The Iron Game - Henry Francis Keenan
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"'The breeze is from the northwest; that dust is going toward the
Warrenton Pike. Johnston has got up in time; we've won the day!'
"With this he put spurs to his horse, and the squadron halted on the
road set off at a wild gallop. The words of the President were repeated
from man to man, and then a mighty shout broke out. It seemed to clip
the leaves from the trees, as I saw them cut, an hour or two before, by
the swarming volleys of musketry. A horseman suddenly broke from a path
just behind where I was.
"'Is President Davis here?' he asked, riding close to me, but not
halting.
"'He has just ridden off yonder.' I pointed toward the cloud of dust
east and north of us.
"'Split your throats, boys! General Beauregard has just sent me to the
President to welcome him with the news that the Yankees are licked and
flying in all directions! Not a man of them can escape. General
Longstreet is on their rear at Centreville.'
"There were deafening, crazy shouts; hats, canteens, even muskets, were
flung in the air, and the wounded, lying on the ground, were struck by
some of these things as they fell, in a cloud, about them. The shouts
grew louder and louder, they rose and fell, far, far away right and
left. Everybody embraced everybody else. Men who had been limping and
despondent before broke into wild dances of joy. Everybody wanted to go
toward the field of battle now, but a provost guard filed down the road
presently, and in a few minutes I saw a sight that made tears of rage
and shame blind me. Whole regiments of blue-coats came at a quick-step
through the dusty roadway, the rebel guards prodding them brutally with
their bayonets. The fellows near me, who had been running from the
fight, set up insulting cheers and cat-calls.
"'Did you'ns leave a lock of your hair with old Mas'r Lincoln?'
"'Come down to Dixie to marry niggers, have ye?' and scores of taunts
more insulting and obscene. Our men never answered. They were worn and
dusty. They had no weapons, of course, for the first thing the rebels
did was to search every man, take his money, watch, studs, even his coat
and shoes, when they were better than their own. Hundreds of our men
were in their stocking-feet, or, rather, in their bare feet, as they
tramped wearily through the burning sand and twisted roots. I heard one
of the rebels near me, an officer, say that the prisoners were all going
to the junction to take the cars. President Davis had ordered that they
should be marched through the streets of Richmond to show the people of
the capital the extent of the victory. Then the thought flashed into my
head that if our army had been captured, my best chance of finding Jack
would be to follow to Richmond and watch the blue-coats. I easily
slipped among the prisoners, came to the city and saw every man that
went to Castle Winder. But no one that I knew was among them, and I made
up my mind that Jack had escaped. I saw Wesley Boone's father and sister
at the Spottswood House yesterday, but I was too late to catch them,
and, when I asked the clerk at the desk, be said they had taken quarters
in the town--he didn't know where."
"That's a fact," Olympia exclaimed; "they left Washington before us. I
wonder if they found Wesley?"
"I don't know," Dick continued, "The officers were brought in a gang by
themselves, and I didn't see them. Well, I hung about the town, visiting
all the places I thought it likely Jack might be, and then I joined a
cavalry company that belonged to Early's brigade, at Manassas. I was
going there with them this morning to get back to our lines and find
Jack, when I saw the paragraph in _The Examiner_, telling of your coming
and whereabouts."
CHAPTER XV.
ROSEDALE.
"What an intrepid young brave you are, Dick!" Olympia cried, as the
artless narrative came to an end.
"What a cruel boy, to leave his family and--and--run into such dreadful
danger!" Merry expostulated.
"What a devoted boy, to risk his life and liberty for our poor Jack!"
Mrs. Sprague said, bending forward to stroke the tow-head. The carriage
passed down the same road that Jack had gone the day before, whistling
sarcasms at his keeper. At Harrison's Landing there was a delay of
several hours, and the impatient party wandered on the shores of the
majestic James--glittering, like a sylvan lake, in its rich border of
woodland. The sun was too hot to permit of the excursion Dick suggested,
and late in the afternoon the wheezy ferry carried them down the
lake-like stream. On every hand there were signs of peace--not a fort,
not a breastwork gave token that this was in a few months to be the
shambles of mighty armies, the anchorage of that new wonder, the iron
battle-ship; the scene of McClellan's miraculous victory at Malvern, of
Grant's slaughtering grapplings with rebellion at bay, of Butler's comic
joustings, and the last desperate onslaughts of Hancock's legions. The
air, tempered by the faint flavor of salt in the water, filled the
travelers with an intoxicating vigor, lent strength to their jaded
forces, which, while tense with expectation, could not wholly resist the
delicious aroma, the lovely outlines of primeval forest, the melody of
strange birds, startled along the shore by the wheezy puffing of the
ferry. There were cries of admiring delight as the carriage ran from the
long wooden pier into the dim arcade of sycamore and pine, through which
the road wound, all the way to Rosedale. Then they emerged into a
gentle, rolling, upland, where cultivated fields spread far into the
horizon, and in the distance a dense grove, which proved to be the park
about the house. The coming of the carriage was a signal to a swarm of
small black urchins to scramble, grinning and delighted, to the wide
lawn. There was no need to sound the great knocker; no need to explain,
when Rosalind, hurrying to the door, saw Olympia emerging from the
vehicle. They had not seen each other in four years, but they were in
each other's arms--laughing, sobbing--exclaiming:
"How did you know? When did you come?"
"Jack, Jack! Where is he? How is he?"
"Jack's able to eat," Rosa cried, darting down to embrace Mrs. Sprague,
and starting with a little cry of wonder as Aunt Merry exclaimed, timidly:
"We're all here. You've captured the best part of Acredale, though you
haven't got Washington yet."
"Why, how delightful! We shall think it is Acredale," Rosa cried,
welcoming the blushing lady. "And--I should say, if he were not so much
like--like 'we uns,' that this was my old friend, the naughty Richard,"
she said, welcoming the blushing youth cordially. (Dick avowed
afterward, in confidence to Jack, that she would have kissed him if he
hadn't held back, remembering his unkempt condition.) Mamma and Olympia
were shown up to the door of Jack's room, where Rosalind very discreetly
left them, to introduce the other guests to Mrs. Atterbury, attracted to
the place by the unwonted sounds. When presently the visitors were shown
into Vincent's room, Jack called out to them to come and see valor
conquered by love; and, when they entered, mamma was brushing her eyes
furtively, while she still held Jack's unwounded hand under the
counterpane. Master Dick excited the maternal alarm by throwing himself
rapturously on the wounded hero and giving him the kiss he had denied
Rosalind. Indeed, he showered kisses on the abashed hero, whose eyes
were suspiciously sparkling at the evidence of the boy's delight. He
established himself in Jack's room, and no urging, prayer, or reproof
could induce him to quit his hero's sight.
"I lost him once," he said, doggedly, "and I'm not going to lose him
again. Where he goes, I'm going; where he stays, I'll stay--sha'n't
I, Jack?"
"You shall, indeed, my dauntless Orestes; you shall share my fortunes,
whatever they be."
He insisted on a cot in the room, and there, during the convalescence of
his idol, he persisted in sleeping--ruling all who had to do with the
invalid in his own capricious humor, hardly excepting Mrs. Sprague, whom
he tolerated with some impatience. Letters were dispatched northward to
relieve the anxiety of Pliny and Phemie, as well as the Marshes. But it
hung heavily on Jack's heart that no trace of Barney had been found.
Advertisements were sent to the Richmond papers, and he waited in
restless impatience for some sign of the kind lad's well-being.
"Well, Jack, this isn't much like the pomp and circumstance of glorious
war," Olympia cried, the next morning, coming in from an excursion about
the "plantation," as she insisted on calling the estate, attended by
Merry, Rosa, and Dick. "I never saw such foliage! The roses are as large
as sunflowers, and there are whole fields of them!"
"Yes; I believe the Atterburys make merchandise of them."
"But who buys them about here? They seem to grow wild--as fine in form
and color as our hot-house varieties. Surely they are not bought by the
colored people, and there seems to be no one else--no other
inhabitants, I mean."
"Oh, no; they are shipped North in the season for them; but I don't
think the family has paid much attention to that branch of the business
of late years. Their revenues come from tobacco and cotton. Their
cotton-fields are in South Carolina and along the Atlantic coast."
"And are these colored people all slaves?" Her voice sank to a whisper,
for Vincent's door was ajar.
"Yes, every man jack of them. Did you ever see such merry rogues? They
laugh and sing half the night, and sing and work half the day."
"They don't seem unhappy, that's a fact," Olympia said, reflectively,
"but I should think ownership in flesh and blood would harden people;
and yet the Atterburys are very kind and gentle. I saw tears in Mrs.
Atterbury's eyes, yesterday, when mamma was sitting here with you."
"Yes," Jack said, unconsciously, "women enjoy crying--"
"You insufferable braggart, how dare you talk like that? Pray, what do
you know about women's likes and dislikes?"
"Oh, I beg pardon, Polly; I'm sure I didn't mean anything--I was taking
the minor for the major. All women like babies; babies pass most of
their time crying; therefore women like crying."
"Well, if that is the sum of your college training, it is a good thing
the war came--"
"What about the war? No treason in Rosedale, remember!" Vincent shouted
from the next room. "You pledged me that when you talked war you would
talk in open assembly." The voice neared the open doorway as he spoke.
The servant had moved the invalid's cot, where Vincent could look in
on Jack.
"There was really no war talk, Vint, except such war as women always
raise, contention--"
"I object, Jack, to your generalization," Olympia retorted. "It is a
habit of boyishness and immaturity.--He said a moment ago" (she turned
to Vincent) "that women loved crying, and then sneaked out by a very
shallow evasion."
"I'll leave it to Vint: All women love babies; babies do nothing but
cry; therefore, women love crying; there couldn't be a syllogism more
irrefutable."
"Unless it be that all women love liars," Vincent ventured, jocosely.
"How do you prove that?"
"All men are liars; women love men; therefore--"
"Oh, pshaw! you have to assume in that premise. I don't in mine. It is
notorious that women love babies, while you have only the spiteful
saying of a very uncertain old prophet for your major--"
"Whose major?" Rosa asked, appearing suddenly. "I'll have you to know,
sir, that this major is mamma's, and no one else can have, hold, or make
eyes at him."
"It was the major in logic we were making free with," Jack mumbled,
laughing. "I hope logic isn't a heresy in your new Confederacy, as
religion was in the French Constitution of '93?"
Rosa looked at Olympia, a little perplexed, and, seating herself on the
cot with Vincent, where she could caress him furtively, said, with
piquant deliberation:
"I don't know about logic, but we've got everything needed to make us
happy in the Montgomery Constitution."
"Have you read it?" Jack asked, innocently.
"How insulting! Of course I have. I read it the very first thing when it
appeared in the newspapers."
"Catch our Northern women doing that!" Jack interjected, loftily. "There
is my learned sister, she doesn't know the Constitution from Plato's
Dialogues."
"Indeed, I do not; nor do I know Plato's Dialogues," Olympia returned,
quite at ease in this state of ignorance.
"Wherein does the Montgomery Constitution differ from the old one?" Jack
asked, looking at Vincent.
"I'm blessed if I know. I've read neither. I did read the Declaration of
Independence once at a Fourth-of-July barbecue. I always thought that
was the Constitution. Indeed, every fellow about here does! You know in
the South the women do all the thinking for the men. Rosa keeps my
political conscience."
"Well, then, Lord High Chancellor, tell us the vital articles in the
Montgomery document that have inspired you to arm Mars for the conflict,
plunge millions into strife and thousands into hades, as Socrates would
have said, employing his method?" Jack continued derisively.
"Our Constitution assures us the eternal right to own our own property."
"Slaves?"
"Yes."
"No one denied you that right, so far as the law went, under the old; it
was only the justice, the humanity, that was questioned. The right would
have endured a hundred years, perhaps forever, if you had kept still--"
"Come, Jack, I won't listen to politics," Olympia cried, with a warning
look.
"No, the time for talk is past; it is battle, and God defend the right!"
Rosa said, solemnly.
"And you may be sure he will," Jack added, softly, as though to himself.
"But we've got far away from the crying and the babies," Vincent began,
when Jack interrupted, fervently:
"Thank Heaven!"
"You monster!" the two girls cried in a breath.
"No, I can't conceive a sillier paradox than 'A babe in the house is a
well-spring of joy.' A woman must have written it first. Now, my idea of
perfect happiness for a house is to have two wounded warriors like
Vincent and me, tractable, amiable, always ready to join in rational
conversation and make love if necessary, providing we're encouraged."
"Really, Olympia, your Northern men are not what I fancied," Rosa cried,
with a laugh.
"What did you fancy them?"
"Oh, ever so different, from this--this saucy fellow--modest, timid,
shy; needing ever so much encouragement to--to--"
"Claim their due?" Jack added, slyly.
"Well, there is one that doesn't require much encouragement to claim
everything that comes in his way," Rosa retorts, and Olympia adds:
"And to spare my feelings you won't name him now."
"Exactly," said Rosa.
"How touching!" exclaimed Vincent.
"I left all my blood to enrich your soil, or I'd blush," replied Jack.
"Oh, no; it won't enrich the soil; it will bring out a crop of Johnny
Jump-ups, a weed that we don't relish in the South," retorted Rosa.
"Ah, Jack, you're hit there!--Rosa, I'm proud of you. This odious Yankee
needs combing down; he ran over us so long at college that he is
conceited in his own impudence," and Vincent exploded in shouts
of laughter.
"I fear you're not a botanist, Miss Rosa. It's 'Jack in the pulpit' that
will spring from Northern blood, and they'll preach such truths that the
very herbage will bring the lesson of liberty and toleration to you."
"What is this very serious discussion, my children?" Mrs. Atterbury
said, beaming sweetly upon the group. "I couldn't imagine what had
started Vincent in such boisterous laughter; and now, that I come, Mr.
Jack is as serious as we were at school when Madame Clarice told us of
our sins."
"Jack was telling his, mamma, and that is still more serious than to
hear one's own," Vincent said, grinning at the moralist.
"But, to be serious a moment, I have written to my old friend General
Robert Lee, of Arlington, about Miss Perley. I know that he will grant
her permission to take Richard home with her, and the question now is
whether it is safe to let them go together alone?" Mrs. Atterbury
addressed the question to Olympia, making no account of Jack.
"Oh, let us leave the decision until you get General Lee's answer. If
they get the message in Acredale that Dick is safe and sound, I don't
see why they need go back before we do. I shall be able to travel in a
few weeks. If the roads were not so rickety I wouldn't be afraid to set
out now," Jack answered.
"Impossible! You can't leave for a month yet, if then," Vincent
proclaimed, authoritatively. "I know what gunshot wounds are: you think
they are healed, and begin fooling about, when you find yourself laid up
worse than ever. There's no hurry. The campaign can't begin before
October. I'm as anxious to be back as you are, but I don't mean to stir
before October. Perhaps you think it will be dull here? Just wait until
you are strong enough to knock about a bit; we shall have royal rides.
We'll go to Williamsburg and see the oldest college in the country.
We'll go down the James, and you shall see some of the richest lands in
the world. We'll get a lot of fellows out from Richmond and have our
regular barbecue in September. We wind up the season here every year
with a grand dance, and Olympia shall lead the Queen Anne minuet with
mamma's kinsman, General Lee, who is the President's chief of staff."
"This doesn't sound much like soldiering," Jack said, dreamily.
"No. When in the field, let us fight; when at home, let us be merry."
"A very proper sentiment, young men. We want you to be very merry, for
you must remember the time comes when we can't be anything but sad--when
you are away and the night of doubt settles upon our weak women's
hearts." It was Mrs. Atterbury who spoke, and the sentence seemed to
bring silence upon the group.
Meanwhile, all the inquiries set on foot through the agency of the
Atterburys failed to bring any tidings of Barney Moore. It suddenly
occurred to Jack that the poor fellow was masquerading as a rebel in the
bosom of some eager patriot like Mrs. Raines and he reluctantly
consented to let Dick go to Richmond to investigate. Perhaps Mrs. Raines
might know where the wounded men were taken that had come with him. Some
of the stragglers could at least be found. The advertisement asking
information concerning a wounded man arriving in Richmond with himself
was kept in all the journals. But Merry wouldn't consent to let Dick go
on the dangerous quest without her. She would never dare face her
sisters if any mishap came to the lad, and though Vincent put him under
the care of an experienced overseer, and ordered the town-house to be
opened for his entertainment, the timorous aunt was immovable.
"You must go and call on the President, Miss Merry. He receives
Thursdays at the State House. Then you'll see a really great man in
authority, not the backwoods clowns that have brought this country into
ridicule--such a man as Virginia used to give the people for President,"
Rosa said in the tone a lady of Louis XVIII's court might have used to
an adherent of the Bonapartes.
"Ah, Rosa, we saw a gentle, tender-hearted man in Washington--the very
ideal of a people's father. No one else can ever be President to me
while he lives," Olympia said, seriously.
"Lincoln?" Rosa asked, a little disdainfully.
"Yes, Abraham Lincoln. We have all misunderstood him. Oh if you could
have seen him as I saw him--so patient, so considerate: the sorrows of
the nation in his heart and its burdens on his shoulders; but confident,
calm, serene, with the benignant humility of a man sent by God," Olympia
added almost reverently. "It was he who came to our aid and ordered the
rules to be broken that our mother might seek Jack."
Rosa was about to retort, but a warning glance from Vincent checked her,
and she said nothing.
"I say, Dick, don't try to capture Jeff Davis or blow up the Confederate
Congress, or any other of the casual master strokes that may enter your
wild head. Remember that we have given double hostages to the enemy. We
have accepted their hospitality, and we have made ourselves their
guests," Jack said, half seriously, as the young Hotspur wrung his hand
in a tearful embrace.
"Above all, remember, Mr. Yankee, that you are in a certain sense a
civilian now; you must not compromise us by free speech in Richmond,"
Rosa added.
"Ah, I know very well there's none of that in the South: you folks
object to free speech; they killed poor old Brown for it; that's what
you made war for, to silence free speech," Dick cried hotly, while Merry
pinched his arm in terror.
Dick began his campaign in the morning with longheaded address. He
visited the prison under ample powers from General Lee--procured though
Vincent's mediation. There were a score of the Caribees in Castle
Winder, and to these the boy came as a good fairy in the tale. For he
distributed money, tobacco, and other things, which enabled the
unfortunates to beguile the tedious hours of confinement. The prisoners
were crowded like cattle in the immense warehouse in squads of a hundred
or more. They had blankets to stretch on the floor for beds, a general
basin to wash in, and for some time amused themselves watching through
the barred windows the crowds outside that flocked to the place to see
the Yankees, and, when not checked by the guards, to revile and
taunt them.
Dick was enraged to see how contentedly the men bore the irksome
confinement, the meager food, and harsh peremptoriness of the beardless
boys set over them as guards. Most of the prisoners passed the time in
cards, playing for buttons, trinkets, or what not that formed their
scanty possessions. Dick learned that all the commissioned officers of
the company with Wesley Boone had been wounded or killed in the charge
near the stone bridge. Wesley had been with the prisoners at first. He
had been struck on the head, and was in a raging fever when his father
and sister came to the prison to take him away. No one could tell where
he was now, but Dick knew that he must be in the city, since there were
no exchanges, the Confederates allowing no one to leave the lines except
women with the dead, or those who came from the North on
special permits.
Then he visited the provost headquarters, and was shown the complete
list of names recorded in the books there; but Barney's was not among
them. At the Spottswood Hotel, the day after his coming, he met Elisha
Boone, haggard, depressed, almost despairing. Dick had no love for the
hard-headed plutocrat, but he couldn't resist making himself known.
"How d'ye do, Mr. Boone? I hope Wesley is coming on well, sir."
Boone brought his wandering eyes down to the stripling in dull
amazement.
"Why, where on earth do you come from? How is it you are free and
allowed in the streets?"
"Oh, I am a privileged person, sir. I am looking up Company K. You
haven't heard anything of young Moore, Barney, who lives on the Callao
road south of Acredale?"
"No, my mind has been taken up with my son"; his voice grew softer. "He
is in a very bad way, and the worst is there is no decent doctor to be
got here for love or money; all the capable ones are in the army, and
those that are here refuse to take any interest in a Yankee."
The father's grief and the unhappy situation of his whilom enemy touched
the lad; forgetting Jack's and Vincent's warning, Dick said,
impulsively:
"Oh, I can get him a good doctor. We have friends here." He knew, the
moment he had spoken the words, that he had been imprudent--how
imprudent the sudden, suspicious gleam in Boone's eye at once
admonished him.
"Friends here? Union men have no friends here. There are men here with,
whom I have done business for years, men that owe prosperity to me, but
when I called on them they almost insulted me. If you have friends, you
must have sympathies that they appreciate."
Dick knew what this meant. To be a Democrat had been, in Acredale, to be
charged with secret leanings to rebellion. He restrained his wrath
manfully, and said, simply:
"An old college friend of Jack's has been very kind to us."
"Us? I take it you mean the Spragues. They are stopping with Jeff Davis,
I suppose? It's the least he could do for allies so steadfast."
"You shouldn't talk that way, sir. Every man in the Caribees, except old
Oswald's gang, is a Democrat, but they are for the country
before party."
"Yes, yes, it may be so--but, the North don't think that way. Well, I'm
going to Washington to see if I can't get my boy out of this infernal
place, where a man can't even get shaved decently."
"And Miss Kate, Mr. Boone, where is she?"
"She is nursing Wesley, poor girl. She is having a harder trial than any
of us; for these devilish women fairly push into the sick-room to abuse
the North and berate the soldiers that fought at Manassas."
"I should like to call on Wesley--if you don't mind," Dick said,
hesitatingly.
"I shall be only too glad; and I'll tell you what it is, Richard, if
you'll make use of your friends here, to get Kate and Wesley some
comforts, some consideration, I'll make it worth your while. I'll see
that you do not have to wait long for a commission, and I'll pay you any
reasonable sum so soon as you get back North."