The Iron Game - Henry Francis Keenan
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"And those men that brought you here--were they Yankees, too?" she
asked, her mind dwelling, womanlike, on the least essential factor of
the problem in order to keep the grievous fact as far away as possible.
"Oh, no! they were your own people. There was no collusion, I assure
you." Jack almost laughed now, as the dialogue in the ambulance recurred
to him, and the adroit use the men had made of their unconscious charges
to secure a furlough. "No; I was more amazed than I can say when I came
to myself in this charming chamber--a paradise it seemed to me, a home
paradise--when your kind face bent over my pillow."
"It's a cruel disappointment," she said, rising and holding the back of
the chair as she tilted it toward the bed. "We were so proud of you--so
proud to have any one that had fought for our dear State in our own
house to nurse, to bring back to life. Every one on the street has some
one from the battle, and oh, what will be said of us when people know
that we--we--" But here the cruelty of the conclusion came too sharply
to her mind, and she walked to the window, sobbing softly.
"I can understand, believe me, Mrs. Raines, and I am going to propose a
means to you whereby I shall be taken from here, and your neighbors
shall never know that you entertained an enemy unawares, though God
knows I don't see why we should be enemies when the battle is over. If
your son were in my condition I should think very hard of my mother if
she were not to him what you have been to me."
"But I can't believe you're a Yankee; you were so gentle, so patient in
all the dreadful times when the surgeon was cutting and hacking. Oh, I
can't believe it! Oh, please say you are joking--that you wanted to give
me a fright. And you have a mother?" She came over near the bed again
and stood looking at him dismally, half in doubt, half in perplexed
wonder; for Yankee, in her mind, suggested some such monster as the
Greeks conjured when the Goths poured into the peninsula, maiming the
men and debauching the women. "I said Sprague wasn't a Virginia name,"
she murmered, plaintively, in a last desperate attempt to fortify
herself against the worst; "but there's no telling what names are in
Virginia now, since Norfolk has grown so big and folks come in that way
from all over the world."
Jack could scarcely keep a serious face, as this humorous lament
displayed the pride of the Dominion and the unconscious Boeotianism of
the provincial.
"Now, Mrs. Raines, here is what I propose: Major Atterbury, of whom you
read to me, is my nearest friend. We have been college comrades; he has
passed weeks at my home, and I have been asked to his, and meant to come
this autumn vacation, if the war had not broken out. I will write to his
mother, and she will have me removed to her house, and it need never be
known that you gave aid and comfort to the enemy."
"But the Atterburys will never receive you. They were the first to favor
secession, when all the rest of us opposed it. To tell you the truth,
Mr. Sprague, it is partly because we were abused a good deal for holding
back when the secession excitement was first started, that I am so--so
anxious about the story getting out that we entertained a Yankee
prisoner. My husband is in the service of the government in Norfolk, and
my son is in the army. But you know what neighborhood gossip is."
So, after a friendly talk in which the poor lady cried a great deal and
besought Jack's good-will for her darling William, if ever he were
luckless enough to be captured, the note was written and dispatched to
the Atterburys, whose city house was near the capital square. The
messenger returned a half-hour later, reporting the family out of town;
that they had taken the major to their country-place near Williamsburg,
on the banks of the James. The messenger had given the letter to the
housekeeper, who said that it would go out an hour later with the mail
sent daily to the family.
"Williamsburg is two hours' ride on the train," Mrs. Raines explained,
"and we sha'n't hear from them until to-morrow."
Jack said nothing; his mind was on his mother and the misery she must be
enduring. He turned restlessly on his pillow that night, and woke
feverish in the morning. Mrs. Raines now took as much pains to keep
people who called from seeing her hero as she had before put herself out
to display the invalid. Even the doctor, calling about nine o'clock, was
sent away on some pretext, and the poor lady waited with an anxiety,
almost as poignant as Jack's own, for the response to his note. About
noon it came. Mrs. Raines went to the door herself, not daring to trust
the colored girl, who had lavished untold pains on Jack's linen and the
manual part of his care. Jack heard low voices in the hallway, then on
the stairs, and he knew some one had come.
"Here is Miss Atterbury sent to fetch you, lieutenant," Mrs. Raines
said, now very much relieved, and impressed, too, by the powerful
friends her dangerous _protege_ was able to summon so promptly by
a line.
"You are Rosalind?" Jack said, smiling at a pair of the brownest and
most bewitching eyes fixed soberly on him. "I should have known you if I
had met you in the street, although you were a small girl when I saw
you last."
"You needn't take much credit for that, sir, since Vincent probably had
my portrait in all his coat-pockets and his room frescoed with
them--it's a trick of his. So you needn't pretend that it was family
likeness--I know better. Vincent has all the good looks of the family,
and I have all the good qualities."
"That's why you've come to console the afflicted?"
"Yes, duty--you know how disagreeable that is. Vincent declared he would
come himself, if I didn't, and mamma wouldn't hear of your being moved
by servants alone, so I am here. But I give you fair warning that I am a
rebel of the most ferocious sort. You shall ride under the 'bonnie blue
flag' to Rosedale, and you shall salute our flag every morning when it
is hoisted."
"I am the most docile of men and the easiest of invalids. I will ride
under Captain Kidd's flag and salute the standard of the Grand Turk, to
be near Vincent just now."
When Rosalind's colored aids had placed him in the big family carriage,
and he had bidden Mrs. Raines farewell, the young lady resumed: "Ah, I
know you! Vincent has told me about your Yankee ways. Not another word,
sir. I'll act as guide, and tell you all we see of note as we go on.
There where your eyes are resting now is the Confederate Hall of
Independence; that modest house on the corner is President Davis's. We
are going to build him another by and by--after we capture Washington
and get our belongings--no--no--you needn't speak. I know what you want
to say. That's Washington's monument, and there is our dear old
Jefferson. Doesn't it quicken even your slow Yankee blood to pass the
walls that heard Jefferson at his greatest, that held Patrick Henry,
that covered Washington? Ah! if you Northern Pharisees were not
money-grubbers and souless to everything but the almighty dollar, you
would join hands with us in creating our new Confederacy. Yes, sir,
you're my prisoner. We shall see that one Yankee is kept out of
mischief--if the war lasts--which is not likely, as your folks are quite
cowed by the victory at Bull Run. Wasn't it a splendid fight? I shall
never forgive Vin for not letting me know it was coming off. Vin, you
know, is on General Early's staff. He knew two days before that there
was to be a fight, for he started from Winchester to keep the railway
clear and lead the troops to the Henry House when they got off the cars.
He was in the thickest of the fight, near Professor Jackson--Stonewall,
they call him now. He--Vin--had three horses killed, and was made a
major on the field by General Joe Johnston. What?----"
"Please let the carriage stop a moment. I want to absorb that lovely
view."
He pointed to the James, debouching from the hills over which the
carriage was slowly rolling. The afternoon sun was behind them; but far,
far to the eastward the noble river wound through masses of dark, deep
green until it was lost in a glow of shimmering mirage in the
low horizon.
"Isn't it lovely? We shall have a nobler capital city than Washington,
with its horrid red streets, its wilderness of bare squares, its
interminable distances--"
"Carcassonne," Jack murmured.
"Carcassonne--what's that?"
"An exquisite bit of verse and a touching story. I----"
"There, there--stop. You are talking again. You shall read the poem to
me--that is, if it isn't a glorification of the North."
"No; Carcassonne was a city of the South."
"Really--you must not talk. I'm not going to open my lips again until we
get to the boat."
She settled back in her place and took out a book, looking over the top
at him from time to time. The motion of the vehicle, the warmth of the
day, and the odorous breath of flowers and shrubs gradually dulled his
mischievous spirits, and he slept tranquilly until the carriage drew up
at the wharf at Harrison's Landing, whence, taken on a primitive ferry,
they in an hour or more arrived at a long wooden pier extending into the
river. It was nearly six o'clock when the carriage entered a solemn
aisle of pines ending in a labyrinth of oleanders and the tropic-like
plants of the South. Then an old-fashioned porticoed mansion came into
view, and on signal from the driver a _posse_ of colored servants came
trooping out noisily to carry the invalid in. Mrs. Atterbury was on the
veranda, and stepped down to the carriage to welcome the guest. She
greeted him with the affectionate cordiality of a mother, and asked:
"How have you borne the fatigue? I hope Rosa hasn't let you talk?"
"If I may speak now it will be to bear testimony that I have been made a
mummy since noon. I haven't been permitted to ask the local habitation
or name of the scenic delights that have made the journey a panorama of
beauty and my guide a tyrant, to whom, by comparison, Caligula was a
tender master!"
"Since you slept most of the way you must have dreamed the beauty, as
you certainly have invented the tyrant," Rosa retorted, as the brawny
servants lifted Jack bodily and carried him up the three steps and into
the sitting-room.
"Your quarters are next to my son's, if you think you can endure the
constant outbreaks of that locality. We are with him in all but his
sleeping hours, so you will do well to reflect before you decide."
"Oh, I shall insist on being near Vincent. He's too badly hurt to
overcome me in case we are tempted to fight our battles over again."
"But he has allies here, sir, and you must remember that you are a
prisoner of war," Rosa cried from the landing above, _en route_ to
minister to her hero before the Yankee invaded him. Vincent was propped
up in the bed with a mass of pillows, and the two friends embraced in
college-boy fashion, too much moved for a moment to begin the flood of
questions each was eager to ask and answer.
"Before I say a word of anything else, Vint, I want you to do me a great
service. It is two weeks since the battle. I am sure my mother can not
have any certain information about me. Can you manage any way to get a
letter or telegram sent her?"
"Of course I can. Nothing easier. Write your telegram. I will send it
under cover to General Early. He will forward it by flag of truce to
Washington, and it will be sent North from there."
But Jack's letter was never sent, for when the post came from Richmond
the next day, Vincent read in the morning paper a surprising
personal item:
"'Among the distinguished arrivals in the city within the week, we have
just learned of the presence of Mrs. Sprague, wife of the famous
Senator, a contemporary with Clay and Webster. Mrs. Sprague has come to
Richmond in search of her son, who was captured or killed on the field
near the Henry House. She comes with her daughter under a safeguard from
General Johnston, who knew the family when he was at West Point. Mrs.
Sprague is stopping with Mrs. Bevan, on Vernon Street, and is under the
escort of Private William Bevan of the general headquarters.'"
CHAPTER XIV.
UNDER TWO FLAGS.
That modest paragraph in the morning paper wrought amazing results in
the fortunes of many of the people we are interested in. A regiment of
cavalry encamped near the outskirts of the city on the line of the
Virginia Central had broken camp early in the morning to march
northward. One company detailed to bring up the rear was still loitering
near the station when the newspapers were thrown off the train and
eagerly seized by the men, who bestrewed themselves in groups to hear
the news read aloud.
"Here, you Towhead, you're company clerk; you read so that we can all
hear."
In response to this a stripling, in the most extraordinary costume, came
out from the impedimenta of the company with a springy step and
consequential air. You wouldn't have recognized the scapegrace, Dick
Perley, in the carnival figure that came forward, for his curling blond
hair was closely cropped, his face was smeared with the soilure of pots
and pans, and it was evident that the eager warrior had exchanged the
weapons of war for the utensils of the company kitchen. He read in a
high, clear treble the telegraphic dispatches, the sanguinary editorial
ratiocinations, Orphic in their prophetic sententiousness, and then
turned to the local columns.
Any one listening to the lad would never have suspected that he was not
a Southron. He prolonged the _a's_ and _o's_, as the Southern trick is,
and imitated to such perfection the pleasant localisms of Virginian
pronunciation, that keener critics of speech and accent than these
galliard troops would have been deceived. But suddenly his voice breaks,
he falls into the clear, distinct enunciation of New York--the only
speech in the Union that betrays no sign of locality. He is reading the
lines about the distinguished arrivals. Fortunately at the instant there
is a blast from the bugles--"Fall in!"--and the men rush to their
horses. In twenty minutes the company is clattering out on the
Mechanicsville road, and at noon, when the squadron halted for dinner,
the company cook had to rely on the clumsy ministrations of his colored
aides. "Towhead" had disappeared.
Olympia, after a night of anguish, began the new day with a heavy burden
on her mind. Mrs. Sprague was delirious. The physician summoned during
the night shook his head gravely. She was suffering from overexertion,
heat, and anxiety. He was unable to do more than mitigate her
sufferings. He recommended country air and absolute repose. Merry, too,
though holding up bravely, gave signs of breaking down. The two
women--Olympia and Merry--under the escort of young Bevan, had gone
through the prisons, the dreadful Castle Winder, and through the
hospitals, with hope dying at every new disappointment. They came across
many of the Caribees, and saw a member of Congress, caught on the
battle-field, who knew the regiment well.
Jack had been traced to Porter's lines, then far to the left, where Nick
had been told to wait. Nick was among the sweltering mass at Castle
Winder, but he could trace the missing no farther. He told of Jack's
persistent valor to the last, and the dreadful moment, when he, Jack,
had been separated. Dick he had not seen at all. Olympia made
intercession for Nick's release, but was informed that nothing could be
done until a cartel of exchange had been arranged. The Yankee
authorities had in the first five months of the war refused to make any
arrangement, while the Union forces were capturing the Confederate
armies in West Virginia and Missouri. Now that the Confederates held an
equal number, they were going to retaliate upon the overconfident North.
Olympia placed five hundred dollars at Nick's disposal in the hands of
the commandant to supply the lad with better food than the commissary
furnished, and, promising him strenuous aid so soon as she got back to
Washington, she resumed the quest for the lost. She had written out an
advertisement, to be inserted in all the city papers, and was to visit
the offices herself with young Bevan that evening. She had her bonnet
on, and was charging Merry how to minister to the ailing mother, when
the hostess knocked at the door. "A lady is in the parlor who says she
must see Mrs. Sprague immediately." Olympia followed Mrs. Bevan down
tremblingly, far from any anticipation of what was in store for her;
rather in the belief that it was some wretched mother from Acredale who
had learned of their presence and hoped to get aid for an imprisoned
son, husband, or brother. But when she saw the kind, matronly face of
Mrs. Raines beaming with the delight of bearing good news, she sank into
a chair, saying faintly:
"Did you wish to see me, Mrs.--Mrs.--"
"You are not Mrs. Sprague?"
"No; my mother is very ill. I am Mrs. Sprague's daughter. Can I--"
"Well, Miss Sprague, I think I can cure your mother. I--"
She arose and walked mysteriously to the door and looked into the
hallway.
"I know what the disease is your mother is suffering from."
She couldn't resist prolonging the consequence of her mission. All women
have the dramatic instinct. All love to intensify the unexpected. But
Olympia's listless manner and touching desolation spurred her on. She
put her fingers to her lips warningly, and coming quite near her
whispered, as she had seen people do on the stage:
"Don't make any disturbance; don't faint. Your brother is alive and
well! There, there--I told you."
Olympia was hugging the astonished woman, who glanced in terror over her
shoulder to see that feminine curiosity was not dangerously alert. "You
will ruin me," she whispered, "if you don't be calm." Then Olympia
suddenly recovered herself, sobbing behind her handkerchief. "He has
been at my house two weeks. He left yesterday and is now with Major
Atterbury's family on the James River, near Williamsburg. Miss Atterbury
came herself to take him there yesterday morning. I saw your name in
_The Examiner_ only an hour ago, and I came at once to relieve the
distress I knew you must be suffering."
Then the kind soul told the story, charging the sister never to reveal
the facts. She withdrew very happy and contented, for Olympia had said
many tender things; she almost felt that she had done the Confederacy a
great service, to have laid so many people under an obligation that
might in the future result in something remarkable for the cause.
Olympia's purpose of breaking the news gradually to the invalid was
frustrated by her tell-tale eyes and buoyant movements.
"O Olympia, you have seen John!" she screamed, starting up--"where is
he? Oh, where is he? I know you have seen him!" And then there were
subdued laughter and tears, and mamma instantly declared her intention
of flying to the hero. But there was considerable diplomacy still
requisite. Mrs. Raines must not be compromised, and young Bevan must get
transportation for them to the Atterburys. It was past noon when the
carriage came for them. Olympia had come down-stairs to give Mrs. Bevan
final instruction regarding letters and luggage, when a resounding knock
came upon the door. Mrs. Bevan opened it herself, and Olympia, standing
in the hall, heard a well-known voice, quick, eager, joyous:
"Is Mrs. Sprague, here?"
"O Richard," Olympia cried, rushing at him--"ah, you darling boy!--Aunt
Merry--Aunt Merry! Come--come quick! He is here." But Aunt Merry at the
head of the stairs had heard the voice, and Dick, tearing himself
ungallantly from the embrace of beauty, was up the stairs in four leaps
and in the arms of the fainting spinster.
"It is Miss Perley's nephew," Olympia said, joyously, to the amazed lady
of the house, who stood speechless. "We had given up all hope of seeing
him, as his name was not on our army list. He ran away to be with my
brother, and we felt like murderers, as you may imagine, and are almost
as much relieved to find him as our own flesh and blood."
The subsequent conversation between the matron and the young girl seemed
to put the mistress of the house in excellent humor, and when the
carriage drove off she kissed all the ladies quite as rapturously as if
she had never vowed undying hatred and vengeance upon the Yankee people.
In the carriage the prodigal Dick rattled off the story of his
adventures. He had come to Company K after Jack had been sent out on the
skirmish-line. He had followed in wild despair the direction pointed out
to him. He had lost his way until he met Colonel Sherman's orderlies.
They had told him where the company was halted on the banks of
the stream.
When he reached the place indicated he learned of Jack's detail to the
extreme right of the army. He dared not set out openly to follow. He ran
back in the bushes, out of sight, and then by a _detour_ struck the
stream far above to the right. The volleys away to the west guided him,
and he tore forward, bruising his flesh and tearing his raiment to
tatters. The stream seemed too deep to cross, for a mile or more, but
finally, finding that the firing seemed to go swiftly to the southward,
he plunged in. The banks on the other side were rugged and precipitous,
and he was obliged to push on in the morass that the stream wound
through. But nature gave out, and on a sunny slope he sat down to rest.
He soon fell into a sound sleep, and when he woke there was noise of men
laughing and shouting about him. He started to his feet.
"Hello! buster," a voice said near him. "What are you doin' away from
yer mammy? Beckon she'll think the Yanks have got you if you ain't home
for bedtime."
The man who said this was lying peacefully under a laurel-bush. Others
were sprawled about, feasting on the spoil of Union haversacks.
"I knew then that I was in a rebel camp," Dick continued, "but I wasn't
afraid, because my clothes were not military; and, even if they had
been, they were so torn and muddy, no one would have thought of them as
a uniform. But, for that matter, a good many of the rebels had blue
trousers; and, as for regimentals, there really were none, as we have
them. I made believe that I lived in the neighborhood, imitated the
Southern twang, and was set to work right away helping the company cook.
The firing was still going on very near us, to the south, west, and
east. But the men didn't seem to mind it much. In about a half-hour
there was a sudden move.
"A volley was poured into us from the east, and in an instant all the
graybacks were in commotion. I heard the officers shout: 'We are
surrounded! Die at your post, men!' But the men didn't want to die at
their posts, or anywhere else, but made off like frightened rabbits. In
a few minutes we were all marching between two lines of Richardson's
Union brigade. I had no trouble in stepping out, and then I pushed on in
Jack's direction. But I could not find him when I got to Hunter's
headquarters. An orderly remembered seeing him, or rather seeing the men
that brought the good news that Sherman was on the rebel side of the
stone bridge early in the battle. There I found an orderly of
Franklin's, who had seen two men I described, sent off to the right to
picket, until the cavalry could be sent there. I came upon Nick Marsh
near the general's headquarters, and he told me the direction the others
had gone, but urged me to remain with him--as Jack would surely be back
there, horsemen having ridden out in that direction to relieve him. I
don't know how far I went, but it must have been a mile.
"There I had to lie in the bushes, for two columns of troops were coming
and going, the flying fellows that Sherman had routed near the stone
bridge and the re-enforcements that were tearing up from the Manassas
Railway. The men coming were laughing and singing as they ran. The men
flying were silent, and seemed too frightened to notice the forces
coming to their support. I broke out of the bushes and ran toward the
line of thick trees that seemed to mark the course of the river. As I
came out on a deep sandy road I ran right into troops, halting. There
were great cheering and hurrah; then a cavalcade of civilians came
through the rushing ranks at a gallop. 'Hurrah for President Davis! Hip,
hip, hurrah!' I saw him. He was riding a splendid gray horse, and as the
men broke into shouts he raised his hat and bowed right and left. He was
stopped for a few minutes just in front of where I stood, or, rather, I
ran to where he halted. There were long trains of wounded filing down
the road, and men without guns, knapsacks, or side-arms, breaking
through the bushes on all sides.
"'They've routed us, Mr. President,' a wounded officer cried, as the
stretcher upon which he was lying passed near Jeff Davis.
"'What part of the field are you from?' Davis asked, huskily.
"'Bartow's brigade, stone bridge. They've captured all our guns, and are
pouring down on the fords. You will be in danger Mr. President, if you
continue northward a hundred yards.'
"Sure enough, there was a mighty cheer, hardly a half-mile to the north
of us, and clouds of dust arose in the air. Davis watched the movement
through his glass, and, turning to a horseman at his side, cried,
exultantly: