The Adjutant T---- and myself, not inexperienced in battles, though,
perhaps, like most Americans, infants in warfare, were captured in
September last, in the Valley of the Shenandoah, Nature's noble
art-gallery, on the west side of Opequan Creek, a stream that is a
picture at almost any point. In one of the gallant charges which our
eager cavalry, under General Sheridan, made before the great charge that
captured Winchester and the Valley, our regiment had the right, and
gained a fine position in the end. But two or three encounters were very
close. The sea of battle surged back and forth, tormented only, however,
by the mild breezes of a day like May; and as the waves of our army
withdrew from the ridge on which the enemy rested, to gain greater
impetus, my poor horse was shot under me, stranded, and left rolling
upon the ground, midway between friend and foe. The orderly, my
attendant, had another in the rear of the retreating column; but,
inasmuch as that was now swept by the swift-receding current far beyond
us, he could neither have me mounted nor command other present means
whereby to get me off. I reclined, like Adonis, upon a soft bed of
meadow-grass studded here and there with wild-flowers, an emerald velvet
with silver spangles,--but suffering, unlike him, from bruises, and with
my best soulless friend dead at my side. I was somewhat sprained by the
fall the dying beast had given me. The enemy was close at hand,
following with yells and chaotic eagerness upon our troops.
"We'll take a march to Libby," said my orderly, dropping on his knees to
feel my bones.
He drew his arm through his rein, (having had no idea of deserting me in
his sound health by the aid of his ready animal,) and continued his
examination; whilst his sturdy favorite chopped the short grass within
reach of his breathing hitching-post as closely as his long bit would
allow. In a very few moments the Rebel foam was surging like wild beyond
us,--a private pausing at me for a second, to poke me in the ribs with
his piece.
"There's life there, Grayback," growled my attendant; and the Rebel
ordered us to the rear.
Indeed, had we remained where we were, we would soon have been in the
rear, so impetuously did the foe sweep by us. But private soldiers, the
potent keystones of the Rebel arch, built to crush the voice of the
many, command the Southern armies in every great engagement; and one of
these important atoms had given us our hint to move. You never see
anything but the rank and file in the heart of a Rebel corps. Our new
commander mounted my orderly's horse, and soon was lost in the distance.
It is not, I have found, a very diverting entertainment to wander free a
few moments (a free prisoner) in search of some authority, out of the
myriads who have the opportunity, who shall choose to take charge of
one. I felt peculiarly as I stood irresolute, now framing one thought,
now another, casting about in my mind, weighing the odds with no light
fancy-scales, which of the rushing demons on all sides would draw up
before me with a curse, and command me to follow him. Our regiment, our
corps, our whole army, (this last had not left its works for the little
fight,) were far in the distance now; and the ground on which I stood,
and which but a short time since was tramped by Northern troops, had, in
the mutations of war, become a portion of the Rebel dominions. The
September sun shone brightly through the white fleece of the cloud-swans
swimming in the morning air; and the early spring breeze that
I have mentioned--for AEolus had given freedom to but a tender
dove-zephyr--played with the silk fringe of the meadow grass, finding
no olive-branch here, venturing its ripple, with the audacity of
innocence, under the very heels of the contending forces. Possibly the
feeling of loneliness which overwhelms a man at such a time as this is
the most acute of all his feelings. I looked my orderly in the face as
he supported me on his shoulder. He was gazing coolly before him.
"If we have to march soon, you had better rest," he said, deliberately.
"There's a tree you can sit under. And if you have money or a watch, you
had better hide them in your armpits."
We went to the tree, and set ourselves against it.
The fresh air that brushed by us, like fine steel points, relieved me of
my oozing faintness, and in the ease of my circumstances I could attend
somewhat to my bruises. With the aid of my canteen, I relaxed the
strained muscles. It was my desire to have my loins girt about and my
limbs in good order for the foot-journey that I doubted not was before
us. They would march us to Gordonsville, and thence to Libby, carrying
us through in an incredibly short time, and without boots at that. I had
two objects to labor for, as I began to get myself into condition:
first, to be taken in charge by an officer; and then--to escape from him
that night, whilst the train was in disorder. I was of opinion that my
companion, a taciturn machine, who labored, like the miners, well with
his little light, had some such plan of his own, as I saw him buckling
his belt beneath his trousers. He was stowing away his watch and a
photograph,--which every soldier must have, of some poor maid or other
who toils in the shades of obscurity at home,--and making himself ready
for a run at any favorable moment. I thought that I would sound him.
"You had better do it, orderly, soon in the day," I said; "since the
enemy will march you between two files, and you will then have but
little chance."
"So I think," he replied. "I thought no time better than now. But
then"----
"But what?" I asked.
"Well, it's rather hard to leave you here. What with your sprain, and
your blow on the head, you're pretty sure to halt at Libby."
I had no chance to answer, for the Rebel was before me who was to have
the honor of my capture.
He was of the flabby white-flesh species of the genus Rebel, a Quaker
scarecrow with matty locks, that many of my brethren in arms have met;
harmless in units, but ponderous, as even scarecrows will be, if hurled
back and forth in thousands, swarms; lank, cadaverous, and whining;
snuff-chewing, and grossly filthy, even under the best of circumstances.
His flesh was set dough, and his hair was long and yellow. He spoke
through the dirty causeway of his nose. The road-dust and drab of his
uniform, so called in satire, have often been described. These
gentlemen's faces, to me, who incline to an intelligent expression on
the human index, look like tallow-vats or nursery-suet, pliable and
swill-fed; and their mien and carriage have never impressed me
favorably. I had seen them rush with a wild yell, an army like the Paris
mob of intoxicated rags, upon our Gibraltar at Gettysburg; and had
myself charged upon their Attila-works (behind which they had their
household gods piled up and ready for burning) at Fredericksburg. I had
even taken a ball from one of them in the shoulder, whilst skirmishing,
in the shiftings of my experience; and they had before had the honor of
my capture, in sunny, grape-growing Maryland. Perhaps all these scenes
passed in panorama before my mind's eye, as I rose to my captor and eyed
his dirty linen. Here was an indignity, indeed. My soul revolted at the
thought of a journey southward, and all my instincts warned me against
so dire an undertaking. I stood before the Rebel with my determination
in my eye.
"A couple of Yanks, lolling under a tree," he screamed to his
companions, pointing the finger, and garnishing his speech, in Rebel
manner, with an oath.
"P'rhaps you thought you were off," he chuckled.
He was "goin'" to take us to the "Gen'ral." He muttered more oaths with
his orders, and directed us to be "right smart," and to "git."
I glanced at my orderly, who was inaugurating an onset upon the weaker
side of this mean battery, or ditch-work,--and who evidently counted
upon effecting a breach by rapid, electric charges,--by handing over his
pistol. It was freely offered, before demanded, and the recipient took
it in silence. He then drew out his tobacco, a treasure with which, I
well knew, he would not willingly part, and which was the little
ewe-lamb of his unjewelled life,--which, also, was taken quickly, but
under a nod of acknowledgments from the Rebel. The battery was shaken,
but, in truth, continued to draw fire. "Give me your boots," said the
critical captor, and the orderly knocked off his leathers in the best
good-humor in the world. When we had walked a little farther, the
orderly, now marching as the Moslems do on holy ground, asked our guide
if he had any grub about him; and accepted a piece of pork. There was a
variety of viands in the haversack from which this fragment came,--both
pork and bacon,--but the fire-eaters, I have noticed, always prefer the
latter meat. I divined at once that my orderly was laying in stores for
a solitary tramp, and making a raven in this, to him, strange desert, of
the ill-omened bird that had pounced upon us. He would conciliate his
enemy, and when the latter was growing careless he would spring into
some woods. The pork, with the berries to be found there, would sustain
him after he had broken leash,--and would be all that he would eat, no
doubt, in the course of two or three suns.
We noticed a great stir on all sides of us, converging streams of
stragglers, wounded men, and prisoners, as we made our way, scattering
grasshoppers, over the fields, and soon mingled with the throng of
troops on the open road to Winchester. It was about three miles from
this town that our capture had taken place; and from the immense
wagon-trains rumbling along with us, and the excited manner of their
officers, I augured not as well for the Rebel cause. Perhaps Fortune had
altered her humor, and the white eagles of victory had settled with the
opposite side. Other parties of Union prisoners journeyed with us, and
through the urgent manner of their guards I thought I could discern a
sunlit loop-hole to freedom. In five minutes' time I was assured that
the Rebels were preparing to retreat. Their six-horse teams were rushing
to the rear, and their outlying bodies of cavalry were being hurriedly
dispatched the other way. My mind was very busy upon the new aspect of
affairs.
The last I saw of my orderly was when he had divested himself of the
workman's incumbrance,--his coat,--and was tramping, bootless, haltingly
along in the dustiest part of the road. He had conciliated his watchman
into almost indifference, and was spreading himself with the sand,
(tossed knee-high in little clouds by his feet,) having then become
quite a Rebel in looks. In five minutes I turned upon him; but he had
fallen out of the squad. I have never seen him since.
My own plans would keep me in the Rebel lines some hours longer. It was
my object to escape; but I had already decided upon the evening, when
darkness, and, I hoped, rain, would settle down upon us. I indulged a
hasty prayer in behalf of the vanished man, and durst not more than
snatch a look at where he should have been, lest the guard should miss
him also. At one mile beyond Winchester, which town we had avoided by a
branching road, we came to the office of the provost marshal, a very
humble shell-work; and those of us who wore shoulder-straps were hustled
into his presence. He stood, the central figure in a dun picture, in an
atmosphere of smoke, a dirty-looking Georgian in flying coat and
high-boots. With hands in pocket he surveyed the objects brought before
him, concisely delivering his orders over the stem of his teeth-clasped
pipe. His clerk was at a table near, on which lay the papers of his
office; and the splintered rafters behind him made the background to a
cabinet-picture that should have been done in chocolate.
We were placed in charge of a rather mild-looking officer, who wore his
rank upon his sleeve in so elegantly twisted a knot that I could not
make out his degree, and who had on a brand-new riding-jacket, of a dark
blue, to which the sleeve was attached, adorned with the staff-buttons
of our army. It was his duty to command the guard that drove the
captives of the Rebel hosts, in which safe branch of the service, as I
afterwards learned, he had been engaged since '62. No doubt his many
opportunities for demanding what he wanted, and for seizing, like Ahab,
what was denied him, had furnished alike the jacket and the buttons; and
were it not for his placid countenance, I should have fathered his
entire outfit upon the Yankees,--as having fallen to his shoulders by
the same easy process. He was directed to drive us to the road at once,
and to keep his herd in motion all the time. Hurried orders had come
from headquarters, that set all the small bees about this lesser hive in
a whirl of confused labors, whereby our departure was delayed for some
moments. The provost-marshal's clerk was even then packing up his
rattling desk, pigeon-holing papers that would hatch knotty questions in
the coop, and making due preparation for the departure of the Georgian
magnate himself. I observed that their army-wagons kept trailing
southward, like chalk vertebrae, in an unbroken string, and promised for
a long while yet to obstruct the road. It was growing a little cloudy,
too. It was now three hours after noon, and I hoped nervously for a
sullen night.
Just before we set out on our melancholy march, I saw a man make a move
towards me, and hastily clap one finger across his firm lips. It was the
Adjutant T----, of whom I have spoken, and who did not wish me to
recognize him. It was his object to approach me, and to walk as a
stranger at my side, so that the guards should not part us,--and, I knew
at once, to speak of a project common to both. The old stories of our
camp-fires had flitted across his mind, and had blanched his cheek since
morning. His blood was just thawing as he signalled me. I took no notice
of him till after we had started, a company of men with bent brows, and
he had marched on my right some forty rods. I then muttered slowly,
"Speak little, and to the point"; whereat he waved his hand. It was
singular and sad to ignore thus an old companion in the very hour of
need, when surely a bitterness hung upon our souls that more than ever
required balm. We were, perforce, to play the stranger, when at no time
in life did we more thirst for the tender friend. Doubtless, our hopes
of escape depended much upon each other; and we could but communicate
those plans in insufficient monosyllables, which, if misunderstood,
would lead to disaster. If ever plentiful words, in great ear-measures,
are pardonable, it is at such moments as this,--when even
half-words--diamonds flashing betrayal--are imprudent The Adjutant edged
a little closer.
"Before dark, or after?" he asked.