WILLY’S ERRAND--BRECKENRIDGE’S MESSAGE--THE RAW RECRUITS.
Taxes had to be paid on plantations in Mississippi. Federal gunboats
cut off the usual means of communication. From New Orleans to
Baton Rouge, and from Cairo to Vicksburg, they were in undisturbed
possession. So we were compelled to send a messenger by land to
Greenville, some distance beyond Vicksburg. I well remember how
carefully Willy, a boy of fourteen, very bright and manly, though
small for his age, was prepared for the undertaking. He had never been
through the country. So he had a memorandum given him, how far and by
what road to go the first day, and that would bring him to a certain
house where my husband was known; he was to tell who he was and who
sent him “on an errand,” but on no account to divulge the nature of his
errand, and “die” before he told about the money he had on his person!
Day after day his route was mapped out; he was told what to say, what
not to say, and where to stop each night; at Greenville to pay the
clerk of the court the fifteen hundred dollars he had belted around
his waist, get a receipt, and return home.
Willy was an orphan, whose entire family had died of yellow fever
in New Orleans; a bright, intelligent boy, with only the little
education we had been able to give him before the schools were closed
and people’s minds turned to more exciting things; he was so apt and
faithful that we confided many things to his care, though of course
he had never been trusted to the extent of a four days’ journey on
horseback with a large amount of money in his keeping. Even if we had
found a man to send, he was liable to conscription on the road, so we
had to depend on the boy’s natural shrewdness, willingness to obey
orders implicitly, and diminutive size, to help us.
Days went by and no Willy returned. We began to whisper our anxieties
to each other, when out on the lawn where no one else could hear;
having already learned to be wary of the darky. We were afraid he had
_died before he told_, as he had been cautioned to do again and again.
At last, one day Willy presented himself all right and fresh as a
rose. Pony looked as though he had been in clover instead of on a long
and rather perilous journey. The boy came to me, in the absence of my
husband, and handed the receipt. To my eager inquiries as to the delay,
he could furnish no sensible reason. He was detained, could not tell
by what. Did he lose the road? “No.” Was he sick? “No.” Did pony give
out? “No.” “What was the detention?” Well, he “couldn’t just tell.” “Of
one thing you may be sure, sir; your uncle will make you tell.” And he
was dismissed with a frown. The orphan boy was no relative, but called
my husband uncle, from association with our nephews.
My husband’s step was heard. Willy ran to meet him, and they had a long
and anxious talk, walking down the road. The bright, animated face of
the youth, and his uncle’s bowed, eagerly listening attitude, warned
me that Willy _did_ have a “tale to unfold” that was not simply “No,”
for the talk came from him. My assiduous pumping must have started
the stream, for the anxious listener was eagerly drinking refreshing
draughts of news.
We were only two in those days: the children were young, the negroes
crafty, and the neighbors scattered; so we were only two, and never
did two hearts beat as one as ours did in those times that tried men’s
souls, and made the bravest among them feel the need of help, even
though it were the help of a woman, whose quick inspirations often
assisted her husband’s deductions, and sometimes solved the problem
by intuition. There was no secret I did not share--there was nothing
done--and, dear me! we felt, while the world was “up and doing,” that
we could do so little--but there was nothing done wherein I was not
allowed to help. That night we walked by the silent river’s bank, and
then I heard the story that made my blood run quick. I longed to be a
soldier, and go forth to battle for my beloved land, like Joan of Arc.
When Willy reached within a few miles of home, he was astounded to find
a “whole army,” as he called it, on the wary march. He was arrested, as
traveling in the direction no one was allowed to pass.
General Breckinridge, with a totally inadequate contingent of men, was
moving toward Baton Rouge, then in possession of the Federals. If he
could swoop down upon them suddenly, and have the co-operation of a
Confederate gunboat, he hoped by strategy to accomplish what might be
impossible in open battle. Willy was detained two or three days, before
obtaining permission to see General Breckinridge. When admitted, he
related his story to the general, even that part he was cautioned to
“die before telling,” and in sheer desperation showed the tax-office
receipt. General Breckinridge immediately dispatched the boy with a
secret message to my husband (with whom he was personally intimate),
to the effect that he “was slowly approaching Baton Rouge, and needed
all the assistance possible; if he could send any men to join him,
to do so; they could bring arms if they had them. He had no hospital
supplies. No one could be spared to attend to the disabled, and men
who could not engage in actual conflict could battle with disease and
wounds in the rear. If lint and bandages could be had, send them, and
come himself within two days.” Poor, burdened Willy trotted home, big
with the secret no man knew this side of the advancing command.
By the light of the moon I heard the stirring story, and earnestly we
talked and planned. We each had a tired and wounded brother only a few
days home from the battle-field of Shiloh, on sick leave, both the poor
fellows up-stairs in bed, ragged, foot-sore, tired, disgusted, and
inclined to think that the “hireling horde” the North was pouring down
upon us was a well-disciplined, almost invincible foe. We knew those
young men would need no “bugle-call” to summon them to the front; while
they really had nothing to buckle on but a tin water-can, they would be
off at the earliest moment, and take the chance of getting arms from
the first captured men. Then, one by one, we recalled the names and
whereabouts of some eight or ten others. Some were exempts; some called
themselves by the alluring name of “Home-Guards,” that would fight
“right thar,” but couldn’t go all the way to Virginia to do it; and
one or two were, like our two, home from Shiloh. We made our plans to
recruit, under the calm radiance of an August moon that was destined to
shine on many an upturned face on that bloody battle-field, unpitying
for the agonies that surge far and wide, blasting hearts that never
heard the cannon’s roar. Next morning my husband sallied forth.
“Not with the roll of the stirring drum
And the trumpet that sings of fame,”
but in a very cautious way he went after recruits, and succeeded in
raising a dozen, all told. In the gray of the early morning of the day
following there assembled at Arlington a rough stalwart set of men. I
do not know how many fought the next day, nor how many ran, but they
were quietly and soberly enthusiastic. We furnished a hearty breakfast
by candle-light, filled their tin cans with coffee, and, as they were
not burdened with arms or accoutrements, a substantial lunch was put
into their pockets. They marched off in the early dawn, toward the rear
of the plantation, and no more earnest prayer was ever offered to the
God of battles than ascended from our lips as, with dimmed eyes and
beating hearts, we watched them vanish in the veil of mist which at
that hour rises from the river.
Knowing that the assault was planned for the following morning, we felt
anxious and excited all day; and at evening my husband mounted his
horse, followed by an attendant, both loaded down with hastily prepared
lint, linen sheets for bandages, and all the medicines we had. They
also vanished amid the descending shades of night, and I was left alone
with two little children and a few house-servants.