He was dressed in Federal uniform, and after placing his men so as to cut off any escape from the house if the occupants once came outside, he rode boldly up to the fence in front of the premises and cried, “Hello!” A soldier came to the door with a gun in his hand and answered him. Jarrette continued, “Who are you that you come to this place in defiance of every order issued for a month? What business have you here tonight? Who gave you permission to come? Where are your passes? Come out here and let me read them.” Thinking Jarrette a provost captain scouting for runaways from the Lexington garrison, ten of the eleven militiamen started confidently for the fence, receiving, when half way, the crushing fire of twenty concealed Guerrillas. In a space four blankets might have covered the ten fell and died, only one of the lot discharging a weapon or making a pretense of resistance.
Frank James stooped to count them, and as he rose he remarked: “There are but ten here. Awhile ago there were eleven.” The building was entered, searched from top to bottom in every nook and corner, but no soldier. The women were questioned, one at a time, separately. They knew only that when the man at the fence called they all went out together.
Frank James, whose passive face had from the first expressed neither curiosity nor doubt, spoke up again and briefly: “Awhile ago I counted but five women, now there are six.” Save four sentinels on duty at either end of the main road, Guerrillas had gathered together in the lower large room of the dwelling house. The fire had burned low, and was fitful and flickering. Where there had been half a dozen candles there were now only two.
“Bring more,” said Poole, “and we will separate this wolf from the ewes.”
“Aye, if we have to strip the lot,” spoke up a coarse voice in the crowd.
“Silence,” cried Jarrette, laying a hand upon a pistol and turning to his men in the shadow, “not a woman shall be touched. We are wild beasts, yes, but we war on wild beasts.”
More light was brought, and with a candle in each hand Poole went from woman to woman, scanning the face of each long and searchingly, and saying when he had finished, “I give it up. If one of the six here is a man, let him keep his dress and his scalp.”
Frank James, just behind Poole, had inspected each countenance also as the candles passed before it, and when Poole had done speaking, he laid a finger upon a woman’s shoulder and spoke as one having authority: “This is the man. If I miss my reckoning, shoot me dead.”
The marvelous nerve, which up to this time had stood with the militiaman as a shield and a defense, deserted him when the extremity came, and he turned ghastly white, trembled to his feet, and fell, sobbing and praying on his knees. Horrified by the slaughter in the yard, and afraid to rush from the house lest he be shot down also, he hurriedly put on the garments of one of the women, composed his features as best he could, and waited in suspense the departure of the Guerrillas. Almost a boy, his smooth face was fresher and fairer than the face of any real woman there. His hair, worn naturally long and inclined to be brown, was thick and fine. The dress hid his feet, or the boots would have betrayed him at the start. Not knowing that an observation had been made before the firing, and the number accurately taken of both men and women, he hoped to brave it through and laugh afterwards and tell to his messmates how near death had passed by him and did not stop. The reaction, however, upon discovery, was pitiful. He was too young to die, he pleaded. He had never harmed a human being in his life. If he was spared he would abandon the army and throw away his gun. As he prayed he wept, but Jarrette abated further abasement of his manhood.
“He is yours, James,” he said, “and fairly yours. When he changed color ever so little under Poole’s inspection you saw it and no other man saw it, and he belongs to you. Take him.” Property in human flesh was often disposed of in this way.