idleness in the heart of a rich country, literally flowing with
poultry and corn-fodder, I, being then in command of a division of
cavalry, received an order from Davidson to select six hundred of the
best-mounted of my men, and to attack Marmaduke, who was recruiting,
ninety miles away, at Batesville on the White River in Arkansas. His
main body, three thousand five hundred strong, lay in the "Oil-Trough
Bottom," on the other side of the river. A brigade of Western infantry
was to march as far as Salem (thirty miles), and to support us if
necessary; though we afterward found that at the only moment when
we might have had grave occasion to depend on them, they were, with
an inconsistency that was not the least attribute of our commanding
officer, withdrawn without notice to us.
We were to go in light marching order, carrying only the necessary
clothing, and rations of salt and coffee. Wettstein's ideas of
lightness differing from mine, I had to use some authority to rid poor
Klitschka of saucepans, extra boots, and such trash; and after all,
the rascal had, under the plea of a cold, requiring extra blankets,
smuggled a neatly sewn sausage of corn, weighing some fifteen pounds,
into one of his rolls. Eager men, too, whose horses were out of trim,
had to be discarded, and the whole detail to be thoroughly overhauled.
But the jovial anticipation of seeing Batesville once more--a New
England village planted on a charming hillside in Arkansas, where we
had sojourned with Curtis the summer before, and where we all had the
pleasant acquaintance that even an enemy makes in a town from which
the native men have long been gone, and only the women remain--made
the work of preparation go smoothly, and long before dawn Wettstein's
bugle summoned the details from the several camps. There was a ringing
joyousness in his call, that spoke of the cosey, roaring fire of a
certain Batesville kitchen to which his bright face and his well-filled
haversack had long ago made him welcome, and prospective feasting gave
an added trill to his blast.
The little detachments trotted gayly into line, officers were assigned
for special duty, temporary divisions were told off, and a working
organization was soon completed. Before the sun was up, such a Ra,
t't'ta, t't'ta, _t't'ta_! as South Missouri had never heard before,
broke the line by twos from the right, and we were off for a promising
trip. Marmaduke we knew of old, and personal cowardice would have
deterred no one from joining our party, for he could be reached from
our stronger army only by a complete surprise; and in a country where
every woman and child (white, I mean) was his friend and our enemy, a
surprise, over ninety miles of bad roads, seemed out of the question.
Indeed, before we had made a half of the distance, one of his flying
scouts told a negro woman by the roadside, as he checked his run to
water his horse, "There's a hell's-mint o' Yanks a comin' over the
mountain, and I must git to Marmyjuke"; and to Marmaduke he "got," half
a day ahead of us, only to be laughed at for a coward who had been
frightened by a foraging-party.
The second night brought us to Evening Shade, a little village where
one Captain Smith was raising a company. They had all gone, hours ahead
of us, but had left their supplies and their fires behind them, and
these, with the aid of a grist-mill (for which an Illinois regiment
furnished a miller), gave us a bountiful supper. At daybreak we set out
for our last day's march, still supposing that Marmaduke's men would
put the river between themselves and us before night, but confident
of comfortable quarters at Batesville. A few miles out, we began to
pick up Rebel stragglers, and Wettstein soon came rattling through the
woods, from a house to which he had been allowed to go for milk, with
the story of a sick officer lodged there. Following his lead with a
surgeon and a small escort, I found the captain of the Evening Shade
company lying in a raging fever, with which he had found it impossible
to ride, and nearly dead with terror lest we should hang him at once.
His really beautiful young wife, who had gone to enliven his recruiting
labors, was in tears over his impending fate. While we were talking
with him concerning his parole, she bribed Wettstein with a royal pair
of Mexican spurs to save his life, evidently thinking from his display
of finery that he was a major-general at the very least. The kind
fellow buckled the spurs on my heels, and they evidently gave me new
consequence in his eyes as we rode on our way.
Presently we struck a party of about twenty-five, under a Captain
Mosby, who had been making a circuit after conscripts and had had no
news of us. After a running fight, during which there occurred some
casualties on the other side, we captured the survivors of the party
and sent them to the rear.
From midday on, we heard rumors of a sally in strong force from
Batesville, and were compelled to move cautiously,--straggling parties
of Rebel scouts serving to give credibility to the story. At sunset
we were within six miles of the town; and, halting in the deep snow
of a large farm-yard, I sent a picked party of thirty, under Rosa, to
secure the ferry, if possible,--Wettstein and Klitschka accompanying to
bring back word of the result. After two anxious hours, he came into
camp with a note from Rosa: "Marmaduke is over the river and has the
ferry-boat with him; three of his men killed. Wettstein did bravely."
The poor fellow had a bad cut on his arm and was in pain, but not a
moment would he give himself until brave little Klitschka, smothered in
bright straw, was filling herself from the smuggled bag of corn. Then
he came to the surgeon and had his wounded arm duly dressed. Although
evidently suffering and weak from loss of blood, he gave us a cheering
account of Rosa's fight, and dwelt fondly on the supper he had bespoken
for us at good Mrs. ----'s house, where we had quartered in the summer.
At nine o'clock, after Klitschka had fed and the patrols had come in,
we set out on our march. It was still snowing hard, and even the dead
men that marked Rosa's recent ride were fast being shrouded in purest
white. One of them Wettstein pointed out as the man with whom he had
crossed sabres, and he asked permission to stay with the party detailed
to bury him, for he had been a "braff homme." With his tender sympathy
for friend or foe, he was a truer mourner than a dead soldier often
gets from the ranks of his enemy. Even this sad ride came to an end, as
all things must, and at the edge of the town soldierly Rosa stood, to
report that the pickets were posted and our quarters ready. Giving him
a fresh detail to relieve his pickets, and asking his company at our
midnight supper, we pushed on to our chosen house. Here we found all
in order, save that the young lady of the family had so hastily put on
the jacket bearing the U. S. buttons of her last summer's conquests,
that she failed quite to conceal the C. S. buttons on a prettier one
under it. She and her mother scolded us for driving the Rebel beaux
from town, when there was to have been a grand farewell ball only the
next night; but they seemed in no wise impressed with regret for the
friends who had been killed and wounded in the chase. It turned out
that Marmaduke had grown tired of reports that we were marching on him
in force, and would not believe it now until his own men rode into
town at nightfall with the marks of Rosa's sabres on their heads. The
place had been filled with the officers of his command, and he with
them, come for their parting flirtations before the ball. They were to
march to Little Rock, and their men were nearly all collected in the
"Bottom," over the river. On this sudden proof of the attack, they made
a stampede for the flat-boat of the rope-ferry, and nearly sunk it by
over-crowding, the hindmost men cutting the rope and swimming their
horses across the wintry torrent.
We had full possession of the town, and were little disturbed by
the dropping shots from the Rebel side. We visited on our unfaithful
friends such punishment as enforced hospitality could compass, and,
on the whole, we hadn't a bad "time." The morning after our arrival
we levied such contributions of supplies as were necessary for our
return march, and, in order that the return might not look like a
retreat, we loaded two wagons with hogsheads of sugar (which would be
welcome in Davidson's commissariat), and made every arrangement for the
establishment of the camping of the whole army in the country back of
the town; for our force was so small that, with our tired horses, it
would have been imprudent to turn our backs to Marmaduke's little army,
if he supposed us to be alone.
Keeping the town well picketed and making much show of laying out an
encampment, we started the teams and the main body of the command at
nightfall, holding back a hundred men for a cover until a later hour.
During the evening the Rebels on the south side of the river became
suspiciously quiet, and there was, apparently, some new movement on
foot. The only possible chance for an attack was by Magnus's ferry,
ten miles below, where the boat was so small and the river so wide
that not more than twenty horses could be crossed in an hour, and our
sharpshooters were sufficient to prevent the removal of the Batesville
boat to that point. Still it was important to know what was going on,
and especially important to prevent even a scouting-party of the enemy
from harassing the rear of our tired column by the shorter road from
Magnus's to Evening Shade; and I started at nine o'clock (when the moon
rose), with twenty men, to go round that way, directing the remainder
of the rear-guard to follow the main body at midnight.
The ride to Magnus's was without other adventure than bad roads and
almost impassable bayous always entail, and in a few hours we reached
the plantation, where I had a former ally in an old negro who had done
us good service during Curtis's campaign. He said that the Rebels had
left the Bottom, and were going to Little Rock, but, as a precaution
he took a canoe and crossed over to the house of another negro on the
south bank, and returned with a confirmation of his opinion. As it
was very important to know whether the only enemy of Davidson's army
had really withdrawn from his front, and, as this might be definitely
learned through the assistance of an old scout who lived in the edge of
the Bottom, it seemed best to cross the river to give him instructions
for his work.
I took Ruby, my best horse. He was a sure reliance under all
circumstances, and he and I knew each other perfectly. We were at home
in every foot-path in the country, having had many a summer's swim in
this very river; and now, accompanied only by Wettstein and Klitschka,
I went on to the ferry-boat. It was what is known as a "swing" ferry. A
stout rope is stretched between trees on the opposite shores, and the
boat is attached to a couple of pulleys arranged to traverse the length
of this rope. The attaching cords--one at each end of the up-stream
side of the boat--are long enough to allow it to swing some rods down
the stream; by shortening one of the ropes and lengthening the other,
the boat is placed at an angle with the swift current, which propels it
toward one shore or the other, the pulleys keeping pace in their course
on the main rope.
The main rope was rough from long use, and often the pulleys would
halt in their course, until the pull of the advancing boat dragged them
free. Then the rickety craft, shivering from end to end, would make a
rapid shoot, until another defective place in the rope brought her to
again. At each vibration, the horses nearly lost their feet, and the
surging stream almost sent its muddy water over the gunwale. It was a
long and anxious trip,--the rotten guy-rope hardly serving to hold us
to our course. At last we reached the shore and rode on to Craikill's
house in the Bottom. He had been "conscripted," and forced to go with
the army, so his wife told us, and she had seen him march with the rest
on the Fairview Road for Little Rock. The last bird had flown, and we
could safely march back at our leisure.
Wettstein filled his pipe, emptied his haversack for the benefit of
Craikill's hungry children, and, cheery as ever, followed me to the
ferry. On the way over he had been as still as a mouse, for he was too
old a soldier to give an enemy any sign of our approach. But, as we
set out on the return trip, in the cold moonlight, he sang the "Ranz
des Vaches," fondled his little mare, and, unmindful of his wounded
arm, gave way to the flow of spirits that the past few days' duty had
checked. I never knew him more gay and delightful; and, as we stood
leaning on our saddles and chatting together, I congratulated myself
upon the possession of such a perpetual sunbeam.
We were barely half-way across, when, suddenly, coming out of the
darkness, riding half hidden in the boiling, whirling tide, a huge
floating tree struck the boat with a thud that parted the rotten
guy-rope, and carried us floating down the stream. For a moment there
seemed no danger, but a branch of the tree had caught the corner of the
boat, and the pulleys had become entangled in the rope. When this had
been drawn to its full length, and the tree felt the strain, the boat
dipped to the current, filled, and sank under our feet. I called to
Wettstein to take Klitschka by the tail, but it was too late; he had
grasped the saddle with the desperation of a drowning man, and made
her fairly helpless. The boat soon passed from under us, and, relieved
of our weight, came to the surface at our side; but, bringing the rope
against poor Wettstein's wounded arm, it tore loose his hold, and soon
went down again in the eddy, and Klitschka was free.
"Adieu, Herr Oberist; tenez Klitschka pour vous! Adieu!" And that
happy, honest face sank almost within reach of me. The weight of his
arms prevented his rising again, and only an angry eddy, glistening in
the moonlight, marked his turbid grave.
Ruby, snorting, and struggling hard with the current, pulled me safely
to the shore, and little Klitschka followed as well as her loaded
saddle would permit. For the moment, with my own life and the lives of
two tried companions to care for, I thought of nothing else; but as I
sat drying at Magnus's roaring hearth the direst desolation overwhelmed
me. Very far from home,--far even from the home-like surroundings of
my own camp,--I had clung to this devoted fellow as a part of myself.
He was a proven friend; with him I never lacked the sympathy that, in
the army at least, is born of constant companionship, and he filled a
place in my life that dearer friends at home might not find. He was the
one comrade whose heart, I was sure, was filled only with unquestioning
love for me. Henceforth I must look for support to companions who saw
me as I was, who knew my faults and my weaknesses, and whose kind
regard was tempered with criticism. The one love that was blind, that
took me for better or for worse, had been, in an instant, torn from my
life, and I was more sad than I can tell.
But Duty knows no sentiment. A saddened party, we mounted, to join the
main command; and, as we rode on through the rest of that desolate
night, no word passed to tell the gloom that each man felt.
The petty distinctions of earthly rank were swallowed up in a feeling
of true brotherhood, and Wettstein--promoted now--rode at our head as a
worthy leader, showing the way to a faithful performance of all duty,
and a kindly and cheerful bearing of all life's burdens; and, through
the long and trying campaigns that followed, more than one of us was
the better soldier for the lesson his soldierly life had taught.
CAMPAIGNING WITH MAX.
Union City was not a city at all; it was hardly a village, and
"Disunion" would have been its fairer designation. It lay in the woods
at the crossing of two railroads, one pointing toward Mobile and one
toward Memphis, but neither leading anywhere. There was a tradition
that trains had once been run upon each, but many bridges had had to be
rebuilt to make the short line to Columbus passable, and the rest was
ruin; for Forrest had been there with his cavalry.
The land was just so much raised above the broad swamp of Northwestern
Tennessee that whiskey with men to drink it, and a Methodist Church
South with people to attend it, were possible. With these meagre
facilities for life, and the vague inducement of a railroad-crossing.
Union City had struggled into an amphibious subsistence; but it had
never thriven, and its corner-lots had but feebly responded to the
hopes of its projectors.
For many a mile around, the forests and swamps were well-nigh
impenetrable, and the occasional clearings were but desolate oases
in the waste of marsh and fallen timber. The roads were wood-trails
leading nowhere in particular, and all marked a region of the most
scanty and unfulfilled promise.
General Asboth, seeing (by the map) that it commanded two lines of
railroad, sent us to occupy this strategic point, and we gradually
accumulated to the number of twenty-five hundred cavalry and four
thousand infantry, drawing our regular supplies from Columbus;
and occupying our time with a happy round of drills, inspections,
horse-races, cock-fights, and poker. It was not an elevating existence,
but it was charmingly idle, and we passed the serene and lovely autumn
of 1863 in a military dreamland, where nothing ever came to disturb
our quiet, or to mar our repose with the realities of war. We built
ourselves houses, we shot game for our tables, we made egg-nog for our
evenings, and we were happy. The charm of camp-life--with just enough
of occupation and responsibility, and with enough improvement in the
troops for a reward--made even this wilderness enjoyable. I had the
advantage of seniority and command, and the physical comforts that
naturally gravitate toward a commanding officer did not fail me.
My house, built with the mouse-colored logs of a Rebel block-house,
covered with the roof of the post-office, and floored and ceiled with
the smoke-mellowed lining of the Methodist church, was broad and low
and snug. Its windows, also taken from the sanctuary in question, were
set on their sides, and gave to each of the two rooms wide, low-browed
outlooks into the woods and over the drill-ground, that would have made
worse quarters agreeable. The bricks of an abandoned domestic fireside
built a spacious fireplace across an angle of each of the rooms, and
the clay of the locality plastered all our chinks "to keep the wind
away." I have seen more pretentious houses and more costly, but never
one in which three chosen spirits--I had, in a happy moment, selected
Voisin and the Hun for my staff--got more that is worth the getting
out of the simple and virtuous life of a cavalry headquarters. We were
at peace with all the world (Forrest was in Mississippi), our pay
was regular, our rations were ample,--and Asboth had been ordered to
Pensacola.
Old A. J., his successor,--every inch a soldier, and a good fellow
to the very core,--used sometimes to roll up his camp mattress and
run down from Columbus for an inspection. Those are marked days in
our memories. He was a lynx in the field, and wry buttoning roused
him to articulate wrath; but he unbuckled his sabre at the door, and
brought only geniality within,--a mellow geniality that warmed to the
influences of our modest hospitality, and lasted far into the night;
and then, when the simple and inoffensive game was over, and its scores
were settled, the dear old boy--usually with a smile of conquest
wandering through his gray beard--would unroll his bundle before the
fire and sleep like a baby until reveille. Happy, happy days,--and
still happier nights!
Naturally, in such a life as we led at Union City, our horses formed
a very important element in our occupation and in our amusements. Soon
after our arrival at Columbus,--an event which had taken place a few
months before,--a spanking mare that I had bought to replace Ruby had
gone hopelessly lame, and it became again important to all who were
concerned in my peace of mind, that a satisfactory substitute should be
found for her. I had still in my stable a little thoroughbred (Guy),
who, though excellent in all respects, was a trifle under my weight,
and not at all up to the rough riding that was a necessary part of our
army life. He could go anywhere, could jump any practicable barrier,
was fleet and sound, and in all respects admirable, but he was made for
a lighter weight than mine, and, except for show and parade riding,
must mainly be used to carry Ike and the saddle-bags, or to mount a
friend when a friend favored me.
In a second search, in which most of the officers of the regiment
took a lively interest, there was found, in Frank Moore's Battalion
of the Second Illinois Cavalry, a tall, gaunt, lean, haggard,
thoroughbred-looking beast, which had been captured from Merryweather's
men in Western Tennessee. He was not a handsome horse, nor was he to
the ordinary eye in any respect promising; but a trial showed that he
had that peculiar whalebone character, and wiry, nervous action, which
come only with blood, and without which no horse is really fit for the
saddle. The chances were very much against him. He did not possess the
first element of beauty, save in a clean-cut head, a prominent eye,
a quick ear, a thin neck, sloping shoulders, high withers, and the
brilliant activity that no abuse had been able to conquer. He was held
in abeyance until a careful examination of the two thousand horses at
the post showed that, even as he stood, he had no equal there for my
purposes. Since he had come into the army he had been in the possession
of a private soldier, who had done much scouting duty, and he had been
initiated (successfully) into the scrub-racing which Illinois soldiers
much affected. The serious amount of one hundred and forty dollars was
hazarded in the venture, and he was transferred to our stable. That
increment of value which always follows the purchase of a new horse
came rapidly in his case, and it needed only a few gallops on the
breezy bluffs beyond Fort Halleck, to install him as prime favorite
among the headquarters' mess.
He was deemed worthy of the noble name of Max, and under Ike's careful
grooming he returned daily toward the blooming condition that only
Second Illinois abuse had been able to subdue. In an early race with
the Hun we were ingloriously beaten; but the Hun rode a marvellous
little blood mare, blooming with hundreds of bushels of oats, and with
two years of careful handling. Max, though beaten, was not discouraged,
and seemed to say that with time and good treatment he would be ready
for a more successful trial.
During his period of tutelage, and while he was kept from all excessive
exertion, he was inducted into the mysteries of the art, to him quite
new, of jumping timber. Columbus had been occupied by Rebel and Union
soldiers since the outbreak of the war, and its fences, far and wide,
had all disappeared; but nowhere in the world was there a greater
variety nor a more ample stock of fallen trees, whose huge boles made
capital leaping-bars; and over these, almost daily, for some months,
beginning with the smaller ones and going gradually to the largest
we could find, Max learned to carry a heavy weight with a power and
precision that even Ruby could not have excelled.
During all this time, ample feed, good shelter, regular exercise, and
a couple of hours of Ike's hand-rubbing daily, worked an uninterrupted
improvement in limb and wind and sinews and coat, until, by the time we
were ordered to Union City, Max had become the pride of the camp. He
was over sixteen hands high, of a solid dark bay color, glistening like
polished mahogany, and active and spirited as a horse in training for
the Derby.
At Union City the headquarters' horses were stabled under a capital
shed, close at hand, and all that master's eye and servant's labor
could accomplish for their care and improvement was lavished upon them;
so that, during our long months' stay, we were among the best-mounted
men in the Western army. Our pleasure-riding and our work lay through
swampy wood-roads, over obstructions of every sort, and across the
occasional grass farms, with their neglected rail-fences. The weather
was almost uninterruptedly fine, our few visiting neighbors were miles
away from us, the shooting was good, and the enjoyment we got from
our vagabond life in camp was well supplemented by the royal rides we
almost daily took.