From School to Battle-field: A Story of the War Days

by Charles King

But for Snipe and Shorty there came a day of thrilling interest when Captain Beach, of the "First Long Island," together with Keating and Desmond, of the Zouaves, met at the provost-marshal's in Washington, and what a meeting it was! The story of the school-boy days had been told the general, who listened with vivid interest. It was he who planned further movements and arranged the necessary preliminaries at the War Department. Among the few Confederate prisoners in the city at the time were young Grayson, captured as a lieutenant just before Bull Run, and Spottswood, captured as sergeant the night of the rescue in front of Chain Bridge, both of the Virginia cavalry. The latter had wrathfully declined to surrender the watch claimed by Shorty to be stolen property (those were the earliest—the callow—days of the war, when the wishes of prisoners as to their personal property were occasionally respected), and a tremendous scene had ensued. But within three days there appeared at Washington two young gentlemen, Pop's boys, sent thither in response to telegraphic inquiries,—Messrs. Paul Grayson and Clinton Joy,—and they had been taken to the Capitol prison by Captain Winthrop, a former Pop boy, and there had been an interview between the cousins, Northern and Southern; then, a conference between Grayson the Confederate and his bumptious statesman, and then Mr. Spottswood very gracefully surrendered the watch, which Mr. Joy positively and conclusively identified as his own, notwithstanding the obliteration of the name, and Spottswood told how it came into his possession. He had spent some time the previous winter and spring in Mobile, Savannah, and Charleston, had seen a good deal of two young—gentlemen—and he used the word with hesitation—from New York, two brothers by the name of Hulker. There had grown up something of an intimacy. They had money in abundance at first, but finally seemed to run out, and they had to "baw-wo," said Mr. Spottswood, with a blush, from their friends. In fact, they had "baw-woed" so much from friends to whom he had presented them that he felt in honor bound to make it good, and as the young men had to get out of the South in a hurry in May, and he had become suspicious as to their solvency, he had felt compelled, he said it regretfully, to demand some security, and they had left with him diamonds and this watch. The diamonds were at his home in Richmond. The watch he unhesitatingly turned over, as became a gentleman, to its proper owner. When Lieutenant Grayson was told that all this was necessary to clear the good name of the young scholar soldier who had captured him, you can imagine his interest in the case was by no means diminished.

This matter settled, and a joyous meeting having taken place between the four schoolmates, Captains Beach and Winthrop, brother officers now and ex-Columbiads, affably supervising, the next thing was to follow up the trail of Desmond's statements to Shorty, and this duty was intrusted to Keating. An odd feature with the old fire department was the alliance, offensive and defensive, which existed among certain companies, in contradistinction to the bitter rivalries which were inevitable. In the long-continued feud between Big Six and Manhattan Eight whole communities were involved. Political societies and clubs took sides with one or the other, and rows innumerable went on for years. Downtown companies, generally at odds with their neighbors, swore eternal friendship with some up-town organization which "ran" in lower districts. Marion 9 and Lady Washington 40 "lay" within three blocks of each other in the lower Fifth Fire District, but did duty, the former in the Fourth and Fifth, the latter in the Sixth and Seventh; turning out, of course, for all fires within a few blocks of their respective stations; and these two companies were on terms of very distant and dignified reserve. Away up-town, in like manner, were Lexington 7 and Pacific 28, both of which answered alarms from the Fifth District, both of which ran down Third Avenue to the Bowery in so doing, and as a consequence, time and again met and raced every inch of the way. The long run from Twenty-seventh Street to the Cooper Institute or beyond would almost exhaust their own men, but by the time they got far down-town there were swarms of allies to man the drag-ropes, 9's men with No. 7, 40's lively lads with 28, and, counting on this old alliance, Keating called on Desmond to redeem his promise to Shorty and tell what he knew about the school or its scholars, and Desmond's story was what boys of a later generation would have called "a corker."

He used to be hard up himself, he said, and more than once had had to "spout" his watch, and several times in other ways to raise money at a pawnbroker's, and there were some young fellows, whom he had twice encountered there, regular young Fifth Avenue swells, and one night while he was in a stall at the counter, he heard two of them come into an adjoining box, and they had a beautiful gold watch on which they wished to make a raise. He could not see it even by leaning away forward, for the partition prevented, but he could hear distinctly all the talk. The pawnbroker didn't want to take it. He said he was afraid. He knew both the "young fellers;" they'd often been there before, and he knew that watch didn't belong to either of the two. They swore, however, that it belonged to a friend in their set who didn't wish to be known, but had to have money that very night, and, "why, that watch must have been worth over three hundred dollars!" It was a beautiful thing, they said, and all they wanted was fifty; their friend would redeem it the very next week and pay high. They were so earnest about it that Desmond forgot his own troubles in listening to theirs. At last they got some thirty or forty dollars and left in a hurry. Desmond looked after them. Both wore fur caps pulled down over their ears, and coat-collars up almost hiding their heads, although it was quite early in the fall, and, though a raw east wind was blowing and a rain pouring, it was not cold enough for such attire. Outside the shop they were joined by others who were in waiting, three of them, and they scooted back toward the west in a hurry. Not two months afterwards Desmond was there again, and a big, smooth-faced, smug-looking fellow came in, with his head all bundled up, and he had the pawn ticket for that very watch, Desmond knew by the talk; and the pawnbroker had some words with the fellow because he tried to get it back for less by a good deal than the young men agreed to pay, and both got mad and abused each other, and each said he could send the other to jail. It was fun to hear them, said Desmond, and he wondered who the big man could be, and followed him out and saw him meet the same two "young fellers" that were there before. The big man took off his hat and wiped his face, he was "so blown with jawing," and Desmond said he had a good long look at him, and would know him again anywhere.

Now he was sure he had seen some of those young fellers with the school crowd that used to be up at Duncan's every day for luncheon, and in the "Shanghai" set that ran with Metamora Hose. But from that time they quit going to that pawnshop. The owner told him the police came round there looking for that very watch, and he was glad he was rid of them, and of that "big, smug-faced feller," too. He felt sure he was a thief. As for the boys, the broker said two of them had been there time and again before, and they were a hard lot. "Would you know the two if you were to see them again?" Keating asked the Zouave.

"I didn't see them, plainly. I couldn't, they were wrapped up so, but I could hear them plain, and I'd know their voices among a million."

All this having been duly reported, and Beach, Winthrop, and one or two senior officers having been in consultation, this strange meeting was decided upon, and, not knowing why they were bidden, Snipe and Shorty found themselves one bright September morning in the anteroom of the provost-marshal's office. Beach and Winthrop were already there. It was just one week after the arrest of the general's orderly by the patrol and his incarceration by order of the lieutenant of the guard. There was a moment of greeting and quiet chat. Then the boys were shown into a side room, and there sat Keating and Desmond. Beach called to the latter. "I wish you to sit here with me close to the door and listen to every word spoken in the office during the next five minutes." Then he, too, seated himself. There was silence a moment or two, then a low-toned conference between the provost-marshal and Winthrop, and presently a door opened, a somewhat unsteady, clinking step was heard, and then a voice, at sound of which Snipe and Shorty started and looked into each other's faces, while Beach sat watching Desmond.

"Did you wish to see me, sir?"

The speaker was invisible, but there was no mistaking the voice, with its odd, jerky, nervous accent.

"Yes, sir. I have been called upon to explain why the guard held a bearer of despatches and an important message last week. You were officer of the guard at the time. What have you to say?"

"Why—major—I don't know much about it. The men said they ordered him to stop all the way for half a mile, and he defied 'em. He—was all covered with dirt and looked like some common volunteer drummer-boy out on a drunk. I didn't suppose any general would trust despatches to—anybody like that. I thought he was lyin'."