“Good! you are our prisoner. Have you any arms about you?”
The officer hastily and skillfully examined the prisoner’s clothing.
“I am unarmed and defenseless,” replied Bannister. “I will go with you willingly. I am not disappointed nor surprised. I only ask to be heard by any officer in authority before whom you take me.”
The mode of capture had been simple enough. The provost-guard had only to follow the conscript’s trail, to board the train at Carbon Creek, and be ready to apprehend him when he should appear. They did not handcuff him. He was entirely in their power, and it was apparent that he would make no resistance.
And so the notorious copperhead, the man who had denounced Abraham Lincoln, who had ridiculed the draft, who had defied the Federal army, was at last a prisoner of the United States. Within five minutes the fact of his identity was known to every person on the train. Men hissed and jeered at him as he was taken into an adjoining car, and women looked on him with detestation. At a station where a change of cars was made, a sympathizer, with more zeal than discretion, attempted, in a loud voice, to argue justification for the prisoner. But his oratory was soon drowned in a storm of protest, and he himself was buffeted by the crowd till he was glad to escape.
So, all the way to Easton, the despised conscript was mocked and frowned upon. Accustomed as he had been to condemnation by his fellow men, the experience of this day was the most bitter and degrading that his life had thus far known. With little to eat, and no comfortable resting-place, he passed a sleepless night. In the morning he was brought before the provost-marshal.
“Captain Yohe,” said the officer in charge, “this is Rhett Bannister, the Mount Hermon deserter.”
The provost-marshal laid down his pen and looked the prisoner in the face.
“Your son,” he said, “was before me a few days ago seeking to be substituted in your place. Were you aware of that fact?”