"You'll do me the same favor, if I don't happen to turn up," I said; and
we seized each other's hands. "You have the compass,--you know the way.
There is nothing more, I believe, Ned?" I said, hastily, and looked into
his eyes.
"I shall watch my chance as the wagons pass; there is nothing more," he
replied; and we parted immediately.
It was as if we had agreed to toss pennies for the guillotine. I had no
time to think further of him, for my own plans were maturing.
It was soon whispered about that we were to let the trains get ahead of
us, since it was necessary that they should move faster; and the Rebel
authorities, I presume, had decided to save their transportation, at the
risk even of their captives. One or other, then, it seemed likely, would
be taken. The Yankees were driving us before them, having reversed the
fortunes of the day, and, perhaps, might liberate the prisoners who so
impeded this retreat. We stood, I presume, for half an hour, drawn up in
a compressed mass upon the skirt of the highway, whilst, startled by
fear, a powerful task-master over teamsters, the late drowsy drivers
urged forward their toil-worn trains. It was seasonable, but I believed
that my time had not yet come. The deep shades encouraged me, but I
awaited the hour that I had hit upon. I thought for a moment of the
Adjutant, perhaps then ducking his head beneath the bushes, and
watching, with his heart beating time, the heavy mass by degrees moving
on. I trusted that the wheel of Fortune, whilst these other wheels were
moving Rebelward, had turned in his favor.
At a little after seven we again fell into line, not having allowed all
the teams to pass us; and as the same Fortune would have it, we left the
woods behind us, and marched between open meadows. It had now grown
quite dark. My face wore a look of anxiety as I noted the wide stretch
of open field beyond me.
But there were as anxious faces as mine among the groups of Rebel
officers who rode slowly along the lines. This was the chill season of
perturbation to the hot-blooded gentlemen. Some communications were
passing rapidly between the commander of our detachment and the
commander of the army. Things were not working satisfactorily to either.
Orderlies were dispatched to the front and to the rear, and the
air-blasting bugle was sounded on ahead, as if to chide the teamsters.
When we had marched up an ascent, and were on the brow of a low ridge,
we were halted, and then turned into an open field. It was decided,
apparently, that the rest of the train should pass us.
No doubt I should here have all the graces of a ready pen at my beck,
honey-dipped, or Vulcan-forged, in accordance with my humor, whether sad
or harsh, in making up the climax of my account; for at this spot the
good writer would be most impressive in his language, and set the reader
in a tremble. We waited for seventy minutes in this road-side field, the
prisoners resignedly huddling together, with the callous guards making a
circle about them. Let me enlarge upon our circumstances. The time,
about eight o'clock; the atmosphere thick and murky; the sky overcast,
promising a warm September night. I asked the Sergeant if it would rain,
and said carelessly some other trifles. I feigned an excess of
sleepiness. Our detachment lay some thirty yards from the highway,
spread into a thin line of no evenness, running parallel with the road,
which, in the gloom, our eyes could scarcely find. The exigencies of the
service had proved the ruin of the fences; and only here and there in
the vague darkness could one make out the black bunch of a shadowy tree.
Just beyond us--for my Sergeant and myself stood at the rear extremity,
the land's--end of this shoal of prisoners, outside of the ring of
guards sparely posted, on the very top of the ridge which we had
ascended--was a low clump of bushes, (perhaps neck-high,) squat and
opaque, with much the appearance of a ball of garden boxwood. The hill,
I thought, rolled away on either side,--taking some comfort to myself in
the conjecture; and the inky leaf-globe, only a little more sombre than
its background, could not be seen in a hasty glance. This clump, in its
innocent blackness, would cover my purposed guilt; and I resolved to
confide to it alone the secret crime of my attempted escape.
But there were calculations to be made, which I set about with the
eagerness which the occasion required, watching my Sergeant very closely
as my head ran over its prospectus. And, first, if he stood by my side,
I revolved, I could not by any chance whisper my tale to the silent
bushes; although, if, at the favorable moment, when the squad was
ordered to march, he but stepped a feather's-throw in advance of me, the
confession could be readily made. His presence would frustrate my plans.
There was one expedient at my beck, but quite hazardous, by the adoption
of which against odds I might compass his death and my freedom,--a
thought which I dismissed on the instant, as it savored of murder and
ingratitude. I must trust that he would give me his back, in spite of
his sense of responsibility, for a breathing-space ere we "fell in."
With his fellow watch-dogs my ruminations had nothing to do. The nearest
of them, owing to their scarcity, (and they had grown trebly valuable
this campaign, as they had grown rarer,) was not within twenty yards of
me. My new world was scarce that distance in the rear. The moment of all
moments, the crisis, the vision of a life-time, eddying through the
brain in the flash of a powder-pan, and stamping red-hot impressions
there, (which in some cases bleach men's hair-roots,) was finally upon
me. My Sergeant turned from me, and I glided with tiger-tread to the
bushes, and laid myself down.
I was, of course, between him and my new friends, and I pretended to
sleep, so that, if he found me, he could scarce suppose that I meditated
leaving him in so loose a manner; and, moreover, my being asleep would
follow naturally upon my reiterated statement that I was sleepy. It
would have been madness to have taken the other side, since, if there
found, the case against me would have been clear. I depended, as is ever
man's wont, upon mere shadows to do much for me where I was.
I have thought often since, however, (then other than the deliberate
thought which every man in trying circumstances has experienced, and
which centres upon one subject, being so severe a tension of all the
faculties as to seem no thought at all, was impossible,) that it would
be unwise, and perhaps a stumbling-block to future Union captives in the
custody of that horrid host, to ascribe my unbroken rest under those
dry, dusty bush-branches simply to the heavy darkness of the evening,
excluding all other causes from participation in my affairs. It was
unusually cloudy, the sky resting overhead like a hanging pall, and
threatening rain with thunder every moment, as is almost always the case
after a hotly contested engagement. The fight that morning had been a
grand one, (quite a Horace Vernet picture,) and hence the clouds that
night. But I must own that I give my Sergeant a place in my memory now
with a feeling of gratitude, induced thereto by the strong supposition
that he did not allow himself to see me as I glided under cover. I count
much upon his heart, as shown in his little proffered narrative. The
other guards on the line might readily have failed to notice me, the
more so as I had a special attendant to see to my wants; and I should
have been very sorry, indeed, had one of them disturbed my rest. But my
Sergeant was not three body-lengths from me when I slipped away from his
protection; and although he had his back turned, I am inclined to think
that he had only fewer eyes than Argus. His general reputation, to be
read in his bearing, pronounced him vigilant, and his every act
betokened circumspection. Far be it from me, however, to bespatter his
character by avowing him negligent in performing his duty in this case,
whilst lauding him for his honest devotion to his masters. Perhaps it
may have been a part of his care to see the squad "fall in," and he
could not abandon that line of his duty to search for a stray officer,
smooth-spoken and amiable, to whom he had just shown a kindness. The
bustle and unnatural darkness of the moment could not inspire one who
was not a demon with a demoniacal desire to set a screeching and rash
body of troopers upon my track. The detachment of melancholy mutes was
moving off when I tried my fate; and he could have had but little time
to think ere the miserable men were in the distance. The farther my
Sergeant journeyed, the more likely he was to keep quiet upon my
subject.
I experienced very peculiar emotions as I lay there and found myself
alone. I even seemed to hear the whine of the soldiery, the ringing of
canteens and sabres, and the peculiar sound of the tramping feet, long
after they had passed away,--chanting, in my soul's depths, my
fluttering song of triumph to that imagined accompaniment. I had an
almost accurate idea of where I was, having observed our course quite
closely during the day, and proposed going over very nearly the same
ground in the next twenty-four hours. I had already decided in my own
mind that the Rebel general was making a retreat before the gallant
General Sheridan, whose outposts I hoped soon to come upon. But dangers
many, and some hidden, lay thick-strewn upon my path, which had not run
over roses hither; and I deemed it best to encumber the cold earth for
an hour, ere I sallied from my Moses-harbor.
The highway lay within a hundred feet of me; and as I intended taking up
my lost stitches of the morning in a peculiar (and, I hoped, original)
manner, having no knowledge of the country beyond the line of our late
march, I was obliged to count upon keeping within sound of the troops
and wagons travelling there, if I desired at all to gain my end. The
Adjutant T---- had my compass, and was, I trusted, quite free from
danger as I remained supinely within hail of men who would be delighted
to shoot me. His image, as I fancied him, cumbersome and crouching, as
he hurried along, dodging from tree to tree, reminded me of the hunts
which the chivalry indulge in farther south, (near that very horrible
Andersonville slaughter-house,) where the bay of the blood-hound rings
over the marshes, and the pack is let loose in the clear morning air,
crystal-bright and all aglow, to lap up the dew with overhanging
tongues, and to run down escaped prisoners. There is no poetical charm
attaching to that pack, although Pan never played his reeds in a more
poetical country; and its existence and employment are solemnly sober
truths. They made me very grave, suggesting, as they did, some other
dangers to which I was then liable. After working myself into a nervous
state of body, I began pulling off my coat, leaving my shoulder-straps
therewith, to play the part of asterisks, and explain who was within. My
pantaloons the soil would soon make as white as a gray-back's; and my
cap was to stay with the uniform, to grace some indigent discoverer of
the other side.
When I had secreted my money in my waistband, (not deeming my orderly's
suggestion feasible,) and had strapped my suspenders tightly about my
body, I worked my way round the bushes to the other side of the clump.
As I had expected, I found an even sweep downwards of meadow-land,
stretching parallel with the road, and as far before me as I could see
through the darkness.
I got myself flat upon the ground, with my feet, as in Christian burial,
pointing towards the east,--for there the highway ran,--and with my
handkerchief bound about my head. I then commenced rolling as gently as
possible down the grassy declivity.
I should be unable to give any account of my thoughts during the first
ten minutes of my novel evolutions. I moved at one time slowly, at
another rapidly, as the ideas of prudence and danger by turns reigned in
my bosom. I risked much in being obliged to keep in line with the
current of life flowing so noisily the other way, the thought of which
spurred me onward; and I had far to go, and not very great endurance to
fall back upon,--a reflection which counselled a cautious expenditure of
effort. I was anon anxious to fly over the hard lumps of earth and
pricking straw-blades,--anon, eager to move gently, with deliberate hand
upon the brake. I suffered much at my elbows, which were crushed as my
body passed over them, (a pulverizing process,) and which, as I had
clasped my arms across my breast, were most palpably in the way. It
seemed as if they would be unhinged. My feet, too, demonstrated to me
the causes of the circular motion of a penholder or a ruler when started
down a desk-lid, and had the same influence upon my course as the
pin-point has upon the whole pin when in motion. My head and upper
members inclined to swing in a circle about my feet. I spent much labor
upon this defaulting portion of AEsop's body of sovereign independencies,
which threatened the greatest difficulties. My neck, also, in the narrow
space between the band of my low woollen shirt and my hair-roots, was
harassed at every turn by the needle-bed of short grass that I passed
over; and the loose stones, stubble, and gravel, that had irritated the
skin, worked their way beneath the garment. I was quite a child's
rattle, full of pebbles. I could have endured all this for a long while,
however, the spirit then actuating me being one of those unreflecting
forces which would (as a last resort) have carried me down the same
slope in a Regulus-cask. But after travelling quite a distance, I began
to revolve, not any complete remedy for these manifold ills, but some
amelioration of the exaggerated violence of their sway. I tore one
sleeve from my undershirt and wound that around my neck. I held my arms
straight down my side and flat against my body. Nothing short of
amputation could have crushed the rebellion in my lower members, and so
(with the power to amputate not abandoned) I nursed them into insolence
with a compromise.
A psychological history of the uneven progress of that billowy retreat
would be as far beyond my reach as of the ten minutes of outset trial. I
thought only vaguely of my home, of my regiment, of my moments of danger
in past life. I listened during that night till my sense of hearing
changed from a passive to an active sense. I got my neck sadly cramped
in lifting my head from the ground every time my body rolled face upward
to gain some knowledge of the enemy. My imagination started up all sorts
of shapes about me. The damp, heavy atmosphere sent a chill through my
veins. I apprehended rain. I soon, also, began to think of daylight,
(before which I had many hours,) and to wonder how I should secrete
myself after sunrise. I did not feel hungry; but I had not gone far
before I felt the faint longings of thirst.
The ground, too, over which I travelled, was not all meadow land, and
had worse features than grass-swords and gravel bullets. I did not find
many fences, but I crossed innumerable small streams and one heavy
hedge.
I noticed that by degrees, judging from the sound, the Rebel troops were
getting by, only dropping along finally in dish-water driblets,--and
that, at last, but scattering bodies of infantry, and at intervals some
wagons, occupied the road, moving like dark lobsters in the midnight
mists. I could not take to it myself, because of them; and I knew too
well how full it would be of stragglers, those worthless gleanings of an
army, even after the rear-guard had swept onwards. But I did not
hesitate to erect my body from its voluntary abasement and to make
walking a branch of my exercise, when convinced that only vagrants could
chance to see me. They never capture prisoners on either side. Thus was
I enabled for two hours before sunrise to accomplish more than twice as
much as my five hours' rolling labors had attained.
The long-expected rain began to fall in a heavy mist at about dawn, and
shortly grew in importance, till the windows of heaven were wide open
and it became a settled pour. Most fortunately, by that time I had
entered some of the first woods we had passed through in the journey of
the previous day, and had fair shelter (from Aurora, not Pluvius) within
my reach. It was a colossal pepper-box lid, that could keep men from
seeing through it, but not the rain from dropping in. My first impulse
was to make a fire, so chilled to the very marrow was I in the early
morning air, that chilliest of all atmospheres, and so wet was I also in
my light summer garments. But of course Prudence had no word in that
matter, nor any countenance for a suggestion so reckless, and my soberer
senses got to casting about for a fitting retreat ere broad day lay
before me. I must reconnoitre, I thought, dripping at every point, like
a convict in the marshes, before I continued a tramp here that might
expose me to a scouting-party at any moment. That hunger, too, which had
not troubled me in the night-hours, came upon me now and urged very
suggestive hints. I had made a cup of my hands more than once, and
slaked my thirst from the streams in my way, Narcissus-fashion; but
nothing solid had passed my lips for seventeen hours. First, logs and
leaves for a cover, then food, then a critical examination of my
position, were my objects, as I hastily settled my plans. The thought of
the intelligent contraband, so beyond ordinary human excellence in the
richness of his heart, who might minister to all my wants, (as without
question many such had done to my distressed brethren flying from
Libby,) and whose homely traits become to us golden virtues in moments
of suffering, crossed my brain as the depression of hunger increased.
Very dim visions of clean and savory cooking haunted me as I took off my
boots and shook the water from them. I could not imagine anything to
equal in value a good steak or a hot hash; nor could I check my feeling
of discontent, a hopeless feeling, at having many a time and oft
partaken of like viands, perhaps, unappreciatively. The slimy dirt of my
uppers soiled my hands, as I endeavored to make myself less
uncomfortable, and I took the shirtsleeve from my neck as the driest
article about me upon which to wipe them, Near by lay the trunk of a
large walnut-tree, water-logged and growing sponge-moss; and small
bushes, like coral reefs in this sea of troubles, were on all sides of
me. I had not accomplished much when I heard distinctly the sound of a
bugle.
It was, I supposed, about half a mile distant; but there was no knowing
how near the wet horsemen whom it signalled might be to my proposed
hiding place; and, accordingly, I got hastily down by the walnut, a good
squirrel-cover, without shelter or head-piece. I lay along that side of
it which was farthest from the road, and durst not move for fear of
capture. The woods were quite thick at that place, and from the hidden
pathway (now become scarce a highway) a body of the enemy might emerge
at any moment. The unwelcome music of their bugle broke the Sabbath
stillness of the morning, and interrupted the harmony of the falling
rain-drops as they pattered through the great cathedral branches
overhead. I spent, I presume, two hours in this lazy manner, without
thought of any food, and scarce daring to look about me. During the
first half of that period I heard the bugle thrice send its clear,
ringing notes--for it is sometimes lark-throated--through the
tree-aisles and under the half-arches above me, the tones lingering in
waves on the air, and not failing to startle me. At the first commanding
blast I got to watching for the troops that did not come forth at all.
Being quite three grasshopper's flights from the road, I could
reconnoitre the few rods of it passing near me with comparative ease and
safety, and the intentness of my look-out drove thoughts of discomfort
from my head. The silence grew oppressive to one who had been perforce
so long alone. The thought that at times man has to avoid his
fellow-beings in his misery, lest his misery be augmented, was
productive of a tender feeling of self-pity in my bosom, which, perhaps,
(strange to say,) was a source of some comfort to me. I had, I found,
awakened a present sympathy in my case, the passive part of my nature
having enlisted its kindly feelings in behalf of the bespattered,
dripping gentleman who lay there before it, a sad mass of ooze, soaking
on wet leaves. I was growing reflective over my woes, when the second
blast broke upon my ear, and I started much as young ladies do at the
sudden gun which, on the boards, sends the unholy Caspar to his account.
In a word, I was worn out, wet, and hungry; and had become so unstrung,
in the accumulated discomforts of the roll from Rebeldom, and the rain
of the last stages of my journey, that I could not control my growing
nervousness. Having waited a full hour from the third signal-call of the
bugle, I jumped desperately to my feet, with a mind made up to hazard
everything. Many unlucky fellows, escaping from their captors, have
toiled with a wonderful energy, and have failed, when worthy of
immediate success, if we rate them by (the war standard) their bravery
and coolness. They succumb to fever, and despair finally, but a few
moments ere the object of their toils would drop before them. It is
ill-advised ever to cast one's hopes adrift as long as life is in
us,--an imprudence of which I myself was guilty, and which might have
carried me back to thraldom. The dragging anchor may fasten, spell-bound
by some fluke-enamored reef, as the vessel seems on the point of
striking. I jumped to my feet in desperation, and walked hastily a few
rods nearer home. I allowed no after-thought in the premises, but
decided to dodge from tree to tree, like the hunting Indian, as long as
my present humor impelled me.
I know not how far I advanced thus, through the most desperate (but to
the reader, whom I commiserate, least interesting) stage of my
adventure,--nor anything of my thoughts or emotions, after the hot
resolve had taken hold of me. I was in a fever, a mad fever, the
evidence of cold, and the handiwork of the past night's rolling-mill,
and, I doubt not, was entirely unfitted to evade the enemy with presence
of mind or skill. I did not pause till I heard the sound of axes, and
the confused noises of a body of men.
I then again took the serpent's position upon the earth, after he, like
myself, had lost his Eden, and summoned my oft-trusted counsellors, my
ears, to their familiar duty of serving for all my senses in one. The
sounds were very distinct indeed; I could even hear the men's voices,
chopped up by their active tools; and I knew, by the noise of their
labors, that they were driving stakes into the ground. It could scarce
be the Rebels, I thought, in camp this distance in the rear: it might be
our men, I hoped, pushing our advance up the Valley. I drew carefully
forward on hands and knees.
In a little while I saw a bending figure, with its back to me, holding
something that I could not see over a smoking bundle of fagots. There
was a poncho about the neck, that covered it down to the ground, and in
the morning gray, the figure, the colonnade of tree-trunks, the lazy
smoke, a cabinet picture, wore an India-rubber look.
Presently another came up to my first discovery, as if emerging from the
bustle elsewhere, and stood erect before him, seeming almost as wet as
myself. There was a tasselled bugle in his hand, covered with a corner
of his poncho, under which he had a cavalry sabre. He wore, also, a
dripping cavalry cord round his hat. After a few words, the two sat upon
their heels before the fire, which they bent over, paternally, to
protect, watching the thing that was cooking.
Having drawn myself cautiously nearer, I waited a long while for one of
the men to display his colors.
The bugler was burnishing his instrument upon his blouse beneath his
rubber, hazarding some chance notes under shelter, as he laughed and
chatted with his friend. He would, apparently, consult with him of his
performance; and he finally lifted himself upon his feet, with the
instrument tight to his lips. He then blew a rasping, grating blast upon
the air, ear-splitting and dissonant, that was his own rendition of a
few bars of Yankee Doodle.
The blouse, being dark, had given me much hope; the air gave me
certainty; and before the bugler could wind his final note, I became one
of the group.
My pantaloons showed that I was an officer, but in all other respects I
appeared less than a highwayman. Accustomed to roughnesses, however, the
men before me would not have divined that I was miserable, had not my
appearance been by a few degrees more wretched than that of the most
dilapidated of warriors. They gave over, the one his mess, the other his
music, for a second, to inquire into my circumstances, and then
conducted me to the Major who had command of the detachment some quarter
of a mile in the rear.
The eight days' leave-of-absence that was given me, after a full report
at headquarters, garnished with less ornament than the present record,
afforded me an opportunity to reach my physician in time to have it
extended by ten more; and in that period I learned from a letter,
written in a thin, peaked hand, that the Adjutant T---- had escaped, but
had been shot in the thigh. The compass, that had been his cloud by day
and pillar of fire by night during his sad exodus, was returned to me,
with his old lady-mother's thanks. Many simple, yet touching, speeches
welled up from her rich heart, and shone on the thin white paper; and,
no doubt, her great, manly son was tended by another, whilst, at her
escritoire, the kindly epistle was made for me. In the subsequent hurry
of camp-life, I received a second, that contained all those mournful
expressions of resignation, and dependence upon the Higher Power, which
broken-hearted Christians so sweetly utter. The Adjutant T----, indeed,
had received his solemn quietus in running from the Libby Prison, and
the extinguisher of his life was down.