RUSTICS IN REBELLION.
At White House, I met some of the mixed Indians and negroes from
Indiantown Island, which lies among the osiers in the stream. One of
these ferried me over, and the people received me obsequiously, touching
their straw hats, and saying, "Sar, at your service!" They were all
anxious to hear something of the war, and asked, solicitously, if they
were to be protected. Some of them had been to Richmond the previous
day, and gave me some unimportant items happening in the city. I found
that they had Richmond papers of that date, and purchased them for a few
cents. They knew little or nothing of their own history, and had
preserved no traditions of their tribe. There was, however, I
understood, a very old woman extant, named "Mag," of great repute at
medicines, pow-wows, and divination. I expressed a desire to speak with
her, and was conducted to a log-house, more ricketty and ruined than any
of the others. About fifty half-breeds followed me in respectful
curiosity, and they formed a semicircle around the cabin. The old woman
sat in the threshold, barefooted, and smoking a stump of clay pipe.
"Yaw's one o' dem Nawden soldiers, Aunt Mag!" said my conductor. "He
wants to talk wid ye."
"Sot down, honey," said the old woman, producing a wooden stool; "is you
a Yankee, honey? Does you want you fauchun told by de ole 'oman?"
I perceived that the daughter of the Delawares smelt strongly of
fire-water, and the fumes of her calumet were most unwholesome. She was
greatly disappointed that I did not require her prophetic services, and
said, appealingly--
"Why, sar, all de gen'elmen an' ladies from Richmond has dere fauchuns
told. I tells 'em true. All my fauchuns comes out true. Ain't dat so,
chillen?"
A low murmur of assent ran round the group, and I was obviously losing
caste in the settlement.
"Here is a dime," said I, "that I will give you, to tell me the result
of the war. Shall the North be victorious in the next battle? Will
Richmond surrender within a week? Shall I take my cigar at the Spotswood
on Sunday fortnight?"
"I'se been a lookin' into dat," she said, cunningly; "I'se had dreams on
dat ar'. Le'um see how de armies stand!"
She brought from the house a cup of painted earthenware containing
sediments of coffee. I saw her crafty white eyes look up to mine as she
muttered some jargon, and pretended to read the arrangement of the
grains.
"Honey," she said, "gi' me de money, and let de ole 'oman dream on it
once mo'! It ain't quite clar' yit, young massar. Tank you, honey! Tank
you! Let de old 'oman dream! Let de ole 'oman dream!"
She disappeared into the house, chuckling and chattering, and the sons
of the forest, loitering awhile, dispersed in various directions. As I
followed my conductor to the riverside, and he parted the close bushes
and boughs to give us exit, the glare of the camp-fires broke all at
once upon us. The ship-lights quivered on the water; the figures of men
moved to and fro before the fagots; the stars peeped timorously from the
vault; the woods and steep banks were blackly shadowed in the river.
Here was I, among the aborigines; and as my dusky acquaintance sent his
canoe skimming across the ripples, I thought how inexplicable were the
decrees of Time and the justice of God. Two races united in these
people, and both of them we had wronged. From the one we had taken
lands; from the other liberties. Two centuries had now elapsed. But the
little remnant of the African and the American were to look from their
Island Home upon the clash of our armies and the murder of our braves.
By the 19th of May the skirts of the grand army had been gathered up,
and on the 20th the march to Richmond was resumed. The troops moved
along two main roads, of which the right led to New Mechanicsville and
Meadow Bridges, and the left to the railroad and Bottom Bridges. My
division formed the right centre, and although the Chickahominy fords
were but eighteen miles distant, we did not reach them for three days.
On the first night we encamped at Tunstalls, a railroad-station on Black
Creek; on the second at New Cold Harbor, a little country tavern, kept
by a cripple; and on the night of the third day at Hogan's farm, on the
north hills of the Chickahominy. The railroad was opened to Despatch
Station at the same time, but the right and centre were still compelled
to "team" their supplies from White House. In the new position, the army
extended ten miles along the Chickahominy hills; and while the engineers
were driving pile, tressel, pontoon, and corduroy bridges, the cavalry
was scouring the country, on both flanks, far and wide.
The advance was full of incident, and I learned to keep as far in front
as possible, that I might communicate with scouts, contrabands, and
citizens. Many odd personages were revealed to me at the farm-houses on
the way, and I studied, with curious interest, the native Virginian
character. They appeared to be compounds of the cavalier and the boor.
There was no old gentleman who owned a thousand barren acres, spotted
with scrub timber; who lived in a weather-beaten barn, with a
multiplicity of porch and a quantity of chimney; whose means bore no
proportion to his pride, and neither to his indolence,--that did not
talk of his ancestry, proffer his hospitality, and defy me to an
argument. I was a civilian,--they had no hostility to me,--but the
blue-coats of the soldiers seared their eyeballs. In some cases their
daughters remained upon the property; but the sons and the negroes
always fled,--though in contrary directions. The old men used to peep
through the windows at the passing columns; and as their gates were
wrenched from the hinges, their rails used to pry wagons out of the mud,
their pump-handles shaken till the buckets splintered in the shaft, and
their barns invaded by greasy agrarians, they walked to and fro,
half-weakly, half-wrathfully, but with a pluck, fortitude, and devotion
that wrung my respect. Some aged negro women commonly remained, but
these were rather incumbrances than aids, and they used the family meal
to cook bread for the troops. An old, toothless, grinning African stood
at every lane and gate, selling buttermilk and corn-cakes. Poor mortal,
sinful old women! They had worked for nothing through their three-score
and ten, but avarice glared from their shrivelled pupils, and their last
but greatest delight lay in the coppers and the dimes. One would have
thought that they had outlived the greed of gold; but wages deferred
make the dying miserly.
The lords of the manors were troubled to know the number of our troops.
For several days the columns passed with their interminable teams,
batteries, and adjuncts, and the old gentlemen were loth to compute us
at less than several millions.
"Why, look yonder," said one, pointing to a brigade; "I declar' to
gracious, there ain't no less than ten thousand in _them_!"
"Tousands an' tousands!" said a wondering negro at his elbow. "I wonda
if dey'll take Richmond dis yer day?"
Many of them hung white flags at their gate-posts, implying neutrality;
but nobody displayed the Federal colors. If there were any covert
sympathizers with the purposes of the army, they remembered the
vengeance of the neighbors and made no demonstrations. There was a
prodigious number of stragglers from the Federal lines, as these were
the bane of the country people. They sauntered along by twos and threes,
rambling into all the fields and green-apple orchards, intruding their
noses into old cabins, prying into smoke-houses, and cellars, looking at
the stock in the stables, and peeping on tiptoe into the windows of
dwellings. These stragglers were true exponents of Yankee
character,--always wanting to know,--averse to discipline, eccentric in
their orbits, entertaining profound contempt for everything that was not
up to the measure of "to hum."
"Look here, Bill, I say!" said one, with a great grin on his face; "did
you ever, neow! I swan! they call that a plough down in these parts."
"Devilishest people I ever see!" said Bill, "stick their meetin'-houses
square in the woods! Build their chimneys first and move the houses up
to 'em! All the houses breakin' out in perspiration of porch! All their
machinery with Noah in the ark! Pump the soil dry! Go to sleep a milkin'
a keow! Depend entirely on Providence and the nigger!"
There was a mill on the New Bridge road, ten miles from White House,
with a tidy farm-house, stacks, and cabins adjoining. The road crossed
the mill-race by a log bridge, and a spreading pond or dam lay to the
left,--the water black as ink, the shore sandy, and the stream
disappearing in a grove of straight pines. A youngish woman, with
several small children, occupied the dwelling, and there remained,
besides, her fat sister-in-law and four or five faithful negroes. I
begged the favor of a meal and bed in the place one night, and shall not
forget the hospitable table with its steaming biscuit; the chubby baby,
perched upon his high stool; the talkative elderly woman, who took
snuff at the fireplace; the contented black-girl, who played the Hebe;
and above all, the trim, plump, pretty hostess, with her brown eyes and
hair, her dignity and her fondness, sitting at the head of the board.
When she poured the bright coffee into the capacious bowl, she revealed
the neatest of hands and arms, and her dialect was softer and more
musical than that of most Southerners. In short, I fell almost in love
with her; though she might have been a younger playmate of my mother's,
and though she was the wife of a Quartermaster in a Virginia regiment.
For, somehow, a woman seems very handsome when one is afield; and the
contact of rough soldiers, gives him a partiality for females. It must
have required some courage to remain upon the farm; but she hoped
thereby to save the property from spoliation. I played a game of whist
with the sister-in-law, arguing all the while; and at nine o'clock the
servant produced some hard cider, shellbarks, and apples. We drank a
cheery toast: "an early peace and old fellowship!"--to which the wife
added a sentiment of "always welcome," and the baby laughed at her knee.
How brightly glowed the fire! I wanted to linger for a week, a month, a
year,--as I do now, thinking it all over,--and when I strolled to the
porch,--hearing the pigeons cooing at the barn; the water streaming down
the dam; the melancholy monotony of the pine boughs;--there only lacked
the humming mill-wheel, and the strong grip of the miller's hand, to
fill the void corner of one's happy heart.
But this was a time of war, when dreams are rudely broken, and mine
could not last. The next day some great wheels beat down the bridge, and
the teams clogged the road for miles; the waiting teamsters saw the
miller's sheep, and the geese, chickens, and pigs, rashly exposed
themselves in the barnyard; these were killed and eaten, the mill
stripped of flour and meal, and the garden despoiled of its vegetables.
A quartermaster's horse foundered, and he demanded the miller's, giving
therefor a receipt, but specifying upon the same the owner's relation to
the Rebellion; and, to crown all, a group of stragglers, butchered the
cows, and heaped the beef in their wagons to feed their regimental
friends. When I presented myself, late in the afternoon, the yard and
porches were filled with soldiers; the wife sat within, her head thrown
upon the window, her bright hair unbound, and her eyes red with weeping.
The baby had cried itself to sleep, the sister-in-law took snuff
fiercely, at the fire; the black girl cowered in a corner.
"There is not bread in the house for my children," she said; "but I did
not think they could make me shed a tear."
If there were Spartan women, as the story-books say, I wonder if their
blood died with them! I hardly think so.
If I learned anything from my quiet study of this and subsequent
campaigns, it was the heartlessness of war. War brutalizes! The most
pitiful become pitiless afield, and those who are not callous, must do
cruel duties. If the quartermaster had not seized the horses, he would
have been accountable for his conduct; had he failed to state the
miller's disloyalty in the receipt, he would have been punished. The men
were thieves and brutes, to take the meal and meat; but they were
perhaps hungry and weary, and sick of camp food; on the whole, I became
a devotee of the George Fox faith, and hated warfare, though I knew
nothing to substitute for it, in _crises_.
Besides, the optimist might have seen much to admire. Individual merits
were developed around me; I saw shop-keepers and mechanics in the ranks,
and they looked to be better men. Here were triumphs of engineering;
there perfections of applied ingenuity. I saw how the weakest natures
girt themselves for great resolves, and how fortitude outstripped
itself. It is a noble thing to put by the fear of death. It was a grand
spectacle, this civil soldiery of both sections, supporting their
principles, ambitions, or whatever instigated them, with their bodies;
and their bones, lie where they will, must be severed, when the
plough-share some day heaves them to the ploughman.
One morning a friend asked me to go upon a scout.
"Where are your companies?" said I.
"There are four behind, and we shall be joined by six at Old Cold
Harbor."
I saw, in the rear, filing through a belt of woods, the tall figures of
the horsemen, approaching at a canter.
"Do you command?" said I again.
"No! the Major has charge of the scout, and his orders are secret."
I wheeled beside him, as the cavalry closed up, waved my hand to
Plumley, and the girls, and went forward to the rendezvous, about six
miles distant. The remaining companies of the regiment were here drawn
up, watering their nags. The Major was a thick, sunburnt man, with
grizzled beard, and as he saw us rounding a corner of hilly road, his
voice rang out--
"Attention! Prepare to mount!"
Every rider sprang to his nag; every nag walked instinctively to his
place; every horseman made fast his girths, strapped his blankets
tightly, and lay his hands upon bridle-rein and pommel.
"Attention! Mount!"
The riders sprang to their seats; the bugles blew a lively strain; the
horses pricked up their ears; and the long array moved briskly forward,
with the Captain, the Major, and myself at the head. We were joined in a
moment by two pieces of flying artillery, and five fresh companies of
cavalry. In a moment more we were underway again, galloping due
northward, and, as I surmised, toward Hanover Court House. If any branch
of the military service is feverish, adventurous, and exciting, it is
that of the cavalry. One's heart beats as fast as the hoof-falls; there
is no music like the winding of the bugle, and no monotone so full of
meaning as the clink of sabres rising and falling with the dashing pace.
Horse and rider become one,--a new race of Centaurs,--and the charge,
the stroke, the crack of carbines, are so quick, vehement, and dramatic,
that we seem to be watching the joust of tournaments or following fierce
Saladins and Crusaders again. We had ridden two hours at a fair canter,
when we came to a small stream that crossed the road obliquely, and
gurgled away through a sandy valley into the deepnesses of the woods. A
cart-track, half obliterated, here diverged, running parallel with the
creek, and the Major held up his sword as a signal to halt; at the same
moment the bugle blew a quick, shrill note.
"There are hoof-marks here!" grunted the Major,--"five of 'em.
The Dutchman has gone into the thicket. Hulloo!" he added,
precipitately--"there go the carbines!"
I heard, clearly, two explosions in rapid succession; then a general
discharge, as of several persons firing at once, and at last, five
continuous reports, fainter, but more regular, and like the several
emptyings of a revolver. I had scarcely time to note these things, and
the effect produced upon the troop, when strange noises came from the
woods to the right: the floundering of steeds, the cries and curses of
men, and the ringing of steel striking steel. Directly the boughs
crackled, the leaves quivered, and a horse and rider plunged into the
road, not five rods from my feet. The man was bareheaded, and his face
and clothing were torn with briars and branches. He was at first riding
fairly upon our troops, when he beheld the uniform and standards, and
with a sharp oath flung up his sword and hands.
"I surrender!" he said; "I give in! Don't shoot!"
The scores of carbines that were levelled upon him at once dropped to
their rests at the saddles; but some unseen avenger had not heeded the
shriek; a ball whistled from the woods, and the man fell from his
cushion like a stone. In another instant, the German sergeant bounded
through the gap, holding his sabre aloft in his right hand; but the left
hung stiff and shattered at his side, and his face was deathly white. He
glared an instant at the dead man by the roadside, leered grimly, and
called aloud--
"Come on, Major! Dis vay! Dere are a squad of dem ahead!"
The bugle at once sounded a charge, the Major rose in the stirrups, and
thundered "Forward!" I reined aside, intuitively, and the column dashed
hotly past me. With a glance at the heap of mortality littering the way,
I spurred my nag sharply, and followed hard behind. The riderless horse
seemed to catch the fever of the moment, and closed up with me, leaving
his master the solitary tenant of the dell. For perhaps three miles we
galloped like the wind, and my brave little traveller overtook the
hindmost of the troop, and retained the position. Thrice there were
discharges ahead; I caught glimpses of the Major, the Captain, and the
wolfish sergeant, far in the advance; and once saw, through the cloud of
dust that beset them, the pursued and their individual pursuers, turning
the top of a hill. But for the most part, I saw nothing; I _felt_ all
the intense, consuming, burning ardor of the time and the event. I
thought that my hand clutched a sabre, and despised myself that it was
not there. I stood in the stirrups, and held some invisible enemy by the
throat. In a word, the bloodiness of the chase was upon me. I realized
the fierce infatuation of matching life with life, and standing arbiter
upon my fellow's body and soul. It seemed but a moment, when we halted,
red and panting, in the paltry Court House village of Hanover; the
field-pieces hurled a few shells at the escaping Confederates, and the
men were ordered to dismount.
It seemed that a Confederate picket had been occupying the village, and
the creek memorized by the skirmish was an outpost merely. Two of the
man Otto's party had been slain in the woods, where also lay as many
Southerners.
Hanover Court House is renowned as the birthplace of Patrick Henry, the
colonial orator, called by Byron the "forest Demosthenes." In a little
tavern, opposite the old Court House building, he began his humble
career as a measurer of gills to convivials, and in the Court House,--a
small stone edifice, plainly but quaintly constructed,--he gave the
first exhibitions of his matchless eloquence. Not far away, on a
by-road, the more modern but not less famous orator, Henry Clay, was
born. The region adjacent to his father's was called the "Slashes of
Hanover," and thence came his appellation of the "Mill Boy of the
Slashes." I had often longed to visit these shrines; but never dreamed
that the booming of cannon would announce me. The soldiers broke into
both the tavern and court-house, and splintered some chairs in the
former to obtain relics of Henry. I secured Richmond newspapers of the
same morning, and also some items of intelligence. With these I decided
to repair at once to White House, and formed the rash determination of
taking the direct or Pamunkey road, which I had never travelled, and
which might be beset by Confederates. The distance to White House, by
this course, was only twenty miles; whereas it was nearly as far to
head-quarters; and I believed that my horse had still the persistence to
carry me. It was past four o'clock; but I thought to ride six miles an
hour while daylight lasted, and, by good luck, get to the depot at nine.
The Major said that it was foolhardiness; the Captain bantered me to go.
I turned my back upon both, and bade them good by.