"But I shall do something better for you," replied Captain Gordon, as they began to call him from this time. "You are a good soldier, Mr. Bedford, and I shall make an officer of you at once. You will limber up your two guns, and haul them down to the boathouse. Have you any gunners?"
"Plenty of them, Captain; for I have trained enough of the hands to handle a full battery," answered Levi.
The planter had ordered both horses and wagons to be assembled in the rear of Fort Bedford, in readiness for any emergency. A pair of horses were promptly harnessed to each gun by the enthusiastic negroes whom the overseer had trained for battery service, and the artillery was soon on its way to the anticipated field of action. A supply of ammunition was sent down by a wagon.
The major and the squire mounted a couple of steeds, and rode to the front of the fort, a horse having been sent for the use of the new commander. The recruits were standing in line, leaning on their weapons; but they seemed to be engaged in a lively conversation. As the lieutenant approached, Jim Keene, one of the recruits, stepped forward with an awkward attempt to be polite, and addressed the officer:—
"Captain Gordon, we are not going into the army with niggers," said he in a very decided tone. "We ain't going to drop down to the level of niggers, and we want to take our names off that paper."
"Not a single negro has been enlisted, and will not be," replied Captain Gordon.
"But there is a squad of niggers marching down to the creek with muskets in their hands," added Keene, pointing to the detachment that followed the guns, with Levi at their head, mounted on his favorite colt.
"If we had a sufficient force of white men here, we should not call in the negroes as fighting men," interposed Major Lyon. "That Home Guard that has just crossed the bridge over the river consists of over a hundred men, and this time they are armed with guns. We can muster only twenty-four white men at present to beat them off. The other night we called upon the hands to help defend the place because no others were to be had; and to some extent the same is true to-day. My house has been set on fire, and that mob are coming to burn my buildings and capture my wife and daughters. If the white man won't fight for me, the negro will!"
"That alters the case," replied Keene. "We didn't understand it before, and we will fight for you, one and all;" and all the other recruits shouted their acquiescence with one voice.
"No negroes will be enlisted for the army, for there are no orders to that effect," added Captain Gordon.