RODNEY IS ASTONISHED.
Rodney Gray had promised himself no end of pleasurable excitement when
his sailor cousin returned to take command of a trading boat on the
river, for he had made up his mind that he would accompany Jack wherever
he went. He was as well satisfied as Ned Griffin was that the fall of
Vicksburg and Port Hudson would be the signal for instant and increased
activity among the guerillas who infested the country as far up as New
Madrid, and that picking up cotton along the river with an unarmed boat
would be a hazardous undertaking.
The Mississippi is the most tortuous of rivers, and there is none in the
world better adapted to guerilla warfare. Frequently the distance a
steamer has to traverse in going around a bend is from twelve to thirty
times greater than it is in a direct line across the country. The great
bend at Napoleon is a notable example. A steamboat has to run fifteen
miles to get around it, while the neck of land that makes the bend is
but a mile wide. This was a famous guerilla station during the war until
Commander Selfridge cut a ditch across the neck and turned the
Mississippi into a new channel. A band of guerillas, with a howitzer or
two mounted in wagons, would fire into a transport at the upper end of
the bend (they seldom troubled armed steamers), and failing to sink or
disable her there, would travel leisurely across the country and be
ready to try it again when the steamboat arrived at the lower end. What
made this sort of warfare particularly exasperating was the fact that
the guerillas did not live along the river, but came from remote points,
fifty or a hundred miles back in the country. If a gunboat hove in sight
they would take to their heels; and if the gunboat landed a company or
two of small-arm men and burned the nearest dwellings, as all gunboats
were ordered to do in cases like the one we are supposing, the chances
were that they punished people who were no more to blame for what the
guerillas did than you or your chum.
The majority of the men who carried on this style of fighting were
worthless fellows, like Lambert and Moseley, who had everything to make
and nothing to lose by it; and we may anticipate events a little by
saying that they came to look upon trading boats as their legitimate
prey. If there was a fortune for the man who was lucky enough to get a
permit to trade in cotton, there was also plenty of danger for him.
Rodney would have entered upon this adventurous life with the same
enthusiasm he exhibited when he set out for the North to aid in “driving
the Yankees out of Missouri,” but there was little prospect that he
would ever see any of it now that Jack had decided to remain at home
with his mother. To do him justice he did not mourn over his
disappointment, or the possible loss of his father’s cotton, as he did
over the dire misfortune that had befallen his cousin Marcy.
“I wish I stood in his shoes this minute, and that he stood in mine,”
Rodney said to his mother more than once. “I could stand the hard knocks
he is likely to receive, but Marcy can’t.”
Remembering that Jack had promised to send “fuller particulars” when he
felt more in the humor for writing, Rodney spent more time in riding to
and from the provost marshal’s office than he did in managing his
plantation, but that official had received no letters for him. In the
meantime the situation at Vicksburg grew more encouraging every day.
Severe battles had been fought and the soldiers of the Union, always
victorious, had gained a footing below Vicksburg where there was no
water to interfere with their movements, as there was in the inundated
Yazoo country, and Colonel Grierson, at the head of seventeen hundred
cavalry, was raiding through the State in the direction of Baton Rouge,
stealing nothing but fresh horses and food for his men, but thrashing
the rebels whenever he met them (except on one occasion when he lost
seven hundred men in a single engagement), cutting railroads and
telegraph lines in every direction, and destroying commissary trains and
depots by the score. It was this famous raid which first “demonstrated
that the Confederacy was but a shell, strong on the outside by reason of
its organized armies, but hollow within and destitute of resources to
sustain, or of strength to recruit these armies.”
“They say he’s coming sure enough,” remarked Ned Griffin one day,
“although in some places he has had to ride over wide stretches of
country where the water stood six feet deep on a level. That’s pluck.
What are you going to do with our exemption bacon?”
“And our horses,” added Rodney. “If the Yanks are hungry when they reach
this plantation, they can take the exemption bacon and welcome. I’d much
rather they should have it than it should go to feed rebels. But our
horses they can’t have; or at least they’ll have to hunt for them before
they get them. Where is Grierson now?”
“They’ve got the report in Mooreville that he was last heard from up
about Port Hudson,” replied Ned.
“Then we’ve no time to lose,” said Rodney. “His scouts, of course, are a
long way ahead of him, and may be here any hour. Let’s take care of the
horses the first thing we do. There’s nothing else on your place or mine
worth stealing, unless it is the bacon.”
The boys were none too soon in looking out for their riding nags, for
the expected scouts arrived the next morning about breakfast time, and
although Rodney had seen some dusty, dirty, and ragged soldiers in his
day, he told himself that these rough-riding Yankees, who threw down his
bars and rode into the yard as though they had a perfect right there,
would bear off the palm. They were a jovial, good-natured lot, however,
and well they might be; for their long raid from La Grange, Tenn., was
nearly finished. Another night would see them safely quartered among
their friends in Baton Rouge.
“Hallo, Johnny,” was the way in which the foremost soldier greeted
Rodney, who advanced to meet the raiders. “Where’s your well or spring
or whatever it is you get drinking water from? Any graybacks around
here? Trot out your guns and things of that sort, and save us the
trouble of looking for them.”
“The well is around there,” replied Rodney, jerking his thumb over his
shoulder. “And there’s nothing in the house more dangerous than a
case-knife. If you don’t believe it, look and see.”
This invitation was quite superfluous, for some of the raiders, who had
ridden around to the well and dismounted, were in the house almost
before Rodney ceased speaking. He heard their heavy footsteps in the
hall in which his black housekeeper had just finished laying the
breakfast, and when he turned about they had cleared the table of the
victuals they found on it, and one was in the act of draining the
coffee-pot.
“Where are all your horses, Johnny?” asked the latter, as he put down
his empty cup. “Mine’s played out, and I must have another.”
“You’ll not find him on this plantation,” was the reply. “General
Breckenridge’s men passed through here not long ago, and that means that
there are few horses in the country. If yours has given out you will
have to take a mule or walk.”
“How does it come that you are not in the army?” inquired another, with
his mouth full of bacon and corn pone.
“I’ve been there, but you Yanks whipped me so bad I was glad to get
home.”
By this time the lieutenant in command of the troopers had made himself
known, and to him Rodney presented his papers, which included his
discharge, standing pass from the provost marshal, and his permit to
trade within the Union lines. As he handed the papers to the officer his
attention was drawn to two persons near him, who were by far the most
dilapidated specimens of humanity Rodney had ever seen. Every line of
their faces was indicative of exposure and suffering, and their
clothing, what little they wore, looked as though it might fall in
pieces at any moment. They were plainly fit candidates for the hospital,
and it was a mystery to Rodney how they managed to keep the heavy
infantry muskets which rested across their saddles from slipping out of
their grasp. By the time he made these observations the lieutenant had
read the first line of the pass, which happened to be the first paper he
opened, and when he saw the name it bore he looked at one of the
dilapidated specimens of whom we have spoken and said, with a grin:
“If you have been telling a straight story, Johnny, how does it come
that you don’t recognize your cousin when you see him standing before
your face and eyes?”
Rodney Gray was utterly confounded. He looked at the officer and then at
the person to whom the words were addressed, but he could not speak
until he heard the reply given in a familiar voice:
“I have told you nothing but the truth, sir, and if that is Rodney Gray
he will bear me out in everything I have said.”
The sick and exhausted stranger reeled about on his mule for an instant,
his musket fell to the ground, and he would have followed headlong if
Rodney had not sprung forward and received him in his arms. He eased him
tenderly to the ground, supported his head on one knee, and looked up at
the lieutenant.
“Who is it?” he asked in a husky voice.
“He says his name is Marcy Gray, that he lives in North Carolina, and is
an escaped conscript,” was the answer. “That’s all I know about him.
Captain Forbes picked him and his partner up somewhere about Enterprise,
and they’ve been with us ever since.”
Rodney took one more glance at the white face on his knee, and then
raised the limp, almost lifeless form in his arms, carried it into the
house, and laid it on his own bed.
“I said you could never stand the hard knocks that would be given to a
conscript, and I reckon you’ve found it out, haven’t you?” were the
first words he spoke.
But Marcy—Rodney began to believe now that it was really his cousin
Marcy who had come to him in this strange way, though he never would
have suspected it if the officer had not told him so—did not even
whisper a reply. He never moved a finger, but lay motionless where
Rodney had placed him. He was so still, his face was so white, and his
faint breath came at so long intervals that Rodney feared he was already
past such help as he could give him; and it was not until half a bucket
of water had been dashed into his face, a cupful at a time, that he
began showing any signs of life. Then he put his arms around his
cousin’s neck and drew the latter’s tanned face close to his own white
one; but it was very little strength he could put into the embrace.
“O Rodney, I am so tired,” he said, in a scarcely audible whisper.
“It’s a wonder you are not dead,” replied his cousin in a choking voice.
“I never thought to see you again, but you are all right now. Every Yank
in this country is my friend.”
“Then look out for Charley, and don’t let them hurt him,” whispered
Marcy, for he was too weak to talk. “They haven’t been very civil to us,
for they think we are spies sent out to draw them into ambush.”
“You look like it, I must say,” exclaimed Rodney. “But who is Charley?”
“Charley Bowen, my partner; the man who escaped when I did, and who has
stuck to me like a brother through it all. He knows the country, and if
it hadn’t been for him I wouldn’t have got ten miles from the stockade.
Give me a big drink of water, and then go out and say a good word for
him. Bring him in if they will let you.”
After Marcy had drained the cup that was held to his lips Rodney
hastened out to see what he could do for Charley, and to secure his
papers, which were worth more than their weight in gold to him. He found
them on the gallery where the lieutenant had left them, and the
lieutenant himself was in the back yard looking on while one of the
soldiers shifted his saddle from his broken-down beast to the back of
one of Rodney’s plough-mules, all of which had been brought in from the
field.
“A fair exchange is no robbery, Johnny,” said the officer, as Rodney
approached him. “And besides, you get the butt end of this trade. My
mule is bigger than yours, and will be better and stronger after he has
had a rest and a chance to fill out.”
“What are you going to do with those conscripts?” inquired Rodney.
“I haven’t orders to do anything with them,” answered the lieutenant.
“But of course I am expected to take them to Baton Rouge and turn them
over to the provost marshal.”
“Why can’t you leave them here with me? I will look out for them.”
“And you a discharged rebel? You’re a cool one, Johnny.”
“But that boy in the house is my cousin, and as strong for the Union as
you or any man in your squad. Besides, he is ill and can’t go any
farther, and he wants his partner to stay with him. If the provost
marshal doesn’t tell you that I am all right with the authorities in
Baton Rouge, you can come back here and get him.”
“You are very kind; but we are not making any excursions into the
country just for the fun of the thing. We have ridden far enough
already. What’s the matter out there, Allen?”
“Big dust up the road, sir,” replied the soldier who had been left at
the bars. “Coming fast too, sir.”
“Boots and saddles!” exclaimed the lieutenant, throwing himself on the
back of Rodney’s plough-mule. “Sergeant, form skirmish-line among the
trees to the right of the house.”
“You’re taking trouble for nothing,” said Rodney. “There are no rebs
about here. That’s a Yankee scouting party from Baton Rouge.”
The lieutenant didn’t know whether it was or not, and so, like a good
soldier, he made ready to fight, and to send word to his superior in the
rear if he found himself confronted by a force of the enemy too strong
for him to withstand. He kept his eye on the sentry, who had faced his
horse toward the bars in readiness to dash through them and join his
comrades if the rapidly approaching squad proved to be rebels, but he
did not retreat, nor did he discharge his carbine, which he held at
“arms port.” He stuck to his post until the foremost of the squad rode
into view around a turn in the road and then called out:
“Who comes there?”
Rodney did not hear the reply, and the challenged parties were concealed
from his sight by trees and bushes; but he knew they were Federal
troopers when he heard the sentry continue:
“Halt! Dismount! Advance one friend and give an account of yourself.”
Then he waved his hand toward the house as a signal for some officer to
come out and receive the report.
The lieutenant answered the signal and Rodney went with him; and when he
reached the bars whom should he see standing in the road talking to the
sentry but the corporal of the —th Michigan cavalry, who seemed to have
a way of turning up most opportunely. He shook hands with Rodney, and
told the lieutenant that he had been sent out with a few men to see if
he could learn anything about Colonel Grierson, who ought to have been
safe in Baton Rouge two or three days ago.
“Judging by their looks, and the way they eat and trade mules, these are
some of Grierson’s men,” said Rodney.
The lieutenant corroborated the statement, and said that the reason they
had been so long delayed was because they were obliged to pass through
miles of bottom land where the water was almost swimming deep. The
colonel was but a short distance in the rear, and might be expected to
come along any moment. Then he plied the corporal with questions as to
what Grant and Porter were doing at Vicksburg, and it was not until his
patience was well-nigh exhausted that Rodney saw opportunity to say a
word for himself. The instant there was a pause in the conversation he
broke in with:
“Now, corporal, be kind enough to tell the lieutenant how I stand with
the provost marshal.”
“All right in every spot and place,” replied the soldier quickly.
“What’s the matter? Have these raiders been stealing something?”
“Oh, I don’t mind the little grub they ate, or the mules they took in
exchange for their crow-baits,” answered Rodney. “They’re welcome to
everything on the place if they will only leave my cousin with me. Is my
word good when I say that I will be responsible for his safe keeping?”
“Your word is always good,” said the corporal, who was much astonished.
“But how came your cousin back here? I thought he went to New Orleans to
ship on a cotton boat.”
“But this is another one—his brother Marcy, who came here with these
Yanks. They’ll kill him if they try to take him any farther, and I want
him left here with me. His partner, too.”
“Well, if this isn’t a little ahead of anything I ever heard of I
wouldn’t say so,” exclaimed the corporal. “Where did you pick him up,
lieutenant?”
The latter explained briefly, as we shall do presently, adding that he
didn’t think he had any right to grant Rodney’s request.
“I didn’t really suppose you had, sir,” said the corporal. “But I was
going to make a suggestion. I will ride on until I meet the colonel—that
is what my orders oblige me to do—and when I see a chance I’ll say—have
you got any grub in the house?”
“Plenty of it, such as it is,” answered Rodney.
“It’s good enough for a hungry soldier, I’ll be bound. Tell your
housekeeper to dish up enough for the colonel and three or four of his
staff, and I’ll ride on and ask him if he’s hungry. He can’t well help
it after such a raid as he has made, and then I’ll tell him that I know
where he can get a good breakfast and bring him right here to your
house. After he has eaten his fill he’ll be good-natured, and then you
and I will talk to him about your cousin.”
The lieutenant laughed heartily as he listened to this programme. “It’s
a very ingenious arrangement, corporal,” said he, as the
non-commissioned officer beckoned to his men, who were still waiting at
the place where they had been halted by the sentry. “And I think it
ought to succeed. But as I can’t wait for the colonel without disobeying
my orders, which are to scout on ahead, what shall I do with the
conscripts?”
“Leave a guard with them,” suggested Rodney.
“I suppose I might do that, and since the colonel is a volunteer like
myself, I’ll risk it. If he were a regular I wouldn’t think of it for a
moment.”
“Another cousin!” muttered the corporal, as he swung himself into his
saddle. “How many more of your family are going to fall down on you out
of the clouds? It’s the strangest thing I ever heard of.”
“And you’ll never hear the like again,” answered Rodney. “But I do not
look for any more. Two cousins are all I have.”
The corporal laughed and rode on up the road to meet the expected
raiders, and the lieutenant told his sergeant to call in the men who
were still holding their positions on the skirmish-line which had been
formed when that warning dust was seen rising above the tree-tops. He
told Charley Bowen that he could remain behind to receive orders from
Colonel Grierson when he arrived, and detailed two troopers to keep
watch on him and Marcy Gray.
“This isn’t at all regular; I ought to take those conscripts to Baton
Rouge, and I am soldier enough to know it,” said the lieutenant,
addressing himself to Rodney. “But you seem to be all right with that
corporal, and if you and he can make it all right with Colonel Grierson
I shall be glad of it. I have heard your cousin’s story and should be
glad to listen to the additions I know you can make to it, but haven’t
time just now.”
“It confirms one’s faith in human nature to meet a kind-hearted soldier
now and then,” said Rodney, who knew that the lieutenant could have
compelled the conscripts to go on with him if he had been so disposed.
“I am very grateful to you, and will do you a good turn if I get half a
chance. Whenever you scout through this country drop in and have a bowl
of milk. I can’t offer you any to-day, for your men have made away with
all I had. Good-by. This is what I get by befriending escaped
prisoners,” he added mentally, as he started on a run for the house. “If
I hadn’t taken so much trouble to help that corporal where would Marcy
be now?”
As it was, he was lying at his ease on Rodney’s bed instead of riding
along the dusty road toward Baton Rouge, reeling in his seat from very
weakness. Charley Bowen sat close by holding his hand, and the two
troopers who had been detailed to guard them were lounging on the
gallery just outside the window. The hand that rested in Bowen’s palm
was not white like its owner’s face, but very much swollen and
discolored, and Rodney noticed it at once.
“What’s the matter?” he inquired. “How did you get hurt?”
“He was triced up by the thumbs till he fainted,” replied Bowen,
speaking for his comrade.
Rodney’s face turned all sorts of colors.
“General Lee himself couldn’t make me believe that the punishment was
deserved,” said he through his teeth. “That boy drilled alongside of me
for almost four years at the Barrington Military Academy, and a better
soldier never shouldered a musket. He knows more than the man who triced
him up. What was it done for?”
“Because Marcy didn’t shoot a Yankee prisoner whose hand was inside the
deadline,” replied Bowen.
“And his hand wasn’t inside the deadline,” said Marcy in a faint voice.
“It was under the rail which marked the line, and the poor fellow was
trying to get hold of an old tin cup that someone had thrown there, so
that he could dig a hole in the ground to protect him from the weather.
If I had been a volunteer and had shot that man, I would have received a
month’s leave of absence.”
Rodney sat down on the edge of the bed and looked at the two troopers
who were leaning half-way through the window, listening. His face showed
that he could hardly believe the story even if his cousin did tell it.
“There’s a man in our company who escaped from Andersonville, and he
declares that such things really happened,” said one of the soldiers.
“Besides being starved to death our fellows are shot without any
provocation at all.”
“And because you wouldn’t murder that Yankee somebody triced you up by
the thumbs,” said Rodney in a voice that was choked with anger. “Who
reported you?”
“The sentry in the next box, who saw it all,” replied Marcy. “He tried
to get a shot at the man himself, but the prisoner’s friends closed
around him and hustled him out of sight; and that made the sentry so
angry that he reported me before we were relieved from post.”
“How can the rebels hope to win in this war when they torture their own
men for not committing murder?” exclaimed Rodney hotly.
“Why, I thought you were a rebel,” said one of the soldiers at the
window.
“So I was,” answered Rodney honestly. “But, as I have said a hundred
times before, I know when I have had enough. When I was whipped I quit.”
Both the troopers extended their hands, and after Rodney had shaken them
cordially he walked over and shook hands with Charley Bowen, and tried
to thank him for what he had done for Marcy; but his voice grew husky
and finally broke, and so he gave it up as a task beyond his powers.
“I am a Georgia cracker,” said Bowen, “and the boys used to call me
‘goober-grabbler’; but I know a good fellow when I see him, and I don’t
want any thanks for doing for your cousin what I am sure he would have
done for me if he had known the country as well as I do. He assured me
that we could find friends if I would guide him to Baton Rouge, and I
was doing the best I could at it when we fell in with Captain Forbes.”
“I know I should never have seen Marcy again if it hadn’t been for you,
because he told me so, and you are more than welcome to a share in
everything the war has left us. Now I must tear myself away for a few
minutes, for I have work to do. Don’t let Marcy talk; he is too weak.”
So saying Rodney hastened from the room to order Colonel Grierson’s
breakfast, and to write a short note to his mother, requesting that the
only doctor in the country for miles around who had been able to keep
out of the army might be sent to his plantation as soon as he could be
found, to prescribe for Marcy Gray, who had come to him in a most
remarkable manner. He didn’t stop to explain how, for he hadn’t time;
but he made his mother understand that Marcy was in need of prompt
medical attention. Rodney knew that his father would at once answer the
note in person, and when he arrived he could tell him as much of his
cousin’s story as he knew himself.
The note was sent off by one of the negroes, who was quickly summoned
from the field to take it; and after Rodney had satisfied himself that
the colonel’s breakfast was coming on as well as he could desire, and
had given instructions regarding a second meal that was to be made ready
for the conscripts and their guards, he went back to Marcy.