LIEUTENANT LAMBERT'S CAMPAIGN.
Of course the principal topic of conversation at the enrolling office
during the rest of the day was Mr. Gray's unexpected interference in
behalf of Ned Griffin, the conscript. It frightened Captain Roach,
enraged and disgusted Tom Randolph, and put Lieutenant Lambert into a
very anxious frame of mind. The latter was obliged to confess that his
chances for keeping out of the army were very slim indeed.
"That's the way the thing stands, and if you want to stay at home you
and your men had better be doing something," he kept saying to himself
as he galloped along the dusty road on his way home. It was easy enough
for Captain Roach to talk, but what was there that the Home Guards
could do to distinguish themselves, seeing that the Federal troops were
so secure in their position at New Orleans that the whole Confederate
Army could not drive them out, and that the gunboats in the river in
front of Baton Rouge could not be whipped by men who were armed only
with squirrel rifles and shot guns? Lambert had been turning the matter
over in his mind ever since Mr. Gray left the enrolling office in the
morning, and now he did something which he had declared he never would
do as long as he lived. He went out of his way to ask the advice of a
Confederate veteran who had just returned from the Army of the Centre
disabled by wounds received in battle.
There were several of these crippled veterans in the neighborhood,
and they had been so many thorns in Tom Randolph's side ever since
they first began straggling home from the front. To begin with, they
turned up their noses at the Home Guards, and made all manner of sport
of their finely uniformed captain when they saw him riding along the
road slyly pricking his horse with his spurs to make the animal prance
and go sideways, as an officer's horse ought to do. They laughed, too,
when they heard the Home Guards tell of their fight with that gunboat,
and some of them went so far as to declare that, disabled as they
were and half dead with camp fever besides, they could arm themselves
with corn-stalks and drive Tom Randolph and his warriors into the
Mississippi River.
In the next place, almost all these veterans had brought home with
them a goodly supply of Yankee relics and trophies in the shape of
uniform coats, pants, caps, and overcoats that had been picked up on
the field, and which, for some reason or other, they seemed anxious
to get off their hands. So they offered them to the Home Guards in
exchange for citizens' clothing of equal or less value, and the latter
were always found willing to trade. Captain Tom was disgusted and angry
when first one man and then another appeared at the enrolling office
clad in some portion of a shabby uniform that had once belonged to a
Federal trooper or infantry-man, and ordered the wearers to clear out
and never come there again unless they could come properly dressed; but
the Home Guards paid no sort of attention to him. They were soldiers,
they said, and since their own government did not think enough of
them to provide them with uniforms they felt at liberty to obtain them
where they could. Besides, their new clothes, even though they were
well worn and had once belonged to Lincoln's hirelings, were warm and
comfortable, and the blue overcoats would keep out next winter's cold
as effectually as gray ones. Much against his will Tom finally appealed
to the enrolling officer; but the latter could not help him, for he had
no authority over the Home Guards.
"But you might threaten to conscript them if they don't obey my
orders," suggested Tom.
"I shouldn't like to do it for a little thing like that," replied
Captain Roach. "They've got the uniforms, and I don't see how you are
going to keep them from wearing them. What difference does it make,
anyway? You don't have to go on dress parade."
"No matter for that," replied Tom. "I didn't enter the service to
command a lot of Yankees, and I won't do it. Suppose a general officer
should happen along and order them out for drill and inspection! I'd
feel so ashamed of myself that I know I should take to my heels."
"Make your mind easy on that score," was the captain's answer. "If you
don't take to your heels until that happens you will never run. Judging
from what I have learned since I have been here, the government cares
no more for companies of this kind than it does for so many wild hogs
in the woods. If it were not for you and your mother I would conscript
the last one of them."
"But what do you suppose makes the returned veterans so anxious to get
rid of these Yankee uniforms and things?" continued Tom. "It looks to
me as though there might be something back of it."
"That's the way it looks to me, too," replied Captain Roach. "They
don't want to have a Yankee scouting party ride up on them suddenly and
say: 'Look here, Johnny; have you been robbing some wounded or captive
Yank? If not, where did you get those blue clothes?'"
"But the Yankees are not here," cried Tom.
"I know they are not here now, but they're coming; and if they keep
on besting us at every point, as they are doing at this minute, they
will be here before long, too. You needn't think that Farragut is going
to remain idle down the river, or that Flag-Officer Davis is going to
keep on doing nothing up the river while we are fortifying Vicksburg.
There's going to be fun here one of these days."
And sure enough there was. It came much sooner than Captain Roach
had any reason to think it would, and Lieutenant Lambert of the Home
Guards, whom we saw on his way to ask advice of a Confederate veteran,
was the man who did the most to help it along. He found the soldier
of whom he was in search at his home. He was sitting on the gallery
enjoying his after supper smoke; but when he saw the Home Guard alight
at his gate he staggered to his feet, laid hold of the crutch that
leaned against the house behind his chair, and said, in mock alarm:
"The man you want to see don't live here no more. He done moved outen
the country two year ago come next July. Clear yourself. I'm that
skeared of gray-back soldiers that I can't sleep none fur a week after
seein' one of 'em."
"Aw! Quit your nonsense," growled Lambert, "or, by gum! I'll come there
and lick ye even if you aint got but one leg to defend yourself with."
He hitched his horse at the fence, shook hands with the veteran, then
seated himself on the porch close by his chair and continued: "Me and
you have always been the best kind of friends, Abner, and I don't want
you to sniff at me just kase you've been shot by the Yankees and I
aint."
"I won't, Sile; I won't never do the like no more. But a Home Guard!
And lickin' a gunboat that's got 'leven inches of iron on her sides and
four foot of solid oak back of that, with nothing in the wide world
but popguns!" said the veteran, taking his pipe from his mouth to
indulge in a hearty peal of laughter. "_And_ Tom Randolph fur a cap'n.
That there is a leetle the worst I ever heard of. Hey-youp! Steady on
the left centre!" he yelled, dropping his crutch upon the gallery and
grasping with both hands the stump of his leg, which he had wrenched
a little too severely during his paroxysms of merriment. "I almost
disremembered that I aint got only part of a leg on this side. I left
the rest up to Shiloh. I'm glad to see you again, Sile; I am so. But I
would be a heap gladder if me and you had chawed hard-tack and fit the
Yanks together. Then you wouldn't be no such triflin' thing as a Home
Guard."
"But I don't want to fight no Yanks," said Lambert truthfully.
"Don't you want to fight no Yanks? Well, I don't know's I'm blamin' you
fur that. They aint by no means the easy fellers to lick that we uns
thought they was goin' to be, and when they set up that yell of theirn
to let we uns know they was comin' fur us—I tell you, Sile, my hair
always riz when I heard that yell, and I wisht I was to home grabblin'
fur taters."
"Then what makes you poke fun at me fur?" demanded Lambert. "I am to
home now and I want to stay; but Cap'n Roach he allows that if we uns
don't do something pretty sudden we're liable to be conscripted."
"Like enough. Then why don't you uns do something?"
"That's what I come here to see you about. What is they, I'd like to
know, that we can do? If the Yanks would only come where we be [you
will notice that Lambert did not say "Yankees" any more. He copied the
veteran and used the shorter word], we uns could show the folks about
here that we Home Guards aint by no means the useless truck they take
us to be; but we can't go all the way to New Orleans fur the sake of
fightin' 'em."
"You uns will see Yanks enough if you stay right where you be," said
the veteran, with another laugh. "I aint spilin' fur a sight at any
more of 'em, but all the same I look to see them ridin' right along
this road while I am settin' on my gallery watchin' of 'em. They aint
come this clost to Mooreville to go away without seein' it. They're
hoppin' us right along, and we had oughter be whopped."
"Now, just listen at you!" said Lambert reproachfully.
"I'm only tellin' you what I know," said the veteran in earnest
tones. "Look at the way they're doin'! When the law was passed that
everybody must be conscripted, why didn't they go to work and conscript
everybody? Why didn't they put the old soldiers ahead and shove the
Johnny Raws into the ranks? Steader that they let the old soldiers
stay in the ranks, and put over them fur officers a lot of new chaps
who couldn't a'told a Yank from a ground-hog if they had seed the two
standin' in one place. We uns aint a goin' to whop nobody with a lot of
greenhorns to command us, and although I aint by no means glad to go
hobblin' through the world on one leg, I am mighty glad of an excuse to
get outen the army. Now, there's that there Rodney Gray."
"By gum! I wish he was here to be conscripted," exclaimed Lambert.
The veteran took his pipe from his mouth, blew a cloud of smoke into
the air, and looked at his companion with an expression on his face
which seemed to say that he did not know whether to laugh or get angry.
But finally he concluded to laugh, and he did so most uproariously,
rolling about on his chair as if he were in danger of falling out of
it, but all the while taking good care not to give his wounded leg
another wrench.
"Why, man, he's a soldier, Rodney is," he said as soon as he could
speak, "and a mighty good one, too. He's been in more battles than me,
and that's useless. He fit all through Missoury with Daddy Price, and
then they brung him over to the Army of the Centre, and that's where
I seen him. They wanted to make a big officer of him, but Rodney he
wouldn't have it so, kase he's plum sick of the war, same as I be, and
allows to come home soon's his extry three months is out. You can't
tech Rodney Gray."
"I know that well enough, but I wish we could. You see, Tom
Randolph——"
"You needn't say no more," laughed the veteran. "Rodney got an office
in Cap'n Hubbard's Rangers and Tom didn't, and Tom is mad about it and
wants to spite Rodney in some way. But he can't do it, and if he tries
it ole man Gray will make him wish he hadn't."
"And ole man Gray is another chap I'd like mighty well to see sent to
the front," exclaimed Lambert angrily; "but we can't touch him neither.
He showed his hand when he come into the office this morning and told
Roach that he'd have to let that Griffin boy go free, kase he allowed
to buy him off with bacon and beef; and Roach was that skeared that he
dassent open his mouth."
"What was he skeared of?"
"That ole man Gray would report him fur leavin' the names of Tom
Randolph's friends off'n the conscript list, when he had oughter put
them on like he found them in the poll-books."
"Like enough," replied Abner. "And then you and Tom Randolph and all
the rest of the Home Guards would have stood as fine a chance of goin'
to the front as Ned Griffin. It would serve you just right fur trainin'
under such a no account cap'n as you have got. Why don't you cut loose
from him and do something on your own hook? That would be me if I was
you."
"'Taint safe," replied Lambert, who had not yet forgotten that he
brought himself into trouble the last time he tried to do something on
his own hook. "Somehow our folks have got to be mighty tender of the
Union men about here and don't like to have them pestered."
"You let your Union neighbors alone and pester them that's got we'pons
into their hands," said the veteran indignantly. "You uns aint got no
call to fight them that can't fight back; but there's them gunboats
down to the river."
"Well, what of 'em?" demanded Lambert, trembling at the bare thought of
again venturing within gunshot of one of those black monsters. "They've
got cannons on 'em, and they shoot balls bigger'n your head. Don't I
know? Aint I been in a fight with one of 'em?"
"Shucks!" sneered Abner. "You stand about as much chance of bein' hit
by one of them big balls as you do of bein' struck by lightnin'. I have
seed me on the skirmish line lyin' fur hours behind a stump that wasn't
no bigger'n a plug hat, while shell and solid shot was tearin' up the
ground all around me. They don't do damage once a week less'n they're
drapped into a line of battle or into a fort that is packed full of men."
"But how can we lick 'leven inches of iron and four foot of solid oak?"
protested Lambert.
"Shucks!" exclaimed the veteran. "I aint talkin' about lickin' on 'em.
I'm talkin' about pesterin' of 'em—drivin' their row-boats back when
they start to come to the shore, and pickin' off the officers as fast
as they come outen their holes in the cabin. You uns could lay behind
the levee and do that, and be as safe as you be to home; kase the
shells they would send at you would all fly over your heads, and when
they bu'st they would be a mile to your rear."
The lieutenant of the Home Guards was overjoyed to hear these
encouraging words fall from the lips of a man who had faced the Yankees
in battle and knew what he was talking about. He had given his friend
Abner to understand that he was one of the few who followed Captain
Tom when the latter rode out with a handful of brave men to see if
the Union Army was advancing upon Mooreville from Baton Rouge, but
there was not a word of truth in his story. He was one of the majority
who excused themselves and stayed behind, and all he knew about that
desperate fight with the gunboat and the concealed battery that opened
on the rear of the Home Guards was what his comrades told him. The
veteran did not seem to think that the big guns on the war vessels were
so very dangerous, and Lambert began to pluck up courage.
"'Pears to me that Cap'n Roach said something like that the first time
I talked with him," said the latter.
"Like enough; and if he did you can bet that that is what he would do
if he had as many Home Guards under his command as you have got. I
can't fur the life of me see what makes them Baton Rouge folks so very
friendly with the Yanks, anyhow. They take 'em into their houses and
visit with 'em, and feed 'em, dog-gone it all, and I say such doings
aint right. If ole Daddy Bragg was here fur about five minutes he'd put
a stop to all that friendship business, I bet you, and like as not
he'd have some of you Home Guards shot fur lettin' it go on as long as
it has. Anyway, he'd kick Tom Randolph into the ranks and put a soldier
in his place. That's the way they do things up in the Army of the
Centre."
The result of this interview was that when Lieutenant Lambert took
leave of the veteran and rode home to a late supper he was fully
satisfied in his own mind that Tom Randolph was totally unfit for the
responsible position he held, that the Home Guards, who under proper
leadership might have made themselves known throughout the length and
breadth of the Confederacy, had been kept in check too long already,
and that he (Lambert), being second in command of the company, had
a perfect right to take matters into his own hands without saying a
word to anybody about it. But it was a somewhat delicate task, he told
himself. Although Lambert looked upon the friendly relations existing
between the crews of the Union war vessels and the Baton Rouge people
as a burning disgrace, he did not relish the idea of trying to bring
them to an end, for the citizens might not like it, and, worse than
that, they might make him trouble on account of it; but something must
be done or he would be compelled to go into the army, seeing that
he had no rich and influential friend like Mr. Gray to purchase his
release with bacon and beef. So Lambert's mind was made up, and before
he reached home his campaign was fully planned.
"I'll raise a big squad and start for the city to-morrow night," he
soliloquized, flourishing his riding-switch in the air to give emphasis
to his thoughts. "And if I once gain a footing behind the levee I'll
put a stop to that friendship business, I bet you. I'll give the
folks to understand that we uns don't like the way they're giving aid
and comfort to the enemies of their country, and make them Yankee
gun-boatmen stay on board their ships where they belong. I'll take
pains, too, to see that the Gov'nor hears of it, and perhaps he'll
say that I had ought to be cap'n of the Home Guards in place of Tom
Randolph."
That was an encouraging thought, and the longer Lambert dwelt upon
it the more excited he became. He did not sleep much that night,
and after an early breakfast mounted his horse and rode through the
country to muster his men; but as fast as he found them and unfolded
to them the details of his campaign he was met by the same excuses and
refusals that Tom Randolph had vainly tried to combat. The fighting
member of the company, the one who was always eager to shoot or hang
the defenceless Union men he assisted in robbing, was feeling so very
poorly on this particular morning that he was thinking strongly of
riding over to a neighbor's to see if he could not borrow a dose or
two of quinine; the second had promised to go to a log rolling; the
third had a lame horse and didn't rightly know where he could go to
get another; and not more than three or four out of the fifty men whom
Lambert summoned to follow him to Baton Rouge had the courage and
honesty to tell him that they did not like to do it.
"I wouldn't mind hiding behind the levee and shooting a few Yankees,"
said Lieutenant Moseley, "but they'll shoot back, and like as not
that'll make the Baton Rouge folks mad at us. Ask somebody else. You
can get all the men you want and I don't reckon I'll go."
Whenever a Home Guard talked to him in this way Lambert always said in
reply:
"Well, then, if you don't want to go and win a name fur yourself you
can stay to home till Roach gets ready to conscript you. If you were in
Kimberly's store yesterday you must have seen fur a fact that we uns
aint safe from going into the army just kase we happen to belong to the
Home Guards. Cap'n Roach he has said time and again that we was liable
to go if we didn't wake up and do something, and that if he had been
our commander he wouldn't have let them city people get on such amazing
good terms with the Yanks. Le's go down there and make 'em quit it
right now, and say nothing to nobody till the thing is done. Remember,
I don't ask every man, but only just them that we want to have stay in
the company. When we get back I'll give Cap'n Roach a list of them that
went with me, and if he wants to conscript the others—them that was
afraid to face the enemies of their country—and send them to the camp
of instruction, he can do it and welcome. Now, what do you say?"
It was by the use of such arguments as these that Lieutenant Lambert
succeeded in inducing some of his particular friends to believe that it
might be policy for them to join his expedition, and that night they
secretly gathered at a designated place outside the town and started
for Baton Rouge. When they arrived within sight of the church spires
at daylight they did not attract attention to themselves by entering
the city in a body, for Lambert was afraid that some Union man or
converted rebel might suspect the object of their visit and interfere
with their designs by signalling to the fleet. They separated and went
in by different roads and in small parties, and came together again
in the neighborhood of the landing at which the boats from the fleet
always touched the shore, taking care to leave their horses behind some
warehouses out of sight.
"Now be careful, everybody," commanded Lambert, placing a fresh cap on
his rifle and waving his hand toward the levee as a signal to his men
to advance and conceal themselves behind it. "We can't do 'em no damage
from here—it's too fur; so we must wait till some of their row-boats
come off."
The Home Guards bent themselves almost double and stole across the
clear space that intervened between the warehouses and the levee;
and so cautious were they in their movements that the quartermasters
on watch on the decks of the different gunboats, who were constantly
sweeping the banks on both sides of the river with their long-distance
spyglasses, saw no signs of them, and so silent that when they crept
to the top of the levee on their hands and knees and looked over it,
the negroes gathered at the landing below did not know that there was
anyone near them. There were probably a dozen men, women, and children
in the group, and they were lying at their ease on the ground or
walking slowly back and forth; but all of them turned their gaze toward
the gunboats now and then, as if they were waiting for somebody to come
ashore. There were several covered baskets and pails near by, and the
sight of them was enough to enrage Lieutenant Lambert, who whispered to
the man who lay next him behind the levee:
"Pass the word along the line fur everybody to keep under kiver. We've
ketched them niggers red-handed in the very act, fur there's grub in
them buckets and things; now you just watch and see if there aint."
Then he raised his voice a little and said to the nearest darkey: "What
you folks doing there? Who you looking fur?"
"Waiting for Mr. Wilcox, sah," was the negro's prompt answer. He looked
up and saw two or three heads above the top of the levee, but thought
nothing of it. There were a good many whites in Baton Rouge who did not
dare show themselves as freely to the Yankee sailors as the people of
his own color did.
"Who's Mr. Wilcox?" demanded Lambert.
"He's de cater ob de steerage mess, sah; de man what buys de breakfus'
fur some of de officers on dat fust boat," was the reply; and although
Lambert did not understand the words any better than the negro did
himself, he gathered from them the idea that somebody on the gunboat
would come ashore for his breakfast very shortly, and that he and his
warriors had reached the levee just in the nick of time.
This cheering intelligence was passed along the line in a whisper, and
the Home Guards pulled off their hats and were settling themselves
into comfortable positions behind the levee to await the coming of the
caterer's boat, when they were startled by hearing someone close beside
them say, in frightened and protesting tones:
"Gentlemen, _gentlemen_, what are you going to do?"
Lambert faced quickly around and saw a couple of citizens standing
at the base of the levee where they could observe all that was being
done by the Home Guards; but whether they had come upon his ambush by
accident or design the lieutenant did not know or care to ask. He saw
the necessity for prompt action.
"Scrooch down right where you stand, so that the Yanks can't see you,"
he commanded.
"But what are you gentlemen going to do?" inquired one of the
citizens, both of whom obeyed Lambert's order and sank upon their
heels with alacrity when they saw the black muzzles of three or four
double-barrels swinging in their direction.
"Well, if you can't see fur yourselves what we uns are going to do
I reckon I'll have to tell you," replied the lieutenant of the Home
Guards, turning part way around so that he could watch both negroes and
citizens at the same time, and see that no signals passed from them to
the fleet. "We're goin' to break up the visitin' and tradin' that's
been going on between this town and the Yanks till we are teetotally
sick and tired of it. The folks back in the country, who are all good
Confederits, don't like it; and me and my men have come in here to say
so in a way that both you and the Yanks will understand."
"Merciful Heaven!" exclaimed the man, who seemed to be almost overcome
with astonishment and alarm. "You are not going to fire into those war
vessels?"
"What's the reason I aint?" said Lambert coolly. "You just wait till
one of their row-boats starts to come ashore and I'll show you."
"But consider for a moment——" began the citizen, his excitement
bringing him to his feet.
"Down you go again," interrupted Lambert, drawing his cocked rifle
to his shoulder. "We uns have considered the whole business. We know
that we can't hurt 'leven inches of iron and four foot of solid oak
back of that with we'pons like these we've got, but we can make them
blue-jackets mighty jubersome about comin' ashore and being so very
friendly with you Baton Rouge folks; and that's what we allow to do."
"In the name of God and humanity I protest against such an outrage!"
said one of the men, whose pale face and firmly set lips showed that
he would not have stopped with a mere protest if he had possessed the
power to do anything else.
"You must not think of it, you madman!" cried the other. "Don't you
know that the boats will return your fire, and that they can knock our
town to pieces with a single broadside? There is no telling how many
innocent women and children will be killed or maimed through your act
of folly."
"Well, then, why didn't you think of all them things before you made
friends with the enemies of your country?" answered Lambert. "But the
gunboats won't fire on women and children. Leastways they didn't in New
Orleans, and the folks in that burg were about as sassy as they could
well be."
"If you are determined to carry your crazy scheme into execution, I beg
that you will give us a little time to remove our families to a place
of safety before you begin," said one of the citizens as he and his
companion arose to their feet and turned to go away.
"Not much as anybody knows of, I won't," replied Lambert in savage
tones.
"Just five minutes," pleaded the citizen. "Perhaps we can take our
wives and little ones into the cellar before you will find it necessary
to open fire."
"Not one minute—not one second nor a half of one," snarled the
lieutenant, once more raising his weapon to his shoulder. "I aint
a-goin' to have you shakin' a handkercher at them boats to warn the
Yanks that there's something wrong here behind the levee. You just
squat down where you are till this thing is over, and then you can go
any place you please."
"Watch out, Sile," said one of the Home Guards suddenly. "There comes
that feller after his grub."
Lieutenant Lambert flopped over on his face as if he had been shot, and
saw a small boat, with four men at the oars and two officers sitting in
the stern-sheets, come into view from behind one of the war vessels and
turn toward the landing.
The time for him to win a name for himself had arrived.