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Transcriber's Note:
Obvious typographic errors have been corrected.
A Table of Contents has been added.
GALESBURG, ILL.:
Galesburg Printing and Publishing Company.
1889.
Copyrighted 1889,
By Galesburg Printing and Publishing Company.
All rights reserved.
In adding this account of the finding of the "Lost Dispatch" to the war literature of our country, I do so without further preamble or preface than to say that all persons connected with this narrative appear on the following pages under strictly fictitious names.
For purely personal reasons, reasons that seem to me right and proper, I still desire to remain unknown. There are not more than twenty-five persons now living, who, on reading this account, will be able to recognize the writer. These I place on their honor not to reveal their knowledge.
The Author.
The Union army lay impatiently waiting until the plans of the leader of the Rebel troops could be fathomed. His designs were shrouded in so much mystery that the anxious watchers could not determine whether the invasion of Maryland was only a feint to draw off the Union troops from the points they were protecting, or whether he really aimed to attack the Northern cities.
It seemed absolutely impossible to obtain authentic information. The stories brought in by the stragglers and prisoners were wild and improbable in the extreme. To have believed them would have been to have believed that the enemy had the power of marching in a dozen different directions at one and the same time, for each story gave the enemy a different starting point, and a different aim and purpose to their movements.
Of the scouts who had been sent out to all points, many had been taken prisoner, or had met a speedy death. In spite of their untiring and daring efforts to obtain reliable information, the reports brought back by the few who did return were so unsatisfactory and contradictory that no dependence could be placed in them, for seemingly none of the soldiers and few, if any, of the officers of the invading army knew where they were going or for what.
At the headquarters of General Foster, which that first week of September, '62, were located in an open meadow, half a dozen officers were gathered in a low-voiced consultation. Their faces were grave and marked with lines of anxious thought, as they poured over maps and compared conflicting dispatches. A young officer, Captain Guilfoyle, who sat writing at a table made up of rough boards, joined in the conversation only when questioned by his superior officers, regarding some point in the topography of the country, which could not be determined from the imperfect maps they studied.
An hour later all excepting the young officer had left the tent. Stopping only to light a candle as it grew too dark to see, he wrote steadily on until his work was finished and the papers lay folded on the table. He arranged them ready for inspection, then rose and walked back and forth across the narrow limits of the tent to stretch his tired muscles. At last, with an impatient sigh, he seated himself again and after waiting a moment drew from his pocket a long narrow book. It fell apart, as if accustomed to being opened at one particular page, and the light from the candle shone over a thick, long curl of fair hair, which might have been cut from the head bending over it, so exactly the same was the color. At the sound of approaching footsteps and voices outside the tent he hastily returned the book to his pocket.
Some one was asking for General Foster. The next moment a man dressed like a teamster entered. His clothes were ragged and dirty. One arm was wrapped around with a piece of blood stained cloth and hung limp and useless at his side. His face was pale under the wide brim of his torn hat, and the blood had trickled down one side from a fresh wound in his forehead, making a wide mark along his cheek. The man showed his utter exhaustion in every movement, and staggered from side to side as he went across the tent and dropped half fainting onto a stool.
Captain Guilfoyle took a flask from off the bed and held it to the man's lips, eyeing him closely, until recovering somewhat, he straightened up and removed the hat which partly shaded his face. As he did so the Captain recognized him as one of the scouts whose return they were anxiously hoping would bring them the sorely needed intelligence and whose report General Foster had ordered him to receive if he got in during his absence.
"Yes, I'm here at last," replied the man to Captain Guilfoyle's hurried interrogation, "and I've nothing to report but a total lack of success."
"I left poor Dedrick and Allison over there, and barely succeeded in getting back myself. You know what they were,—the best scouts in the whole army. We did all men could do, but luck was against us. We have learned nothing except that the enemy are across the Potomac, something any straggler can tell. I have been four days getting back," said the new comer, going on to give a full account of what he and his companions had tried to do. "I tell you," he added wearily, "I doubt if any one can find out what they mean to do until they do it, for I don't believe they know themselves. They are——." There the low voice stopped abruptly and the speaker's head sank until it touched the table.
Calling in an orderly waiting outside, the officer applied restoratives, and as soon as consciousness returned the sufferer was helped away to a place where his wounds could receive much-needed attention.
Captain Guilfoyle returned to his seat by the table to await General Foster's return. After noting down some items in a well worn dispatch book, he leaned his head on his hand and gave himself to deep and serious thought, until, finally, a look of grim determination settled on his smooth, boyish face.
When the General returned, Captain Guilfoyle rose to report his work finished. "McClandish has come in without any news of importance; the two scouts with him were killed and he is badly wounded," he reported further, after receiving orders relating to the disposition of the papers he had copied.
The grave, anxious look that settled over General Foster's face as he listened, showed how he regarded the failure of an undertaking from which so much had been hoped. In obedience to a word from his superior, the young officer went on to give a full account of all he had learned from McClandish. When he had finished he made a moment's pause, then added quickly, leaning forward and speaking almost in a whisper, "If you will allow me to go, I believe I can bring full and reliable information of the strength of the enemy's forces and of his plans and intentions."
The General stopped his rapid pacing across the tent and looked keenly at the slim, boyish figure standing before him. "If you could: if we knew the strength of the Rebel forces and where they mean to strike, worn out and demoralized as our troops are, we could surely intercept them and turn them back," he said.
"I can try," replied Captain Guilfoyle.
"You know the fate of the most of the men who have gone," said the General gravely.
"But it may not be mine," returned the younger officer.
"McClandish is one of our best lieutenants and the two scouts with him were old, both in experience and training. How can you succeed where they and all the others have failed?" added General Foster after a long pause.
"I believe I can do it."
"How?"
"If you will accept my services and see that my destination is kept secret, and that I shall never be required to tell how I gain any information I bring back, I will be back at the earliest possible moment and I trust with a full knowledge of what the enemy mean to do," replied Captain Guilfoyle firmly. "I only ask that no person except yourself shall know for what I have gone. Send me instead of Freeland to Washington with these dispatches. Let it be known I have gone there, but after I have delivered them let me follow my own plan. I cannot tell just how long I must be away, but you may be assured not one day, not one hour longer than necessary."
A low, earnest conversation followed, which ended in General Foster accepting the offer of his young aid.
From this point I will drop the cloak of an observer and narrate events as they followed fast upon each other.
After leaving General Foster's tent I went to inquire after McClandish. I found him with his wounds dressed, and though weak from loss of blood and exhaustion, he had recovered enough to give me some pieces of information I wanted.
My preparations were not extensive, but included the writing of some letters to be left with General Foster and sent by him to various friends in case I did not return.
Just as I was turning in for a few hours' sleep, Major Larrabee, who shared my tent, came in. We talked awhile on the outlook of affairs, then I told him that I had been ordered to the Capital with dispatches and was to set out at daybreak.
Joe had a cup of coffee ready for me before daylight showed itself, and as I finished it he brought around Bagdad, ready saddled. I had not thought of it when giving my orders the night before, but as the horse gave a glad whinny of welcome, I quickly decided to leave him to await my return and take a less valuable horse. I knew that in a few hours I would have to change to a fresh one and it would not be likely that once left I would ever see him again.
I was soon on my way. I carried dispatches to General Pennington and Colonel Barbour, and important papers which I was to deliver to the Commander-in-Chief, wherever he might be.
The sun was just up when I reached the headquarters of General Pennington and delivered the dispatches. I learned there that the troops had been moved; that the Commander-in-Chief was near R——, so instead of going on toward Washington I turned off and saved considerable time by going across the country.
I found the general headquarters on a slope about three-quarters of a mile south of R——. Without hard riding I reached there before nine o'clock. As I dismounted an orderly took my horse and called another, who conducted me past the trim sentries and across the tent-outlined square to the tent of the Commander-in-Chief. He was ready to see me and in less than half an hour I had delivered the papers and was on my way to Washington, where Colonel Barbour was to meet me and deliver the dispatches which he and General Pennington wished to send back to General Foster, so saving me the trip out to get them.
I found the roads so filled with vehicles of all sorts, mingled with cavalry and foot soldiers, as to be almost impassable in any direction, and at places they were completely obstructed, but by taking side paths I was able to keep my horse at a fair speed.
At four o'clock I was to meet Colonel Barbour at Willard's and in the meantime I had enough to do.
As soon as I reached the city I made my way to a restaurant for a nondescript meal, which might be called either a very late breakfast or an early dinner. From there I went to Willard's, where I took a room and a hot bath. Ever since I had decided to undertake the hazardous enterprise on which I was bent, I had had an intense desire to be off and avoid all delay, and it required more time than I cared to give to remove the traces of my long, hard ride and furbish myself up into a fit condition for calling, but the calls I was to make were the preliminary steps in my hastily constructed plans and too important to be omitted.
The bright sun of the morning was almost obscured by hazy clouds as I started out that warm September afternoon.
I sat in four different parlors that afternoon, and my fair Rebel entertainers little dreamed that I, who had "looked them up for old acquaintance sake while I had a few hours' leisure," sat with every nerve strained, only waiting for an opportunity to put the seemingly trivial questions which were to gain me the information so necessary to the successful carrying out of my plans. All direct questions had to be most carefully avoided and it was discouraging to lead up to the subject and then have the conversation go over and around the point to which I had been so carefully striving to bring it.
At the end of my second call I was ready to curse the luck which made further effort necessary. During the third call I began to get the desired enlightenment, and at the next house a few freely volunteered remarks rounded my scrappy knowledge. That I did not change countenance, I knew from the face of my entertainer, and she little guessed the joy I felt when she casually told me what I had been striving so hard to find out. My one desire then was to get away, and it required some effort to keep up my part of the conversation. If I had followed the predominant impulse of the moment I would have sped away and "stayed not on the order of my going," instead of drawing my call out to the proper, lingering length.
When I again reached Willard's, I inquired if Colonel Barbour had yet arrived, and learning that he had, I went directly to his room. There were three or four other officers there, all anxious to learn any news I could tell and eager to question, but as I was not personally acquainted with any of them, I cut all conversation as short as I could without actual rudeness, and avoided being detained long. I ordered my horse, and feeling the necessity of eating while I had an opportunity, I went in to dinner.
After a hasty meal I left the hotel. The street was full of moving troops. As I rode slowly along I had to draw up close to the pavement several times to avoid the crush, and several times came to a full halt, until the moving mass of troops, vehicles and pedestrians had surged past. I finally reached the small restaurant on a side street, where, as previously arranged, I met an orderly sent by General Foster. I gave him the dispatches I carried, telling him to proceed at once with them to that General's headquarters. As soon as he was out of the way I was free to follow my own plans.
The streets were comparatively deserted in the direction I took on leaving the restaurant, and I met with no detention. After leaving the city fairly behind me, a sharp three-quarters of an hour's ride brought me to a small, old house standing somewhat back from the road. A decrepit negro took my horse and I went in at a side door opening onto the drive.
It was dark when I left the house again, but even in daylight I do not believe any stranger would have recognized in me, the well gotten up young officer who had entered half an hour before. I had discarded all my accouterments and my uniform, which, notwithstanding the rough usage it had lately been through, still retained much of its new freshness and glitter of brass and gilt. In its place I had on a pair of blue trousers, a gray flannel shirt and a large, soft felt hat, all considerably the worse for wear. I had also changed to a fresh horse. The one I took was not much in the way of looks, but had considerable speed in him, and was not too valuable to abandon to the enemy, as I was well aware I might have to do at any moment.
Leaving the place by a gate near the stables, which led into a grove, I threaded my way through it, then turning west I rode across a meadow and through another grove, where I came to a road which I followed until I reached the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. I intended to avoid observation as far as I could. I carried passes which would prevent any serious trouble if my detainers were our own troops. But a meeting with any of them might require me to lose considerable time. There was, besides, the possibility that I might chance on a party of Rebels lurking around and I was particularly anxious to avoid such.
Fortunately I met but few persons. Some passed without accosting me. Three times when approaching sounds indicated more than a single individual, I drew off into shelter and squads of four or five men rode rapidly past. Who or what they were I was too far off to distinguish.
As soon as I was on the tow-path I put my horse to a gallop and passed rapidly over a number of miles. Several times I was obliged to make my way up and down the steep banks to avoid being stopped. At one particularly forbidding spot, where the rocks overhung the path, some guard at an exalted altitude sang out a question about my destination, which I did not stop to answer. He repeated his inquiry and emphasized it by sending a bullet after me. Luckily it went wide of the mark.
Another hour's riding, a ten minute's pause to reconnoiter, and I crossed to the other side of the Potomac by a rough and almost impassable ford. Making the top of the rocks which faced the river, I gave my horse time to get his breath, while I sat on a stone beside him. Night and darkness had almost shut in the view on every side. The moon was up but was obscured by clouds except for a moment or two at a time. I could hear the faint swish of the water as it flowed over the stones immediately below, but save for that an intense stillness prevailed.
Rising after a few moments' contemplation of a landscape, which I could but faintly see, I buried my passes and the one other valuable paper I carried under a huge stone. I then felt that I was fairly started on my perilous undertaking. I was on the Virginia side of the river, in a region known to be swarming with Rebels who asked nothing better than to catch a Union spy. I well knew that if I should run across any of them in such a way as to arouse their suspicions my life would not be worth the asking, and I would share the fate of many who had tried before.
As I now had no passes or any way of proving my identity, I also had to guard equally against meeting any of our own troops, for unless I should chance on an acquaintance among them, they would be certain to hold me prisoner. My endeavor was to avoid every one, for a small foraging party or a few belated pickets might prove as disastrous to me as "an army with banners." I had determined that it would be necessary for me to avoid all well-traveled roads and all towns, even the smallest villages, and to make my way through the dense woods when ever I could, taking advantage of such bridle-paths as I could find running in the direction I wanted to go.
Before I had rode many miles I became convinced that a general move toward the Potomac of some sort was going on. Whenever I approached a road I could tell from the sounds that persons were passing along it, not rapidly or in any large sized bodies, but mostly on foot and singly, or in small squads of six or eight. They seemed to be pressing on too steadily for ordinary skulkers, yet in a too "go as you please" style for troops under command.
At last I decided to gratify my curiosity, hoping to gain at the same time some information that would be of use to me.
Some miles back I had struck a path which I had been able to follow. When it again crossed a road, I stopped a few rods back, slipped my horse's bridle over a sapling and made my way to the edge of the road, which, as I soon made out at this point, ran along a sort of gully. On the side I was on the bank was at least four feet above the road, and along the edge of the bank was a rough attempt at a rail-fence pieced out and propped up here and there with stones. I crept noiselessly behind this shelter and waited until two stragglers came along. When nearly opposite me they accosted a third who must have been resting by the roadside.
We all went on together; they on the road and I behind the fence. From their interchange of confidences, scraps of which came up to me, I soon learned that they were Rebels and belonged to Knapp's division, and that in the first advance it had been left behind on the James, but had just crossed the Potomac and gone on to join Luce. The men seemed to be stragglers who had dropped behind from pure physical inability to keep up, and their great anxiety, as well as I could judge from their conversation, was to get there before anybody "fit."
Having learned all I was likely to from them, I retraced my steps and mounted my horse. I had to keep him at a walk, for I was in a rough piece of woods and could not see two feet beyond my horse's head. I had not rode long when I heard faint sounds of musketry in front of me and a little to my left, in exactly the direction I was traveling. I listened intently, and concluded it must be a chance brush between a party of our troops and some of the Rebels.
The firing was directly between where I was and the place where I intended to get breakfast and hoped to get a fresh horse. I did not want to miss stopping there, for it was the only Union man's house I knew of any where near. I could not afford to circle around the fighting, as it might lead me considerably out of my road. A skirmish, even if a small affair, is a very unsatisfactory thing to go around, not being exactly stationary.
I carried an old silver watch which I had procured during my stay in the Capital, but it was too dark to see the time without striking a match, which I did not care to do. I judged from the distance I had come it must be near daybreak. So, anxious as I was to get on, I knew it would be wise to halt until it began to get light and the dispute ahead should be settled.
I tied my horse to a tree and went as far away as I could to be within hearing distance of his movements. As soon as I discovered a log, which I did at last by taking a header over it, I lay down behind it. Though in point of fact I did not know which to call the front or back, considering it as a barrier to an approaching foe.
I was too weary to more than reach a recumbent position before I was asleep. I had been asleep long enough to feel completely chilled from the cold fog when something awoke me. I aroused with a start and a feeling that some one was near me. On the alert at once I waited with baited breath for some further noise to indicate in which direction the disturbance had been, but none came and I finally concluded that I had been mistaken or dreaming.
I went over to look at my horse and make sure that he had not pulled loose. He was where I had left him and had evidently spent his time nibbling off every tender branch in his reach.
I determined to look around before mounting. It was barely daybreak and there was a light fog, which made all excepting near objects indistinct. I made my way through a shallow, dry gully and across a wide flat covered with trees. I knew I must then be near the road which I had been skirting the latter part of my ride, so I paused a moment before advancing further. Hearing nothing I went on around a jutting point of rocks on a thicket-covered slope and stopped at the head of a washout, made by the summer rains.
As I stood listening the ground suddenly gave way with me and I went down a steep bank, to find the road sooner than I expected, and myself in the company of two Rebel soldiers and a broken down army wagon. I found out with a vengeance what had aroused me, and as is sometimes the case with investigators, learned more than was desirable.
The men had evidently been half asleep, when my abrupt appearance brought them to their feet.
A man has to think quickly in moments of danger. I took in the situation at a glance and in the same brief time decided to enter into conversation with them.
"What's up?" I asked.
"Broke down," replied the liveliest looking of the two, while both kept their muskets suggestively convenient and eyed me suspiciously.
The wagon was heavily loaded and the back axle-tree had broken in two, letting down the end. I looked it over because I had nothing better to do. One of the men volunteered the information that it was twice too much of a load.
"You don't expect to sit here with it all day, do you?" I asked, intending to offer to go ahead and find some one to help them right matters as an excuse to get away.
"No," said the man who had not spoken before. "Holly, 'es gone on thar an' 'ell bring back some of our squad to help."
As he spoke, faintly approaching sounds indicated that a "Holly" was coming back with assistance. There was no chance for me to leave and nothing better suggested itself than to act so that whoever came back would think I belonged there. I proposed to the men that we might as well see what we could do while we waited.
When a dingy officer and eight men appeared on the scene, we were all three busy inspecting the damage and no awkward questions were asked. So for a short space of time I served in the Confederate army,—at least I pulled at the wheel of a Confederate army wagon, with a great show of work and no real exertion.
The officer in command, it was impossible to tell his rank from his dress, but as he assumed more airs than a Brigadier-General, it is safe to say he was not above a Sergeant, ordered the men around as if he were reconstructing an entire train.
His obstinancy was soon apparent to my very alert observation. No matter what one of the men began to do, he stopped him and set him to work in another manner.
This amiable trait of his character I turned to my own advantage. When things were righted and he called out that one man must go back with a message and the rest follow him, I said audibly that I would "go on," and had my expectations realized by his ordering me to go back to meet Captain Shuman.
Not being deeply impressed with the necessity of encountering that individual, I followed the road no longer than was necessary to take me beyond sight and hearing of the men who, with the wagon, had started in the opposite direction. Entering the woods, I returned to my horse, mounted and hurried on.
As I neared the place where the firing had occurred, I kept a sharp lookout for a dead Confederate in decent clothes, intending to appropriate them. It is proverbially slow work waiting for dead men's shoes, and I found it considerably more tedious still trying to acquire a more extended outfit. In all the four miles to Petterbridge's there were no signs of a skirmish visible, saving a dead horse and a discarded musket or two. I wanted at the first opportunity to discard my blue trousers for a pair of the Rebel colors. Many of the men in the Confederate army at that time wore such parts of Union soldiers' clothes as they had been able to get to replace their own ragged and filthy garments. I knew the blue trousers I wore would not be likely to excite any suspicion, still I preferred to use every precaution.
Petterbridge's house stood in a small sheltered valley into which the sun had not yet made its way, when I drew rein at the rail fence at the side of his house. As I was not known by the family, and might have had trouble getting what I wanted from any of them, I was particularly glad when the old man himself appeared at the back door. In reply to his "What ere' want, stranger?" I dismounted and convinced him who I was. As there was only the family at home, it was safe for me to stop.
Here I got breakfast, a pocketfull of bread and meat to carry with me, a fresh horse, a pair of butternut trousers, and the news that several houses supposed to belong to Unionists had been burnt by Rebels during the night. Petterbridge also said that quite a body of Confederate troops had passed down the valley a mile back the day before, and gave me the agreeable bit of information that the country ahead was worse, if possible, than what I had just come through, being alive with raiders and bushwhackers as well as overrun with stragglers anxious to get to the front.
Devotedly hoping that I might miss all these ill-regulated gentlemen, I left Petterbridge's and pushed on. The horse I had taken was only a fair traveler, but then he was not too valuable to abandon to the enemy.
A number of times I met and was accosted by single stragglers and skulkers. They were a pitiful looking set of men, ragged as Lazarus, generally barefoot, and gaunt almost to emaciation. I always stopped at the least effort on their part to enter into conversation, and asked earnestly after a lost cow or a fictitious companion, varying the inquiry as I thought my interlocutor took me for one of the mountaineers indigenous to that region, or for one of themselves.
I never willingly ran against them, but it was impossible to avoid them entirely, for they were making for the Potomac, and I was practically following its course and going across their line of march. There was really little to fear from them. They could not know that I was a Union spy, and they were not a suspicious set of men anyway.
It was the bushwhackers and raiders I was most in danger from, and more from the bushwhackers than the raiders. The latter, like the stragglers, kept on and near the roads, and there was always enough of them together to make me aware of their presence by their noise, so with due caution I would not be likely to encounter them. More than a dozen times I drew up into thickets and ravines to let a party of them pass, and several other times saw squads in the distance. From the bushwhackers I had no protection. Singularly enough I did not actually encounter any, although I discerned a good many by the aid of my imagination and had plenty of evidence of their actual near presence. The whole country was an extremely pretty one to bushwhack in. I tried to let the fact slip my mind, but I had an unpleasant, ticklish sensation in my back the whole time and longed for an eye in the rear of my head to keep a lookout in the direction from which I particularly anticipated a bullet.
I will here say I was in the bloodiest and most hopeless battles of the war, and I have had a pretty steady diet of Indian fighting since the war, having been surrounded by half-frozen Indians of various tribes in Montana and Dakota, and chased and been chased by red hot Apaches in Arizona and New Mexico, but never have I undergone such nerve-trying work as was that trip I made as a Union spy, the account of which I am telling.
There was never at any time more danger than I met afterward, but there was no let up. Every nerve was strung to its highest tension and kept there, every sense was held alert. There was never present the enlivening enthusiasm of battle, which warms a man's blood to deeds of heroism; there was no emulation to keep up one's courage; there was always the demoralizing necessity of keeping out of the way of danger; there was ever present the fretting fact that self-preservation only could insure success. No man is anxious to be killed. No matter how strongly he is imbued with a sense of duty and honor and of love for his country, he is pretty certain to feel that her good will be better secured if he is on the boards to look after it, than it would be if he had laid down his life at her shrine. He prefers to live, but at the same time he does not want his personal safety to be a matter of perpetual concern.
I was not a coward, but I felt decidedly averse to being shot. I had started out to do something and I wanted to do it; I had already concluded that there was no "right time" for a spy to be killed. He does not want to be shot until he has found out what he seeks to know, and then not until he has told it.
It was about three o'clock when I finally stumbled on an oat stack in an odd little clearing, far out from sight of the owner's windows.
I let my horse take his dinner, while I kept guard and ate a sandwich. In order to let him make as good a meal as possible I delayed as long as my impatience would let me and then nearly made him break his neck and mine too, by trying to canter him down a place about as steep as Jordalemet and nearly as slick, in order to make up for lost time.
The country which had been comparatively level and well settled for some distance back through the valley, became rough again as I neared the mountains, and I had to make my way more slowly and cautiously.
I seemed to have run out of the stream of Rebels. I determined to question the first person I met. Before long I saw a weak minded looking man driving a few sheep along a narrow path, and coming from the opposite direction.
"Howdy, stranger?" I began.
"Howdy?" he returned.
"You're pretty fortunate to get through with them sheep, without their being turned into mutton."
"Met nobody to turn 'em; ain't nobody up that way."
From this I judged that the country ahead was free of both Rebels and Yankees as far back as he had come. He eyed me suspiciously while talking, but was evidently telling the truth as far as he knew it. He seemed in a great hurry to get away from me with his sheep, and after asking him for minute directions for a road that turned to the right about four miles ahead and which I did not intend to take, we separated.
After parting from him I shortly turned to my left, having decided that as soon as I came to it, which I knew would be in a little time, I would avail myself of a road leading over the mountains.
Riding slowly along through the dense forest, wondering if I dared treat myself to a smoke, I turned full on a group of four men, in dirty butternut, camped in a laurel brake. They were chivalrous Southerners without doubt, but built on the plan of "He who fights and runs away." They evidently thought they had been discovered by Yankees and that the proper time to run had arrived. One man, who was lifting a bucket of coffee from the coals, ejaculated "hell," and taking the bucket with him, fled, followed by the others.
To my startled gaze they seemed to disappear in a dozen different directions at the same time. I would have been extremely grateful to the leader if he had left the coffee behind.
Knowing that a short stop made by me might be lengthened out indefinitely if any of the fugitives chanced to return, I departed without much delay. As soon as I reached the road I turned into it and had a comparatively easy time for the next few miles.
I was so weary and worn out by my constant riding and so in need of sleep that it was only by determined effort that I could keep my eyes open. Several times I roused to the unpleasant conviction that I had been asleep in my saddle. I knew that would not do, for I well knew that even in that seemingly quiet district constant watchfulness was needed and that later on fresh dangers would need freshened faculties and renewed energy to meet them. So I decided to allow myself an hour's rest.
As quick as I found a suitable place, which I soon did in the shape of a narrow, rock-hung ravine, which branched off at my right hand between two almost perpendicular walls of mountains, I stopped, and dismounting, led my horse in after me. When we had penetrated several rods I tethered my horse behind some bushes, so that he could graze, and crawled into a leaf cushioned hole between two rocks.
I have always had the faculty of waking at any predetermined time, and when I roused from a heavy sleep of exhaustion I had exceeded my hour's allowance by only ten minutes.
Passing cautiously down the ravine before leaving its shelter, I tried to make sure by observation from a rock up the bank that there were no obstacles in view. A little spring a short way down the road made a most inviting halting place and I did not want to start out if it chanced to be occupied. As the coast was clear, I was soon on my way, and having the benefit of a fair road, made good time.
As I turned a sharp corner I involuntarily drew a quick breath at the scene before me. My surroundings were wild in the extreme. I was riding along a limestone ridge, which jutted out from the wall of mountains behind. Looking down I saw before me dark, dense forests covering lesser elevations. Looking up toward my right the rock-crested mountains were outlined against a clear sky, from which the sun had just disappeared behind their fantastic peaks. As I gazed, the sun sinking lower, left the depths at my left in twilight, the ravines became black lines and the thick growth of cedar and other trees fringing them looked only a shade less sombre. The whole picture was one of deep solitude and wild grandeur.
Since the dissolving view of Southerners to which I had been treated I had not seen a human soul. Ahead of me about ten miles was the village of J—— and as all seemed quiet, I decided to stop there, if nothing turned up in the meantime, and get supper and some information by which to shape my plans for the next day.
The night, unlike the previous one, was beautifully clear, and the moon, full a few nights before, was up when I entered J——.
I knew very well where a notorious Rebel by the name of Deputy lived, and thinking it would do him good to serve his country for once in his life by telling me what I wanted to know, I made my way toward his house, which stood near the center of the village.
I found him swinging a tow-headed boy on the gate, the urchin shrieking with delight whenever the clumsy thing came to with a clap that threatened to dislodge him from his perch. As Deputy caught sight of me he stopped that interesting occupation and was ready to ply me with questions before I had drawn rein. He took me for one of Leonard's men at once, which gave me a hint that they, if not already in the vicinity, were expected.
I fostered his mistake and told him that I was one of a foraging party sent on ahead and that I had lost my way. This information was rewarded by a cordial invitation to "light and take supper." Going up to the open door he called to some one inside:
"Say, Sallie, hurry up supper, one of our boys is a stoppin'."
Coming back he put down a good bundle of fodder and some oats for my horse outside the gate. I followed him in to the supper he had called his wife to hurry up for me.
I gave that man more news about what had happened down below than he had had for a long time. I did not care a hard tack about keeping to facts and no punctillo prevented me from arranging the stories to suit his taste. In return he told me all he knew about the late movements of troops, and as he had just returned that afternoon from M——, he was pretty well posted in affairs across the river. Returning to the immediate vicinity, I soon discovered that the country in the direction I was going was clear. I did not care what high jinks they cut up down the other way just then, as long as I was not detained.
I also learned that word had been brought in that afternoon that General Leonard and his troops were to pass through the town before morning, and that the red-hot Rebels which made up the population were planning to give them a loyal reception.
I was finishing an excellent cup of coffee when a shout from the little fellow at the gate took Deputy out. I heard a call or two and some hasty talking with passers by, then Deputy entered, much excited.
"Lucky for you, some of Leonard's troops are just crossing the bridge and some in advance have already stopped on the Square," was his astounding announcement.
"Sure it's not some of the Yankees?" I asked.
"You bet it ain't; Jim Buckner came in with them and that man I was talkin' to was Bill Stiver, hurryin' down to tell Jim's folks to go up and see him, because they ain't goin' to 'tinner on long."
I did not wait for a very formal leave taking. With a muttered excuse about my being obliged to report at once, I hurried out, untied my horse and was off.
I could see a crowd in front of the tavern as I passed into a side street. When I turned into my road again I struck into a gallop. As I passed a road running into mine at an obtuse angle, a small squad of cavalry was coming down it at a leisurely pace. I saw plainly in the bright moonlight that there were not more than two dozen of them. They sang out a challenge, but I neither stopped or increased my speed. Looking back I saw them turn toward town when they entered the road I was on.
They must have had their suspicions roused, however, and turned back almost immediately, for I soon heard the sound of fast riding behind me. I put my horse to his best speed, but he was jaded, while theirs were evidently fresh. The bullets soon came spattering against the rocks and trees around me with alarming frequency. They certainly did their best to persuade me to stop, but did not happen to touch a spot to make their coaxing effectual.
The moment to lose my horse, which I had been anticipating from the first, had come at last. My pursuers were gaining on me and the question of which of them should have the pleasure of shooting me was merely a question of who should hit first. They were still too far behind and the moonlight too indistinct in the narrow and wooded gorge, which the road had just entered, for them to see me, but they were drawing closer every moment. Freeing my feet from the stirrups, I gave my horse a cut with the whip and slipped to the ground. Lightened of his burden he flew on with accelerated speed, his hoofs ringing down the rocky road and guiding my pursuers past where I lay at the bottom of a ravine, down the sides of which I had tumbled with celerity and a series of somersaults of which a circus rider need not have been ashamed.
I was not in a very amiable frame of mind and passed a bad quarter of an hour while I sat down there on a stump, recovering myself and deciding what to do next.
I still had over thirty miles to go and instead of reaching my destination before morning, as I had just decided I would be able to do, I was left without a horse and in very poor trim to make good speed on foot. However, I started on, determined to investigate every place along my road and get a horse if possible without leave or license, but fearing that all not already confiscated were in too secure hiding for me to unearth. I had some hope of finding my own poor beast, but it was not realized.
Every house I came to was dark and forsaken looking and all the inmates seemed to be away or asleep. Even the dogs made no disturbance, if there were any around. My search in stables, sheds and pasture lots only took up time, without gaining help, for not a sign of a horse did I find.
At last, while making a circuit to bring me around by the place of a man named Carter, thinking he might have something left in the way of horseflesh, as he had a remarkable way of holding on to everything belonging to him, I saw a light in a small cabin perched near a road. I had come on the place from the rear, as I was taking a short cut. Drawing near with much circumspection, I could hear the sound of voices and laughing. Evidently from the noise a good time of some kind was in progress.
I crept up in the shadow of the house near enough to look around an angle and see into the room. Three officers in Confederate gray were seated at a table taking supper, and laughing and joking with a long, lean mountaineer, who seemed to be plying them with questions, while his wife served them. As I watched, a pretty girl entered from another room with a jug of cider, which she proceeded to pour out into tumblers. At the sight of the foaming liquid one of the officers trolled a verse of a rollicking drinking song.
It did not take me long to conclude that they must be the very fellows who had been in such hot haste after me, to infer that they had given over pursuit and that their horses must be somewhere near. I retreated into the shadow of the trees and thus sheltered made my way around to the front of the house. To my exceeding joy, I found there three slick Confederate steeds tied to the fence. I hastily untied the halters, for while I did not intend to perform another circus act by riding all three at once, I did not care to leave any behind to aid in my pursuit. I led them as gently as possible down into the road and mounted one, a powerful black. The other two at first made some resistance, but an energetic pull or two decided them to follow. The noise of my departure brought out the pleasure-loving cavalrymen in hot haste, but they were not quick enough to do any effectual work.
I followed the obscure, little-used road, on which the house stood, for a short distance, then turning from it I made a cut between two hills and came out on a road running parallel with the one I had started from J—— on. After going several miles I turned the extra horses loose and they soon stopped to graze.
My late acquisition was possessed of prodigious activity and I soon made up the time I had lost. I had no further detention and as the gray dawn again appeared I reached my destination.
Turning from the road I walked my horse slowly up the wide, tree-lined avenue toward the mansion. Tired as I was and interested in but one object, the deserted, desolate appearance of the place impressed me deeply, and I drew rein for a moment to look around. I knew the family had been away but a comparatively short time, yet the house and surroundings had already that uncared for, lonely look that soon hangs over a closed house. It was the first time I had ever seen that wide, hospitable mansion when it was not filled with life and mirth. It was the first time I had ever come to it without receiving a warm welcome.
Leaving the lawn in front, I made my way to the quarters of the family servants beyond the house. To my surprise I found them empty and deserted. I knew that when the family went to G—— all except two of the servants had been left behind and I expected to find them there. I knew my aunt would not leave without making ample provision for their comfort and I felt certain they were too strongly attached to the family to run away, so I could not understand the vacant cabins.
I could not believe but what some of them were still around the place. I searched and called without unearthing a soul, and had just returned from another tour around the house, and was pondering how best to effect an entrance into it when I caught sight of a gray head peeping out of an opening in the top of the kitchen, which stood a few rods from the house. It was instantly withdrawn, but not until I had seen it belonged to Ned, an old negro owned by my mother, but who made his home at S——.
He had evidently been watching me from his place of concealment, but had not recognized me in my rough clothes. Going into the kitchen it appeared as empty as before, but I finally discovered the frightened old negro curled up on top of a wide set of shelves behind a barricade of cooking utensils, taking a reconnoissance from the ventilator just above.
"Come down, Ned," I called, but he made no sign of having heard.
It was some time before I could convince him who I was, but as soon as he could get his scattered wits together his delight was unbounded, and he came down from his elevated perch to an accompaniment of rattling tinware.
I soon learned that when my aunt found she would be detained indefinitely, she had sent back word for all the servants to go to a neighboring plantation, which they had all done with the exception of Ned, who had staid behind intending to make his way to me and beg me to keep him for my body servant, an office he had always desired.
While Ned prepared and served me with a breakfast, which I insisted on taking in the kitchen, he gave me the family news and told me all about the death of his wife, which had occurred a few weeks before.
After I had finished my meal and Ned had fed my horse, he brought out the keys from their place of concealment, and if I would have permitted him to do so, would have thrown open the whole house in my honor. Much to his disappointment, I dared not allow him to unclose a single shutter or even turn the slats, except at the back of the house. I explained to him that it must still present a closed appearance to any chance observer, and that no one must know that I was there.
We entered the house and proceeded through the long, dusky hall and up the wide stairs to the second story. After Ned had gathered everything necessary to my comfort into the room which I occupied whenever I was at S——, and which was always left undisturbed in my absence, he left me.
Weary as I was I yet had something to do before I could take the needed rest, which every atom in my jaded frame was loudly demanding.
The time had come to test the feasibility of the plan which had flashed into my mind as I sat in General Foster's tent, and which I had thought over and elaborated along the way.
When the idea first entered my head that I could personate my cousin Salome, enter the enemy's lines, meet her Rebel lover, and from him learn what the enemy were going to do, and by my own eyes determine the strength and position of their forces, I had only thought what a huge joke it would be. Had General Foster returned at once the idea might have died without further growth, but in the time of waiting I had idly thought over and over how easily it could be done, and planned this and that detail until finally the project seized a firm hold of me, and I had determined, hazardous as it was, to attempt it.
None knew better than I the dangers surrounding such a trip, but I realized our need of reliable information to take the place of the flying rumors that could not be trusted, and well I knew that I would stand every chance of succeeding where others had failed. My love of adventure, my ambition, my duty to my country, all urged me on. There was nothing to weigh against the last.
I was acquainted with every inch of the country. I had gone more times than I can number up and down both sides the river, to and from Washington and places in the vicinity. I was almost as much at home at several places near Hagerstown and Frederick as I was at S——, and every inch of the country between was familiar to me. I had hunted over it and knew every cross road and rabbit path, every short cut and ford, and I was well aware that I could baffle pursuit from an enemy not so entirely familiar with the country.
I had no fear but what I could successfully personate my cousin. My cousin Salome and I were within a few months of the same age. She had but one sister and I was an only child. We had been together so much that we quite looked on ourselves as brother and sister, and I think our affection was strengthened by the exceedingly strong likeness we bore each other. So strong was the resemblance that when children we were constantly taken by strangers not only for brother and sister, but for twins. One of the favorite pranks of my boyhood had been to don one of Salome's dresses, and answering the first call made for her, deceive even her own mother, until a closer view proved the fraud.
Since Salome had grown to the dignity of long dresses and done up hair, and I to long tailed coats, the resemblance was not so striking, and I, not liking to look so much like a girl, had done all I could to make it less so.
Only the Christmas before, however, when we had all been together at S——, (I had not then joined the Union army), Salome and I had arrayed ourselves as two old ladies, with close-fitting, lace-frilled caps, and it had been a long time before any one could decide which was which, although all the company present had known us both from childhood.
I had never met Captain DeLacy. He had been a stranger to Salome until they had met three months before at the White Sulphur, where he was staying to recover from a wound. It was a case of genuine love at first sight, and the engagement had been contracted on the eve of his departure for his regiment. At that time I had just entered the Federal army and Salome was feeling very sore over it, so I was pretty certain she had never confided to him that she had a cousin fighting against him, or indeed told him anything about me.
I had learned in Washington that Captain DeLacy was with Dare's division, which had crossed the Potomac with Luce. My plan was to make my way across the Potomac, find the whereabouts of Dare's division, make my way beyond it, assume my disguise and turn back toward the river so as to approach the Rebel lines after dark. I knew I would be stopped as soon as I encountered the first Confederate soldiers and an exhibition of my pass demanded. I would account for its absence by saying I had lost it. When permission to proceed was refused, as I knew it would be, I would insist on going on and finally demand an interview with Captain DeLacy to prove my identity.
Once in his presence, I had little doubt but that I could pass myself off for Salome. I would tell him I had been called to New York by the illness of my sister and was trying to get back home, which would be a plausible story and not likely to be questioned.
I knew I would have to run great risks. There would be first and always a chance of being picked up and summarily finished in an unprepared moment. There would be the possibility that Captain DeLacy had been sent on temporary duty to some other point than that where I expected to find him. And if I found him, there would be a chance of his having received a late letter from Salome, which would prove my story a falsehood. Of the latter, however, I did not think there would be much danger. In our army orders had gone into effect some days previous that no letters or papers of any kind should be sent or received. It was most likely that mail was equally scarce among the Rebels.
I thought it would be strange if I did not gleam a few facts, which would be of use to us, during my interview with Captain DeLacy and during the time required to make my way in and out of the Confederate camp, wherever it might prove to be.
I left my chamber and made my way through the darkened hall to the family rooms at the front of the house, my footsteps sounding loud in the unaccustomed stillness. Determined as I was to do what I had planned, I involuntarily hesitated a moment before I opened the first closed door, then shaking off the feeling of reluctance, I went on with my work.
A search of Salome's and my aunt's rooms soon secured me an outfit sufficient for my purpose—a dark dress, several white petticoats, a pair of shoes, a long, black cloak and an embroidered neck scarf, which I had often seen Salome wear, also a heavy black veil and a pair of gloves, odorous with the perfume Salome always had about her. I carried the clothes to my room to try the effect.
After putting on the other things I muffled my head in the veil. The disguise was perfect. Even I was startled for a moment, so precisely did I look like Salome. I had drawn the veil enough over my face to entirely conceal my short hair and had contrived to fasten the curl of Salome's, which I always carried with me, to an inner fold in such a way that it showed below it at the left side, in exact imitation of the way Salome had worn one when I had last seen her.
My training had left me deeply tinctured with the idea that an army officer must have no inconvenient emotions, but I then and there, early in my career, proved that they do. It was absurd, but I could have wept. Salome's exact image looked back at me from the mirror, and an intense longing to take the deceiving reflection into my arms came over me. For a moment I lost all the pride and valor of a son of Mars. I was only a very ordinary mortal, to whom the war was hateful in the extreme. I had no more ambition than an assistant company cook.
It did not last long. I swallowed away at the wretched lump in my throat and looked at myself, as reflected, with the critical eye of a person trying to penetrate a disguise.
I could pick no flaw and was soon viewing myself with much complacency, for my exceedingly ladylike appearance meant that success was nominally certain.
During that trip was the only time I ever blessed my then slight form and effeminate voice. Hard service during the war and years of army life on our Western frontier since, have changed all that, and lost me every trace of that hated "prettiness," which at that time had gained me from my associates the sobriquet I so detested, and caused me so much genuine anguish of soul and many downfalls of pride.
Fully satisfied, I divested myself of my borrowed apparel and darkening the windows, just as the sun rose over the mountains, I was soon oblivious to everything around me.
I was conscious of nothing more until Ned's voice sounded in my ears. I had ordered him to waken me at ten o'clock, no matter how soundly I was sleeping or how much I might expostulate with him at the time. I guess the poor fellow did have a rather hard time awakening me. Being on a civilized bed seemed to have obliterated the feeling of caution which had kept me on the qui vive since the beginning of my trip, and his voice in my ears at first roused me only to a semi-consciousness and faint impression of my surroundings, so accustomed was I to Ned's lingering awakenings. Not until his "Mars, you done said I wuz ter get you up, acaus' dis yer wa'" finally penetrated my dull ears did he rouse me effectually to present circumstances.
While thinking over my arrangements as I was dressing, I determined on taking Ned with me. It was the one additional item needed to perfect the plan I had originated, and I wondered that I had not thought of it before.
Ned belonged to our family, but during one of our long visits at S—— he had married a girl on a neighboring place and on our return home had been left behind. A high price had been offered for the girl, considerable more than she was worth, but her master would not part with her, so Ned had staid on at S—— from year to year. I doubt if he would have been willing to remain had we not been there so often, for he was deeply and honestly attached to our family.
He was a particularly shrewd and intelligent old negro, and I well knew that I could trust him to any extent. He would die rather than betray me or any secret information I might find necessary to entrust to him. His intelligence, quickness of wit and caution would likely enable him to get out of any ordinary danger or emergency that presented itself. To have him along would somewhat lessen my chances of escaping observation on the way, but he would add much to my disguise when among the Confederates.
Few, if any, outside the two families knew but what he belonged to the S—— plantation. He had made several trips with my aunt and cousin during the past two years and had been with them at the Springs. I knew that Captain DeLacy would recognize him again and that it would seem quite proper to him, or any person whom we should meet, that he had accompanied his young mistress.
I did justice to the dinner which Ned, with great pride in his exhibition of culinary skill, had ready for me when I went down. I then told him where I was going and for what. He was horror struck at first and went off into lamentations, bemoaning these troublous times and prophesying that I would never get there and back alive. But he gradually became used to the idea and was soon begging me to take him along. As I had already decided to do so, I was glad to have him get around to the proposition himself, and readily gave my consent.
I gave him a minute account of all that had occurred since I left the Capital. I thought wise to do this in order to make him familiar with what he would be likely to meet with after we started, and I explained fully to him what I wanted to do, how I wanted to do it, and how I might have to do it, going into full details. I was much pleased at the correct grasp he seemed to get of the matter and felt I could dismiss all apprehension on his score.
We were to go on horseback. If possible we were to keep together, but if necessary we were to separate at any time without any delay and neither was to pay any attention whatever to the safety of the other. I explained to him that, except when I was personating Salome, any display of concern on his part about me would only increase my danger, and that in case we unexpectedly fell in with any troops on the road, he must act as if I were a total stranger whom he had just met, unless he first heard me make a direct statement to the contrary.
Ned knew, as well as I, that he run but slight risks of being interfered with. At that time the Confederates paid but little attention to the coming and going of the negroes. They were allowed to move from place to place, and run in and out the lines without question or detention, and their queries made from curiosity excited no distrust. Ned also was aware that he would have no trouble in getting a pass on any slight pretext if he should need one.
I gave him a number of places along the way, where we were to meet after any enforced separation if we could, but if by so doing either of us incurred the slightest risk or delay, we were each to make our way separately to a point which I named and which I felt confident was beyond the invading troops. I was to wait there until as late as nine o'clock that night for Ned, but in case he reached there first he was to stay until I came, unless I did not get there for three days, thus allowing for my possible capture, detention and escape. I also told him on what points I wanted him to get information, by observation or in any other way possible.
From my entertainer of the night before, I had learned enough about the movements of Luce's army to enable me to block out my plans with a considerable degree of confidence. If I did not know exactly where the particular division I wanted to strike was, I knew where it was not, and that was a good deal.
Events sometimes follow each other with startling rapidity, but if no unusual hurry had occurred I felt quite sure my destination would be between two points, and not more than twenty miles back from the river. More explicit information as to their precise location must be obtained on the way, also exact knowledge as to Captain DeLacy's whereabouts.
All the preparation Ned made was to hide his few valuables and securely close the house. This done, he was ready to follow me to the ends of the earth if need be.
It was barely twelve o'clock when we started on our way. Ned rode the horse he had provided in anticipation of coming to me. The clothes had been done up into a compact roll, with the cloak outside, in order to look as much like a rolled-up blanket as possible, and I carried them like a huge rag baby on the saddle in front of me. I did not dare either trust them to Ned or fasten them to my saddle. I might have to part with either, or both negro and horse on any sudden emergency, but I was determined to hold onto and make use of my disguise unless death or capture prevented me.
For obvious reasons we avoided all well-traveled roads and made our way through fields, along lanes, and as much as possible in the shelter of the timber. Our route was through a well-settled country until we neared the river. We crossed it by a ford that was little known and seldom used, but at that time, I, like the illustrious Susan, did not care for a crowd.
It was nearly six o'clock when we finally reached the point where I thought I could safely commence my retrograde movement. As soon as I would turn to the right, the division of Luce's army I wanted to reach would lay directly between the place I would be then and the Potomac. During the last of our ride I had, by a bold move or two, managed to get very definite knowledge of the disposition of the Rebel troops in the vicinity, and by a lucky accident, during an enforced separation, Ned had discovered almost to a certainty that Captain DeLacy was where I had thought him. We had also in the middle of the afternoon each secured a fresh horse, and by far greater good fortune than I had dared hope for, they were fine, un-jaded animals. That we took them without leave or license troubled us not a bit.
Looking back now, it seems strange that we were able to make our way as rapidly as we did through that section, filled as it was with troops, without being taken prisoner, scientifically bushwhacked, or picked off by a sharpshooter.
A number of times we did barely escape encounters which would have cost us dear. About the middle of the afternoon we had come near running into a body of the Rebel troops. We were on a hill not far from a road running directly northwest, when through an opening in the trees there became visible a cloud of dust, which meant either sheep or Rebels. Taking into consideration time, place and circumstances, I knew the chances were that it meant Rebels. Dismounting I ordered Ned to take the horses and himself into concealment in an adjacent ravine, and I made my way to a large tree I had noticed for some time. It had been used by one side or the other as a signal station, and I thought it possible that it commanded a good view of the road along which the dust was advancing. It did, and I soon felt I was up a tree mentally, as well as physically.
The extent of the knowledge I gained was that a move of some kind was on foot, which I did not understand. I was near enough to have thrown a stone down on the moving column, and I could recognize General Middlesworth riding with his staff. Why he was angling away from the main part of Luce's army and toward the Potomac puzzled me, and at a time when I did not care to solve any more enigmas than absolutely necessary. What General Middlesworth's move meant occupied my thoughts off and on all afternoon, as none of the intelligence I managed to gather could be made to explain it, and I determined to find out all about it when in the Rebel camp if possible.
Before turning back in the direction of the Potomac I gave our horses a short rest. They had made remarkable good time and though comparatively fresh, they would, after we got beyond the Rebel lines again, have to be pushed to the full extent of their endurance.
Besides, I did not care to start back too soon, for I wanted it to be dark when we would reach the vicinity of T——. I knew the moon would not rise that night until a little after eight, and between dusk and that time I had planned to get beyond T——, procure a vehicle of some kind and assume my disguise. That done, I was ready to encounter the enemy at any time, although I aimed to run against them later and further on. Ned made an excursion into a neighboring field and brought back some feed for the horses. As soon as they finished their meal we started.
Ned soon suggested that we might find a conveyance that would answer our purpose at Goodhue's, a place on our left a little ways off. We made our way there, taking a short cut and a rough road through a lane, which approached the place from the rear. The house, which faced a road beyond, looked deserted, but we did not go near enough to be certain.
The stables stood off by themselves and we were well enough satisfied not to find anyone around them and did not investigate further. The carriage and horses were gone, but we found a good set of harness and an old fashioned light buggy, which suited our purpose admirably and were all we needed. We had left our horses in the woods across the lane. I went on ahead to reconnoiter. Ned followed, pulling the buggy.
By the time I was arrayed in my disguise Ned had the horses harnessed to the buggy and my clothes and the saddles and bridles stowed compactly away under the buggy seat. It was an extra piece of luck finding a vehicle so near, for I could not assume my disguise until one had been procured, but now, instead of going around T——, I could pass directly through the village, which saved considerable time.
I had on starting from S—— forbade Ned to address me except as Miss Salome, for I was afraid if he did not have some practice he would in any sudden fright forget and let slip the "Mars," which would be sure to rouse suspicion. I impressed on him that he must, until we were through with the rather unpleasant affair before us, act as if I were in reality his young mistress, whom he was trying to get safely to her home, and protect to the best of his ability in a dangerous and unsettled country.
It was a decided change in our mode of progression for us to be speeding along over good roads in a comfortable buggy and not actually shunning observation, as I had been obliged to do until then. But while it was a rest, it was the kind of a rest one experiences when awaiting a surgical operation, which is to commence as soon as the surgeon comes, the exact moment of his arrival having been left mercilessly indefinite.
"Hi, Miss Salome, look dar," whispered Ned suddenly.
We had been driving for some time at full speed when Ned's low tones roused me from an imaginary conversation with the Captain.
"Where?" I asked.
"Over dar," he returned, pointing toward his left, around the curve we were just making.
A short distance ahead, in an open space between the road and the heavy timber beyond, I saw the light of camp fires and a few moving figures showing dark against the glow, while a dark mass at one side looked like horses and wagons.
Telling Ned to drive over toward them and ask the way to General Dare's headquarters, as soon as we came abreast of the nearest groups, I scanned the surroundings, anxiously trying to determine what we had run into. I had not expected to meet any Confederates for two or three miles yet. But I knew it could not be any of our own troops, for we were too near the Rebels for that. As we approached closer I saw several officers in gray grouped around a fire and about a dozen men cooking supper at other fires a little apart and nearer us. It looked like a topographical camp or something of that sort.
One of the men, who seemed to be doing a sort of picket duty, and broiling a bit of bacon on the end of his ramrod at the same time, started up as soon as he saw us driving up and demanded what we wanted.
Ned told him we were trying to get to General Dare's headquarters and asked where they were, but before he had time to reply one of the officers advanced toward us, and Ned repeated his question to him. Before answering the officer asked us a number of questions as to where we were going and where we were from, eyeing us keenly all the time, then drew off a little ways to confer with one of the other officers. They were near enough for me to catch most of their conversation.
"It's all right, I believe," said the one who had been talking to us, "or they would want to go the other way."
"Only a feint most probably," replied the last comer and older of the two. "They may be spies and, as soon as they are out of sight, whirl off in another direction. There really does not seem to be anything very suspicious about them I must say," he added; "still it might be wise to detain them here until morning."
"I think they are just what they say they are," returned the first officer.
Just as I was wondering if it would not be best to make a run and leave them to decide at their leisure whether or not we were spies, one of the men passing, called out:
"Hello, Ned," and stopped.
Ned gave something between a grin and a gasp in return. Then, stooping over as if to untangle the reins, he whispered barely loud enough for me to hear: "It's Mars Furbish. He lived ober dar at E——, and knowed Miss Salome."
I caught the clue the quick-witted old negro had given me, and leaning forward, addressed a polite "Good evening, Mr. Furbish," to the man I had never seen before. He pulled off his cap in return.
"I am very anxious to get on without delay," I added. "Will you kindly tell those gentlemen who I am? I think you can assure them I am not a spy."
His action had been noticed by the officers, and as I spoke, they called him over to them.
"Do you know that lady!" I heard them ask.
"Yes, and the nigger too. It's Miss Salome Poillon, and she lives at S—— plantation, across the river," was the answer.
"Then she is a resident here, and there is no danger of their being spies?" put in the cautious one.
"Lord, no! Why, she's the biggest Rebel 'round. So's all the family, an' she's got a Rebel lover," replied my champion emphatically, adding the last fact as if it were a clincher.
That settled it, and the two officers then came over to the carriage and told me I was at liberty to go on, and regretted that they had been obliged to stop me at all. I thanked them, and asked if I would have much difficulty in getting through.
"I am afraid so," replied the one who had first met me.
"This is your most direct route, is it not?" asked the older officer, on whom the rest of the conversation devolved.
"It is much the nearest way," I replied.
"It leads directly on, near where a considerable body of our troops are, yet I think it will be safer for you to keep it than to try side roads, where you would be constantly stopped. I will give you a note to the general in command, and a pass, which will aid you until you reach him. He will likely give you an escort for some distance," he added, writing as he spoke.
When he handed me the papers, I asked him about the positions of the Yankees, and in answering he told me also something new about how Luce's army was located, which was one of the clues that I wanted to learn.
I had no idea of using the papers unless I should fail in all efforts to find Captain DeLacy. I told Ned not to refer to them in any way or to our encounter, while he should be separated from me, and impressed on him that he was not to get out of the buggy if he could help it, or leave the horses one moment unless dragged away by force. I regretted that we had run into the camp, for it took valuable time, and it did not make me feel any better about it to know that it had happened through my own carelessness. If I had been watching out, as I ought to have been, I would have noticed the fires in time to have avoided them by making a detour, and I believed that I could have gotten later the valuable bit of information the talkative officer had given me.
The encounter had one good result, however. It got us over our stage fright, as it were, and rather raised us up to the grand climax.
We had driven nearly three miles farther before we ran into the Rebel camp again. When we finally found ourselves making our way under guard to General Dare's headquarters, we were far more composed than we could possibly have been had we not already had some experience.
When stopped, I had insisted on being allowed to proceed, but as I expected and desired, the simple privilege of following my own way was denied me. My statements regarding my identity were received with incredulity. I insisted on the truth of my story, and I demanded that I be taken to headquarters at once. After some parley, my request was acceded to and a couple of soldiers took their places at the horses' heads and slowly led them forward, while a guard walked at the side of the buggy until we reached a cluster of tents pitched somewhat apart, in front of which stood four or five officers conversing.
The officer who had brought us in advanced to the group, and I could hear him reporting the circumstances of our arrest. A handsome subaltern came forward to assist me from the buggy, and I was soon answering the curtly-put inquiries of the middle aged officer to whom I had been conducted. I repeated my story. He questioned and cross-questioned me severely, but I was too entirely familiar with my ground to be caught tripping. I felt a good deal as if I were an actor in a play, and while I must say that I did not particularly admire the setting, I began to have an intense interest in rendering my part well and having all go off smoothly.
Ned was seated in the buggy within hearing distance and I saw he had assumed, or was really feeling, about the right amount of anxiety, and that no one seemed to be paying any attention whatever to him.
I did not recognize the officer interrogating me, but I heard him addressed by one of the other officers as Colonel Sofield. When after telling him my story, he utterly refused to credit it. I asked to see the General in command. Col. Sofield replied that General Senhouse had gone over to confer with General Leonard and might not be back until morning, not for several hours certainly, and followed the explanation with an intimation that both myself and my servant would be well off under guard until his return.
I was somewhat nonplussed when the officer said General Senhouse. I had looked on General Dare only as a guide to Captain DeLacy, and had no interest whatever beyond that in him. At the same time I was a trifle surprised that I had not been taken before him, and that reference had not been made to him instead of to General Senhouse. I began to wonder if it were possible that I had not reached Dare's headquarters, but I did not dare ask directly or betray more knowledge of army details than a girl would be likely to know. After pondering a moment, I said:
"I ought perhaps to have stopped at A——, as I was advised to do, but I was so very anxious to get on, that I could not make up my mind to delay there. Will you tell me what regiment this is? I have friends and relatives with General Luce and there may be some one here who can identify me."
An orderly was presenting a paper to Col. Sofield as I finished speaking, and another officer, who had come up but a short time previous and was standing near, in company with the others, answered:
"This is General Dare's division, but General Senhouse is in command at present. Over on the left there is the —— Regiment, —— Brigade; others are further on. If you will give the names of your friends, and they are here, they can be sent for."
"Captain DeLacy is with General Dare. If I could see him, he would assure you that I am just who I represent myself. He is a very intimate friend of the family," I said, turning again to my first interlocuter.
"Impossible," he replied, "Captain DeLacy has just started to inspect a position several miles from here. There is no telling when he will be back."
"Beg pardon, Colonel, but Captain DeLacy has not got off yet. He passed us on the way over here, and I saw him go in Colonel Lounsbery's tent a few minutes ago," spoke up another officer. "There he comes now," he added, as a tall figure came out of a tent near by.
Affairs progressed rapidly in the next few minutes. In less time than I could write it, Captain DeLacy had been called over to identify me; had done it, even to the satisfaction of the obdurate Colonel, and beard the story of my detention, and my anxious request that I might go on at once.
Captain DeLacy asked and received permission to take me into a neighboring tent, where I could wait, freed from the gaze of those who had gathered around to see what was going on, until he could procure the passes necessary to insure my safe conduct through their lines. Colonel Sofield, whose good manners had increased in proportion to the strengthening of his convictions that I was not a spy, told him to take me into General Dare's tent, as it was the nearest one unoccupied, then to return to him for passes.
A moment later I was alone with the only man of them all who could penetrate my disguise. His first words assured me that he had not heard from Salome lately enough to imperil my statements. And his hurried whispers of love and devotion, together with his grave concern at my having undertaken a journey through that section at so dangerous a time, proved that he accepted me in perfect good faith.
Even at that desperate moment, at the touch of the Captain's lips I was filled with an unholy glee.
Fortunately, he had little time to play the lover. Love and war are an ill-matched couple, and except that both set at naught all interfering laws, they have nothing in common. The latter never relaxes the grasp of a master and exacts that all who serve him shall fulfill their duty to the utmost, without delay or flinching, although by so doing all pleasures, affections, ties of kindred and life itself are yielded up.
My expressed anxiety for his safety, and pretended impression that he was on some dangerous raid, led Captain DeLacy to assure me that he was with Luce, and to tell me what forces Luce had with him, but no more about his future movements than I had already gathered, which amounted to but little beyond a clue to the meaning of General Middleworth's movement, which I had witnessed that afternoon. I questioned as closely as I dared, but elicited nothing further. My shrewdest efforts were a failure. I saw that he either had not been informed of the object of the campaign, or felt bound not to reveal it even to one whom he held as dear as he did Salome.
While conversing with Captain DeLacy, I had become as familiar with the interior of the tent as I could by the light of one inferior candle and the use of my eyes. There seemed nothing there to invite investigation.
Even after Captain DeLacy had reluctantly left me, a closer inspection revealed nothing more promising. I sat on a camp stool, in a corner; near was a pile of blankets; a rough camp chair stood between me and the bed; a bayonet stuck in the ground did duty for a candlestick, and on an empty wooden box near me lay a paper-covered book.
I had just had time to run a hasty glance through the book, when the fly was raised and an officer entered. As was only natural, he started when he saw me, then lifted his hat with a half-spoken apology, tossed a newspaper carelessly on the bed, threw his overcoat over the chair and went out again.
I recognized him instantly as General Dare. His actions and looks struck me as those of a man who felt at odds with the world and who was nursing a grievance, but I was too deeply concerned about my own affairs to be more than casually impressed with what I learned afterwards was the case.
It is a strange fact that in times of most intense suffering, deadly peril and deepest thought, the eye will be attracted by the most trivial objects. While I anxiously pondered my next move, my eye mechanically followed in and out the fantastically curved line made by the shadows cast by the pile of blankets, then by the edge of the coat cape as it trailed along the floor. I had followed it almost to the end when my gaze was arrested by a spot of color differing from the rest. With a start, I realized that I was looking at a flat, long book. I could not tell then and I cannot tell now whether it fell from the overcoat or was lying there when I entered, but I do not see how it could have been there at first and escaped my observation.
I determined at once to see the contents of that book. There was not one instant to be lost. I well knew that even then some one might be standing at the entrance and that the Captain would return at any moment. But examine that book I must, even at the risk of surprise, detection and death. It was the most critical moment I had yet encountered. I had to think and act together.
Throwing myself at full length on the grassy floor, with my head screened from the first glance of any one entering, intending to feign a swoon if any one did come, I extended my arm above my head, in the shelter of the chair, and had the book in my impatient fingers.
Opening it hastily, I scanned it in the dim light which came over my shoulder from the flickering candle. I was confronted by a series of blank pages. General Dare's name was on the fly leaf. Only the first three pages were written on, and they contained nothing except detached items of interest to him only. Evidently, the book had been newly purchased, for the dates ran but a few days back.
Bitterly disappointed, I ran over the pages again, and a folded paper slipped into view. Even to this day I can distinctly feel the wild bound of exultation my heart gave when I knew that I held in my hands a copy of Special Order No. 000, issued by the Rebel Commander in Chief only four days before, and regulating the movements of all the divisions of his army for several days to come.
At the sight of that paper every drop of blood in my body seemed to rush to my heart, only to leave it again with a wild speed that turned me faint and dizzy. The letters danced before my eyes, but even in that one hasty glance I took in enough to know that I need seek no further information. I had succeeded even beyond my hopes and expectations. If I could get safely back with that paper, and whatever else I had learned, I felt check to the Rebels must be insured.
Hastily concealing the paper, I pushed the book under the bed, and had barely regained my place when Captain DeLacy re-entered with the passes. There was no time for further private conversation between us, which I regarded as a piece of good luck.
Captain DeLacy told me, while he hastily assorted the papers in his hand, that he was obliged to proceed without delay on the important duty for which he was preparing when Colonel Sofield had called him to me; that as the first part of our way lay the same as his, he could act as my escort until his road turned off from the one I was to follow. From where he had to leave me, to H—— was only ten miles, and he exacted a promise that I would remain there with friends until morning.
I could not but be touched at his anxiety about me, impatient as I was at the delay which it caused.
We started almost immediately. Captain DeLacy rode at the side of the buggy and the squad of men with him a short distance in advance. The road was clear, and we made excellent time.
At last the moment of separation came. His real farewell had already been said, so before following his men down the dark path, into which they had turned, the Captain paused only for some cautions to Ned and a quickly spoken "good bye" to me, which held as much as was ever put in that simple word.
I realized fully what the parting was to him. He had accepted me as Salome, without doubt or question, and to leave me with no other protector than Ned tried him sorely.
I leaned out of the buggy and looked back after him, with a feeling of pain that surprised me. As he disappeared, a presentment that I should never see him again crept over me, followed by an idle speculation whether it was he or I who was first to meet our fate, a feeling which I remembered well a few months later, when I received the news that Captain DeLacy had been shot in battle.
Shaking off the dim sense of foreboding, I gave my thoughts entirely to the task before me. I had decided to make my way down the side of the river I was then on. From what I had learned of the position of the enemy, I knew the risk would be no greater than if I crossed to the opposite shore, and I hoped to save many weary miles of travel. Being well aware of the extreme caution shown on our side, I thought the chances were that our army would be yet in the neighborhood of the place where I left them, and I aimed for that point.
I told Ned that I had secured a paper of the utmost importance, and that if I were shot and he escaped, he was to take the paper from its place of concealment and carry it on.
We turned to the left, down the first road we came to, after parting with Captain DeLacy and his men. Just before we reached it, we were stopped by a small party of Confederates on horseback. I offered my passes. Striking a match, an officer read them, and after a few questions, allowed us to go on. That was the only time the passes were of use to us, for as soon as I parted with my disguise they were, of course, worthless.
In order to make the best time possible, and avail ourselves of short cuts and bridle paths, it was necessary to leave the buggy and return to horseback. That we did at the earliest practical moment. As soon as we came to a rough bit of road, after our first turn, Ned drove the buggy to one side, and, knocking off a wheel, left it to its fate. When I was again in my own clothes, we made the harness and my disguise into several bundles, which Ned weighted and dropped into the first creek we came to.
That done, we hurried on. The night had turned cloudy and dark while we had been in the Confederate camp. It did not rain, but before long we struck a place where it had very recently, and our horses for a short distance were obliged to plough through slippery clay. Frequently we would see the fires of some outpost, and often a picket shot, sometimes startlingly near, would ring out on the murky night.
Well as I knew the country, I finally made a false turn in the confusing darkness, and approached the river when I thought we were still several miles away from it and following its course.
Leaving Ned in safe hiding, I crept forward to reconnoiter. I made for a rock overhanging the water, at the head of a bend in the river, from the edge of which I hoped to be able to tell if the fires opposite were repeated down the side I was on.
As I gained a sheltered place near the top and in the rear of the rock, I heard a boat grate on the pebbles beneath, and two men ascended to the very spot I had started for. I lay low behind the scanty bushes, while they sat down near me. From what they said, I gathered that they had crossed from the Rebel camp over the river to investigate the bank up stream for some purpose, but not liking the looks of something that had attracted their notice, they had stopped there to decide what they should do.
I was too near to move away without them hearing me. I was caught in a trap. Chaffing at a delay, when every moment was precious, and fearing that Ned, alarmed at my protracted absence, might come to look for me, I was obliged to crouch, motionless in my hiding place, while the two men so near me idly discussed topics relating to everything but the duty they were on. While I waited, the clouds began to break away, and once or twice the moonlight shone out full and strong, leaving me with little to shield me, had they chanced to turn around.
Finally, after what seemed hours to me, one decided to go over for re-enforcements and descended to the boat. Cautiously rising, as the other advanced to the extreme edge of the rock, I saw that his back was toward me and that he was intently watching the progress of the boat, then in mid-stream.
It was possible then for me to have slipped away unnoticed, but I was exasperated beyond endurance. An uncontrollable impulse seized me. Even if I had been sure that the whole Confederate army would have started to his rescue, I could not have helped pushing that man into the water. Moving noiselessly behind him, with the end of my revolver I gave him a sharp punch in the middle of the back. Taken completely off his guard, without a word, but with a wild whirl of arms and legs, he went straight down into the deep water beneath. I have wondered hundreds of times since, what that man thought was the matter with him. If he has lived to read this, he knows now.
I returned to where Ned was, and we began retracing our steps.
Although we made frequent attempts to get news, it was not until nearly morning that I learned that our troops had advanced to a point, nearer the place where I had made my way into the enemy's camp, and, consequently, nearer where I was then, but to my left. We immediately changed our route.
From the moment the order had fallen into my hands, my one desire and aim was to get it where the information it contained, together with what other I had gathered, could be put to instant use. Every nerve throbbed with impatience. Every delay was intolerable. Yet that entire ride back was a series of vexatious and dangerous delays. I was beset on every side by dangers, which closed in on me at every point where I tried to evade them. Every mile counted for four in my eagerness to get on. I was obliged, time after time, to retrace my steps and make long detours to avoid running into bodies of skirmishers, to escape the vigilance of pickets, and to baffle the pursuers on our tracks.
Twice that night we stood with our coats drawn tightly over our horses' heads to keep them from making a sound to betray our presence to the enemy, passing so closely below that by stooping, we could have lifted the hats off of their heads with a ramrod.
Shortly after daybreak, as the first rays of of the sun showed over a neighboring hill, I lay in a hollow log, while a man from the column of passing soldiers sat on it to beat the dirt and stones from his remnants of shoes. The dust from the inside of the log, loosened by his pounding, choked me, until in my efforts to keep from coughing, I bit through the sleeve of my coat, and left the print of my teeth on my arm. About six hundred soldiers marched past me, as I watched them from a crevice in the log.
Across the road and half way up the hill beyond I could see where Ned crouched, keeping the horses back in the shelter of a low thicket. Knowing exactly where to look for him, he stood out with terrible distinctness to my abnormally keen sight, and I trembled whenever I saw a soldier turn his head in that direction.
Even now, as I think it over, with all my increased experience and knowledge of hair-breadth escapes, it seems simply incredible that we ever got through. But get through we did.
By eight o'clock, exhausted to faintness from hard riding, lack of food and loss of sleep, and with horses reeling from fatigue, we turned out onto a road which in a few minutes took us beyond danger. Loyal hands placed fresh horses at our disposal, and with little loss of time, we were covering the last ten miles of our ride.
Soon the bit of paper, that "Lost Dispatch," which through all that long and fearful night had been the elixir that nerved me to my work, was in the hands of the proper officer, and I had communicated to him the additional information I had gathered. Both information and dispatch, without delay, were carried to the Commander in Chief.
I only did my duty. My responsibility ended there. But looking back now, it seems, as it did then, that better results should have been obtained through a quick action on the intelligence gathered.
THE END.
