|To judge by the number of times I had to get off and walk,” continued
Jack, “it was up-hill pretty nearly all the way to Fayetteville. A
wounded major of the rebel army was put in the ambulance alongside of
Colonel Herron, and when we got to Fayetteville I had to give up my
place to a rebel captain who had been shot in the arm. Of course I
couldn't complain at this, and thought myself lucky to have been allowed
to ride so far as I did ride. I had to walk the rest of the way, and
though I was young and strong, it was impossible for me to keep up with
the ambulance when they had a good road. But as most of the road was
bad and a good deal blocked by wagons, I managed to be along with the
ambulance every night and two or three times generally during the day.
It was lucky for me that the ambulance horses were pretty well tired out
with overwork and poor feed, and at one time the driver was afraid he
would n't be able to get them through to Van Buren, where we had been
ordered to go.
“There were six men on horseback who rode along with the ambulance, to
make sure that we did n't get away. Our captors were evidently mindful
of the old motto, 'Fast bind, fast find,' and they had us not only on
our parole, but under guard. When it was found that I had to walk I was
put with half-a-dozen other prisoners in charge of two of the mounted
men. They were rather surly at first, but after a while we got on good
terms with them by helping them to pick up forage for their horses, of
which they were in great need. There was n't much to be picked up, as
the country had been pretty thoroughly cleaned out by the army in its
advance to attack us, and in the previous retreat when we first came
into the state.
“The road over the Boston mountains is a rough one, and the wagons could
n't get along there any faster than men on foot; they had to go slow to
avoid breaking axles and smashing wheels, and all along the road there
were dozens of wagons that had broken down and been abandoned. Soon
after we left Fayetteville the news came that the army had been defeated
and was falling back, but this was treated as a rumor at first, and our
rebel guards laughed at it as absurd. A few hours later some mounted
men came along carrying dispatches to Fort Smith, and then we heard
positively that our side had won and the rebels were really falling
back.
“I wanted to raise a cheer, but thought it would not be wise to do
so, as our guards might make it harder for us if we made any sort of
a demonstration. I passed the word among the rest, and we agreed to
pretend that it could n't be so, as our army was so much smaller than
theirs and we had used up nearly all our ammunition at the time we
were captured. We consoled ourselves with the reflection that we should
probably be exchanged before long, as we ought to have prisoners enough
in our hands to make an even trade.
“We camped as soon as night came on, and I had no trouble in finding
the colonel's ambulance and giving him all the help and comfort that
I could. His wounded leg pained him a good deal, and the rebel surgeon
said it would be better if it could be bathed in cold water.
“I went at work at once and bathed the swollen part so that it visibly
went down, and the pain was much less. I was at it for a full hour, and
then the colonel made me lie down and sleep, as he would n't hear of
my being up all night. I slept as sound as a log, but was up before
daylight to give the leg another bath before we started. My friend,
the rebel captain, came around while I was at work and said I seemed so
handy that he reckoned they would keep me as a hospital attendant, and
not send me back in exchange if they made any. I told him I did n't want
to go back until the colonel did, and I was perfectly willing to be a
hospital attendant as long as I could be with him.
“All along the road there was great curiosity to look at the Yankee
prisoners and see what they were like. By the way some of the people
stared at us, they must have expected to see some horrid monsters, and
were really surprised to find that we were human beings. Some of them
abused us, and others looked on in silence, as they might have looked at
an elephant or a five-legged calf. At one house, where we stopped to
get a drink of water, a woman came out and lashed her tongue in a fit of
rage at the 'Yankee cut-throats,' as she called us. She hoped we would
all be hanged as soon as we got to Fort Smith, and if she had her way we
should be strung up then and there.
“Poor creature! I did not blame her so much, as she had been told the
most awful stories of what the Yankees did wherever they got possession
of the country. All the atrocities ever committed by savages were
attributed to us, together with some that no savages ever thought
of. One of our guards told us that he had heard of our putting fifty
prisoners in a log-house, having bound them hand and foot, and piled
them up as though they had been so many sticks of wood. Then we piled
shavings and straw on them till the house was filled with it, and after
this was done we set the straw on fire. The house and all the prisoners
were consumed, as a matter of course. In another case we tied prisoners
to trees and used them as targets for our infantry soldiers to practice
upon when learning how to handle fire-arms.
“Of course the leaders knew better than this, but the stories were
intended for the ignorant masses of the people, to excite them to rush
to the defense of the imperiled South and save their homes from the
desecration and destruction that they said would be certain if the
Yankees once obtained possession of the country. But in one way they
were 'hoist by their own petard,' to use an old phrase, as the fear of
what might happen to them in case of capture caused many of the rebel
soldiers at Pea Ridge to run away rather than face the terrible Yankees.
From what the soldiers said, I'm certain that this is what caused
several regiments to break and run after they had fired only a few
rounds from their shotguns and squirrel-rifles.
“If this were a place for moralizing, I would say that lying never pays,
whether by wholesale or retail. The rebel leaders in Arkansas found it
out before the end of the second year of the war.
“We got to Van Buren, on the north bank of the Arkansas river, three
days after leaving Bentonville, and were pretty well used up by the
time they brought us to a halt. The colonel was sent to the military
hospital, which was in some wooden barracks just outside the town, and
I was allowed to go with him as his personal attendant, on the same
conditions as before. I ought to say that on the closing day of the
journey I got my old place on the seat by the driver for the last five
or six hours, the wounded captain having stopped in a house where he
had friends who would take care of him until his arm was well enough to
allow him to return to his regiment.
“There was plenty of room in the hospital when we got there, but the
wounded came in fast, and within two days it was crowded full. I made
myself as useful as I could, and soon got into the good graces of the
surgeons, by helping them to dress wounds and do anything else that came
in my way. I was about the hospital during the day, and could come and
go as I liked, only I was under parole not to go outside the building
and the one adjoining it. At night I slept in a sort of a guard-room at
one end of the building, but there was n't much of a guard there, and I
might have run away without any trouble if it had not been for my parole
not to do so. It is just possible, however, that I was watched in a way
I was not aware of, and my old friend may have 'looked out for me,' as
he promised to do.
“The army followed closely after us, and there was no doubt of
the defeat and retreat of the rebels. The soldiers were very much
disappointed and disheartened, and if they could have got away without
rendering themselves liable to be shot for desertion, I'm sure that half
of them would have gone within two days after they got back to camp. As
it was, there was a great deal of straggling, and I heard an officer say
they had lost not less than five thousand men in one way and another by
the campaign to Pea Ridge and back again.
“By the fourteenth the whole army, such of it as held together, had come
in and was encamped around Van Buren. Some of the regiments were ferried
over the river to Fort Smith, but the most of the troops remained on the
north bank. I did n't have much chance to see them, as I was kept in
the limits of the hospital, but so far as I could observe they were a
forlorn-looking lot.
“Only a few regiments wore the gray uniforms of the Confederacy, the
greater number of the men being clad in the ordinary home-spun cloth
of the country familiarly known as 'butternut.' During the Pea Ridge
campaign they had been very poorly fed--some of them going for thirty or
forty hours during the retreat without a morsel of food other than a few
grains of corn; raw turnips and carrots had been considered a luxury,
and the men who secured them were envied. Raw cabbages were eagerly
devoured, but unfortunately the country was not stocked with these
products of the soil, or the troops might have been better fed.”