Produced by Gary Sandino, from scans generously provided
by the Internet Archive.
CASTLEMON'S WAR SERIES.
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TRUE TO HIS COLORS
HARRY CASTLEMON,
AUTHOR OF "GUNBOAT SERIES," "ROCKY MOUNTAIN SERIES,"
"SPORTSMAN'S CLUB SERIES," ETC., ETC.
Eight Illustrations by Geo. G. White.
PHILADELPHIA:
PORTER & COATES.
FAMOUS CASTLEMON BOOKS.
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GUNBOAT SERIES. By HARRY CASTLEMON. 6 vols. 12mo.
FRANK THE YOUNG NATURALIST. FRANK ON A GUNBOAT.
FRANK IN THE WOODS. FRANK BEFORE VICKSBURG.
FRANK ON THE LOWER MISSISSIPPI. FRANK ON THE PRAIRIE.
ROCKY MOUNTAIN SERIES. By HARRY CASTLEMON. 3 vols. 12mo. Cloth.
FRANK AMONG THE RANCHEROS. FRANK AT DON CARLOS' RANCH.
FRANK IN THE MOUNTAINS.
SPORTSMAN'S CLUB SERIES. By HARRY CASTLEMON. 3 vols. 12mo. Cloth.
THE SPORTSMAN'S CLUB IN THE SADDLE.
THE SPORTSMAN'S CLUB AFLOAT.
THE SPORTSMAN'S CLUB AMONG THE TRAPPERS.
FRANK NELSON SERIES. By HARRY CASTLEMON. 3 vols. 12mo. Cloth.
SNOWED UP. FRANK IN THE FORECASTLE. THE BOY TRADERS.
BOY TRAPPER SERIES. By HARRY CASTLEMON. 3 vols. 12mo. Cloth.
THE BURIED TREASURE. THE BOY TRAPPER. THE MAIL-CARRIER.
ROUGHING IT SERIES. By HARRY CASTLEMON. 3 vols. 12mo. Cloth.
GEORGE IN CAMP. GEORGE AT THE WHEEL. GEORGE AT THE FORT.
ROD AND GUN SERIES. By HARRY CASTLEMON. 3 vols. 12mo. Cloth.
DON GORDON'S SHOOTING BOX. ROD AND GUN CLUB.
THE YOUNG WILD FOWLERS.
GO-AHEAD SERIES. By HARRY CASTLEMON. 3 vols. 12mo. Cloth.
TOM NEWCOMBE. GO-AHEAD. NO MOSS.
FOREST AND STREAM SERIES. By HARRY CASTLEMON. 3 vols. 12mo. Cloth.
JOE WAYRING. SNAGGED AND SUNK. STEEL HORSE.
WAR SERIES. By HARRY CASTLEMON. 5 vols. 12mo. Cloth.
TRUE TO HIS COLORS. RODNEY THE PARTISAN.
RODNEY THE OVERSEER. MARCY THE BLOCKADE-RUNNER.
MARCY THE REFUGEE.
Other Volumes in Preparation.
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COPYRIGHT, 1889, BY PORTER & COATES.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. ALL ABOUT THE FLAG, 5
II. THE STRANGE BANNER, 24
III. CHEERS FOR "THE STARS AND BARS," 44
IV. RODNEY'S THREAT, 65
V. THE PAID SPY, 88
VI. THE STRUGGLE ON THE TOWER, 113
VII. OLD TOBY'S MONEY, 138
VIII. BUD GOBLE'S WATERLOO, 163
IX. THE COMMITTEE AT WORK, 185
X. THE CALL TO ARMS, 206
XI. BUD'S MESSENGER IN TROUBLE, 231
XII. THE FIRST COMPANY IN ACTION, 252
XIII. HAULING DOWN THE COLORS, 277
XIV. MARCY CHANGES HIS CLOTHES, 302
XV. FORCED INTO THE SERVICE, 328
XVI. SECRET ENEMIES, 349
XVII. MARCY GRAY PRIVATEERSMAN, 372
XVIII. CONCLUSION, 397
TRUE TO HIS COLORS.
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CHAPTER I.
ALL ABOUT THE FLAG.
"Rodney Gray, I am ashamed of you; and if you were not my cousin, I
should be tempted to thrash you within an inch of your life."
"Never mind the relationship. After listening to the sentiments you have
been preaching in this academy for the last three months, I am more
ashamed of it than you can possibly be. You're a Yankee at heart, and a
traitor to your State. Let go those halliards!"
"I'll not do it. Look here, Rodney. Your ancestors and mine have fought
under this flag ever since it has been a flag, and, if I can help it,
you shall not be the first of our name to haul it down. Let go yourself,
and stand back, or I will throw you over the parapet."
"But that flag doesn't belong up there any longer, and I say, and we all
say, that it shall not stay. Here's our banner; and if there's a war
coming, as some of you seem to think, it will lead us to victory on
every battle-field."
An exciting scene was being enacted in and around the belfry of the
Barrington Military Institute on the morning of the 9th of March, 1861;
and it was but one of many similar scenes which, for some time past, had
been of almost daily occurrence in many parts of the South. It had been
brought about by the efforts of a band of young secessionists, headed by
Rodney Gray, to haul down the academy flag, and to hoist in its place a
strange banner--one that nobody had ever seen or heard of previous to
the 4th of March, the day on which Mr. Lincoln was inaugurated President
of the United States. The students who were gathered on the top of the
tower at the time our story begins were Southern boys without exception,
but they did not all believe in secession and disunion. Many of them
were loyal to the old flag, and were not ready to see it hauled down,
and a strange piece of bunting run up in its place.
Those were exciting times in our country's history, you may be sure.
Rumors of war filled the air on every side. Seven States had rebelled
and defied the authority of the government, and for no other reason than
because a man they did not like had been elected President. A new
government had been established at Montgomery, and formally inaugurated
on the 18th of February. Jefferson Davis, President of the seceded
States, had been authorized to accept the services of one hundred
thousand volunteers to serve for one year, unless sooner discharged, and
they were to be mustered to "repel invasion, maintain the rightful
possession of the Confederate States of America, and secure the public
tranquillity against threatened assault." Every schoolboy who has paid
any attention to his history knows that there was not the slightest
excuse for calling this immense army into existence. The disunion
leaders repeatedly declared that Northern men would not fight, and they
seemed to have good grounds for thinking so; for, although Fort Sumter
was surrounded by hostile batteries, no attempt had been made to send
supplies to Major Anderson and the gallant fellows who were shut up in
the fort with him, and more than five weeks passed after the formation
of the Confederate government before President Lincoln called for
seventy-five thousand militia to "suppress unlawful combinations, and to
cause the laws to be duly executed." But this unnecessary act of the
Confederate Provisional Congress had just the effect it was intended to
have. It "fired the Southern heart," and immediately every man, woman,
and boy "took sides." The papers had just brought the glorious news to
Barrington, and the students at the military academy were in a state of
intense excitement over it.
Even at this late day there are boys--bright fellows, too--who believe
that when the war broke out every one who lived in the South was a
rebel; but this was by no means the case. The South was divided against
itself, and so was the North. Horace Greeley, in his "Recollections of a
Busy Life," tells us that in the beginning there were not more than half
a million "Simon-pure" secessionists to be found among the five millions
and more of whites who lived south of Mason and Dixon's line. Of course
subsequent events, like the War and Emancipation proclamations, added to
this number; but even at the end there were Union-loving people
scattered all through the seceded States, and they clung to their
principles in spite of everything, fighting the conscript officers, and
resisting all the efforts that were made to force them into the rebel
army. The Confederates called these plucky men and boys traitors,
although they denied that they were traitors themselves. They hated them
with an undying hatred, and when they captured them with arms in their
hands, as Forrest captured the garrison at Fort Pillow, they made short
work with them.
If it is true that a majority of the Southern people believed that a
State had the right to withdraw from the Union when things were not
managed in a satisfactory way, it is equally true that there was a party
in the North who held the same opinion. They said, "Let the erring
sisters go" if they want to, and declared that "Whenever any
considerable section of our Union shall deliberately resolve to go out,
we shall resist all coercive measures designed to keep it in." These
were the rabid Abolitionists, who were perfectly willing that the nation
should be destroyed rather than that it should continue to exist
half-slave and half-free. One of their leaders, who afterward became a
Union general, declared, "If slavery is the condition of the perpetuity
of the Union, let the Union _slide,_" for slavery must in no case be
allowed to continue. The Southern planters wanted that their "peculiar
institution" should be taken into the territories, while the
Abolitionists demanded that it should be blotted out altogether; and to
these two parties we are indebted for our four years' war.
There was still another secession party on both sides of the line, who
thought the government had no power to keep the Southern States in the
Union if they did not want to stay, and that if allowed to go in peace
they would soon get tired of trying to manage their own affairs, and
drift back into the Union of their own free will. It was better that the
Union should be peacefully sundered than that there should be a war
about it. But another party said that such talk was treason; that the
Constitution was ordained to establish a "more perfect Union," which was
to be "perpetuated"; that no State, or combination of States, had any
right to try to break up the government because they could no longer run
things to suit themselves; and that there was not room enough for
another flag on this Continent. This was the good old Union party, and
fortunately it was resolute enough and strong enough to run the starry
banner up to the masthead and keep it there. This was what Marcy Gray, a
North Carolina boy, had done on this particular morning on the roof of
the Barrington Military Institute, and he had done it, too, in spite of
all the efforts his cousin, Rodney Gray, backed by nearly all the young
rebels in the school, had made to prevent it. Ever since the day on
which the news came that South Carolina had passed the ordinance of
secession, that flag, which up to this time had been raised and lowered
only at certain hours, had been a bone of contention. For long years it
had floated over the academy, and no one had ever had a word to say
against it; but the moment it became known that one of the Southern
States had decided that she would not stay in the Union if Mr. Lincoln
was to rule over it, there was a great change in the feelings of the
students regarding that piece of bunting. What an excitement there was
on the morning of the 21st of December, when Rodney Gray rushed into the
hall with his Charleston _Mercury_ in his hand!
"Hurrah for plucky little South Carolina!" he shouted, striking up a
war-dance and flourishing the paper over his head. "Listen to this,
fellows: 'The Union is dissolved. Passed at 1:15 P.M., December 20,
1860, an ordinance to dissolve the Union existing between the State of
South Carolina and other States united with her under the compact
entitled "The Constitution of the United States of America."' There it
is in black and white. She's out, and of course all the other Cotton
States will go with her. The Stars and Stripes have been pulled down in
the city of Charleston, and the State flag is flying over all the public
buildings. Let's follow their example, and haul that flag down from the
tower. Come on, Marcy."
These two boys, Rodney and Marcy Gray, were very popular among their
fellows, and had been looked up to as leaders ever since they arrived at
the dignity of memberships in the first class and company. They were
cousins, and both were Southern born. Marcy was a "Tarheel," because he
came from North Carolina, and Rodney was called a "Pelican," Louisiana
being his native State.
Rodney's father was a rich sugar-planter who did not want to have
anything to do with Northern men, some of whom would have taken his
slaves from him if they had possessed the power, and thus deprived him
of the means of working his fine plantation; and it was natural that his
only son should follow in his lead. Rodney believed in State Rights, and
preached his doctrines as often as he could find any one willing to
listen to him. His Cousin Marcy had no father (he was lost at sea when
the boy and his older brother, Jack, were quite young), and he believed
as his mother did--that slavery was wrong, that the Union was right, and
that those who wanted to destroy it were fanatics who did not know what
they were about. But Marcy was not a passive Unionist. On the day South
Carolina began threatening secession, he declared that she ought to be
whipped into submission; and he had never ceased to proclaim his
principles in spite of the lowering looks he saw and the threats he
heard on every side. The boys declared that they would send him to
Coventry; that is, withdraw from all fellowship with him; but when they
came to try it, they found to their surprise and disgust, that they
would have to go back on more than half the school, for some of the best
boys in it promptly sided with Marcy. The latter had many friends, and
the Union sentiment was strong in the academy; but on the morning that
Rodney Gray read the extract from the Charleston _Mercury,_ showing that
South Carolina had made no idle threat when she threatened to secede if
she could not have her own way, then the real test came. Many of the
boys were astonished and shocked, for they had never believed that
things would come to such a pass. The mail having just been distributed,
they all had papers, but they did not stop to read them after listening
to those ominous headlines. They shoved them into their pockets and went
slowly out of the building, while Rodney and his fellows, who were
almost beside themselves with exultation and excitement, made a rush for
the stairs that led to the tower. On the way Rodney stopped to exchange
a few words with his cousin.
"You didn't think it would come, did you?" he exclaimed, walking up to
Marcy and snatching away the paper on which the latter's eyes were
fastened. "But you see it has, don't you? It seems that those furious
threats about secession were not all talk, don't it? But seriously,
Marcy, I know you stand where every other Southern boy stands, and that
you are with us heart and soul. All I ask of you is to say so. Why don't
you speak? Which side are you on, any way?"
But Marcy did not utter a word. Although he looked straight at his
cousin he did not appear to know that Rodney was talking to him, for his
mind was busy with other matters.
"Tell him you're neutral," suggested Dick Graham, whose home was in
Missouri, and whom we may meet again under different circumstances.
"That's what I am going to be, for I don't think my State will follow in
South Carolina's lead."
"But I am not neutral." replied Marcy, arousing himself at last. "I am
for the Union all over, and I'm sorry we haven't a Jackson in Washington
at this moment to say that it must and shall be preserved. I hope
Buchanan will send ships enough into Charleston harbor to blow that
miserable State out of water."
"Let him try it, and see how quickly the other Cotton States will arm to
help her," exclaimed Bob Cole, who was one of Rodney's friends and
followers. "Coerce a sovereign State? The President can't do it. The
Constitution does not give him the power."
Bob Cole did not know it, and neither did any of the other boys who were
standing around listening to his fiery words, but that was the very
argument the frightened chief magistrate was going to put forth in his
next message to Congress.
"The President will only make a bad matter worse if he tries any fool
thing like that," continued Bob, who, like most of the boys of that
section of the country, had heard these matters discussed so often that
he had them at his tongue's end. "I tell you that the events of
yesterday are an entering wedge. We are tired of the company of those
Yankees up North, and now we are going to get rid of them and have a
government of our own; see if we don't. Why should we not? The people up
there do not belong to the same race we do. They are regicides and
Roundheads--plodding, stingy folks, in whose eyes a dollar looks as big
as a cart-wheel. The race who settled Virginia and scattered all over
these Southern States, were cavaliers and money spenders, and their
descendants are the same. We've wanted to get rid of them ever since
1830, and now we are going to do it. Patrick Henry warned us against
forming a partnership with them in the first place."
"Whom do you mean by us and we?" demanded Marcy, who had listened in
silence to this speech, which was addressed to the boys gathered in the
hall rather than to himself. "You don't live in South Carolina."
"No, but I do," said Ed Billings, elbowing his way to the foot of the
stairs on which Bob had perched himself when he began his address. "I go
with my State, and you will have to go with yours or show yourself a
traitor."
"A traitor to what?" inquired Marcy.
"To your State," Billings almost shouted.
"My State hasn't seceded yet; but if she does, and I go with her, how
will I stand in regard to the old flag--the one that waves over this
academy?"
Billings tried to answer, but his voice was drowned in the wild shouts
that arose from the assembled students.
"Haul the flag down!" they yelled, almost as one boy.
"No, no," cried some of the more reasonable ones, after they had taken
time to think twice. "Let's wait upon the colonel and request him to
have it taken down."
"There's one thing I want you all to bear in mind," added a tall fellow,
who hearing the tumult in the hall had come back to see what it was all
about. "Those colors shall not come down without the colonel's orders,
and I'll mix up promiscuous with any chap who lays an ugly hand upon
them."
So it seemed that the old flag had defenders even here; and although it
may not have had a very sincere friend in the person of the head of the
school, he positively refused to order it down, or to permit the
students to pull it down. It would be time enough to attend to that when
they learned what the State was going to do. The boys went away
disappointed; but the most of them believed that the day would come when
they could work their sweet will with that "emblem of tyranny," as they
had already begun to call it.
From that time forward there were none in all the length and breadth of
the land who kept a closer watch upon passing events than did the three
hundred students of the Barrington military academy; but it is a
question whether they did not imbibe a great many false ideas along with
the news they read. The Southern press never did deal fairly with its
readers. All dispatches favorable to the secessionists and their cause
were published, as a matter of course; but those that were not favorable
were either suppressed entirely, or distorted out of all semblance to
the truth. They began this course in the early days of the Confederacy
and kept it up to the end, one of their generals forging a telegraph
dispatch, in which he announced that he had won a great battle, during
which he killed and captured twenty thousand Federals, and destroyed
four of Porter's gunboats.
For three months the flag that floated over the academy held its place.
Persevering and daring attempts were made to steal it at night, but they
were every one frustrated by the vigilance and courage of the boys who
had not yet lost all love for it, and for the memory of those whose
deeds it commemorated. When the colonel announced that he would take
charge of the bunting at night the Union boys thought it would be in
safe hands; but it turned out afterward that they were mistaken.
The tension of brain and nerve to which the students were subjected
during the next few weeks was something to wonder at, and every day
added to their suspense and anxiety. South Carolina sent commissioners
to other States, urging them to join her in the secession movement, and
one of them shouted to the citizens of Georgia: "Buy arms, and throw the
bloody spear into the den of the assassins and incendiaries, and God
defend the right!" But Stephens said in reply: "I tell you frankly that
the election of a man constitutionally chosen president is not
sufficient cause for any State to separate from the Union." And yet in a
very few weeks this same Alexander H. Stephens was vice-president of the
Confederacy. Mississippi went out of the Union first, and others
followed, until there were seven of them to organize a new government
under a new flag. Then it was that the first open attempt was made to
haul the old banner down from the academy flag-staff; but it was
promptly met, and although Rodney Gray and his followers had been
reinforced by nearly all the students belonging to the seceded States,
the Union boys were strong enough to drive them down stairs, through the
hall, and out of the building. They tried to be as good-natured as they
could about it, but there were a few fights that took place before the
peaceable ones could interfere, and the result was that Rodney Gray and
some others found themselves in the guard-house. But they were never
brought to trial, for, after that, events came thick and fast, and the
rigid discipline to which the students had hitherto been subjected was
so greatly relaxed, that it was a wonder the school held together as
long as it did. Before the Confederate Congress adjourned it passed the
act of which we have spoken, authorizing President Davis to accept the
services of one hundred thousand one year's men, and then the excitement
was at fever heat.
This act was passed on the 7th of March, and on the evening of the next
day the papers brought the news of it to Barrington. There was also one
other act of the Confederate Congress which excited some comment, but,
with the exception of Rodney Gray, no one at the academy gave it a
second thought. When you hear what that act was, and what Rodney did
about it, you will perhaps realize how very much in earnest the
disunionists were, and how their unreasonable hostility toward those who
did not believe as they did led them to forget their manhood, and do
things they would not have dreamed of in their sane and sober moments.
The same mail that brought these papers brought also several mysterious
packages, each of which contained an article that none of the Barrington
people had ever seen before. One of them was addressed to Rodney Gray.
He ran the guard and went to the post-office after it; or, rather, he
climbed the fence in full view of the sentry, who turned his back and
walked off without making any effort to stop him. The thing he found in
that package was what brought on the fight between him and Marcy, to
which reference was made at the beginning of this chapter.