A younger daughter, about the age of fifteen, left the house at this time by a back entrance and ran a mile to another step brother’s house, with the evident intention of notifying her step brother who was wanted. This was the undoing of the A. P. L., as far as this deserter was concerned. Another step brother of the deserter, however, was placed under arrest, handcuffed and brought to jail for harboring a deserter. Operatives discovered notices that had been put on different houses in the locality of this deserter, one of them reading: “You are talking too damn much. The first thing you know the sun will rise under your house.”
The party then proceeded to the house of another deserter. The house as usual was surrounded. One of the operatives discovered an open window with a blind, the window being about two feet square. While a search light and a good gun guarded the entrance, Agent B—— and an A. P. L. operative crawled through this opening in the room. After awakening the occupants, a deserter and the mother of another deserter were found. The deserter was forced to dress. The mother was closely questioned regarding her son, and finally agreed that if she would be allowed to go alone, she would bring him to us. This was agreed to. She was watched and in about fifteen minutes she brought her son, who was a deserter, and also her husband. It was discovered that the son and father were sleeping in a ditch about one hundred yards from the house. They had bed clothing, and slept in the open air with the sky for a roof. These two also were handcuffed and brought to jail.
The most interesting case on this trip was the capture of another deserter who had been away from camp for over a year. He and his wife, it is alleged, had sworn that he would never be taken alive. The information was that they had bought a lot in the community cemetery where they were to be buried together. Arriving at the house of the deserter at 2:15 A. M., the house was covered and each operative given detailed instructions. The deserter was called to the open door, and was warned not to offer resistance, as his house was fully surrounded. When told he was wanted by Uncle Sam’s men, he opened his door and offered no resistance, stating that he had made up his mind to surrender to government officers, but not to the local officers. Judging from the weapons that he had by his bed, he evidently meant what he had said. He too was handcuffed and brought to jail. The total mileage of this trip was two hundred and sixteen miles, all without a scratch to car or man.
Lexington, North Carolina, was in this same mountain country which furnished so considerable a number of deserters during the war. It is a strange thing to say, but perhaps the largest numbers of deserters were found in the most American and most loyal part of the country—that is to say, the South, where there was almost no alien population. The only pure-bred American population in the United States was the very element which seemed unwilling to support the war! This, however, is a statement which needs full explanation. Let the Chief of Lexington make that explanation in the story of one case.
Tom B—— was a Tar-Heel tie hacker and lived in the mountains of North Carolina, twenty-six miles from a railroad. He could neither read nor write, but was straight and strong, and to see him swing a broad-axe was worth a trip into the mountains. When Tom heard of the draft he did not understand it. He had led a life of peaceful seclusion. There were two old Germans over at the railroad that ran a store, but Tom could work up no enthusiasm about crossing the Atlantic to kill people of that sort. But the draft came and many of Tom’s meantime friends disappeared. It seemed inexplicable to him. He did not want to go to war with anybody and did not understand why there was any war. The solution of his problem at last came to him.
His people had come to these mountain fastnesses because there they found that liberty of thought and action which all our early Americans longed for; but now into that freedom of action there came some intangible influence which he could not understand. Tom simply resolved to march into the forest as his great-grandfather had done. He “stepped back into the brush” for the duration of the war. For him this was the only natural solution for a problem he did not understand. In this way he could escape what seemed to him oppression and impairment of the liberty which he held more dear than life. So he made the usual arrangements. Food would be left for him at a certain spot by his people. If anyone came in looking for Tom, his people would put up a smoke signal so he would understand. Meantime, Tom continued his work in a tie camp, his squirrel rifle leaning against a tree. When he finished his work, he “stepped back” into deep laurel and was lost as though he had gone up into smoke. His decision, having been taken, would remain unshakable even unto death. He said, “I reckon I made up my mind, and I’d ruther die here than in Germany.”
Let us consider the situation. Here is Tom B——, an American of native blood, afraid of nothing that rides, walks or swims, willing to fight his weight in wildcats to defend the freedom and liberty of his native hills—and he is a fugitive from justice. Now, how can the A. P. L. save that man from the consequence of his folly?
He was saved. As soon as the Chief heard of Tom B——’s disappearance, he packed his timber cruising kit and went out into Tom’s country. At night he reached the cabin of Uncle John Coggins, who knew everybody in that neck of the woods and whose word was law. Uncle John knew what was up, but he said nothing—only kept his small blue eyes fixed on the visitor. After they had finished their meal, the two went out and sat on a log in the sun, in the middle of a clearing where no one could approach without being seen in time.
“I understand,” remarked the Chief casually, “that Tom has stepped back into the brush.”
No sign from Uncle John that he had heard anything. Tom’s name was not mentioned again.