During the afternoon, our kind and courteous French friend, Lieutenant Solomon, appeared, to take us to the hospital, and thence to his own house. I asked Lieutenant Duncan for a guard, and he politely sent one of his men with us. One of my officers walked with me to the hospital. It was in a church, and at its extreme end we found Lieutenant Stevenson. He looked wretched, and my hopes sank as I saw him. The church was crowded with Confederate sick, and he was the only prisoner there. Yet there was no alternative. We knew that if he were carried along, a sadder parting would soon ensue. Faintly hoping that we should again see him, and inwardly praying that he might find the friends he sorely needed, we bade him farewell.
The French lieutenant rejoined us in the street, and led the way to his own house. He wished, he said, to present us to Madame, and offer us some slight refreshment, which was not good, but was better than we might enjoy again. We soon reached his house, and were presented to Madame, who received us with the grace and politeness of a French lady. The slight refreshment, doubtless, was preparing, and we were comfortably waiting to enjoy it, when a patriot soldier of the Confederacy, with the villainous look peculiar to those of Louisiana, stuck his gun and then his head in the room, and said sulkily, that the Provost Marshal wanted us. Our worthy lieutenant accompanied us, saying, “Oh, surely it must be a mistake; somebody has told him you are making an escape. He will let you return to my house, and you shall stay all the afternoon.” Arrived at the Provost Marshal’s, the Louisiana patriot left us on the sidewalk, and stepped in to inform the august official that we were in waiting. That magnate immediately came forth—a youthful, swarthy, small-sized, unwashed Louisianian, with a consequential air, and a vagabond face. “Take these fellows back to your camp,” he said, addressing our Texan guard. “I won’t have prisoners running about my town.” As he said this, he honored us with a vicious stare, and then banged back into his office.
There was no resisting this eloquence, so back we went. Our guard, who had been very silent, became very talkative. He swore pardonable oaths at the Louisianians in general, and the Provost Marshal in particular. As to the former, he said they were all a disgrace to the South; and as to the latter, that if ever he got a chance, he’d scalp him—dog-gone if he wouldn’t. In camp, his excitement extended to the rest. Our gallant friend, the corporal, was especially indignant.
“What,” he said, “he spoke so right before you, without your having insulted him. The dog-gone little puppy. If I’d been there, I’d have slapped his face, and then run for Texas. There’s just such ducks everywhere, and most of all in Louisiana. Dog-gone them—I’d like to shoot the whole of them.”
Our wounded honor being soothed by these chivalric sentiments, and a shower of rain coming up about the same time, we retired to the saw-mill, where we selected soft planks, swept away the saw-dust, and made ready for the night. About dark, Lieutenant Duncan returned, with anger and mortification glowing in his face. He had not been able to get fresh mules or a good wagon, or full rations, or even a wagon cover, for prisoners, and he was vexed and wrathful at the refusals he had met. “I tell you what it is, though, gentlemen,” he said, “you shall be taken care of, and have the best this country can give you, if I take it out of their houses with my revolver. It’s not so in Texas, gentlemen. There our people haven’t got much, but they will give you what they have.” In fact, the good lieutenant was so chagrined and mortified, that I had to assure him that we were not children, and would rather undergo a little extra hardship, than put him to further trouble. But while affairs were gliding in this harmonious and humane channel within the saw-mill, some wicked imp suggested to our friend, the Provost Marshal, the feasibility of his bestowing on us another kick. Hardly had the lieutenant wiped the perspiration from his brow, and looked around for a dry plank on which to sleep, when a second Louisiana patriot, dirtier even than the first, appeared. He delivered an order to the lieutenant. It was to pack up and be off instantly—he, the Provost Marshal, wouldn’t have prisoners camping in his town over night.
We accordingly packed up and went off, not more than a hundred yards (for the saw-mill was on the boundary of the town), and stopped at an abandoned barn, just beyond the Provost Marshal’s jurisdiction. The barn was dirty—the ground around it muddy—the fleas were hale and hearty—and these little circumstances added a great deal of force to the thanks which the guard lavished on the Provost Marshal. Yet we looked forward with hopefulness to the morrow, for then we were to turn off from the Teche, and leaving civilization and the hateful Louisianians behind us, strike off, undisturbed, on the free prairies.
V.
THE PRAIRIES.
The road ran, for several miles, between hedges and among plantations, and close to gardens and houses, with their fields and fences, until it suddenly emerged on a broad, unbounded prairie. Our guards’ eyes sparkled when they saw it, and they declared that this began to look like Texas. We all felt better at the sight, and the fresh breeze that swept over it almost swept away the weary weakness of the previous days. There is a profound sense of loneliness and littleness on these great seas of green far exceeding that which men feel in forests. There is such an absence of objects—such long distances appearing to the eye, and before which the feet grow feeble—such a want of all shelter and protection, that one wishes for the woods, and acknowledges a companionship in hills and trees beyond all that he has ever known before.
A long noon-day halt was made at a Frenchman’s, whose wretched shanty stood environed by a beautiful grove of the deep-shading China tree; and, during the afternoon, we found the prairie interspersed with small plantations. These took away the sense of loneliness, and, in some respects, added to the interest of the march. There was a good stiff breeze, too, blowing directly from the west, (to which we travelled) and all moved cheerfully along, shaking off fatigue and forgetting, for the time, that we were prisoners. As the sun approached his setting, we descended by a gently sloping plain toward a wood that marks and hides Vermillion Bayou. While it was still a mile or two distant, we turned from the wagon-trail and made our way across the prairie to a plantation, whose large white house and numerous out-buildings peered forth from a grove of over-hanging trees.
The plantation was owned by a lady, who kindly allowed her servants to cook our supper, and gave us her lawn to bivouac upon. She also invited Mr. and Mrs. Stratford to occupy a room in her house, and showed the rare good taste and delicacy of not coming out to stare at us. We found ourselves still connected with civilized life; for supper was spread out handsomely in the dining-room, and was accompanied by the luxury of real French coffee, served in delicate china.