Part 8

“No, no,” said Johnny Garrett, “let Griffith tell a story, for he never finishes, and this is a long night.”

The suggestion was applauded and insisted upon. Whether Griffith blushed or not, it was much too dark to see; but after a little chaffing he consented to tell the story. Just as he began Billy Goodwin, who always wanted to gamble on everything, offered to bet three to one that he would never finish.

“Shut up, Goodwin,” said Johnny Garrett, “and let him begin, anyhow. If he don’t get through by the middle of the night, I’ll negotiate the bet with you.”

Thereupon Griffith began.

“Well, ’taint much of a story--only a bear story.”

“Bet two to one he never gets to the bear,” said the incorrigible Goodwin.

“Be quiet, will you?” cried some one at the right of the company. The man next to him mistook this adjuration for a command sent down the line; so, to the astonishment of everybody to the left of us, the word was passed from mouth to mouth: “_Be quiet, will you! Be quiet, will you! Be quiet, will you!_”

“Well,” said Griffith, “’twas about six year ago, or maybe seven. No, lemme see--’twas the same year that Jim Coffee married Mirandy Adams. Must have been eight year ago, I s’pose.”

Just then came the order down the line: “Perfect silence! Enemy advancing!”

The next minute a line of bayonets broke out of the fog in front of us, and a flaring fire blazed forth in our faces. The charge upon us was a determined one, and for full three minutes it required all our efforts to repel it. After that the artillery silenced all conversation by pouring a shower of shot and shell into the retiring assailants.

“Still ready to make that bet,” said Billy Goodwin. But Griffith began again undaunted. He was a phlegmatic person, whose mind was never driven from its not very large purposes by any shock--even that of a shower of canister.

“Well, as I wuz a-sayin’, it wuz about six or eight year ago--it don’t really matter, I s’pose, how long ago it wuz--”

“No,” said Billy Goodwin, “let her rip.”

“Well, as I wuz a-sayin’--” Just then the enemy charged again.

Griffith had captured a Henry rifle two days before, in the battle of the Wilderness, and it was loaded with fourteen ball cartridges. With that deliberation which characterized him in everything, he delivered those fourteen shots in the face of the enemy, who by that time had retired. Then he turned and began to fill the magazine of his rifle again, saying: “Well, you see, as I wuz a-sayin’, Peter Coffee he taken a cawntract for a bridge over Tye River. Now Peter always pertended that he knew how to lay out bridge work. Of course I knew better. I’d been to Fletcher Massie’s school with him, and I knew just how little ’rithmetic he knew. Fletch, he carried me through the rule o’ three, and you can’t lay out bridge work till you’ve _bin_ through the rule o’ three.”

The day was dawning, and just then came an order for us to move to the right, the extreme right, four or five miles away. We marched at once. Grant was making his celebrated move by the left flank.

When we got into position, it was necessary to throw up such earthworks as we could with our bayonets, using fence rails for revetments. This occupied us during most of the day, and scattered as we were, we were not able to listen to the remainder of Griffith’s story.

That afternoon, to our surprise, we received a ration of three-quarters of a pound of flour to each man. When we had baked it, I happened to go by Tom Booker’s position and saw him eating the entire cake. Tom looked at me pitifully as I remonstrated with him for eating three days’ rations in advance, and he said with tears in his voice if not in his eyes: “I know it, but I’m go’n’ t’ fill my stomach once, if I starve for it. I _wish_ I was a woman or a baby.”

A few minutes later came the order to move; our battery was at that time unhorsed. It had been planned to leave it in the rear, because its guns could not be moved for lack of horses, but with one voice the men had demanded the privilege of taking rifles and going with the battalion as sharp-shooters.

On this march the battalion was the rear guard of the army, and our rifle-armed battery was the rear guard of the battalion.

For fifty-six hours we marched without food or sleep, pausing every fifteen minutes to fight awhile, and then double-quicking to catch up.

There was no chance for Griffith in all this. But when we got to Cold Harbor, and went into the works, Billy Goodwin at a favorable moment insisted that he should resume his story.

“You see I’ve got three bets on it,” said Billy.

Just then a grape-shot passed through George Campbell’s foot, and distracted our attention for a time. Then came General Field, who ordered us to burn a barn in front that was full of sharp-shooters. The first two or three shots from the battalion did the business. The sharp-shooters ran with all their might across a thousand yards of space, while we poured upon them the sharpest rifle fire we could deliver. Some of them got to cover, and some of them didn’t.

It was not till we moved to Bottom’s Bridge that Griffith had a chance to resume his story. There we were all sick from having eaten boiled potato vines, for lack of other food. Being too ill to go to sleep, we demanded a continuation of the story.

“Well, as I wuz a-sayin’,” said Griffith, “I’d gone clean through the rule o’ three in Fletch Massie’s school, and Peter Coffee he knew it. As I told yuh, he’d taken the cawntract to lay out this bridge work; so he got his wife to write to me to come up and do the ’rithmetic. Well, just as I wuz startin’ up, Bill Linsey says to me,--you know he kept a store down there at Arrington, he says to me, says he, ‘Griffith, there’s a runlet o’ cider that’s got twenty gallon in it. Can you lif’ it?’ I says, ‘Yes, I can lif’ it and drink out o’ the bung, if you’ll let me drink es much es I please.’ I lifted it and took a big swallow of the sweet stuff, then I says, ‘I can carry it up the mountain,’ says I, and he says, says he, ‘On your back?’ says he, an’ I says, ‘Yes, on my back,’ says I. An’ he says, says he, ‘Well, you can have it ef you’ll agree to carry it up the mountain on your back, and not take no lift frum nobody.’”

Just then a battery, three thousand yards away, opened on us, and we had to run to cover, every man of us with his hands on his stomach, in physical memory of the potato vines. Our guns were not in position, and all we could do was to ensconce ourselves behind big trees. As the artillery fire kept up, General Alexander rode to this point of the lines and ordered up three batteries of rifled cannon; by the time they had finished their little controversy with the enemy, we had recovered from the potato tops sufficiently to go to sleep. So Griffith’s story was to be “continued in our next.”

Our “next” came only after we got to Petersburg. There our battery took charge of the mortars of the army. Griffith was one of the men I selected when asked to volunteer for a particularly perilous mortar service. He might or might not be able to tell a story, but he could stand fire as well as any man I ever knew.

About four o’clock one morning, when we had been engaged in a fierce bombardment all night, the fire ceased for a time, and Billy Goodwin demanded the rest of that bear story.

“You see I’ve got seven bets on that story,” said Billy, “and I don’t want to win any man’s money unfairly. One bet is that he won’t ever get to the bear, and I don’t want to take any man’s money without givin’ him a chance.”

“Well, wait a minute,” I replied, “till I start up the fire; we’ve got to have some breakfast.”

The fire was out.

“Somebody must go up,” I said, “to the next fort and get a chunk of fire. It won’t do to get fire by shooting a mortar,”--which was our usual way,--“because if we do that, we’ll start this bombardment again.”

“I’ll go,” said Griffith, “and then I’ll tell the rest of that story.”

There was a fearful hail of bullets between the two forts. The cannon were silent, but the musketry fire was incessant. Griffith started off, crouching as he went up the path so as to expose as little as possible of his person.

That was the last I ever saw of him.

As he was borne off on the litter, he sent word to me that he “hoped I hadn’t any bets on that bear story.”

A CHEERFUL SUPPER OF CHEERS

As Commissary it was Haskell’s business to see to it that we had plenty to eat; but the seven days’ fights below Richmond were on, and Haskell was, first of all, a fighter,--a thing uncommon in Commissaries and Quartermasters.

Instead of attending to his pork and meal wagons in the rear, he went to the front.

There he was active in a degree that commanded the respect of his general. He interested himself so much in the movements of troops, and in the controversy with the enemy, that he forgot all about the wagons.

In this service he had his right arm shot off by a cannon-ball.

When night came, and we wanted something to eat, there was a good deal of growling because we had nothing. But when the story was told of how our Commissary had fought, and how he had lost an arm in the fighting, a fellow with more humor than appetite got up and cried: “I move that we sup on three cheers and a tiger for the Commissary that fights.”

The three cheers were given.

As soon as his wound was healed, Haskell was made a major and placed in command of the battalion.

There may have been many better Commissaries than Haskell, but there were no better fighting majors.

HOW THE TAR HEELS STUCK

The sergeant-major sat there on his horse in the drenching rain. There was nothing to do but to endure. The three days of fighting in the Wilderness in that early summer of 1864, and the three nights of sleeplessness had considerably undone his nerves.

But for the first time in his life he realized that he had a hope at least for an opportunity. He had a lieutenant’s command. He hoped for a chance to make himself a lieutenant, in fact. With two guns, twenty-six men, and twenty-four horses under his command, and wholly detached from his battery, he had hope, that gray foggy morning, that he might have an opportunity. Yet here he was, standing behind a hill, soaking wet, and with no apparent prospect.

Three times the infantry had been ordered forward to the top of that hill. Three times they had been swept away as with a broom.

The hill was clearly untenable.

Then came General Alexander.

“Have you nerve, courage, backbone? Do you want an opportunity?”

The sergeant-major answered, “Yes.”

“Then take your guns to the top of that hill and STAY THERE.”

The sergeant-major gave the necessary orders, and advanced at once, feeling that he and his men were lambs sent to the slaughter.

When he appeared on top of the hill, twenty batteries and ten thousand riflemen opened upon him. But his orders were to “stay there,” and the sergeant-major wanted to be a lieutenant.

His horse sank under him at the first fire. His men went down like grass before the scythe.

But he STAYED THERE.

About that time a North Carolina general rode up to his brigade and called aloud: “Men, are you going to allow these guns to be captured? They say we North Carolinians have tar on our heels; let’s show them that tar _sticks_. Forward! March!”

Five minutes later that hill was occupied by three thousand North Carolinians, the tar on whose heels STUCK. Half a dozen more batteries were ordered up, and the young sergeant-major was directed to move his guns by hand to the rear.

_By hand._ Because of his twenty-four horses only two remained alive; while there were only thirteen left out of his twenty-six men to handle the guns by hand. This is what we called “life” in the Confederate army.

“LITTLE LAMKIN’S BATTERY”

For twenty-four hours I had had a man on my mind.

He had been court-martialled and was sentenced to be shot. He was in the guardhouse.

I know of no good reason why I should have objected to his execution; he certainly deserved all that he was to get. But I had been his counsel before the court-martial, and it is never a pleasant thing for a lawyer to have his client executed.

He belonged officially to me. I had assumed a responsibility for him, and I felt that it would not be fully discharged if he should be led out and shot.

I had known Beavers for a very brief time; but as his counsel I had learned much from him in confidence as to his career. He was a person of elective affinities. It was his habit to desert. He had served on both sides and in many capacities. He always fought well on whichever side he might happen to be serving. As a gambler, he always “played his game for all it was worth.”

Why he had deserted back and forth in this way without any cogent reason, I never knew. I used to think sometimes that he had done so at first just to try how a new style and color of uniform might suit his particular kind of beauty. His beauty was not in itself conspicuous.

I learned from him incidentally that his various reasons for desertion from one side to the other had not been of a kind that would have controlled the action of a less fastidious man.

On one occasion he had deserted because he smelt mutton from the camp-kettles of the enemy. He had a predilection for mutton.

I learned that he returned to us once, because one night, when he was not quite himself, a comrade had put him to bed and reversed the order of his blankets. Beavers explained to me with great particularity that a certain gray blanket had been placed on top of a certain brown one. He could not be expected to remain with a regiment under such conditions.

At last he had been caught in the act of deserting. He had been tried, and, in spite of such legal acumen as I could bring to bear, had been convicted, sentenced, and the next day but one was to be shot.

Now that he was sure to die, he seemed to make no more of the fact than of any other indifferent thing. I do not mean that he was careless of his fate. He took everything seriously. But facts were to him facts, and he did not worry over them. He did not think it worth while.

So when he was sentenced to death, he adjusted his blankets in the proper order so that he might not have a nightmare, and slept the sleep of the contented.

With all my contempt for Beavers I was sorry that he was to die. There was something in the reckless character of the man that appealed to me. Something that made me feel that it was a pity that this abundant life should be extinguished by a rifle shot.

I had been thinking all night. I had thought of every argument in his favor. I had searched my mind to see if any point had been neglected. Early in the night I had gone to Beavers, and asked him for the aid of suggestion--suggestion that might lead to information. But here again his habits balked me. He said: “I’m gambling in this case on your brains.”

I might myself have been willing to do that, but I was gambling with Beavers’s life for a stake.

Beavers was of course just that kind of man, whom a self-respecting person feels it his duty to despise; but somehow I could not quite despise Beavers. His coolness appealed to me strongly. His bravado seemed a sort of bravery. His readiness to meet the consequences, and pay the penalties of his own misdeeds, was a thing hard to distinguish from heroism.

He had no principles, of course. He did not pretend to have any. But he had certain methods of thought which seemed to serve him in lieu of principles.

It was just before dawn. I had not slept. As I lay in my tent with the flaps thrown back, all that was discernible was the rather spectral-looking tented city with its precise white rows. I had become so nervous, staring through the dark at the place where I knew the tent pole to be, that at last I turned out for good. I tightened my belt. It was our habit to sleep in our clothes--for reasons.

The first gray of the morning touched the camp, and looking down the row I saw a fragile figure moving from one tent to another, and pausing occasionally in uncertainty. At first I could not be certain whether it was a woman or not. Finally the figure straightened up and stood looking towards the guardhouse; it was that of a woman.

I had not seen a woman in two months.

The camp was silent with that quietude that is so impressive just before the dawn.

After staring at the guardhouse for a moment, while I stood staring at her, the woman turned her eyes and we stood looking at each other. After halting a moment she came staggering up the narrow lane between the two rows of tents, making a peculiar, nervous movement with her hands, but saying nothing. She stood for a few moments a little way from the tent door, clasping and unclasping her hands.

I saw that she was ill. She reeled up against the tent pole, and would have fallen had I not caught her by the arm. I seated her on a log, all the seat there was. After a moment she revived a little, and said in a faint voice, “Beavers.”

At that moment reveille sounded. The woman was too evidently ill for me to leave her. I sent a sergeant to attend the roll-call. I directed our cook to provide the woman with coffee and food.

Then I questioned her a little. She had walked twenty-two miles over railroad ties.

She was Beavers’s wife.

She said to me: “You are his counsel, I believe?”

“Yes,” I replied, “and I have done everything I could to save him.”

“No, you have not,” she answered. “You have not made the point that he was never legally enlisted as a soldier, I’ll warrant! He’s over forty-five and can’t be conscribed. He was pardoned out of the penitentiary on condition that he should enlist, but the court-martial had no proof of that. There’s nothing whatever to show that he’s a soldier; and if he ain’t a soldier, he can’t be punished for desertion. I’ve come to tell you, for he would never think of it.”

I jumped to my feet. I called a sentinel, and told him to take the woman to the guardhouse and make her as comfortable as possible. I mounted my horse and galloped to the station. I roused the telegraph operator two hours before his time. He was a sleepy fellow, but he was accustomed to taking imperative messages out of hours. I gave him this one to the war department:--

Beavers to be shot to-morrow morning. No proof whatever he was ever soldier. If not soldier, could not have deserted. Too old for conscript law, and no proof of enlistment except Governor Letcher’s telegram. Telegram not under oath, not legal testimony. Witness not subjected to cross-examination. As counsel, I demand stay in this man’s case.

I rode back to the guardhouse, and found that a new member had been added to the battery. The company was known as Lamkin’s Battery.

We named the new member “_Little_ Lamkin’s Battery,” to distinguish it, I suppose, from the big one.

Beavers sat all that morning with his wife’s hand in his, and Little Lamkin’s Battery in his arms.

He said it looked like its mother. He’d “gamble on that.”

Not until within an hour of the time appointed for Beavers’s execution did there come a reply from the war department. But when it came it was thoroughly satisfactory. It read thus:--

Legal points conclusive. Release Beavers and restore him to duty. Duplicate sent to General Walker.

Soon after that Beavers deserted, blankets and all, to “the other enemy”--that was his form of speech, not mine.

The next time I saw him was under peculiar circumstances.

In July, 1865, I went on board the steamer _Morning Star_, at Portland, four miles below Louisville, Kentucky.

I was two or three hours in advance of the sailing of the boat. Only a few people were scattered about the front of the cabin. I went to the clerk, paid for my room and passage, and pocketed thirty dollars in change. A moment later the porter came in with my trunk. I put my hand in my vest pocket to get the dollar due him, but found my thirty dollars gone.

I had all the feelings which a man always has when he finds that his pocket has been picked--which include the feeling of helplessness.

There was on board a brigade of troops going South. They were late enlisters, who had seen none of the fighting. The men were on the deck below, of course. The officers, though their transportation orders called only for deck passage, were by courtesy permitted in the cabin. There were a dozen or twenty of them, mainly rough lumbermen, or something of that kind. They evidently wanted to see a fight. So they concluded to pick that fight with me.

One of them came up to me where I was reading a novel, and began the trouble by saying: “You’re a rebel.”

“No,” I replied. “I was a rebel while the rebellion lasted, but I have taken the oath of allegiance, and am at present a loyal citizen of the United States.”

“Well, you _were_ a rebel,” he said, with more offence in his tone than in his words; “and I want to know what you are doing here in the North.”

“I’m not in the North,” I replied; “but in the middle of a river that separates the North from the South.”

By this time half a dozen others of the crowd had gathered in front of me with angry faces. It was manifestly their purpose to make trouble, and I saw no use in trying to ward it off. They were planning a fight; and whether it was to be a safe one or not, it seemed to me a good time to begin it.

I sprang to my feet and faced them. I was utterly unarmed, while they carried their weapons. I grasped a chair as the only means of defence at hand, and with remarks which are better not repeated, perhaps, told them to come on.

Just at that moment a stateroom door opened behind me, and two warm hands thrust two pistols into my grasp. The next moment a stalwart figure, armed in the same way, stood beside me, and, presenting two pistols, called out: “Hands up, gentlemen! The first man that moves dies. You’re twenty to two of us, but--”

Some language followed.

The men threw up their hands.

Without taking his eyes off his adversaries or lowering his weapons, my comrade called out: “Mr. Clerk, send for the captain.”

When the captain came, my comrade reported that these men had made an unwarranted assault upon an inoffensive passenger, and said: “They have no business in the cabin, anyway. As a first-class passenger, I call on you to send ’em below, where they belong.”

The captain was willing enough. He had been three times arrested during the war for aiding “rebel sympathizers.” A minute later these officers had become deck passengers.

Then I turned to my deliverer, and to my astonishment he was Beavers. He had grown stout, and was resplendent in a suit of clothes with checks so broad that it might easily have taken two persons to show the pattern; otherwise he was the same old nonchalant, reckless Beavers, ready to gamble upon any chance and to pay his losses though the payment might be with his life.

I made my identity known to him of course. He replied immediately: “Why, of course, I reckonized you long before this thing occurred, and I have been trying to get an excuse for speaking to you. Because you see when you came aboard in mufti I didn’t know who you was, and so I lifted thirty dollars out of your clothes. I wouldn’t have done it if I’d a’ known it was you, and now I want to hand it back. I could just as easily have picked that other fellow’s pocket--the one that picked the quarrel with you. I never go back on my friends, never! And I’ve never forgot how you got me out of that scrape.”

He handed me back the thirty dollars and I thanked him. He said: “Don’t mention it.” He added, though I never knew what he meant by it: “I’ll square the whole thing with that other feller. He’s got more’n thirty dollars in _his_ wad.”