CHAPTER XI

RUNNING THE GAUNTLET

In the old days of the Indian wars a favorite amusement of a raiding party was to make their captives run the gauntlet. On their return home two long lines of not only the warriors, but even of the women and children would be formed armed with clubs, arrows, tomahawks and whips. The unfortunate captive was stationed at one end of this aisle of enemies and given the choice of being burned at the stake or of running for his life between the lines from one end to the other. Sometimes a swift runner and dodger escaped enough of the blows to stagger blinded with blood from a score of wounds, but still alive, across the line which marked the end of this grim race against death. It was always a desperate chance. Only the certainty of death if it were not taken ever caused any man to enter such a terrible competition. There is no record of even the most hardened Indian fighter ever running the gauntlet for any life save his own.

In the summer of 1863, three men ran the gauntlet of shot and shell and rifle-fire for forty miles to save an army, with death dogging them all the way. Brigadier-General Thomas, who afterward earned the title of the Rock of Chickamauga by his brave stand in that disastrous battle, was entrenched on one of the spurs of the hills around Chattanooga. General Bragg with a much superior army of Confederates had hunted the Union soldiers mile after mile. At times they had stopped and fought, at times they had escaped by desperate marches. Now exhausted and ringed about by the whole Confederate Army, they must soon have help or be starved into surrender. Yet only forty miles to the eastward was a body of thirty thousand men commanded by General Stockton. This general was one of those valuable men who obey orders without any reasoning about the why and the wherefore of the same. He had been commanded to hold a certain pass in the mountains until further orders and that pass he would hold, as General Thomas well knew, until relieved or directed to do otherwise. If only the duty had been assigned to some other officer, it might be that not hearing anything from the main body, he would send out a reconnoitering party. Not so with General Stockton. That general would stay put and only a direct order or an overpowering force of the enemy would move him.

It was in vain that General Thomas tried to get a messenger through with secret despatches in cipher. General Bragg knew that he had the Union Army cornered and he had stationed a triple row of pickets who caught or shot every man that General Thomas sent.

Supplies and ammunition were both running low and General Thomas was considering massing a force of men on some point in the line in an attempt to break through far enough for a messenger to escape. This meant a great loss of life and probably would not be successful as the messenger would almost certainly be captured by an outer ring of scouts which Bragg would throw out as soon as he realized what was going on. There was only one other chance. The Confederates were so sure of their own strength, and that they would eventually capture the whole army, that they had not destroyed the railroad line which ran between the two Federal camps, hoping to use the same for shipping soldiers, prisoners and captured supplies later on. Both sides of the track, however, were lined with guards and covered by a number of Confederate batteries. General Thomas decided to make the attempt and called for volunteers who were willing to run this forty-mile gauntlet between the Confederate lines and batteries. Two old railroad men offered their services as engineer and fireman and they were accompanied by an adjutant who was to be the bearer of the despatches. There seemed to be only one chance in a thousand for this engine to get safely through and the men themselves, if they were not shot in their flight or wrecked with the engine, stood a good chance of being captured and hung as spies. In fact it seemed such a hopeless chance that at the last moment General Thomas was on the point of countermanding the order when one of the men themselves gave the best argument in favor of the plan.

"It's worth trying, General," said he, "for even if we fail, you only lose three men. The other way you would have to throw away at least a thousand before you could find out whether it was possible to cut through the lines or not."

It was decided to make the trial and a dark, moonless night when the sky was covered with heavy clouds was selected as the best time for starting. The men shook hands with their comrades and each left with his best friend a letter to be sent to his family if he were not heard from within a given time. There were but few engines in the Union ranks and none of them were very good as the Confederates had captured the most powerful. However, the ex-engineer and fireman picked out the one which seemed to be in best repair, put in an extra supply of oil to allow for the racking strain on the machinery and filled up the tender with all the fuel that it could carry. At half-past ten they started after firing up with the utmost care and in half a mile they were running at full speed when suddenly there was the sharp crack of a rifle and a minie bullet whined past the panting, jumping, rushing engine. Another one crashed through the window of the caboose, but fortunately struck no one. By this time the little engine was going at her utmost speed. At times all four of the wheels seemed to leave the track at once, she jumped so under the tremendous head of steam which the fireman, working as he had never done before, had raised. The engine swayed so from side to side as it ran that it was all that the adjutant could do to keep his feet. Finally they reached the first battery. Fortunately it had miscalculated the tremendous speed of the engine. A series of guns stationed close to the track hurled a shower of grape and solid shot at the escaping engine. It cut the framework of the caboose almost to pieces, but fortunately not a shot struck any vital part of the machinery or injured any of the three men. As they whirled on, the last gun of all sent a solid shot after them which struck the bell full and fair and with a last tremendous clang it was dashed into the bushes by the side of the road. All along the track there was a fusillade of musket-fire and bullets whizzed around them constantly, but none struck any of the crew. The next danger-point was at a junction with this road and another which ran off at right angles. This junction was protected by no less than two batteries and furthermore on the junction-track was an engine standing with smoke coming out of her smoke-stack showing that she was fired up ready for pursuit. It seemed absolutely impossible to escape these two batteries. Already they could see lanterns hurrying to and fro on both sides of the track where the guns were trained so close that they simply could not fail to dash the engine into a hissing, bloody, glowing scrap-heap of crumpled steel and iron. The men set their teeth and prepared for the crash which every one of them felt meant death. It never came. By some oversight, no alarm had been given and before the guns could be manned and sighted, the engine was whirling along right between both batteries, a cloud of sparks and a column of fire rushing two feet above her smokestack. The Confederates succeeded in only turning one gun and training it on the little engine fast disappearing in the darkness. The gunner, however, who fired that gun came nearer putting an end to the expedition than all the others. He dropped a shell in the air directly over them. It shattered the roof of the caboose, wounded the fireman and blew out both windows, but almost by a miracle left the machinery still uninjured. The adjutant laid the fireman on the jumping, bounding floor of the cab and under his faint instructions fired the engine in his place. As he was heaping coal into the open fire-box with all his might, there came a deep groan from the wounded fireman.

"Try and bear the pain, old man," shouted the engineer over the roar of the engine. "We'll be safe in a few minutes if nothing happens."

"Something's goin' to happen," gasped the fireman. "Listen!"

Far back over the track came a pounding and a pushing. The engineer shook his head.

"They're after us," he said to the adjutant, "and what's more they're bound to get us unless we can throw them off the track."

"Can't we win through with this start?" said the captain.

"No, sir," said the engineer, "they've got an engine that can do ten miles an hour better than this one and beside that, they've got a car to steady her. I don't dare give this old girl one ounce more of steam or she'd jump the tracks."

Before long far back around the curve came the head-light of the pursuing engine like the fierce eye of some insatiable monster on the track of its prey. Steadily she gained. Once when they approached the long trestlework which ran for nearly a mile, the sound of the pursuit slackened off as the lighter engine took the trestle at a speed which the heavier one did not dare to use. Bullet after bullet whizzed past the escaping engine as the soldiers in the cab of her pursuer fired again and again. Both engines, however, were swaying too much to allow for any certain aim. Finally one lucky shot smashed the clock in the front engine close by the engineer's head, spraying glass and splinters all over him. Now the front engine had only ten miles to go before she would be near enough to General Stockton's lines to be in safety. The rear engine, however, was less than a quarter of a mile away and gaining at every yard.

"How about dropping some of the fire-bars on the tracks?" suggested the captain. "We've got enough coal on to carry her the next ten miles. We shan't need the fire-bars after we get through and we certainly won't need them if they capture us."

It seemed a good idea and the wounded fireman dragged himself to the throttle and took the engineer's place for a moment while he and the captain climbed out upon the truck and carefully dropped one after the other of the long, heavy steel rods across the track. Then they listened, hoping to hear the crash of a derailed engine. It never came. Instead there was a loud clanging noise followed by a crackling of the underbrush and repeated again as the pursuing engine struck each bar with its cow-catcher and dashed it off the rails. The captain suddenly commenced to unbutton and tear off his long, heavy army overcoat.

"How about putting this in the middle of the track on the chance that it may entangle the wheels?" he suggested.

In a minute the engineer clambered out on the truck.

"If only it gets wedged in the piston-bar, it may take half an hour to get it out," he panted as he climbed back into the cab.

Suddenly from behind they heard a heavy jolting noise and then the sound of escaping steam.

"We got her," shouted the engineer and the captain to the wounded fireman whose face looked ghastly white against the red light of the open fire-box. The engineer and the captain shook hands and decided to do a little war-dance without much success on the swaying floor of the cab, but they were suddenly stopped by a whisper from the fireman.

"They've got it out," he said. Sure enough once more there came the thunder of approaching wheels and the start which they had gained was soon cut down again. The heavy engine came more and more rapidly on them as the fire died down, although the captain tried to stir up the flagging flames with his sword in place of the lost fire-iron. Only a mile ahead they could see the lights which showed where the Union lines lay. Before them was a heavy up-grade and it was certain that the Confederate engine would catch them there just on the edge of safety. In a minute or so the men crowded into the cab of the engine behind to be close enough to pick off the fugitives at their leisure. The three men stared blankly ahead. Suddenly the dull, despairing look on the engineer's face was replaced by a broad grin. Entirely forgetting military etiquette, he slapped his superior officer on the back and said:

"Captain, come out to the tender with me and I'll show you a stunt that will save our lives if you will do just what I tell you."

The captain obeyed meekly while the wounded fireman stared at his friend under the impression that he was losing his mind under the strain. The engineer took one of the large oil-cans with a long nozzle and then wrapping his two brawny arms tightly around the captain's waist, lowered him as far as he could from the tender and directed him to pour the oil directly on each rail without wasting a drop or allowing a foot to go unoiled. It was hard in the dark to see the rail or to keep one's balance on the bounding engine, but the captain was a light weight and the engineer let him down as far back from the tender as he dared and held him there until one rail was thoroughly oiled. He repeated the operation on the other side and the two once more came back to the fireman who was clinging limply to the throttle.

"Now," said the engineer, "keep your eye open and you'll see some fun."

The front engine puffed more and more slowly up the grade and the pursuing engine seemed to gain on them at every yard. Already the men in the cab were commencing to aim their rifles for the last fatal volley. At this moment the front wheels of the pursuing engine reached the oiled track and in a minute her speed slackened, the wheels whirled round and round at a tremendous speed and there was a sudden rush and hiss of escaping steam. The engine in front suddenly drew away from her anchored pursuer. The engineer took a last long look at them through his field-glasses.

"It seems to me, captain," said he, "as if they are cussin' considerable. Her old wheels are spinnin' like a squirrel-cage."

The engine dashed on more and more slowly, but there was no need for haste. In a few minutes a shot was fired in front of them and a sentry shouted for them to halt. They were within the picket lines of the Union Army. The engine was stopped and the three men staggered out holding tightly the precious dispatches which they carried in triplicate and in a few minutes more they were in the presence of General Stockton. A force was at once sent out and the Confederates and their locomotive were captured and within an hour thirty thousand men were on their way to relieve the beset Union forces.

The gauntlet had been run and General Thomas' army was saved.