CHAPTER V. ON THE MARCH—CAPTURING A REBEL FLAG.
It was a new life for Jack and Harry, and they greatly enjoyed it. Both declared that they slept more comfortably on the ground than they had formerly slept in bed, and as for the distance accomplished in a day's march it was nothing to them. They cheerfully gave up their places in the wagons to some of the footsore soldiers, and trudged along behind the vehicles as merry as larks.
There was very little danger to be apprehended on the march, although they were technically in the enemy's country. In the part of Missouri north of the river of the same name, there were a few straggling bands of state troops under the command of General John B. Clark, but nothing like a disciplined force that could offer resistance to a well-equipped regiment like the First Iowa. Whenever the regiment approached a town or village, most of the secessionists fled in dismay, after spreading terrible stories of the atrocities that the invaders would be sure to commit as soon as they arrived. Those that remained were no doubt greatly surprised at the good order that prevailed and the perfect respect shown to private property. Everything required for the use of the soldiers was fully paid for, and instead of bewailing the visit of the invaders, many of the citizens, even those whose sympathies were not with the Union, hoped they would come again. Later in the war things changed a good deal in this respect, as we shall see further on in our story.
One town through which the regiment passed, and where it halted for one day and a part of another to wait orders for further movements, was reputed to be one of the worst nests of secession in that part of the state.
There was a hotel in the town, and its owner had recently, so Jack learned from a boy of about his age with whom he established friendly relations, given it the name of the Davis House, in honor of the President of the Southern Confederacy. Jack informed the soldiers of this discovery, and an examination of the front of the building showed that the former name of the hotel had been painted out to make a place for the new one.
Immediately a pot of white paint and one of black were procured, a rough staging was erected, the word “Davis” was painted out, and “Union” took its place. The proprietor protested, but his protest was of no use. He was told that the Union House would be much more popular than the Davis House could be by any possibility, and when they came around again they expected to find the new name retained. The proprietor said his neighbors would burn the building over his head if he allowed it to remain as it was, and as soon as the regiment had gone he set about changing the obnoxious appellation. But he showed some worldly wisdom in giving it a new name altogether instead of restoring what might have brought him into trouble with future visitors of the kind he had just had. He avoided both “Davis” and “Union,” and called the establishment the “Missouri Hotel,” a name at which neither side could take offense.
The boy who told Jack about the hotel also informed him where a rebel flag was concealed. It had been made by several young women whose sympathies were with the southern cause, and was intended for presentation to the captain of a company which would soon leave the county to fight on the southern side.
Jack hastened to Captain Herron, one of the officers of the regiment, and told what he had heard. The captain sent a detail of soldiers, under the guidance of Jack, who led the way to the house of one of the principal inhabitants of the place.
The sergeant in command of the squad of soldiers rapped at the door, which was opened by a servant. He asked for the lady of the house, and very soon a comely matron of forty or more stood before him.
“We beg your pardon for disturbing you,” said the sergeant; “but we want a rebel flag that we are told has been made here recently.”
“You shan't come into my house,” was the angry reply; “and we've no flag for you Yankees.”
She was about to close the door in the sergeant's face, but the latter stopped her from so doing by stepping forward and holding it open. Then he ordered his men to follow him, which they did, accompanied by Jack.
“Be kind enough to show us through the house,” said the sergeant; “we don't want to trouble you, but we must have that flag.”
“If you are after a flag you won't find any,” she answered; “and as for showing a lot of Yankees through the house, I won't.”
The sergeant ordered one man to stay at the front door and another at the rear, “and permit nobody to leave the house.” Then he called the servant, a negro woman, who had opened the door, and ordered her to show the way through the rooms. Accustomed to obedience, the woman did as she was told, her mistress being so overcome with rage that she did not endeavor to exercise her authority over the servant.
Jack had told the sergeant that the flag was hidden between the sheets of a bed in the first sleeping-room at the head of the stairs; consequently that was the room which the sergeant intimated he would like to see first.
The room was found and so was the bed, but no flag. The bed showed signs of very recent disturbance, as though something had been withdrawn from it. Evidently the flag had been taken away during the parley at the door. The room was searched in every part, but no sign of the flag was found; then other rooms were examined, but with the same result.
The soldiers went through the entire house, the sergeant giving them strict orders to search everywhere, but at the same time to injure nothing. Just as they were about to give up the enterprise as a bad job, a brilliant thought occurred to Jack.
He mounted the stairs again and went straight to the bed which had first been the object of their examination. Pulling down the bed-clothes, which had been left in a disordered condition after the investigation of the soldiers, he found the desired flag and bore it in triumph to the sergeant.
[Original Size]
Then the sergeant withdrew his men, after again apologizing to the mistress of the house, who was so angry that she could not, or would not, speak. On the way back to camp the sergeant asked Jack how it was he knew the flag was where he found it.
“I sort o' guessed it,” replied Jack. “I noticed that the woman and her two daughters did n't stay with us while we were rummaging the house, but kept going in and out of the rooms, leaving the servant to show us around.
“I thought they were up to something, especially as one of the daughters did n't show up at all while we were talking at the door before we went in.
“Now, I figured out that while we were talking with the old gal the young one we did n't see was taking the flag out of the bed and hiding it somewhere else. When they saw us at the door they knew what we'd come for, and probably guessed we 'd been told where the flag was.
“Well, after we'd looked through that bed and all the room without finding anything, we went on to the next room. They knew we 'd hunt high and low for the flag, and go through every part of the house. Now, if you'd a-been in their place what would you have done, when you knew you could n't get out of the house without being seen?”
“I see it now,” said the sergeant, “though I did n't before. I'd have watched my chance by going round through the halls, and put the flag in one of the places that had been searched, and there would n't have been any better place than the bed where we first went for it.”
“That's just what I thought,” said Jack in reply; “and when I saw the old gal give a wink to the young one and the young one winked back again, it just occurred to me to go to the bed and have another look.”
“You'd make a good detective,” said the sergeant approvingly, and then the conversation turned to the flag they had captured and the probable use that would be made of it.
“That's for the captain to say,” replied the sergeant in reply to Jack's query.
The sergeant turned the flag over to the captain and the latter duly admired it and praised Jack for his acuteness. The secession emblem was a fine one, being made of the best bunting procurable in St. Louis, whence the material was specially ordered. It was the regular secession flag, the “Stars and Bars,” and was intended to be displayed on the battlefield, where the rebels confidently hoped to put the defenders of the Union to flight at the first fire. Along the center of the flag the following couplet had been deftly embroidered by the fingers of the young ladies by whom the banner was made, and the lines were said to have been the composition of the maiden who so signally failed in concealing the precious standard from the search of the invaders:
“Federals from thee shall flee,
Gallant sons of Liberty!”
Jack suggested that they should have added the following quotation from Robert Burns, as a suitable intimation of thee possibilities in the case:
“The best laid schemes o' mice and men
Gang aft a-gley”
CHAPTER VI. MARCHING AND CAMPING IN THE RAIN—FIRST SHOTS AT THE ENEMY.
When the march across Missouri began the weather was fine, and our young friends, as before stated, were delighted with campaigning life; but the fair weather did n't last.
When they were on the road again, after the affair of the rebel flag, they found a change of situation. A storm arose, and they had the disagreeable experience of marching and camping in the rain. Old soldiers think nothing of rain, though of course they prefer fine weather, but for new campaigners the first rain-storm is a serious affair. So it was with Jack and Harry.
They had provided themselves with waterproof coats, which protected their shoulders, in fact, kept them fairly dry above the knees, but could not prevent the mud from forming on the ground nor protect the feet of the boys as they marched along. It was a weary tramp through the mud, and any one who has traveled in Missouri knows that the mud there is of a very sticky quality; in fact, in most of the western states the soil has a consistency that is unknown in many parts of the east. When dry it is hard, and forms an excellent road, though it is apt to give off a good deal of dust in specially dry and windy times. When there is much traveling over a road, and no rain falls for some time, the dust is a great deal more than perceptible.
But it is in the wet season that the soil of the west puts in its fine work. The mud has the stickiness of glue with the solidity of putty. Each time the foot goes down it picks up a small quantity, very small it may be; but as continual dropping will wear away stone, so will continual stepping convert the foot into a shapeless mass of mud. Five or ten pounds of mud may thus be gathered upon each foot of a pedestrian, and it does not require a vivid imagination to increase the five pounds to fifty. Horses “ball up” in the same way, and there are many localities where, under certain conditions of weather, this balling up is so rapid, and withal so dangerous, as to make travel next to impossible.
The regiment went into camp that night pretty well tired out, and it is safe to say that some of the soldiers wished themselves home again. But if they did so wish they kept their thoughts to themselves, and each one pretended to his comrades that it was just what he liked.
To pitch tents on wet ground is the reverse of agreeable, and to lie down on the ground and try to sleep there is worse than the mere work of putting a tent in place. But both of these things must be done, except where there is no tent to pitch and one must sleep without any shelter other than the sky. When our armies took the field in the early part of the war there was a good supply of tents, so that the soldiers were well protected against the weather; but this condition of affairs did not last long. In the early days there was an allowance of two wagons to a company, or twenty wagons to a regiment, without counting the wagons of the field officers and staff. Later on the wagon allowance was greatly reduced, and during the closing campaigns of the war the luxuries of the early days were practically unknown. The army with the smallest wagon-train can make the most rapid progress, as a train is a great hindrance in military movements.
Jack and Harry slept beneath one of the wagons, or rather they tried to sleep, during the steady rain that continued through the night. In the morning Jack thought Harry resembled a butterfly that had been run through a sausage-machine, while the latter retorted that his comrade looked as if he had been fished out of a millpond and hung up to dry. Both were a good deal bedraggled and limp, but they would not admit it, and each danced about as though a little more and a great deal wetter rain was just what he wanted.
“Tell you what, Harry,” said Jack, “it was n't being wet that bothered me so much as getting wet. I found a reasonably dry place, and thought I was all right, but just as I was getting asleep I felt the tiniest little drop of water soaking through on the side I was lying on. I tried to shrivel up so as to get away from it, but the water followed me, and the more I shrunk the more it spread.
“Then I thought it would be better if I turned over, but in turning I let in more water, or rather I suppose I made a hollow in the soft ground, and that was just old pie for the water. When I turned I exposed my neck and got a touch of it there, and so it went on; at every move I got more and more of it. By the end of an hour or so, which seemed all night, I was fairly wet through, and then I did n't care half so much about it. I went to sleep and slept pretty well till morning, and don't believe I've got a bit of a cold.”
“I had about the same sort of a time with the rain,” said Harry, “and agree with you that the worst part of it is the feeling you have while the rain is getting its way through your clothes and you're trying to keep it out; and all the time you know you can't do it, and really might just as well give in at once.”
“Never mind now,” said Jack; “what we want is hot coffee and something to eat.”
They had taken the precaution to lay away some sticks of dry wood in one of the wagons before the rain began, and therefore there was no difficulty in starting a fire. All the wood that lay around the camp was soaked with water, but by careful searching and by equally careful manipulating of the sticks the soldiers and teamsters managed to get up a creditable blaze by using their dry wood to start it with.
Hot coffee all around served to put everybody in good humor, and some hard bread and bacon from the commissary wagons made the solid portion of the breakfast. Harry had secured some slices of cold beef the day before, and these, which he shared with Jack, made a meal fit for a king when added to the regular rations that had been served out. The rain stopped soon after sunrise, the sun came out and in a few hours the roads were dry enough to justify the order to move on. Meantime everybody was busy drying whatever could be dried, and by noon the discomforts of the first night in the rain had been pretty well forgotten.
An hour or two after the column started on the road there was an alarm from the front that threw everybody into a state of excitement. Rumors were passed from man to man, and as they grew with each repetition, they became very formidable by the time they reached the rear-guard. There was a large force of the enemy blocking the way—a whole army, with cannon enough to blow them all out of existence, and possibly to take the offensive and march straight to the capital of Iowa.
Every soldier got his rifle in readiness, the wagons were driven closely up, the rear-guard prepared to meet an assault that might possibly come in their direction, and there was all the “pomp, pride and circumstance of glorious war” with the hand of untried warriors, few of whom had ever smelt gunpowder in a warlike way.
The excitement grew to fever heat when some shots were heard, and evidently indicated the beginning of the battle. Jack and Harry wanted to rush to the front of the column and take a hand in the affair, but they were stopped by the quartermaster, who said they would only be in the way, and had better wait a while until the colonel sent for them. He ended his suggestion with a peremptory order that they should not leave the wagons without permission.
This was a disappointment, but they bore it as patiently as they could. They were learning the lesson of military life, that the soldier must obey his officer and each officer must obey the word of his own superior, no matter what it may be. As a consolation to them, and also as an illustration of what they must expect in the army, the quartermaster told a story about a volunteer officer during the Mexican war.
This officer had been ordered to do something that he thought highly injudicious. General Scott was standing near, and Captain X———, as we will call him, appealed to the general to know what he should do.
“Obey the order,” was the brief answer of the general.
“But it's absurd,” replied the captain. “Certainly no one should obey an order like that.”
“Always obey your superior officer,” responded the general.
“But suppose my superior officer orders me to jump out of a fourth-story window,” interposed the captain, “must I do it?”
“Certainly,” the general answered; “your superior's duty is to have a feather-bed there to receive you, and you can be sure he 'll have it. That's a part of his business you have nothing to do with.”
This may sound like exaggeration to the young reader who has no knowledge of the ways of military life, but let me assure him that it is nothing of the kind. It is a principle of army discipline that a soldier or officer should unhesitatingly obey the orders he receives without asking for explanations. On the battlefield, regiments, brigades, divisions, are sent as the commander desires for the purposes of carrying out his combinations and plans. It can readily be seen that all discipline would be gone and the combinations and plans could not be carried out if each subordinate commander required an explanation of the reason why he was dispatched in a particular direction or ordered to do a certain thing. Now and then there is an opportunity which an officer embraces for acting on his own hook without orders, but the experienced officer always hesitates lest he lays himself open to censure, and possibly court-martial and punishment, as he surely would if subsequent events showed his action to have been injudicious or disastrous.
The battle turned out to be no battle at all—only a skirmish with some bushwhackers, in which a dozen shots or so were exchanged and nobody was hurt. The advance of the column had come upon a group of men, some mounted and others on foot, near a bend in the road where a small stream was crossed. The sight of the soldiers had disturbed the group; those who had horses rode away as fast as they could go, while the fellows on foot made the best of their way into the bushes, where they sought concealment. They did not obey the order to halt, whereupon a few shots were fired at them, which they returned.
The shots only served to quicken their pace, and in a very short time nothing was to be seen of the fugitives. The quartermaster explained to the youths that the term “bushwhacker” was applied to the men who were straggling about the country with arms in their hands, and did not appear to belong to any regularly-organized body of soldiery.
“Missouri,” said he, “is full of bushwhackers, and there 'll be more of 'em as the war goes on. They 're not to be feared by a regularly-organized force, but can make the roads quite unsafe for ordinary travel. The trouble is, a man may be a peaceful farmer one day, a bushwhacker the next, and a peaceful farmer again on the third. The rebels encourage this sort of fighting, as it will compel us to maintain a large force to keep the roads open as we advance into the south.”