I only know we have thrown away an opportunity that will never come back
to us. The army was full of enthusiasm after Manassas--it is discouraged
and depressed now. Then it was strong with the hope and confidence that
are born of victory; now it sits there wondering when the enemy will be
ready for it to fight again. It was fit for any enterprise then, and the
enemy was utterly unfit to resist anything it might have undertaken. But
it was not permitted to undertake anything. It was made to lie still,
like a pointer in a turkey blind, quivering with eagerness to be up and
doing, but restrained by the paralysis of misdirected authority. While
we have been doing nothing, the Federal enemy has been swollen to more
than twice our numbers. More important still, it has been fashioned by
McClellan's skilled hand into as fine a fighting-machine as any general
need wish for his tool. The officers have been instructed in their
profession, and the men have been taught their trade. Their organisation
is perfect, their discipline is almost as good as that of regulars, and
their confidence in themselves and their commanders is daily and hourly
increasing. Our men have abundant confidence in themselves, but none at
all in generals who throw away their opportunities or in a government
that touches nothing without paralysing it. Moreover, the Federal army
has supply departments behind it that could not be bettered, while ours
seem wholly imbecile and incapable. It should have been obvious to every
intelligent man at the outset, that with our vastly inferior material
resources, our best chance of winning in this war was by bringing to
bear from the first all we could of dash and ceaseless activity. We
should have taken the aggressive at once and all the time, knowing that
every day of delay must strengthen the enemy and weaken us. Instead of
that, after winning a great battle in such fashion as well-nigh to
destroy for a time the enemy's capacity of resistance, we have taken up
a defensive attitude and let the precious opportunity slip from our
grasp. It will never return. I do not say that we shall be beaten in the
end; I say only that our task is immeasurably more difficult now than it
was three months ago, and it is growing more and more difficult every
day."
"You are discouraged then?"
"No. I am only depressed. As for courage, we must all of us keep that up
to the end. We must be brave to endure as well as to fight,--if we are
ever graciously permitted to fight again. But I did not mean to talk of
these things. I am only a battery captain. I have no business to think.
But unfortunately our army is largely composed of men who can't help
thinking. Tell me now, for I must ride presently, is there anything that
I can do for you--any way in which I can help you?"
"You will be helping me all the time, just by letting me feel that the
old boy and girl friendship is mine again. That is more precious to me
than you can imagine. Good-bye, now. Your horse is at the door. Thank
you for all, and God bless you."
XXII
_SAM AS A STRATEGIST_
Agatha's second progress northward was far more difficult of
accomplishment than the first had been. Under McClellan's skilled
vigilance the armed mob which he found "cowering on the Potomac" in
August, had been converted into an army, drilled, disciplined, and
familiar with every detail of that military art which it was called upon
to practise. The lines west of Washington were far more rigidly drawn
and more fully manned than before, and the officers and men who held
them exercised a vigilance that had not been thought of a few months
earlier.
And this was not the only difficulty that Agatha encountered in her
effort to reach Baltimore. A passport system had been inaugurated at the
North, under operation of which those who would travel, and especially
those who travelled toward Baltimore,--a city whose loyalty to the
Union lay under grave suspicion,--must give a satisfactory account of
themselves in order to secure the necessary papers. War had begun to
bring the country under that despotism which military force always and
everywhere regards as the necessary condition of its effectiveness.
It was a strange spectacle that the country presented during that four
years of fratricidal strife. A great, free people, the freest on earth,
fell to fighting, one part with another part. Each side was battling, as
each side sincerely believed, for the cause of liberty; each was
unsparingly spending its blood and treasure in order, in Mr. Lincoln's
phrase, that "government of the people, by the people, and for the
people might not perish from the earth." Yet on both sides a military
rule as rigorous as that of Russia laid its iron hand upon the people,
and the people submitted themselves to its exactions almost without a
murmur. Arbitrary, inquisitorial, intolerant, this military despotism
wrought its will both at the North and at the South, overriding laws and
disregarding constitutions, making a mockery of chartered rights, and
restraining personal liberty in ways that would have caused instant and
universal revolt, had such things been attempted by civil authority.
The military arm is a servant which is apt to make itself the
unrelenting master of those who invoke its assistance.
Agatha encountered this difficulty while yet inside the Confederate
lines. She was not permitted to pass in any northward direction upon any
pretence. The authorities at one place under Confederate control forbade
her to go to another place under like control. She appealed to Stuart in
this emergency, and although his authority did not extend into the
Shenandoah Valley, he made such representations to the commandants in
that quarter as were sufficient for her purposes.
To get within the Federal lines was a still more perplexing problem. One
device after another proved ineffectual, and the girl was almost in
despair. She appealed at last to the general in command of the cavalry
in that region,--one of those to whom Stuart had written in her
behalf,--and he promptly responded:
"At precisely what point have you friends in coöperation with you?"
She named a little town within the Federal line where lived some of her
nearest friends.
"I can manage that," he said. "The point is an insignificant one ten
miles within their lines. There are pretty certainly no troops there,
and the picket-lines in front are not very strong, as nothing could be
more improbable than the raid I shall make in that direction. You can
ride, of course."
"Of course."
"Very well. I'll take a strong force, make a dash through the
picket-lines, gallop into the town, and make a foray through the region
round about. You will follow my column as closely as you can without
placing yourself under fire, and when we reach the town, settle yourself
with your friends there, turning your horse loose lest he attract
attention. You'd better do that just before we reach the town, and walk
the rest of the way. Can you wear a walking-skirt under your
riding-habit, and slip off the outer--you see I'm a bachelor, Miss
Ronald, and don't understand such things."
"You may safely leave all that to my superior feminine sagacity. When
shall we start?"
"Whenever you wish. Only we'd better march in the afternoon and reach
the town after nightfall. The nights are very dark now, and you will
perhaps be able to escape observation in the town. Let me see," looking
at his watch, "it's now half past one. We could do the thing this
afternoon, if you were ready."
"I can be ready in fifteen minutes," she replied.
"You're very prompt," the officer said, with a suggestion of admiration
in his voice.
"O, I'm half-soldier, you know. General Stuart approves me."
"Very well, then. We'll march in half an hour."
The operation was a very simple one, in its military part, at least. The
expedition was composed of a force much too strong for resistance by the
handful of men available for immediate use on the enemy's part. In the
guise of a foraging party it easily dispersed the picket-lines and
pushed forward rapidly, taking the little town in its course, but making
no halt there. It scoured the country round about, and as soon as
Federal forces began to gather for its destruction, it retreated by
quite a different route from that by which it had advanced.
It was nine o'clock in the evening when Agatha slipped off her horse in
the little Maryland town and left it in charge of a trooper. A
five-minutes' walk brought her to the house of her friends, where she
was safe.
With her walked her negro maid, who had ridden behind her. That maid's
name was Sam, and he quickly divested himself of the feminine outer
garments which he had worn over his own clothes. This device had been of
Sam's own invention, for that worthy, under stress of circumstances, was
rapidly developing into something like genius that gift of diplomacy
which he had before employed in discouraging his mammy's efforts to make
him her assistant in the kitchen. Sam was a consummate liar whenever
lying seemed to him to be necessary or even useful. In the service of
his master he had no hesitation in saying, or indeed in doing, anything
that might be convenient, and during her long stay north of the Potomac
Agatha was far more deeply indebted to Sam's unscrupulousness than she
knew. For when he found that his mistress had conscientious objections
to his methods, he simply forbore to mention them to her, and carried
out his plans on his own responsibility. Long afterward, in relating the
experiences of this time to his black companions at Warlock, he made it
an interesting feature of his discourse to keep reminding his hearers
that, "Mis' Agatha's so dam' hones' dat she wouldn't tell a lie _even to
a Yankee_."
This declaration never failed to open the eyes of the auditors in
wonder, and to bring from their lips the half-incredulous response:
"Well, I 'clar to gracious!"
It was Sam who devised and suggested the next step in the present
journey. Agatha's arrival at the house, under cover of a very dark
night, had been unobserved by any one outside the household, but it was
obvious that her remaining there would involve grave danger of
discovery. Her presence could not be concealed from the servants of the
household, and however loyal these might be to their mistress and her
three daughters, who constituted the family, they would very certainly
talk, the more especially, if any efforts were made to keep the visitor
in hiding in the house. In a town so small--it was only a village, in
fact--gossip has quick wings, and there were sure to be some persons
there who would promptly report to the military that a young woman from
beyond the lines was in hiding in the town.
The whole matter was discussed in family conclave during the night of
Agatha's coming, and fortunately Sam was present, for the reason that it
was specially necessary to conceal from the household servants the
interesting fact that the "maid" who had accompanied a young lady to the
place was in truth a stalwart negro boy. He remained in the room,
therefore, from which all the servants were rigidly excluded, and thus
became familiar with every detail of the puzzling situation. After
ingenuity had been fairly exhausted in devising plans only to reject
them one after another as impracticable, Sam, whose modesty had never
amounted to shyness, boldly broke into the conversation.
"As I figgers it out, Mis' Agatha," he said, "de case is puffec'ly clar.
We cawn't stay heah, 'thout a-gittin' tuk up. We cawn't go back South
'thout a-gittin' tuk up an' maybe gittin' hung in de bargain. So we mus'
jes' go on Norf, now, immediately, at once."
"But we can't, Sam. You don't understand. We can't travel without
passports."
"Couldn't de ladies git a skyar into 'em, an' tell de Yankees dey jes'
cawn't an' won't stay any longer in a town whar de rebels is a-comin'
gallopin' through de streets, a-yellin' an' a-shootin' an' a-kickin' up
de ole Harry? Wouldn't de Yankees give 'em passpo'ts to de Norf den?
Wouldn't dey think it natch'rel dat a houseful o' jes' ladies what's got
no men-folks to pertect 'em, would be skyar'd out o' der seven senses
after sich a performance as dis heah?"
"But, Sam," interposed his mistress, "that wouldn't do me any good or
you either. If anybody asked for passports for you and me, the officers
would ask who we are and where we came from, and all about it."
"Don't ax 'em fer no passpo't fer you. Jes' let de other ladies ax fer
passpo'ts fer demselves, an' a nigga boy to drive de carriage. I'll be
de nigga boy. Den one o' de young ladies mout git over her skyar an'
jes' stay at home, quiet like, an' let you take her place in de
carriage. De young lady wouldn't have to go roun' tellin' folks she's
done git over her skyar an' stayed at home. Nobody'd know nuffin' about
her bein' heah fer a week, an' by dat time de Yankees would 'a' done
fergitten how many folks went away in de carriage."
After some discussion it was agreed that Sam's plan, in its general
outline at least, was feasible, and as there was no alternative way out,
it was finally decided to adopt the scheme.
"You mus' do it right away den," suggested Sam, "while de skyar is on to
folks. Ef you wait, de Yankees'll fin' out de trigger o' de trap, sho'.
An' after awhile, all de ladies 'ceptin' you, Mis' Agatha, can git over
de skyar an' come home agin."
Sam's plan was aided in its execution by the fact that several other
families in the town were genuinely scared by the Confederate raid, and,
as soon as the Federal posts were reëstablished, asked for passports
under which they might send their women and children to less exposed
points. When Agatha's hostess made a like application for herself and
daughters, with their negro, "Sam, aged eighteen, five feet seven
inches high," and all the rest of the description, no difficulty was
encountered in securing the desired papers.
In order that Agatha might go as far northward as possible without
having to renew her passport, it was decided that their destination
should be at a point well beyond the Pennsylvania border. Agatha had no
friends there, and she knew no one of Southern sympathies in the town
selected. But thanks to Marshall Pollard, she had command of money in
plenty, or would have, as soon as she could send the papers he had given
her to New York. It was arranged, therefore, that the little party, in
the character of refugees, should take quarters at a hotel until such
time as Agatha could renew her journey without her companions. In the
meantime, Agatha, by means of correspondence with her friends in
Baltimore and Washington, could prosecute her inquiries as to Baillie
Pegram's condition and whereabouts.
XXIII
_A NEGOTIATION_
Agatha did not remain long in the little Pennsylvania town. She found
its people to be positively peppery in their Union sentiments, and she
soon realised that she could make no inquiries from that point without
attracting dangerous attention to herself. She saw, too, that the little
city was not large enough for easy concealment. She could not there lose
herself in the crowd and pass unobserved whithersoever she pleased. She
promptly decided that her best course would be to go on to New York, but
even that could not be undertaken with safety for a time. She must
remain where she was for two or three weeks--long enough for her
presence there to lose its character as a novelty.
Sam, who enjoyed her confidence to the full, suggested that she should
feign ill-health, and leave the place under pretence of seeking a
residence better suited to her constitution. That was not the way in
which Sam expressed his thought, of course, but he made himself clearly
understood by saying:
"Tell you what 'tis, Mis' Agatha, you'se jes' got to git powerful sick
an' say you cawn't live in no sich a pesky town as dis here one. Den you
kin pack up yer things, ef you've got any, an' move on."
Agatha laughed, and answered:
"Why, Sam, I don't know how to be ill. I never had a headache in my
life, and I couldn't look like an invalid if I tried. No, Sam, we must
just wait here for a time."
"Why, Mis' Agatha, it's de easiest thing in de world to make out as how
you'se sick when you ain't. I'se done it hundreds of times, when mammy
wanted me to wuk in de kitchen an' I wanted to go a-fishin'. All you got
to do is to look solemncholy-like, an' say you'se got a pain in yo' haid
an' a powerful misery in yo' back, an' cole chills a-creepin' all over
you. Tell you what, it's as easy as nuffin' at all."
Agatha laughed again, but put Sam's plan aside without further
discussion, whereat that budding strategist went away sorrowful,
muttering to himself:
"I done heah folks say as how 'white man's mighty onsartain,' but Mis'
Agatha's a heap wuss'n even a white man, leastwise 'bout some things."
A week later, Sam presented another plan, which he had wrought out in
his mind at cost of not a little gray brain matter.
"Mis' Agatha," he asked, "is you got any frien's in New York what you
kin trus' to do what you axes 'em to do?"
"Yes, Sam. There's one gentleman there who will do anything I ask him to
do. He's the one to whom I sent the papers that I made you carry till we
got here."
"Den you kin write to him?"
"Yes, certainly."
"Well, now, I'se got a plan dat'll wuk as easy--as easy as playin' of de
banjo. You jes' write to dat gentleman, an' git him to sen' you a
telemagraph, sayin' as how somebody's a-dyin' over there, somebody yo'se
powerful fond of, an' so you mus' come quick."
This time Sam's suggestion commended itself to his mistress's mind, and
soon afterward there came a telegram to her, saying:
"Come quick if you want to see Eliza alive."
She hurriedly packed the few belongings which she had purchased in the
Pennsylvania town, bade her friends good-bye, and before noon of the
next day, was safely hidden in the little lodging which Marshall
Pollard's friend had secured for her in New York. In the great city she
might go and come and do as she pleased without fear of observation, and
without the least danger of attracting attention to herself. There is no
solitude so secure as that of a thronged city, where men are too
completely self-centred to concern themselves with the affairs of their
neighbours.
Agatha's first inquiries concerning Baillie's whereabouts were directed
toward the military prisons and prison-camps, but in none of them could
she find a trace of the master of Warlock. When she had completely
exhausted this field of inquiry, a great fear came upon her, that the
man she sought was dead. The presumption was strong that he had died of
his wound before he could be sent to any of the prisons provided for
captured Confederates. A less resolute person would have accepted that
conclusion, but Agatha persisted in her search, extending her inquiries
to all the hospitals of the Federal army, and within a month her
persistence was rewarded.
What she learned was that Baillie Pegram's wound had been too severe to
admit of his transportation far beyond Washington, and that he, in
company with a few other prisoners in like condition, had been placed in
an improvised hospital a few miles north of the capital city, where he
still lay under treatment, with only a slender chance of recovery. Her
first impulse was to go to Washington at once, and endeavour in some way
to secure permission to enter the hospital as a nurse. Her friends in
Washington and in Maryland discouraged this attempt, assuring her not
only of its futility, but of its danger. They were convinced, indeed,
that she could not even enter Washington, which was then a vast
fortified camp, without the discovery of her identity by the agents of a
secret service which had become well-nigh omniscient, so far as personal
identities, personal histories, and personal intentions were concerned.
"Stay where you are," one of them urgently wrote her, "and keep yourself
free to act if at any time a chance shall come to accomplish any good.
It would spoil all and destroy the last vestige of hope, for you to
attempt what you suggest. You can do no good here. You may do
inestimable good if you remain where you are."
When this decision was communicated to Sam, his round black face became
long, and the look of laughter completely went out of his countenance.
But Sam was not an easily discouraged person, and he had come to believe
in his own sagacity. So after a day or two of disconsolate moping, he
set his wits at work upon this new problem. Presently an idea was born
to him, and he went at once to lay it before Agatha for consideration.
"Mis' Agatha," he said, "even ef you cawn't git to Mas' Baillie, Sam
kin, an' that'll be better'n nothin', won't it?"
"Yes, Sam," answered the sad-eyed young woman, "very much better than
nothing. You could take care of your master, and be a comfort to him,
and if the time ever should come when anything could be done for him,
you'd be on the ground to help. But how can you get to him?"
"I could manage dat, ef I was a free nigga," answered the boy,
meditatively.
"But you are free, I suppose," said Agatha. "You've been brought to a
free State, practically with your master's consent, and that makes you
free, I believe. But--"
"O, I don't want to be a sho' 'nuff free nigga," interrupted Sam. "I
ain't never a-gwine to be dat. I'se a-gwine to 'long to Mas' Baillie
cl'ar to de end o' de cawn rows. But I done heah folks up heah say dat
de Yankees is a-sendin' back all de niggas what runs away from der
mahstahs, an' ef I ain't got nuffin' to say I'se free, dey'd sen' me
back to Ferginny ef I went down dat way whar Mas' Baillie is."
Sam's information on this point was in a measure correct. For in the
singleness of his purpose to save the Union at all costs, and in his
anxiety not to alienate the border slave States by interfering with
slavery where it legally existed, Mr. Lincoln steadfastly insisted,
during the first year of the war, that military commanders should
restore all fugitive slaves who should come to them for protection, or
where that could not be done, should list them and employ them in work
upon fortifications and the like.
Agatha thought for a time, and then said:
"I think I can manage that, Sam. I'll try, at any rate. But I must wait
till to-morrow. Tell me how you expect to get to your master."
"I don't rightly know yit, Mis' Agatha. But I'll git dar. Maybe you'll
send a letter to yo' frien's down dat way, tellin' 'em Sam's all right,
so's dey'll trus' me. Ef you do dat, Mis' Agatha, I'll do de res'."
It was impossible, of course, to execute legal papers setting Sam free,
nor were any papers at all necessary for his use, so long as he remained
in New York. But in Washington he might have to give an account of
himself, and by way of making sure that he should not be seized as a
runaway slave, and set to work upon the fortifications, Agatha's friend,
the banker, gave him a document in which he certified that the negro boy
was not a runaway slave, but was known to him as a legally free negro,
who had been living in New York, but wished to go to Washington and
elsewhere in search of employment.
Armed with this paper, and with full instructions from Agatha as to how
to find certain of her friends, Sam set out on his journey full of
determination to succeed in his affectionate purpose.
In Washington, he engaged in various small employments that yielded a
revenue in the form of tips. He purchased a banjo, and ingratiated
himself everywhere by singing his plantation songs, including both those
that he had learned from others, and a few, such as "Oh, Eliza," which
he had fabricated for himself. In the course of a week or two he learned
all he needed to know about roads, military lines, and the like, and was
prepared to make his way to the hospital where his master lay.
There he besought employment of menial kinds, at the hands of the
surgeons and other officers, of whom there were only a very few at the
post. Again he strummed his banjo and sang his songs to good purpose,
impressing everybody with the conviction that he was a jolly,
thoughtless, happy-go-lucky negro, and very amusing withal. The hospital
was a very small one in a very lonely part of the country, and service
there was extremely tedious to those who were condemned to it. Sam's
minstrelsy, therefore, was more than welcome as something that
pleasantly broke the monotony, and the officers concerned were anxious
to keep the amusing fellow employed at the post, lest he go elsewhere.
They gave him all sorts of odd jobs to do, from blacking boots and
polishing spurs and buckles, to grooming a horse when privileged in that
way, to show his skill in "puttin' of a satin dress onto a good animal,"
as he called the process.
Agatha had provided the boy with a small sum of money for use in
emergencies, and, as his living had cost him nothing, he had
considerably added to its amount. He cherished it jealously, feeling
that it might prove to be his readiest tool in accomplishing his
purposes.
For a time he was not permitted to enter the hospital, which was nothing
more than an old barn in which a floor had been laid and windows cut.
Four sentries guarded it, one on each of its sides. The patients within
numbered about fifteen, all of them wounded Confederate officers, for
whom this provision had been made until such time as they should be
sufficiently recovered to be taken North to a military prison.