The Boy Spy / A substantially true record of secret service during the war of the rebellion, a correct account of events witnessed by a soldier

by Joseph Orton Kerbey

As I have said, I fully determined in my own mind not to go back to the Rebel headquarters as a suspected spy. The forged endorsement, or request for a pass, which I had voluntarily relinquished to the Rebel officer, while it seemed to allay any suspicions that might have been aroused in his mind, had the opposite effect with me.

It was the one little piece of paper out of my hands that was sure to be closely scrutinized by the officers. It would supply documentary evidence not only of my guilt as a spy, but of forging a Rebel General's endorsement.

I had not yet seen any chance to make away with the other dreadful death warrant, in the form of the stolen telegram that was concealed under the lining of my hat.

While passing into the house from the road I might have thrown my hat down, but I knew they would hunt it up for me, and, in handling it, be sure to discover the concealed papers. I could not get them out of the hat, even in the dark, without attracting attention that might result in an exposure; and, besides all this, I knew full well that any pieces of white paper, if torn into ever so small fragments and scattered on the ground, would be sure to attract notice and be gathered up at daylight. I was suspected, and, as such, every action and movement was being closely scrutinized and noted. My only hope was to delay the exposure that must eventually come; that I must keep still and trust to luck for escape; or, if an opportunity offered me, while pretending to sleep, I could eat and swallow the papers.

The horses of the troopers were already bridled and saddled and hitched to the fence-post. It occurred to me, in my despair upon seeing this, that, if I could only succeed in throwing these people off their guard for a moment, I might find an opportunity to seize one of their own horses, upon which I could ride defiantly and wildly down the road into the darkness, trusting to night and the horse to carry me beyond reach of their pursuit.

These were only a few of the many thoughts that rushed through my brain that night, as I lay there on the porch, so near home and friends on one side, and so close to death and the gallows on the other. It is said that a drowning person will think of the events of a life-time in one short moment. I had hours of agony that night that can never, never be described.

As I lay there looking up into the sky, perhaps for the last time, I thought I'd soon have an opportunity of finding out whether there were other worlds than ours. I was, indeed, going to that bourne from which no traveler ever returns.

The clouds, which had darkened the sky a little in the early part of the evening, were now slowly rolling by. I lay as still as death for an hour perhaps, watching the movements of the clouds; and thinking of my friends at home.

I wondered what each and every one was doing at that particular time, and imagined that most of my youthful associates were having a happy evening somewhere, while I, poor fool, was lying out on a Virginia porch in this dreadful fix, without a friend to counsel or advise with, while I might just as well have been at home and happy with the rest of them. If they thought of me at all, it probably was as a prisoner still about Harper's Ferry; but I would never, perhaps, have the satisfaction of knowing that my work in the Rebel camps had been understood. While cogitating in this frame of mind the moon began to show through the breaking clouds, and, as suddenly as if a face had appeared to my vision, the Southern moon looked straight down on my face, flooding the porch for a moment with a stream of mellow light.

I was lying partly on my side at the time, my head resting on my arm for a pillow, as was my habit; my hat, which yet contained the tell-tale papers, was under my face. I was almost startled from my reverie, as if by an apparition, and, looking around hastily, I saw standing, like an equestrian statue, on the road the mounted sentry, while along side of me, but to my back, was seated another fellow apparently wide-awake, who looked wonderingly at me as I raised my head so suddenly. I was closely guarded, and my heart sank within me as I again dropped my head to my favorite position on my pillowing arm.