Part 4

My guide--for without a guide no one could possibly find his way at night through parts of that country--was a dull, taciturn fellow, with whom I found it impossible to maintain a conversation. My twelve miles’ ride to the farthest picket post, which I visited first, was therefore a very disagreeable substitute for the jovial, social evening I had planned.

By the time I had reached Bear’s Island, I was wet to the skin with dew and stiff with cold. It was about ten o’clock when we rode across the causeway from the mainland to the island, and the first thing I observed was the utter darkness of the place. Ordinarily the pickets on this post kept up a little fire behind a screen at which to warm and dry themselves during the night. Approaching from the rear, I always saw this fire when I crossed the causeway, the screen standing between it and the water on the other side. To-night, however, everything was dark, and it was with some little difficulty that we found our way across the island to the picket post.

“What’s the matter, sergeant?” I asked. “Where’s your fire to-night?”

“I had to put it out and move away from it,” he replied. “They are loading up two gun-boats and three transports just across the creek there, and they threw two or three charges of grape-shot over here an hour or two ago. They killed one of my men, poor fellow. I’ve been watching them and was on the point of sending a man up with the alarm. I’m glad you’ve come to take the responsibility off my shoulders.”

By this time I had brought my glass to bear upon the pier upon the other side of the inlet, or creek, as it is commonly called, and saw that the sergeant was right. Three transports were rapidly receiving troops, cavalry, artillery, and infantry, while two rather formidable looking gun-boats were sullenly steaming up and down in front.

The inlet was nearly a mile wide, and as the enemy showed few lights and dim ones, the sergeant without a glass had not been able to discover the number of troops taken on board. I soon made out that at least five field batteries had been shipped, and that the transports were almost full of troops, while a battalion of infantry, a squadron of cavalry, and two batteries remained on shore, apparently waiting for those on board to be so disposed as to afford room for them.

I rapidly weighed all the probabilities in my mind. There were two and only two possible purposes in this embarkation of troops. It was a formidable expedition against the railroad, via Bluffton, or else it was merely a removal of troops from one point on the coast to another. If the first were the object, the vessels would steam up the inlet; if the other, they would put to sea.

But if it were merely a transfer of troops, why were the transports crowded in this way, and why were the convoying gun-boats there? There was no enemy off the coast, except storms; and as storms were conspicuously disregarded in the overloading of the steamers, it seemed to me clear that the expedition was bound for Bluffton.

* * * * *

“How many men have you, sergeant?” I asked.

“Two,” he replied.

“Trusty fellows?”

“As good as ever threw a leg over a saddle.”

“Send them to me,” I said.

When they came, I asked: “Are your horses good ones?”

“Pretty good.”

“Mount, then,” I said to one, “and ride as fast as you can to Buckingham Ferry. Wait with the pickets there till the fleet comes within sight. Then send a man to Bluffton to announce the fact. Stay yourself till the fleet has passed, observing which creek it takes. As soon as you satisfy yourself on that point, ride to Bluffton and report.”

Then turning to the other, I said: “You go to Hunting Island and do the same thing. Tell the sergeants there to follow their standing orders in all other regards. Be quick, now, both of you. I’ll expect you at Bluffton at the right time.”

As the men galloped away, I walked to the place where the sergeant was still standing, and said: “Sergeant, you and I will stay here till the fleet leaves. Then we’ll ride straight to Bluffton on a full run and give the alarm in time.”

“It’s already leaving,” he replied. “And look! it’s steaming straight up the creek.”

Looking, I saw that it was as he said. The two gun-boats abreast led the column, the three transports following.

“It’s time for us to be riding, then,” I said, hastily springing into my saddle. “But we can beat them by two hours, as the creek is crooked and they must sound all the way for want of buoys.”

We galloped across the island; but when we came to the little creek we found an unexpected obstacle in our way. The tide had risen well-nigh to the flood, and was exceedingly high in consequence of a strong wind that had been blowing on shore all day. The strip of marsh which separated the island from the mainland was completely covered with water, and even the causeway leading across it was submerged. The two men sent to alarm the pickets had reached the place only a little while earlier than we. We found them hunting for some landmark or other by which to find out where the causeway lay.

The sergeant thought he knew its locality and direction. He boldly plunged in. The rest of us followed.

Just what we did, or where we went, or how it all happened, none of us ever knew. But we rode off the submerged track, about midway the stream, and found ourselves floundering in the water, some of us on our horses, and some of us under them. It was the darkest night I ever knew. Once in the water we could see no shore anywhere. Naturally, each took the direction in which he thought the desired bank lay. And it seemed that no two of us agreed in our views on this point except by accident.

My horse swam pretty well and finally made the edge of the water. But the bottom was a quagmire, and sinking in it he could not extricate himself. To relieve him I slipped off his back and into the water, but it proved too late. With every frantic struggle the poor beast sank deeper, and within a minute he lay lifeless in the water, half buried in the mud of the bottom.

My own situation was a perilous one. My feet sank at once in the slimy ooze. To save myself I threw my body forwards. Succeeding in freeing my feet, I swam until the water was too shallow for swimming. After that, by crawling on my belly, I managed to avoid sinking and smothering in the mud.

It was half an hour, however, before I stood upon firm ground again, and then I did not know which side of the marsh I had reached.

I was covered with slime, stiff with cold, and utterly exhausted by my exertions. Of myself, however, I thought little. I was anxious only about the sleeping battery at Bluffton. If the alarm were not given,--and unless some one or other of our party had succeeded in getting across with his horse, it could not be,--Bluffton would be taken completely by surprise. The battery would be captured. A rapid march would take the enemy to the railroad, either at Grahamville or at Hardeeville, before any force could be sent to oppose. Our defence of an essential line of communication would fail. Even if the two men from the picket post had got out on the other side, they would go not to Bluffton, but to Buckingham Ferry and Hunting Island, as I had ordered. It was not at all certain that the fleet would pass either of those points. It could sail up other creeks quite as easily, particularly on such a tide as that.

With these thoughts in my mind I felt the need of bestirring myself. I was not long in discovering that we were still on the island, and not on the mainland. Following the margin of the water, I presently came to the two men who had been with the sergeant on picket. One of them was stuck in the mud, and the other was trying to draw him out with a pole. Both of them had lost their horses. The sergeant and my guide had escaped with their steeds, and I found both of them on the island, a little further up the shore.

The guide was utterly demoralized with fright, or cold, or both. So I took his horse and ordered him to wait on the island till morning, and then to make his way to whatever point he should find it easiest to reach. The sergeant and I determined to make another effort to get to Bluffton and give the alarm.

“Run back to the other side of the island,” said he to one of his men, “and see if the fleet is still in sight and what it is doing. We must let our horses blow a little, and you can get back by the time we are ready to start.”

The man went, and his comrade, having nothing better to do, went with him. Presently one of them returned, bringing the news that the fleet was making its way up a narrow creek from which, as we knew, neither the Buckingham Ferry nor the Hunting Island picket could see it. As those were the only posts from which after seeing it a man could get to Bluffton in time to give the alarm, the sergeant and I were more than ever determined to make our way thither at all hazards. Luckily the road from Bear’s Island to Bluffton was the easiest one in all that country to find, and the one I happened to know best. So that even if the sergeant should not get across the marsh, I was confident of my ability to make the journey alone.

“Now,” said the sergeant, “if I get across I won’t wait for you, but will go right on; if you succeed, don’t wait for me. It’s no time for ceremony. It’s better one of us should drown than that the other should be delayed.”

“Spoken like a man and a soldier, sergeant,” said I. “Now for it.” And with that we again essayed to follow the submerged track. About midway the sergeant’s horse went down as before; and just as I was about to call out something encouraging to him the guide’s horse, which I was riding, plunged headforemost into the salt water, throwing me completely over his head.

For a moment I was senseless from a blow received either from the hoof of the sergeant’s horse, or by falling against one of the timbers of the causeway. When I came to myself I was clinging to the tail of the sergeant’s horse, while the sergeant, as I presently discovered, was holding by one of the stirrups.

How long we remained in the water, I do not know, but it must have been nearly an hour. The poor horse swam around in a purposeless way, not knowing where to go, until finally he sank exhausted beneath the tide. Cool as the night was the salt water was tepid as it always is on that coast. Otherwise I should not now be alive to tell of that Christmas Eve.

We got out at last and found ourselves on the island again. Despairing now--for without horses it was simply impossible to get to Bluffton until long after the time when our coming would be of any use--we trudged doggedly across the island, that we might wait and listen at the water’s edge for the booming of the cannon.

Two more utterly wretched young men no Christmas morning ever dawned upon.

“See there,” said the sergeant, halting suddenly. “There’s the fleet, and bless my soul it’s putting to sea.”

It was true enough. No attack was to be made after all. We had spent the night drowning horses, and nearly drowning ourselves for nothing.

Why the fleet had steamed several miles up the creek before putting to sea, I have never been able to guess. But I vividly remember that its prank subjected me to a twelve miles’ walk that morning, and compelled me to substitute quinine and dogwood-root-bark bitters that day for the Christmas dinner I had planned.

THE WOMEN OF PETERSBURG

We went into Petersburg in June, 1864, with the horses at a brisk trot, and the men on foot at a double quick.

The enemy’s battalions were already at the other end of Sycamore Street, and it was our task to drive them back before they should be reinforced.

Nevertheless those good women of Petersburg ministered to us. They knew that we had been marching all night and that we were in a famishing condition. They knew also that we must not waste a moment if Petersburg, the key to Richmond, was not to be lost.

So they formed themselves in platoons--God bless them!--bearing gifts of sandwiches and coffee.

We could not stop even to take, much less to eat, the food they offered, so they thrust their platoons between ours and marched backward as fast as we marched forward, serving their food and drink to us as we went.

Every now and then a Federal shell would come bowling down the street, but these alert women would jump it as nimbly as if its passage had been a prearranged figure in the dance. Not one of them showed the slightest fear. Not one of them faltered for a moment in her ministrations in consideration of herself. There was not one of them, I think, who would not have gone with us into the crash of the battle itself; but by the time we had refreshed ourselves a little, we were so near to the aggressive enemy’s lines, that we cried aloud with one voice the order for the womenkind to go back.

A minute later we were in the thick of the struggle for Petersburg. The enemy was not in such force as we had supposed, and we had fortunately arrived some hours in advance of General Grant’s ponderous divisions. After fifteen minutes of hard fighting the enemy retired beyond the Jerusalem turnpike and we spent the night in beginning that thin line of earthworks which was destined for eight months to come to hold at bay a force two or three times as strong in numbers as our own.

At any hour during all that eight months the Federal forces could have broken through our lines at any point they pleased, if they had been resolute.

Anybody who will look at the old works to-day, as I have recently done, and consider the facts dispassionately, can see this clearly for himself. Our enemies had behind them, and running parallel with their lines, a system of roads that was out of our sight. They had resources practically illimitable. They had in front of them an attenuated line of men, stretched out for twenty miles, and without the possibility of reinforcement from any source. They could have concentrated any force they pleased at any point they pleased and at any time they pleased, without the possibility of our discovering what they were doing. They could have made an irresistible attack upon any point of our line at will. They did not do it. And so the fight went on.

During all those weary months the good women of Petersburg went about their household affairs with fifteen-inch shells dropping occasionally into their boudoirs or uncomfortably near to their kitchen ranges. Yet they paid no attention to any danger that threatened themselves.

Their deeds of mercy will never be adequately recorded until the angels report. But this much I want to say of them--they were “war women” of the most daring and devoted type. When there was need of their ministrations on the line, they were sure to be promptly there; and once, as I have recorded elsewhere in print, a bevy of them came out to the lines only to encourage us, and, under a fearful fire, sang Bayard Taylor’s “Song of the Camp,” giving us as an encore the lines:--

“Ah, soldiers, to your honored rest, Your truth and valor bearing, The bravest are the tenderest, The loving are the daring.”

With inspiration such as these women gave us, it was no wonder that, as I heard General Sherman say soon after the war: “It took us four years, with all our enormous superiority in resources, to overcome the stubborn resistance of those men.”

HAM SEAY

Ham Seay had a hæmorrhage that morning--a hæmorrhage from the lungs.

But Ham Seay had the fastest horse in the company, and he knew how to ride a horse for all that was in him of achievement.

When the news came that Stuart wanted to communicate as quickly as possible with the commandant at Fredericksburg, Ham Seay volunteered to carry the message.

“But you’re ill,” said Stuart.

“That doesn’t matter,” said Ham. “I can ride my horse, and my horse is a good one.”

“But you’re ill,” said Stuart again. “And I don’t want to send an ill man on such a journey as this.”

Then Ham Seay rose in the majesty of his manhood.

“General,” he said, “I am a doomed man. I cannot live long to render service in the war. I want to render what service I can. I want to carry this message. It will do me no harm. It will not shorten the few days I have yet to live. It will make my life worth something.”

So Stuart gave him the message to a general fifty miles away.

Ham Seay mounted, and said to his comrades: “Good-by, boys. I may never see you again; but I’ll do this errand all right, or die trying.”

He rode his horse with urgency, but with discretion. He had but one object in view, and that was to get the message to its destination in the briefest possible number of hours.

He delivered his communication. He died half an hour afterwards. His horse had died before Ham did. But both had done their duty.

OLD JONES’S DASH

Old Jones was a queer character. He was also a queer figure. He never had a uniform. He wore a yellow coat and a pair of light blue trousers. He wore a pot hat of the fashion, I should say at a guess, of the year 1812.

He was a graduate of West Point, but he had resigned from the army twelve years before the war began, and therefore was not entitled to what they called “relative rank.”

He was a cynic and a misanthrope. He was still more pronouncedly a misogynist. He did not believe in men. He positively disbelieved in women. He was ready at any time to affront a man and to treat a woman with conspicuous contempt. He hated life, and was ready to give it up at any moment which might suit the decrees or the aspirations of Fate. He was ready to fight anything in the world, or anybody, under any circumstances, or upon any issue.

That is why he got himself cashiered toward the end of the war.

But we are dealing with the beginning of the war. At the beginning of the war he organized a company of cavalry and got himself elected its captain. In the regular order of promotion he soon came to be colonel of the regiment. It was at this time that the events recorded in the present story occurred.

When McClellan took command of the Army of the Potomac, after the stampede at Manassas, it was under the demoralization of the fearful panic. It was a part of McClellan’s program to send his men out on expeditions of attack in order to accustom them to the idea of standing fire. As the end of the summer of 1861 drew near, he had begun, seriously, to threaten our position at Centreville.

He would send out men in considerable force and compel us to meet them with serious intent. Usually Stuart was able very quickly to discover the sham character of these advances. But once in a while they were so well disguised as to be mistaken for serious attacks.

One day in the autumn the greatest of all these advances began. The enemy came forward with every possible appearance of intending an assault on the Confederate position at Centreville.

There were cavalry, infantry, and artillery in the column; and when they reached our picket lines there was every appearance of serious conflict in prospect.

As we sat there on our horses in front of the line, Stuart came along and said to Colonel Jones: “Colonel, I wish you’d take a dozen or twenty men, get into the rear of that force, and find out how much it means.”

Jones detailed the requisite number of us from the right of our company, with Captain Irving in command of them. By riding three or four miles to the right, we were able to get in rear of the Federal force. We soon found that there was no baggage train, no commissary train, no quartermaster’s train, and no ammunition train--in short, that the advance was not intended as a serious attack.

By the time that we had found out all this, we were within fifty yards of the rear of the Federal lines, and almost immediately opposite the point where we had left our own command. We were pretty well hidden by the underbrush of the woods, as we stood there and looked.

Presently old Jones turned to Charlie Irving and said: “The whole thing’s an egg-shell, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” said Charlie; “an egg-shell easily crushed.”

Jones thought a moment, and then said, with his nasal drawl: “I wish I could communicate with Stuart. I’d break through that line and save the trouble of the ride around.”

The young captain’s eyes snapped with that peculiar sense of humor and that daring which were his principal characteristics, as he said: “Why not break through anyhow, colonel? Don’t you think Stuart would understand? I’ve never found him slow in getting to windward of things.”

“Well, if you say so, captain, I guess we’ll do it. It’ll save the horses, anyhow. Attention, men!” with a slow drawl. “Draw--sabres! Forward--march! Trot--march! Gallop--march! CHARGE!”

We went through that egg-shell with an enthusiasm which was _not_ a reflection of the drawling commands of our colonel.

Captain Irving was right: Stuart was not slow in getting to windward of things. He ordered a charge and doubled up that column like a telescope.

A WOMAN’S HAIR

After the battle of Manassas or Bull Run, fought July 21, 1861, Stuart made his headquarters in the neighborhood of Fairfax Court House, with pickets at Falls Church, Vienna, and other points ten miles or so to the front.

Suddenly, with a strong force, he occupied Mason’s and Munson’s hills, almost under the guns of the Washington fortifications, and very much farther in advance than outposts generally are.

It has since been a puzzle to many military critics to guess why he did this unusual thing. Perhaps this story may throw some light on the problem.

Our company was on picket at Falls Church. Half a dozen of us kept watch at the edge of the woods on the top of the hill, while the rest of the boys took their ease in rear.

It was in that early stage of the war when to shoot at men seemed to many civilians a species of sport--a sort of pursuit of big game.

This Falls Church post was a favorite rendezvous for this species of sportsmen from Washington. Our position was an exposed one. Men not in the army, and even women, liked to ride out from Washington, crouch behind a pile of logs, and “take a crack” at the rebels.

Now and then they made a widow and some orphans, and since this was merely a matter of diversion and entertainment for them, with no other principle involved, it seemed almost too bad.

Finally Charlie Irving got “tired,” as he put it, of “playing partridge for those people to shoot at.” Charlie Irving was our captain. He was a man who never said much, but always meant a good deal.

The next morning he made the detail for post duty at the front upon a new principle. We had been nine days on picket, and it had been his custom to detail the men for post duty in front in alphabetical order. This morning he selected us without reference to our “turns,” and with sole reference to the speed and endurance of our horses.

“Now, boys,” he said, with that easy familiarity which made us call him “Charlie,” because we had all gone hunting together as comrades before the war; “now, boys, we’re going to capture that picket post to-day, and if I find a civilian among them, I’m going to hang him to that chestnut tree for murder.”

We knew that he would do what he said, and we were all in hearty sympathy with his purpose.

About ten o’clock in the morning the sharp-shooting began. Our captain instantly divided us into two squads, and without military formalities said: “Now, boys, ride to the right and left and corner ’em.”

That was the only command we received, but we obeyed it with a will. The two sharp-shooting citizens who were there that morning escaped on good horses, but we captured the pickets.

Among them was a woman--a Juno in appearance, with a wealth of raven black hair twisted carelessly into a loose knot under the jockey cap she wore.

She was mounted on a superb chestnut mare, and she knew how to ride.