CHAPTER 22.
MORGAN'S MEN
Boots and saddles at daybreak!
Over the border, in Dixie, two videttes in gray trot briskly from out aleafy woodland, side by side, and looking with keen eyes right andleft; one, erect, boyish, bronzed; the other, slouching, bearded,huge--the boy, Daniel Dean; the man, Rebel Jerry Dillon, one of thegiant twins.
Fifty yards behind them emerges a single picket; after him come threemore videttes, the same distance apart. Fifty yards behind the lastrides "the advance"--a guard of twenty-five picked men. No commissionamong "Morgan's Men" was more eagerly sought than a place on that guardof hourly risk and honor. Behind it trot still three more videttes, atintervals of one hundred yards, and just that interval behind the lastof these ride Morgan's Men, the flower of Kentucky's youth, in columnsof fours--Colonel Hunt's regiment in advance, the colors borne byRenfrew the Silent in a brilliant Zouave jacket studded with buttons ofred coral. In the rear rumble two Parrot guns, affectionatelychristened the "Bull Pups."
Skirting the next woodland ran a cross-road. Down one way gallops Dan,and down the other lumbers Rebel Jerry, each two hundred yards. A cryrings from vidette to vidette behind them and back to the guard. Twohorsemen spur from the "advance" and take the places of the last twovidettes, while the videttes in front take and keep the originalformation until the column passes that cross-road, when Dean and Dillongallop up to their old places in the extreme front again. Far in front,and on both flanks, are scouting parties, miles away.
This was the way Morgan marched.
Yankees ahead! Not many, to be sure--no more numerous than two or threeto one; so back fall the videttes and forward charges that advanceguard like a thunderbolt, not troubling the column behind. Wild yells,a clattering of hoofs, the crack of pistol-shots, a wild flight, amerry chase, a few riderless horses gathered in from the fleeingYankees, and the incident is over.
Ten miles more, and many hostile bayonets gleam ahead. A serious fight,this, perhaps--so back drops the advance, this time as a reserve; upgallops the column into single rank and dismounts, while the flankcompanies, deploying as skirmishers, cover the whole front, one man outof each set of fours and the corporals holding the horses in the rear.The "Bull Pups" bark and the Rebel yell rings as the line--the filestwo yards apart--"a long flexible line curving forward at eachextremity"--slips forward at a half run. This time the Yankees charge.
From every point of that curving line pours a merciless fire, and thecharging men in blue recoil--all but one. (War is full of grim humor.)On comes one lone Yankee, hatless, red-headed, pulling on his reinswith might and main, his horse beyond control, and not one of the enemyshoot as he sweeps helplessly into their line. A huge rebel grabs hisbridle-rein.
"I don't know whether to kill you now," he says, with pretendedferocity, "or wait till the fight is over."
"For God's sake, don't kill me at all!" shouts the Yankee. "I'm adissipated character, and not prepared to die."
Shots from the right flank and rear, and the line is thrown about likea rope. But the main body of the Yankees is to the left.
"Left face! Double-quick!" is the ringing order, and, by magic, theline concentrates in a solid phalanx and sweeps forward.
This was the way Morgan fought.
And thus, marching and fighting, he went his triumphant way into theland of the enemy, without sabres, without artillery, without even the"Bull Pups," sometimes--fighting infantry, cavalry, artillery with onlymuzzle-loading rifles, pistols, and shotguns; scattering Home Guardslike turkeys; destroying railroads and bridges; taking towns andburning Government stores, and encompassed, usually, with forces treblehis own.
This was what Morgan did on a raid, was what he had done, what he wasstarting out now to do again.
Darkness threatens, and the column halts to bivouac for the night onthe very spot where, nearly a year before, Morgan's Men first joinedJohnston's army, which, like a great, lean, hungry hawk, guarded theSouthern border.
Daniel Dean was a war-worn veteran now. He could ride twenty hours outof the twenty-four; he could sleep in his saddle or anywhere but onpicket duty, and there was no trick of the trade in camp, or on themarch, that was not at his finger's end.
Fire first! Nobody had a match, the leaves were wet and the twigssoggy, but by some magic a tiny spark glows under some shadowy figure,bites at the twigs, snaps at the branches, and wraps a log in flames.
Water next! A tin cup rattles in a bucket, and another shadowy figuresteals off into the darkness, with an instinct as unerring as the skillof a water-witch with a willow wand. The Yankees chose open fields forcamps, but your rebel took to the woods. Each man and his chum picked atree for a home, hung up canteens and spread blankets at the foot ofit. Supper--Heavens, what luck--fresh beef! One man broils it on coals,pinning pieces of fat to it to make gravy; another roasts it on aforked stick, for Morgan carried no cooking utensils on a raid.
Here, one man made up bread in an oilcloth (and every Morgan's man hadone soon after they were issued to the Federals); another worked upcorn-meal into dough in the scooped-out half of a pumpkin; one bakedbread on a flat rock, another on a board, while a third had twisted hisdough around his ram-rod; if it were spring-time, a fourth might befitting his into a cornshuck to roast in ashes. All this Dan Dean coulddo.
The roaring fire thickens the gloom of the woods where the lonelypickets stand. Pipes are out now. An oracle outlines the generalcampaign of the war as it will be and as it should have been. Along-winded, innocent braggart tells of his personal prowess that day.A little group is guying the new recruit. A wag shaves a beardedcomrade on one side of his face, pockets his razor and refuses to shavethe other side. A poet, with a bandaged eye, and hair like a windblownhay-stack, recites "I am dying, Egypt--dying," and then a pure, clear,tenor voice starts through the forest-aisles, and there is suddensilence. Every man knows that voice, and loves the boy who ownsit--little Tom Morgan, Dan's brother-in-arms, the General'sseventeen-year-old brother--and there he stands leaning against a tree,full in the light of the fire, a handsome, gallant figure--a song likea seraph's pouring from his lips. One bearded soldier is gazing at himwith curious intentness, and when the song ceases, lies down with asuddenly troubled face. He has seen the "death-look" in the boy'seyes--that prophetic death-look in which he has unshaken faith. Thenight deepens, figures roll up in blankets, quiet comes, and Dan lieswide awake and deep in memories, and looking back on those earlyhelpless days of the war with a tolerant smile.
He was a war-worn veteran now, but how vividly he could recall thatfirst night in the camp of a big army, in the very woods where he nowlay--dusk settling over the Green River country, which Morgan's Mengrew to love so well; a mocking-bird singing a farewell song from thetop of a stunted oak to the dead summer and the dying day; Morganseated on a cracker-box in front of his tent, contemplatively chewingone end of his mustache; Lieutenant Hunt swinging from his horse,smiling grimly.
"It would make a horse laugh--a Yankee cavalry horse, anyhow--to seethis army."
Hunt had been over the camp that first afternoon on a personal tour ofinvestigation. They were not a thousand Springfield and Enfield riflesat that time in Johnston's army. Half of the soldiers were armed withshotguns and squirrel rifle and the greater part of the other half withflintlock muskets. But nearly every man, thinking he was in for arough-and-tumble fight, had a bowie knife and a revolver swung to hisbelt.
"Those Arkansas and Texas fellows have got knives that would make aMalay's blood run cold."
"Well, they'll do to hew firewood and cut meat," laughed Morgan.
The troops were not only badly armed. On his tour, Hunt had seen menmaking blankets of pieces of old carpet, lined on one side with a pieceof cotton cloth; men wearing ox-hide buskins, or complicated wrappingof rags, for shoes; orderly sergeants making out reports on shingles;surgeon using a twisted handkerchief instead of a tourniquet. There wasa total lack of medicine, and camp diseases were already breakingout--measles, typhoi
d fever, pneumonia, bowel troubles--each fatal, itseemed, in time of war.
"General Johnston has asked Richmond for a stand of thirty thousandarms," Morgan had mused, and Hunt looked up inquiringly.
"Mr. Davis can only spare a thousand."
"That's lucky," said Hunt, grimly.
And then the military organization of that army, so characteristic ofthe Southerner! An officer who wanted to be more than a colonel, andcouldn't be a brigadier, would have a "legion"--a hybrid unit between aregiment and a brigade. Sometimes there was a regiment whose roll-callwas more than two thousand men, so popular was its colonel. Companieswould often refuse to designate themselves by letter, but by thethrilling titles they had given themselves. How Morgan and Hunt hadlaughed over "The Yellow Jackets," "The Dead Shots," "The Earthquakes,""The Chickasha Desperadoes," and "The Hell Roarers"! Regiments wouldbear the names of their commanders--a singular instance of theSoutherner's passion for individuality, as a man, a company, aregiment, or a brigade. And there was little or no discipline, as theword is understood among the military elect, and with no army that theworld has ever seen, Richard Hunt always claimed, was there so littleneed of it. For Southern soldiers, he argued, were, from the start,obedient, zealous, and tolerably patient, from good sense and a strongsense of duty. They were born fighters; a spirit of emulation inducedthem to learn the drill; pride and patriotism kept them true andpatient to the last, but they could not be made, by punishment or thefear of it, into machines. They read their chance of success, not inopposing numbers, but in the character and reputation of theircommanders, who, in turn, believed, as a rule, that "the unthinkingautomaton, formed by routine and punishment, could no more stand beforethe high-strung young soldier with brains and good blood, and somepractice and knowledge of warfare, than a tree could resist a stroke oflightning." So that with Southern soldiers discipline came to mean "thepride which made soldiers learn their duties rather than incurdisgrace; the subordination that came from self-respect and respect forthe man whom they thought worthy to command them."
Boots and saddles again at daybreak! By noon the column reached GreenRiver, over the Kentucky line, where Morgan, even on his way down tojoin Johnston, had begun the operations which were to make him famous.No picket duty that infantry could do as well, for Morgan's cavalry! Hewanted it kept out on the front or the flanks of an army, and as closeas possible upon the enemy. Right away, there had been thrilling timesfor Dan in the Green River country--setting out at dark, chasingcountrymen in Federal pay or sympathy, prowling all night around andamong pickets and outposts; entrapping the unwary; taking a position onthe line of retreat at daybreak, and turning leisurely back to campwith prisoners and information. How memories thronged! At this veryturn of the road, Dan remembered, they had their first brush with theenemy. No plan of battle had been adopted, other than to hide on bothsides of the road and send their horses to the rear.
"I think we ought to charge 'em," said Georgie Forbes, Chad's oldenemy. Dan saw that his lip trembled, and, a moment later, Georgie,muttering something, disappeared.
The Yankees had come on, and, discovering them, halted. Morgan himselfstepped out in the road and shot the officer riding at the head of thecolumn. His men fell back without returning the fire, deployed andopened up. Dan recognized the very tree behind which he had stood, andagain he could almost hear Richard Hunt chuckling from behind anotherclose by.
"We would be in bad shape," said Richard Hunt, as the bullets whistledhigh overhead, "if we were in the tops of these trees instead of behindthem." There had been no maneuvering, no command given among theConfederates. Each man fought his own fight. In ten minutes ahorse-holder ran up from the rear, breathless, and announced that theYankees were flanking. Every man withdrew, straightway, after his ownfashion, and in his own time. One man was wounded and several were shotthrough the clothes.
"That was like a camp-meeting or an election row," laughed Morgan, whenthey were in camp.
"Or an affair between Austrian and Italian outposts," said Hunt.
A chuckle rose behind them. A lame colonel was limping past.
"I got your courier," he said.
"I sent no courier," said Morgan.
"It was Forbes who wanted to charge 'em," said Dan.
Again the Colonel chuckled.
"The Yankees ran when you did," he said, and limped, chuckling, away.
But it was great fun, those moonlit nights, burning bridges and chasingHome Guards who would flee fifteen or twenty miles sometimes to"rally." Here was a little town through which Dan and Richard Hunt hadmarched with nine prisoners in a column--taken by them alone--and acaptured United States flag, flying in front, scaring Confederatesympathizers and straggling soldiers, as Hunt reported, horribly. Danchuckled at the memory, for the prisoners were quartered with differentmesses, and, that night, several bottles of sparkling Catawba happened,by some mystery, to be on hand. The prisoners were told that this wasregularly issued by their commissaries, and thereupon they plead, withtears, to be received into the Confederate ranks.
This kind of service was valuable training for Morgan's later work.Slight as it was, it soon brought him thirty old, condemnedartillery-horses--Dan smiled now at the memory of those ancientchargers--which were turned over to Morgan to be nursed until theywould bear a mount, and, by and by, it gained him a colonelcy and threecompanies, superbly mounted and equipped, which, as "Morgan'sSquadron," became known far and near. Then real service began.
In January, the right wing of Johnston's hungry hawk had been broken inthe Cumberland Mountains. Early in February, Johnston had withdrawn itfrom Kentucky before Buell's hosts, with its beak always to the foe. Bythe middle of the month, Grant had won the Western border States to theUnion, with the capture of Fort Donelson. In April, the sun of Shilohrose and set on the failure of the first Confederate aggressivecampaign at the West; and in that fight Dan saw his first real battle,and Captain Hunt was wounded. In May, Buell had pushed the Confederatelines south and east toward Chattanooga. To retain a hold on theMississippi valley, the Confederates must make another push forKentucky, and it was this great Southern need that soon put JohnMorgan's name on the lips of every rebel and Yankee in the middleSouth. In June, provost-marshals were appointed in every county inKentucky; the dogs of war began to be turned locals on the "seceshsympathizers" throughout the State, and Jerome Conners, overseer, beganto render sly service to the Union cause.
For it was in June that Morgan paid his first memorable little visit tothe Bluegrass, and Daniel Dean wrote his brother Harry the short taleof the raid.
"We left Dixie with nine hundred men," the letter ran, "and got back intwenty-four days with twelve hundred. Travelled over one thousandmiles, captured seventeen towns, destroyed all Government supplies andarms in them, scattered fifteen hundred Home Guards, and paroled twelvehundred regular troops. Lost of the original nine hundred, in killed,wounded, and missing, about ninety men. How's that? We kept twentythousand men busy guarding Government posts or chasing us, and we'regoing back often. Oh Harry, I AM glad that you are with Grant."
But Harry was not with Grant--not now. While Morgan was marching upfrom Dixie to help Kirby Smith in the last great effort that theConfederacy was about to make to win Kentucky--down from the yellowriver marched the Fourth Ohio Cavalry to go into camp at Lexington; andwith it marched Chadwick Buford and Harry Dean who, too, were veteransnow--who, too, were going home. Both lads wore a second lieutenant'sempty shoulder-straps, which both yet meant to fill with bars, butChad's promotion had not come as swiftly as Harry had predicted; theCaptain, whose displeasure he had incurred, prevented that. It hadcome, in time, however, and with one leap he had landed, after Shiloh,at Harry's side. In the beginning, young Dean had wanted to go to theArmy of the Potomac, as did Chad, but one quiet word from the taciturncolonel with the stubbly reddish-brown beard and the perpetual blackcigar kept both where they were.
"Though," said Grant to Chad, as his eye ran over beautiful Dixie fromtip of nose to tip of
tail, and came back to Chad, slightly twinkling,"I've a great notion to put you in the infantry just to get hold ofthat horse."
So it was no queer turn of fate that had soon sent both the lads tohelp hold Zollicoffer at Cumberland Gap, that stopped them at Camp DickRobinson to join forces with Wolford's cavalry, and brought Chad faceto face with an old friend. Wolford's cavalry was gathered from themountains and the hills, and when some scouts came in that afternoon,Chad, to his great joy, saw, mounted on a gaunt sorrel, none other thanhis old school-master, Caleb Hazel, who, after shaking hands with bothHarry and Chad, pointed silently at a great, strange figure followinghim on a splendid horse some fifty yards behind. The man wore a slouchhat, tow linen breeches, home-made suspenders, a belt with two pistols,and on his naked heels were two huge Texan spurs. Harry broke into alaugh, and Chad's puzzled face cleared when the man grinned; it wasYankee Jake Dillon, one of the giant twins. Chad looked at himcuriously; that blow on the head that his brother, Rebel Jerry, hadgiven him, had wrought a miracle. The lips no longer hung apart, butwere set firmly, and the eye was almost keen; the face was still ratherstupid, but not foolish--and it was still kind. Chad knew that,somewhere in the Confederate lines, Rebel Jerry was looking for Jake,as Yankee Jake, doubtless, was now looking for Jerry, and he began tothink that it might be well for Jerry if neither was ever found. DawsDillon, so he learned from Caleb Hazel and Jake, was already making hisname a watchword of terror along the border of Virginia and Tennessee,and was prowling, like a wolf, now and then, along the edge of theBluegrass. Old Joel Turner had died of his wound, Rube had gone off tothe war and Mother Turner and Melissa were left at home, alone.
"Daws fit fust on one side and then on t'other," said Jake, and then hesmiled in a way that Chad understood; "an' sence you was down thar lastDaws don't seem to hanker much atter meddlin' with the Turners, thoughthe two women did have to run over into Virginny, once in a while.Melissy," he added, "was a-goin' to marry Dave Hilton, so folks said;and he reckoned they'd already hitched most likely, sence Chad thar--"
A flash from Chad's eyes stopped him, and Chad, seeing Harry's puzzledface, turned away. He was glad that Melissa was going to marry--yes, hewas glad; and how he did pray that she might be happy!
Fighting Zollicoffer, only a few days later, Chad and Harry had theirbaptism of fire, and strange battle orders they heard, that made themsmile even in the thick of the fight.
"Huddle up thar!" "Scatterout, now!" "Form a line of fight!" "Wait tillyou see the shine of their eyes!"
"I see 'em!" shouted a private, and "bang" went his gun. That was theway the fight opened. Chad saw Harry's eyes blazing like stars from hispale face, which looked pained and half sick, and Chad understood--thelads were fighting their own people, and there was no help for it. Avoice bellowed from the rear, and a man in a red cap loomed in thesmoke-mist ahead:
"Now, now! Git up and git, boys!"
That was the order for the charge, and the blue line went forward. Chadnever forgot that first battle-field when he saw it a few hours laterstrewn with dead and wounded, the dead lying, as they dropped, in everyconceivable position, features stark, limbs rigid; one man with ahalf-smoked cigar on his breast; the faces of so many beardless; somefrowning, some as if asleep and dreaming; and the wounded--some talkingpitifully, some in delirium, some courteous, patient, anxious to savetrouble, others morose, sullen, stolid, independent; never forgot it,even the terrible night after Shiloh, when he searched heaps of woundedand slain for Caleb Hazel, who lay all through the night wounded almostto death.
Later, the Fourth Ohio followed Johnston, as he gave way before Buell,and many times did they skirmish and fight with ubiquitous Morgan'sMen. Several times Harry and Dan sent each other messages to say thateach was still unhurt, and both were in constant horror of some daycoming face to face. Once, indeed, Harry, chasing a rebel and firing athim, saw him lurch in his saddle, and Chad, coming up, found the lad onthe ground, crying over a canteen which the rebel had dropped. It wasmarked with the initials D. D., the strap was cut by the bullet Harryhad fired, and not for a week of agonizing torture did Harry learn thatthe canteen, though Dan's, had been carried that day by another man.
It was on these scouts and skirmishes that the four--Harry and Chad,and Caleb Hazel and Yankee Jake Dillon, whose dog-like devotion to Chadsoon became a regimental joke--became known, not only among their ownmen, but among their enemies, as the shrewdest and most daring scoutsin the Federal service. Every Morgan's man came to know the name ofChad Buford; but it was not until Shiloh that Chad got hisshoulder-straps, leading a charge under the very eye of General Grant.After Shiloh, the Fourth Ohio went back to its old quarters across theriver, and no sooner were Chad and Harry there than Kentucky was putunder the Department of the Ohio; and so it was also no queer turn offate that now they were on their way to new head-quarters in Lexington.
Straight along the turnpike that ran between the Dean and the Bufordfarms, the Fourth Ohio went in a cloud of thick dust that rose andsettled like a gray choking mist on the seared fields. Side by siderode Harry and Chad, and neither spoke when, on the left, the whitecolumns of the Dean house came into view, and, on the right, the redbrick of Chad's old home showed through the dusty leaves; not even whenboth saw on the Dean porch the figures of two women who, standingmotionless, were looking at them. Harry's shoulders drooped, and hestared stonily ahead, while Chad turned his head quickly. The frontdoor and shutters of the Buford house were closed, and there were fewsigns of life about the place. Only at the gate was the slouchingfigure of Jerome Conners, the overseer, who, waving his hat at thecolumn, recognized Chad, as he rode by, and spoke to him, Chad thought,with a covert sneer. Farther ahead, and on the farthest boundary of theBuford farm, was a Federal fort, now deserted, and the beautifulwoodland that had once stood in perfect beauty around it was sadlyravaged and nearly gone, as was the Dean woodland across the road. Itwas plain that some people were paying the Yankee piper for thedeath-dance in which a mighty nation was shaking its feet.
On they went, past the old college, down Broadway, wheeling at SecondStreet--Harry going on with the regiment to camp on the other edge ofthe town; Chad reporting with his colonel at General Ward'shead-quarters, a columned brick house on one corner of the collegecampus, and straight across from the Hunt home, where he had firstdanced with Margaret Dean.
That night the two lay on the edge of the Ashland woods, looking up atthe stars, the ripened bluegrass--a yellow, moonlit sea--around themand the woods dark and still behind them. Both smoked and were silent,but each knew that to the other his thoughts were known; for both hadbeen on the same errand that day, and the miserable tale of the lastten months both had learned.
Trouble had soon begun for the ones who were dear to them, when bothleft for the war. At once General Anderson had promised immunity fromarrest to every peaceable citizen in the State, but at once theshiftless, the prowling, the lawless, gathered to the Home Guards forself-protection, to mask deviltry and to wreak vengeance for privatewrongs. At once mischief began. Along the Ohio, men with Southernsympathies were clapped into prison. Citizens who had joined theConfederates were pronounced guilty of treason, and Breckinridge wasexpelled from the Senate as a traitor. Morgan's great raid in June,'61, spread consternation through the land and, straightway, everydistrict and county were at the mercy of a petty local provost. No manof Southern sympathies could stand for office. Courts in session werebroken up with the bayonet. Civil authority was overthrown. Destructionof property, indemnity assessments on innocent men, arrests,imprisonment, and murder became of daily occurrence. Ministers werejailed and lately prisons had even been prepared for disloyal women.Major Buford, forced to stay at home on account of his rheumatism andthe serious illness of Miss Lucy, had been sent to prison once and wasnow under arrest again. General Dean, old as he was, had escaped andhad gone to Virginia to fight with Lee; and Margaret and Mrs. Dean,with a few servants, were out on the farm alone.
But neither spoke of the worst that both fea
red was yet to come--and"Taps" sounded soft and dear on the night air.