Rodney, the Overseer

by Harry Castlemon

To quote from Rodney, this brought the matter squarely home to the Rangers, who were compelled to decide upon some course of action without loss of time. A business meeting of the company (and a stormy one it turned out to be) was held that very day; and although Captain Hubbard and Rodney carried their point, it was only by a small majority of votes that the Rangers consented to leave their own State and go into the service of another.

Believing it to be a good plan to strike while the iron was hot, Captain Hubbard and one of his officers at once set out for New Orleans to find a boat that would take the company to Little Rock; but in the meantime the Governor of Louisiana got wind of the affair through spies in the telegraph office in Mooreville, and tried to upset the designs of the Rangers by having them sworn in by General Lacey, who was a Confederate officer. He would have succeeded too had it not been for quick-witted Rodney Gray, who cautioned his comrades not to answer to their names when the roll was called. He did more. When his own name was called he rode to the front and centre and surprised and angered the general, a veteran of the Mexican War, who had never learned to recognize any organizations outside of those mentioned in the Army Regulations, by stating that the company was an independent one whose members, while willing and eager to be sworn into the service of their State, did not desire to enter the service of the Confederate States. They enlisted as partisans, and partisans they wished to remain. Upon hearing this the veteran was astounded. He declared, by the shade of the great and good Washington, that he did not know what the country was coming to, flung the roll-book on the ground at the feet of Rodney's horse, and rode away in a huff; and that was the last of Captain Hubbard's Rangers. They broke ranks then and there and never held a company meeting afterward.

The next morning Rodney Gray, who was determined to be a partisan and nothing else, started for Missouri with no companion but his horse, and eventually succeeded in finding his friend Graham in spite of all the efforts that were made, both by Union men and rebels, to stop him. Of course Tom Randolph was happy over the way things had turned out, and one would think he ought to have been satisfied; but he was not. Every one of the Rangers who voted against him when he ran for second lieutenant made an enemy of Tom, and he showed it as often as the opportunity was presented. He felt particularly spiteful toward Rodney Gray, whose services as drill-master had been publicly acknowledged by the gift of an elegant sword from the company, and he began persecuting him the moment he learned that Rodney had decided to leave the State and go to Missouri. With the aid of a friend of his, Drummond by name, who had charge of the telegraph office in Mooreville, he paved the way for Rodney's arrest in St. Louis by sending a description of him and his horse to Mr. Randolph's agent, a Yankee cotton factor, who lived in that city; but this scheme, which might have brought Rodney's soldiering to an end before it was fairly begun, was frustrated by a "student" in Drummond's office whose name was Griffin, and who went all the way to Baton Rouge by night to warn Rodney of the plots that had been laid against him. Acting on his friendly hints Rodney did not go to St. Louis as he had intended, but left the boat at Cedar Bluff Landing in Missouri; and from there, after some exciting experiences with a squad of emergency men who happened to come in with a prisoner during the night, he set off across the country to find General Price and Dick Graham.

He had undertaken something from which the boldest man might have shrunk without any fear of being accused of timidity; but he came through with flying colors as we have said, did a soldier's duty side by side with his friend Dick for fifteen dreary months, was discharged with him at Tupelo after the evacuation of Corinth, and brought Dick home with him to his father's house at Mooreville, where they were both resting at the time this story begins. Even after they were discharged, and had begun telling each other that their troubles and trials as soldiers were all over, they met with an adventure that under almost any other circumstances might have proved a serious thing for them. Shortly after they left Camp Pinckney on their way home, they ran into a squad of Union troopers, who covered them with their carbines and told them to come in out of the rain. They were prisoners for the first time, but did not remain so any longer than it took their captors to read their discharges. The boys' hearts overflowed with gratitude when the good-natured corporal who commanded the squad jerked his thumb over his shoulder and told them to "git," and Rodney hinted that the time might come when they could repay his kindness. Strange as it may appear the time did come, and perhaps we shall see if Rodney remembered and kept his promise.

Rodney Gray was the only one of Captain Hubbard's Rangers who became a partisan. The Governor's attempt to have them sworn into the Confederate service against their will broke them up completely, and so disgusted some of their number that they declared they never wanted to see a man with a star on his collar again; but they could not remain at home while all their friends were making haste to go to the front for fear that the fun would all be over and the Yankees whipped before they could get there, and in the end every one of them became what he repeatedly declared he never would be—a Confederate soldier. Then it was that Tom Randolph and his father began to bestir themselves. There was a good deal of pressure brought to bear upon every young man and boy in the South about that time, and those who would not put on a gray jacket or do something else to show their zeal for the cause were coldly treated and sometimes snubbed; but Tom Randolph escaped all this, and even raised himself higher in the estimation of some of the Mooreville people by procuring, through his father's influence, a captain's commission in the State militia, with authority to recruit a company of mounted men who were to act as Home Guards. Tom knew the commission was coming and prepared for it by ordering a fine uniform and horse equipments of the latest and most expensive pattern, not forgetting an officer's sword which on its scabbard bore an inscription to the effect that the weapon was presented by his affectionate relatives, and on the blade the old Spanish legend:

Draw me not without a cause,

Nor sheath me with dishonor.

"That is a good motto, my son," said Mr. Randolph, when Tom drew the weapon and proudly showed it as though his father had never seen it before, "and I trust you will bear it constantly in mind."

"The cause of the South is a righteous cause, for it is the cause of freedom the world over," shouted Captain Randolph, pounding the table with his fist and ignoring the fact that his father held more than four hundred men, women, and children in bondage at that moment. "To cease fighting for that cause at the bidding of the tyrant Lincoln would be dishonor; and the stain upon our record as a nation would be so deep and black that it never could be wiped out. When once I have drawn this beautiful sword in defence of the rights of my country, it shall never be sheathed until every Yankee south of Mason and Dixon's line has been driven back where he belongs."