III
As we were far within the Confederate lines, our guard was reduced to Lieutenant Whiting and three men, and our party of eleven prisoners had seven horses among them. There was also a pack-horse carrying our forage, rations, and some blankets. To the saddle of this pack-horse were strapped two Spencer carbines, muzzle downward, with their accoutrements complete, including two well-filled cartridge-boxes.
I called Mack’s attention to this fact as soon as the guard was reduced, and he needed no second hint to comprehend its full significance. He soon after dismounted, and when it came his turn to mount again, he selected, apparently by accident, the poorest and most broken-down horse of the party. After this he seemed to find it very difficult to keep up, and in some mysterious way he actually succeeded in laming his horse.
He then dropped back to the Lieutenant in charge and modestly asked to exchange his lame horse for the pack-horse. He was particularly winning in his address, and his request was at once granted, without a suspicion of its object or a thought of the fatal carbines on the pack-saddle. I used some little skill in diverting the attention of the Lieutenant while the pack was readjusted; and as the rain had begun to fall freely, no one of the guard was particularly alert.
I was presently gratified with the sight of Mack riding ahead on the pack-horse, with the two carbines still strapped to the saddle, but loosened, and well concealed by his heavy poncho, which he had spread as protection from the rain. These carbines were seven-shooters, loaded from the breech by simply drawing out from the hollow stock a spiral spring, and dropping in the seven cartridges, one after the other, and then inserting the spring again behind them, which coils as it is pressed home, and by its elasticity forces the cartridges forward, one at a time, into the barrel at the successive action of the lock.
I could follow the movements of Mack’s right arm underneath the poncho. While he was guiding his horse with his left hand, looking the other way, and chatting glibly with the other boys, I distinctly saw him draw the springs from those carbines with his right hand and hook them into the upper button-hole of his coat to support them, while he dropped in the cartridges one after another, trotting his horse at the time to conceal the noise of their click, and finally forcing down the springs. Then the brave fellow glanced at me triumphantly.
I nodded approval. Fearing that Mack might act too hastily, yet knowing that any instant might lead to discovery, I rode carelessly across the road to Brown, who was on foot, and, dismounting, asked him to tighten my girth. Then I told him the situation as quietly as possible, and requested him to ride up gradually beside Mack, to communicate with him, and, at a signal from me, to seize one of the carbines and do his duty as a soldier if he valued his liberty.
Brown was terribly frightened and trembled like a leaf, but went immediately to his post, and I did not doubt would do his duty well.
I rode up again to the side of Lieutenant Whiting, and like an echo from the past came back to me my words of yesterday, “Possibly my turn may come to-morrow.”
I engaged him in conversation, and, among other things, spoke of the prospect of sudden death as one always present in our army life, and the tendency it had to either harden or soften the character according to the quality of the individual.
He expressed the opinion which many hold, that a brutal man is made more brutal by it, and a refined and cultivated man is softened.
We were on the immediate flank of Early’s army. His cavalry was all around us. The road was much used. It was almost night. We had passed a rebel picket but a mile back, and knew not how near another camp might be.
The three rebel guards were riding in front of us and on our flanks. Our party of prisoners was in the centre, and I was by the side of Lieutenant Whiting, who acted as rear-guard, when we entered a small copse of willows which for a moment covered the road. The hour was propitious. I gave the fatal signal and instantly threw myself from my saddle upon the Lieutenant, grasping him around the arms and dragging him from his horse, in the hope of securing his revolver, capturing him, and compelling him to pilot us outside of the rebel lines. At the same instant Mack raised one of the loaded carbines, and, in less time than I can write it, shot two of the guard in front of him, killing them instantly; and then coolly turning in his saddle, and seeing me struggling in the road with the Lieutenant, and the chances of obtaining the revolver apparently against me, he raised the carbine the third time; and as I strained the now desperate rebel to my breast, with his livid face over my left shoulder, he shot him as directly between the eyes as if firing at a target at ten paces distance.
Brown had only wounded his man in the side, and allowed him to escape.
Our position was now perilous. Not a man of us knew the country, except in a general way. The rebel camps could not be far away; the whole country would be alarmed in an hour, darkness was intervening; and I doubted not that, before sundown, blood-hounds as well as men would be on our track. One-half our party had already scattered, panic-stricken, at the first alarm, and they were flying through the country in every direction.
Only five remained, including the faithful Wash, who immediately showed his practical qualities by searching the bodies of the slain, and recovering, among other things, my gold hunting-watch from the person of Lieutenant Whiting, and over eleven hundred dollars in greenbacks, the proceeds, doubtless, of their various robberies of our men.
“Not quite nuff,” said Wash, showing his ivories from ear to ear. “Dey vally dis nigger at two thousand dollars. I tink I ought to git de money.”
We instantly mounted the best horses, and, well armed with carbines and revolvers, struck directly for the mountain on our right; but knowing that would be the first place we should be sought for, we soon changed our direction to the south, and rode for hours as rapidly as we could ride, directly towards the enemy. Before darkness came on we had made thirty miles from the place of our escape; and then turning sharply up the mountain, we rode as far as horses could climb, and, abandoning them, pushed on through the whole night to the very summit of the Blue Ridge. There we could see the rebel camp-fires in the valley, and at break of dawn we could view their entire lines.
The length of this weary day, and the terrible pangs of hunger and thirst which we suffered on this barren mountain, belong to the mere common experience of a soldier’s life, and I need not describe them here.
We had to go still farther south to avoid the scouts and pickets, and finally struck the Shenandoah twenty miles to the rear of Early’s entire army. There we built a raft, and floated by night forty miles down that memorable stream, through his crafty pickets, until the glorious old flag once more greeted us in welcome.
VII
THE FIRST TIME UNDER FIRE
The Experience of a Raw Recruit
WHEN the President ordered the army to be filled up by recruiting, drafting, or otherwise, and the peaceful moneyed men of the North were roused to protect their persons by draining their pockets, I was moved by love of country, of adventure, and three hundred dollars, to offer myself as a recruit in the —— Cavalry Regiment. So, under the protection of a strong body of infantry, I and fifty others were first jolted forty miles on a cattle-car, then marched twenty-five miles to corps headquarters, then fifteen across country to our brigadier-commander, and then back again near the place whence we started to the camp of the regiment. After accompanying on foot the movements of our mounted troops for the next three weeks, it suddenly occurred to some member of the General’s staff that we might perhaps be more efficient on horseback; and so we were transported back on the cars to the Cavalry Depot at Washington to be provided with horses. As we were all stout, active young fellows, we lost in these various movements only fifteen men from disease, desertion, and capture by guerillas, and only five or six others got disheartened, and escaped home on our passage through the city; so in three weeks more thirty of us, well-mounted, armed, and equipped, rejoined our command, and were reported fit for duty.
About a fortnight after this the squadron was called in from picket, and marched rapidly to unite with the regiment which was engaged with the enemy. As we drew near, the firing became sharper and sharper, and suddenly the captain commanding formed us in line, and carried us forward on a trot. The rapidity of the movement, the jingling of the accoutrements, the pressure of the horses and men on each side of me caused a sensation of excitement rather pleasant than otherwise, and I began to feel very brave and warlike.
“What is it?” asked I of the old soldier beside me. “Are we going to charge them right off?”
I shall never forget the look of contemptuous wonder with which he looked at me as he replied:
“I’ve been jest two years in this here regiment, and you’re the first man I ever met who thought he was going a-charging without drawing sabres. We’re agoing to be shot at, young feller. That’s all for the present.”
There was something so cold-blooded in this that my enthusiasm was suddenly checked. I asked no more questions until we were halted behind a thin belt of woods. On the other side active skirmishing was going on. Here I saw the old soldiers get their carbines in readiness, and snap the caps to clear the tubes. The consciousness of the deadly earnest in which the weapons were soon to be used turned me sick for the moment, and made me think of home and of death. All the time there were curious sounds in the air above our heads, as if large night-beetles had mistaken us for lighted candles, and were whirring around us; but as the others took no notice of them I hesitated to speak. At last, seeing the old soldier who had answered me dodge down quickly as one of these sounds was heard close above him, I ventured to inquire what sort of bugs those were that made such a noise? Indignation blended with scorn was visible in his countenance as he satisfied my curiosity:
“Bugs! Do you think that I am such a skeery old woman as to be twisting myself in my saddle ’cause a bug was flying at me? Them’s pisen, them are! Them’s bullets!”
If he had told me they were fifteen-inch shells he couldn’t have startled and astonished me more. Here I had been in imminent danger for ten minutes, and I had not known anything about it. Instinctively I debated whether I could get out of the way without being detected and disgraced, and the same impulse turned my eyes towards my Captain. There he sat, as cool as a cucumber, reading a man a lecture as to the proper method of advancing his carbine, forcing two or three others to dress themselves more accurately upon the right sergeant, and all the while looking straight at me. There was no use in my trying to dodge away then.
Presently a horse in front of me reared a little and dropped to the ground, and one or two men on foot came straggling through the wood from the front. Then there came slowly forth a mounted man leaning forward on his saddle, his hand pressed to his side, and red with blood. Then a squad of ten or fifteen burst through the branches, slinging their empty carbines, and rallying in a disorderly fashion upon our flank. With a deadlier fury the whir of the bullets swept above our line. “Steady there, men!” sang out the Captain. “Get your carbines ready, boys!” An old infantry soldier, who was my front rank man, turned round to me, and said, “I say, you take care to fire over my head, and don’t blow my brains out with your shooting, d’ye hear?” I was in the act of promising to pay the most exact attention to his order, when I was startled by a burst of laughter behind me. That ubiquitous Captain was there listening. “Fire over your head, you goose!” he exclaimed. “I don’t want him to bring down a star or a turkey-buzzard. You keep your fire, Dan, until I tell you to shoot; and don’t let me see a man in the rear rank fire while I keep him standing there. Mind that now.”
While he was talking I could tell from the shouts that our men had repelled the rebel charge, and I was able to bear with composure the sight of a dead officer carried sadly past us by some of his men. Then all at once along the enemy’s line crashed a volley, lighting up the closing night with a glare of fire whose length startled and amazed me. Horses fell on either side of me, and here and there a man’s face would change, and he would slide from his saddle or draw his horse back from the line. It was dreadful sitting there inactive, waiting helplessly for death; and my hand half-consciously drawing upon my rein, my horse fell back about a foot from his place in line. At that instant the Captain cried out, “Attention, there!” and looking round, I saw his eyes fixed on me again. Again he cried, “Attention! Squadron into single rank, march!” and as I obeyed the order I saw our skirmishers slowly falling back through the wood and forming a line upon our extreme left and in our rear. Then there was a pause.
Presently I saw a movement among the trees, and I could make out a mass of men clustering together just upon their edge. With a thrill, I knew that for the first time I saw the enemy; and every sensation was merged in a frantic desire to shoot, while every nerve within my body was quivering with excitement. Then the Captain’s voice, steady and cheerful, sounded along the line, with some sympathetic power calming my shaking nerves and making every muscle as firm as iron. “Ready! Aim low. Front rank men, fire!” A blaze of light ran along our line, there was a deafening explosion, and a blinding smoke, through which I could hear the bullets of the enemy as they whistled past. I could see nothing, but I heard the voice of the Captain from my right command, “Rear rank men, fire!” and as our second volley crashed out, there came the order, “Load and fire at will.” And now it was crack! crack! as fast as we could get the cartridges into our guns, shouting and cheering as we did so, in answer to the rebel yells. At length our shouts met no response. I heard the officer’s command, “Cease firing!” the smoke swept away, and I found it was black night, through which I could just see that I was one of about forty men, the remnant of the squadron. I could hear a few slowly trotting back to the rear. I could make out others on foot crossing the hill-top beyond, and could see a mass of dead horses and one or two dead men still lying at my feet. For a few minutes the Captain let us remove the corpses and destroy the equipments of the dead animals, and then we withdrew triumphantly to our comrades, the Captain telling us once that we had done well, and then bewailing his fate that he commanded men who did not know how to wheel by fours. That was my first acquaintance with rebel bullets, and even the old soldiers said that it was the closest affair in which they had ever been engaged.
Two days afterwards I heard, for the first time, the sound of a shell; and I might as well make a clean breast of it, once for all, by describing my sensations.
We were in the rear of the army as it fell back upon Centreville, formed in line as a reserve. The rest of the cavalry had moved on after the infantry, leaving us to hold a hill from which the enemy might have annoyed them with artillery. We sat there without seeing anything in particular, wondering why the rebels did not come out of the woods beyond us; when suddenly there was a big puff of smoke at the edge of the trees, a loud bang, and a tremendous screech in the air above our heads, so close that the sound almost took my head off. I looked at the Captain, expecting to hear him say, “By fours, do something or other”; but he only said, “Steady!” as there was another puff, another bang, and another screech, as a big black mass of iron struck the ground ten yards in front of us, bounded over our heads, and burst almost above us. It gave such a shock to my nerves that I could not do anything but shake, and I felt as if I should have much preferred to be under the ground rather than above it.
Those rebels banged away at us for half a dozen rounds, each time striking close to us, before I saw our skirmish-line come riding back at a walk, and heard the Captain give the order, “By fours, march! Right counter-march!” and back we started. Two files in front of me marched Dan E—, one of those fellows who always has his retort ready. I heard the man next to him scolding at Dan’s crowding him out of place: “Why can’t you follow your file-leader?” “Hang the file-leader,” answered Dan, pushing him harder yet; “they’ve got the range of him.” And as he spoke a shell came down and buried itself in the earth just where he would have been if he had kept in his place. I need not say that we all turned aside after that, and pretty soon we got safely out of reach.
Now I know what artillery and musketry are both like; and I sincerely hope that I shall not face it again.
VIII
HOW CUSHING DESTROYED THE “ALBEMARLE”
One of the Bravest Deeds in Naval History
IT is the night of October 27, 1864. A blockading fleet of Union vessels rides at anchor off the harbor of Plymouth, North Carolina. Alongside the flag-ship an open launch is secured, her after-part made visible to those on board the over-towering ship owing to the glow that comes from the open door of the little furnace. The light that streams forth also throws into relief the face and form of the engineer as he spreads a layer of “green” coals over the surface of the fire, and thrusts the slender brass spout of his oil-can into the various feed-cups of the machinery. Just abaft the cockpit, holding the stern of the launch to the frigate by means of a boat-hook, stands a blue-jacket, his naked feet showing as two white patches on the lead-colored planks. Another seaman is performing a similar office forward in the bow, while several more are gathered about a long, curious-looking spar carefully secured, with its cylinder-shaped head resting on a wad of cotton-waste; but these men are lost to view, owing to the gloom of their situation, which is deepened by contrast to the firelight aft. At the open gangway of the flag-ship two officers stand conversing. Beside them a gray-haired quartermaster is stationed, lantern in hand, to light the way down the ladder that leads to the launch. In the shoulder-straps of one of the officers glistens a single silver star, which denotes his Commodore’s rank, while the two gold bars that decorate the straps of the other show him to be a Lieutenant. As the latter is observed in the rays of the lantern, his smooth face and slender figure are suggestive rather of extreme youth than of a man qualified by years and experience to assume the office that his uniform represents. The gold bands around his coat sleeves have been nobly won, however, and the boy of nineteen, who entered the service three years previous as a master’s mate, has already commanded with singular and enviable distinction a gun-boat of the blockading squadron. There is a touch of fatherly tenderness and a depth of anxiety in the old Commodore’s voice as he speaks:
“Cushing, my boy, you are going to almost certain death; the rebels have learned of your object, and are prepared for the attempt. The Albemarle, as you know, is surrounded with heavy floating timbers so arranged that you cannot get within thirty feet of her, and unless you can succeed in laying your boat alongside, how can you expect to explode the torpedo?”
The lines of the Lieutenant’s thinly cut mouth deepen, and the brows draw ominously down over the flashing eyes.
“Commodore, I’ve got my plan all worked out, and I’ll carry it through or die with it! If I don’t succeed in destroying that iron-clad, she will come out here before long, and perhaps sink the fleet. It’s worth the risk, sir, and I’m willing to take it along with my volunteer crew.” Then, as his natural spirit of recklessness and humor comes to the surface for a moment, he smiles and continues, “It’s either another stripe or death, Commodore.”
The flag-officer presses the young man’s hand, while he says, huskily, “God bless and grant you success and a safe return!”
Preceded by the quartermaster, Lieutenant Cushing descends the gangway ladder and drops into the launch.
“Lieutenant,” says the old man, “there won’t be no sleep in the fleet to-night; if ye’ll hexcuse the liberty, sir, I’ll be a-prayin’ for ye.”
“All right, Lynch; but pray hard, for I’ll need it,” replies Cushing. Then he looks at the face of the little dial which registers the steam-pressure, and turns to the engineer: “Keep a full head of steam up, but be careful not to let her get so much that she will open the safety-valve and let Johnny know we’re coming.” Next he goes forward, examines the torpedo-spar, stations his small crew, orders the furnace door closed, and lays hold of the steering-wheel in the forward cockpit. “Shove off,” he orders.
The great black hull of the flag-ship slips into the gloom ahead. A moment later the propeller churns the water, the tiller is put over to port, the head of the launch swerves to starboard, and is kept steadily pointed towards Plymouth, where lies the great rebel iron-clad Albemarle, waiting only for the time, speedily coming, when, with equipment complete, she will steam out to do battle with the wooden walls of her enemies.
After the fleet has been left well astern, the boyish commander orders the engines stopped, and calls the men around him.
“Boys,” he says, “I’m going to tell you my plan, so that you may work it out, if possible, in case anything happens to me when we get under fire. As soon as I make out the ship and get my bearings, I’m going to put on a full head of steam, and jump the launch over the logs that surround her on the water side. Once over the spars, it will be only a few feet between us and the hull; so we must have the torpedo ready to push under the water against her side as soon as we get near enough. On the dock that she is moored to they have a couple of howitzers and a company of sharp-shooters to help guard the approach from sea, and on board they are sure to be prepared to give us a warm welcome. I will keep the wheel until we are over the logs, then I will handle the torpedo, so see that it is clear for me. But if I should fall, try to carry out my plan, then jump overboard, dive under the logs, swim across the river, and make your way down along the bank until you get abreast of the fleet, where you can signal. That is all, except to strip yourselves for a swim. Do you understand?”
“Ay, ay, sir, we understand,” comes the answer from the handful of heroes.
The little wheel under the stern of the launch turns over slowly and noiselessly as eager, anxious eyes peer ahead into the night.
Suddenly a huge blot is made out a little on the port bow, and a moment later it shapes itself into the outlines of a dock with a great vessel lying alongside.
Out of the gloom rings the challenge, “Boat ahoy!”
While the echo of the last word trembles, Cushing orders, fiercely: “Give it to her! Steady, boys!”
The engineer opens wide the valve, and throws the wild pressure of a full head of steam into the cylinder. The launch jumps forward in time to escape a shower of iron hail that ploughs into her white wake.
Before the guns can be pointed anew a long, narrow barrier washing level with the water shows a few feet ahead.
A sheet of flame from the rifle-barrels on the dock and ship, so close to the open boat that it scorches the air in the faces of the crew, makes vivid for an instant the onrushing destroyer. One of the blue-jackets throws his arms up, and falls face downward in the cockpit just as the stem of the launch strikes the log.
Will she go over it? is the agonizing thought of the brave youth who stands in the very bosom of the deadly tempest.
The head of the boat rears itself on the air until the water is splashing into the stern-sheets aft; then, without checking her mad rush, she clears the barrier like a steeple-chaser and hurls herself forward.
Another volley greets them, and the engineer and one more of the sailors go down; but Lieutenant Cushing springs from the wheel, grasps the torpedo-spar, and as the bow of the launch strikes the rebel ram he thrusts it against her side just as a thick storm of missiles from the howitzers crashes into his boat and shatters it to pieces.
But the doom of the Albemarle is written. An awful rumbling is heard, accompanied by the sound of splintering timbers, followed by a towering volume of torn and maddened waters that for a moment hide the scene from friend and foe, and under cover of which Lieutenant Cushing regains the river beyond the floating logs.
Mingled shouts of command and cries of rage are heard by the swimmer when he comes to the surface after his plunge under the barrier. A number of bullets whistle above his head and patter into the water around him. It is evident that he is yet within the range of vision of the sharp-shooters, so he draws a long breath and sinks below the level again, striking out strong, and swimming until forced to regain the air.
The confusion of voices is yet audible, but when he turns his eyes in the direction of the clamor nothing is visible save the indistinct outline of the shore; then he knows that he no longer affords a mark for the soldiers on the dock.
But another cause of alarm is quickly manifest, for he catches the sound of the thud of oars as they pound against the rowlocks, telling him that the enemy have manned a boat and are seeking him. Before he can decide as to the direction in which to swim in order to get out of the track of the on-coming craft, it looms up only a few yards from him.
There is only one course to pursue, so, catching a quick breath, he quietly sinks, and the boat passes over the spot where the bubbles on the water mark his disappearance.
Until he experiences a sense of suffocation he remains under, swimming off at right angles to the path of his seekers, so that his head may not be in line with the eyes of the rowers when he regains the surface.
When he again casts his anxious eyes around, nothing is seen, so he throws himself on his back and floats while recovering his strength, and shortly after strikes out for the opposite bank of the river, which he reaches after a weary trial, then creeps into the underbrush, and sleeps from exhaustion.
The sun is high when he awakes. Parting the wild foliage, he looks across and up the stream at the scene of his exploit. The dock is plainly to be seen, but the Albemarle has disappeared. Looking intently, he sees two masts rising from the water near the pier, and is thus assured that the career of the rebel ship is ended.
Ha! What causes that rustling of the foliage to his right? Is it an animal, or is it an enemy in search of him?
Almost naked, and altogether defenceless, he watches breathlessly.
He promises himself that he will never be taken alive. Better to die than to endure the tortures of a Southern prison. The bushes part a little further, and a man’s sun-browned face and brawny bare shoulders and tattooed arms come into view.
“Jack!” says the Lieutenant, in a loud, glad whisper.
“Lieutenant!” responds the seaman, in a tone of equal surprise and gladness.
All day the officer and his companion, the only survivors of the expedition, work their way painfully through the swamp, and just as the sun is sinking they drag their bare, bleeding feet and cruelly lacerated bodies out on the bank of the river opposite the Union fleet.
All hands have been called to “make sunset,” and the men are silently standing by the signal halyards and boat-falls waiting for the word of command, when the quartermaster on the bridge of the flag-ship quickly levels his telescope at the shore, then hurriedly approaches and addresses the officer of the deck, who stands beside the Captain. The latter takes the glass from the seaman, peers through it for an instant, wheels sharply around, and speaks to the Lieutenant.
“Away, first cutter!” roars the latter.
The boatswain’s mate blows a shrill pipe, and repeats the order.
“Go down the boat-falls, boys; lively’s the word! Jump into the cutter, Mr. Arnold, and pull into the beach for the men!”
Half an hour later Lieutenant Cushing comes over the gangway and salutes the Commodore. “I report my return on board with one man, sir,” he says; “the Albemarle is destroyed.”