some work to do. Send them out along the Falls Church road. I'll not
have to go borrowing guns after a little while. I'll have some mounted
batteries of my own."
The officer addressed issued the necessary orders as quietly as a
gentleman in his own house might bid a servant bring a glass of water
for a thirsty guest. No questions were asked on either side, and no
explanations offered. It is not the military fashion to ask unnecessary
questions or to give needless explanations.
By this time the cavalry regiments were streaming by on their hurried
way to the front, saluting Stuart as they passed, and now and then
cheering, as they were apt to do when they saw their gallant leader. He
in his turn nodded and bowed in acknowledgment, and now and then called
out a cheery word of greeting. He would be at the head of all these
fellows presently, and they knew that "the performance would not begin,"
as they were in the habit of saying, till he should be there to lead.
But meanwhile he had something else to attend to, for Stuart never
forgot anything that he wanted to remember, however engrossingly he
might be engaged with other affairs. Riding up to a tent before which
Colonel Field was standing awaiting his horse, he asked:
"Is your adjutant with you, Field?"
"No--he has gone on with orders, but his orderly is here, General."
"That will do as well." Then turning to the orderly, who had appeared,
he said:
"Take down a paper from dictation, please. When it is written out, bring
it to me at the front for signature."
The dictation was as follows:
"General J. E. B. Stuart, commanding the cavalry, respectfully reports
that in pursuance of the authorisation of the War Department, he has
selected Sergeant-Major Baillie Pegram, of ----'s battery, as one of the
persons to be commissioned captain of artillery and authorised to raise
a mounted battery to serve with the cavalry. General Stuart begs to
report that Sergeant-Major Pegram's character and qualifications are
abundantly certified, and that he has already been mentioned in general
orders and recommended for promotion for conspicuous gallantry in the
battle of Manassas. He is at present at his home, recovering from a
severe wound received in that action. All of which is respectfully
submitted."
"There!" said Stuart, when the dictation was done. "Write that out, fold
and indorse it properly, and bring it to me at the front for signature.
Then forward it through the regular channels."
Then Stuart put spurs to his horse, and galloped to the front. There he
made hurried disposition of the various commands, and half an hour later
hurled his whole force precipitately upon all the Federal outposts on
the ten-mile line. The onset was sudden and resistless, and within a
brief while every picket-post of the enemy was abandoned, and a new
line of observation established many miles nearer to Washington City.
With that tireless energy and that sleepless vigilance in attention to
details which always characterised the conduct of this typical
chevalier, Stuart spent the entire night following this day's work in
visiting his new outposts, from one end of the line to the other. Yet
when morning came he breakfasted upon an ear of raw corn and a laugh,
and rode on to Munson's Hill to learn what signals had been received
from his agents in Washington during the night.
XIV
_QUICK WORK_
It was a warm, soft day in autumn, joyous in its sunshine, sad in its
suggestions of the year's decay. Baillie Pegram, now nearly well again,
but still lacking strength, was lolling on the closely clipped sward
under one of the great trees at Warlock, chatting disjointedly with
Marshall Pollard, who had got away again on a few days' leave of
absence, for the purpose of visiting his friend. Baillie had already
written to his captain, reporting himself as nearly well again,
expressing regret at his long absence from duty, and announcing his
purpose of rejoining the battery within a week or ten days at
furthest--"at the earliest time," he said, "when I can persuade the
surgeons to release me from their clutches." This was likely, therefore,
to be the last meeting between the two friends for many moons to come.
"Tell me about yourself, old fellow," said Baillie, after a pause in
the conversation. "How do you like your service in that battery of
ruffians?"
"Thoroughly well. They're not half-bad fellows when kept under military
discipline, and I've enjoyed studying them psychologically. I'm
convinced that the only reason society has failed so consummately in its
attempts to deal with the criminal class is that it hasn't taken pains
to understand them or find out their point of view. We really haven't
taken pains enough even to classify them, or to find out the differences
there are among them. We class them all together--all who violate the
law--and call them criminals, and proceed to deal with them as if they
were a totally different species from ourselves, whereas, in point of
fact, they are 'men like unto ourselves,' with like passions and desires
and impulses. The only real difference is that circumstances and
education and association have taught us to curb our passions and hold
our impulses in check, while they have run wild, obeying those instincts
which are born in all of us.
"They are usually very generous fellows--impulsive, affectionate, and
loyal to such friendships as they know. If you discovered any wrong
being done to me, or heard any unjust accusation made against me, you'd
resist and resent instantly. But you'd know precisely how far and in
what direction to carry your resentment, while these fellows do not know
anything except the instincts of a righteous wrath. There isn't a man in
Skinner's Battery who wouldn't be quick to stand for me and by me. But
in doing so he would calmly kill the man who injured me, and never be
able to understand why he must be hanged for doing so.
"Most of them have been made hardened criminals solely by society's
blundering way of dealing with them. It has sent them to jail, for small
first offences, committed in ignorance perhaps. It has thus declared war
upon them, and with the instincts of manhood they have taken up the gage
of battle. In other words, it is my sincere belief that quite nine in
ten of the criminal class are criminal only because of society's neglect
at first and blundering afterward. They need education and discipline;
we give them resentful punishment instead, and there is a world of
difference between the two things.
"However, I did not mean to deliver a lecture on penology. And after all
I am no longer one of the ruffians, you know. All the officers of the
battery are gentlemen, while none of the men happens to be anything of
the kind. There is, therefore, as sharp a line of demarcation drawn in
our battery, between officers and enlisted men, as there is in any
regular army. This makes things pleasant for the officers, and I fancy
they are not unpleasant for the men. It is a case of aristocracy where
the upper class enjoys itself and the lower class is content. It is
quite different from service in an ordinary Confederate company of
volunteers. There the enlisted men are socially quite as good as their
officers and sometimes distinctly better. Under such circumstances it is
difficult to maintain more of distinction and discipline than the
enlisted men may voluntarily consent to. Socially, with us Southern
people, it is quite as honourable to be an enlisted man in such a
battery as yours as to be a commissioned officer. That's a good enough
thing in its way, but it isn't military, and it is distinctly bad for
the service."
"I don't know so well about that," said Baillie. "We have at least the
advantage of knowing that, discipline or no discipline, every man in the
ranks, equally with every officer, has a personal reputation at home to
sustain by good conduct. Even your desperadoes couldn't fight better
than the young fellows I had with me on the skirmish-line at Manassas,
though they had never had anything resembling discipline to sustain
them. Every man of them knew that if he 'flunked' he could never go home
again--unless all flunked at once and so kept each other company. That
very nearly happened while we were falling back across Bull Run."
"Precisely. And it happened to the whole Federal army a few hours later.
Discipline, with a ready pistol-shot behind it, would have prevented
that in both cases. 'Man's a queer animal,' you know, if you remember
your reading, and one of the queerest things about him is that when he
has once accustomed himself to accept orders unquestioningly, and to
obey them blindly, as every soldier does in drilling, he becomes far
more afraid of mere orders than he is of the heaviest fire. Personal
courage and high spirit among the men are admirable in their way, but
for the purposes of battle, discipline and the habit of blind obedience
are very much more trustworthy. If you want to make soldiers of men, you
must teach them, morning, noon, and night, that blind, unquestioning
obedience is the only virtue they can cultivate. That isn't good for the
personal characters of the men, of course, but it is necessary in the
case of soldiers, and our volunteers will all of them have to learn the
lesson before this war is over. More's the pity, for I can't imagine how
a whole nation of men so trained to submission can ever again become a
nation of--oh, confound it! I'm running off again into a psychological
speculation. Fortunately, here comes a letter for you."
A servant approached, bearing upon a tray a missive from The Oaks
ladies, which had been delivered at the house a few minutes earlier. The
grand dames assured Mr. Baillie Pegram of their highest respect and
esteem, but suggested that, to the very great satisfaction of the
anxiety they had so long felt on his account, they were convinced by his
assurances to that effect, that he was now so far advanced on the road
to complete recovery as perhaps to excuse them from the necessity of
making their thrice a week journey to Warlock to inquire concerning his
welfare. If they were mistaken in this assumption, would not Mr. Baillie
Pegram kindly notify them? And if the daily inquiries which they
intended to make hereafter through a trusty servant, should at any
moment bring to them news of a relapse, they would instantly resume
their personal and most solicitous inquiries.
To this Baillie laughingly wrote a reply equally formal, in which he
assured the good ladies that their tender concern for him during his
illness had been a chief factor in a recovery which was now practically
complete.
Meantime Sam had come with the mail-pouch from the post-office, and it
held two letters for Baillie.
One of these was a formal and official communication from the War
Department, informing him that upon General J. E. B. Stuart's
recommendation, he had been appointed captain of artillery with
authority to raise a mounted battery of from fifty to one hundred men,
for service with the cavalry. His commission, dating from the day of his
wound at Manassas, accompanied the document, and with it an order for
him to proceed, as soon as he should be fit for service, to enlist and
organise the company thus authorised, and to make the proper
requisitions for arms and equipments.
Baillie's second letter was a personal one from Stuart. It was scribbled
in pencil on the envelopes of some old letters and such other fragments
of paper as the cavalier could command at some picket-post. It read:
"I have asked the War Department to commission you as a captain, to
raise a company of mounted artillery to serve with me in front. I
understand that you have a healthy liking for the front. The War
Department lets me choose my own men for this service, and I have chosen
you first, for several reasons. One is that you know what to do with a
gun. Another is that you fought so well at Manassas. Another is that you
are very strongly recommended to me by a person whose judgment is
absolutely conclusive to my mind.
"Now get to work as quickly as you can. Enrol fifty or seventy-five, or
better still a hundred men if you can find them. Put them in camp and
instruct them, and report to me the moment you are ready. Make
requisition for guns--six of them if you can secure a hundred men--and
drill your men at the piece. For a hundred men in _mounted_ artillery
you will need about 170 horses--100 for the cannoniers to ride and 70
for the guns, etc. There is likely to be your difficulty. Can't you help
yourself out a bit? I am told that you have influence. Can't you
persuade your neighbours to contribute some at least of the horses you
need? The quicker your battery is horsed the quicker you'll get a chance
to practise your men in gunnery with the enemy for a target. Please send
me a personal line, telling me how soon you will be ready to join me. It
will take a month or two, of course, but I hope it won't take more."
Twelve hours later Baillie Pegram sent an answer to General Stuart's
letter. In it he said:
"Thank you. I'll have the men and the horses within twenty-four hours.
If the guns are promptly forthcoming on my requisition, I'll be ready
within two days to receive orders to join you. As for drill, I can
attend to that in front of Washington as well as in camp of instruction
at Richmond."
But before sending that note, which delighted Stuart's soul when it
came, Baillie Pegram had done a world of earnest work.
First of all there was the problem of getting the men. The able-bodied
citizens of the county had already volunteered for the most part, but
some were still waiting for one reason or another, and Baillie, who knew
everybody, sent hurried notes to all of these, by special negro
messengers, asking each to send an immediate reply to him at the
Court-house. On this service he employed all his young negroes, mounting
them on all his mules. The men appealed to responded almost to a man,
for the master of Warlock was a man under whose command his neighbours
eagerly wanted to serve, and Baillie found more than half of them
awaiting him at the county seat, when he got there in mid-afternoon.
Still better, he found a messenger there from one of the men whom he had
summoned. This messenger came from a camp at a little distance, where
were assembled about sixty or seventy men and boys peculiarly situated.
These men and boys had belonged to a company composed mainly of college
students, which had gone out with the earliest volunteers. The company
had been captured at Rich Mountain, and the men composing it had been
sent home on parole. Within the two days preceding Baillie Pegram's call
for volunteers, official notification had come of the discharge of all
these men from parole by virtue of an exchange of prisoners. Thereupon
the men, thus left free to volunteer again, had met in camp to consider
what should be done. Their company had been officially disbanded, and
there were now not enough of them left to secure its reorganisation.
When Baillie Pegram's call for volunteers came, therefore, the men were
called together, and in pursuance of a resolution, unanimously adopted,
a messenger was sent to the Court-house to say that sixty-two men of the
disbanded company offered themselves for enrolment under Captain Pegram,
and that they would report for duty on the following morning at the
Court-house.
Thus before four o'clock Baillie was assured of his hundred men or more.
The next problem was to secure horses. He called together such of his
men as were present, and said:
"Each of you is mounted. We shall need your horses. The government will
have them valued, and will pay the assessed price for any that may die
in the service. It will pay monthly for their services. How many of you
will enlist your horses as well as yourselves, as all our cavalrymen
have done?"
The response was general, and many of the planters offered additional
horses on the same terms, so that, before night fell Baillie Pegram had
more than a hundred men and about a hundred and thirty horses secured.
Forty or fifty more horses must be had, but Baillie knew how to secure
them, and so he sent off his note to Stuart. Then he turned to Marshall
Pollard, and said:
"I want you to go to Richmond by the midnight train, old fellow, and
return by the noonday train to-morrow. I've a mind to complete this
business at a stroke. I've a few thousand dollars in bank and a few
thousand more in the hands of my commission merchant. The money is worth
its face now. Heaven only knows what it will be worth a year hence. I'm
going to spend it now for the rest of the horses I need, and I want you
to go to Richmond and bring it to me. In the meanwhile I'll bargain with
a drover who is not very far away, for the horses."
Then, weak as he was, Baillie planned to ride the dozen miles that lay
between the Court-house and the point where the drover was camping with
his horses, but one of his friends, who had just enlisted with him, bade
him to go to the tavern and to bed, saying:
"I'll have the drover and his horses here before noon to-morrow, and I
shall know something about the horses by that time, too, for I'll come
back in company with them, and I'll keep my eyes open."
No sooner was Baillie comfortably stretched upon a lounge in his hotel
room, than Sam presented himself.
"Mas' Baillie," the negro boy broke in, without waiting for his master
to ask how he came to be there, "Mas' Baillie, you's a-gwine to be one
o' de officers now, jes' as you ought to ha' been fust off. Now you'll
need Sam wid you, won't you?"
"I'll need somebody, I suppose," the young man answered, with a laugh at
Sam's enthusiasm, "but if I take you along where I am going, you'll
stand a mighty good chance of getting a bullet-hole through you, or
having your black head knocked off your shoulders by a shell. Have you
thought of that?"
"Co'se I'se thought o' dat, an' I ain't de leas' bit afeard nuther. I'se
a Pegram nigga from Warlock, I is, an' a Pegram nigga from Warlock ain't
got no more business to be afeared o' bullets when his duty brings 'em
in his way, dan a white folks Pegram hisself is. Ef ye'll jes' take Sam
along of you, you sha'n't never have no 'casion to be shamed o' yer
servant."
"Very well, Sam," answered the master; "now go back to Warlock, and tell
your mammy you're going to the war. By the way, you may have that old
velveteen and corduroy hunting suit of mine to wear. Get it from the
closet in the chamber, and tell your mammy to shorten the trousers legs
by seven or eight inches."
Sam was fairly dancing for joy, and as he mounted his mule for the
homeward journey, he began to sing a dismal ditty which he had composed
as an expression of his feelings at the time of his master's first
departure from Warlock to serve as a soldier. Unhappily only a fragment
of the song remains to us. It began:
"Dey ain't no sun in de mawning,
Dey ain't no moon shine in de night,
'Case the war's done come an' de mahstah's done gone,
Fer to git hisse'f killed in de fight.
"Oh, Moses!
Holy Moses!
Can't you come back 'cross de ribber?
Can't you let Gabrel blow his horn?"
What lines were to follow, and what words rhymed with "ribber" and
"horn," we are not permitted to know. For at this point, Sam, whose
self-education included a considerable proficiency in profanity, broke
off his singing, reined in his mule, and said:
"Dat's too _dam_ dismal fer de 'casion!" Then addressing the mule, he
reproachfully asked:
"What for you done let me sing dat? Don' you know Sam's a-gwine to de
wah wid Mas' Baillie?"
As the mule made no reply, the conversation ceased at this point, and
the remainder of the homeward journey was made in complete silence.
XV
_AGATHA'S VENTURE_
After a month or two of cautious correspondence with friends and others
who were to aid her in carrying out her purpose, Agatha Ronald set out
one day, and drove with Martha, her maid, to Winchester, where she had
friends. After a week's stay there, she made her way to a little town on
the Potomac, again taking up quarters with friends.
From this point, she communicated through her friends with intimates of
theirs who lived in Maryland. Finally she had arrangements made by which
a succession of houses was open to her, all of them the homes of people
strongly in sympathy with the South. But she must first manage to get
through the Federal lines unobserved, and in this a Federal commander
unwittingly aided her. He threw a small force one day into the little
town in which she was staying, meaning to hold possession of it as a
part of the loosely drawn lines on the upper river. This left Agatha
within Federal domain--a young gentlewoman visiting friends, and in no
way attracting attention to herself. Presently she moved on into
Maryland, and by short stages made her way to the house of a very ardent
Southern family, near the Pennsylvania border. From there it was easy
for her to go to Harrisburg, and thence by rail to Baltimore.
The chief purpose of her journey was now practically accomplished. She
had established what she called her "underground railroad," with a
multitude of stations, and a very roundabout route. But it would serve
its purpose all the better for that, she thought, as the chief condition
of its successful operation was that its existence should at no time be
suspected.
In Baltimore, proceeding with the utmost caution, she put herself into
indirect communication with a large number of "Dixie girls"--as young
women in that city whose hearts were with the South were called. It
would not do for her to meet these young women personally. That might
excite suspicion, especially as most of them had brothers in the
Southern army. But through others she succeeded in organising them
secretly into a band prepared to do her work.
That work was the purchase of medicines--chiefly morphine and
quinine--and the smuggling of them through the lines into the
Confederacy for the use of the armies there. For it is one of the
barbarisms of war which civilisation has not yet outgrown, that
medicines, even those which are imperatively necessary for the saving of
life and the prevention of suffering, are held to be as strictly
contraband as gunpowder itself is.
Agatha's plan was to have her associates in Baltimore purchase medicines
and surgical appliances in that city and elsewhere--buying only in small
quantities in each case, in order to avoid suspicion, but buying large
quantities in the aggregate--and forward them to her in Virginia by way
of her underground railroad; that is to say, passing them from hand to
hand over the route by which she had herself reached Baltimore.
Having perfected these arrangements, her next task was herself to get
back to her home, whither she did not mean to go empty-handed. She had
gowns made for herself and Martha, using two thicknesses of oiled silk
as interlining. Between these she bestowed as much morphia as could be
placed there without attracting attention.
This done, she was ready for her return journey, which presented
extraordinary difficulty. She could not return by the way she had come,
lest the purpose of her journey should be discovered, and her plans for
the future be thwarted. She must find some other way.
At first she thought of making her way southward to the lower reaches of
the Potomac, and depending upon chance for means of getting across the
river there, but this was rendered impracticable by the news that the
Confederates had retired from their advanced outposts to Manassas and
Centreville, with the Fairfax Court-house line as their extreme advance
position. This meant, of course, that they no longer held in any
considerable force the posts along the lower river. Moreover, Agatha
learned that both the Potomac below Washington, and the navigable part
of the Rappahannock were closely patrolled now, by night and by day, by
a numerous fleet of big and little Federal war-ships. There seemed no
course open to her but to try in some way to get through to Stuart's
pickets, if in any way or at any risk she could manage that. That she
determined to attempt.