Lieutenant Dorr, whose cool assurance was a prize that procured us all
the blessings possible. He could borrow frying-pans from the guards,
money from his brother Masons at headquarters, and I believe if we had
asked him to secure us a gun he would have charmed it out of the hand of
a sentinel on duty.
[Illustration: LIEUTENANTS E.E. SILL AND A.T. LAMSON.]
Lieutenant Edward E. Sill, of General Daniel Butterfield's staff, whom I
had met at Macon, during my absence had come to "Sorghum" from a
fruitless trip to Macon for exchange, and I had promised to join him
in an attempt to escape when he could secure a pair of shoes. On
November 29 our mess had felled a big pine-tree and had rolled into camp
a short section of the trunk, which a Tennessee officer was to split
into shingles to complete our hut, a pretty good cabin with an earthen
fireplace. While we were resting from our exertion, Sill appeared with
his friend Lieutenant A.T. Lamson of the 104th New York Infantry, and
reminded me of my promise. The prisoners always respected their parole
on wood-chopping expeditions, and went out and came in at the main
entrance. The guards were a particularly verdant body of back-country
militia, and the confusion of the parole system enabled us to practise
ruses. In our present difficulty we resorted to a new expedient and
forged a parole. The next day all three of us were quietly walking down
the guard-line on the outside. At the creek, where all the camp came for
water, we found Dorr and Byers and West, and calling to one of them in
the presence of the guard, asked for blankets to bring in spruce boughs
for beds. When the blankets came they contained certain haversacks,
cups, and little indispensable articles for the road. Falling back into
the woods, we secured a safe hiding-place until after dark. Just beyond
the village of Lexington we successfully evaded the first picket, being
warned of its presence by the smoldering embers in the road. A few
nights after this, having exposed ourselves and anticipating pursuit, we
pushed on until we came to a stream crossing the road. Up this we waded
for some distance, and secured a hiding-place on a neighboring hill. In
the morning we looked out upon mounted men and dogs, at the very point
where we had entered the stream, searching for our lost trail. We spent
two days during a severe storm of rain and sleet in a farm-barn where
the slaves were so drunk on applejack that they had forgotten us and
left us with nothing to eat but raw turnips. One night, in our search
for provisions, we met a party of negroes burning charcoal, who took us
to their camp and sent out for a supply of food. While waiting a
venerable "uncle" proposed to hold a prayer-meeting. So under the tall
trees and by the light of the smoldering coal-pits the old man prayed
long and fervently to the "bressed Lord and Massa Lincoln," and hearty
amens echoed through the woods. Besides a few small potatoes, one dried
goat ham was all our zealous friends could procure. The next day, having
made our camp in the secure depths of a dry swamp, we lighted the only
fire we allowed ourselves between Columbia and the mountains. The ham,
which was almost as light as cork, was riddled with worm-holes, and as
hard as a petrified sponge.
We avoided the towns, and after an endless variety of adventures
approached the mountains, cold, hungry, ragged, and foot-sore. On the
night of December 13 we were grouped about a guide-post, at a fork in
the road, earnestly contending as to which way we should proceed.
Lieutenant Sill was for the right, I was for the left, and no amount of
persuasion could induce Lieutenant Lamson to decide the controversy. I
yielded, and we turned to the right. After walking a mile in a state of
general uncertainty, we came to a low white farm-house standing very
near the road. It was now close upon midnight, and the windows were all
dark; but from a house of logs, partly behind the other, gleamed a
bright light. Judging this to be servants' quarters, two of us remained
back while Lieutenant Sill made a cautious approach. In due time a negro
appeared, advancing stealthily, and, beckoning to my companion and me,
conducted us in the shadow of a hedge to a side window, through which we
clambered into the cabin. We were made very comfortable in the glow of a
bright woodfire. Sweet potatoes were already roasting in the ashes, and
a tin pot of barley coffee was steaming on the coals. Rain and sleet had
begun to fall, and it was decided that after having been warmed and
refreshed we should be concealed in the barn until the following night.
Accordingly we were conducted thither and put to bed upon a pile of
corn-shucks high up under the roof. Secure as this retreat seemed, it
was deemed advisable in the morning to burrow several feet down in the
mow, so that the children, if by any chance they should climb so high,
might romp unsuspecting over our heads. We could still look out through
the cracks in the siding and get sufficient light whereby to study a map
of the Southern States, which had been brought us with our breakfast. A
luxurious repast was in preparation, to be eaten at the quarters before
starting; but a frolic being in progress, and a certain negro present of
questionable fidelity, the banquet was transferred to the barn. The
great barn doors were set open, and the cloth was spread on the floor by
the light of the moon. Certainly we had partaken of no such substantial
fare within the Confederacy. The central dish was a pork-pie, flanked by
savory little patties of sausage. There were sweet potatoes, fleecy
biscuits, a jug of sorghum, and a pitcher of sweet milk. Most delicious
of all was a variety of corn-bread having tiny bits of fresh pork baked
in it, like plums in a pudding.[17]
[Footnote 17: Major Sill contributes the following evidence of the
impression our trio made upon one, at least, of the piccaninnies who
looked on in the moonlight. The picture of Lieutenants Sill and Lamson
which appears on page 255 was enlarged from a small photograph taken on
their arrival at Chattanooga, before divesting themselves of the rags
worn throughout the long journey. Years afterward Major Sill gave one of
these pictures to Wallace Bruce of Florida, at one time United States
consul at Glasgow. In the winter of 1888-89 Mr. Bruce, at his Florida
home, was showing the photograph to his family when it caught the eye of
a colored servant, who exclaimed: "O Massa Bruce, I know those gen'men.
My father and mother hid 'em in Massa's barn at Pickensville and fed
'em; there was three of 'em; I saw 'em." This servant was a child barely
ten years old in 1864, and could have seen us only through the barn door
while we were eating our supper in the uncertain moonlight. Yet more
than twenty years thereafter he greeted the photograph of the ragged
Yankee officers with a flash of recognition.]
Filling our haversacks with the fragments, we took grateful leave of our
sable benefactors and resumed our journey, retracing our steps to the
point of disagreement of the evening before. Long experience in night
marching had taught us extreme caution. We had advanced along the new
road but a short way when we were startled by the barking of a
house-dog. Apprehending that something was moving in front of us, we
instantly withdrew into the woods. We had scarcely concealed ourselves
when two cavalrymen passed along, driving before them a prisoner. Aware
that it was high time to betake ourselves to the cross-roads and
describe a wide circle around the military station at Pickensville, we
first sought information. A ray of light was visible from a hut in the
woods, and believing from its humble appearance that it sheltered
friends, my companions lay down in concealment while I advanced to
reconnoiter. I gained the side of the house, and, looking through a
crack in the boards, saw, to my surprise, a soldier lying on his back
before the fire playing with a dog. I stole back with redoubled care.
Thoroughly alarmed by the dangers we had already encountered, we decided
to abandon the roads. Near midnight of December 16 we passed through a
wooden gate on a level road leading into the forest. Believing that the
lateness of the hour would secure us from further dangers, we resolved
to press on with all speed, when two figures with lighted torches came
suddenly into view. Knowing that we were yet unseen, we turned into the
woods and concealed ourselves behind separate trees at no great distance
from the path. Soon the advancing lights revealed two hunters, mere
lads, but having at their heels a pack of mongrel dogs, with which they
had probably been pursuing the coon or the possum. The boys would have
passed unaware of our presence, but the dogs, scurrying along with their
noses in the leaves, soon struck our trail, and were instantly yelping
about us. We had possessed ourselves of the name of the commanding
officer of the neighboring post at Pendleton, and advanced boldly,
representing ourselves to be his soldiers. "Then where did you get them
blue pantaloons?" they demanded, exchanging glances, which showed they
were not ignorant of our true character. We coolly faced them down and
resumed our march leisurely, while the boys still lingered undecided.
When out of sight we abandoned the road and fled at the top of our
speed. We had covered a long distance through forest and field before
we heard in our wake the faint yelping of the pack. Plunging into the
first stream, we dashed for some distance along its bed. Emerging on the
opposite bank, we sped on through marshy fields, skirting high hills and
bounding down through dry watercourses, over shelving stones and
accumulated barriers of driftwood; now panting up a steep ascent, and
now resting for a moment to rub our shoes with the resinous needles of
the pine; always within hearing of the dogs, whose fitful cries varied
in volume in accordance with the broken conformation of the intervening
country. Knowing that in speed and endurance we were no match for our
four-footed pursuers, we trusted to our precautions for throwing them
off the scent, mindful that they were but an ill-bred kennel and the
more easily to be disposed of. Physically we were capable of prolonged
exertion. Fainter and less frequent came the cry of the dogs, until,
ceasing altogether, we were assured of our escape.
At Oconee, on Sunday, December 18, we met a negro well acquainted with
the roads and passes into North Carolina, who furnished us information
by which we traveled for two nights, recognizing on the second objects
which by his direction we avoided (like the house of Black Bill
McKinney), and going directly to that of friendly old Tom Handcock. The
first of these two nights we struggled up the foot-hills and outlying
spurs of the mountains, through an uninhabited waste of rolling barrens,
along an old stage road, long deserted, and in places impassable to a
saddle-mule. Lying down before morning, high up on the side of the
mountain, we fell asleep, to be awakened by thunder and lightning, and
to find torrents of hail and sleet beating upon our blankets. Chilled to
the bone, we ventured to build a small fire in a secluded place. After
dark and before abandoning our camp, we gathered quantities of wood,
stacking it upon the fire, which when we left it was a wild tower of
flame lighting up the whole mountain-side in the direction we had come,
and seeming, in some sort, to atone for a long succession of shivering
days in tireless bivouac. We followed the same stage road through the
scattering settlement of Casher's Valley in Jackson County, North
Carolina. A little farther on, two houses, of hewn logs, with verandas
and green blinds, just fitted the description we had received of the
home of old Tom Handcock. Knocking boldly at the door of the farther
one, we were soon in the presence of the loyal mountaineer. He and his
wife had been sleeping on a bed spread upon the floor before the fire.
Drawing this to one side, they heaped the chimney with green wood, and
were soon listening with genuine delight to the story of our adventures.
After breakfast next day, Tom, with his rifle, led us by a back road to
the house of "'Squire Larkin C. Hooper," a leading loyalist, whom we met
on the way, and together we proceeded to his house. Ragged and forlorn,
we were eagerly welcomed at his home by Hooper's invalid wife and
daughters. For several days we enjoyed a hospitality given as freely to
utter strangers as if we had been relatives of the family.
[Illustration: WE ARRIVE AT HEADEN'S.]
Here we learned of a party about to start through the mountains for East
Tennessee, guided by Emanuel Headen, who lived on the crest of the Blue
Ridge. Our friend Tom was to be one of the party, and other refugees
were coming over the Georgia border, where Headen, better known in the
settlement as "Man Heady," was mustering his party. It now being near
Christmas, and the squire's family in daily expectation of a relative,
who was a captain in the Confederate army, it was deemed prudent for us
to go on to Headen's under the guidance of Tom. Setting out at sunset on
the 23d of December, it was late in the evening when we arrived at our
destination, having walked nine miles up the mountain trails over a
light carpeting of snow. Pausing in front of a diminutive cabin, through
the chinks of whose stone fireplace and stick chimney the whole interior
seemed to be red hot like a furnace, our guide demanded, "Is Man Heady
to hum?" Receiving a sharp negative in reply, he continued, "Well, can
Tom get to stay all night?" At this the door flew open and a skinny
woman appeared, her homespun frock pendent with tow-headed urchins.
"In course you can," she cried, leading the way into the cabin. Never
have I seen so unique a character as this voluble, hatched-faced,
tireless woman. Her skin was like yellow parchment, and I doubt if she
knew by experience what it was to be sick or weary. She had built the
stake-and-cap fences that divided the fields, and she boasted of the
acres she had plowed. The cabin was very small. Two bedsteads, with a
narrow alleyway between, occupied half the interior. One was heaped with
rubbish, and in the other slept the whole family, consisting of father,
mother, a daughter of sixteen, and two little boys. When I add that the
room contained a massive timber loom, a table, a spinning-wheel, and a
variety of rude seats, it will be understood that we were crowded
uncomfortably close to the fire. Shrinking back as far as possible from
the blaze, we listened in amused wonder to the tongue of this seemingly
untamed virago, who, nevertheless, proved to be the kindest-hearted of
women. She cursed, in her high, pitched tones, for a pack of fools, the
men who had brought on the war. Roderic Norton, who lived down the
mountain, she expressed a profane desire to "stomp through the turnpike"
because at some time he had stolen one of her hogs, marked, as to the
ear, with "two smooth craps an' a slit in the left." Once only she had
journeyed into the low country, where she had seen those twin marvels,
steam cars and brick chimneys. On this occasion she had driven a heifer
to market, making a journey of forty miles, walking beside her horse
and wagon, which she took along to bring back the corn-meal received in
payment for the animal. Charged by her husband to bring back the heifer
bell, and being denied that musical instrument by the purchaser, it
immediately assumed more importance to her mind than horse, wagon, and
corn-meal. Baffled at first, she proceeded to the pasture in the gray of
the morning, cornered the cow, and cut off the bell, and, in her own
picturesque language, "walked through the streets of Walhalla cussin'."
Rising at midnight she would fall to spinning with all her energy. To
us, waked from sleep on the floor by the humming of the wheel, she
seemed by the light of the low fire like a witch in a sunbonnet, darting
forward and back.
We remained there several days, sometimes at the cabin and sometimes at
a cavern in the rocks such as abound throughout the mountains, and which
are called by the natives "rock houses." Many of the men at that time
were "outliers"--that is, they camped in the mountain fastnesses,
receiving their food from some member of the family. Some of these men,
as now, had their copper stills in the rock houses, while others, more
wary of the recruiting sergeant, wandered from point to point, their
only furniture a rifle and a bed-quilt. On December 29, we were joined
at the cavern by Lieutenant Knapp and Captain Smith, Federal officers,
who had also made their way from Columbia, and by three refugees from
Georgia, whom I remember as Old Man Tigue and the two Vincent boys.
During the night our party was to start across the mountains for
Tennessee. Tom Handcock was momentarily expected to join us. Our guide
was busy with preparations for the journey. The night coming on icy
cold, and a cutting wind driving the smoke of the fire into our granite
house, we abandoned it at nine o'clock and descended to the cabin.
Headen and his wife had gone to the mill for a supply of corn-meal.
Although it was time for their return, we were in nowise alarmed by
their absence, and formed a jovial circle about the roaring chimney.
About midnight came a rap on the door. Thinking it was Tom Handcock and
some of his companions, I threw it open with an eager "Come in, boys!"
The boys began to come in, stamping the snow from their boots and
rattling their muskets on the floor, until the house was full, and yet
others were on guard without and crowding the porch. "Man Heady" and his
wife were already prisoners at the mill, and the house had been picketed
for some hours awaiting the arrival of the other refugees, who had
discovered the plot just in time to keep out of the toils. Marshaled in
some semblance of military array, we were marched down the mountain,
over the frozen ground, to the house of old Roderic Norton. The Yankee
officers were sent to an upper room, while the refugees were guarded
below, under the immediate eyes of the soldiery. Making the best of our
misfortune, our original trio bounced promptly into a warm bed, which
had been recently deserted by some members of the family, and secured a
good night's rest.
Lieutenant Knapp, who had imprudently indulged in frozen chestnuts on
the mountain-side, was attacked with violent cramps, and kept the
household below stairs in commotion all night humanely endeavoring to
assuage his agony. In the morning, although quite recovered, he
cunningly feigned a continuance of his pains, and was left behind in the
keeping of two guards, who, having no suspicion of his deep designs,
left their guns in the house and went out to the spring to wash. Knapp,
instantly on the alert, possessed himself of the muskets, and breaking
the lock of one, by a powerful effort he bent the barrel of the other,
and dashed out through the garden. His keepers, returning from the
spring, shouted and rushed indoors only to find their disabled pieces.
They joined our party later in the day, rendering a chapfallen account
of their detached service.
We had but a moderate march to make to the headquarters of the
battalion, where we were to spend the night. Our guards we found kindly
disposed toward us, but bitterly upbraiding the refugees, whom they
saluted by the ancient name of Tories. Lieutenant Cogdill, in command of
the expedition, privately informed us that his sympathies were entirely
ours, but as a matter of duty he should guard us jealously while under
his military charge. If we could effect our escape thereafter we had
only to come to his mountain home and he would conceal us until such
time as he could despatch us with safety over the borders. These
mountain soldiers were mostly of two classes, both opposed to the war,
but doing home-guard duty in lieu of sterner service in the field.
Numbers were of the outlier class, who, wearied of continual hiding in
the laurel brakes, had embraced this service as a compromise. Many were
deserters, some of whom had coolly set at defiance the terms of their
furloughs, while others had abandoned the camps in Virginia, and,
versed in mountain craft, had made their way along the Blue Ridge and
put in a heroic appearance in their native valleys.
That night we arrived at a farm-house near the river, where we found
Major Parker, commanding the battalion, with a small detachment billeted
upon the family. The farmer was a gray-haired old loyalist, whom I shall
always remember, leaning on his staff in the middle of the kitchen,
barred out from his place in the chimney-corner by the noisy circle of
his unbidden guests. Major Parker was a brisk little man, clad in
brindle jeans of ancient cut, resplendent with brass buttons. Two small
piercing eyes, deep-set beside a hawk's-beak nose, twinkled from under
the rim of his brown straw hat, whose crown was defiantly surmounted by
a cock's feather. But he was exceedingly jolly withal, and welcomed the
Yankees with pompous good-humor, despatching a sergeant for a jug of
applejack, which was doubtless as inexpensive to the major as his other
hospitality. Having been a prisoner at Chicago, he prided himself on his
knowledge of dungeon etiquette and the military courtesies due to our
rank.
We were awakened in the morning by high-pitched voices in the room
below. Lieutenant Sill and I had passed the night in neighboring caverns
of the same miraculous feather-bed. We recognized the voice of the
major, informing some culprit that he had just ten minutes to live, and
that if he wished to send any dying message to his wife or children then
and there was his last opportunity; and then followed the tramping of
the guards as they retired from his presence with their victim. Hastily
dressing, we hurried down to find what was the matter. We were welcomed
with a cheery good-morning from the major, who seemed to be in the
sunniest of spirits. No sign of commotion was visible. "Step out to the
branch, gentlemen; your parole of honor is sufficient; you'll find
towels--been a prisoner myself." And he restrained by a sign the
sentinel who would have accompanied us. At the branch, in the yard, we
found the other refugees trembling for their fate, and learned that
Headen had gone to the orchard in the charge of a file of soldiers with
a rope. While we were discussing the situation and endeavoring to calm
the apprehensions of the Georgians, the executioners returned from the
orchard, our guide marching in advance and looking none the worse for
the rough handling he had undergone. The brave fellow had confided his
last message and been thrice drawn up toward the branch of an
apple-tree, and as many times lowered for the information it was
supposed he would give. Nothing was learned, and it is probable he had
no secrets to disclose or conceal.