Chapter II: Part 2

I thus lost sight of Russell, and until August, 1873, I heard no more of him. I was editing a weekly family newspaper in New York at that time, and oddly enough I was just beginning to write this sketch of my singular acquaintance when Russell himself walked into my office at 245 Broadway and asked me if I remembered him. He was well dressed, in a quiet drab suit, and was scarcely at all changed. He told me that he was married and was living at a certain number in West 43d Street; that he was practising law, being senior member of the firm of Wintermute and Russell, for that his real name was Wintermute, and that his partner, Russell, was a cousin on the mother’s side.

He gave me the firm’s card, and begged me to call upon him, both at his house and at his office, which of course I promised to do.

I called first at the house. It was a well-built one of pressed brick, and seemed to wear something of Russell’s own air of quiet dignity, standing as it did in a row of more pretentious brown-stone mansions. The door-plate--for door-plates were then still in use--bore the simple word, “Wintermute.”

“Is Mr. Wintermute at home?” I asked.

“Commander Wintermute is in his library,” answered the lackey, laying special stress upon the naval title.

“Ah, certainly, Commander Wintermute,” I answered. “I had forgotten. Will you give him my card? I am an old friend.”

I was shown into the parlor,--a conspicuously tasteful apartment,--furnished exactly as I should have expected Russell to furnish it.

After a little the door opened, and an elderly gentleman, obviously English, entered, holding my card in a puzzled way before his spectacled nose.

“Pardon me,” he said. “The servant must have misunderstood you. He announced you as an old friend.”

“Yes,” I replied, “I asked for Commander Wintermute.”

“I am he,” replied the gentleman. “Though I certainly fail to recognize either your name or your face. There must be a mistake.”

“There certainly seems to be,” I answered, “unless there is another gentleman in your family. The one I am seeking is William Wintermute, whose mother’s name was Russell.”

“Then I am certainly the man,” responded my companion. “My name is William Wintermute and my mother’s name was Russell. There is no other gentleman living in the house, and so far as I have ever heard there is no other William Wintermute anywhere.”

There was nothing to be done except to apologize and take my leave, which I did as gracefully as I could under the circumstances.

At last I was angry with Russell. I had been puzzled by him often enough. This time I was filled with resentment.

I at once sought out the law office of Wintermute and Russell. The card, which I had preserved, gave me all necessary information as to its whereabouts, and I was not long in finding it. Mr. Wintermute was there. So was Mr. Russell. But neither was the man for whom I was looking. Neither had ever heard of him.

I was still left puzzling over these questions:--

Who is Russell?

Is he after all a liar?

Or is he merely a remarkable coincidence?

* * * * *

In June or July, 1874, I published the foregoing sketch in a little monthly magazine printed in an obscure college town in Illinois, which had a circulation of only a few hundred copies, and lived just five months in all.

It was called the _Midland Monthly Magazine_, and was issued by a student in the college at Monmouth, Illinois.

Everything that related to Russell was sure in some way to blossom out with all sorts of strange coincidences. This did so. In spite of the obscure way in which my account of the man was published, I had no doubt whatever that it would sooner or later result in some new revelation of or concerning him.

It did so, of course.

The obscure student’s magazine somehow found its way to Bordentown, New Jersey, and into the hands of an editor there. The editor was impressed by the story and reprinted it. It thus fell into the hands of the Reverend Lansing Burroughs, pastor of the First Baptist Church of that town, and late captain of Confederate States Artillery.

I was not surprised when I received from the Reverend Lansing Burroughs, etc., the following letter:--

BORDENTOWN, N. J., Sept. 5, 1874.

MY DEAR SIR: I have just finished reading a sketch published over
your name (copied from somewhere, I suppose) in our local paper,
entitled “Who is Russell?” It petrifies me with astonishment. For
thirteen years past the question which has bothered me most seriously
has been, “Who is Russell?” alias “Wallace,” alias “Wintermute,”
for by all these and some other names have I known the mysterious
individual. If you have been writing only a fancy sketch, I must
tackle one of the strangest problems in mental philosophy. If your
story is one of experience, then must I see you and compare notes. I
fancy I can horrify you with the story of what Russell once told me
had been his history....

Yours very truly,
LANSING BURROUGHS,
_Pastor of the First Baptist Church, Bordentown, N. J.
Late captain Confederate States Artillery_.

Now it was just like Russell that an account of him, published in a short-lived magazine, of a purely local circulation, out in Illinois, should in some inscrutable way have fallen into the hands of the editor of a little country paper in New Jersey; that this editor should have copied it into his paper; and that one of his readers should happen to be the one other man in existence who was puzzling over the questions with which the sketch ended.

But this was not all. There was still another coincidence. There was that in my correspondent’s letter which revealed to me a fact of which he was apparently unconscious; namely, that this Reverend Lansing Burroughs was an old college mate of my own, whom I had not seen or heard from for sixteen years. Such a coincidence was altogether natural and proper, however, growing as it did out of matters connected with Russell.

I had some further correspondence with the Reverend Mr. Burroughs, and finally we met by appointment and went to Mouquin’s for luncheon and to compare notes. A careful analysis of dates proved beyond doubt that _his_ Russell was _my_ Russell. But our experiences were of a very different sort. Mr. Burroughs had never once had a meeting with the mysterious man which did not bring calamity of some sort upon himself. So far as I was concerned, no ill beyond annoyance and embarrassment had ever come of my acquaintance with him.

The Reverend Mr. Burroughs declares to me his firm conviction that the quiet, singularly shy, well-behaved, modest gentleman, so unusually gifted, especially in the way of a phenomenal genius for lying, is in plain terms THE DEVIL.

As to this, Mr. Burroughs is by profession an expert, and I am not. I therefore venture no opinion. I merely continue to ask, “Who is Russell?”

“JUANITA”

I was on guard one night in the autumn of 1861.

It was only ordinary camp guard and not picket duty.

We had fallen back from the line of Mason’s and Munson’s hills, and were camped well in the rear of Fairfax Court House, which now constituted our most advanced outpost.

The army were fortified at Centreville. We had got tired of waiting for McClellan to make the advance for which we were so eagerly ready. We were evidently preparing to go into winter quarters.

We of Stuart’s cavalry were still posted six or eight miles in advance of the main army; but after our summer, passed twenty miles in front, we felt snug and comfortable at “Camp Cooper.”

Nevertheless, when I saw three rockets--red, white, and blue--go up far to the front, it occurred to me that the fact might mean something.

At any rate, I was lonely on post. I had sung “Juanita” under my breath,--and that it wasn’t permitted to sing out loud on post was probably a rule not made with any invidious reference to my voice, though it might well have been,--I say I had sung “Juanita” under my breath till I had exhausted the capabilities of entertainment that reside in that tender musical composition.

So, for the sake of diversion, if for nothing else, I called out: “Corporal of the guard, post number six.”

When the corporal came and I reported what I had seen, he moodily growled something about there being no orders to “report on Yankee fireworks.” Nevertheless, he communicated my report to higher authority.

Fifteen minutes later a hurried messenger came, summoning me at once to General Stuart’s headquarters, half a mile in front.

Mounting, I rode at a gallop. That was the only gait which Stuart tolerated, except in going _away_ from the enemy.

As I rode out of camp I heard “Boots and Saddles” sounded from all the bugles of all the regiments.

I knew then that “something was up.” “Boots and Saddles” always meant something when Stuart gave the order.

When I dismounted at headquarters, Stuart himself was waiting, although it was three o’clock in the morning. His plume and golden spurs gleamed through the dark.

“Tell me quick!” was all he had to say. I answered sententiously: “Three rockets went up: red to right, white to left, and blue in the middle.”

“You mean _our_ right and left, or the enemy’s?” he asked eagerly.

“Ours,” I answered.

He turned quickly and gave hurried orders to staff-officers, orderlies, and couriers. Then turning to me, he said: “_You ride with me._” I appreciated the attention.

Five minutes later a great column of cavalrymen were riding at a gallop towards the front. And just as daylight dawned we broke into a charge upon a heavy force of the enemy.

The hostile force was slowly advancing, not expecting us, and we struck it in flank, taking it completely by surprise.

The demoralization of the Manassas, or Bull Run panic had not even yet gone out of the Northern troops. We made short work of their advance and sent them quickly into disorderly retreat.

One of Stuart’s couriers was killed in the charge. I remember, because he rode beside me, and his head fell clean from his body, and the sight sickened me, so that I fought harder for the minute than I thought I could.

As the enemy broke, Stuart stopped his horse, slapped his thigh, and turning to me laughing, and with that indifference to rank which always characterized him under excitement, exclaimed: “They haven’t got over it yet, have they?”

The Manassas panic always did impress Stuart as an irresistible joke.

A moment later he said: “I’m glad you reported those rockets. Always report whatever you see. Even a shooting star may mean something at headquarters.”

But I have never ceased to wonder why we guards that night had no orders to look out for red, white, and blue rockets, since they meant so much. If they had not been reported by a tired and lonely sentinel, we should have been run over in our tents by a force of ten thousand men.

A celebrated writer says: “War is a hazard of possibilities, probabilities, luck, and ill luck.”

It was luck that night that a sentry was tired of singing “Juanita” under his breath.

SCRUGGS

Scruggs lived throughout the war in that debatable land between the lines in Northern Virginia, where it was always a wonder that anybody could live at all.

And Scruggs lived well, too. He was not able to work, because in order to keep out of the army he had found or feigned a physical disability of some kind.

We always knew that we could get accurate information concerning the enemy by going to Scruggs for it. He frequented their camps as freely as he did ours. He kept his eyes open. He always knew all the important facts, and he was always eager to tell them.

When we went after this information Scruggs was sure to be nowhere visible, and none of his family could ever tell where he might be. But after he had had opportunity to find out with certainty to which side we belonged, Scruggs would come out of his hiding-place, and tell us precisely at what points the enemy was encamped, what his strength was, and what his disposition to activity appeared to be.

Then he would tell us how nearly his family were starving by reason of the fact that the enemy had raided his place and carried off all his supplies. In common gratitude we could do nothing less than replenish his larder with whatever we might happen to possess.

Scruggs’s information was always accurate, always full, and always scrupulously truthful.

When a party of the enemy went up to Scruggs’s to inquire about us, Scruggs pursued precisely the same policy. First making sure to which side the party belonged, he would come forth and tell all that he knew with regard to the position and strength of our posts; he would add that little piece of misinformation,--most precious to him,--that we had stripped him bare of sustenance, and they would generously relieve his necessities again.

In all this Scruggs was scrupulously truthful, except for the little lie about provisions, and it was all absolutely impartial. If such virtues count for anything in war, Scruggs was entitled to full credit for them.

But one day our commander grew suspicious of Scruggs. On the same day the commander of the Federal outposts began also to suspect Scruggs.

After a little investigation our commandant made up his mind to hang Scruggs for a spy. About the same time the Federal commandant, after a like investigation, came to a similar determination with regard to Scruggs.

The two hanging parties met at Scruggs’s house. As usual, Scruggs was not there. But the two parties engaged each other at once. They were about of equal numbers, and they fought valiantly for a time, neither understanding, of course, that they were there on precisely similar errands.

After a little our party began to doubt whether Scruggs was worth the contest or not, and retired a little way. The Federals, with a like contempt for Scruggs, retired about the same distance. After a few shots at long range both parties went back to their camps, each commander feeling that, “After all, Scruggs has never failed to give us all the information he could, and has never yet deceived us on a single point.”

After both parties had gone Scruggs came out of his hiding-place and remarked to his eldest daughter: “You see, Prudence, what it is for a feller to be always truthful.”

And, by the way, Scruggs never did get himself hanged.

JOE ON HORSEBACK

Joe was not quite seventeen years old. He could ride anything that happened to possess a back. He therefore had a great love for his horse--the noblest one in the battery.

During the preliminary skirmish in advance of Pocotaligo, on that terrible 22d of October, 1862, his gun detachment was cut to pieces in a fearful way, until he had to work his piece with three men, serving as a cannoneer himself. When we retired from the skirmish line at Yemassee to Pocotaligo proper, and it was obvious that we must fight enormous odds in order to prevent the enemy from crossing the causeway we were defending, I suggested to Joe that he dismount, as the rest of us had done, and take to a tree.

Joe resented the suggestion with the remark: “My place is on horseback. I’m a sergeant.”

Two minutes later a cannon-ball carried away his horse’s tail. Five seconds afterwards another cannon-ball carried off the beast’s left forefoot. Feeling that the horse was sinking under him, Joe dismounted to see what the damage had been. As he stooped to look at the dismembered foot, still another cannon-ball passed just over his head, split his saddle, and broke the poor animal’s back. Thereupon Joe turned, presented his pistol at the horse’s head, averted his eyes and fired.

Then he took a horse out of the battery and mounted him, remarking: “I still contend that as a sergeant my place is on horseback.”

The boy was crying, but none of us made remark upon the incongruity.

Joe was mentioned in general orders for his gallantry that day, but the fact had no reference to this matter of the horse.

A RATHER BAD NIGHT

We were living in the deserted village. That is to say, our battery of light artillery was stationed at Bluffton, South Carolina.

At ordinary times Bluffton had a population of about three thousand souls. At the time of which I write it had no population at all.

It was a town built upon a high bluff overlooking an arm of the sea, or more properly a great bay, broken by multitudinous islands into various inlets. Hilton Head lay within sight, twelve miles away, and all the waters of the great island-studded bay were navigable.

Bluffton never had any business to do. It had no shops, no factories, no anything but planters’ residences. Its houses were all elegant and all comfortable. Its streets were shaded by great spreading trees, not planted in symmetrical rows, but growing wherever they pleased, in the midst of the thoroughfares.

Bluffton was exposed to the direct assault of gun-boats or expeditions of any sort. So, early in the war, its entire population left and went to points in the interior. At the time I write of, in 1863, there was not a soul in the town except the men of the battery to which I belonged.

Our captain was commandant of outposts. I was adjutant of the same.

Our support consisted of two or three small troops of cavalry. Their camps were several miles in rear of our own. These cavalrymen did all the picketing. In the event of an attack we and they were charged with the duty of harassing the advance of the enemy and delaying him on his march to the railroad, seventeen miles away, long enough for troops to be sent down from Charleston or up from Savannah.

It was a wild, free, gypsy-like life. We lived in the handsomely furnished houses, made free use of the very rich libraries, fished, played at chess, shot deer and turkeys in the woods, dozed upon “joggling boards” in sea-breeze-swept piazzas, and altogether did nothing most industriously and delightfully.

There was one duty to be done, and that a very important one. It was necessary for some officer to make the grand rounds of the pickets every night. This task devolved upon me about once a week. The pickets were stationed at all available points of observation below, all points from which the channels could be seen. To visit them required an all night’s ride, which in that country is by no means an agreeable undertaking.

The weeds rise above the head of a horseman, and the dew drips as rain might, from every leaf. The night rider becomes water soaked and chilled to the very bones, even during the fierce summer weather. During the autumn and winter a night ride on this subtropical coast brings with it a degree of suffering from cold which the fiercest Northern winter never produces.

But it was absolutely necessary to visit the picket posts. Upon their efficiency depended our safety and that of the railroad we were set to defend. If a single picket slept, a fleet of gun-boats or ship’s launches might come to Bluffton wholly unannounced. The battery, without support at hand, would fall helpless into the enemy’s hands, and the railroad communication, on which the safety of Charleston and Savannah depended, would be broken.

It was Christmas Eve, crisp and cool. A heap of fat hard pine was blazing in the great fireplace in our quarters. The negro servant was busy in the kitchen without. Our guests, half a dozen officers from the cavalry companies, were already assembled. We had invited them to dine with us upon a haunch of venison, a wild turkey, fish, oysters, crabs, shrimps, etc., all of which, except the first two, could be taken at any time within a hundred yards of the door. Our little party-giving promised to be a thoroughly successful bit of hospitality.

Curry, the cook, had just begun to put the dinner on the table when a messenger came to report that Lieutenant C----, the officer appointed to make the picket rounds that night, was ill and could not go. It was my turn next and there was no escape. At the holiday season pickets especially need watching. I knew very well it would never do to leave them unvisited that night. There was nothing for it, therefore, but to turn the guests over to my messmate, the captain, and order my horse.

My guide--for without a guide no one could possibly find his way at night through parts of that country--was a dull, taciturn fellow, with whom I found it impossible to maintain a conversation. My twelve miles’ ride to the farthest picket post, which I visited first, was therefore a very disagreeable substitute for the jovial, social evening I had planned.

By the time I had reached Bear’s Island, I was wet to the skin with dew and stiff with cold. It was about ten o’clock when we rode across the causeway from the mainland to the island, and the first thing I observed was the utter darkness of the place. Ordinarily the pickets on this post kept up a little fire behind a screen at which to warm and dry themselves during the night. Approaching from the rear, I always saw this fire when I crossed the causeway, the screen standing between it and the water on the other side. To-night, however, everything was dark, and it was with some little difficulty that we found our way across the island to the picket post.

“What’s the matter, sergeant?” I asked. “Where’s your fire to-night?”

“I had to put it out and move away from it,” he replied. “They are loading up two gun-boats and three transports just across the creek there, and they threw two or three charges of grape-shot over here an hour or two ago. They killed one of my men, poor fellow. I’ve been watching them and was on the point of sending a man up with the alarm. I’m glad you’ve come to take the responsibility off my shoulders.”

By this time I had brought my glass to bear upon the pier upon the other side of the inlet, or creek, as it is commonly called, and saw that the sergeant was right. Three transports were rapidly receiving troops, cavalry, artillery, and infantry, while two rather formidable looking gun-boats were sullenly steaming up and down in front.

The inlet was nearly a mile wide, and as the enemy showed few lights and dim ones, the sergeant without a glass had not been able to discover the number of troops taken on board. I soon made out that at least five field batteries had been shipped, and that the transports were almost full of troops, while a battalion of infantry, a squadron of cavalry, and two batteries remained on shore, apparently waiting for those on board to be so disposed as to afford room for them.

I rapidly weighed all the probabilities in my mind. There were two and only two possible purposes in this embarkation of troops. It was a formidable expedition against the railroad, via Bluffton, or else it was merely a removal of troops from one point on the coast to another. If the first were the object, the vessels would steam up the inlet; if the other, they would put to sea.

But if it were merely a transfer of troops, why were the transports crowded in this way, and why were the convoying gun-boats there? There was no enemy off the coast, except storms; and as storms were conspicuously disregarded in the overloading of the steamers, it seemed to me clear that the expedition was bound for Bluffton.

* * * * *

“How many men have you, sergeant?” I asked.

“Two,” he replied.

“Trusty fellows?”

“As good as ever threw a leg over a saddle.”

“Send them to me,” I said.

When they came, I asked: “Are your horses good ones?”

“Pretty good.”

“Mount, then,” I said to one, “and ride as fast as you can to Buckingham Ferry. Wait with the pickets there till the fleet comes within sight. Then send a man to Bluffton to announce the fact. Stay yourself till the fleet has passed, observing which creek it takes. As soon as you satisfy yourself on that point, ride to Bluffton and report.”

Then turning to the other, I said: “You go to Hunting Island and do the same thing. Tell the sergeants there to follow their standing orders in all other regards. Be quick, now, both of you. I’ll expect you at Bluffton at the right time.”

As the men galloped away, I walked to the place where the sergeant was still standing, and said: “Sergeant, you and I will stay here till the fleet leaves. Then we’ll ride straight to Bluffton on a full run and give the alarm in time.”

“It’s already leaving,” he replied. “And look! it’s steaming straight up the creek.”

Looking, I saw that it was as he said. The two gun-boats abreast led the column, the three transports following.

“It’s time for us to be riding, then,” I said, hastily springing into my saddle. “But we can beat them by two hours, as the creek is crooked and they must sound all the way for want of buoys.”

We galloped across the island; but when we came to the little creek we found an unexpected obstacle in our way. The tide had risen well-nigh to the flood, and was exceedingly high in consequence of a strong wind that had been blowing on shore all day. The strip of marsh which separated the island from the mainland was completely covered with water, and even the causeway leading across it was submerged. The two men sent to alarm the pickets had reached the place only a little while earlier than we. We found them hunting for some landmark or other by which to find out where the causeway lay.

The sergeant thought he knew its locality and direction. He boldly plunged in. The rest of us followed.

Just what we did, or where we went, or how it all happened, none of us ever knew. But we rode off the submerged track, about midway the stream, and found ourselves floundering in the water, some of us on our horses, and some of us under them. It was the darkest night I ever knew. Once in the water we could see no shore anywhere. Naturally, each took the direction in which he thought the desired bank lay. And it seemed that no two of us agreed in our views on this point except by accident.

My horse swam pretty well and finally made the edge of the water. But the bottom was a quagmire, and sinking in it he could not extricate himself. To relieve him I slipped off his back and into the water, but it proved too late. With every frantic struggle the poor beast sank deeper, and within a minute he lay lifeless in the water, half buried in the mud of the bottom.

My own situation was a perilous one. My feet sank at once in the slimy ooze. To save myself I threw my body forwards. Succeeding in freeing my feet, I swam until the water was too shallow for swimming. After that, by crawling on my belly, I managed to avoid sinking and smothering in the mud.

It was half an hour, however, before I stood upon firm ground again, and then I did not know which side of the marsh I had reached.

I was covered with slime, stiff with cold, and utterly exhausted by my exertions. Of myself, however, I thought little. I was anxious only about the sleeping battery at Bluffton. If the alarm were not given,--and unless some one or other of our party had succeeded in getting across with his horse, it could not be,--Bluffton would be taken completely by surprise. The battery would be captured. A rapid march would take the enemy to the railroad, either at Grahamville or at Hardeeville, before any force could be sent to oppose. Our defence of an essential line of communication would fail. Even if the two men from the picket post had got out on the other side, they would go not to Bluffton, but to Buckingham Ferry and Hunting Island, as I had ordered. It was not at all certain that the fleet would pass either of those points. It could sail up other creeks quite as easily, particularly on such a tide as that.

With these thoughts in my mind I felt the need of bestirring myself. I was not long in discovering that we were still on the island, and not on the mainland. Following the margin of the water, I presently came to the two men who had been with the sergeant on picket. One of them was stuck in the mud, and the other was trying to draw him out with a pole. Both of them had lost their horses. The sergeant and my guide had escaped with their steeds, and I found both of them on the island, a little further up the shore.

The guide was utterly demoralized with fright, or cold, or both. So I took his horse and ordered him to wait on the island till morning, and then to make his way to whatever point he should find it easiest to reach. The sergeant and I determined to make another effort to get to Bluffton and give the alarm.

“Run back to the other side of the island,” said he to one of his men, “and see if the fleet is still in sight and what it is doing. We must let our horses blow a little, and you can get back by the time we are ready to start.”

The man went, and his comrade, having nothing better to do, went with him. Presently one of them returned, bringing the news that the fleet was making its way up a narrow creek from which, as we knew, neither the Buckingham Ferry nor the Hunting Island picket could see it. As those were the only posts from which after seeing it a man could get to Bluffton in time to give the alarm, the sergeant and I were more than ever determined to make our way thither at all hazards. Luckily the road from Bear’s Island to Bluffton was the easiest one in all that country to find, and the one I happened to know best. So that even if the sergeant should not get across the marsh, I was confident of my ability to make the journey alone.

“Now,” said the sergeant, “if I get across I won’t wait for you, but will go right on; if you succeed, don’t wait for me. It’s no time for ceremony. It’s better one of us should drown than that the other should be delayed.”

“Spoken like a man and a soldier, sergeant,” said I. “Now for it.” And with that we again essayed to follow the submerged track. About midway the sergeant’s horse went down as before; and just as I was about to call out something encouraging to him the guide’s horse, which I was riding, plunged headforemost into the salt water, throwing me completely over his head.

For a moment I was senseless from a blow received either from the hoof of the sergeant’s horse, or by falling against one of the timbers of the causeway. When I came to myself I was clinging to the tail of the sergeant’s horse, while the sergeant, as I presently discovered, was holding by one of the stirrups.

How long we remained in the water, I do not know, but it must have been nearly an hour. The poor horse swam around in a purposeless way, not knowing where to go, until finally he sank exhausted beneath the tide. Cool as the night was the salt water was tepid as it always is on that coast. Otherwise I should not now be alive to tell of that Christmas Eve.

We got out at last and found ourselves on the island again. Despairing now--for without horses it was simply impossible to get to Bluffton until long after the time when our coming would be of any use--we trudged doggedly across the island, that we might wait and listen at the water’s edge for the booming of the cannon.

Two more utterly wretched young men no Christmas morning ever dawned upon.

“See there,” said the sergeant, halting suddenly. “There’s the fleet, and bless my soul it’s putting to sea.”

It was true enough. No attack was to be made after all. We had spent the night drowning horses, and nearly drowning ourselves for nothing.

Why the fleet had steamed several miles up the creek before putting to sea, I have never been able to guess. But I vividly remember that its prank subjected me to a twelve miles’ walk that morning, and compelled me to substitute quinine and dogwood-root-bark bitters that day for the Christmas dinner I had planned.

THE WOMEN OF PETERSBURG

We went into Petersburg in June, 1864, with the horses at a brisk trot, and the men on foot at a double quick.

The enemy’s battalions were already at the other end of Sycamore Street, and it was our task to drive them back before they should be reinforced.

Nevertheless those good women of Petersburg ministered to us. They knew that we had been marching all night and that we were in a famishing condition. They knew also that we must not waste a moment if Petersburg, the key to Richmond, was not to be lost.

So they formed themselves in platoons--God bless them!--bearing gifts of sandwiches and coffee.

We could not stop even to take, much less to eat, the food they offered, so they thrust their platoons between ours and marched backward as fast as we marched forward, serving their food and drink to us as we went.

Every now and then a Federal shell would come bowling down the street, but these alert women would jump it as nimbly as if its passage had been a prearranged figure in the dance. Not one of them showed the slightest fear. Not one of them faltered for a moment in her ministrations in consideration of herself. There was not one of them, I think, who would not have gone with us into the crash of the battle itself; but by the time we had refreshed ourselves a little, we were so near to the aggressive enemy’s lines, that we cried aloud with one voice the order for the womenkind to go back.

A minute later we were in the thick of the struggle for Petersburg. The enemy was not in such force as we had supposed, and we had fortunately arrived some hours in advance of General Grant’s ponderous divisions. After fifteen minutes of hard fighting the enemy retired beyond the Jerusalem turnpike and we spent the night in beginning that thin line of earthworks which was destined for eight months to come to hold at bay a force two or three times as strong in numbers as our own.

At any hour during all that eight months the Federal forces could have broken through our lines at any point they pleased, if they had been resolute.

Anybody who will look at the old works to-day, as I have recently done, and consider the facts dispassionately, can see this clearly for himself. Our enemies had behind them, and running parallel with their lines, a system of roads that was out of our sight. They had resources practically illimitable. They had in front of them an attenuated line of men, stretched out for twenty miles, and without the possibility of reinforcement from any source. They could have concentrated any force they pleased at any point they pleased and at any time they pleased, without the possibility of our discovering what they were doing. They could have made an irresistible attack upon any point of our line at will. They did not do it. And so the fight went on.

During all those weary months the good women of Petersburg went about their household affairs with fifteen-inch shells dropping occasionally into their boudoirs or uncomfortably near to their kitchen ranges. Yet they paid no attention to any danger that threatened themselves.

Their deeds of mercy will never be adequately recorded until the angels report. But this much I want to say of them--they were “war women” of the most daring and devoted type. When there was need of their ministrations on the line, they were sure to be promptly there; and once, as I have recorded elsewhere in print, a bevy of them came out to the lines only to encourage us, and, under a fearful fire, sang Bayard Taylor’s “Song of the Camp,” giving us as an encore the lines:--

“Ah, soldiers, to your honored rest,
Your truth and valor bearing,
The bravest are the tenderest,
The loving are the daring.”

With inspiration such as these women gave us, it was no wonder that, as I heard General Sherman say soon after the war: “It took us four years, with all our enormous superiority in resources, to overcome the stubborn resistance of those men.”

HAM SEAY

Ham Seay had a hæmorrhage that morning--a hæmorrhage from the lungs.

But Ham Seay had the fastest horse in the company, and he knew how to ride a horse for all that was in him of achievement.

When the news came that Stuart wanted to communicate as quickly as possible with the commandant at Fredericksburg, Ham Seay volunteered to carry the message.

“But you’re ill,” said Stuart.

“That doesn’t matter,” said Ham. “I can ride my horse, and my horse is a good one.”

“But you’re ill,” said Stuart again. “And I don’t want to send an ill man on such a journey as this.”

Then Ham Seay rose in the majesty of his manhood.

“General,” he said, “I am a doomed man. I cannot live long to render service in the war. I want to render what service I can. I want to carry this message. It will do me no harm. It will not shorten the few days I have yet to live. It will make my life worth something.”

So Stuart gave him the message to a general fifty miles away.

Ham Seay mounted, and said to his comrades: “Good-by, boys. I may never see you again; but I’ll do this errand all right, or die trying.”

He rode his horse with urgency, but with discretion. He had but one object in view, and that was to get the message to its destination in the briefest possible number of hours.

He delivered his communication. He died half an hour afterwards. His horse had died before Ham did. But both had done their duty.

OLD JONES’S DASH

Old Jones was a queer character. He was also a queer figure. He never had a uniform. He wore a yellow coat and a pair of light blue trousers. He wore a pot hat of the fashion, I should say at a guess, of the year 1812.

He was a graduate of West Point, but he had resigned from the army twelve years before the war began, and therefore was not entitled to what they called “relative rank.”

He was a cynic and a misanthrope. He was still more pronouncedly a misogynist. He did not believe in men. He positively disbelieved in women. He was ready at any time to affront a man and to treat a woman with conspicuous contempt. He hated life, and was ready to give it up at any moment which might suit the decrees or the aspirations of Fate. He was ready to fight anything in the world, or anybody, under any circumstances, or upon any issue.

That is why he got himself cashiered toward the end of the war.

But we are dealing with the beginning of the war. At the beginning of the war he organized a company of cavalry and got himself elected its captain. In the regular order of promotion he soon came to be colonel of the regiment. It was at this time that the events recorded in the present story occurred.

When McClellan took command of the Army of the Potomac, after the stampede at Manassas, it was under the demoralization of the fearful panic. It was a part of McClellan’s program to send his men out on expeditions of attack in order to accustom them to the idea of standing fire. As the end of the summer of 1861 drew near, he had begun, seriously, to threaten our position at Centreville.

He would send out men in considerable force and compel us to meet them with serious intent. Usually Stuart was able very quickly to discover the sham character of these advances. But once in a while they were so well disguised as to be mistaken for serious attacks.

One day in the autumn the greatest of all these advances began. The enemy came forward with every possible appearance of intending an assault on the Confederate position at Centreville.

There were cavalry, infantry, and artillery in the column; and when they reached our picket lines there was every appearance of serious conflict in prospect.

As we sat there on our horses in front of the line, Stuart came along and said to Colonel Jones: “Colonel, I wish you’d take a dozen or twenty men, get into the rear of that force, and find out how much it means.”

Jones detailed the requisite number of us from the right of our company, with Captain Irving in command of them. By riding three or four miles to the right, we were able to get in rear of the Federal force. We soon found that there was no baggage train, no commissary train, no quartermaster’s train, and no ammunition train--in short, that the advance was not intended as a serious attack.

By the time that we had found out all this, we were within fifty yards of the rear of the Federal lines, and almost immediately opposite the point where we had left our own command. We were pretty well hidden by the underbrush of the woods, as we stood there and looked.

Presently old Jones turned to Charlie Irving and said: “The whole thing’s an egg-shell, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” said Charlie; “an egg-shell easily crushed.”

Jones thought a moment, and then said, with his nasal drawl: “I wish I could communicate with Stuart. I’d break through that line and save the trouble of the ride around.”

The young captain’s eyes snapped with that peculiar sense of humor and that daring which were his principal characteristics, as he said: “Why not break through anyhow, colonel? Don’t you think Stuart would understand? I’ve never found him slow in getting to windward of things.”

“Well, if you say so, captain, I guess we’ll do it. It’ll save the horses, anyhow. Attention, men!” with a slow drawl. “Draw--sabres! Forward--march! Trot--march! Gallop--march! CHARGE!”

We went through that egg-shell with an enthusiasm which was _not_ a reflection of the drawling commands of our colonel.

Captain Irving was right: Stuart was not slow in getting to windward of things. He ordered a charge and doubled up that column like a telescope.

A WOMAN’S HAIR

After the battle of Manassas or Bull Run, fought July 21, 1861, Stuart made his headquarters in the neighborhood of Fairfax Court House, with pickets at Falls Church, Vienna, and other points ten miles or so to the front.

Suddenly, with a strong force, he occupied Mason’s and Munson’s hills, almost under the guns of the Washington fortifications, and very much farther in advance than outposts generally are.

It has since been a puzzle to many military critics to guess why he did this unusual thing. Perhaps this story may throw some light on the problem.

Our company was on picket at Falls Church. Half a dozen of us kept watch at the edge of the woods on the top of the hill, while the rest of the boys took their ease in rear.

It was in that early stage of the war when to shoot at men seemed to many civilians a species of sport--a sort of pursuit of big game.

This Falls Church post was a favorite rendezvous for this species of sportsmen from Washington. Our position was an exposed one. Men not in the army, and even women, liked to ride out from Washington, crouch behind a pile of logs, and “take a crack” at the rebels.

Now and then they made a widow and some orphans, and since this was merely a matter of diversion and entertainment for them, with no other principle involved, it seemed almost too bad.

Finally Charlie Irving got “tired,” as he put it, of “playing partridge for those people to shoot at.” Charlie Irving was our captain. He was a man who never said much, but always meant a good deal.

The next morning he made the detail for post duty at the front upon a new principle. We had been nine days on picket, and it had been his custom to detail the men for post duty in front in alphabetical order. This morning he selected us without reference to our “turns,” and with sole reference to the speed and endurance of our horses.

“Now, boys,” he said, with that easy familiarity which made us call him “Charlie,” because we had all gone hunting together as comrades before the war; “now, boys, we’re going to capture that picket post to-day, and if I find a civilian among them, I’m going to hang him to that chestnut tree for murder.”

We knew that he would do what he said, and we were all in hearty sympathy with his purpose.

About ten o’clock in the morning the sharp-shooting began. Our captain instantly divided us into two squads, and without military formalities said: “Now, boys, ride to the right and left and corner ’em.”

That was the only command we received, but we obeyed it with a will. The two sharp-shooting citizens who were there that morning escaped on good horses, but we captured the pickets.

Among them was a woman--a Juno in appearance, with a wealth of raven black hair twisted carelessly into a loose knot under the jockey cap she wore.

She was mounted on a superb chestnut mare, and she knew how to ride.

She might easily have escaped, and at one time seemed about to do so, but at the critical moment she seemed to lose her head and so fell into our hands.

When we brought her to Charlie Irving she was all smiles and graciousness, and Charlie was all blushes.

“You’d hang me to a tree, if I were a man, I suppose,” she said. “And serve me right, too. As I’m only a woman, you’d better send me to General Stuart, instead.”

This seemed so obviously the right way out of it that Charlie ordered Ham Seay and me to escort her to Stuart’s headquarters, which were under a tree some miles in the rear.

When we got there Stuart seemed to recognize the young woman. Or perhaps it was only his habitual and constitutional gallantry that made him come forward with every manifestation of welcome, and himself help her off her horse, taking her by the waist for that purpose.

Ham Seay and I being mere privates were ordered to another tree. But we could not help seeing that cordial relations were quickly established between our commander and this young woman. We saw her presently take down her magnificent back hair and remove from it some papers. They were not “curl papers,” or that sort of stuffing which women call “rats.” Stuart was a very gallant man, and he received the papers with much fervor. He spread them out carefully on the ground, and seemed to be reading what was written or drawn upon them.

Then he talked long and earnestly with the young woman and seemed to be coming to some definite sort of understanding with her.

Then she dined with him on some fried salt pork and some hopelessly indigestible fried paste which we called bread.

Then he mounted her on her mare again and summoned Ham Seay and me.

“Escort this young lady back to Captain Irving,” he said. “Tell him to send her to the Federal lines under flag of truce, with the message that she was inadvertently captured in a picket charge, and that as General Stuart does not make war on women or children, he begs to return her to her home and friends.”

We did all this.

The next day, Stuart with a strong force advanced to Mason’s and Munson’s hills.

From there we could clearly see a certain house in Washington. It had many windows, and each had a dark Holland shade.

When we stood guard we were ordered to observe minutely and report accurately the slidings up and down of those Holland shades.

We never knew what three shades up, two half up, and five down might signify. But we had to report it, nevertheless, and Stuart seemed from that time to have an almost preternatural advance perception of the enemy’s movements.

That young woman certainly had a superb shock of hair.

A MIDNIGHT CRIME

THE CRIMINAL’S OWN ACCOUNT OF IT

As there is no law that can now reach my crime, I may as well tell all about it.

Soon after we sat down before Petersburg, in the summer of 1864, I was sent on a little military mission accompanied by Johnny Garrett, into the land of desolation--that part of Northern Virginia which lay sometimes in the possession of one army, sometimes in possession of the other, but was mostly left in nobody’s possession at all, and open to raids from both sides.

That region had been swept by fire and sword for nearly four years. It had been tramped over by both armies, and latterly had been subjected to that process of destruction which Sheridan had in mind when he said of another region that “the crow that flies over it must carry his rations with him.”

How anybody managed to live at all in such a region has always been a puzzle, but a few people did.

We had slept, Johnny Garrett and I, by the side of a fence the night before, and without breakfast we had been riding all day. Late in the afternoon we made up our minds to go for supper and lodging to a great country house which I had frequently visited as a guest in the days of its abundance. As we rode through the plantation, decay manifested itself on every hand. There was a small, straggling crop in process of growth, but sadly ill attended. There were no animals in sight except five sheep that we saw grazing on a hillside.

As we turned the corner of the woodland the mansion came into view. Only its walls were left standing. Fire had destroyed the rest. At the gate we met an old negro serving-man, whom I had known in the palmy days as Uncle Isham.

When I had seen him last he was in livery. As I saw him _now_ he was in rags.

Some eager, hurried inquiries as to the family brought out the fact that the mistress of the mansion with her two grown daughters was living in one of the negro quarters in rear of the burned house, and that he, alone, remained as a servant on the plantation.

“Dey took all de res’ off No’th, an’ dey tried to take Isham, too. But Isham he slip’ de bridle one night, an’ he came back heah to look after ole missus an’ de girls. So heah I is, an’ heah Ise gwine to stay.”

We did not remain to hear Isham’s account of his adventures, but hurried on to find out the condition of things with the family. There were but two rooms--one below, and the other above stairs--in the hut in which they were living. Yet the proud woman who was thus reduced showed no shame of her poverty, but gloried in it rather, as the old soldier glories in the scars received in his country’s service.

She welcomed us with as warm a show of hospitality as she had ever made in the old days of lavish entertainment.

After our first inquiries concerning their welfare, she said to us laughingly: “I wouldn’t keep you to-night, but would send you on to a better place, if I knew any better in the neighborhood. As it is, you’ll have to sleep under the trees for lack of room; but you boys are rather used to that. As for supper, I can give you some corn-bread and some sorghum molasses. The bread won’t be very good, because our supply of salt has run out, and of course as the cows have all been killed I can’t give you butter. But there’s enough bread and sorghum, anyhow.”