I
I WAS up at reveille. Orders to inspect the camp of dismounted cavalry near Harper’s Ferry had been in my pocket two days, while I awaited an escort through the fifty miles of guerilla-infested country which lay between me and that distant post. This was the day for the regular train, and a thousand wagons were expected to leave Sheridan’s headquarters, on Cedar Creek, at daylight, with a brigade of infantry as guard, and a troop of cavalry as outriders.
An hour’s ride of eight miles along a picketed line across the valley brought me to the famous “Valley Pike,” and near the headquarters of the army. Torbert was there, and I awaited his detailed instructions. Unavoidable delay ensued. Despatches were to be sent, and they were not yet ready. An hour passed, and, meantime the industrious wagon-train was lightly and rapidly rolling away down the pike. The last wagon passed out of sight, and the rear-guard closed up behind it before I was ready to start. No other train was to go for four days. I must overtake this one or give up my journey. At length, accompanied by a single orderly, and my colored servant, George Washington, a contraband, commonly called “Wash,” I started in pursuit of the train.
As I had nearly passed Newtown I overtook a small party apparently from the rear-guard of the train, who were lighting their pipes and buying cakes and apples at a small grocery on the right of the pike. They seemed to be in charge of a non-commissioned officer.
“Good-morning, Sergeant. You had better close up at once. The train is getting well ahead, and this is the favorite beat of Mosby.”
“All right, sir,” he replied with a smile, and nodding to his men, they mounted at once and closed in behind me, while quite to my surprise I noticed in front of me three more of the party whom I had not before seen.
An instinct of danger seized me. I saw nothing to justify it, but I felt a presence of evil which I could not shake off. The men were in Union blue complete, and wore on their caps the well-known Greek cross which distinguishes the gallant Sixth Corps. They were young, intelligent, cleanly, and good-looking soldiers, armed with revolvers and Spencer’s repeating carbine. I noticed the absence of sabres, but the presence of the Spencer, which was a comparatively new arm in our service, reassured me, and I thought it impossible that the enemy could as yet be possessed of them.
We galloped on merrily, and just as I was ready to laugh at my own fears, “Wash,” who had been riding behind me and had heard some remark made by the soldiers, brushed up to my side, and whispered through his teeth, chattering with fear:
“Massa, Secesh, sure! Run like de debbel!”
I turned to look back at these words, and saw six carbines levelled at me at twenty paces distant, and the Sergeant, who had watched every motion of the negro, came riding towards me with revolver drawn and the sharp command, “Halt! Surrender!”
We had reached a low place where the Opequan Creek crosses the pike, a mile from Newtown. The train was not a quarter of a mile ahead, but out of sight for the moment over the west ridge.
High stone-walls lined the pike on either side, and a narrow bridge across the stream was in front of me and already occupied by the three rascals who had acted as advance-guard, who now coolly turned round and raised their carbines.
I remembered the military maxim, a mounted man should never surrender until his horse is disabled. I hesitated an instant considering what I should do, and quite in doubt whether I was myself or some other fellow whom I had read of as captured and hung by guerillas; but at the repetition of the sharp command, aided by the revolver thrust into my face, I concluded I was undoubtedly the other fellow and surrendered accordingly.
My sword and revolver were taken at once by the Sergeant, who proved to be a rebel lieutenant in disguise, and who remarked, laughing as he took them:
“We closed up, Captain, as you directed; as this is a favorite beat of Mosby’s, I hope our drill was satisfactory.”
“All right, Sergeant. Every dog has his day, and yours happens to come now. Possibly my turn may come to-morrow.”
“Your turn to be hung,” he replied.