Peyton Farquhar was a well-to-do planter, of an old and highly respected
Alabama family. Being a slave-owner, and, like other slave-owners, a
politician, he was naturally an original secessionist and ardently devoted
to the Southern cause. Circumstances of an imperious nature, which it is
unnecessary to relate here, had prevented him from taking service with the
gallant army which had fought the disastrous campaigns ending with the
fall of Corinth, and he chafed under the inglorious restraint, longing for
the release of his energies, the larger life of the soldier, the
opportunity for distinction. That opportunity, he felt, would come, as it
comes to all in war time. Meanwhile he did what he could. No service was
too humble for him to perform in aid of the South, no adventure too
perilous for him to undertake if consistent with the character of a
civilian who was at heart a soldier, and who in good faith and without too
much qualification assented to at least a part of the frankly villainous
dictum that all is fair in love and war.
One evening, while Farquhar and his wife were sitting on a rustic bench
near the entrance to his grounds, a gray-clad soldier rode up to the gate
and asked for a drink of water. Mrs. Farquhar was only too happy to serve
him with her own white hands. While she was gone to fetch the water her
husband approached the dusty horseman and inquired eagerly for news from
the front.
"The Yanks are repairing the railroads," said the man, "and are getting
ready for another advance. They have reached the Owl Creek Bridge, put it
in order, and built a stockade on the north bank. The commandant has
issued an order, which is posted everywhere, declaring that any civilian
caught interfering with the railroad, its bridges, tunnels, or trains,
will be summarily hanged. I saw the order."
"How far is it to the Owl Creek Bridge?" Farquhar asked.
"About thirty miles."
"Is there no force on this side the creek?"
"Only a picket post half a mile out, on the railroad, and a single
sentinel at this end of the bridge."
"Suppose a man--a civilian and student of hanging--should elude the picket
post and perhaps get the better of the sentinel," said Farquhar, smiling,
"what could he accomplish?"
The soldier reflected. "I was there a month ago," he replied. "I observed
that the flood of last winter had lodged a great quantity of driftwood
against the wooden pier at this end of the bridge. It is now dry and would
burn like tow."
The lady had now brought the water, which the soldier drank. He thanked
her ceremoniously, bowed to her husband, and rode away. An hour later,
after nightfall, he repassed the plantation, going northward in the
direction from which he had come. He was a Federal scout.