Part 2

Like most men from border states he represented a house divided against itself. In his case the division was peculiarly distressing.

He was an enthusiastic Southerner. His twin brother was an equally enthusiastic Union man. The one was in the one army as a matter of conscience, and the other in the other for precisely the same reason. It was always a grief to Jack that this separation had come between him and the curly-headed twin brother, with whom he had slept in infancy, and who had been his comrade until that terrible fratricidal war had parted them.

He used to talk with us about it around the camp-fire, and was especially sad over it when any of us managed to get off for a day or a week to visit our homes. His home was beyond the lines; and in all that country for which he was fighting there was no human being whom he could call kin.

He had this comfort, however, that his brother and he were never likely to meet in the conflict of arms. For to avoid that the brother had betaken himself to the West and was serving in Mississippi. But there was always the terrible chance that in the shifting of troops they two might some day, unknown to each other, be fighting on opposite sides of the same field. That, in fact, is what happened at Brandy Station, and it happened more dramatically than either of the brothers had anticipated.

The conflict at Brandy Station was perhaps the greatest cavalry fight of the war. It was the one contest in which large bodies of armed and trained horsemen, under the greatest cavalry leaders on either side, met fairly in conflict with little or no interference from troops of other arms.

It was the only contest of the kind, so far as I know, in which highly expert swordsmen met each other fairly in single combat. There was on both sides a chivalric feeling akin to that of the “knights of old,” which prompted men not to interfere when two well-matched cavaliers met each other with naked blades.

Jack Swan was naturally eager for a fray of this sort. He knew and mightily rejoiced in his superb skill with the sabre.

He watched anxiously for his opportunity. Presently it came.

A singularly lithe young fellow from one of the Northern regiments met and slew, in the open field, one of our officers. Thereupon Jack turned to his captain and said: “If I have your leave, captain, I’d like to try conclusions with that young fellow myself. He seems to know how to handle sharp steel.”

The captain nodded assent, and Jack put spurs to his horse. The two men met in midfield. They crossed swords as a couple of gladiators might, while a thousand eyes watched anxiously for the result.

It was manifestly to be a contest of experts, a battle of the giants, for both men were above the average in height and weight, and both knew every trick of the sabre.

Their swords drew fire from each other’s edge at the first onset.

Then they paused strangely and looked at each other. Then Jack deliberately threw his sabre upon the ground and uncovered his head.

His adversary could have run him through on the instant, but the action of Jack seemed to give him pause. He stopped with his sword poised at the tierce thrust. He leant forward eagerly and gazed into the calm eyes of the Confederate. Then he, too, abandoning his purpose, threw his weapon to the ground.

We were all eagerness and curiosity; and neither our eagerness nor our curiosity was relieved when the two men grasped each other’s hand, swung their horses around, and each returned unarmed to his own line.

When Jack rode up he had just six words of explanation to make.

“That man,” he said, “is my twin brother.”

That seemed to be all there was to say. “Blood is thicker than water.”

A FAMILY THAT HAD NO LUCK

There were two instances of supreme heroism in the Civil War. One was upon the one side, the other upon the other.

One was the charge of Pickett’s Southerners at Gettysburg. The other was the heroic series of assaults, made by the Northern troops on Marye’s Heights, at Fredericksburg.

General Lee’s works in the last-named battle were high up on the hill. Crossing the field in front of them was a sunken road--a perfect breastwork already formed. The main body of the army was in the works above; but a multitude of us were thrown forward into the sunken road.

The enemy knew nothing of this geographical peculiarity. But their first advance revealed the impossibility of breaking Lee’s lines at that point. The column that advanced was swept away as with a broom before it got within firing distance of the works it supposed itself to be attacking. The men knew what that meant. Wiser than their general, they saw the necessity of selecting some other point of attack. Nevertheless when their commander persisted, they six times came unflinchingly to an assault which every man of them knew to be hopeless. This may not have been war, but it was heroism.

We who faced them there honored it as such.

Just as we tumbled into the sunken road, an old man came in bearing an Enfield rifle and wearing an old pot hat of the date of 1857 or thereabouts. With a gentle courtesy that was unusual in war, he apologized to the two men between whom he placed himself, saying: “I hope I don’t crowd you, but I must find a place somewhere from which I can shoot.”

At that moment one of the great assaults occurred. The old man used his gun like an expert. He wasted no bullet. He took aim every time and fired only when he knew his aim to be effective. Yet he fired rapidly. Tom Booker, who stood next to him, said as the advancing column was swept away: “You must have shot birds on the wing in your time.”

The old man answered: “I did up to twenty year ago; but then I sort o’ lost my sight, you know, and my interest in shootin’.”

“Well, you’ve got ’em both back again,” called out Billy Goodwin from down the line.

“Yes,” said the old man. “You see I had to. It’s this way: I had six boys and six gells. When the war broke out I thought the six boys could do my family’s share o’ the fightin’. Well, they did their best, but they didn’t have no luck. One of ’em was killed at Manassas, two others in a cavalry raid, and the other three fell in different actions--’long the road as you might say. We ain’t seemed to a had no luck. But it’s just come to this, that if the family is to be represented, the old man must git up his shootin’ agin, or else one o’ the gells would have to take a hand. So here I am.”

Just then the third advance was made. A tremendous column of heroic fellows was hurled upon us, only to be swept away as its predecessors had been. Two or three minutes did the work, but at the end of that time the old man fell backward, and Tom Booker caught him in his arms.

“You’re shot,” he said.

“Yes. The family don’t seem to have no luck. If one o’ my gells comes to you, you’ll give her a fair chance to shoot straight, won’t you, boys?”

WILLIAM

It was during the long waiting time.

The battle of Manassas had been fought in July, and for months afterward, there was nothing for us to do. We had failed to assail Washington, and the enemy was not yet sufficiently recovered from his demoralization--the completest that ever overcame an army--to assail us.

We had time, therefore, to quarrel among ourselves.

Two men had met in a glade in a thicket some distance from the camp. They were taking their quarrel very seriously, and had met to fight it out without the formality of seconds or other familiar frills of the duello. They crossed sabres.

It was then that Billy Gresham broke through the bushes and interposed.

Billy was a recognized “character.” He was a phenomenal egotist, but he rarely used the first personal pronoun singular. Instead of saying “I” or “me,” he usually said “William.” But he said it with an unctuousness and appreciation of its significance that cannot be described in words.

Also Billy Gresham always did what he pleased, without a thought of having to give an account of his conduct to anybody. His extraordinary loquacity was a perfect safeguard against any possible challenge of resentment. He could talk anybody down and close the conversation at his own sweet will. The worst that his adversary could do was to laugh at him, and Billy didn’t mind that in the least. He regarded it rather as a grateful tribute to his humor.

Just as the two men crossed swords, Billy broke through the bushes, and interposed his blade--with a very good imitation of stage heroism--between the combatants. Then, with all the authority of an expert in a matter he knew nothing about, he proceeded to lay down laws of his own extemporaneous invention for the governance of single combat.

“Stop, gentlemen!” he cried out. Then, laying his sword on the ground between them, he said: “You must not cross my sword with yours, gentlemen. To do that would be to put an affront upon William which only blood could efface, and it must be the blood of the offender--not the gore of private William Gresham.”

The two men had come to a pause, of course. Equally of course, they were smiling at the ridiculousness of Billy Gresham’s interference and the absurdity of his chatter.

Still their purpose to fight remained in undiminished intensity. Seeing this, Billy resumed his talk.

“If you are determined to fight,” he said, “you can do so. Far be it from William to interrupt a prearranged engagement for mutual dissection between two of his friends. But William always likes to have a little money up on the probabilities.”

Then pulling out a pocket-book, which was fat with humorous newspaper clippings, but which both men knew to contain nothing more valuable, he caressed it lovingly and said: “Before you proceed, William wants to bet one hundred dollars to ten with one or both of you--you can make it a thousand dollars to a hundred, if you prefer--that neither of you two sublimated idiots can give William a reasonable excuse for this quarrel. Come now, before you enter upon the business of mutual slaughter, make a bet that will provide in some degree for the loved ones dependent on you.”

By that time both men were laughing, for, after all, their quarrel was a trifling one. They would not have quarrelled at all if the intensity of the nervous strain put upon them by the war had been relieved by active duty.

“Now,” said Billy, “William has another bet to make. He offers a hundred to one that if the colonel catches you fellows at this sort of idiotic performance, he’ll take the ‘honor’ out of both of you by making you grub stumps for weeks to come. Put up your swords and shake hands, or else take the bets.”

The absurdity of the situation ended it. Billy remarked: “Now let William give you a tip. There is the enemy to fight; and if William does not hopelessly misunderstand the temper of George B. McClellan’s army, they will give us all the fighting we want without anything of this sort.”

It was Billy who, at the end of the war, protested his loyalty to the Southern cause by vowing that he would never send a letter unless it could go under cover of a Southern postage-stamp. I am credibly informed that for thirty odd years he has kept this vow.

It must have spared him a great deal of trouble.

A CRADLE CAPTAIN

They said we had robbed the cradle and the grave to recruit our army.

We had.

The cradle contingent acquitted itself particularly well.

He was a very little fellow. He was said to be fourteen years old. He didn’t look it. In his captain’s uniform he suggested the need of a nurse with cap and apron. But when it came to doing the work of a soldier the impression was different.

It was in 1864, late summer. We were in the trenches outside a fortification engaged in bombarding Fort Harrison, below Richmond. The enemy had captured that work, and it was deemed necessary to drive him out. To that end we had been sent from Petersburg to the north side of James River, with twenty-two mortars to rain a hundred shells a minute into the fort preparatory to the infantry charge.

A gun-boat had been ordered up the river to help in the bombardment. The gun-boat mistook _us_ for Fort Harrison and opened upon our defenceless rear. Its shells were about the size and shape of a street lamp, and they wrought fearful havoc among us.

The Cradle Captain had charge of the signal operator--a stalwart mountaineer of six feet four or so.

The Cradle Captain ordered him to mount upon the glacis and signal the ship to cease firing. The man was not a coward; but the fire was terrific. He hesitated. That Cradle Captain leaped like a cat upon the glacis, which the shells were splitting every second. He pulled out two pistols. He presented one at each side of the mountaineer’s head. Then in a little, childish, piping voice he said: “Get up here and do your duty, or I’ll blow your brains out.”

We rejoiced that the lead, which at that moment laid the little soldier low, came from the enemy’s guns, and not from our own mistaken comrades. The Cradle Captain was glad, too, for as he was carried away on a litter, he laughed out between groans: “It wasn’t our men that did it, for I had made that hulking idiot get in that signal all right, anyhow.”

WHO IS RUSSELL?

I saw him for the first time in 1862.

We were stationed on the coast of South Carolina, and never was there an idler set of soldiers than we.

We were in the midst of a great war, it is true, and ours was a fighting battery with dates on its battle banner; but on the coast we had literally nothing to do. The position of our camp was determined by military geography, and it could not be changed. A fight was possible any day, and now and then a fight came. But we knew in advance precisely where it must be waged, and until our foemen chose to bring it about, we had no occasion for marching or bivouacking. They were on the sea islands. We were on the mainland. We had no means of crossing to the islands. They could cross to the mainland whenever they pleased. When they came, it was our business to meet them and keep them from reaching the line of railroad along the coast.

Every little stream and every little inlet was bordered by an impassable morass, which could be crossed only by way of a high and narrow causeway. The places where the roads crossed the streams were, therefore, the predestined battlefields. We were stationed with reference to these crossings.

We idled away the time, and like all idle people near a small railroad station we knew of the comings and goings of everybody in the country round about.

Everybody, that is to say, except Russell.

His coming was a mystery. In fact, he did not come at all. He simply appeared one evening as a looker-on at roll-call.

There was no way by which he could have come to Pocotaligo except by train; and we knew that he had not come by train. The whole body of us regularly attended the incoming of every train, and promptly pumped all the news out of every arriving passenger.

Russell had not come by train. Therefore Russell had not come at all. Yet there he was.

He was a comely young fellow. So shapely were his limbs and so exact the proportions of his frame that no one, without a second look at him, would have realized his symmetry, his extraordinary strength, or his activity. His head was a study for the sculptor. In limbs, torso, features, complexion, and bearing he stood there in the Southern sunset a very model of manly beauty.

When the roll-call was ended, he came up to me, and, touching his hat gracefully, introduced himself.

“My name is William Russell. I shall be obliged if you will let me remain with your men over night. I shall probably ask to enlist to-morrow.”

His words were simple enough, and his manner was that of a modest gentleman; but there was that in his voice that fascinated me beyond measure. Had any other stranger come up to me with a like request, I should have questioned him closely, and possibly have turned him over for the night to the hospitality of one of the messes. With Russell I did nothing of the sort. He was a gentleman visiting our camp. I could do no less than invite him to sup and lodge with me. He had sought no such hospitality, but when I offered it, he frankly accepted it.

I found him to be a particularly agreeable guest. He talked fluently, but modestly, on all subjects as they arose. Before my brother officers came into my quarters for our nightly game of whist, I had discovered that Russell was not only a man of broad general education, but one thoroughly familiar with English, German, and French literature as well. We learned very indirectly that he had travelled extensively, and that travel had wrought in him its perfect work in making him an agreeable companion.

The next morning he expressed a wish to enlist with us. He persisted in this, in spite of our assurances that our rude, uncultivated mountaineers were not fit companions for him.

After his enlistment he carefully avoided everything like presumption upon our previous hospitality, or upon his own evident superiority. He knew the distinction between officers and enlisted men, and he observed it with a rigidity wholly unknown in our rather democratic service. I was glad sometimes to seek him out when I wanted a companion, and on such occasions he responded promptly to my invitations, but he never once came to my quarters, or those of any other officer, uninvited.

He was always quiet and modest, and it was only by accident that we learned little by little how many and varied his accomplishments were. It was not only that he never boasted; he was even shy of letting us find out for ourselves how many things he could do surprisingly well.

The men had built a number of gymnastic structures, and of afternoons their contests of strength and skill were attended by everybody in the neighborhood. For more than a month Russell looked on as a casually interested spectator. One afternoon, however, some of our best gymnasts were trying to accomplish a new and rather difficult feat. When they were ready to abandon the attempt as hopeless, Russell modestly said to the most persistent one among them: “I think if you will reverse the position of your hands you can do that.”

The man reversed his hands, but awkwardly.

“Not that way; let me show you,” said Russell. And going to the bars he quickly did the thing himself with no apparent exertion whatever. Then, as if in mere wantonness of strength and skill, he went rapidly through a series of gymnastic feats of the most difficult sort imaginable, ending the performance with a number of somersaults that would have done honor to an acrobat. When he had done, we all clapped hands and shouted our applause. Russell simply blushed as a woman might and went to his hut.

I never knew him to touch the bars again, so averse was he to anything like display.

When I ventured to ask him in private one day how and where he had acquired his skill, he replied: “Oh, I have no skill to speak of in the matter. It’s merely a trick or two I picked up at a German university.”

In this way we learned one thing after another about the man, though he vouchsafed us no information concerning his past history, except so much as we had discovered in mustering him into service. That consisted of but one fact: that William Russell was born in Kentucky; and that isolated fact was a falsehood, as Russell afterwards informed me.

One day, some months after his enlistment, there was an explosion in camp.

A chief of caisson had been tinkering with a shell from the enemy’s camp which had not burst. It exploded in his hands, literally blowing one of them off midway between the wrist and the elbow. When I came to the poor fellow he was lying on the ground, the blood spurting from the severed artery.

The surgeon and all my brother officers had ridden away, no one knew whither, and I was completely at a loss to know what to do. Before I had time to decide anything, Russell pushed his way through the throng, drew out his handkerchief, knotted it, and quickly tightened it around the man’s arm.

“Will you please hold that steadily?” said he in the calmest possible voice to one of the excited men. Then turning to me and touching his cap, he said: “Will you allow me to go to the surgeon’s quarters for some necessary things? I think I may help this poor fellow.”

“Certainly,” I replied, “if you can do anything for him, do it by all means.”

He walked rapidly, but without a sign of excitement, to the hospital tent, and returned almost immediately with some bottles, bandages, and a case of instruments.

Turning to me he said: “Will you do me the favor to put your finger on the corporal’s pulse and observe its beating carefully? If it sinks or becomes irregular, please let me know immediately.”

With that he saturated a handkerchief with chloroform, and using a peremptory form of speech for the first time in my experience of him, he ordered one of the men to hold it to the wounded corporal’s nose.

“What are you going to do?” I asked in astonishment.

“I am going to amputate this man’s arm, if you have no objection,” he returned, as he opened the case of instruments. And he did amputate it in a most skilful manner, as the surgeon testified on his return. The operation over, Russell gave minute directions for the care of the wounded man.

My astonishment may well be imagined. The men, however, were not surprised. Their faith in Russell was unbounded already. They had so often seen him do as an expert things that nobody had imagined him capable of doing at all, that they had come to think him equal to any emergency, as indeed it seemed that he was.

For myself, I am free to confess that my curiosity was sharply piqued. I determined to question Russell in detail about himself and his past at the first opportunity. When the opportunity came, however, the man’s modest dignity so impressed me that I could not bring myself to do anything so rude and discourteous. I contented myself with saying: “Why, Russell, I didn’t know you were a surgeon?”

“I can hardly claim to be that,” he replied, “though I gave some little attention to the subject while I was abroad.”

It then occurred to me to suggest the propriety of his asking for a surgeon’s commission, as it really seemed a pity that a man so accomplished as he should remain a private in a company made up almost entirely of illiterate mountaineers. He refused to entertain the idea for a moment, saying: “I am entirely contented with my lot and do not care to change.”

One day, not long after this occurrence, I was playing at chess with Russell. Apropos of something or other, I told him an anecdote illustrative of Japanese character.

“Pardon me,” he replied, “but you are misinformed,” and straightway he proceeded to tell me many interesting facts with regard to the Orientals, all of which were evidently the result of personal observation. I presently discovered, as I thought, that Russell had been an officer in the United States navy, and that he had gone to Japan with Commodore Perry’s expedition.

When a month or two later our battery was sent to a little place immediately on the water, and a good deal of boat service was expected of us, our first care was to train our mountaineers in the use of oars and sails. With the exception of Russell, Joe, and myself, not a man in the battery knew the difference between a mast and a keel. It was determined, therefore, to divide the company into boat’s crews for drill, and to make of Russell chief drill sergeant.

When the order providing for this was read on parade, Russell said nothing. But I had hardly reached my quarters before he came, cap in hand, asking to see me in private.

“I must beg you to excuse me from this boat-drill duty; I really can’t do it.”

“But you must,” I returned. “The men must be taught to handle the boats, and your skill and experience are quite indispensable.”