----Weariness Can snore upon the flint.--CYMBELINE.
_Montano._ But is he often thus
_Iago._ 'Tis evermore the prologue to his sleep.--OTHELLO.
[Sidenote: CURIOUS CONFUSION OF NAMES.]
It was now five o'clock in the morning of Saturday, December 24th, the
seventh day of our escape. Leaving my companions behind, I tapped at
the door of a log-house.
"Come in," said a voice; and I entered. In its one room the children
and father were still in bed; the wife was already engaged in her daily
duties. I asked:
"Can you direct me to the widow ----?"
"There are two widow ----s, in this neighborhood," she replied. "What
is your name?"
I was seeking information, just then, not giving it; so avoiding the
question, I added:
"The lady I mean, has a son who is an officer in the army."
"They both have sons who are officers in the army. Don't be afraid; you
are among friends."
"Friends" might mean Union or it might mean Rebel; so I accepted no
amendments, but adhered to the main question:
"This officer is a lieutenant, and his name is John."
"Well," said she, "they are both lieutenants, and John is the name of
both!"
I knew my man too well to be baffled. I continued: "He is in the
second regiment of the Senior Reserves; and is now on duty at ----."
"Oh," said she, "that is my brother!"
At once I told her what we were. She replied, with a wonderful light of
welcome shining in her eyes:
"If you are Yankees, all I have to say is, that you have come to
exactly the right place!"
[Sidenote: FOOD, SHELTER, AND HOSTS OF FRIENDS.]
And, in exuberant joy, she bustled about, doing a dozen things at once,
talking incoherently the while, replenishing the fire, bringing me a
seat, offering me food, urging her husband to hurry out for the rest of
the party. At last her excitement culminated in her darting under the
bed, and reappearing on the surface with a great pint tumbler filled to
the brim with apple-brandy. There was enough to intoxicate our whole
party! It was the first form of hospitality which occurred to her.
Afterward, when better acquainted, she explained:
"You were the first Yankee I ever saw. The moment I observed
your clothing, I knew you must be one, and I wanted to throw
my arms about your neck, and kiss you!"
We heartily reciprocated the feeling. Just then the only woman who had
any charms for us was the Goddess of Liberty; and this, at least, was
one of her handmaidens.
We were soon by the great log fire of a house where friends awaited
us. Belonging to the secret Union organization, they had received
intelligence that we were on the way. Our feet were blistered and
swollen; mine were frostbitten. We removed our clothing, and were soon
reposing in soft feather beds. At noon, awakened for breakfast, we
found "Junius" had been sleeping like a child, and was now hungry--a
relief to our anxiety. After the meal was over, we returned to bed.
[Sidenote: LOYALTY OF THE MOUNTAINEERS.]
Our friends were constantly on the alert; but the house was very
secluded, and they were not compelled to watch outside. There, two
ferocious dogs were on guard, rendering it unsafe for any one to come
within a hundred yards of them. Nearly all the people, Loyal and Rebel,
had similar sentinels. Along the route, we had been anathematizing the
canine race, which often prevented us from approaching negro-quarters
on the plantations; but these were Union dogs, which made all the
difference in the world.
At dark, we were conducted to a barn, where, wrapped in quilts, we
passed a comfortable night.
VIII. _Sunday, December 25._
Our resting-place was in Wilkes County, North Carolina, among the
outlying spurs of the Alleghanies--a county so strong in its Union
sentiments, that the Rebels called it "the Old United States." Among
the mountains of every Southern State, a vast majority of the people
were loyal. Hilly regions, unadapted to cotton-culture, contained
few negroes; and where there was no Slavery, there was no Rebellion.
Milton's verse--
"The _mountain_ nymph, sweet Liberty,"
contains a great truth, the world over.
[Sidenote: A LEVEE IN A BARN.]
Our self-sacrificing friends belonged to a multitudinous family,
extending through a settlement many miles in length. They all seemed to
be nephews, cousins, or brothers; and the white-haired patriarch--at
seventy, erect and agile as a boy,--in whose barn we remained to-day,
was father, grandfather, or uncle, to the whole tribe. His loyalty was
very stanch and intense.
"The Home Guards," said he, "are usually pretty civil. Occasionally
they shoot at some of the boys who are hiding; but pretty soon
afterward, one of them is found in the woods some morning with a hole
in his head! I suppose there are a thousand young men lying out in
this county. I have always urged them to fight the Guards, and have
helped to supply them with ammunition. Two or three times, regiments
from Lee's army have been sent here to hunt conscripts and deserters,
and then the boys have to run. I have a son among them; but they never
wounded him yet. I asked him the other day: 'Won't you kill some of
them before you are ever captured?' 'Well, father,' says he, '_I'll be
found a tryin'!_' I reckon he will, too; for he has never gone without
his rifle these two years, and he can bring down a squirrel every time,
from the top of yon oak you see on the hill."
The barn was beside a public road, and very near the house of a woman
whose Rebel sympathies were strong. There was danger that any one
entering it might be seen by her or her children, who were running
about the yard.
But we held quite a _levée_ to-day. I think we had fifty visitors. We
would hear the opening door and stealthy footsteps upon the barn-floor;
then a soft voice would ask:
"Friends, are you there?"
We would rise from our bed of hay, and come forward to the front of
the loft, to find some member of this great family of friends, who had
brought his wife and children to see the Yankees. We would converse
with them for a few minutes; they would invariably ask if there was
nothing whatever they could do for us, invite us to visit their house
by night, and express the warmest wishes for our success. They did
this with such perfect spontaneity, with such overflowing hearts, that
it touched us very nearly. Had we been their own sons or brothers,
they could not have treated us more tenderly. This Christmas may have
witnessed more brilliant gatherings than ours; but none, I am sure,
warmed by a more self-sacrificing friendship.
[Sidenote: VISITED BY AN OLD FRIEND.]
Among others, we were visited by a conscript, who had been one of our
guards at Salisbury. While at the prison, his great portly form would
come laboring and puffing up the stairs to our quarters; with flushed
face, he would sit down, glance cautiously around to assure himself
that none but friends were present, then question us eagerly about the
North, and breathe out maledictions against all Confederates.
The Rebels, suspecting him, determined to send him to Lee's army. But
he was just then taken with rheumatism, and kept his quarters for
six weeks! At last, the day before he was to start for Richmond, he
obtained permission of the surgeon to visit the village. He hobbled up
the street, groaning piteously; but, after turning the first corner,
threw away his crutches, plunged into the woods, and made his way home
by night. He now related his experiences with a quiet chuckle, and was
very desirous of serving us.
He was able to give me a pair of large boots in place of my own, which
lacerated my sore and swollen feet. The sharp rocks, hills, and stumps,
compelled me to have the new boots repaired seven times before reaching
our lines. Two nights' traveling would quite wear out the ill-tanned
leather of the stoutest soles.
To-day, our friends brought us twice as much food as we wanted, and we
wanted a great deal. At dark, alarmed by a rumor that the suspicions
of the Guard had been excited, they took us several miles into a
neighboring county, to a very secluded house, occupied by the wife and
daughters of an officer in the Confederate army. Here we spent the
night in inviting beds.
[Sidenote: A DAY OF ALARMS.]
IX. _Monday, December 26._
Our hostess, a comely lady of thirty-five, was a second Mrs. Katie
Scudder--the very embodiment of "Faculty." Her plain log house, with
its snowy curtains, cheap prints, and engravings cut from illustrated
newspapers, was tasteful and inviting. Her five daughters, all clothed
in fabric spun and woven at home--for these people were now entirely
self-dependent--looked as pretty and tidy to uncritical, masculine
eyes, as if robed in silk and cashmere.
Our pursuit of a quiet refuge proved ludicrously unsuccessful. The day
was diversified by
"More pangs and fears than wars or women have."
But the lady bore herself with such coolness, and proved so ready for
every emergency, that we enjoyed them rather than otherwise.
Early in the morning, while standing a few yards from the house, I saw
her and her daughter suddenly step into the open doorway, quite filling
it with their persons and skirts, and earnestly beckon me to go in
out of sight. Of course, I obeyed. A woman of questionable political
soundness had called; but they attracted her in another direction,
keeping her face turned away from the door, till I was lost to sight.
[Sidenote: READY WIT OF A WOMAN.]
Several parties of Rebel cavalry passed down the road. Breckinridge's
army, in the mountains above, had recently dissolved in a great thaw
and break-up, and these were the small fragments of ice floating down
toward Virginia. A squad of a dozen stopped and entered the house,
which was of one story, the length of three large rooms. But the lady
kept them in the kitchen, while we were shut in the other end of the
building.
Next, the barking dog warned us of approaching footsteps. At her
suggestion, we went up into the corn-loft, above our apartment. The new
visitor was a neighbor, to whom she owed a bushel of corn, and who,
with his ox-cart, had come to collect it. With ready woman's wit, she
said to him:
"You know my husband is away. I have no fuel. Won't you go and haul me
a load of wood, as a Christmas present?"
Who could resist such a feminine appeal? The neighbor went for the
wood, while she came laughing in, to tell us her stratagem. We
descended from the corn-loft, and went into a back room, where there
were two beds, one large and the other small, with an open door between
them. Four of us crept under the large bed, one under the small one;
and here we had an experience, ludicrous enough to remember, but not so
pleasant to undergo.
[Sidenote: DANGER OF DETECTION FROM SNORING.]
One of our party was an inveterate snorer. Whenever he took a recumbent
position, with his head upon the ground or the floor, he would begin
snoring like a steam-engine. Like all persons of that class, when
reminded of it, he steadfastly vowed that he never snored in all his
life! For a time, he regarded our awakening him, with rebuke and
caution, as a sorry practical joke.
Thus far, I believe our danger of detection had been greater from this
source than from any other. We had always traveled in single file,
almost like specters, with our leader thrown out as far ahead as we
could keep him in view. Whenever he thought he saw danger, he raised a
warning hand; every man passed the sign back to those in his rear, and
dropped quietly behind a log, or stepped into the bushes, until the
person had passed or the alarm was explained. We walked with softest
footsteps, no man coughing, or speaking above his breath. During the
day we were often concealed in very public places, only a few feet from
the road, where, the ground being covered with snow, we could not hear
approaching footsteps.
Now, our musical companion chanced to go under the small bed, and
in three minutes we heard his trumpet-tongued snore. At first, we
whispered to him; but we might as well have talked to Niagara. If one
of us went to him, there was danger that the neighbor, who stood upon
the front porch, would see us through the open door; but if we did not,
that fatal snore was certain to be heard. So I darted across the room,
crept in beside my friend, and kept him well shaken until the danger
was over.
At night, the lady told us that more people had come to her house
during the day than ever visited it in a month before; and we were
marched back through the darkness, to our first place of concealment.
X. _Tuesday, December 27._
In the barn through the whole day. A messenger brought us a note from
two late fellow-prisoners, Captain William Boothby, a Philadelphia
mariner, and Mr. John Mercer, a Unionist, of Newbern, North Carolina,
who had been in duress almost three years. They were now hiding in a
barn two miles from us. They escaped from Salisbury two nights later
than we, paying the guards eight hundred dollars in Confederate money
to let them out.
Thurston at once joined them. During the rest of the journey, we
sometimes traveled and hid together for several days and nights; but,
when there was special danger, divided into two companies, one keeping
twenty-four hours in advance--the smaller the party, the less peril
being involved.
Now, for the first time, we began to have some hope of reaching
our lines. But the road was still very long, and fraught with many
dangers. We examined the appalling list of dead, which I had brought
from Salisbury, and talked much of our companions left behind in that
living entombment. Remembering how earnestly they longed and prayed for
some intelligent, trustworthy voice to bear to the Government and the
people tidings of their terrible condition, we pledged each other very
solemnly, that if any one of us lived to regain home and freedom, he
should use earnest, unremitting efforts to excite sympathy and secure
relief for them.
[Sidenote: PROMISES TO AID SUFFERING COMRADES.]
It may not be out of place here to say, that upon reaching the North,
before visiting our families, or performing any other duties, we
hastened to Washington, and used every endeavor to call the attention
of the authorities and the country to the Salisbury prisoners. Before
many weeks, all who survived were exchanged; but more than five
thousand--upwards of half the number who were taken to Salisbury five
months before--were already buried just outside the garrison.
Those five thousand loyal graves will ever remain fitting monuments
of Rebel cruelty, and of the atrocious inhumanity of Edwin M.
Stanton, Secretary of War, who steadfastly refused to exchange these
prisoners, on the ground that we could not afford to give the enemy
robust, vigorous men for invalids and skeletons, and yet refrained
from compelling them to treat prisoners with humanity, by just and
discriminating retaliation upon an equal number of Rebel officers,
taken from the great excess held by our Government.
[Sidenote: BLIND AND UNQUESTIONING LOYALTY.]
To-day, as usual, we saw a large number of the Union mountaineers.
Theirs was a very blind and unreasoning loyalty, much like the
disloyalty of some enthusiastic Rebels. They did not say "Unionist," or
"Secessionist," but always designated a political friend thus: "He is
one of the right sort of people"--strong in the faith that there could,
by no possibility, be more than one side to the question. They had
little education; but when they began to talk about the Union, their
eyes lighted wonderfully, and sometimes they grew really eloquent. They
did not believe one word in a Rebel newspaper, except extracts from the
Northern journals, and reports favorable to our Cause. They thought the
Union army had never been defeated in a single battle. I heard them say
repeatedly:
"The United States can take Richmond any day when it wants to. That it
has not, thus far, is owing to no lack of power, but because it was not
thought best."
They regarded every Rebel as necessarily an unmitigated scoundrel, and
every Loyalist, particularly every native-born Yankee, almost as an
angel from heaven.
How earnestly they questioned us about the North! How they longed to
escape thither! To them, indeed, it was the Promised Land. They were
very bitter in their denunciations of the heavy slaveholders, who
had done so much to degrade white labor, and finally brought on this
terrible war.
They had an abundance of the two great Southern staples--corn-bread and
pork. They felt severely the absence of their favorite beverage, and
would ask us, with amusing earnestness, if they could get coffee when
our armies came. The Confederate substitutes--burnt corn and rye--they
regarded with earnest and well-founded aversion.
They were compelled to use thorns for fastening the clothing of the
women and children. We distributed among them our small supply of pins,
to their infinite delectation. Davis also gladdened the hearts of
all the womankind by disbursing a needle to each. A needle nominally
represented five dollars in Confederate currency, but actually could
not be purchased at any price.
A number of the young men "lying out" desired to accompany us to
the North. Some were deserters from the Rebel army; others, more
fortunate, had evaded conscription from the beginning of the war. But
their lives had been passed in that remote county of North Carolina,
and the two hundred and ninety miles yet to be accomplished stretched
out in appalling prospective. They saw many lions in the way, and,
Festus-like, at the last moment, decided to wait for a more convenient
season. It was not from lack of nerve; for some of them had fought
Rebel guards with great coolness and bravery.
[Sidenote: A REPENTANT REBEL.]
Our friends feared that one slaveholding Secessionist in the
neighborhood might learn of our presence, and betray us. He did
ascertain our whereabouts, but sent us an invitation to visit his
house, offering to supply all needed food, clothing, and shelter. He
said he foolishly acquiesced in the Revolution because at first it
seemed certain to succeed, and he wished to save his property; but that
now he heartily repented.
Possibly his conversion was partially owing to remorse for having
persuaded his two sons to enter the Rebel army. One, after much
suffering, had deserted, and was now "lying out" near home. The other,
wounded and captured in a Virginia battle, was still in a Northern
prison, where he had been confined for many months. The father was very
desirous of sending to him a message of sympathy and affection.
[Sidenote: SANGUINE HOPES OF LOYAL MOUNTAINEERS.]
But he was an index of the change which had recently come over
Rebel sympathizers in that whole region. The condition of our armies
then was not peculiarly promising. We were by no means sanguine
that the war would soon terminate. But the loyal mountaineers, with
unerring instinct, were all confident that we were near its close, and
constantly surprised us by speaking of the Rebellion as a thing of the
past. We fancied their wish was father to the thought; but they proved
truer prophets than we.