RODNEY MEETS A FRIEND.
Sergeant Graham first read aloud the account of the second day's
fighting at Pittsburg Landing; but of course the fact that Beauregard
had sustained a crushing defeat and been forced to retire from Corinth,
was carefully concealed. It was to be expected, the paper said, that
twenty-five thousand fresh men would turn the tide of battle in favor of
the enemy, but even against these overwhelming odds the Confederates had
held their own until noon, and then left the field in good order.
"I don't see anything to feel bad over in that account," said Rodney,
whose war-like spirit arose every time he heard a glowing story of a
fight. "We knew when we went into this thing that the Yankees could
raise more men than we could, and we expected to fight against big odds.
Now for the conscripts," and when Rodney said this, he thought of Tom
Randolph, and hoped that he would be the first Mooreville citizen to
"draw a prize."
He thought he could imagine how Tom would look and feel after he had
made a campaign with a foot or more of mud under his feet, dripping
storm-clouds over his head and not so much as a crumb of corn bread in
his haversack, and laughed silently as he pictured him at a smoking
camp-fire with a lot of veterans "poking fun" at him. His own term of
service would soon expire, and he hoped he should reach home in time to
see Tom march out with the first squad of conscripts that left
Mooreville; but as Dick proceeded to read the abstract of the Act as it
appeared in the paper, all the while pushing the sheet farther and
farther from him as his amazement and anger increased, Rodney found that
the situation was not quite so amusing as he thought, and that he,
Rodney Gray, was in a worse box than his friend, Tom Randolph. It was
the first general conscription law of the Confederacy, and "it withdrew
every non-exempt citizen, between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five,
from State control, and placed him absolutely at the disposal of the
President during the war." When Dick had read this far he looked at his
comrades to see what they thought of it.
"Why, it's--it's--the Czar of Russia couldn't do worse," exclaimed the
first one who recovered control of his tongue. "It's a fraud--a despotic
act. Where are our State Rights now, I should like to know?"
"Go on," said Captain Jones, who stood on the outskirts of the group but
within hearing distance. "There's worse to come."
Dick Graham, who did not see how anything could be worse, went on with
his reading and found that the Act "annulled all contracts made with
volunteers for short terms, holding them to service for two years
additional, should the war continue so long; and all twelve months'
recruits, below eighteen and over thirty-five years, who would otherwise
have been exempted by this law, were to be retained in service for
ninety days after their term expired."
"Hey--youp!" yelled Dick, dancing about like one demented. "Our own
government is ten times worse than the one we are fighting against, and
every one of us was a fool for ever putting on a gray jacket. Why didn't
they tell us all this in the first place, so that we might know what
there was before us? It's a fraud and a cheat and a swindle and a--and
a--what are you about?" he added, turning almost fiercely upon his
captain, who elbowed his way through the excited group and tried to take
the paper from his hand. "I'll not obey the orders of the Richmond
government, and that's all there is about it."
"I was going to direct your attention to something else," replied the
captain, paying no heed to the sergeant's rudeness. "But since you are
so nearly beside yourself I don't suppose you can read it, and so I had
better tell you what it is. You say you will not obey the orders of the
Richmond government?"
"That is what I said, and I will stick to it," exclaimed Dick. "They
have no right--"
"Hold on a bit," the captain interposed.
"They may not have the right but they have the power, and you will have
to give in. They offer you inducements to re-enlist for two years. You
will be regarded as volunteers, and be allowed the privilege of changing
your officers and electing new ones."
This was a big inducement indeed. The men laughed derisively when they
heard it.
"If you don't volunteer, but insist on leaving the army when your term
of service expires, you will never get out of the camp," continued the
captain. "You will be conscripted."
"I don't care if I am," answered Dick, indignantly. "I'll not do duty."
"Then you will be treated as a mutineer and run the risk of being shot
without the benefit of a drum-head court-martial," said the captain;
whereupon the men backed off, thrust their hands into their pockets and
looked at him and at one another. "I tell you, boys, this is no time for
foolishness," the captain went on, earnestly. "Ever since Bull Run the
Northern people have been showing the mettle that's in them. That defeat
got their blood up and they mean business. They have more volunteers
than they want. Their armies are growing stronger every day, while ours
are growing weaker every hour. To be honest, there isn't half the
patriotism now there was among us when these troubles first begun.
Desertions are alarmingly frequent, and voluntary enlistments are almost
entirely suspended. We must have men to fight our battles, or else
surrender our cherished liberties to such Hessians and Tories as Curtis
brought against us at Pea Ridge."
"And whipped us with," added one of the men; and the captain couldn't
contradict him, for it was the truth. He could only look at him
reproachfully.
"'Is Sparta dead in your veins?'" exclaimed the captain, quoting from
the speech of Spartacus to his fellow gladiators. "Are you willing to
give up whipped and permit a lot of Regicides and Roundheads to put
their feet on your necks?"
Taking this for his text the officer spoke earnestly for ten minutes,
drawing largely from the fiery editorials of the Southern papers, which
he had read so often that he had them by heart, and trying his best to
infuse a little of his own spirit into the angry, scowling men who had
crowded around him, but without any very flattering success. There was
but one thought in their minds--they had been duped by the Richmond
government, which had so suddenly developed into a despotism that it was
plain the machinery for it had been prepared long before. They could not
go home even for a short time to visit their friends after their term of
service had expired, and it is no wonder that they felt sore over it.
Seeing that he could not arouse their patriotism, the captain next tried
to arouse their combativeness.
"On the same day that the battle of Shiloh was decided against us, there
was another struggle settled a hundred miles nearer to us," said he.
"That too went against us. Island No. 10, the stronghold that was to
have kept the enemy from going down the Mississippi, has fallen, and the
way is open to Memphis."
"But the Yankees will never get there," exclaimed Rodney. "When I came
up the river on the _Mollie Able_, I heard a man say we had a fleet
building there that would eventually take Cairo and St. Louis too."
"I certainly hope he was right, but things don't seem to point that way
now," replied the captain.
"That is good news for us in one respect," Dick Graham remarked. "New
Madrid must have fallen too, and if that is the case, we'll not be
ordered there. It's too late. We'll stay in our own State."
The captain shook his head, and his men knew by the expression on his
face that he had something yet to tell them.
"There's where you are wrong," said he. "We are going to Memphis as
quick as we can get there, and from Memphis we shall go to Corinth to
join the army under Beauregard. I am sorry you boys feel so about it,
but I really don't see how you are going to help yourselves. Now brace
up and do your duty like men, as you always have done it. I don't want
to see any of you get into trouble, but you certainly will if you kick
over the traces."
This last announcement was altogether too much for the men, who turned
away in a body, muttering the heaviest kind of adjectives, "not loud but
deep." When the two boys were left alone with the captain the latter
inquired:
"How old are you?"
"Seventeen," growled Rodney.
"Well, you will have to stay in ninety days after your term expires.
Will that make you eighteen?"
"No, it wouldn't; and if it did they would be careful not to say so."
"Then I don't see what reason you have to get huffy over a thing that
can't be helped," continued the officer. "We must have men, and if they
will not come in willingly, they must be dragged in. We can't be
subdued; we never will consent to be slaves. But you two will get out
all right."
"We knew it all the while; at least I thought of it," replied Dick, "but
I didn't want to mention it while the rest of the boys were around. They
are mad already, and it might make them worse to know that we two are
better off than they are."
"But I want to tell you that you will make a big mistake if you accept
your discharges," the captain went on to say. "You ought by all means to
stay in until this thing is settled and the invaders driven from our
soil. You'll wish you had when you see the boys come home covered with
glory. And then think of the possibilities before you! You are bound to
be promoted, and that rapidly. If I had your military education I would
not be satisfied with anything short of a colonelcy."
"Well, you may have it, and since you want it, I hope you will get it;
but I wouldn't accept it if it were offered to me," answered Dick,
turning on his heel. "I'll not serve under such a fraud of a government
as this has turned out to be a day longer than I can help. I'll take my
discharge as soon as they will condescend to give it to me, and then
they can hunt somebody to fill my place. I'll never volunteer again, and
sooner than be conscripted I'll take to the woods."
"Now, sergeant, you know you wouldn't do any such thing," said the
captain.
"Yes, I would," Dick insisted. "There is a principle at the bottom of
this whole thing that is most contemptible; but what more could you
expect of men who induced us to enlist by holding out the promise of an
easy victory? 'The North won't fight!' This looks like it. We're whipped
already."
These were the sentiments of thousands of men who wore gray jackets in
the beginning of 1862, but it wasn't every one who dared express them as
boldly as Dick Graham did, nor was it every officer who would have
listened as quietly as did Captain Jones. Everything went to show that
the officers had been drilled in the parts they were expected to perform
long before the men dreamed that such a thing as a Conscription Act was
thought of; for, as a rule, all discussion regarding the policy of the
Richmond government was "choked off" with a strong hand. In some armies,
Bragg's especially, the men were treated "worse than their niggers ever
were." They dared not speak above a whisper for fear of being shoved
into the guard-house; and "when some regiments hesitated to avail
themselves of this permission (to volunteer) they were treated as
seditious, and the most refractory soldiers, on the point of being shot,
only saved their lives by the prompt signature of their comrades to the
compact of a new enlistment." Things were not quite as bad as this in
Price's army, but still Captain Jones thought it best to tell his men,
especially the out-spoken Dick Graham, that they had better be a little
more guarded in their language, unless they were well acquainted with
those to whom they were talking. They went to Memphis, as the captain
said they would, marching over a horrible road and leaving some of their
artillery stuck in the mud at Desarc on White River, and from Memphis
they went to Corinth forty miles farther on, packed in box cars like
sheep, and on top like so much useless rubbish. Their train was rushed
through at such a rate of speed that the men on top shouted to the
engineer:
"Go it. Let out two or three more sections of that throttle. Run us off
into the ditch and kill us if you want to. There are plenty more men
where we came from."
Rodney Gray afterward declared that he had never seen a grander sight
than Beauregard's camp presented when the troops from the West marched
through it, greeted everywhere by the most vociferous cheering, to take
their positions on the right. Their arrival brought the strength of the
army up to more than a hundred thousand men, and, somewhat to their
surprise, they were introduced to their new comrades as "Invincibles."
At any rate that was what General Bragg called them in an address which
he issued to his soldiers a few days afterward:
"The slight reverses we have met on the sea-board have worked us good as
well as evil," was what he said in the vain hope of blinding his troops
to the real magnitude of the disaster that had recently befallen the
Confederacy. "The brave troops so long retained there have hastened to
swell your numbers, while the gallant Van Dorn and invincible Price,
with the ever-successful Army of the West, are now in your midst, with
numbers almost equaling the Army of Shiloh."
The "slight reverses" to which the general so gingerly referred were the
passage of Forts Jackson and St. Philip by Farragut's fleet, the
annihilation of the Confederate gunboats and the capture of New Orleans;
and these "slight reverses" were almost immediately followed by the
defeat of the gunboats that had been building at Memphis, and of which
the Confederates expected such great things. But the rank and file of
the army were not so easily deceived. They knew well enough that the
accounts that came to them through the papers were "doctored" on purpose
for them, and were fully sensible of the fact that the loss of these
important points, Memphis and New Orleans, were disasters most
discouraging. When they were in the presence of those to whom they knew
they could speak freely, they sneered at the efforts made by their
superiors to belittle the Union victories, and laughed to scorn Mayor
Monroe and the "city fathers" for the attitude they had seen fit to
assume while Farragut's powerful fleet held the Crescent city under its
guns. If the pompous little mayor, by folding his arms and standing in
front of that loaded howitzer when the marines came ashore to hoist the
Stars and Stripes over the Custom House, desired to show the people of
New Orleans and the country at large what a brave man he was, he failed
of his object, for the men who had faced cannon on the field of battle
had nothing but contempt for him and his antics.
"He has made himself a laughing-stock for all time to come," was what
Rodney Gray thought about it. "That was all done for effect, for there
was not the slightest danger that the Yankees would fire that howitzer
at him while he was going through his monkey-shines. If he is such an
awful brave man, why didn't he follow that naval officer to the roof of
the Custom House and jerk the Union flag down the minute it was hauled
up?"
"Or why doesn't he shoulder a musket and fall in with us?" chimed in
Dick. "One short campaign through Missouri mud would take some of that
nonsense out of him."
There were a good many in the army who thought that the constant
maneuvering and skirmishing that followed during the next few weeks were
not kept up because a great battle was expected, but for the purpose of
giving the men so much to do that they could not get together and talk
over the discouraging news they had recently heard. There was one
engagement fought, that of Farmington, which resulted in a victory for
the Confederates, and taught them at the same time that they were
mistaken in supposing that our troops would not venture so far into the
country that they would be out of the reach of help from the gunboats,
which had rendered them such important service at the battle of
Pittsburg Landing. Of course Rodney and Dick marched and skirmished and
fought with the rest, but they didn't care much whether they whipped or
got whipped, for the feelings that took them away from home and friends
and into the army, had long since given place to others of an entirely
different character. They didn't care as much for State Rights and
Southern independence as they did once, and if they ever got home again
the Richmond government might go to smash for all they could do to save
it. Two questions engrossed their minds, and formed the principal
subjects of their conversation: Would they be permitted to leave the
service when the year for which they enlisted expired; and if so, how
was Dick Graham going to get across the river into Missouri now that
Memphis had fallen, and the Mississippi as far down as Vicksburg was in
possession of the Federals?
In regard to the first question--there was one thing which the boys were
afraid would work against them. While nearly all the line officers of
the regiment remained with them, the field officers who had come with
them from the West had disappeared, some being promoted, some discharged
and others being sent to the hospital, new ones had taken their places
and a new staff had been appointed.
"And a lovely staff it is," said Dick, expressing the sentiments of
every man in his company. "I can see now why that Conscription Act was
passed. It was to make room for a lot of government pets, who are too
fine to go into the ranks, but who are allowed to come here and shove
out veterans when they cannot tell the difference between 'countermarch
by file right' and 'right by twos.' Our new colonel doesn't know who we
are or what we have done, and cares less; and when we go to him for our
discharges, he will throw so much red-tape in our way that we can't get
out. That's what I am afraid of."
As to the other question--how Dick Graham was to get over the
river--that was something that could be settled when they had their
discharges in their pockets. First and foremost Dick would go home with
Rodney; and after he had taken a good long rest, and learned all about
the means of communication between the two shores (they were positive
there must be some regular means of communication, because Dick had
received two letters from home since he had joined the Army of the
Center), Rodney would take his chances of seeing him safely across the
river. But their discharges must be their first care, and they came much
easier than they dared hope for. One day Rodney was detailed to act as
guard at brigade headquarters, and the first officer to whom he
presented arms was one whose face was strangely familiar to him. It was
his new brigade commander, and a wild hope sprung up in Rodney's breast.
The energetic, soldier-like manner in which he handled his piece
attracted the notice of the general, who seemed to be in good humor, and
who unbent from his dignity long enough to remark:
"You have been well drilled, sentry."
"Yes, sir; at Barrington Military Academy," replied Rodney, with a good
deal of emphasis on the last words.
This had just the effect the boy meant it should have. The general
stopped and looked curiously at him, and Rodney, instead of keeping his
eyes "straight to the front and striking the ground at the distance of
fifteen paces," returned his superior's gaze with interest.
"Haven't I seen you before?" the latter asked at length.
"Yes, sir; aboard the steamer _Mollie Able_, going up the river a year
ago," answered Rodney. "You were Captain Howard then."
The boy had no business to say all this, and no one in the army knew it
better than he did. It was his place to wait and be questioned; but he
couldn't do it. There was too much at stake--his discharge and Dick's.
The general did riot appear to notice this breach of military etiquette.
On the contrary he smiled and said, pleasantly:
"I remember you perfectly. You were on your way to join Price, and your
presence here proves that you found him. When you are relieved I want to
see you."
"Very good, sir," replied Rodney, bringing his piece to a shoulder and
resuming his walk. "If that man's word is worth anything," he added,
mentally, when the general disappeared in his tent, "Dick Graham and I
will be free men when our year and three months are up, and you just say
that much to your folks and tell 'em it's confidential. He as good as
said that he would do something for me if he could, and now I will try
him on; but there's one thing I'll not promise to do: I won't re-enlist
until I get a good ready, and if I can help myself, that time will never
come."
Rodney walked his beat as if he were treading on air, and wished his
friend Dick would happen along about the time he was relieved, so that
he might tell him that he believed he had found a powerful friend in
their new brigade commander. At the end of two hours, having been
relieved from post and obtained the necessary permission from the
officer of the guard, Rodney presented himself at the door of General
Howard's tent, and sent his name in by the orderly.