During a part of the month of October, 1864, the Federal and Confederate
armies of Sherman and Hood respectively, having performed a surprising and
resultless series of marches and countermarches since the fall of Atlanta,
confronted each other along the separating line of the Coosa River in the
vicinity of Gaylesville, Alabama. Here for several days they remained at
rest--at least most of the infantry and artillery did; what the cavalry
was doing nobody but itself ever knew or greatly cared. It was an
interregnum of expectancy between two régimes of activity.
I was on the staff of Colonel McConnell, who commanded an infantry brigade
in the absence of its regular commander. McConnell was a good man, but he
did not keep a very tight rein upon the half dozen restless and reckless
young fellows who (for his sins) constituted his "military family." In
most matters we followed the trend of our desires, which commonly ran in
the direction of adventure--it did not greatly matter what kind. In
pursuance of this policy of escapades, one bright Sunday morning
Lieutenant Cobb, an aide-de-camp, and I mounted and set out to "seek our
fortunes," as the story books have it. Striking into a road of which we
knew nothing except that it led toward the river, we followed it for a
mile or such a matter, when we found our advance interrupted by a
considerable creek, which we must ford or go back. We consulted a moment
and then rode at it as hard as we could, possibly in the belief that a
high momentum would act as it does in the instance of a skater passing
over thin ice. Cobb was fortunate enough to get across comparatively dry,
but his hapless companion was utterly submerged. The disaster was all the
greater from my having on a resplendent new uniform, of which I had been
pardonably vain. Ah, what a gorgeous new uniform it never was again!
A half-hour devoted to wringing my clothing and dry-charging my revolver,
and we were away. A brisk canter of a half-hour under the arches of the
trees brought us to the river, where it was our ill luck to find a boat
and three soldiers of our brigade. These men had been for several hours
concealed in the brush patiently watching the opposite bank in the amiable
hope of getting a shot at some unwary Confederate, but had seen none. For
a great distance up and down the stream on the other side, and for at
least a mile back from it, extended cornfields. Beyond the cornfields, on
slightly higher ground, was a thin forest, with breaks here and there in
its continuity, denoting plantations, probably. No houses were in sight,
and no camps. We knew that it was the enemy's ground, but whether his
forces were disposed along the slightly higher country bordering the
bottom lands, or at strategic points miles back, as ours were, we knew no
more than the least curious private in our army. In any case the river
line would naturally be picketed or patrolled. But the charm of the
unknown was upon us: the mysterious exerted its old-time fascination,
beckoning to us from that silent shore so peaceful and dreamy in the
beauty of the quiet Sunday morning. The temptation was strong and we fell.
The soldiers were as eager for the hazard as we, and readily volunteered
for the madmen's enterprise. Concealing our horses in a cane-brake, we
unmoored the boat and rowed across unmolested.
Arrived at a kind of "landing" on the other side, our first care was so to
secure the boat under the bank as to favor a hasty re-embarking in case we
should be so unfortunate as to incur the natural consequence of our act;
then, following an old road through the ranks of standing corn, we moved
in force upon the Confederate position, five strong, with an armament of
three Springfield rifles and two Colt's revolvers. We had not the further
advantage of music and banners. One thing favored the expedition, giving
it an apparent assurance of success: it was well officered--an officer to
each man and a half.
After marching about a mile we came into a neck of woods and crossed an
intersecting road which showed no wheel-tracks, but was rich in
hoof-prints. We observed them and kept right on about our business,
whatever that may have been. A few hundred yards farther brought us to a
plantation bordering our road upon the right. The fields, as was the
Southern fashion at that period of the war, were uncultivated and
overgrown with brambles. A large white house stood at some little distance
from the road; we saw women and children and a few negroes there. On our
left ran the thin forest, pervious to cavalry. Directly ahead an ascent in
the road formed a crest beyond which we could see nothing.
On this crest suddenly appeared two horsemen in gray, sharply outlined
against the sky--men and animals looking gigantic. At the same instant a
jingling and tramping were audible behind us, and turning in that
direction I saw a score of mounted men moving forward at a trot. In the
meantime the giants on the crest had multiplied surprisingly. Our invasion
of the Gulf States had apparently failed.
There was lively work in the next few seconds. The shots were thick and
fast--and uncommonly loud; none, I think, from our side. Cobb was on the
extreme left of our advance, I on the right--about two paces apart. He
instantly dived into the wood. The three men and I climbed across the
fence somehow and struck out across the field--actuated, doubtless, by an
intelligent forethought: men on horseback could not immediately follow.
Passing near the house, now swarming like a hive of bees, we made for a
swamp two or three hundred yards away, where I concealed myself in a
jungle, the others continuing--as a defeated commander would put it--to
fall back. In my cover, where I lay panting like a hare, I could hear a
deal of shouting and hard riding and an occasional shot. I heard some one
calling dogs, and the thought of bloodhounds added its fine suggestiveness
to the other fancies appropriate to the occasion.
Finding myself unpursued after the lapse of what seemed an hour, but was
probably a few minutes, I cautiously sought a place where, still
concealed, I could obtain a view of the field of glory. The only enemy in
sight was a group of horsemen on a hill a quarter of a mile away. Toward
this group a woman was running, followed by the eyes of everybody about
the house. I thought she had discovered my hiding-place and was going to
"give me away." Taking to my hands and knees I crept as rapidly as
possible among the clumps of brambles directly back toward the point in
the road where we had met the enemy and failed to make him ours. There I
dragged myself into a patch of briars within ten feet of the road, where I
lay undiscovered during the remainder of the day, listening to a variety
of disparaging remarks upon Yankee valor and to dispiriting declarations
of intention conditional on my capture, as members of the Opposition
passed and repassed and paused in the road to discuss the morning's
events. In this way I learned that the three privates had been headed off
and caught within ten minutes. Their destination would naturally be
Andersonville; what further became of them God knows. Their captors passed
the day making a careful canvass of the swamp for me.
When night had fallen I cautiously left my place of concealment, dodged
across the road into the woods and made for the river through the mile of
corn. Such corn! It towered above me like a forest, shutting out all the
starlight except what came from directly overhead. Many of the ears were a
yard out of reach. One who has never seen an Alabama river-bottom
cornfield has not exhausted nature's surprises; nor will he know what
solitude is until he explores one in a moonless night.
I came at last to the river bank with its fringe of trees and willows and
canes. My intention was to swim across, but the current was swift, the
water forbiddingly dark and cold. A mist obscured the other bank. I could
not, indeed, see the water more than a few yards out. It was a hazardous
and horrible undertaking, and I gave it up, following cautiously along the
bank in search of the spot where we had moored the boat. True, it was
hardly likely that the landing was now unguarded, or, if so, that the boat
was still there. Cobb had undoubtedly made for it, having an even more
urgent need than I; but hope springs eternal in the human breast, and
there was a chance that he had been killed before reaching it. I came at
last into the road that we had taken and consumed half the night in
cautiously approaching the landing, pistol in hand and heart in mouth. The
boat was gone! I continued my journey along the stream--in search of
another.
My clothing was still damp from my morning bath, my teeth rattled with
cold, but I kept on along the stream until I reached the limit of the
cornfields and entered a dense wood. Through this I groped my way, inch by
inch, when, suddenly emerging from a thicket into a space slightly more
open, I came upon a smoldering camp-fire surrounded by prostrate figures
of men, upon one of whom I had almost trodden. A sentinel, who ought to
have been shot, sat by the embers, his carbine across his lap, his chin
upon his breast. Just beyond was a group of unsaddled horses. The men were
asleep; the sentinel was asleep; the horses were asleep. There was
something indescribably uncanny about it all. For a moment I believed them
all lifeless, and O'Hara's familiar line, "The bivouac of the dead,"
quoted itself in my consciousness. The emotion that I felt was that
inspired by a sense of the supernatural; of the actual and imminent peril
of my position I had no thought. When at last it occurred to me I felt it
as a welcome relief, and stepping silently back into the shadow retraced
my course without having awakened a soul. The vividness with which I can
now recall that scene is to me one of the marvels of memory.
Getting my bearings again with some difficulty, I now made a wide detour
to the left, in the hope of passing around this outpost and striking the
river beyond. In this mad attempt I ran upon a more vigilant sentinel,
posted in the heart of a thicket, who fired at me without challenge. To a
soldier an unexpected shot ringing out at dead of night is fraught with an
awful significance. In my circumstances--cut off from my comrades, groping
about an unknown country, surrounded by invisible perils which such a
signal would call into eager activity--the flash and shock of that firearm
were unspeakably dreadful! In any case I should and ought to have fled,
and did so; but how much or little of conscious prudence there was in the
prompting I do not care to discover by analysis of memory. I went back
into the corn, found the river, followed it back a long way and mounted
into the fork of a low tree. There I perched until the dawn, a most
uncomfortable bird.
In the gray light of the morning I discovered that I was opposite an
island of considerable length, separated from the mainland by a narrow and
shallow channel, which I promptly waded. The island was low and flat,
covered with an almost impenetrable cane-brake interlaced with vines.
Working my way through these to the other side, I obtained another look at
God's country--Shermany, so to speak. There were no visible inhabitants.
The forest and the water met. This did not deter me. For the chill of the
water I had no further care, and laying off my boots and outer clothing I
prepared to swim. A strange thing now occurred--more accurately, a
familiar thing occurred at a strange moment. A black cloud seemed to pass
before my eyes--the water, the trees, the sky, all vanished in a profound
darkness. I heard the roaring of a great cataract, felt the earth sinking
from beneath my feet. Then I heard and felt no more.
At the battle of Kennesaw Mountain in the previous June I had been badly
wounded in the head, and for three months was incapacitated for service.
In truth, I had done no actual duty since, being then, as for many years
afterward, subject to fits of fainting, sometimes without assignable
immediate cause, but mostly when suffering from exposure, excitement or
excessive fatigue. This combination of them all had broken me down--most
opportunely, it would seem.
When I regained my consciousness the sun was high. I was still giddy and
half blind. To have taken to the water would have been madness; I must
have a raft. Exploring my island, I found a pen of slender logs: an old
structure without roof or rafters, built for what purpose I do not know.
Several of these logs I managed with patient toil to detach and convey to
the water, where I floated them, lashing them together with vines. Just
before sunset my raft was complete and freighted with my outer clothing,
boots and pistol. Having shipped the last article, I returned into the
brake, seeking something from which to improvise a paddle. While peering
about I heard a sharp metallic click--the cocking of a rifle! I was a
prisoner.
The history of this great disaster to the Union arms is brief and simple.
A Confederate "home guard," hearing something going on upon the island,
rode across, concealed his horse and still-hunted me. And, reader, when
you are "held up" in the same way may it be by as fine a fellow. He not
only spared my life, but even overlooked a feeble and ungrateful
after-attempt upon his own (the particulars of which I shall not relate),
merely exacting my word of honor that I would not again try to escape
while in his custody. Escape! I could not have escaped a new-born babe.
At my captor's house that evening there was a reception, attended by the
élite of the whole vicinity. A Yankee officer in full fig--minus only the
boots, which could not be got on to his swollen feet--was something worth
seeing, and those who came to scoff remained to stare. What most
interested them, I think, was my eating--an entertainment that was
prolonged to a late hour. They were a trifle disappointed by the absence
of horns, hoof and tail, but bore their chagrin with good-natured
fortitude. Among my visitors was a charming young woman from the
plantation where we had met the foe the day before--the same lady whom I
had suspected of an intention to reveal my hiding-place. She had had no
such design; she had run over to the group of horsemen to learn if her
father had been hurt--by whom, I should like to know. No restraint was put
upon me; my captor even left me with the women and children and went off
for instructions as to what disposition he should make of me. Altogether
the reception was "a pronounced success," though it is to be regretted
that the guest of the evening had the incivility to fall dead asleep in
the midst of the festivities, and was put to bed by sympathetic and, he
has reason to believe, fair hands.
The next morning I was started off to the rear in custody of two mounted
men, heavily armed. They had another prisoner, picked up in some raid
beyond the river. He was a most offensive brute--a foreigner of some
mongrel sort, with just sufficient command of our tongue to show that he
could not control his own. We traveled all day, meeting occasional small
bodies of cavalrymen, by whom, with one exception--a Texan officer--was
civilly treated. My guards said, however, that if we should chance to meet
Jeff Gatewood he would probably take me from them and hang me to the
nearest tree; and once or twice, hearing horsemen approach, they directed
me to stand aside, concealed in the brush, one of them remaining near by
to keep an eye on me, the other going forward with my fellow-prisoner, for
whose neck they seemed to have less tenderness, and whom I heartily wished
well hanged.
Jeff Gatewood was a "guerrilla" chief of local notoriety, who was a
greater terror to his friends than to his other foes. My guards related
almost incredible tales of his cruelties and infamies. By their account it
was into his camp that I had blundered on Sunday night.
We put up for the night at a farmhouse, having gone not more than fifteen
miles, owing to the condition of my feet. Here we got a bite of supper and
were permitted to lie before the fire. My fellow-prisoner took off his
boots and was soon sound asleep. I took off nothing and, despite
exhaustion, remained equally sound awake. One of the guards also removed
his footgear and outer clothing, placed his weapons under his neck and
slept the sleep of innocence; the other sat in the chimney corner on
watch. The house was a double log cabin, with an open space between the
two parts, roofed over--a common type of habitation in that region. The
room we were in had its entrance in this open space, the fireplace
opposite, at the end. Beside the door was a bed, occupied by the old man
of the house and his wife. It was partly curtained off from the room.
In an hour or two the chap on watch began to yawn, then to nod. Pretty
soon he stretched himself on the floor, facing us, pistol in hand. For a
while he supported himself on his elbow, then laid his head on his arm,
blinking like an owl. I performed an occasional snore, watching him
narrowly between my eyelashes from the shadow of my arm. The inevitable
occurred--he slept audibly.
A half-hour later I rose quietly to my feet, particularly careful not to
disturb the blackguard at my side, and moved as silently as possible to
the door. Despite my care the latch clicked. The old lady sat bolt upright
in bed and stared at me. She was too late. I sprang through the door and
struck out for the nearest point of woods, in a direction previously
selected, vaulting fences like an accomplished gymnast and followed by a
multitude of dogs. It is said that the State of Alabama has more dogs than
school-children, and that they cost more for their keep. The estimate of
cost is probably too high.
Looking backward as I ran, I saw and heard the place in a turmoil and
uproar; and to my joy the old man, evidently oblivious to the facts of the
situation, was lifting up his voice and calling his dogs. They were good
dogs: they went back; otherwise the malicious old rascal would have had my
skeleton. Again the traditional bloodhound did not materialize. Other
pursuit there was no reason to fear; my foreign gentleman would occupy the
attention of one of the soldiers, and in the darkness of the forest I
could easily elude the other, or, if need be, get him at a disadvantage.
In point of fact there was no pursuit.
I now took my course by the north star (which I can never sufficiently
bless), avoiding all roads and open places about houses, laboriously
boring my way through forests, driving myself like a wedge into brush and
bramble, swimming every stream I came to (some of them more than once,
probably), and pulling myself out of the water by boughs and
briars--whatever could be grasped. Let any one try to go a little way
across even the most familiar country on a moonless night, and he will
have an experience to remember. By dawn I had probably not made three
miles. My clothing and skin were alike in rags.
During the day I was compelled to make wide detours to avoid even the
fields, unless they were of corn; but in other respects the going was
distinctly better. A light breakfast of raw sweet potatoes and persimmons
cheered the inner man; a good part of the outer was decorating the several
thorns, boughs and sharp rocks along my sylvan wake.
Late in the afternoon I found the river, at what point it was impossible
to say. After a half-hour's rest, concluding with a fervent prayer that I
might go to the bottom, I swam across. Creeping up the bank and holding my
course still northward through a dense undergrowth, I suddenly reeled into
a dusty highway and saw a more heavenly vision than ever the eyes of a
dying saint were blessed withal--two patriots in blue carrying a stolen
pig slung upon a pole!
Late that evening Colonel McConnell and his staff were chatting by a
camp-fire in front of his headquarters. They were in a pleasant humor:
some one had just finished a funny story about a man cut in two by a
cannon-shot. Suddenly something staggered in among them from the outer
darkness and fell into the fire. Somebody dragged it out by what seemed to
be a leg. They turned the animal on its back and examined it--they were no
cowards.
"What is it, Cobb?" said the chief, who had not taken the trouble to rise.
"I don't know, Colonel, but thank God it is dead!"
It was not.