An Autobiography of Buffalo Bill Part 7

The question now uppermost in my mind was how I was going to get away.

Toward evening I returned to the pasture, saddled my mare and rode to the picket line where I had entered. Here, to my dismay, I discovered that the outposts had been recently changed.

But I used the same story that had gained admission for me. In a sack tied to my saddle were the food supplies I had bought from the negroes during the day. These, I explained to the outposts, were intended as presents for my mother and sisters back on the farm. They examined the sack, and, finding nothing contraband in it, allowed me to pa.s.s.

I now made all possible speed northward, keeping out of sight of houses and of strangers. On the second day I pa.s.sed several detachments of Forrest's troops, but my training as a scout enabled me to keep them from seeing me.

Though my mare had proven herself an animal of splendid endurance, I had to stop and rest her occasionally. At such times I kept closely hidden. It was on the second morning after leaving Forrest's command that I sighted the advance guard of Smith's army. They halted me when I rode up, and for a time I had more trouble with them than I had had with any of Forrest's men. I was not alarmed, however, and when the captain told me that he would have to send me to the rear, I surprised him by asking to see General Smith.

"Are you anxious to see a big, fighting general?" he asked in amazement.

"Yes," I said. "I hear that General Smith can whip Forrest, and I would like to see any man who can do that."

Without any promises I was sent to the rear, and presently I noticed General Smith, who, however, failed to recognize me.

I managed, however, to draw near to him and ask him if I might speak to him for a moment.

Believing me to be a Confederate prisoner, he a.s.sented, and when I had saluted I said:

"General, I am Billy Cody, the man you sent out to the Confederate lines."

"Report back to your charge," said the general to the officer who had me in custody. "I will take care of this man."

My commander was much pleased with my report, which proved to be extremely accurate and valuable. The disguise he had failed to penetrate did not deceive my comrades of the Ninth Kansas, and when I pa.s.sed them they all called me by name and asked me where I had been.

But my news was for my superior officers, and I did not need the warning Colonel Herrick gave me to keep my mouth shut while among the soldiers.

General Smith, to whom I later made a full detailed report, had spoken highly of my work to Colonel Herrick, who was gratified to know that his choice of a scout had been justified by results.

It was not long before the whole command knew of my return, but beyond the fact that I had been on a scouting expedition, and had brought back information much desired by the commander, they knew nothing of my journey. The next morning, still riding the same mare and still wearing my Tennessee clothes, I rode out with the entire command in the direction of Forrest's army.

Before I had traveled five miles I had been pointed out to the entire command, and cheers greeted me on every side. As soon as an opportunity offered I got word with the general and asked if he had any further special orders for me.

"Just keep around," he said; "I may need you later on."

"But I am a scout," I told him, "and the place for a scout is ahead of the army, getting information."

"Go ahead," he replied, "and if you see anything that I ought to know about come back and tell me."

Delighted to be a scout once more, I made my way forward. The general had given orders that I was to be allowed to pa.s.s in and out the lines at will, so that I was no longer hampered by the activities of my own friends. I had hardly got beyond the sound of the troops when I saw a beautiful plantation house, on the porch of which was a handsome old lady and her two attractive daughters.

They were greatly alarmed when I came up, and asked if I didn't know that the Yankee army would be along in a few minutes and that my life was in peril. All their own men folks, they said, were in hiding in the timber.

"Don't you sit here," begged the old lady, when I had seated myself on the porch to sip a gla.s.s of milk for which I had asked her. "The Yankee troops will go right through this house. They will break up the piano and every stick of furniture, and leave the place in ruins. You are sure to be killed or taken prisoner."

By this time the advance guard was coming up the road. General Smith pa.s.sed as I was standing on the porch. I saw that he had noticed me, though he gave no sign of having done so. As more troops pa.s.sed, men began leaving their companies and rushing toward the house. I walked out and ordered them away in the name of the general. They all knew who I was, and obeyed, much to the astonishment of the old lady and her daughter.

Turning to my hostess, I said:

"Madam, I can't keep them out of your chicken-house or your smoke-house or your storerooms, but I can keep them out of your home, and I will."

I remained on the porch till the entire command had pa.s.sed. Nothing was molested. Much pleased, but still puzzled, the old lady was now convinced that I was no Tennessee lad, but a sure-enough Yankee, and one with a remarkable amount of influence. When I asked for a little something to eat in return for what I had done, the best there was in the house was spread before me.

My hostess urged me to eat as speedily as possible, and be on my way.

Her men folks, she said, would soon return from the timber, and if they learned that I was a Yank would shoot me on the spot. As she was speaking the back door was pushed open and three men rushed in. The old lady leaped between them and me.

"Don't shoot him!" she cried. "He has protected our property and our lives." But the men had no murderous intentions.

"Give him all he wants to eat," said the eldest, "and we will see that he gets back to the Yankee lines in safety. We saw him from the treetops turn away the Yanks as he stood on the porch."

While I finished my meal they put all manner of questions to me, being specially impressed that a boy so young could have kept a great army from foraging so richly stocked a plantation. I told them that I was a Union scout, and that I had saved their property on my own responsibility.

"I knew you would be back here," I said. "But I was sure you wouldn't shoot me when you learned what I had done."

"You bet your life we won't!" they said heartily.

After dinner I was stocked Tip with all the provisions I wanted, and given a fine bottle of peach brandy, the product of the plantation.

Then the men of the place escorted me to the rear-guard of the command, which I lost no time in joining. When I overtook the general and presented him with the peach brandy, he said gruffly:

"I hear you kept all the men from foraging on that plantation back yonder."

"Yes, sir," I said. "An old lady and her two daughters were alone there. My mother had suffered from raids of hostile soldiers in Kansas.

I tried to protect that old lady, as I would have liked another man to protect my mother in her distress. I am sorry if I have disobeyed your orders and I am ready for any punishment you wish to inflict on me."

"My boy," said the general, "you may be too good-hearted for a soldier, but you have done just what I would have done. My orders were to destroy all Southern property. But we will forget your violation, of them."

General Smith kept straight on toward Forrest's stronghold. Ten miles from the spot where the enemy was encamped, he wheeled to the left and headed for Tupedo, Mississippi, reaching there at dark. Forrest speedily discovered that Smith did not intend to attack him on his own ground. So he broke camp, and, coming up to the rear, continued a hot fire through the next afternoon.

Arriving near Tupedo, General Smith selected, as a battleground, the crest of a ridge commanding the position Forrest had taken up. Between the two armies lay a plantation of four or five thousand acres. The next morning Forrest dismounted some four thousand cavalry, and with cavalry and artillery on his left and right advanced upon our position.

Straight across the plantation they came, while Smith rode back and forth behind the long breastworks that protected his men, cautioning them to reserve their fire till it could be made to tell. All our men were fighting with single shotguns. The first shot, in a close action, had to count, or a second one might never be fired.

I had been detailed to follow Smith as he rode to and fro. With an eye to coming out of the battle with a whole skin I had picked out a number of trees, behind which I proposed to drop my horse when the fighting got to close quarters. This was the fashion I had always employed in Indian fighting. As the Confederates got within good range, the order "Fire!" rang out.

At that instant I wheeled my horse behind a big oak tree. Unhappily for me the general was looking directly at me as this maneuver was executed. When we had driven back and defeated Forrest's men I was ordered to report at General Smith's tent.

"Young man," said the General, when I stood before him, "you were recommended to me as an Indian fighter. What were you doing behind that tree!"

"That is the way we have to fight Indians, sir," I said. "We get behind anything that offers protection." It was twelve years later that I convinced General Smith that my theory of Indian fighting was pretty correct.

After the consolidation of the regular army, following the war, Smith was sent to the Plains as Colonel of the Seventh Cavalry. This was afterward known as Custer's regiment, and we engaged in the battle of the Little Big Horn, in which that gallant commander was slain. Smith's cavalry command was moving southward on an expedition against the Kiowas and Comanches in the Canadian River country, when I joined it as a scout.

d.i.c.k Curtis, acting as guide for Smith, had been sent on ahead across the river, while the main command stopped to water their horses.

Curtis's orders were to proceed straight ahead for five miles, where the troops would camp. He was followed immediately by the advance guard, Smith and his staff following on. We had proceeded about three miles when three or four hundred Indians attacked us, jumping out of gullies and ravines, where they had been securely hidden. General Smith at once ordered the orderlies to sound the recall and retreat, intending to fall back quickly on the main command.

He was standing close beside a deep ravine as he gave the order.

Knowing that the plan he proposed meant the complete annihilation of our force, I pushed my horse close to him.

"General," I said, "order your men into the ravine, dismount, and let number fours hold horses. Then you will be able to stand off the Indians. If you try to retreat to the main command you and every man under you will be killed before you have retreated a mile."

He immediately saw the sense of my advice. Issuing orders to enter the ravine, he dismounted with his men behind the bank. There we stood off the Indians till the soldiers in the rear, hearing the shots, came charging to the rescue and drove the Indians away. The rapidity with which we got into the ravine, and the protection its banks afforded us, enabled us to get away without losing a man. Had the general's original plan been carried out none of us would have come away to tell the story. I was summoned to the general's tent that evening.