Among the many brave men who have taken part in this war,--whose dying
embers are now being trodden out by a "poor white man,"--none, perhaps,
have done more service to the country, or won less glory for themselves,
than the "poor whites" who have acted as scouts for the Union armies.
The issue of battles, the result of campaigns, and the possession of
wide districts of country, have often depended on their sagacity, or
been determined by the information they have gathered; and yet they have
seldom been heard of in the newspapers, and may never be read of in
history.
Romantic, thrilling, and sometimes laughable adventures have attended
the operations of the scouts of both sections; but more difficulty and
danger have undoubtedly been encountered by the partisans of the North
than of the South. Operating mostly within the circle of their own
acquaintance, the latter have usually been aided and harbored by the
Southern people, who, generally friendly to Secession, have themselves
often acted as spies, and conveyed dispatches across districts occupied
by our armies, and inaccessible to any but supposed loyal citizens.
The service rendered the South by these volunteer scouts has often been
of the most important character. One stormy night, early in the war, a
young woman set out from a garrisoned town to visit a sick uncle
residing a short distance in the country. The sick uncle, mounting his
horse at midnight, rode twenty miles in the rain to Forrest's
head-quarters. The result was, the important town of Murfreesboro' and a
promising Major-General fell into the hands of the Confederates; and all
because the said Major-General permitted a pretty woman to pass his
lines on "a mission of mercy."
At another time, a Rebel citizen, professing disgust with Secession for
having the weakness to be on "its last legs," took the oath of
allegiance and assumed the Union uniform. Informing himself fully of the
disposition of our forces along the Nashville Railroad, he suddenly
disappeared, to reappear with Basil Duke and John Morgan in a midnight
raid on our slumbering outposts.
Again, a column on the march came upon a wretched woman, with a child in
her arms, seated by the dying embers of a burning homestead,--burning,
she said, because her sole and only friend, her uncle, (these ladies
seldom have any nearer kin,) "stood up stret fur the kentry." No
American soldier ever refused a "lift" to a woman in distress. This
woman was soon "lifted" into an empty saddle by the side of a
staff-officer, who, with many wise winks and knowing nods, was
discussing the intended route of the expedition with a brother
simpleton. A little farther on the woman suddenly remembered that
another uncle, who did not stand up quite so "stret fur the kentry,"
and, consequently, had a house still standing up for him, lived "plumb
up thet 'ar' hill ter the right o' the high-road." She was set down, the
column moved on, and--Streight's well planned expedition miscarried. But
no one wasted a thought on the forlorn woman and the sallow baby whose
skinny faces were so long within earshot of the wooden-headed
staff-officer.
Means quite as ingenious and quite as curious were often adopted to
conceal dispatches, when the messenger was in danger of capture by an
enemy. A boot with a hollow heel, a fragment of corn-pone too stale to
tempt a starving man, a strip of adhesive plaster over a festering
wound, or a ball of cotton-wool stuffed into the ear to keep out the
west wind, often hid a message whose discovery would cost a life, and
perhaps endanger an army. The writer has himself seen the hollow
half-eagle which bore to Burnside's beleaguered force the welcome
tidings that in thirty hours Sherman would relieve Knoxville.
The perils which even the "native" scout encountered can be estimated
only by those familiar with the vigilance that surrounds an army. The
casual meeting with an acquaintance, the slightest act inconsistent with
his assumed character, or the smallest incongruity between his speech
and that of the district to which he professed to belong, has sent many
a good man to the gallows. One of the best of Rosecrans's scouts--a
native of East Kentucky--lost his life because he would "bounce" (mount)
his nag, "pack" (carry) his gun, eat his bread "dry so," (without
butter,) and "guzzle his peck o' whiskey," in the midst of Bragg's camp,
when no such things were done there, nor in the mountains of Alabama,
whence he professed to come. Acquainted only with a narrow region, the
poor fellow did not know that every Southern district has its own
dialect, and that the travelled ear of a close observer can detect the
slightest deviation from its customary phrases. But he was not alone in
this ignorance. Almost every Northern writer who has undertaken to
describe Southern life has fallen into the same error. Even Olmstead,
who has caught the idioms wonderfully, confounds the dialects of
different regions, and makes a Northern Georgian "right smart," when he
had been only "powerful stupid" all his life.
The professional scout generally was a native of the South,--some
illiterate and simple-minded, but brave and self-devoted "poor white
man," who, if he had worn shoulder-straps, and been able to write
"interesting" dispatches, might now be known as a hero half the world
over. Some of these men, had they been born at the North, where free
schools are open to all, would have led armies, and left a name to live
after them. But they were born at the South, had their minds cramped and
their souls stunted by a system which dwarfs every noble thing; and so,
their humble mission over, they have gone down unknown and unhonored,
amid the silence and darkness of their native woods.
I hope to rescue the memory of one of these men--John Jordan, from the
head of Baine--from utter oblivion by writing this article. He is now
beyond the hearing of my words; but I would record one act in his short
career, that his pure patriotism may lead some of us to know better and
love more the much-abused and misunderstood class to which he belonged.
* * * * *
Early in the war the command of an important military expedition was
intrusted to the president of a Western college. Though a young man,
this scholar had already achieved a "character" and a history. Beginning
life a widow's son, his first sixteen years were passed between a farm,
a canal, and a black-saltern. Being an intelligent, energetic lad, his
friends formed the usual hopes of him; but when he apprenticed himself
to a canal-boat, their faith failed, and, after the fashion of Job's
friends, they comforted his mother with the assurance that her son had
taken the swift train to the Devil. But, like Job, she knew in whom she
believed, and the boy soon justified her confidence. An event shortly
occurred which changed the current of his life, gave him a purpose, and
made him a man.
One dark midnight, as the boat on which he was employed was leaving one
of those long reaches of slackwater which abound in the Ohio and
Pennsylvania Canal, he was called up to take his turn at the bow.
Tumbling out of bed, his eyes heavy with sleep, he took his stand on the
narrow platform below the bow-deck, and began uncoiling a rope to steady
the boat through a lock it was approaching. Slowly and sleepily he
unwound it, till it knotted, and caught in a narrow cleft in the edge of
the deck. He gave it a sudden pull, but it held fast; then another and a
stronger pull, and it gave way, but sent him over the bow into the
water. Down he went into the dark night and the still darker river; and
the boat glided on to bury him among the fishes. No human help was near.
God only could save him, and He only by a miracle. So the boy thought,
as he went down saying the prayer his mother had taught him.
Instinctively clutching the rope, he sunk below the surface; but then it
tightened in his grasp, and held firmly. Seizing it hand over hand, he
drew himself up on deck, and was again a live boy among the living.
Another kink had caught in another crevice, and saved him! Was it that
prayer, or the love of his praying mother, which wrought this miracle?
He did not know, but, long after the boat had passed the lock, he stood
there, in his dripping clothes, pondering the question.
Coiling the rope, he tried to throw it again into the crevice; but it
had lost the knack of kinking. Many times he tried,--six hundred, says
my informant,--and then sat down and reflected. "I have thrown this
rope," he thought, "six hundred times; I might throw it ten times as
many without its catching. Ten times six hundred are six thousand,--so,
there were six thousand chances against my life. Against such odds,
Providence only could have saved it. Providence, therefore, thinks it
worth saving; and if that's so, I won't throw it away on a canal-boat.
I'll go home, get an education, and be a man."
He acted on this resolution, and not long afterwards stood before a
little log cottage in the depths of the Ohio wilderness. It was late at
night; the stars were out, and the moon was down; but by the fire-light
that came through the window, he saw his mother kneeling before an open
book which lay on a chair in the corner. She was reading; but her eyes
were off the page, looking up to the Invisible. "Oh, turn unto me," she
said, "and have mercy upon me! give Thy strength unto Thy servant, and
save the son of Thine handmaid!" More she read, which sounded like a
prayer, but this is all that the boy remembers. He opened the door, put
his arm about her neck, and his head upon her bosom. What words he said
I do not know; but there, by her side, he gave back to God the life
which He had given. So the mother's prayer was answered. So sprang up
the seed which in toil and tears she had planted.
The boy worked, the world rolled round, and twelve years later Governor
Dennison offered him command of a regiment. He went home, opened his
mother's Bible, and pondered upon the subject. He had a wife, a child,
and a few thousand dollars. If he gave his life to the country, would
God and the few thousand dollars provide for his wife and child? He
consulted the Book about it. It seemed to answer in the affirmative; and
before morning he wrote to a friend,--"I regard my life as given to the
country. I am only anxious to make as much of it as possible before the
mortgage on it is foreclosed."
To this man, who thus went into the war with a life not his own, was
given, on the 16th of December, 1861, command of the little army which
held Kentucky to her moorings in the Union.
He knew nothing of war beyond its fundamental principles,--which are, I
believe, that a big boy can whip a little boy, and that one big boy can
whip two little boys, if he take them singly, one after the other. He
knew no more about it; yet he was called upon to solve a military
problem which has puzzled the heads of the greatest generals: namely,
how two small bodies of men, stationed widely apart, can unite in the
presence of an enemy, and beat him, when he is of twice their united
strength, and strongly posted behind intrenchments. With the help of
many "good men and true," he solved this problem; and in telling how he
solved it, I shall come naturally to speak of John Jordan, from the head
of Baine.
Humphrey Marshall with five thousand men had invaded Kentucky. Entering
it at Pound Gap, he had fortified a strong natural position near
Paintville, and, with small bands, was overrunning the whole Piedmont
region. This region, containing an area larger than the whole of
Massachusetts, was occupied by about four thousand blacks and one
hundred thousand whites,--a brave, hardy, rural population, with few
schools, scarcely any churches, and only one newspaper, but with that
sort of patriotism which grows among mountains and clings to its barren
hillsides as if they were the greenest spots in the universe. Among this
simple people Marshall was scattering firebrands. Stump-orators were
blazing away at every cross-road, lighting a fire which threatened to
sweep Kentucky from the Union. That done,--so early in the
war,--dissolution might have followed. To the Ohio canal-boy was
committed the task of extinguishing this conflagration. It was a
difficult task, one which, with the means at command, would have
appalled any man not made equal to it by early struggles with hardship
and poverty, and entire trust in the Providence that guards his country.
The means at command were twenty-five hundred men, divided into two
bodies, and separated by a hundred miles of mountain country. This
country was infested with guerrillas, and occupied by a disloyal people.
The sending of dispatches across it was next to impossible; but
communication being opened, and the two columns set in motion, there was
danger that they would be fallen on and beaten in detail before they
could form a junction. This was the great danger. What remained--the
beating of five thousand Rebels, posted behind intrenchments, by half
their number of Yankees, operating in the open field--seemed to the
young Colonel less difficult of accomplishment.
Evidently, the first thing to be done was to find a trustworthy
messenger to convey dispatches between the two halves of the Union army.
To this end, the Yankee commander applied to the Colonel of the
Fourteenth Kentucky.
"Have you a man," he asked, "who will die, rather than fail or betray
us?"
The Kentuckian reflected a moment, then answered: "I think I have,--John
Jordan, from the head of Baine."[B]
Jordan was sent for. He was a tall, gaunt, sallow man of about thirty,
with small gray eyes, a fine, falsetto voice, pitched in the minor key,
and his speech the rude dialect of the mountains. His face had as many
expressions as could be found in a regiment, and he seemed a strange
combination of cunning, simplicity, undaunted courage, and undoubting
faith; yet, though he might pass for a simpleton, he talked a quaint
sort of wisdom which ought to have given him to history.
The young Colonel sounded him thoroughly; for the fate of the little
army might depend on his fidelity. The man's soul was as clear as
crystal, and in ten minutes the Yankee saw through it. His history is
stereotyped in that region. Born among the hills, where the crops are
stones, and sheep's noses are sharpened before they can nibble the thin
grass between them, his life had been one of the hardest toil and
privation. He knew nothing but what Nature, the Bible, the "Course of
Time," and two or three of Shakspeare's plays had taught him; but
somehow in the mountain air he had grown to be a man,--a man as
civilized nations account manhood.
"Why did you come into the war?" at last asked the Colonel.
"To do my sheer fur the kentry, Gin'ral," answered the man. "And I
didn't druv no barg'in wi' th' Lord. I guv Him my life squar' out; and
ef He's a mind ter tuck it on this tramp, why, it's a His'n; I've
nothin' ter say agin it."
"You mean that you've come into the war not expecting to get out of it?"
"That's so, Gin'ral."
"Will you die rather than let the dispatch be taken?"
"I wull."
The Colonel recalled what had passed in his own mind when poring over
his mother's Bible that night at his home in Ohio; and it decided him.
"Very well," he said; "I will trust you."
The dispatch was written on tissue paper, rolled into the form of a
bullet, coated with warm lead, and put into the hand of the Kentuckian.
He was given a carbine, a brace of revolvers, and the fleetest horse in
his regiment, and, when the moon was down, started on his perilous
journey. He was to ride at night, and hide in the woods or in the houses
of loyal men in the day-time.
It was pitch-dark when he set out; but he knew every inch of the way,
having travelled it often, driving mules to market. He had gone twenty
miles by early dawn, and the house of a friend was only a few miles
beyond him. The man himself was away; but his wife was at home, and she
would harbor him till nightfall. He pushed on, and tethered his horse in
the timber; but it was broad day when he rapped at the door, and was
admitted. The good woman gave him breakfast, and showed him to the
guest-chamber, where, lying down in his boots, he was soon in a deep
slumber.
The house was a log cabin in the midst of a few acres of
deadening,--ground from which trees have been cleared by girdling. Dense
woods were all about it; but the nearest forest was a quarter of a mile
distant, and should the scout be tracked, it would be hard to get away
over this open space, unless he had warning of the approach of his
pursuers. The woman thought of this, and sent up the road, on a mule,
her whole worldly possessions, an old negro, dark as the night, but
faithful as the sun in the heavens. It was high noon when the mule came
back, his heels striking fire, and his rider's eyes flashing, as if
ignited from the sparks the steel had emitted.
"Dey 'm comin', Missus!" he cried,--"not haff a mile away,--twenty
Secesh,--ridin' as ef de Debil wus arter 'em!"
She barred the door, and hastened to the guest-chamber.
"Go," she cried, "through the winder,--ter the woods! They'll be here in
a minute."
"How many is thar?" asked the scout.
"Twenty,--go,--go at once,--or you'll be taken!"