Another hour's riding, a ten minute's pause to reconnoiter, and I
crossed to the other side of the Potomac by a rough and almost
impassable ford. Making the top of the rocks which faced the river, I
gave my horse time to get his breath, while I sat on a stone beside him.
Night and darkness had almost shut in the view on every side. The moon
was up but was obscured by clouds except for a moment or two at a time.
I could hear the faint swish of the water as it flowed over the stones
immediately below, but save for that an intense stillness prevailed.
Rising after a few moments' contemplation of a landscape, which I could
but faintly see, I buried my passes and the one other valuable paper I
carried under a huge stone. I then felt that I was fairly started on my
perilous undertaking. I was on the Virginia side of the river, in a
region known to be swarming with Rebels who asked nothing better than to
catch a Union spy. I well knew that if I should run across any of them
in such a way as to arouse their suspicions my life would not be worth
the asking, and I would share the fate of many who had tried before.
As I now had no passes or any way of proving my identity, I also had to
guard equally against meeting any of our own troops, for unless I should
chance on an acquaintance among them, they would be certain to hold me
prisoner. My endeavor was to avoid every one, for a small foraging party
or a few belated pickets might prove as disastrous to me as "an army
with banners." I had determined that it would be necessary for me to
avoid all well-traveled roads and all towns, even the smallest villages,
and to make my way through the dense woods when ever I could, taking
advantage of such bridle-paths as I could find running in the direction
I wanted to go.
Before I had rode many miles I became convinced that a general move
toward the Potomac of some sort was going on. Whenever I approached a
road I could tell from the sounds that persons were passing along it,
not rapidly or in any large sized bodies, but mostly on foot and singly,
or in small squads of six or eight. They seemed to be pressing on too
steadily for ordinary skulkers, yet in a too "go as you please" style
for troops under command.
At last I decided to gratify my curiosity, hoping to gain at the same
time some information that would be of use to me.
Some miles back I had struck a path which I had been able to follow.
When it again crossed a road, I stopped a few rods back, slipped my
horse's bridle over a sapling and made my way to the edge of the road,
which, as I soon made out at this point, ran along a sort of gully. On
the side I was on the bank was at least four feet above the road, and
along the edge of the bank was a rough attempt at a rail-fence pieced
out and propped up here and there with stones. I crept noiselessly
behind this shelter and waited until two stragglers came along. When
nearly opposite me they accosted a third who must have been resting by
the roadside.
We all went on together; they on the road and I behind the fence. From
their interchange of confidences, scraps of which came up to me, I soon
learned that they were Rebels and belonged to Knapp's division, and that
in the first advance it had been left behind on the James, but had just
crossed the Potomac and gone on to join Luce. The men seemed to be
stragglers who had dropped behind from pure physical inability to keep
up, and their great anxiety, as well as I could judge from their
conversation, was to get there before anybody "fit."
Having learned all I was likely to from them, I retraced my steps and
mounted my horse. I had to keep him at a walk, for I was in a rough
piece of woods and could not see two feet beyond my horse's head. I had
not rode long when I heard faint sounds of musketry in front of me and a
little to my left, in exactly the direction I was traveling. I listened
intently, and concluded it must be a chance brush between a party of our
troops and some of the Rebels.
The firing was directly between where I was and the place where I
intended to get breakfast and hoped to get a fresh horse. I did not want
to miss stopping there, for it was the only Union man's house I knew of
any where near. I could not afford to circle around the fighting, as it
might lead me considerably out of my road. A skirmish, even if a small
affair, is a very unsatisfactory thing to go around, not being exactly
stationary.
I carried an old silver watch which I had procured during my stay in the
Capital, but it was too dark to see the time without striking a match,
which I did not care to do. I judged from the distance I had come it
must be near daybreak. So, anxious as I was to get on, I knew it would
be wise to halt until it began to get light and the dispute ahead should
be settled.
I tied my horse to a tree and went as far away as I could to be within
hearing distance of his movements. As soon as I discovered a log, which
I did at last by taking a header over it, I lay down behind it. Though
in point of fact I did not know which to call the front or back,
considering it as a barrier to an approaching foe.
I was too weary to more than reach a recumbent position before I was
asleep. I had been asleep long enough to feel completely chilled from
the cold fog when something awoke me. I aroused with a start and a
feeling that some one was near me. On the alert at once I waited with
baited breath for some further noise to indicate in which direction the
disturbance had been, but none came and I finally concluded that I had
been mistaken or dreaming.
I went over to look at my horse and make sure that he had not pulled
loose. He was where I had left him and had evidently spent his time
nibbling off every tender branch in his reach.
I determined to look around before mounting. It was barely daybreak and
there was a light fog, which made all excepting near objects indistinct.
I made my way through a shallow, dry gully and across a wide flat
covered with trees. I knew I must then be near the road which I had been
skirting the latter part of my ride, so I paused a moment before
advancing further. Hearing nothing I went on around a jutting point of
rocks on a thicket-covered slope and stopped at the head of a washout,
made by the summer rains.
As I stood listening the ground suddenly gave way with me and I went
down a steep bank, to find the road sooner than I expected, and myself
in the company of two Rebel soldiers and a broken down army wagon. I
found out with a vengeance what had aroused me, and as is sometimes the
case with investigators, learned more than was desirable.
The men had evidently been half asleep, when my abrupt appearance
brought them to their feet.
A man has to think quickly in moments of danger. I took in the situation
at a glance and in the same brief time decided to enter into
conversation with them.
"What's up?" I asked.
"Broke down," replied the liveliest looking of the two, while both kept
their muskets suggestively convenient and eyed me suspiciously.
The wagon was heavily loaded and the back axle-tree had broken in two,
letting down the end. I looked it over because I had nothing better to
do. One of the men volunteered the information that it was twice too
much of a load.
"You don't expect to sit here with it all day, do you?" I asked,
intending to offer to go ahead and find some one to help them right
matters as an excuse to get away.
"No," said the man who had not spoken before. "Holly, 'es gone on thar
an' 'ell bring back some of our squad to help."
As he spoke, faintly approaching sounds indicated that a "Holly" was
coming back with assistance. There was no chance for me to leave and
nothing better suggested itself than to act so that whoever came back
would think I belonged there. I proposed to the men that we might as
well see what we could do while we waited.
When a dingy officer and eight men appeared on the scene, we were all
three busy inspecting the damage and no awkward questions were asked. So
for a short space of time I served in the Confederate army,--at least I
pulled at the wheel of a Confederate army wagon, with a great show of
work and no real exertion.
The officer in command, it was impossible to tell his rank from his
dress, but as he assumed more airs than a Brigadier-General, it is safe
to say he was not above a Sergeant, ordered the men around as if he were
reconstructing an entire train.
His obstinancy was soon apparent to my very alert observation. No matter
what one of the men began to do, he stopped him and set him to work in
another manner.
This amiable trait of his character I turned to my own advantage. When
things were righted and he called out that one man must go back with a
message and the rest follow him, I said audibly that I would "go on,"
and had my expectations realized by his ordering me to go back to meet
Captain Shuman.
Not being deeply impressed with the necessity of encountering that
individual, I followed the road no longer than was necessary to take me
beyond sight and hearing of the men who, with the wagon, had started in
the opposite direction. Entering the woods, I returned to my horse,
mounted and hurried on.
As I neared the place where the firing had occurred, I kept a sharp
lookout for a dead Confederate in decent clothes, intending to
appropriate them. It is proverbially slow work waiting for dead men's
shoes, and I found it considerably more tedious still trying to acquire
a more extended outfit. In all the four miles to Petterbridge's there
were no signs of a skirmish visible, saving a dead horse and a discarded
musket or two. I wanted at the first opportunity to discard my blue
trousers for a pair of the Rebel colors. Many of the men in the
Confederate army at that time wore such parts of Union soldiers' clothes
as they had been able to get to replace their own ragged and filthy
garments. I knew the blue trousers I wore would not be likely to excite
any suspicion, still I preferred to use every precaution.