The Iron Game - Henry Francis Keenan
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"Where does that come from?" Jack asked, throwing himself flat to catch
his breath.
"Dunno, sah. Most likely de sojers sot de brush on fiah."
When Jack was able to look again he saw far in among the trees a moving
wave of light now and then, as the heavy curtain of smoke was lifted
by the wind.
"Good heavens!" he ejaculated; "it was in there I left my friends. Can
we get to them?"
"No, sah; der ain't no crick dah."
"Then!" Jack thought, "have I sacrificed Dick and Jones in my zeal to be
adventurous? Ten minutes sooner, and we could have gone in and brought
them out. But I will find a way in, if I have to clamber over the
tree-tops."
The noise of whirring wings, the rush of startled animals, now drowned
all other sounds, until, through the tumult from the copse far in front
of them, they heard the clatter of swords, and then gigantic figures
breaking toward them, along the edge of the pond.
"Down, down; hug the ground!" Jack cried, pushing the boy down into the
reeds. Almost as they sank, a group of troopers dashed by, talking
excitedly.
"Fire at random, men; that will force them into cover! If we can keep
them in ambush till daylight, the dogs will be here, and we shall nab
them," Jack heard a voice say as the men rode past.
How could they have heard of the affair so quickly, for Jack took it for
granted that it was his exploit that the troopers were afoot to balk?
Still another group passed, and they were talking of the dogs that
were expected.
"You may depend upon it, they are in the swamp. They are making off that
way and hope to mislead us by firing the place. We must keep our eyes
peeled on the swamp. The creek will stop them down yonder, and we must
watch this break in the brush. As soon as the dogs come we shall have no
trouble. They'll run 'em down in no time."
Jack had heard enough to warn him that it was useless to try to
penetrate the swamp. With half of his usual wit, Dick would have been
_en route_ long before this, for the fiery glow in the woods showed that
the flames had been raging some time. Unless Jones's illness had
handicapped him, Dick would be on his way, following Jack's route as
closely as the darkness would permit. But now he must seek means to
evade the dogs. This could be done only by reaching the water and
getting into it far from the point where they proposed to leave it.
"Can you find the boat?" he asked Gabe, who chattered between his teeth.
"I think so, sah."
"Very well; we must find a small stream running into the pond, and then
lead me to the boat."
"Moccasin Brook is close yonder, sah. Shall I go dah?"
"Yes, like lightning."
In a few minutes they were in a sluggish current, running between masses
of reeds and spreading lily-leaves, into the pond. Here Jack repeated
Jones's manoeuvre, except that he was not wise enough in woodcraft to
make use of a tree to get into the water, and thus leave the dogs at the
end of the trail at a point far removed from his real entrance into it.
When they had reached the pond, Jack bade the boy head to the boat. This
they found moored under a bluff, and Gabe, pointing upward, said the
blockhouse was there.
"Very well, you stay here in the boat and wait for me. Don't stir, don't
speak, no matter what you see or hear. Will you do this?"
"Oh, yes, sah; 'deed, 'deed I will, sah!"
Jack crawled up the bank, keeping in the shadow of the uneven ground,
until he reached a point whence he could make out the blockhouse. It was
a half-finished structure of rough logs, and, from the stakes and other
signs of engineering preliminaries, he saw that it was intended as the
guard-house of a fortification. He could hear the drawl of languid,
half-sleepy voices, and, as he pushed farther to the eastward, saw a
group of troopers lounging about a dying fire. A sentry sat before the
doorway, which had no door. He was dozing on his post, though, now and
then he aroused himself to listen to the comments of the men at the
fire. While Jack waited, irresolute what to do, a volley sounded across
the pond, evidently the fellows whom he had seen, keeping up the
fusilade to distract the fugitives.
"They've wasted enough lead to fight a battle," he heard one of the men
say, scornfully.
"Well, that's what lead's for," a philosopher remarked, stirring the
embers. "So it don't get under my skin, I don't care a cuss what they
do with it."
"Oh, your skin's safe enough, Ned. You may adorn a gallows yet."
"If I do, you'll be at one end of the string--and I ain't a-saying which
end, neither," the other retorted, taking a square segment of what
looked like bark, but was really tobacco, and worrying out a circle with
his teeth, until he had detached a large mouthful. This affording his
jaws all the present occupation they seemed capable of undertaking, the
other resumed when the haw-haw that met the sally had subsided:
"Yes, it takes two to make a hangin', just like it takes two to make a
weddin', and you can't allus say just sartin which one has the
lucky end."
This facetious epigram was duly relished, and the sage was turning his
toasted side from the fire to present the other, when the clatter of a
horse coming up the hillside sent the group scouring toward their guns,
stacked near the unfinished walls.
"Sergeant Bland, the captain orders you to take four men and station
them along the north shore of the pond. The rascals are in the cypress
swamp, and are making their way out toward Moccasin Creek. One man can
watch the block-house, and the rest come with me.--Guard, we shall be
within a hundred yards of you. A shot will bring a dozen men to your
assistance; but it isn't likely an enemy can reach this point. The whole
regiment is deployed in the woods."
This was said to the sentry as the group, detailed for Moccasin Creek,
filed off at a double-quick down the hill. In a few moments the
blockhouse was deserted, save by the sentry, who had now risen and was
vigorously pacing before the doorway. Now was Jack's time, if ever. If
he could only whisper to one of the prisoners to call the sentry. But
how? He had nothing to fear in approaching the rear, and in a few
moments he had examined the walls. There was no opening where he could
get speech with those inside. What could he do? To boldly fall upon the
sentry was risky, for the slightest noise would bring rescue from the
front of the bluff. At the base of the wall, where the log-joists rested
upon a huge bowlder, his quick eye detected an air-hole. He examined it
hurriedly. It was evidently below the flooring. So much the better.
Putting his mouth to this, he called out in a piteous tone:
"For God's sake, sentry, give me some water! I'm choking--oh--oh water!
water!"
He waited to see if the sentry would heed the call. He knew that the men
inside could not betray him, for, if they were not asleep, they could
not be sure that the voice was not from among themselves. Sure enough,
the sentry's step ceased. Was he near the door? Jack crept to the
corner. Yes, he had halted at the aperture. Would he enter? Jack stepped
back to his post, as the guard called out:
"Where are you? Which of you wants water? Sing out!"
"Here!" Jack cried, "Here!" Then darting back to the corner, he was just
in time to see the man lean his gun against the door-post, and disappear
in the hut. In an instant the gun was in Jack's possession, and he was
behind the Samaritan in quest of the suffering victim. It was dark as a
tunnel. Jack's victim still gave him the aid he needed, for, as he
groped along the wall, he said, good-humoredly:
"Sing out again, my friend; I haven't got cat's eyes."
Jack's grasp was on his throat and Jack's mouth was at his ear.
"One sound, one word, and this knife goes to the hilt in your heart!"
The astounded man half reeled at this awful apparition in the black
darkness, and he limply yielded to his captor under the impression that
the prisoners were loose and upon him. Jack tied the man's unresisting
hands with his own canteen-straps; then seated him near the wall and
lighted a match. Four men, undisturbed by this swift and noiseless coup,
were stretched on the board floor, breathing the heavy, deep sleep of
exhaustion. Jack aroused them with the greatest difficulty, and found it
still harder to make them understand that, with courage and resolution,
they would be back in their own lines by daylight. When this became
clear to them they were as eager and energetic as their rescuer. The men
were to remain near the blockhouse, but not in it, until Jack returned
for the negro, and then under the lad's guidance they could find their
way to the Union outposts. Just as this was decided, a blood-curdling
baying of bloodhounds echoed across the pond from the distant cabin.
Jack trembled, his mind at once on Dick, so near and yet so far from him
now, in this new danger. There was not a moment to be lost. Perhaps even
now all the night's hard-won victories were to be turned to worse than
defeat--prison, death; for the liberation of slaves was at that time
punishable by hanging in the rebel military code.
"Courage," he said to himself, grimly; "courage, a dog's no worse than a
man. We've overcome them to-night, we ought to be able to tackle the
dogs." This new danger changed his plan slightly. Instead of leaving all
the men, he took one of the rescued four, Tom Denby by name, with him,
and set out for the water. But here another check met him. He suddenly
recalled that the guard at the blockhouse had been scattered along the
shore to watch the debouch from the swamp. This enforced a wide
_detour_, bringing him out in the rear of the boat and nearer the point
where Moccasin Creek emptied into the pond. They reached it finally, and
skirting along the shore kept a keen eye on the water for the boat. They
had skurried along half-way back toward the bluff, listening for a sound
on the water and peering into the black surface, when Denby suddenly
touched Jack's arm.
"There's a horse or cow standing in the water yonder. I've seen it move;
there, look!"
Yes, outlined against the low horizon, a monstrous shape could be
plainly seen. The yelp of the hounds suddenly broke through the air back
of them toward the creek. The monstrous figure started, moved heavily
forward, then seemed as if coming toward them. Both waited, wondering,
curious, terrified. It was within a rod of them, staggering, gasping.
"Oh, God help us! I can go no farther; better be taken than both drown
together."
Jack could hardly repress a cry:
"Jones--Dick! Is it you?"
But whoever it was or whatever it was had no speech to answer this eager
inquiry. They would have sunk in the shallow water if Jack and Denby had
not caught them. Jack had food with him, and, better than all, the
bottle of sorghum whisky. With this restorative, both were soon able to
sit upon the ground and eat. Jack left Denby to feed them, while he went
in search of the boat. He found it just where he had left it, and in a
few minutes, at the head of his little band, he was back at the
blockhouse. The food and Jack's hastily told news had restored Dick to
something like his old friskiness.
"Jericho!" he cried, as the released prisoners, having held back warily
until the color of the new-comers was known, ran forward. "The whole
army is here. I feel as if I were in the Union lines."
"Well, you ain't, by a long shot," Denby cried. "We've got a good hour's
march, and if you're wise, Captain Sprague, you won't waste time for
any frills."
"No time shall be wasted.--Jones, you and Dick take the rear. I, with
Denby, will skirmish; and you, Corporal Kane, shall command the center.
No firing, remember, unless superior force assails us.--Gabe, stick to
the waterside as closely as you can, but make the shortest cut to
the bridge."
Gabe was the most delighted darkey in all Virginia for the next hour. He
led them swiftly and surely, and why shouldn't he? He had passed all his
life in the vicinity, and with the first beams of the sun he pointed to
a narrow wooden bridge.
"Dar's whar de pickets fire across."
As they passed the bridge a loud sound of rushing horses could be heard
in the distance.
"Dick, you take two men and hurry down the road to assure our pickets
that we are friends. We'll take up the planks to give them time!" Jack
shouted, and Dick, with two of the rescued prisoners, dashed away. Many
hands and high hope made short work of the light timbers. As the
pursuing cavalry turned the bend in the road, in sight of the bridge.
Jack's squad gave them a volley and then dashed into cover. The fire was
returned. Dick, coming back at a run, with a dozen dismounted men, heard
the bullets whistling over his head and saw Jack's _posse_ dispersing to
the right and left in the bushes. All were forced into the woods, as the
rebels commanded the highway.
"Where is Jack?" Dick asked, rushing among the men. No one had noticed
him in the panic. He was not in the huddle that cowered in the reeds to
escape the balls, still hurtling viciously over the open. With a cry of
rage and despair, Dick flew into the road, and there, not a hundred
yards from the bridge, he saw the well-known figure prone on the red
earth motionless--dead? Heedless of the warning cries of the others,
Dick tore madly to the body, and with a wild cry fell upon the lifeless
figure, weltering in blood.
CHAPTER XXVII.
"THE ABSENT ARE ALWAYS IN THE WRONG."
Under Vincent's ardent escort Mrs. Sprague and Merry traveled from
Richmond northward in something like haste and with as much comfort as
was possible to the limited means of transportation at the command of
the Confederate commissary. Even in those early days of the war, the
railway system of the South was worn out and inadequate. Such a luxury
as a parlor car was unknown. The trains were filled with military
personages on their way to the field. Mrs. Sprague and Merry were the
only women in the car in which they passed from Richmond to
Fredericksburg. The route brought them through a land covered with
hamlets of camps, drilling squadrons, and the panoply of war. While the
elder lady gave a divided mind to the strange panorama, Merry watched
everything eagerly, amused and interested by this spectacle of
preparation. Such soldiers as she could see distinctly looked like
farmers in holiday homespun; the cavalry like nondescript companies of
backwoods hunters. There seemed to be no uniformity in infantry
equipment or cavalry accoutrements, and the discipline struck her as in
keeping with this diversity of dress and ornament. The men could be seen
hurrying in boyish glee toward the train as it drew near the temporary
station, where mail-bags were thrown out and sometimes supplies of food
or munitions of war. Jocular remarks were passed between the soldiery at
the windows when the wistful groups gathered along the railway line.
"I say, North Cal'ina, you'n's goin' straight through to Yankee land?" a
man in the throng shouts to some one on the train.
"Straight."
"Send us a lock o' Lincoln's hair to poison blind adders, will you?"
"No--promised his scalp to my sweetheart to cover the rocking-chair."
Then, as the laugh that met this sally died away, another humorist
piped, out:
"Tell Uncle Joe Johnston we're just rustin' down here for a fight; ef he
don't hurry up we'll go ahead ourselves. We're drilled down so fine now
that we can't think 'cept by the rule o' tactics."
"Jest you never mind, boys. Uncle Joe'll do enough thinkin' fur ye when
he gets ready to tackle the Yanks."
"Hurrah for Uncle Joe!" And as the cheery cry swelled farther and
farther, the train drew out, everybody looking from the windows as the
patient soldiery straggled back campward.
"Your soldiers seem very gay, Vincent. One would think that war, the
dreadful uncertainty of their movements, absence of friends, and lack of
good food would sadden them," Mrs. Sprague said wistfully at one of the
stations when raillery like this had been even more pointed and
boisterous.
"A wise commander will do all he can to keep his men gay; if they were
not jovial they'd go mad. Think of it! Day after day, week after week,
who knows but year after year, the wearisome monotony of camp and march!
Where the men are educated, or at least readers, they make better
soldiers, because they brood less. Brooding saps the best fiber of the
army. Your Northern men ought to have an advantage there, for education
is more general with you than it is with us. It is not bravery that
makes a man eager for the campaign, it is unrest. As a rule, the best
soldiers in action are those who have a mortal dread of battle."
"That surprises me."
"It is true. I always distrust men that clamor to be led on; they are
the first to break when the brush comes. Jack will tell you that, for we
are agreed on it."
"Jack himself was eager for battle," Mrs. Sprague said, sighing.
"No, Jack was eager for the field. When the battle comes he meets it
coolly, but he has no hunger for it, nor have I. General Johnston is as
brave a man as ever headed an army, yet he has often told us that his
blood freezes when the guns open. I'm sure no one would ever suspect it,
for he is as calm and confident as if he were in a quadrille when he
rides to the field."
"We in the North have heard more of Beauregard than Johnston, yet I
never hear you mention him. Wasn't it he who commanded at Bull Run?"
"Yes and no. General Beauregard is a superb soldier. He is, it has been
agreed among us, better for a desperate charge, or some sudden
inspiration in an emergency, than the complicated strategy that half
wins a battle before it is begun. For example, at Manassas he would have
been defeated, our whole army captured, if fortune had not exposed
General McDowell's plans before they were completed. As it was, we
should have been driven from the field if General Johnston had not come
up in time and rearranged the Confederate lilies."
"Yes, Jack has described that. Battles, after all, are decided by luck."
"And genius."
"Luck won Waterloo."
"Partly, but genius, too, for Wellington and Bluecher practiced one of
Napoleon's most perfect maxims, and won because he despised them both so
much that he didn't dream them capable of even imitating him. Nor, left
to themselves, would they have been equal to it. But renegade Frenchmen,
taught under Napoleon's eye, prompted them."
"General Johnston was very considerate to us when we came down. I wish
you would make him know how grateful we are."
"Oh, he couldn't be anything else; he is the ideal of a chivalrous
knight."
"Yes, I believe you claim chivalry as your strong point in the South,
and accuse us of being a race of sordid money-getters."
"I don't, for I know better, but our people do. They will learn better
in time. Men who fought as your army fought at Manassas must be more
than mere sordid hucksters."
"And yet it is curious," Mrs. Sprague continued, musingly, "it is we who
are warring for an idea and you are warring for property."
"How do you mean?" Vincent said, quickly.
"You are fighting to continue slavery, to extend it; we to abolish it or
limit it. But even I can see that slavery is doomed. No Northern party
would ever venture to give it toleration after this."
"But if we succeed, it will exist in our union at least."
"Ah, Vincent, can't you see that such a people as ours may be checked,
beaten even, but they will never give up the Union? Why, much as I love
Jack, I would never let him leave the colors while there was an army in
the field. Don't you know every Northern mother has the same feeling?"
"And every Southern mother, too."
"Yes, I believe that, but there's this difference: Your Southern mothers
are counting on what doesn't exist--a higher physical courage--a prowess
in battle, I may call it, that you must know the Southern soldier has
not, as distinguished from the Northern. As time goes on and the war
does not end; as our armies become disciplined, the confidence that
supports your side will die, and then the struggle, though it may be
prolonged, will end in our triumph."
"I don't think it. I can't think it. But don't let us talk about it. We,
at least, are as much friends as though Jack and I were under one flag,
and if it depends on me it shall be always so."
"If it depends on us, it shall never be otherwise." She gave the young
man a kind, scrutinizing glance, which made his heart beat joyously and
his handsome cheeks mount color. At Fairfax Court-House they said
farewell, the ladies continuing the journey in an ambulance under
Federal guard.
They passed over the long bridge three days after the famous night at
Rosedale, of whose exciting sequel they were profoundly ignorant. In her
husband's time Mrs. Sprague had lived in hotels in the capital, as the
sessions were short; she had never remained in the city when the warm
weather set in, no matter how long the term lasted. But on her arrival
at the old hotel now, she was a good deal disturbed to learn that she
could not be accommodated in her former quarters. The military crowded
not only this but every hotel in the city, and it was only after long
search that a habitable apartment was found in Georgetown. On the whole,
the necessity that drove her thither was not an unmitigated adversity,
for Georgetown then was far more desirable for residence than
Washington. Nothing could be more depressing than the city at that
epoch. Every visible object in the vast circumference of its spreading
limits was then naked unkempt. Even the trees, that ranged themselves
irregularly in the straggling squares and wide street areas, stretched
out a draggled and piebald plumage, as if uncertain whether beauty or
ugliness were their function in the _ensemble_.
The photographic realism of the later newspaper correspondent had not
come into play in these earlier years of the war, and, as a consequence,
the thousands who poured down to the Army of the Potomac beheld the city
with something of the incredulous scorn with which the effeminate
Byzantines regarded the capital of the Goths, when the corrupt
descendant of Constantine made the savage Dacians his allies, rather
than fight them. Patriotism, however, not pride, marked the common mold
of the men of the civil war. It may have been that many an honest
plowman, marching through the muddy quagmires of Pennsylvania Avenue,
bethought himself that such a capital was hardly worth while marching so
far to protect--more emphatically so when the enemy was really to be
found on lines far north of it! Sentiment is the heart and soul of war;
if it were not, there would be no war, for war never gained as much as
it loses; never settled as much as it unsettles; never left victor or
vanquished better when the last gun was fired! In old times the capture
of a nation's capital meant the end of the war, but we have seen
capitals captured and the war not modified a bit by it. Washington was
seized and burned by the British in 1814, and the war went on; Paris was
held by the Germans for half a year, and the war went on.
Our civil war would have been three campaigns shorter--Burnside's,
Hooker's, and the stupid massacre of Pope--to say nothing of the saving
of untold treasure, had the political authorities abandoned a capital
which must be defended for a secure seat like New York or Philadelphia.
The sagacious Lincoln, whose action in army matters was paralyzed by
cliques, in the end saw through sham with an inspired clarity of vision,
and proposed the measure, but the backwoods Mazarin, Seward, prepared
such voluminous "considerations" in opposition that the good-natured
President withdrew his suggestion, and, as a consequence, the dismal
Ilium on the Potomac became the bone of a four years' contention, whose
vicissitudes exceed the incidents of the Iliad. Great armies, created by
an inspired commander, were wasted upon the defense of a capital that no
one would have lamented had it been again burned, and of which to-day
there is scarcely a remnant, save in the public buildings and the
topographical charts. A new race entered the sleepy city. The astute,
far-seeing Yankee divined the possibilities of the future, where the
indolent, sentimental Southerner had never taken thought of a nation's
growth and a people's pride! The thrifty and shifty patriots sent from
the North at once took a stake in the city, and thenceforward there was
growth, if not grace, in the capital.
Lincoln's Washington was to the capital of to-day what the Rome of Numa
was to the imperial city of Augustus. Never, in its best days, more
imposing than a wild Western metropolis of to-day, the sudden inrush of
armies and the wherewithal to supply and house them, soon gave the vast
spaces laid out for the capital the uncouthness and incompleteness of an
exaggerated mining town or series of towns. Contrasted even with its
rival on the James, Washington was raw, chaotic, squalid.
Long tenure of estates and little change in the people had given
Richmond the venerableness we associate with age. Many of her
picturesque seven hills were transformed into blooming fields or
umbrageous groves, under which vast villa-like edifices clustered in
Grecian repose. Save in the bustling main streets none of the edifices
were new or raw, or wholly unlovely in design or fabric. In Washington
nothing of this could be seen. Staring brick walls, buildings of unequal
height and fatiguingly ugly designs, uprose here and there in morasses
of mud that were meant for streets. Disproportionate outline, sharp
conjunctures of affluence and squalor, accented the disheartening
hideousness of the scene.