"If we fail to run the captured train through Chattanooga, will we then disperse or stick together?"
"After we meet at Marietta, we will keep together, and, if necessary, cut our way back to our own lines. Form your squads now, and I will give out the money."
Swiftly we selected our companions. There was little time for choice. Most of the men were strangers. The darkness was intense, and the thunder-peals almost overhead. In a moment we formed six or seven little groups. My former comrade, Ross, stood with another man or two beside Andrews. Two men from Captain Mitchel's company and one from the next company to that in the regimental line stood by my side. Andrews went from group to group, giving out the money freely, and answering questions that were still asked. When this was accomplished, he addressed himself once more to the whole number, and we crowded around to listen to his parting words. They gave us the fullest insight into the whole plan we had yet received.
"To-morrow morning," said he, "Mitchel, with his whole army, will start on a forced march right south to Huntsville. He will capture that town not later than Friday (it was now Monday night), and will then turn east towards Chattanooga. We must burn the bridges south of Chattanooga the same day, for after that, the road will be crowded with trains bringing reinforcements against him and running property away, and our task will be very much harder. So we have no time to lose. We must be at Marietta on Thursday evening. The last train for that station leaves Chattanooga at five o'clock in the afternoon. Be sure to catch it. Good-by."
He gave each of us his hand with a hearty pressure and fervent good wishes. Not many moments after, the storm broke over us with all its fury. The rain fell in torrents. The last glimpse I caught of Andrews as my party of four hurried on their prescribed course was by means of a broad glare of lightning that made the drenched landscape for a moment as bright as day. He had just parted from the last group and was gazing after us.
CHAPTER III.
COMPANIONS AND INCIDENTS.
Who was this Mr. Andrews, from whom we had just parted in storm and darkness,—the man from whose brain sprang the Chattanooga Railroad Expedition, and to whose keeping we had so fearlessly committed our lives? Few of us knew much about him at that time, but became wiser afterwards. As he is the hero of the earlier part of this story, it may be well to give the reader the benefit of all the information as to his character and history subsequently obtained.
Mr. J. J. Andrews was born in that part of Western Virginia known as the "Pan Handle," on the eastern bank of the Ohio River, and only separated from my own county of Jefferson by that stream. While quite young he had removed to the mountains of Eastern Kentucky, settling in Fleming County. Here he acquired considerable wealth, but at the outbreak of the civil war lost most of it again. While in business here he travelled over much of the South, and became acquainted with many men whom the war afterwards threw into prominence. At the first outbreak of hostilities he joined the Union army, not as a soldier, but in the still more useful and dangerous character of a spy and secret negotiator. He accompanied General Nelson in his Eastern Kentucky campaign, on which occasion I had seen him at Prestonburg, and afterwards he journeyed back and forth two or three times from Nashville before the capture of that city. He also spent several days in Fort Donelson during the week preceding its capture by General Grant. At this place he narrowly escaped detection. Subsequently he visited Atlanta and brought back much valuable information. By representing himself as a blockade-runner, and carrying southward through our lines articles of small bulk but of great value to the enemy, he secured their confidence and brought back information a hundredfold more valuable. This business was pecuniarily profitable to himself as well as very serviceable to the Union army. A Mr. Whiteman, of Nashville, afterwards testified that he had paid him ten thousand dollars for one cargo, the most of which was clear profit. Some of the Southern officers with whom he was intimate had bestowed upon him passes authorizing him to come and go through their lines at pleasure. It is not my intention to offer any apology for a man who thus betrays the confidence even of rebels. What justice requires to be said on this subject will find a more appropriate place in explaining the position of those who accompanied him in his last and most perilous journey. His occupation was one of the utmost danger, and he could not expect much mercy if detected. He had even gone the length of taking the oath of allegiance to the Southern Confederacy, though he was passionately loyal to the old government. Indeed, his hatred for secession and everything connected with it had become the more intense from the very disguise he so frequently assumed; and the desire to work all possible injury to that cause had far more influence in inducing him to pursue his perilous vocation than any hope of reward. I have since been told by Southern authorities that he acknowledged being promised fifty thousand dollars reward in case he succeeded in destroying the bridges from Atlanta to Chattanooga, but I never heard of such a contract. Certainly no reward whatever was promised directly or indirectly to the soldiers who accompanied him, and I never heard Andrews himself speak of expecting any pecuniary recompense.