“Go down the boat-falls, boys; lively’s the word! Jump into the cutter, Mr. Arnold, and pull into the beach for the men!”
Half an hour later Lieutenant Cushing comes over the gangway and salutes the Commodore. “I report my return on board with one man, sir,” he says; “the Albemarle is destroyed.”
IX
PRESIDENT LINCOLN AND THE SLEEPING SENTINEL
I
THE story of President Lincoln and the sleeping sentinel offers certain substantial facts which are common to all its versions. A soldier named Scott, condemned to be shot for the crime of sleeping on his post, was pardoned by President Lincoln, only to be killed afterwards at the battle of Lee’s Mills, on the Peninsula. The incidental facts are varied according to the taste, the fancy, or the imagination of the writer of each version. The number of persons who claim to have procured the intervention of the President to save the life of the soldier nearly equals that of the different versions. As these persons worked independently of each other, and one did not know what another had done, it is not improbable that several of them are entitled to some measure of credit, of which I should be most unwilling to deprive them.
The story of this young soldier, as it was presented to me, so touchingly reveals some of the kindlier qualities of the President’s character that it seldom fails to charm those to whom it is related. I shall give its facts as I understand them, and I think I can guarantee their general accuracy.
On a dark September morning in 1861, when I reached my office, I found waiting there a party of soldiers, none of whom I knew personally. They were greatly excited, all speaking at the same time, and they were consequently unintelligible. One of them wore the bars of a Captain. I said to them, pleasantly, “Boys, I cannot understand you. Pray, let your Captain say what you want and what I can do for you.” They complied, and the Captain put me in possession of the following facts:
They belonged to the Third Vermont Regiment, raised, with the exception of one company, on the eastern slope of the Green Mountains, and mustered into service while the battle of Bull Run was in progress. They were immediately sent to Washington, and since their arrival, during the last days of July, had been stationed at the Chain Bridge, some three miles above Georgetown. Company K, to which most of them belonged, was largely made up of farmer-boys, many of them still in their minority.
The story which I extracted from the “boys” was, in substance, this: William Scott, one of these mountain boys, just of age, had enlisted in Company K. Accustomed to his regular sound and healthy sleep, not yet inured to the life of the camp, he had volunteered to take the place of a sick comrade who had been detailed for picket duty, and had passed the night as a sentinel on guard. The next day he was himself detailed for the same duty, and undertook its performance. But he found it impossible to keep awake for two nights in succession, and had been found by the relief sound asleep on his post. For this offence he had been tried by a court-martial, found guilty, and sentenced to be shot within twenty-four hours after his trial, and on the second morning after his offence was committed.