A CAMPAIGN OF PLOTS.
Meanwhile, there were curious events passing and coming to pass on the
seven hills upon which the proud young capital of the proud young
Confederacy stood. Rome, in her most imperial days, never dreamed of the
scenic glories that Richmond, like a spoiled beauty, was hardly
conscious of holding as her dower. Indeed, such is the necromantic
mastery of the passion of the beautiful that, once standing on the
glorious hill, that commands the James for twenty miles--twenty miles of
such varied loveliness of color, configuration, and _mis en scène_, that
the purple distances of Naples seem common to it--standing there, I say,
one day, when the sword had long been rusting in the scabbard, and the
memory of those who raised it in revolt had faded from all minds save
those who wanted office--this historian thought that, had it been his
lot to be born in that lovely spot, he, too, would have fought for State
caprices--just as a gallant man will take up the quarrel of beauty,
right or wrong!
Thoughts of this sort filled Barney Moore's mind too, that delicious
September afternoon as he stood gazing dreamily down the river, toward
that vague morning-land of the sun's rising, where his mind saw the long
lines of blue his eyes ached to rest on. Barney had left the kindly roof
where he had been nursed back to vigor. He had quit it in a fashion that
left a rankling sorrow in his grateful heart. Vincent had represented to
Jack the inconvenience it would be, the peril, rather, for him to assume
the guardianship of so many enemies of the Confederacy. Scores of the
old families of the city were under the ban simply because they had
pleaded for deliberation before deciding on the secession ordinance. The
Atterburys had their enemies too. It was pointed out that Vincent and
Rosa had been educated in the North; that Mrs. Atterbury had spent many
of her recent summers there. Their devotion to the Confederacy must be
shown by deeds. It was true they had given twenty thousand dollars to
the cause, but what was that to threefold millionaires? General Lee,
their kinsman, had shaken his Socratic head solemnly when Rosa, at the
War Department, told him, as an excellent joke, the strange chance that
had brought Vincent's college chum and his family under the kind
Rosedale roof.
Richard Perley was, therefore, deputized to rescue Barney from his false
position and give him a chance for exchange when the time came. He
journeyed up to Richmond, and, one day, laid these facts before Barney,
who instantly saw his friend's dilemma, and at once set about inventing
a _ruse_ that should extricate him, without mortifying the kind people
who had befriended him. When he was able to be about, he feigned a
desire to go to his friends in Arrowfield County, south of the James,
and was bidden hearty Godspeed. Then, with funds supplied by Jack, he
gained admittance to a modest house far out on Main Street, where the
city merges into the country. They were simple people, and his thrilling
tale of being a refugee from Harper's Ferry was plausible enough to be
accepted by more skeptical people than the Gannats.
Day after day Barney skirted furtively about the uncompromising walls of
Libby and Castle Thunder, where once or twice he had gone with his hosts
to make a mental diagram of the place for future use. Little by little
he became familiar with Richmond, which, like a new bride, gave the
visitor welcome to admire her splendid spouse, the Confederate
government. He learned all the plots of the prison, and became the
confidant of Letitia Lanview, known to every exile in Richmond as the
friend of the suffering--St. Veronica she was called--after a poem
dedicated to her by a young Harvard graduate, rescued by her
perseverance from death in Libby Prison. With this lady he drove all
about the environs of Richmond, and several times far out toward the
meditated route of flight, in order that he might be able to lead the
bewildered refugees. He got the whole landscape by heart, and could have
led a battalion over it in the dark. Then he passed days wandering over
the Libby Hill, down in the bed of the "Rockets," as the bed of the
James was known in those days; he learned the ground to the very beat of
the patrols that guarded the wretched prisoners in the towering
shambles. One whole night, too, he spent in marking the course of the
guards as they changed in two-hour reliefs. With his facts well
collected he visited Mrs. Lanview, and at last he was confronted by
Butler's agent. This agent was a middle-aged man, who had evidently once
been very handsome, but dissipation had left pitiable traces upon his
fine features, and his once large, open eyes, that perplexingly
suggested some one Barney tried in vain to recall--vainly? The man
didn't say much in the lady's presence, but when the two were in the
open air, facing toward the center of the town, he divulged a good deal
that surprised Barney.
"You are from Acredale, young man. I lived there when I was younger than
I am now. My name? People call me a good many names. I don't mind at
all, so that I have rum enough and a bed and a bite to eat. No man can
have more than that, my boy. I am plain Dick Jones now. It's an easy
name, and plenty of the same in the land; and if I should die suddenly
there would be lots o' folks to feel sorry, eh? But as you are from
Acredale I don't mind telling you that it is Elisha Boone that foots the
bill. Butler is a friend of Boone's, and he has given me authority to
summon all the troops within reach to my aid. My business is to carry
young Wes Boone to Fort Monroe. Butler doesn't know that. He thinks I am
spying Jeff Davis and piping for the prisoners. He didn't say that he
wanted me to kill Davis, but if we could carry him to Fort Monroe, my
boy, there'd be about a million dollars swag to divide! How does that
strike you?"
"It doesn't strike me at all. I think it is for the interest of the
Union that Davis should be where he is. He is vain, arrogant, silly, and
dull. He will alone wreck the rebel cause if he is given time. There
couldn't be a greater misfortune for the North than to have Davis
displaced by some one of real ability, such as Stephens, Lee, Benjamin,
Mason, Breckenridge, or, in fact, any of the men identified with
secession."
"You surprise me, my son. Still, admitting all you say, the men who
should surprise the North some fine morning with a present of Jeff Davis
on their breakfast-plates, wouldn't be without honor, to say nothing of
promotion and profit"
"Oh, if we can carry Jeff off without compromising the safety of the
prisoners, I'll join you heartily. But first of all we must
rescue them."
"Unquestionably; now, here's the programme: Butler's forces will be
within gunshot of Magruder's lines on Warwick Creek Thursday--that's
three days from now. The prisoners will be out of the sewer Wednesday
after midnight. You know the roads eastward. You will lead them to the
swamps near Williamsburg. There we will have boats to take part down the
river; the rest will make through the swamps under my lead. I have been
spying out the land for a week. At a place called Rosedale we pick up
young Boone, who is really the object of my journey. I couldn't find him
for weeks, and inquired of all the prisoners. Mrs. Lanview finally put
me on the track, and I saw Wes Boone as I came up here. He thought the
chances were better with a big party than alone. I saw him again
yesterday, and he told me that Davis and Lee, his chief of staff, were
to be at a party in the Rosedale house on Thursday next. Now, we can
pick up Davis just as well as Boone. There is the whole plan."
"Oh, that's a different matter. Davis will not be near the city, and his
keeping will not add to our danger. I see no reason why we shouldn't
grab him. Heavens, what a sensation it will make! We shall be the wonder
of the North--we shall he like the men that discovered André and
Arnold--Paulding and--and"--but here Barney's historical facts came to
an end--"we shall be famous for--forever!"
"For a week, my son; wonders don't live long in these fast days. For a
week the North will glorify us; then, if they find that we voted for
Douglas, as I did, they will say we had some sinister design in bringing
Davis North, and likely send us to Fort Lafayette."
Barney stopped dead; they had come under a gas-lamp between Grace and
Franklin Streets. He looked at the man. He was quite sober. His eyes
answered the young man's indignant protesting glance, openly,
unshrinkingly, humorously.
"I should be sorry to think that, Mr. Jones."
"Well, wait. When you get North you will see a mighty change in things.
Sentiment, my boy, follows the main chance. It's money, my boy, money.
Enough money would have made Judas respectable; he was fool enough to
put his price too low."
"Ugh!--you almost make me hate the North! Who can have heart to fight
for such heartless traffickers?"
"The North doesn't ask your heart. It has counted the cost, and finds
that it can pay a million of men thirteen dollars a month for three
years, and still make a good thing out of it--that's about the breadth
of it. Here's an oasis in the desert of darkness. Come and have
a drink?"
But Barney--not caring for a drink, the cynic--gave him his address,
and, dreadfully cast down in spirit, the eager partisan moped up the
long hill homeward. The next day Mrs. Lanview gave him the details of
the meditated escape. There were only sixty or a hundred in position to
avail themselves of the subterranean way that had been toilsomely dug,
by a few devoted spirits, with tools casually dropped among them by the
guileless Veronica during her daily visits. The plotters counted on at
least six hours' start before discovery. The guards were not to be
disturbed, and the evasion would not be known until eight o'clock, when
the miserable breakfast ration was distributed.
Of that amazing-exploit, the digging through twenty solid feet of earth
and stone, I do not propose to tell. It is to be found in the journals
of the day: it is contained in the hundred pathetic narratives of the
men who took part. It has nothing to do with this history beyond the use
made of it to mislead the ingenious Barney, and in the end complicate
the careers of those in whom we are interested. Suffice it, therefore,
to say that in the dim morning mist, as arranged, a shadowy host emerged
on the river-bottom, now dry and footable; that each man, as he crawled
from the pit, was directed into the thick willows bordering the banks;
that when six score or more had clambered out they obeyed a whispered
command, for which Veronica had prepared them, and noiselessly, in
shadowy single file, they followed the bed of the stream, even where the
water flowed deep and dangerous, until they came to the gentle slopes of
Church Hill. Then, under guidance of Barney, those who were wise
followed swiftly down the river-road until daylight, when they hid in
the dim recesses of the white-oak swamps, where they lay concealed many
hours. As night fell they faced hopefully forward down the Williamsburg
road, until a flaming wave in the air admonished them to strike to the
right, and they plunged into the pathless swamps of the Chickahominy.
Here they were secure. No force able to cope with them could enter; no
force at the command of Magruder could surround them. But Barney's
guiding hand was now replaced by another. Jones had appeared, and with
him men bearing Butler's commission. The prisoners of Libby set up a
defiant cheer. They were once more under the flag. Father Abraham was
again their commander.
There were sedate, fatherly men among these rescued bands. There were
men with gray hairs and sober behavior; men who could bow meekly under
the chastening rod; but the antics of the juvenile group, in which we
are mainly interested, were grave and decorous compared with the
abandoned, delirious joy of these grave men as they reached the recesses
of a swamp that denied admission to all save practiced explorers. Why,
here they could subsist for weeks! The rebels might spy them, might
surround them, but they need not starve--the buds were food, the bushes
refreshment, the pellucid pools drink and life. Barney stared in
speechless amazement at the unseemly gambols of the motley mass.
Delirium! it was a mild term for the embracing, the prancing, the
Carmagnole-like ecstasy of the half-clad madmen running amuck in the
almost unendurable joy of liberation. Barney knew that this condition of
things would never do. All who bore commissions in the army were
selected from the men. The highest in rank, who proved to be a colonel,
was invested with the command, Barney serving as adjutant, and Jones as
guide. The rabble, having made a good meal from the spoil of a
sweet-potato patch, pushed forward through the fretwork of fern, rank
morass, and verdure, toward security. But the march was a snail's pace,
as may be imagined. The men, worn to skeletons by months of captivity,
insufficient food, and stinted exercise, were forced to halt often for
rest in such toilsome marching as the half-aquatic surface of the
swamp involved.
By Thursday noon they were still far from the river. Foragers were
detailed to procure food, and pending their return the wearied band sank
to the earth to rest. In less than two hours the predatory platoon
returned with a sybaritic store--chickens, young lamb, green corn,
onions. Only the stern command of the colonel suppressed a mighty cheer.
When the march was resumed the colonel led the main column south by
east. Jones, with Barney and a dozen men, struck due east. In answer to
Barney's surprised question, Jones informed him they were to pick up
"Wes" Boone by taking that route. Difficult as the way had been
heretofore, it now became laborious in the extreme for this smaller
band. The bottom was all under water, and before they had proceeded a
mile half the group were drenched. In many cases an imprudent plunger
was compelled to call a halt to rescue his shoes--that is, those who
were lucky enough to have shoes--from the deep mud, hidden by a fair
green surface of moss or tendrils. It was a wondrous journey to Barney,
The pages of Sindbad alone seemed to have a parallel for the awful
mysteries of that long, long flight through jungles of towering timber,
whose leaves and bark were as unfamiliar as Brazilian growth to the
troops of Pizarro or the Congo vegetation to the French pioneer. Jones
and his comrades saw nothing but the hardships of the march and the
delay of the painful _détours_ in the solemn glades. The direction was
kept by compass, many of the men having been supplied with a miniature
instrument by the prudent foresight of Mrs. Lanview, who was niggard of
neither time nor money in the cause she had at heart. In spite of every
effort a march so swift that it would have exhausted cavalry, Jones's
ranks did not reach the rendezvous until midnight. At about that hour
the exhausted fugitives came suddenly upon a wide, open plain, and far
below them, in the valley, a vision of light and life shone through
the dark.
"There, boys, we're at the end of our first stage. Unless I'm much
mistaken, that bit of merry-making yonder will cost the Confederacy
a chief."
"But is it certain that Davis is there?" asked the man Jones called
Moon, who seemed to be his intimate.
"Ah, that we will learn so soon as Nasmyd reports. We will give the
signal when we reach that fringe of wood yonder. It's back of the
grounds, separated from them by a hard piece of swamp and water.--Men,
you must follow now in single file, and when we get in the swamp, mind,
a single step out of line will cost you your lives, for, sucked into
that morass, wild horses can't pull you out."
Then, as they plunged anew in the gloomy deeps of swamp and brake, the
friendly lights were lost and the depressed wayfarers struggled on with
something of the feeling of a crew cast away at sea, who, thrown upon
the crest of a rising billow, catch a near glimpse of a great ship,
light and taut, riding serenely havenward to lose it the next in the
dire waste. Presently the melancholy bird-notes that had puzzled Jack in
the same vicinity days before broke out just in front of Barney, who was
clambering along, the third man from the head of the little column.
Again, after a long pause, the sweet, plaintive note was re-echoed from
a distance.
"Ah, all is well!" he heard Jones ejaculate triumphantly. "We are in
time and we are waited for.--Now, men, put all the heart that's in you
to the next half-hour's work. No danger, but just cool heads and
strong arms."
This good news was conveyed from man to man, and the toilsome movement
briskly accelerated under the inspiring watchword. Shortly afterward the
larger growth--cypress and oak--diminished, as the band straggled into
the open, starry night at the margin of what they could tell was water
by the croaking of frogs and plashing of night birds and reptiles. Then
the train was halted. Jones left Nasmyd in command and plunged into a
thick skirt of bushes. Now Barney, hot and dirty from the march, had
shot ahead when he heard the ripple of the water. He had taken off his
shoes to bathe his blistered and swollen feet, and sat quite still and
restful under the leafy sprays of an odorous bush that even in the dark
he knew to be honeysuckle.
"Well," he heard Jones cry in an exultant whisper, "we've done it. The
woman is a trump. There are a hundred nearly of the prisoners gone to
the boats. Now we are ready for Boone. Is Davis here?"
"Yes; he came over from Williamsburg at eight o'clock; they were
feasting when Clem came away a three or more ago."
"Any cavalry at the house?"
"A squadron; but they are ordered to be in saddle for their quarters at
midnight. There's the bugle for boots and saddles now."
"Yes; by the Eternal, what luck! Davis will sleep there."
"So Clem says; the state chamber has been prepared for him; all the rest
except Lee go back to Williamsburg."
"We couldn't have arranged it better if we had been given the ordering
of it. Are all the boats here?"
"Yes."
"And the negroes--how many have you?"
"I can't say. They've been dropping across in twos and threes since ten
o'clock. The curious thing is that the women are more taken with the
idea of fight than the men. We shall have enough--too many, I fear."
"We'll make them our safety, Jim, my boy; we'll divide them up, and, in
case of pursuit, send them in different directions to confuse
the troops."
"How many men are you going to take to the house?"
"Six, with you and me. It will be unsafe to take more, as the boats are
small. I will go back and select the men. You get the boats ready."
Barney hurried on his shoes, crawled through the bushes, and was in his
place when Jones presently appeared. The men, dead tired, were disposed
about on the ground asleep, not minding the damp grass or the heavy dew
that made the air fairly misty.
"Wake four of the men," Jones whispered, and when they were aroused he
said to a tall, reeling shadow, idly waiting orders:
"We'll be back in a half-hour, or an hour at the farthest. Let the men
sleep; they need it. Sleep yourself if you want to. Moon or I will come
to rouse you, and we will bring you plenty of bacon and hominy. Have no
fears if you hear movements just beyond you; there are a couple of
contrabands here who go with us. Here's a ration of tobacco for the men
when they wake, and a gallon of whisky, which you must serve out
gradually."
Revived by this stimulating news quite as much as by the whisky, Barney
and his three comrades followed Jones to the boats. There were four--the
dug-outs we saw Jack manoeuvring in the same waters a few nights before.
A negro sat silent, shadowy in each, and, when Jones gave the word, "Let
drive!" the barks shot through the waters, propelled by the single
scull, as swiftly as an Indian canoe. In a few moments all debarked on
the grassy knoll behind the black line of hedge. Jones made straight for
the high doorway, and inserting a key it was noiselessly opened.
"Men," he whispered, "no names must be used in any case. I'm number one,
Jim here is number two, Moore number three, and so on. Each one remember
his number. Clem will remain here with number six to guard the gate. All
the rest follow me."
Two negroes joined the party that stole forward through the rose-field
to the negro quarters. All was silent. As they reached the great kitchen
behind the house and connected with it by a trellised pavilion, only an
occasional light could be seen in the house. All were apparently there.
The ball had ended. Leaving Barney in charge of the rest, Jones and
Number Two crept along the trellis toward the house and soon disappeared
around the southern corner. Jones presently returned and said,
exultingly:
"The cavalry is gone; we have nothing to fear.--Plato, you go with
Number Two to the stables and bring the horses out; hold six and send
the rest scattering in the fields, so that in case of anybody's being in
the mind to follow hell have to use his legs, and we can beat them at
that game. Where are the ropes?" he asked the black man left in
the group.
"In de kitchen, massa."
"Get them!"
"Must I go alone, massa?"
"That's a fact.--There, Moore, you go with the boy--don't be a minute."
Barney followed the sable marauder through the grounds to the rear of
the trellis, and crept with him through a window which stood open. The
kitchen was dark, but the negro seemed perfectly familiar with the
place. He made directly for a dark panel in the northern wall, opened a
cupboard-door, knelt down and began to grope among bottles, boxes, and
what not that housewives gather in such receptacles.
"Oh, de lor'! dey ain't no rope! It's done gone!" "Have you a match?"
Barney asked.
"No, massa, but dey is some yondah."
"Find them."
The boy crept cautiously in the direction of the passage leading into
the house; he fumbled about, an age, as it seemed to the impatient
Barney, and at last uttered an exclamation:
"Got 'em?"
"No, massa, but Ise suah deys kep dar."
"Take my hand and lead me."
"It's molasses, massa, and Ise all stickem," the voice in the dark
whispered, delightedly, and Barney could see a double row of glistening
white ivory in the dim light that came through the window. He came
nearer the clumsy wight, and saw that it was a pan of batter the cook
had left on the table, probably the morning griddle-cakes. The negro was
a mass of white, pasty glue, and knelt on the floor, licking his hands
passively.
"Where are the matches?"
"Under de clock, in a tin safe, massa--right da."
Barney groped angrily about the table, on the clock-shelf, knocking down
a tin dish, that fell with the clatter of a bursting magazine in the
dense stillness of the night. Both drew back in shadow, waiting with
heart-beats that sounded in their ears like tramping horses on thick
sward. The clamor of rushing steeds in the lane suddenly drowned this; a
loud, joyous whinny sounded in the very kitchen it seemed, and there was
a rush houseward past the pantry as of a troop of cavalry. Then a
blood-curdling outcry of voices, then shots. Barney, leaving the negro
writhing in convulsions under the table, darted to the window--to the
rendezvous. It was deserted.