"It 'r' my only chance. I must run fur it. Bring me yer red shawl,
Rachel."
She had none, but she had a petticoat of flaming red and yellow.
Handling it as if he knew how such articles can be made to spread, the
scout softly unbarred the door, and, grasping the hand of the woman,
said,--
"Good bye, Rachel. It 'r' a right sorry chance; but I may git through.
Ef I do, I'll come ter night; ef I don't, git ye the dispatch ter the
Cunnel. Good bye."
To the right of the house, midway between it and the woods, stood the
barn. That way lay the route of the scout. If he could elude the two
mounted men at the door-way, he might escape the other horsemen; for
they would have to spring the barn-yard fences, and their horses might
refuse the leap. But it was foot of man against leg of horse, and "a
right sorry chance."
Suddenly he opened the door, and dashed at the two horses with the
petticoat. They reared, wheeled, and bounded away like lightning just
let out of harness. In the time that it takes to tell it, the scout was
over the first fence, and scaling the second; but a horse was making the
leap with him. The scout's pistol went off, and the rider's earthly
journey was over. Another followed, and his horse fell mortally wounded.
The rest made the circuit of the barn-yard, and were rods behind when
the scout reached the edge of the forest. Once among those thick
laurels, nor horse nor rider can reach a man, if he lies low, and says
his prayer in a whisper.
The Rebels bore the body of their comrade back to the house, and said to
the woman,--
"We'll be revenged for this. We know the route he'll take, and will have
his life before to-morrow; and you--we'd burn your house over your head,
if you were not the wife of Jack Brown."
Brown was a loyal man, who was serving his country in the ranks of
Marshall. Thereby hangs a tale, but this is not the time to tell it.
Soon the men rode away, taking the poor woman's only wagon as a hearse
for their dead comrade.
Night came, and the owls cried in the woods in a way they had not cried
for a fortnight. "T'whoot! t'whoot!" they went, as if they thought there
was music in hooting. The woman listened, put on a dark mantle, and
followed the sound of their voices. Entering the woods, she crept in
among the bushes, and talked with the owls as if they had been human.
"They know the road ye'll take," she said; "ye must change yer route.
Here ar' the bullet."
"God bless ye, Rachel!" responded the owl, "ye 'r' a true 'ooman!"--and
he hooted louder than before, to deceive pursuers, and keep up the
music.
"Ar' yer nag safe?" she asked.
"Yes, and good for forty mile afore sun-up."
"Well, here ar' suthin' ter eat: ye'll need it. Good bye, and God go wi'
ye!"
"He'll go wi' ye, fur He loves noble wimmin."
Their hands clasped, and then they parted: he to his long ride; she to
the quiet sleep of those who, out of a true heart, serve their country.
The night was dark and drizzly; but before morning the clouds cleared
away, leaving a thick mist hanging low on the meadows. The scout's mare
was fleet, but the road was rough, and a slosh of snow impeded the
travel. He had come by a strange way, and did not know how far he had
travelled by sunrise; but lights were ahead, shivering in the haze of
the cold, gray morning. Were they the early candles of some sleepy
village, or the camp-fires of a band of guerrillas? He did not know, and
it would not be safe to go on till he did know. The road was lined with
trees, but they would give no shelter; for they were far apart, and the
snow lay white between them. He was in the blue grass region. Tethering
his horse in the timber, he climbed a tall oak by the roadside; but the
mist was too thick to admit of his discerning anything distinctly. It
seemed, however, to be breaking away, and he would wait until his way
was clear; so he sat there, an hour, two hours, and ate his breakfast
from the satchel John's wife had slung over his shoulder. At last the
fog lifted a little, and he saw close at hand a small hamlet,--a few
rude huts gathered round a cross-road. No danger could lurk in such a
place, and he was about to descend, and pursue his journey, when
suddenly he heard, up the road by which he came, the rapid tramp of a
body of horsemen. The mist was thicker below; so half-way down the tree
he went, and waited their coming. They moved at an irregular pace,
carrying lanterns, and pausing every now and then to inspect the road,
as if they had missed their way or lost something. Soon they came near,
and were dimly outlined in the gray mist, so the scout could make out
their number. There were thirty of them,--the original band, and a
reinforcement. Again they halted when abreast of the tree, and searched
the road narrowly.
"He must have come this way," said one,--he of the chivalry. "The other
road is six miles longer, and he would take the shortest route. It's an
awful pity we didn't head him on both roads."
"We kin come up with him yit, ef we turn plumb round, and foller on
t'other road,--whar we lost the trail,--back thar, three miles ter the
deadnin'."
Now another spoke, and his voice the scout remembered. He belonged to
his own company in the Fourteenth Kentucky. "It 'so," he said; "he has
tuck t' other road. I tell ye, I'd know thet mar's shoe 'mong a million.
Nary one loike it wus uver seed in all Kaintuck,--only a d----d Yankee
could ha' invented it."
"And yere it ar'," shouted a man with one of the lanterns, "plain as
sun-up."
The Fourteenth Kentuckian clutched the light, and, while a dozen
dismounted and gathered round, closely examined the shoe-track. The
ground was bare on the spot, and the print of the horse's hoof was
clearly cut in the half-frozen mud. Narrowly the man looked, and life
and death hung on his eyesight. The scout took out the bullet, and
placed it in a crotch of the tree. If they took him, the Devil should
not take the dispatch. Then he drew a revolver. The mist was breaking
away, and he would surely be discovered, if the men lingered much
longer; but he would have the value of his life to the uttermost
farthing.
Meanwhile, the horsemen crowded around the foot-print, and one of them
inadvertently trod upon it. The Kentuckian looked long and earnestly,
but at last he said,--
"'Ta'n't the track. Thet 'ar' mar' has a sand-crack on her right
fore-foot. She didn't take kindly to a round shoe; so the Yank, he guv
her one with the cork right in the middle o' the quarter. 'Twas a durned
smart contrivance; fur ye see, it eased the strain, and let the nag go
nimble as a squirrel. The cork ha'n't yere,--'ta'n't her track,--and
we're wastin,' time in luckin'."
The cork was not there, because the trooper's tread had obliterated it.
Reader, let us thank him for that one good step, if he never take
another; for it saved the scout, and, may-be, it saved Kentucky. When
the scout returned that way, he halted abreast of that tree, and
examined the ground about it. Right there, in the road, was the mare's
track, with the print of the man's foot still upon the inner quarter! He
uncovered his head, and from his heart went up a simple thanksgiving.
The horsemen gone, the scout came down from the tree, and pushed on into
the misty morning. There might be danger ahead, but there surely was
danger behind him. His pursuers were only half convinced that they had
struck his trail; and some sensible fiend might put it into their heads
to divide and follow, part by one route, part by the other.
He pushed on over the sloshy road, his mare every step going slower and
slower. The poor beast was jaded out; for she had travelled sixty miles,
eaten nothing, and been stabled in the timber. She would have given out
long before, had her blood not been the best in Kentucky. As it was, she
staggered along as if she had taken a barrel of whiskey. Five miles
farther on was the house of a Union man. She must reach it, or die by
the wayside; for the merciful man regardeth not the life of his beast,
when he carries dispatches.
The loyalist did not know the scout, but his honest face secured him a
cordial welcome. He explained that he was from the Union camp on the Big
Sandy, and offered any price for a horse to go on with.
"Yer nag is wuth ary two o' my critters," said the man. "Ye kin take the
best beast I've got; and when ye 'r' ag'in this way, we'll swop back
even."
The scout thanked him, mounted the horse, and rode off into the mist
again, without the warm breakfast which the good woman had, half-cooked,
in the kitchen. It was eleven o'clock; and at twelve that night he
entered Colonel Cranor's quarters at Paris,--having ridden a hundred
miles with a rope round his neck, for thirteen dollars a month,
hard-tack, and a shoddy uniform.
The Colonel opened the dispatch. It was dated, Louisa, Kentucky,
December 24th, midnight; and directed him to move at once with his
regiment, (the Fortieth Ohio, eight hundred strong,) by the way of Mount
Sterling and McCormick's Gap, to Prestonburg. He would incumber his men
with as few rations and as little luggage as possible, bearing in mind
that the safety of his command depended on his expedition. He would also
convey the dispatch to Lieutenant-Colonel Woolford, at Stamford, and
direct him to join the march with his three hundred cavalry.
Hours now were worth months of common time, and on the following morning
Cranor's column began to move. The scout lay by till night, then set out
on his return, and at daybreak swapped his now jaded horse for the fresh
Kentucky mare, even. He ate the housewife's breakfast, too, and took his
ease with the good man till dark, when he again set out, and rode
through the night in safety. After that his route was beset with perils.
The Providence which so wonderfully guarded his way out seemed to leave
him to find his own way in; or, as he expressed it, "Ye see, the Lord,
He keered more fur the dispatch nor He keered fur me: and 'twas nateral
He should; 'case my life only counted one, while the dispatch, it stood
fur all Kaintuck."
Be that as it may, he found his road a hard one to travel. The same gang
which followed him out waylaid him back, and one starry midnight he fell
among them. They lined the road forty deep, and seeing he could not run
the gauntlet, he wheeled his mare and fled backwards. The noble beast
did her part; but a bullet struck her, and she fell in the road dying.
Then--it was Hobson's choice--he took to his legs, and, leaping a fence,
was at last out of danger. Two days he lay in the woods, not daring to
come out; but hunger finally forced him to ask food at a negro shanty.
The dusky patriot loaded him with bacon, brown bread, and blessings, and
at night piloted him to a Rebel barn, where he enforced the Confiscation
Act, to him then "the higher law,"--necessity.
With his fresh horse he set out again; and after various adventures and
hair-breadth escapes, too numerous to mention,--and too incredible to
believe, had not similar things occurred all through the war,--he
entered, one rainy midnight, (the 6th of January,) the little log hut,
seven miles from Paintville, where Colonel Garfield was sleeping.
The Colonel rubbed his eyes, and raised himself upon his elbow.
"Back safe?" he asked. "Have you seen Cranor?"
"Yes, Gin'ral. He can't be more 'n two days ahind o' me, nohow."
"God bless you, Jordan! You have done us great service," said Garfield,
warmly.
"I thanks ye, Gin'ral," said the scout, his voice trembling, "Thet's
more pay 'n I expected."
* * * * *
To give the reader a full understanding of the result of the scout's
ride, I must now move on with the little army. They are only fourteen
hundred men, worn out with marching, but boldly they move down upon
Marshall. False scouts have made him believe they are as strong as he:
and they are; for every one is a hero, and they are led by a general.
The Rebel has five thousand men,--forty-four hundred infantry and six
hundred cavalry,--besides twelve pieces of artillery,--so he says in a
letter to his wife, which Buell has intercepted and Garfield has in his
pocket. Three roads lead to Marshall's position: one at the east,
bearing down to the river, and along its western bank; another, a
circuitous one, to the west, coming in on Paint Creek, at the mouth of
Jenny's Creek, on the right of the village; and a third between the
others, a more direct route, but climbing a succession of almost
impassable ridges. These three roads are held by strong Rebel pickets,
and a regiment is outlying at the village of Paintville.
To deceive Marshall as to his real strength and designs, Garfield orders
a small force of infantry and cavalry to advance along the river, drive
in the Rebel pickets, and move rapidly after them as if to attack
Paintville. Two hours after this force goes off, a similar one, with the
same orders, sets out on the road to the westward; and two hours later
still, another small body takes the middle road. The effect is, that the
pickets on the first route, being vigorously attacked and driven,
retreat in confusion to Paintville, and dispatch word to Marshall that
the Union army is advancing along the river. He hurries off a thousand
infantry and a battery to resist the advance of this imaginary column.
When this detachment has been gone an hour and a half, he hears, from
the routed pickets on the right, that the Federals are advancing along
the western road. Countermanding his first order, he now directs the
thousand men and the battery to check the new danger; and hurries off
the troops at Paintville to the mouth of Jenny's Creek to make a stand
there. Two hours later the pickets on the central route are driven in,
and, finding Paintville abandoned, flee precipitately to the fortified
camp, with the story that the Union army is close at their heels and
occupying the town. Conceiving that he has thus lost Paintville,
Marshall hastily withdraws the detachment of one thousand men to his
fortified camp; and Garfield, moving rapidly over the ridges of the
central route, occupies the abandoned position.
So affairs stand on the evening of the 8th of January, when a spy enters
the camp of Marshall, with tidings that Cranor, with thirty-three
hundred (!) men, is within twelve hours' march at the westward. On
receipt of these tidings, the "big boy,"--he weighs three hundred pounds
by the Louisville hay-scales,--conceiving himself outnumbered, breaks up
his camp, and retreats precipitately, abandoning or burning a large
portion of his supplies. Seeing the fires, Garfield mounts his horse,
and, with a thousand men, enters the deserted camp at nine in the
evening, while the blazing stores are yet unconsumed. He sends off a
detachment to harass the retreat, and waits the arrival of Cranor, with
whom he means to follow and bring Marshall to battle in the morning.
In the morning Cranor comes, but his men are footsore, without rations,
and completely exhausted. They cannot move one leg after the other. But
the canal-boy is bound to have a fight; so every man who has strength to
march is ordered to come forward. Eleven hundred--among them four
hundred of Cranor's tired heroes--step from the ranks, and with them,
at noon of the 9th, Garfield sets out for Prestonburg, sending all his
available cavalry to follow the line of the enemy's retreat and harass
and delay him.
Marching eighteen miles, he reaches at nine o'clock that night the mouth
of Abbott's Creek, three miles below Prestonburg,--he and the eleven
hundred. There he hears that Marshall is encamped on the same stream,
three miles higher up; and throwing his men into bivouac, in the midst
of a sleety rain, he sends an order back to Lieutenant-Colonel Sheldon,
who is left in command at Paintville, to bring up every available man,
with all possible dispatch, for he shall force the enemy to battle in
the morning. He spends the night in learning the character of the
surrounding country and the disposition of Marshall's forces; and now
again John Jordan comes into action.
A dozen Rebels are grinding at a mill, and a dozen honest men come upon
them, steal their corn, and make them prisoners. The miller is a tall,
gaunt man, and his clothes fit the scout as if they were made for him.
He is a Disunionist, too, and his very raiment should bear witness
against this feeding of his enemies. It does. It goes back to the Rebel
camp, and--the scout goes in it. That chameleon face of his is smeared
with meal, and looks the miller so well that the miller's own wife might
not detect the difference. The night is dark and rainy, and that lessens
the danger; but still he is picking his teeth in the very jaws of the
lion,--if he can be called a lion, who does nothing but roar like unto
Marshall.
Space will not permit me to detail this midnight ramble; but it gave
Garfield the exact position of the enemy. They had made a stand, and
laid an ambuscade for him. Strongly posted on a semicircular hill, at
the forks of Middle Creek, on both sides of the road, with cannon
commanding its whole length, and hidden by the trees, they were waiting
his coming.
The Union commander broke up his bivouac at four in the morning and
began to move forward. Reaching the valley of Middle Creek, he
encountered some of the enemy's mounted men, and captured a quantity of
stores they were trying to withdraw from Prestonburg. Skirmishing went
on until about noon, when the Rebel pickets were driven back upon their
main body, and then began the battle. It is not my purpose to describe
it; for that has already been ably done, in thirty lines, by the man who
won it.
It was a wonderful battle. In the history of this war there is not
another like it. Measured by the forces engaged, the valor displayed,
and the results which followed, it throws into the shade even the
achievements of the mighty hosts which saved the nation. Eleven hundred
men, without cannon, charge up a rocky hill, over stumps, over stones,
over fallen trees, over high intrenchments, right into the face of five
thousand, and twelve pieces of artillery!
For five hours the contest rages. Now the Union forces are driven back;
then, charging up the hill, they regain the lost ground, and from behind
rocks and trees pour in their murderous volleys. Then again they are
driven back, and again they charge up the hill, strewing the ground with
corpses. So the bloody work goes on; so the battle wavers, till the
setting sun, wheeling below the hills, glances along the dense lines of
Rebel steel moving down to envelop the weary eleven hundred. It is an
awful moment, big with the fate of Kentucky. At its very crisis two
figures stand out against the fading sky, boldly defined in the
foreground.
One is in Union blue. With a little band of heroes about him, he is
posted on a projecting rock, which is scarred with bullets, and in full
view of both armies. His head is uncovered, his hair streaming in the
wind, his face upturned in the darkening daylight, and from his soul is
going up a prayer,--a prayer for Sheldon and Cranor. He turns his eyes
to the northward, and his lip tightens, as he throws off his coat, and
says to his hundred men,--"Boys, _we_ must go at them!"
The other is in Rebel gray. Moving out to the brow of the opposite hill,
and placing a glass to his eye, he, too, takes a long look to the
northward. He starts, for he sees something which the other, on lower
ground, does not distinguish. Soon he wheels his horse, and the word
"RETREAT" echoes along the valley between them. It is his last
word; for six rifles crack, and the Rebel Major lies on the ground
quivering.
The one in blue looks to the north again, and now, floating proudly
among the trees, he sees the starry banner. It is Sheldon and Cranor!
The long ride of the scout is at last doing its work for the nation. On
they come like the rushing wind, filling the air with their shouting.
The rescued eleven hundred take up the strain, and then, above the swift
pursuit, above the lessening conflict, above the last boom of the
wheeling cannon, goes up the wild huzza of Victory. The gallant Garfield
has won the day, and rolled back the disastrous tide which has been
sweeping on ever since Big Bethel. In ten days Thomas routs Zollicoffer,
and then we have and hold Kentucky.
* * * * *
Every one remembers a certain artist, who, after painting a "neighing
steed," wrote underneath the picture, "This is a horse," lest it should
be mistaken for an alligator. I am tempted to imitate his example, lest
the reader, otherwise, may not detect the rambling parallel I have
herein drawn between a Northern and a Southern "poor white man."
President Lincoln, when he heard of the Battle of Middle Creek, said to
a distinguished officer, who happened to be with him,--
"Why did Garfield in two weeks do what would have taken one of you
Regular folks two months to accomplish?"
"Because he was not educated at West Point," answered the West-Pointer,
laughing.
"No," replied Mr. Lincoln. "That wasn't the reason. It was because, when
he was a boy, he had to work for a living."
But our good President, for once, was wrong,--for once, he did not get
at the core of the matter. Jordan, as well as Garfield, "had, when a
boy, to work for a living." The two men were, perhaps, of about equal
natural abilities,--both were born in log huts, both worked their own
way to manhood, and both went into the war consecrating their very lives
to their country: but one came out of it with a brace of stars on his
shoulder, and honored by all the nation; the other never rose from the
ranks, and went down to an unknown grave, mourned only among his native
mountains. Something more than _work_ was at the bottom of this contrast
in their lives and their destinies. It was FREE SCHOOLS, which
the North gave the one, and of which the South robbed the other. Plant a
free school at every Southern cross-road, and every Southern Jordan will
become a Garfield. Then, and not till then, will this Union be
"reconstructed."