sound of the plunging hot-shot was plainly distinguishable.
Our boat was within a rod of the prize when we perceived the men who
had already boarded her jumping hastily over the bulwarks, dropping
into their boat, and pushing off, as if something unusual was to pay.
One had been left behind. It was the little middy, Jerry Bloom, who now
appeared unconcernedly leaning over the side and coolly awaiting the
Lieutenant’s orders.
“What’s her cargo?” bellowed Bracetaut through his trumpet.
“Powder!” sang back the shrill tones of the New World Casabianca, and
siz! siz! went the plunging red-hot shot; and crash! crash! they went
against the floating magazine with frightful precision.
“Jump for your life!” roared the Lieutenant to Jerry. “Back-water, you
lubbers! back, for your lives!”
We saw the midshipman join his palms over his head and leap from the
gunwale of the fated ship. Scarcely had his slender figure cut the
brine before a number of sharp reports were heard--then a long, deep,
volcanic rumbling, that swelled into a terrific thunder, deafened our
ears; a dozen columns of blood-red flame shot up to the stars; and we
saw the deck and majestic spars of the doomed blockade-runner spring
aloft in fragments! A huge black mass descended with a fearful splash
a yard from our bows--the long stern-chaser going to the bottom--the
sides of the powder-ship yawned wide open an instant, filled with fire,
then disappeared, the flames dying out. The sea was ploughed around us
by the falling fragments of deck and spar, and the glorious steamer was
no more!
VI
TWO DAYS WITH MOSBY
_An Adventure with Guerillas_
I
I was up at reveille. Orders to inspect the camp of dismounted cavalry
near Harper’s Ferry had been in my pocket two days, while I awaited
an escort through the fifty miles of guerilla-infested country which
lay between me and that distant post. This was the day for the regular
train, and a thousand wagons were expected to leave Sheridan’s
headquarters, on Cedar Creek, at daylight, with a brigade of infantry
as guard, and a troop of cavalry as outriders.
An hour’s ride of eight miles along a picketed line across the valley
brought me to the famous “Valley Pike,” and near the headquarters of
the army. Torbert was there, and I awaited his detailed instructions.
Unavoidable delay ensued. Despatches were to be sent, and they were not
yet ready. An hour passed, and, meantime the industrious wagon-train
was lightly and rapidly rolling away down the pike. The last wagon
passed out of sight, and the rear-guard closed up behind it before I
was ready to start. No other train was to go for four days. I must
overtake this one or give up my journey. At length, accompanied
by a single orderly, and my colored servant, George Washington, a
contraband, commonly called “Wash,” I started in pursuit of the train.
As I had nearly passed Newtown I overtook a small party apparently from
the rear-guard of the train, who were lighting their pipes and buying
cakes and apples at a small grocery on the right of the pike. They
seemed to be in charge of a non-commissioned officer.
“Good-morning, Sergeant. You had better close up at once. The train is
getting well ahead, and this is the favorite beat of Mosby.”
“All right, sir,” he replied with a smile, and nodding to his men, they
mounted at once and closed in behind me, while quite to my surprise I
noticed in front of me three more of the party whom I had not before
seen.
An instinct of danger seized me. I saw nothing to justify it, but I
felt a presence of evil which I could not shake off. The men were
in Union blue complete, and wore on their caps the well-known Greek
cross which distinguishes the gallant Sixth Corps. They were young,
intelligent, cleanly, and good-looking soldiers, armed with revolvers
and Spencer’s repeating carbine. I noticed the absence of sabres, but
the presence of the Spencer, which was a comparatively new arm in our
service, reassured me, and I thought it impossible that the enemy could
as yet be possessed of them.
We galloped on merrily, and just as I was ready to laugh at my own
fears, “Wash,” who had been riding behind me and had heard some remark
made by the soldiers, brushed up to my side, and whispered through his
teeth, chattering with fear:
“Massa, Secesh, sure! Run like de debbel!”
I turned to look back at these words, and saw six carbines levelled at
me at twenty paces distant, and the Sergeant, who had watched every
motion of the negro, came riding towards me with revolver drawn and the
sharp command, “Halt! Surrender!”
We had reached a low place where the Opequan Creek crosses the pike, a
mile from Newtown. The train was not a quarter of a mile ahead, but out
of sight for the moment over the west ridge.
High stone-walls lined the pike on either side, and a narrow bridge
across the stream was in front of me and already occupied by the three
rascals who had acted as advance-guard, who now coolly turned round and
raised their carbines.
I remembered the military maxim, a mounted man should never surrender
until his horse is disabled. I hesitated an instant considering what
I should do, and quite in doubt whether I was myself or some other
fellow whom I had read of as captured and hung by guerillas; but at the
repetition of the sharp command, aided by the revolver thrust into my
face, I concluded I was undoubtedly the other fellow and surrendered
accordingly.
My sword and revolver were taken at once by the Sergeant, who proved
to be a rebel lieutenant in disguise, and who remarked, laughing as he
took them:
“We closed up, Captain, as you directed; as this is a favorite beat of
Mosby’s, I hope our drill was satisfactory.”
“All right, Sergeant. Every dog has his day, and yours happens to come
now. Possibly my turn may come to-morrow.”
“Your turn to be hung,” he replied.
II
It was not long before I was ushered into the presence of John S.
Mosby, Lieutenant-Colonel, C. S. A.
He stood a little apart from his men, by the side of a splendid gray
horse, with his right hand grasping the bridle-rein and resting on the
pommel of his saddle--a slight, medium-sized man, sharp of feature,
quick of sight, lithe of limb, with a bronzed face of the color
and tension of whip-cord. His hair, beard, and mustache were light
brown in color. His large, well-shaped head showed a high forehead,
deep-set gray eyes, a straight Grecian nose, a firm mouth, and large
ears. His whole expression told of energy, hard service, and--love of
whiskey. He wore top-boots, and a civilian’s overcoat, black, lined
with red, and beneath it the complete gray uniform of a Confederate
Lieutenant-Colonel, with its two stars on the side of the standing
collar, and the whole surmounted by the inevitable slouched hat of
the whole Southern race. His men were about half in blue and half in
butternut.
Mosby, after taking my horse and quietly examining my papers, presently
looked up with a peculiar gleam of satisfaction on his face.
“Ah, Captain B----! Inspector-General of ----’s Cavalry! Good-morning,
Captain! Glad to see you, sir! Indeed, there is but one I would prefer
to see this morning to yourself, and that is your commander. Were
you present, sir, the other day at the hanging of eight of my men as
guerillas at Front Royal?”
I answered him firmly, “I was present, sir; and, like you, have only to
regret that it was not the commander instead of his unfortunate men.”
This answer seemed to please Mosby, for he apparently expected a
denial. He assumed a grim smile, and directed Lieutenant Whiting to
search me.
My gold hunting-watch and chain, several rings, a set of shirt-studs
and sleeve-buttons, a Masonic pin, some coins, and about three hundred
dollars in greenbacks, with some letters and pictures of the dear
ones at home, and a small pocket Bible, were taken. My cavalry-boots,
worth about fifteen dollars, were apprised at six hundred and fifty
in Confederate money; my watch at three thousand dollars, and the
other articles in about the same proportion, including my poor servant
“Wash,” who was put in and raffled for at two thousand dollars, so
that my entire outfit made quite a respectable prize.
“Wash” was very indignant that he should be thought worth only
two thousand dollars, Confederate money, and informed them that
he considered himself unappreciated, and that, among other
accomplishments, he could make the best milk-punch of any man in the
Confederacy.
When all this was concluded, Mosby took me a little one side and
returned to me the pocket Bible, the letters and pictures, and the
Masonic pin, saying quietly as he did so, alluding to the latter with a
significant sign:
“You may as well keep this. It may be of use to you somewhere.”
I thanked him warmly for his kindness as I took his offered hand, and
really began to think Mosby almost a gentleman and a soldier, although
he had just robbed me in the most approved manner of modern highwaymen.
Immediate preparations were made for the long road to Richmond and
Libby Prison. A guard of fifteen men, in command of Lieutenant
Whiting, was detailed as our escort, and, accompanied by Mosby himself,
we started directly across the country, regardless of roads, in an
easterly direction towards the Shenandoah and the Blue Ridge.
We were now in company of nine more of our men, who had been taken
at different times, making eleven of our party in all, besides the
indignant contraband “Wash,” whom it was thought prudent also to send
to the rear for safe-keeping.
I had determined to escape if even half an opportunity should present
itself, and the boys were quick in understanding my purpose, and
intimating their readiness to risk their lives in the attempt. One of
them in particular, George W. M‘Cauley, commonly known as Mack, and
another one named Brown, afterwards proved themselves heroes.
At Howettsville on the Shenandoah, nine miles below Front Royal, we
bivouacked for the night in an old school-house.
Our party of eleven were assigned to one side of the lower floor of the
school-house, where we lay down side by side with our heads to the
wall and our feet nearly meeting the feet of the guard, who lay in the
same manner opposite us, with their heads to the other wall, except
three, who formed a relief guard for the sentry’s post at the door.
Above the head of the guard along the wall ran a low desk, on which
each man of them placed his carbine and revolver before disposing
himself for sleep.
A fire before the door dimly lighted the room; and the scene as the men
dropped gradually to sleep has stamped itself upon my memory like a
picture of war painted by Rembrandt.
I had taken care to place myself between M‘Cauley and Brown, and the
moment the rebels began to snore and the sentry to nod over his pipe,
we were in earnest and deep conversation.
M‘Cauley proposed to warn the others and make a simultaneous rush
for the carbines, and take our chances of stampeding the guard and
escaping. But on passing the word in a whisper along our line, only
three men were found willing to join us. As the odds were so largely
against us, it was in vain to urge the subject.
The march began at an early hour the next morning, and the route ran
directly up the Blue Ridge. We had emerged from the forest and ascended
about one-third of the height of the mountain, when the full valley
became visible, spread out like a map before us, showing plainly the
lines of our army, its routes of supply, its foraging parties out, and
my own camp at Front Royal as distinctly as if we stood in one of its
streets.
We now struck a wood-path running southward and parallel with the
ridge of the mountains, along which we travelled for hours, with this
wonderful panorama of forest and river, mountain and plain before us in
all the gorgeous beauty of the early autumn.
“This is a favorite promenade of mine,” said Mosby. “I love to see your
people sending out their almost daily raids after me. There comes one
of them now almost towards us. If you please, we will step behind the
point and see them pass. It may be the last sight you will have of your
old friends for some time,” and, looking in the direction he pointed,
I saw a squadron of my own regiment coming directly towards us on a
road running under the foot of the mountain, and apparently on some
foraging expedition down the valley. They passed within a half-mile of
us, under the mountain, while Mosby stood with folded arms on a rock
above them.
Before noon we reached the road running through Manassas Gap, which
was held by about one hundred of Mosby’s men, who signalled him as he
approached, and here, much to my regret, the great guerilla left us,
bidding me a kindly good-bye.
We were hurried through the gap and down the eastern side of the Blue
Ridge, and by three o’clock reached Chester Gap, after passing which we
descended into the valley and moved rapidly towards Sperryville on the
direct line to Richmond.
III
As we were far within the Confederate lines, our guard was reduced to
Lieutenant Whiting and three men, and our party of eleven prisoners
had seven horses among them. There was also a pack-horse carrying our
forage, rations, and some blankets. To the saddle of this pack-horse
were strapped two Spencer carbines, muzzle downward, with their
accoutrements complete, including two well-filled cartridge-boxes.
I called Mack’s attention to this fact as soon as the guard was
reduced, and he needed no second hint to comprehend its full
significance. He soon after dismounted, and when it came his turn to
mount again, he selected, apparently by accident, the poorest and most
broken-down horse of the party. After this he seemed to find it very
difficult to keep up, and in some mysterious way he actually succeeded
in laming his horse.
He then dropped back to the Lieutenant in charge and modestly asked
to exchange his lame horse for the pack-horse. He was particularly
winning in his address, and his request was at once granted, without
a suspicion of its object or a thought of the fatal carbines on the
pack-saddle. I used some little skill in diverting the attention of
the Lieutenant while the pack was readjusted; and as the rain had begun
to fall freely, no one of the guard was particularly alert.
I was presently gratified with the sight of Mack riding ahead on the
pack-horse, with the two carbines still strapped to the saddle, but
loosened, and well concealed by his heavy _poncho_, which he had spread
as protection from the rain. These carbines were seven-shooters, loaded
from the breech by simply drawing out from the hollow stock a spiral
spring, and dropping in the seven cartridges, one after the other,
and then inserting the spring again behind them, which coils as it is
pressed home, and by its elasticity forces the cartridges forward, one
at a time, into the barrel at the successive action of the lock.
I could follow the movements of Mack’s right arm underneath the
_poncho_. While he was guiding his horse with his left hand, looking
the other way, and chatting glibly with the other boys, I distinctly
saw him draw the springs from those carbines with his right hand and
hook them into the upper button-hole of his coat to support them,
while he dropped in the cartridges one after another, trotting his
horse at the time to conceal the noise of their click, and finally
forcing down the springs. Then the brave fellow glanced at me
triumphantly.
I nodded approval. Fearing that Mack might act too hastily, yet knowing
that any instant might lead to discovery, I rode carelessly across the
road to Brown, who was on foot, and, dismounting, asked him to tighten
my girth. Then I told him the situation as quietly as possible, and
requested him to ride up gradually beside Mack, to communicate with
him, and, at a signal from me, to seize one of the carbines and do his
duty as a soldier if he valued his liberty.
Brown was terribly frightened and trembled like a leaf, but went
immediately to his post, and I did not doubt would do his duty well.
I rode up again to the side of Lieutenant Whiting, and like an echo
from the past came back to me my words of yesterday, “Possibly my turn
may come to-morrow.”
I engaged him in conversation, and, among other things, spoke of the
prospect of sudden death as one always present in our army life, and
the tendency it had to either harden or soften the character according
to the quality of the individual.
He expressed the opinion which many hold, that a brutal man is made
more brutal by it, and a refined and cultivated man is softened.
We were on the immediate flank of Early’s army. His cavalry was all
around us. The road was much used. It was almost night. We had passed a
rebel picket but a mile back, and knew not how near another camp might
be.
The three rebel guards were riding in front of us and on our flanks.
Our party of prisoners was in the centre, and I was by the side of
Lieutenant Whiting, who acted as rear-guard, when we entered a small
copse of willows which for a moment covered the road. The hour was
propitious. I gave the fatal signal and instantly threw myself from my
saddle upon the Lieutenant, grasping him around the arms and dragging
him from his horse, in the hope of securing his revolver, capturing
him, and compelling him to pilot us outside of the rebel lines. At the
same instant Mack raised one of the loaded carbines, and, in less time
than I can write it, shot two of the guard in front of him, killing
them instantly; and then coolly turning in his saddle, and seeing
me struggling in the road with the Lieutenant, and the chances of
obtaining the revolver apparently against me, he raised the carbine the
third time; and as I strained the now desperate rebel to my breast,
with his livid face over my left shoulder, he shot him as directly
between the eyes as if firing at a target at ten paces distance.
Brown had only wounded his man in the side, and allowed him to escape.
Our position was now perilous. Not a man of us knew the country,
except in a general way. The rebel camps could not be far away; the
whole country would be alarmed in an hour, darkness was intervening;
and I doubted not that, before sundown, blood-hounds as well as men
would be on our track. One-half our party had already scattered,
panic-stricken, at the first alarm, and they were flying through the
country in every direction.
Only five remained, including the faithful Wash, who immediately showed
his practical qualities by searching the bodies of the slain, and
recovering, among other things, my gold hunting-watch from the person
of Lieutenant Whiting, and over eleven hundred dollars in greenbacks,
the proceeds, doubtless, of their various robberies of our men.
“Not quite nuff,” said Wash, showing his ivories from ear to ear. “Dey
vally dis nigger at two thousand dollars. I tink I ought to git de
money.”
We instantly mounted the best horses, and, well armed with carbines and
revolvers, struck directly for the mountain on our right; but knowing
that would be the first place we should be sought for, we soon changed
our direction to the south, and rode for hours as rapidly as we could
ride, directly towards the enemy. Before darkness came on we had made
thirty miles from the place of our escape; and then turning sharply up
the mountain, we rode as far as horses could climb, and, abandoning
them, pushed on through the whole night to the very summit of the Blue
Ridge. There we could see the rebel camp-fires in the valley, and at
break of dawn we could view their entire lines.
The length of this weary day, and the terrible pangs of hunger and
thirst which we suffered on this barren mountain, belong to the mere
common experience of a soldier’s life, and I need not describe them
here.
We had to go still farther south to avoid the scouts and pickets, and
finally struck the Shenandoah twenty miles to the rear of Early’s
entire army. There we built a raft, and floated by night forty miles
down that memorable stream, through his crafty pickets, until the
glorious old flag once more greeted us in welcome.
VII
THE FIRST TIME UNDER FIRE
_The Experience of a Raw Recruit_
When the President ordered the army to be filled up by recruiting,
drafting, or otherwise, and the peaceful moneyed men of the North
were roused to protect their persons by draining their pockets, I was
moved by love of country, of adventure, and three hundred dollars,
to offer myself as a recruit in the ---- Cavalry Regiment. So, under
the protection of a strong body of infantry, I and fifty others were
first jolted forty miles on a cattle-car, then marched twenty-five
miles to corps headquarters, then fifteen across country to our
brigadier-commander, and then back again near the place whence we
started to the camp of the regiment. After accompanying on foot the
movements of our mounted troops for the next three weeks, it suddenly
occurred to some member of the General’s staff that we might perhaps
be more efficient on horseback; and so we were transported back on the
cars to the Cavalry Depot at Washington to be provided with horses.
As we were all stout, active young fellows, we lost in these various
movements only fifteen men from disease, desertion, and capture by
guerillas, and only five or six others got disheartened, and escaped
home on our passage through the city; so in three weeks more thirty of
us, well-mounted, armed, and equipped, rejoined our command, and were
reported fit for duty.
About a fortnight after this the squadron was called in from picket,
and marched rapidly to unite with the regiment which was engaged with
the enemy. As we drew near, the firing became sharper and sharper,
and suddenly the captain commanding formed us in line, and carried us
forward on a trot. The rapidity of the movement, the jingling of the
accoutrements, the pressure of the horses and men on each side of me
caused a sensation of excitement rather pleasant than otherwise, and I
began to feel very brave and warlike.
“What is it?” asked I of the old soldier beside me. “Are we going to
charge them right off?”
I shall never forget the look of contemptuous wonder with which he
looked at me as he replied:
“I’ve been jest two years in this here regiment, and you’re the first
man I ever met who thought he was going a-charging without drawing
sabres. We’re agoing to be shot at, young feller. That’s all for the
present.”
There was something so cold-blooded in this that my enthusiasm was
suddenly checked. I asked no more questions until we were halted behind
a thin belt of woods. On the other side active skirmishing was going
on. Here I saw the old soldiers get their carbines in readiness, and
snap the caps to clear the tubes. The consciousness of the deadly
earnest in which the weapons were soon to be used turned me sick for
the moment, and made me think of home and of death. All the time
there were curious sounds in the air above our heads, as if large
night-beetles had mistaken us for lighted candles, and were whirring
around us; but as the others took no notice of them I hesitated to
speak. At last, seeing the old soldier who had answered me dodge down
quickly as one of these sounds was heard close above him, I ventured
to inquire what sort of bugs those were that made such a noise?
Indignation blended with scorn was visible in his countenance as he
satisfied my curiosity:
“Bugs! Do you think that I am such a skeery old woman as to be twisting
myself in my saddle ’cause a bug was flying at me? Them’s pisen, them
are! Them’s bullets!”
If he had told me they were fifteen-inch shells he couldn’t have
startled and astonished me more. Here I had been in imminent danger
for ten minutes, and I had not known anything about it. Instinctively
I debated whether I could get out of the way without being detected
and disgraced, and the same impulse turned my eyes towards my Captain.
There he sat, as cool as a cucumber, reading a man a lecture as to the
proper method of advancing his carbine, forcing two or three others to
dress themselves more accurately upon the right sergeant, and all the
while looking straight at me. There was no use in my trying to dodge
away then.