Part 5

She might easily have escaped, and at one time seemed about to do so, but at the critical moment she seemed to lose her head and so fell into our hands.

When we brought her to Charlie Irving she was all smiles and graciousness, and Charlie was all blushes.

“You’d hang me to a tree, if I were a man, I suppose,” she said. “And serve me right, too. As I’m only a woman, you’d better send me to General Stuart, instead.”

This seemed so obviously the right way out of it that Charlie ordered Ham Seay and me to escort her to Stuart’s headquarters, which were under a tree some miles in the rear.

When we got there Stuart seemed to recognize the young woman. Or perhaps it was only his habitual and constitutional gallantry that made him come forward with every manifestation of welcome, and himself help her off her horse, taking her by the waist for that purpose.

Ham Seay and I being mere privates were ordered to another tree. But we could not help seeing that cordial relations were quickly established between our commander and this young woman. We saw her presently take down her magnificent back hair and remove from it some papers. They were not “curl papers,” or that sort of stuffing which women call “rats.” Stuart was a very gallant man, and he received the papers with much fervor. He spread them out carefully on the ground, and seemed to be reading what was written or drawn upon them.

Then he talked long and earnestly with the young woman and seemed to be coming to some definite sort of understanding with her.

Then she dined with him on some fried salt pork and some hopelessly indigestible fried paste which we called bread.

Then he mounted her on her mare again and summoned Ham Seay and me.

“Escort this young lady back to Captain Irving,” he said. “Tell him to send her to the Federal lines under flag of truce, with the message that she was inadvertently captured in a picket charge, and that as General Stuart does not make war on women or children, he begs to return her to her home and friends.”

We did all this.

The next day, Stuart with a strong force advanced to Mason’s and Munson’s hills.

From there we could clearly see a certain house in Washington. It had many windows, and each had a dark Holland shade.

When we stood guard we were ordered to observe minutely and report accurately the slidings up and down of those Holland shades.

We never knew what three shades up, two half up, and five down might signify. But we had to report it, nevertheless, and Stuart seemed from that time to have an almost preternatural advance perception of the enemy’s movements.

That young woman certainly had a superb shock of hair.

A MIDNIGHT CRIME

THE CRIMINAL’S OWN ACCOUNT OF IT

As there is no law that can now reach my crime, I may as well tell all about it.

Soon after we sat down before Petersburg, in the summer of 1864, I was sent on a little military mission accompanied by Johnny Garrett, into the land of desolation--that part of Northern Virginia which lay sometimes in the possession of one army, sometimes in possession of the other, but was mostly left in nobody’s possession at all, and open to raids from both sides.

That region had been swept by fire and sword for nearly four years. It had been tramped over by both armies, and latterly had been subjected to that process of destruction which Sheridan had in mind when he said of another region that “the crow that flies over it must carry his rations with him.”

How anybody managed to live at all in such a region has always been a puzzle, but a few people did.

We had slept, Johnny Garrett and I, by the side of a fence the night before, and without breakfast we had been riding all day. Late in the afternoon we made up our minds to go for supper and lodging to a great country house which I had frequently visited as a guest in the days of its abundance. As we rode through the plantation, decay manifested itself on every hand. There was a small, straggling crop in process of growth, but sadly ill attended. There were no animals in sight except five sheep that we saw grazing on a hillside.

As we turned the corner of the woodland the mansion came into view. Only its walls were left standing. Fire had destroyed the rest. At the gate we met an old negro serving-man, whom I had known in the palmy days as Uncle Isham.

When I had seen him last he was in livery. As I saw him _now_ he was in rags.

Some eager, hurried inquiries as to the family brought out the fact that the mistress of the mansion with her two grown daughters was living in one of the negro quarters in rear of the burned house, and that he, alone, remained as a servant on the plantation.

“Dey took all de res’ off No’th, an’ dey tried to take Isham, too. But Isham he slip’ de bridle one night, an’ he came back heah to look after ole missus an’ de girls. So heah I is, an’ heah Ise gwine to stay.”

We did not remain to hear Isham’s account of his adventures, but hurried on to find out the condition of things with the family. There were but two rooms--one below, and the other above stairs--in the hut in which they were living. Yet the proud woman who was thus reduced showed no shame of her poverty, but gloried in it rather, as the old soldier glories in the scars received in his country’s service.

She welcomed us with as warm a show of hospitality as she had ever made in the old days of lavish entertainment.

After our first inquiries concerning their welfare, she said to us laughingly: “I wouldn’t keep you to-night, but would send you on to a better place, if I knew any better in the neighborhood. As it is, you’ll have to sleep under the trees for lack of room; but you boys are rather used to that. As for supper, I can give you some corn-bread and some sorghum molasses. The bread won’t be very good, because our supply of salt has run out, and of course as the cows have all been killed I can’t give you butter. But there’s enough bread and sorghum, anyhow.”

“How long since you had meat?” I asked.

“About three weeks,” she replied. “That is to say, since the last big raiding party came by.”

“Have you no pigs left?”

“No, we haven’t a living animal of any kind.”

“Whose sheep are those I saw as I rode up?”

“They belong to a neighbor,” she answered. “They’re what’s left of a large flock. When the raiders were here those five sheep ran into the bushes and escaped. But even if they were ours, you know, we couldn’t kill one.”

I remembered then that a law of the Confederacy made it a crime severely punishable to slaughter a sheep, even one’s own. They were wanted by the government for their wool to clothe the army.

Waiving all this aside as a matter of small moment, our hostess pressed us again to dismount for supper.

At this point Johnny Garrett lied:

“Oh, we can’t stay to supper, and the fact is we couldn’t eat if we did. It’s only half an hour since we ate the best part of a ham out of our haversacks. And besides we’ve got to get to Gordonsville to-night.”

I am afraid I was accessory after the fact to the telling of that lie. At least I didn’t contradict it.

We pushed on a little way till we had got out of sight of the house. Then we stopped by mutual consent under a tree and dismounted.

“The grass is pretty good,” I said, “and we’ll let the horses crop it while we wait for it to get good and dark.” It did not seem necessary to mention what we were to wait for darkness for.

“Yes,” said Johnny, “there are the sheep, and I’ll keep an eye on them.”

When it was thoroughly dark we committed a double crime.

It was sheep stealing as well as a violation of the other law, but we were not in a mood to consider such things just then. Under cover of the darkness we killed the fattest sheep in the lot, dressed it as well as we could, and then by the light of some matches I wrote a little note on a leaf from my memorandum book. It said simply this:--

“There is no law to forbid some hungry women to eat a sheep that somebody else has killed in violation of law.”

Pinning this to the carcass we carried the mutton to the house, and hung it to a tree where it would be seen with the dawn.

We felt as well about this thing as if we had been engaged in some highly moral act.

A LITTLE REBEL

It was an odd kind of a situation. It was in 1862, and we were on the coast of South Carolina defending the railroad line between Charleston and Savannah.

We had no infantry supports, and artillery is supposed to be helpless without such supports. But as there was nothing on the other side, except those pestilent sharp-shooters in the Hayward mansion, we did not need support.

It was our business to shell that mansion, burn it, and drive the sharp-shooters out. I may say, parenthetically, that we didn’t like the business. Mr. Hayward, who was familiarly known as “Tiger Bill,” had been the friend of our battery ever since we had succeeded in putting out a fire that had burnt some thousands of panels of fence for him. It is true that his friendship for us was in the main a reflex of his enmity to the Charleston Light Dragoons and the Routledge Mounted Riflemen. He favored us mainly to spite them. Nevertheless he favored us. He sent a wagon every morning to our camp loaded with vegetables, fruits, suckling pigs, and whatever else his dozen plantations might afford.

Naturally, we did not like the job of burning one of his country houses. But as business is business, so in war orders are orders.

Half a dozen shells did the work. Flames burst from the house in every direction, and the enemy’s sharp-shooters who had been using it as a vantage ground rapidly retreated across the cotton fields to the woodlands beyond under fire of our guns.

Our captain, a great bearded warrior, six feet four inches high, and as rough as men are made in appearance, was suddenly seized with a tender thought. Turning to me, he said: “There may be some poor devil wounded in that house and likely to be roasted. Let’s ride over there and see.”

We put spurs to our horses, dashed through the sharp-shooters’ fire, and a few minutes later began exploring the lower quarters of the house, the fire being above. We found nothing till we came to the cellar. There we discovered a little girl, anywhere from two to three years old,--I’m not a good judge of little girls’ ages,--sitting in a little rocking-chair, and singing “Dixie.”

The captain grabbed her suddenly and ran to the open air with her, for the volumes of smoke were rapidly penetrating to the cellar. When he got her out, he said: “Who are you?”

She replied, in a piping little voice, “I’m _Lulalie_.”

Whether this meant that her name was Lula Lee, or Eulalie, or what, we could not make out.

“Where is your mamma?” asked the captain.

“She’s dead--she died when I was born.”

“Where is your papa?”

“I don’t know. Those ugly other people took him away. When he saw ’em coming, he took me to the cellar, and told me to stay there so the shellies wouldn’t hit me.”

“Where’s your maumey?” (Maumey meaning in South Carolina “negro nurse.”)

“I don’t know,” she answered. “Those ugly other people took all the colored folks away.”

Just then the battery advanced with its colors flying. Looking up the little girl recognized the Confederate battle banner and said: “That’s _my kind of a flag_. I don’t like that ugly other striped thing.”

Manifestly the child was without protectors. We adopted her in the name of the battery.

When we returned to the camp several serious questions arose. Jack Hawkins, one of the ex-circus clowns of the battery, suggested that first of all we must secure a chaperone for her. When asked what he meant by that, he said with lordly superiority: “Well, you see, chaperone is French for nurse. We want a nurse for this little child.”

“Nonsense,” said Denton, the other ex-circus clown, “you don’t know any more about the proprieties than you do about French. Chaperone means somebody to look after a church, and this little girl isn’t even a chapel. We’ll look after her, and we don’t want no nurse to help.”

The captain, with his long beard, was holding the little child in his arms all this time, and she suddenly turned around to him and seizing his beard said: “I like your big whiskers. They are like my papa’s. You don’t bite, because you’ve got hair on your face?”

“No, dear,” he replied, “I don’t bite such as you.”

But he was very much given to biting, all the same--as the enemy had more than once found out.

“First of all,” said Denton, who was nothing if not practical, “the little girl’s got to have some clothes.”

Denton was a tailor, as well as a clown, and naturally his thoughts were the first to run in that groove.

“I ain’t much used to making girl’s clothes, but a tailor’s a tailor, and if anybody’ll provide me the materials, I’ll undertake to fix up some gowns for her.”

Tom Booker, who was much given to riding around the country, said at once: “I know where the mortal remains of an old store repose, up at Gillisonville, about nine miles away. If I had any money--”

Every man thrust his hand into his pocket, and each drew out what he had. The sum total was more than adequate. When Tom returned a few hours later there were no “mortal remains” of that store left. He brought back with him thirty-seven yards of highly colored calico, of different patterns, one red blanket, a box full of galloon trimming, something that he called “gimp,” two bolts of domestic, three cans of tomatoes, and two bottles of chow-chow, besides a dozen quarter cases of sardines and two kegs of cove oysters.

He dumped the merchandise on the ground with the remark: “There, I’ve closed that store.”

Denton made some invidious remarks reflecting upon Tom’s taste in the selection of calicoes, etc., adding the suggestion that there was galloon enough and “gimp” enough in the invoice “to upholster all the women in Charleston for the next six months--if they liked that kind of thing.”

Nevertheless, he set to work with a will. Within a day or two the little lady was provided with gowns and night-gowns, and underclothes sufficient in quantity, at least, though perhaps not made strictly in accordance with the latest fashions in gear of that kind. Indeed, Denton had succeeded in making her look very much hindsidebefore. The little girl’s gowns all buttoned down in front. But the little girl was pleased with what she called the “gownies” and sometimes the “pritties.” Their barbaric colors tickled her taste so much that Denton decided to make her a cloak out of the flaming red blanket.

When it was put on her, her glory was complete. She said: “It looks like my kind of a flag,” referring to the red of the battle banner.

* * * * *

She was taken away from us presently by a committee of good women of the neighborhood. She became the protégée of a lady whose whole life had been given to caring for other people, including our battery.

Denton, however, put in a claim to the privilege of continuing to fashion her clothes.

“You see I’ve got the whole stock of that store on my hands; and since I learned dress-making, I’ve a fancy to perfect myself. And you see I’ve got fond of the little girl.”

A couple of tears trickled down the hoary old sinner’s cheek, and Mrs. Hutson consented.

Every day after roll-call the captain sent a delegation to the Hutsons’ house to ask after the battery’s child. Every day when we drilled at the guns the little girl herself came in her barbaric costume to see what she called her “shooties,” meaning the cannoneers.

We had to part with our little girl presently, we being under orders, and she stationed. As we moved away from the station on our flat cars, she stood upon the platform, and waved “her kind of a flag” at us, crying, throwing kisses, and calling out: “Good-by, you good shooties.”

I think the morals of the battery were distinctly better after this little episode.

TWENTY-ONE

After the battle of Bull Run, or Manassas, as we called it, the region north of Fairfax Court House was a No-man’s land.

Little by little we occupied it during that summer, even to Mason’s and Munson’s hills. But the process of occupation was slow. When we pressed forward immediately after the battle all that region was _terra incognita_.

About half the people inhabiting it were loyal to one side; about half to the other. So in asking information we had to be circumspect.

But we had assurance that the Hopes were loyal to our side. So when Lieutenant Billy Wilds was sent out with a party of us, on scouting duty, he naturally went to the Hope mansion for information.

He got it in abundance. Charlotte Hope, the daughter of the house, came out to give it to us, and she was very enthusiastic. She was a brunette, full of life, full of health, and full of enthusiasm for the cause. Besides, she knew how to sit gracefully on a rail fence. She had a rich contralto voice that had narrowly escaped being a bass. She was beautiful to her finger tips. She “had a way with her” that was fascinating beyond belief.

As she sat there on the rail fence, explaining the geography of the region round about, we all fell in love with her as troopers should, so far at least as to be ready to do any conceivable deed of derring-do in her behalf. But Lieutenant Wilds fell in love with her in fuller fashion, as was afterwards made manifest.

She sat there on the fence curled up most entrancingly and expounded the geography of the country with great minuteness. But when she tried to tell us just where a certain strong Federal post was, which we very much wanted to attack, she grew impatient of words.

Turning to a negro boy she said: “Saddle Saladin. I’ll go and show them.”

Three minutes later she was in the saddle. Half an hour afterwards Charlie Irving, our captain who had joined us and taken command, gently ordered her to the rear. As I have related in another book of reminiscences she refused to obey. She said: “I believe you are going to charge those fellows, and I want to see the fun.”

Well, she saw the fun. We made the charge. At the end of it Lieutenant Wilds was more in love with her than ever.

As we escorted her back to her home she broke into song. Her song was the old English ballad which begins:--

“In days of old, when knights were bold, And barons held their sway.”

As she sang, she laid special stress upon two passages in the ballad. One was the line where the hero says:--

“I’ll live for love or die.”

The other was, where as death overcomes him he sings:--

“I’ve kept the vow I swore.”

The song seemed, whether prophetically or otherwise, to have entered this young girl’s soul and to have taken possession of her spirit.

It was not long afterwards that we learned that our gallant young lieutenant was engaged to be married to Charlotte Hope. The marriage was to take place as soon as the war was over. At that time we regarded this as a postponement of only a few months at most. We expected to win then and we expected to win quickly.

Whenever Lieutenant Wilds was sent upon a scouting expedition, he found it imperatively necessary to call at the Hope mansion for geographical and other information, though by this time we had all become familiar with every road and footpath in that quarter of Virginia.

It was a little fiction we were all pleased to love him for. One day about a month later, while we were waiting in the yard for Lieutenant Wilds to secure the necessary geographical information indoors, a Federal force attacked us. The lieutenant came out promptly, swung himself into the saddle, and ordered a charge. We fought there under the cherry trees for full fifteen minutes. At the end of the contest the enemy was driven away, and we pursued--but three of our saddles were empty.

One of them was that of Lieutenant Wilds.

* * * * *

It was Charlotte’s wish that Lieutenant Wilds should be buried in the family grave-yard of the Hopes. It was also her wish that his company should attend the funeral.

We brought two other companies along to stand guard and prevent any possible interruption of the ceremonies. We buried our comrade with all military honors. We fired the conventional salute over the grave.

Then we proceeded to attack a military force which had come up, intent upon disturbing the obsequies.

But before we moved off, Charlotte, who had been dry-eyed from the first, came to one of us and said: “He was just twenty-one. It will take just twenty-one to pay for him.”

* * * * *

It was only two or three days later when Charlie Hopper rode into the camp on a magnificent chestnut-sorrel mare. We did not know him.

He said he didn’t want to enlist. He merely wanted to join the company. He explained that if he enlisted he would be a man under pay. And he didn’t want pay, he said, for the work he wanted to do. Only give him rations and a chance and he would be satisfied.

His idea of a chance soon developed itself. He wanted to be as continually as possible in the presence of the enemy, anywhere, anyhow. He wanted to shoot all the “Yankees” he could. For that purpose he had brought with him the first Whitworth rifle I ever saw, with its long range, its telescopic sights, and its terrible accuracy of fire.

He seemed about sixteen years old. He didn’t tell us anything about himself, not even where he came from. But he had a long talk, and a confidential one, with Charlie Irving. After that Charlie paid him special attention. He detailed him upon every scouting expedition that had “business” in it. Sometimes when scouting expeditions were slack, the young fellow would go off by himself and remain for a day or two in close proximity to the enemy’s lines.

Each day he wore upon his breast a little tag with a number on it.

One day when the number had reached seventeen, he and I lay together behind a sycamore log, shooting at a peculiarly pestilent picket post. After one of his shots he called out, “Eighteen.” The next shot was simultaneous, he and I firing together. The man at whom we fired fell forward over his log, evidently dead.

Charlie Hopper turned to me and said: “You fired at the same moment I did; it’s a disputed bird. I can’t count him.”

Full of curiosity I asked: “What do you mean, Hopper?”

He answered: “Nothing--Just counting--Settling a score!”

It was only a few days later when we were at Falls Church. Young Hopper’s score read twenty, when he asked permission to ride out and personally encounter an officer who had separated himself from his command. The permission was given. Hopper leaped upon his mare, drew his sword, and galloped toward the officer. They met in mid field. The officer fired just as the boy clove him to the saddle. Hopper fell forward on his horse and rode back to the lines.

As he rolled off the saddle, he said: “I’m done for, boys, but I’ve made it twenty-one without counting a single disputed bird.” Then, feebly, he broke into song, singing,--

“I’ve kept the vow I swore.”

Before we buried him in the _Hope cemetery_ the next day, the captain told me that Charlie Hopper was none other than Charlotte Hope.

But I had guessed the secret that day when she had refused to count the “disputed bird.”

A BEEF EPISODE

We had no rations at Bluffton, in South Carolina.

The sea was there with its multitudinous fish, and crabs and shrimps, and with its mountainous banks of oysters. There were turkeys and deer and squirrels in the woods, and quail and marsh fowl in the fields. We were expected to take care of ourselves.

But one cannot shoot turkeys, or deer, or squirrels with a twelve-pounder Napoleon. And as for the sea food, while we rejoiced in it for a time, we became desperately weary of it after a while.