CAPTAIN COLBURNE COVERS THE RETREAT OF THE SOUTHERN LABOR ORGANIZATION.
Colburne soon discovered the Ravenels and their retainers bivouacked in
an angle of the fortification. The Doctor actually embraced him in
delight at his escape; and Mrs. Carter seized both his hands in hers,
exclaiming, "Oh, I am so happy!"
She was full of gayety. She had had a splendid nap; had actually slept
out of doors. Did he see that tent made out of a blanket? She had slept
in that. She could bivouac as well as you, Captain Colburne; she was as
good a soldier as you, Captain Colburne. She liked it, of all things in
the world. She never would sleep in the house again till she was
fif--sixty.
It was curious to note how she checked herself upon the point of
mentioning fifty as the era of first decrepitude. Her father was over
fifty, and therefore fifty could not be old age, notwithstanding her
preconceived opinions on the subject.
"But oh, how obliged we are to you!" she added, changing suddenly to a
serious view. "How kind and noble and brave you are! We owe you so
much!--Isn't it strange that I should be saying such things to you? I
never thought that I should ever say anything of the kind to any man but
my father and my husband. I am indeed grateful to you, and thankful that
you have escaped."
As she spoke, her eyes filled with tears. There was a singular
changeableness about her of late; she shifted rapidly and without
warning, almost without cause, from one emotion to another; she felt and
expressed all emotions with more than usual fervor. She was sadder at
times and gayer at times than circumstances seemed to justify. An
ordinary observer, a man especially, would have been apt to consider
some of her conduct odd, if not irrational. The truth is that she had
been living a new life for the past two months, and that her being,
physical and moral, had not yet been able to settle into a tranquil
unity of function and feeling. Many women and a few men will understand
me here. Colburne was too merely a young man to comprehend anything; but
he could stand a little way off and worship. He thought, as she faced
him with her cheeks flushed and her eyes the brighter for tears, that
she was very near in guise and nature to an angel. It may be a paradox;
it may be a dangerous fact to make public; but he certainly was loving
another man's wife with perfect innocence.
"What is the matter with Mauma Major?" asked the Doctor.
Colburne briefly related the martyrdom of Scott; and father and daughter
hurried to console the weeping black woman.
Then the young soldier bethought himself that he ought to report his
knowledge of the rebels to the commandant of the garrison. "You'll find
the cuss in there," said a devil-may-care lieutenant, pointing to a
brick structure in the centre of the fort. Colburne entered, saw an
officer sleeping on a pile of blankets, and to his astonishment
recognized him as Major Gazaway. In slumber this remarkable poltroon
looked respectably formidable. He was six feet in height and nearly two
hundred pounds in weight, large-limbed, deep-chested, broad-shouldered,
dark in complexion, aquiline in feature, masculine and even stern in
expression. He had begun life as a prize fighter, but had failed in that
career, not because he lacked strength or skill, but from want of pluck
to stand the hammering. Nevertheless he was a tolerable hand at a
rough-and-tumble fight, and still more efficient in election-day
bullying and browbeating. For the last ten years he had kept a billiard
saloon, had held various small public offices, and had been the Isaiah
Rynders of his little city. On the stump he had a low kind of popular
eloquence made up of coarse denunciation, slanderous lying, bar-room
slang, smutty stories, and profanity. The Rebellion broke out; the Rebel
cannon aimed at Fort Sumter knocked the breath out of the Democratic
party; and Gazaway turned Republican, bringing over two hundred fighting
voters, and changing the political complexion of his district.
Consequently he easily got a commission as captain in the three months'
campaign, and subsequently as major in the Tenth, much to the disgust of
its commandant. He had expected and demanded a colonelcy; he thought
that the Governor, in not granting it, had treated him with ingratitude
and black injustice; he honestly believed this, and was naively sore and
angry on the subject. It needed this trait of born impudence to render
his character altogether contemptible; for had he been a conscious,
humble coward, he would have merited a pity not altogether disunited
from respect. From the day of receiving his commission Gazaway had not
ceased to intrigue and bully for promotion in a long series of blotted
and ill-spelled letters. How could a mere Major ever hope to go before
the people successfully as a candidate for Congress? That distinction
was the aim of Gazaway, as of many another more or less successful
blackguard. It is true that these horrid battles occasionally shook his
ambition and his confidence in his own merits. Under fire he was a meek
man, much given to lying low, to praying fervently, to thinking that a
whole skin was better than laurels. But in a few hours after the danger
was past, his elastic vanity and selfishness rose to the occasion, and
he was as pompous in air, as dogmatical in speech, as impudently greedy
in his demands for advancement as ever. Such was one of Colburne's
superior officers; such was the dastard to whom the wounded hero
reported for duty. Colburne, by the way, had never asked for promotion,
believing, with the faith of chivalrous youth, that merit would be sure
of undemanded recognition.
After several calls of "Major!" the slumberer came to his
consciousness; he used it by rolling over on his side, and endeavoring
to resume his dozings. He had not been able to sleep till late the night
before on account of his terrors, and now he was reposing like an
animal, anxious chiefly to be let alone.
"Major--excuse me--I have something of importance to report," insisted
the Captain.
"Well; what is it?" snarled Gazaway. Then, catching sight of Colburne,
"Oh! that you, Cap? Where _you_ from?"
"From a plantation five miles below, on the bayou. I was followed in
closely by the rebel cavalry. Their pickets are less than half a mile
from the fort."
"My God!" exclaimed Gazaway, sitting up and throwing off his
musquito-net. "What do you think? They ain't going to attack the fort,
be they?" Then calling his homespun pomposity to his aid, he added, with
a show of bravado, "I can't see it. They know better. We can knock spots
out of 'em."
"Of course we can," coincided the Captain. "I don't believe they have
any siege artillery; and if we can't beat off an assault we ought to be
cat-o'-nine-tailed."
"Cap, I vow I wish I had your health," said the Major, gazing
shamelessly at Colburne's thin and pale face. "You can stand anything. I
used to think I could, but this cussed climate fetches _me_. I swear I
hain't been myself since I come to Louisianny."
It is true that the Major had not been in field service what he once
honestly thought he was. He had supposed himself to be a brave man; he
was never disenchanted of this belief except while on the battle-field;
and after he had run away he always said and tried to believe that it
was because he was sick.
"I was took sick with my old trouble," he continued; "same as I had at
New Orleans, you know--the very day that we attacked Port Hudson."
By the way, he had not had it at New Orleans; he had had it at Georgia
Landing and Camp Beasland; but Colburne did not correct him.
"By George! what a day that was!" he exclaimed, referring to the assault
of the 27th of May. "I'll bet more'n a hundred shots come within five
feet of me. If I could a kep' up with the regiment, I'd a done it. But I
couldn't. I had to go straight to the hospital. I tell you I suffered
there. I couldn't get no kind of attention, there was so many wounded
there. After a few days I set out for the regiment, and found it in a
holler where the rebel bullets was skipping about like parched peas in a
skillet. But I was too sick to stand it. I had to put back to the
hospital. Finally the Doctor he sent me to New Orleans. Well, I was just
gettin' a little flesh on my bones when General Emory ordered every man
that could walk to be put to duty. Nothing would do but I must take
command of this fort. I got here yesterday morning, and the boat went
back in the afternoon, and here we be in a hell of a muss. I brought
twenty such invalids along--men no more fit for duty than I be. I swear
it's a shame."
Colburne did not utter the disgust and contempt which he felt; he turned
away in silence, intending to look up dressings for his arm, which had
become dry and feverish. The Major called him back.
"I say, Cap, if the enemy are in force, what are we to do?"
"Why, we shall fight, of course."
"But we ha'n't got men enough to stand an assault."
"How many?"
"One little comp'ny Louisianny men, two comp'nies nine months' men, and
a few invalids."
"That's enough. Have you any spare arms?"
"I d'no. I reckon so," said the Major, in a peevish tone. "I reckon
you'd better hunt up the Quartermaster, if there is one. I s'pose he has
'em."
"A friend of mine has brought fifteen able-bodied negroes into the fort.
I want guns for them."
"Niggers!" sneered the Major. "What good be they?"
Losing all patience, Colburne disrespectfully turned his back without
answering, and left the room.
"I say, Cap, if we let them niggers fight we'll be all massacred," were
the last words that he heard from Gazaway.
Having got his arm bound anew with wet dressings, he sought out the
Quartermaster, and proceeded to accouter the Ravenel negroes, meanwhile
chewing a breakfast of hard crackers. Then, meeting the Lieutenant who
had directed him to Gazaway's quarters, and who proved to be the
commandant of the Louisiana company, they made a tour of the ramparts
together, doing their volunteer best to take in the military features of
the flat surrounding landscape, and to decide upon the line of approach
which the rebels would probably select in case of an assault. There was
no cover except two or three wooden houses of such slight texture that
they would afford no protection against shell or grape. The levee on the
opposite side of the bayou might shelter sharpshooters, but not a
column. They trained a twenty-four-pounder iron gun in that direction,
and pointed the rest of the artillery so as to sweep the plain between
the fort and a wood half a mile distant. The ditch was deep and wide,
and well filled with water, but there was no abattis or other
obstruction outside of it. The weakest front was toward the Mississippi,
on which side the rampart was a mere bank not five feet in height,
scarcely dominating the slope of twenty-five or thirty yards which
stretched between it and the water.
"I wish the river was higher--smack up to the fortifications," said the
Louisiana lieutenant. "They can wade around them fences," he added,
pointing to the palisades which connected the work with the river.
This officer was not a Louisianian by birth, any more than the men whom
he commanded. They were a medley of all nations, principally Irish and
Germans, and he had begun his martial career as a volunteer in an
Indiana regiment. He was chock full of fight and confidence; this was
the only fort he had ever garrisoned, and he considered it almost
impregnable; his single doubt was lest the assailants "might wade in
around them fences." Colburne, remembering how Banks had been repulsed
twice from inferior works at Port Hudson, also thought the chances good
for a defence. Indeed, he looked forward to the combat with something
like a vindictive satisfaction. Heretofore he had always attacked; and
he wanted to fight the rebels once from behind a rampart; he wanted to
teach them what it was to storm fortifications. If he had been better
educated in his profession he would have found the fort alarmingly small
and open, destitute as it was of bomb-proofs, casemates and traverses.
The river showed no promise of succor; not a gunboat or transport
appeared on its broad, slow, yellow current; not a friendly smoke could
be seen across the flat distances. The little garrison, it seemed, must
rely upon its own strength and courage. But, after taking a deliberate
view of all the circumstances, Colburne felt justified in reporting to
Major Gazaway that the fort could beat off as many Texans as could stand
between it and the woods, which was the same as to say a matter of one
or two hundred thousand. Leaving his superior officer in a state of
spasmodic and short-lived courage, he spread his rubber blanket in a
shady corner, rolled up his coat for a pillow, laid himself down, and
slept till nearly noon. When he awoke, the Doctor was holding an
umbrella over him.
"I am ever so much obliged to you," said Colburne, sitting up.
"Not at all. I was afraid you might get the fever. Our Louisiana sun,
you know, doesn't dispense beneficence alone. I saw that it had found
you out, and I rushed to the rescue."
"Is Mrs. Carter sheltered?" asked the Captain.
"She is very comfortably off, considering the circumstances."
He was twiddling and twirling his umbrella, as though he had something
on his mind.
"I want you to do me a favor," he said, after a moment. "I should really
like a gun, if it is not too much trouble."
The idea of the Doctor, with his fifty-five years, his peaceful habits,
and his spectacles, rushing to battle made Colburne smile. Another
imaginary picture, the image of Lillie weeping over her father's body,
restored his seriousness.
"What would Mrs. Carter say to it?" he asked.
"I should be obliged if you would not mention it to her," answered the
Doctor. "I think the matter can be managed without her knowledge."
Accordingly Colburne fitted out this unexpected recruit with a
rifle-musket, and showed him how to load it, and how to put on his
accoutrements. This done, he reverted to the subject which most
interested his mind just at present.
"Mrs. Carter must be better sheltered than she is," he said. "In case of
an assault, she would be in the way where she is, and, moreover, she
might get hit by a chance bullet. I will tell the Major that his
Colonel's wife is here, and that he must turn out for her."
"Do you think it best?" questioned the Doctor. "Really, I hate to
disturb the commandant of the fort."
But Colburne did think it best, and Gazaway was not hard to convince. He
hated to lose his shelter, poor as it was, but he had a salutary dread
of his absent Colonel, and remembering how dubious had been his own
record in field service, he thought it wise to secure the favor of Mrs.
Carter. Accordingly Lillie, accompanied by Black Julia, moved into the
brick building, notwithstanding her late declarations that she liked
nothing so well as sleeping in the open air.
"Premature old age," laughed Colburne. "Sixty already."
"It is the African Dahomey, and not the American, which produces the
Amazons," observed the Doctor.
"If you don't stop I shall be severe," threatened Lillie. "I have a door
now to turn people out of."
"Just as though that was a punishment," said Colburne. "I thought
out-of-doors was the place to live."
As is usual with people in circumstances of romance which are not
instantly and overpoweringly alarming, there was an exhilaration in
their spirits which tended towards gayety. While Mrs. Carter and
Colburne were thus jesting, the Doctor shyly introduced his martial
equipments into the house, and concealed them under a blanket in one
corner. Presently the two men adjourned to the ramparts, to learn the
cause of a commotion which was visible among the garrison. Far up the
bayou road thin yellow clouds of dust could be seen rising above the
trees, no doubt indicating a movement of troops in considerable force.
From that quarter no advance of friends, but only of Texan cavalry and
Louisianian infantry, could be expected. Nearly all the soldiers had
left their shelters of boards and rubber blankets, and were watching the
threatening phenomenon with a grave fixedness of expression which showed
that they fully appreciated its deadly significance. Sand-columns of the
desert, water-spouts of the ocean, are a less impressive spectacle than
the approaching dust of a hostile army. The old and tried soldier knows
all that it means; he knows how tremendous will be the screech of the
shells and the ghastliness of the wounds; he faces it with an inward
shrinking, although with a calm determination to do his duty; his time
for elation will not come until his blood is heated by fighting, and he
joins in the yell of the charge. The recruit, deeply moved by the
novelty of the sight, and the unknown grandeur of horror or of glory
which it presages, is either vaguely terrified or full of excitement.
Calm as is the exterior of most men in view of approaching battle, not
one of them looks upon it with entire indifference. But let the eyes on
the fortifications strain as they might, no lines of troops could be
distinguished, and there was little, if any, increase in the number of
the rebel pickets who sat sentinel in their saddles under the shade of
scattered trees and houses. Presently the murmur "A flag of truce!" ran
along the line of spectators. Down the road which skirted the northern
bank of the bayou rode slowly, amidst a little cloud of dust, a party of
four horsemen, one of whom carried a white flag.
"What does that mean," asked Gazaway. "Do you think peace is
proclaimed?"
"It means that they want this fort," said Colburne. "They are going to
commit the impertinence of asking us to surrender."
The Major's aquiline visage was very pale, and his outstretched hand
shook visibly; he was evidently seized by the complaint which had so
troubled him at Port Hudson.
"Cap, what shall I do?" he inquired in a confidential whisper, twisting
one of his tremulous fingers into Colburne's buttonhole, and drawing him
aside.
"Tell them to go to ----, and then send them there," said the Captain,
angrily, perceiving that Gazaway's feelings inclined toward a
capitulation. "Send out an officer and escort to meet the fellows and
bring in their message. They mustn't be allowed to come inside."
"No, no; of course not. We couldn't git very good terms if they should
see how few we be," returned the Major, unable to see the matter in any
other light than that of his own terrors. "Well, Cap, you go and meet
the feller. No, you stay here; I want to talk to you. Here, where's that
Louisianny Lieutenant? Oh, Lieutenant, you go out to that feller with
jest as many men 's he's got; stop him 's soon 's you git to him, and
send in his business. Send it in by one of your men, you know; and take
a white flag, or han'kerch'f, or suthin'."
When Gazaway was in a perturbed state of mind, his conversation had an
unusual twang of the provincialisms of tone and grammar amidst which he
had been educated, or rather had grown up without an education.
At sight of the Union flag of truce, the rebel one, now only a quarter
of a mile from the fort, halted under the shadow of an evergreen oak by
the roadside. After a parley of a few minutes, the Louisiana Lieutenant
returned, beaded with perspiration, and delivered to Gazaway a sealed
envelope. The latter opened it with fingers which worked as awkwardly as
a worn-out pair of tongs, read the enclosed note with evident
difficulty, cast a troubled eye up and down the river, as if looking in
vain for help, beckoned Colburne to follow him, and led the way to a
deserted angle of the fort.
"I say, Cap," he whispered, "we've got to surrender."
Colburne looked him sternly in the face, but could not catch his
cowardly eye.
"Take care, Major," he said.
Gazaway started as if he had been threatened with personal violence.
"You are a ruined man if you surrender this fort," pursued Colburne.
The Major writhed his Herculean form, and looked all the anguish which
so mean a nature was capable of feeling; for it suddenly occurred to him
that if he capitulated he might never be promoted, and never go to
Congress.
"What in God's name shall I do?" he implored. "They've got six thous'n'
men."
"Call the officers together, and put it to vote."
"Well, you fetch 'em, Cap. I swear I'm too sick to stan' up."
Down he sat in the dust, resting his elbows on his knees, and his head
between his hands. Colburne sought out the officers, seven in number,
besides himself, and all, as it chanced, Lieutenants.
"Gentlemen," he said, "we are dishonored cowards if we surrender this
fort without fighting."
"Dam'd if we don't have the biggest kind of a scrimmage first,"
returned the Louisianian.
The afflicted Gazaway rose to receive them, opened the communication of
the rebel general, dropped it, picked it up, and handed it to Colburne,
saying, "Cap, you read it."
It was a polite summons to surrender, stating the investing force at six
thousand men, declaring that the success of an assault was certain,
offering to send the garrison on parole to New Orleans, and closing with
the hope that the commandant of the fort would avoid a useless effusion
of blood.
"Now them's what I call han'some terms," broke in Gazaway eagerly. "We
can't git no better if we fight a week. And we can't fight a day. We
hain't got the men to whip six thous'n' Texans. I go for takin' terms
while we can git 'em."
"Gentlemen, I go for fighting," said Colburne.
"That's me," responded the Louisiana lieutenant; and there was an
approving murmur from the other officers.
"This fort," continued our Captain, "is an absolute necessity to the
prosecution of the siege of Port Hudson. If it is lost, the navigation
of the river is interrupted, and our army is cut off from its supplies.
If we surrender, we make the whole campaign a failure. We must not do
it. We never shall be able to face our comrades after it; we never shall
be able to look loyal man or rebel in the eye. We _can_ defend
ourselves. General Banks has been repulsed twice from inferior works. It
is an easy chance to do a great deed--to deserve the thanks of the army
and the whole country. Just consider, too, that if we don't hold the
fort, we may be called on some day to storm it. Which is the easiest?
Gentlemen, I say, No surrender!"
Every officer but Gazaway answered, "That's my vote." The Louisiana
Lieutenant fingered his revolver threatening, and swore by all that was
holy or infernal that he would shoot the first man who talked of
capitulating. Gazaway's mouth had opened to gurgle a remonstrance, but
at this threat he remained silent and gasping like a stranded fish.
"Well, Cap, you write an answer to the cuss, and the Major'll sign it,"
said the Louisianian to Colburne, with a grin of humorous malignity. Our
friend ran to the office of the Quartermaster, and returned in a minute
with the following epistle:
"Sir: It is my duty to defend Fort Winthrop to the last extremity, and I
shall do it."
The signature which the Major appended to this heroic document was so
tremulous and illegible that the rebel general must have thought that
the commandant was either very illiterate or else a very old gentleman
afflicted with the palsy.
Thus did the unhappy Gazaway have greatness thrust upon him. He would
have been indignant had he not been so terrified; he thought of
court-martialing Colburne some day for insubordination, but said nothing
of it at present; he was fully occupied with searching the fort for a
place which promised shelter from shell and bullet. The rest of the day
he spent chiefly on the river front, looking up and down the stream in
vain for the friendly smoke of gunboats, and careful all the while to
keep his head below the level of the ramparts. His trepidation was so
apparent that the common soldiers discovered it, and amused themselves
by slyly jerking bullets at him, in order to see him jump, fall down and
clap his hand to the part hit by the harmless missile. He must have
suspected the trick; but he did not threaten vengeance nor even try to
discover the jokers: every feeble source of manliness in him had been
dried up by his terrors. He gave no orders, exacted no obedience, and
would have received none had he demanded it. Late in the afternoon, half
a dozen veritable rebel balls whistling over the fort sent him cowering
into the room occupied by Mrs. Carter, where he appropriated a blanket
and stretched himself at full length on the floor, fairly grovelling
and flattening in search of safety. It was a case of cowardice which
bordered upon mania or physical disease. He had just manliness enough to
feel a little ashamed of himself, and mutter to Mrs. Carter that he was
"too sick to stan' up." Even she, novel as she was to the situation,
understood him, after a little study; and the sight of his degrading
alarm, instead of striking her with a panic, roused her pride and her
courage. With what an admiring contrast of feeling she looked at the
brave Colburne and thought of her brave husband!
The last rays of the setting sun showed no sign of an enemy except the
wide thin semicircle of rebel pickets, quiet but watchful, which
stretched across the bayou from the river above to the river below. As
night deepened, the vigilance of the garrison increased, and not only
the sentinels but every soldier was behind the ramparts, each officer
remaining in rear of his own company or platoon, ready to direct it and
lead it at the first alarm. Colburne, who was tacitly recognized as
commander-in-chief, made the rounds every hour. About midnight a murmur
of joy ran from bastion to bastion as the news spread that two steamers
were close at hand, coming up the river. Presently every one could see
their engine-fires glowing like fireflies in the distant, and hear
through the breathless night the sighing of the steam, the moaning of
the machinery, and at last the swash of water against the bows. The low,
black hulks, and short, delicate masts, distinctly visible on the
gleaming groundwork of the river, and against the faintly lighted
horizon, showed that they were gunboats; and the metallic rattle of
their cables, as they came to anchor opposite the fort, proved that they
had arrived to take part in the approaching struggle. Even Gazaway
crawled out of his asylum to look at the cheering reinforcement, and
assumed something of his native pomposity as he observed to Colburne,
"Cap, they won't dare to pitch into us, with them fellers alongside."
A bullet or two from the rebel sharpshooters posted on the southern
side of the bayou sent him back to his house of refuge. He thought the
assault was about to commence, and was entirely absorbed in hearkening
for its opening clamor. When Mrs. Carter asked him what was going on, he
made her no answer. He was listening with all his pores; his very hair
stood on end to listen. Presently he stretched himself upon the floor in
an instinctive effort to escape a spattering of musketry which broke
through the sultry stillness of the night. A black speck had slid around
the stern of one of the gunboats, and was making for the bank, saluted
by quick spittings of fire from the levee above and below the junction
of the bayou with the river. In reply, similar fiery spittings
scintillated from the dark mass of the fort, and there was a rapid
_whit-whit_ of invisible missiles. A cutter was coming ashore; the rebel
pickets were firing upon it; the garrison was firing upon the pickets;
the pickets upon the garrison. The red flashes and irregular rattle
lasted until the cutter had completed its return voyage. There was an
understanding now between the little navy and the little army; the
gunboats knew where to direct their cannonade so as best to support the
garrison; and the soldiers were full of confidence, although they did
not relax their vigilance. Doctor Ravenel and Mrs. Carter supposed in
their civilian inexperience that all danger was over, and by two o'clock
in the morning were fast asleep.