Secret Service / Being the Happenings of a Night in Richmond in the Spring of 1865

by Cyrus Townsend Brady; William Gillette

It so happened that the soldiers who had thrust old Jonas back in his closet, whence they had taken him a short time before, in their haste, had failed to lock the door upon him. The negro, who had listened for the click of the key in the lock, had at once known of their carelessness. So soon as they had withdrawn from the room, and their search took them to other parts of the house, he had opened the door cautiously and had made his way toward the hall by the drawing-room, which he felt instinctively was the place where the exciting events of the night would soon culminate.

Thorne’s entry and the circumstances of his apprehension had been so engrossing that no one had given a thought to Jonas, or to any other part of the house, for that matter, and he had been able to see everything through the hangings. He was a quick-witted old negro, and he knew, of course, that there would be but one verdict given by such a court-martial as had assembled. Now, the men who composed the court would of necessity be detailed to carry out their own sentence. The long room was filled with stacks of guns. Every soldier, even those under the command of Corporal Matson in Arrelsford’s Department, had gone to the court-martial. There was nothing else of interest to attract them in the house. Every gun was there in that room, unguarded.

A recent capture of a battalion of Federal riflemen had put the Confederates into possession of a few hundred breech-loading weapons, not of the latest and most approved pattern, for the cartridges in these guns were in cardboard shells, but still better than any the South possessed. These rifles had been distributed to some of the companies in garrison at Richmond, and it so happened that the men of the Secret Service squad and the Provost Guard had received most of them. Every gun in the stacks was of this pattern.

In his earlier days, Jonas had been his young master’s personal attendant, his body-servant, and as such he had often gone hunting with him. During the war he had frequently visited him in camp, charged with messages of one sort or another, and he knew all about weapons.

As he stared into the long room after the departing soldiers, he did not know Edith Varney was still there, nor could he see her at all, for she was on the other side of the curtain, looking out of the window, and it seemed to him that the room was empty.

Jonas was a very intelligent negro, and while under any ordinary circumstances his devotion to his master and mistress would have been absolutely sure, yet he had become tinged with the ideas of freedom and liberty in the air. He had assisted many and many a Union prisoner. Captain Thorne, by his pleasant ways and nice address, had won his heart. And he himself was deeply concerned personally that the young man should not be punished for his attempt to bring about the success of the Union cause, which Jonas felt to be his own cause. Therefore he had a double motive to secure the freedom of his principal if it were in any way possible. Of course, any direct interposition was out of the question. He was still only a slave. His open interference would have been fruitless of any consequences except bad ones for himself, and he was already more than compromised by the events of the night. What he was to do he must do by stealth.

As he stared at the pyramids of guns, listening to the hum of conversation from the room across the hall—the door had been fortunately closed—a thought came to him. He pushed aside the portières with which he had concealed himself, and entered the room by the back door. He glanced about apprehensively. He was not burdened with any overplus of physical courage, and what he did was the more remarkable, especially in view of the fact that the soldiers might return at any moment and catch him at what they could very easily construe as an act of high treason, which would result in his blood being mingled with that of Captain Thorne, in the same gutter, probably.

He moved with cat-like swiftness in the direction of the first stack of rules. He knelt down by it, seized the nearest gun, which lay across the other three, swiftly opened the breech-plug, drew out the cartridge, looked at it a moment, put the end of it in his mouth, and crunched his strong white teeth down upon it. When he finished, he had the leaden bullet in his mouth, and the cardboard shell in his hand. He replaced this latter in the chamber and closed the breech-plug. A smile of triumph irradiated his sable features. The gun could be fired, but whatever or whoever stood in front of it would be unharmed.

He had not been quite sure that he could do this, but the result of his experiment convinced him. All the other guns were of the same character, and, given the time, he could render them all harmless. He did not waste time in reflection, but started in with the same process on the others. He worked with furious haste until every bullet had been bitten off every cartridge. It would have been impossible to have drawn the bullets of the ordinary muzzle-loading rifle, or army musket, in twenty times the period.

The noise of Jonas’ first entrance had attracted the attention of Edith Varney. She had turned with the intention of going into the room, but, on second thought, she had concealed herself further behind the curtains. Between the wall and the edge of the portières was a little space, through which she peered. She saw the whole performance, and divined instantly what was in Jonas’ mind, and what the result of his actions would be.