"They mout. Didn't you say yourself that they was liable to come down
from Cairo or up from New Orleans, and that we'd oughter have a company
of Home Guards here to stop 'em?"
"I said there was a bare possibility that they might do so, and that
it would be the part of wisdom to prepare for an emergency," answered
Captain Tom, who well remembered that he had used stronger language
than that while urging Lambert to send in his name. "But I want those
guns and must have them at once. You haven't any commission from the
Governor yet, and I——"
When Tom said this he stopped abruptly and gave such a start that his
lieutenant looked up at him in surprise.
"What's the matter, cap'n?" said he. "You what?"
"You haven't received your commission from the Governor yet," repeated
Tom slowly and emphatically. "And when I——"
"Have I got to have a paper like yourn?" exclaimed Lambert, looking
astonished and interested. "That's news to me."
"Yes. And it can come to you only through my recommendation. I must
certify that you were legally elected to the office you hold, and
that was the reason I did not want you men to go through the farce
of holding an election on horseback on the day I ordered you out for
inspection," replied Tom; but the truth was he had never thought of it
until that moment. It was a bright idea that suddenly flitted through
his mind, and he wondered why it had been so long in coming to him.
"Well, by gum!" was all the disgusted Lambert could say in reply.
"Your papers, if you get them, will be something like mine, only
different, you know, for a captain outranks a lieutenant by a large
majority," continued Tom, improving to the utmost the advantage he had
so unexpectedly gained. "You have no authority to make out warrants,
but I have; and our non-coms., if we had any, would have to look to me
for them."
This was all Greek to the overseer, who had taken no pains to post
himself on military matters, but he did not ask Tom to explain, for he
was anxious to hear more about the commission he ought to have, but had
not yet received.
"Well, go on," said he impatiently. "And when you what?"
"And when I make my first report to the Governor or his
adjutant-general, and ask him about your commission and Moseley's, I
want to be able to say that you are in every way satisfactory to me
as well as to the people hereabouts, and that I am sure you will make
brave and obedient officers. But you can see for yourself that I can't
say that if you keep on bothering good and loyal Confederates like
Wallace and Boswell. I think you had better give me those guns."
"I aint got but one," replied Lambert, who seemed to have lost the
independent and swaggering air he had assumed at the beginning of the
interview, "and I'll go right in and bring it out."
"Where are the others?" demanded Captain Tom.
"Well, Moseley's got one, Smith's got another, and where t'other one
has went I disremember just at this minute."
"You distributed the spoils among you, it seems."
"Yes, kinder; so't the Yankees couldn't easy find them."
"Then you must ride around and gather them up; and as I have nothing
particular to do this morning I will go with you. I'd rather be a king
among hogs than a hog among kings any day," said Tom to himself, as
his lieutenant turned about and went into his house, "but I confess
I little thought I should get so low down as to command a lot of
brigands. That idea about the commissions makes me the biggest toad in
the puddle from this time on. I'll hold them up as prospective rewards
for good behavior and prompt obedience of orders; but Lambert and
Moseley shall never have commissions on my recommendation, I bet you."
The Home Guards had deliberately stolen these four valuable guns, and
Tom Randolph knew it as soon as he found how they had been scattered
about. The plea that if permitted to remain in possession of their
owners they might be captured by the Yankees, who would use them to
kill Confederates, was Lambert's excuse for one of the worst outrages
that had ever been perpetrated in that part of Louisiana; but it was
by no means the last. Three-fourths of all the Home Guards in the
South were like Captain Tom's men, and the worst that can be said of
them is that they acted as guards at Andersonville, Libby, Millen, and
Salisbury. It was not the Confederate soldiers who served at the front,
but the Home Guards, who starved the boys in blue to death in those
prison pens, and hunted them with bloodhounds when they escaped.
The upshot of the whole matter was that Tom got the guns, which in
due time were restored to their lawful owners, and plumed himself on
having firmly established his authority over his men. Well, they did
behave a little better during the daytime and in that settlement where
they were so well known, but they took to riding around of nights,
and making "visits of ceremony" to isolated farmhouses in which they
had reason to suppose that they would find something worth stealing.
But riding was anything but easy work, and the novelty of frightening
women and children and browbeating unarmed men wore off after a while;
and when they had secured bacon and meal enough to last them for a few
weeks, the Home Guards subsided and were seldom heard of again until
the news of the glorious victory at Bull Run raised the war spirit
of the Southern people to the old fever heat. Then they came to the
surface again, and persecuted Union people in and around Mooreville
so fiercely that some of them were compelled to flee for their lives,
Captain Randolph being in command this time. From his friend Drummond,
the telegraph operator, he secured a list of all suspected persons
in the neighborhood, and with this to aid him Tom succeeded in doing
effective work for the cause of Southern independence. But it was too
much like labor to be kept up for any length of time; there was not
very much glory in it anyway the better class of Secessionists in the
community became strongly opposed to it, and so the Home Guards dropped
out of sight once more, not to appear again until Farragut captured New
Orleans and sent some of his vessels up the river to effect a junction
with Flag-Officer Davis at Vicksburg. When the people of Mooreville
heard of it they were very indignant, and some of them declared that
they would never submit to have their country overrun in that way—they
would die first; and to show how very much in earnest they were they
stopped all work, shut up their houses, and ran about the streets in
the greatest excitement. When the ship of war _Iroquois_ came up with
Commander Palmer on board and demanded the surrender of Baton Rouge,
the mayor of that insignificant little town "indulged in the same
mock-heroic nonsense that the mayor and council of New Orleans had been
indulging in the week before." He declared that the city would not
be surrendered to any power on earth, and that if the Federals took
possession of it they would do it without the consent and against the
wishes of the peaceable inhabitants.
"It was all done for effect, and that man will be one of the last in
the Confederacy to shoulder a musket," said Rodney Gray when he heard
of it; but being a soldier he applauded the action of Captain Palmer,
who, without any fuss or parade, promptly took possession of the
barracks, arsenal, and other property of the United States. He hoisted
the flag of the Union over the arsenal too, and told the boastful mayor
in pretty plain language that he would let it stay there if he did not
want to get himself and his town into trouble.
"All honor to the brave citizens of New Orleans. They have shown me how
I ought to act in this emergency," said Captain Randolph on the morning
the startling news came that some of the victorious Union fleet had
steamed up the river. He posted for his room the moment he heard of
it, and when he came down he was dressed in his uniform and wore his
glittering sword by his side.
"Now take those things off and don't make a fool of yourself," said
Mr. Randolph, who had told his wife over and over again that from the
bottom of his heart he wished he had never had anything to do with the
Home Guards.
"Don't be rash, my dear," said his mother in tones more befitting the
occasion. "What are you going to do?"
"I shall assemble my company and place myself in a strong position
between here and Baton Rouge, and stand ready to resist the enemy's
advance upon Mooreville," replied Tom. "The Federal General Butler has
more than 100,000 men, and can easily spare some of them long enough to
make our capital a heap of ashes; but the Governor shall hear that I
harassed them while they were doing it, as our own Marion and his bold
men used to harass the Redcoats."
Those who were best acquainted with Tom Randolph knew that he would
not have gone one step toward Baton Rouge if he had not had the best
of reasons for believing that there were no troops at hand to take
possession of the city after the war ships had captured it; but
although Tom hinted as much to the members of his company whom he
tried to rally to the defence of their hearth-stones, he could not
induce more than a handful of them to turn out. It did not require
very much courage to rob Union men who had previously been deprived of
their weapons, but facing blue-jackets who were likely to have loaded
muskets in their hands was a more serious matter. The excuses the Home
Guards made for refusing to follow their captain were of the flimsiest
kind; but, all the same, they wouldn't go, and Tom finally rode away
with only a baker's dozen of men at his heels. They arrived within
sight of the spires of the city on the same day that Captain Palmer's
sailors hoisted the Union flag over the arsenal, and might perhaps have
witnessed the ceremony if they had gone a mile or two farther down the
road; but Captain Tom could not uncover Mooreville even for the sake of
saving the capital of his State. He did not even venture near enough
to the Mississippi to see the _Iroquois'_ topmasts; but he went closer
to the enemy than the cowards who remained at home, and that was
something to be proud of.
Captain Tom slept in a planter's house that night, while his men bunked
in the stables and corn cribs and under the trees in the yard, and the
next morning made a wide detour to the river above the city with no
other object in view than to be able to say, when he went home, that he
had been there. If he had known what he was going to see and experience
when he reached the river it isn't likely that he would have gone in
that direction at all; for he halted his men behind the levee just in
time to see a monster war vessel steaming leisurely up the swift, muddy
current of the Mississippi. She was the blackest, ugliest looking thing
that Tom's eyes had ever rested on, and the queerest sensations came
over him as he gazed at her. It was not a cold day, but Tom shivered
violently, and tasted something in his mouth that reminded him of salt.
"By gum! There's one of them things now. Let's try a whack at her. What
do you say, boys?"
Tom had been on the point of giving the signal for retreat, or trying
to give it, but this astounding and reckless proposition staggered him
so that he could not open his mouth. The man who made it showed that
he was in earnest by swinging himself from his horse and advancing on
all fours toward the levee, dragging his rifle along the ground at his
side. In less time than it takes to tell it he and all his companions
were lying prone behind the levee, using it as a breastwork, and
Captain Tom sat in his saddle looking on like one in a dream. When
they were all in position one of the Home Guards set up a warwhoop, a
straggling fire ran along the top of the levee and bullets and buckshot
went whistling toward the vessel. There were several men on her deck
and around the wheel-house, and although Tom did not see any of them
fall he did see that they were badly frightened, for they ran in all
directions, and an instant later there was not one of them to be seen.
The Home Guards yelled triumphantly and turned on their backs behind
their breastwork to reload their guns. Then Tom managed to find his
voice; but it sounded so strangely that he hardly knew whether it
belonged to him or not.
"That's the way to make the Yankees hunt their holes," he said, in
trembling tones. "Give it to them again! Cut their old tub to pieces,
my brave——"
Just then a wide, dark opening appeared in the side of the vessel
nearest them, a black object came slowly out, a thundering concussion
rent the air, and a thirty-two pound shell came at them. It shrieked
fearfully as it flew over the levee above their heads, and made such a
horrid din when it exploded in the thick woods behind them, scattering
iron and branches about and cutting down twigs and leaves in a perfect
shower, that for a single instant the Home Guards were motionless with
astonishment and terror. They had not hurt the gunboat at all, but
they had made her captain angry, and the fear that he might resent the
insult to his flag by firing more shells at them sent the Home Guards
to their saddles in hot haste; and with Captain Tom, who rode the
swiftest horse, far in the lead, they struck out for home at a better
pace than they had ever travelled before. And they never drew rein
until they had left the dangerous neighborhood miles behind.
"It was the narrowest escape from an ambuscade I ever had in my life,"
said Captain Tom to the first man he met when he rode into Mooreville
that night, "and if it hadn't been for my promptness in getting out of
there I shouldn't have had a man left. We'd have been cut to pieces or
captured, the last one of us. We didn't see any enemy except the ship
we fired at, but a minute or so after she opened on us a battery of
flying artillery, that had all the while been concealed in the timber
in our rear, cut loose on us with all its guns, and it's a miracle that
one of us escaped to tell the story of the battle."
"But my partner came from Baton Rouge to-day," said the man doubtfully,
"and he declares that there are no Yankee troops in the country this
side of New Orleans. So where did that battery come from?"
"Don't you believe any such stuff," replied Tom indignantly. "I tell
you the woods are full of them, and they are liable to come to
Mooreville between now and sunrise."
If no one else believed his story Tom believed it himself, and the
consequence was he slept in his chair that night. But for some reason
the Yankees did not appear as he had predicted, and they might have
postponed their coming indefinitely had it not been for the lawless
acts of Captain Tom's own men.