Brave Deeds of Union Soldiers Part 10

"General," he said, "those men were Confederates."

"I strongly suspected it," said the General, "but, Major, I never expected to see you again, for when that charge came I figured out that if the Rebs didn't shoot you, we would. You did a very brave thing reconnoitering the enemies' front like that."

"Well," said the major, "I am glad, General, that it impressed you that way. It was such a rapid reconnoiter that I was afraid that you might think it was a retreat."

When Henry C. Foster, who afterward became famous as one of the heroes of Vicksburg, joined the Union Army, he was the rawest recruit in his regiment. His messmates still tell the story of how, before the regiment marched, he was visited by his mother who brought him an umbrella and a bottle of pennyroyal for use in wet weather and was horrified to find that soldiers are not allowed to carry umbrellas.

Henry was impatient of the constant and never-ending drilling to which he was subjected. One day after a trying hour of setting-up exercises, he suddenly grounded his gun and said engagingly to the captain:

"Say, Captain, let's stop this foolishness and go over to the grocery store and have a little game of cards."

The captain stared at Foster for nearly a minute before he could get his breath, then he turned to a grinning sergeant and said:

"Sergeant, you take charge of this young cabbage-head after the regular drilling is over and drill him like blazes for about three extra hours," which the sergeant accordingly did.

In spite of his greenness and his peculiarities, however, Henry had good stuff in him and the making of a brave soldier. He was known as a dead-shot and a good soldier, although still retaining some of his peculiarities. Among others he insisted upon wearing a c.o.o.nskin cap and was known throughout his company as "Old c.o.o.nskin." He soon showed such qualities of courage and self-reliance that in spite of his early record he was gradually promoted until by the time his regiment reached Vicksburg, which the Union Army was then besieging, he was a second lieutenant. The siege of Vicksburg was a long and tedious affair. The investing forces did not have sufficient artillery to make such a breach in the defenses of the Confederates that a successful attack could be made. The besiegers out in the wet and mud wearied of the slow process under which the encircling lines were brought closer and closer and longed for more active operations. Lieutenant Foster especially, just as formerly he had protested against the interminable drilling, now chafed against the enforced inaction of the troops. Finally he made up his mind that he at least would get some interest out of the siege.

As one of the best shots in his regiment, he had no difficulty in being detailed for sharp-shooting duty. One dark night, loaded with ammunition and with a haversack of provisions and several canteens of water, he crawled out into the s.p.a.ce between the Union lines and the defender's ramparts. The next morning, to his comrades' intense surprise, they found that Old c.o.o.nskin had dug for himself a deep burrow like a woodchuck close to the enemy's defenses and had thrown up a little mound with a peep-hole. There he lay for three days picking off the Confederates and scoring each successful shot with a notch on the b.u.t.t of the long rifle which he had obtained especial permission to use. At first the Confederates could not locate the direction from which the fatal shots kept coming. When they did discover Foster in his burrow, volley after volley was directed at his refuge, but he kept too close to be hit and at regular intervals men who showed themselves on the ramparts were kept dropping before his unerring fire. At the end of the third day, the Confederates had learned their lesson and there were no more shots to be had and once more Old c.o.o.nskin began to be bored.

It finally occurred to him that if he could in any way gain possession of a height which would allow him to shoot over the ramparts, he could make the Confederate position very uncomfortable. There was no tree or hill, however, near by which would lend itself to any such idea.

Accordingly the third night Foster crawled back again to his regiment and spent a day in resting and reconnoitering and receiving the congratulations of the whole regiment for his marksmanship and daring.

The next night was dark and stormy. At daylight the sentries inside the city were amazed to see a rude structure standing close beside the fatal burrow. It was in the form of a log-cabin hastily built out of railroad ties and reinforced with heavy railroad iron and containing peep-holes so that its occupant could shoot with entire safety. At first it did not seem to be any more dangerous than the burrow had been so long as the besieged kept off the breastwork. By the second day, however, it had grown visibly higher and the third night found it built up by slow degrees so that it began to look really like a low tower.

Finally it reached such a height that from an upper inside shelf, protected by heavy logs and planks, Old c.o.o.nskin could lie at his ease and overlook all of the operations inside the city. Then began a reign of terror for the besieged. They had no artillery and it was necessary to concentrate an incessant fire on the tower, otherwise the sharp-shooter within could pick off his men without difficulty. It was absolutely impossible for the besieged to keep under cover and still properly man the defenses against an attack. One by one the officers went down before Old c.o.o.nskin's deadly fire and it seemed to be only a question of time and ammunition before the whole garrison succ.u.mbed to his marksmanship. In the meantime, the besieging lines drew closer and closer and the never-ceasing artillery fire and incessant attacks gradually wore down the courage and the resources of the besieged. One day within an hour eleven men went down before the deadly aim of Old c.o.o.nskin, most of them officers. Suddenly the firing ceased from the ramparts and slowly and reluctantly a white flag was hoisted, followed shortly by an envoy to the Union lines with a flag of truce. A tremendous cheer went up through the weary Union lines. Vicksburg had fallen, and to this day you never will be able to convince Old c.o.o.nskin's company that he was not the man who, along with Grant, brought about its surrender.

CHAPTER XIII

THE THREE HUNDRED WHO SAVED AN ARMY

Twenty-three hundred and fifty years ago, three hundred men beat back an army of three millions of the Great King, as the King of Persia was rightly called. The kingdom of Xerxes, who then ruled over Persia, stretched from India to the aegean Sea and from the Caspian to the Red Sea. He reigned over Chaldean, Jew, Phoenician, Egyptian, Arab, Ethiopian and half a hundred other nations. From these he a.s.sembled an army, the greatest that has ever gone to war. This ma.s.s of men from all over the Eastern world he hurled at the tiny free states in Greece. It was as if the Czar of all the Russias with his vast armies from Europe and Asia should suddenly attack the state of Connecticut.

Greece's best defense was the ring of rugged mountains which surrounded its seacoast. The Persian army had gathered at Sardis. From there to gain entrance into Greece they must follow a narrow path close to the seash.o.r.e with a precipice on one side and impa.s.sable mora.s.ses and quicksands on the other. Beyond this the way widened out into a little plain and narrowed again at the other end. It was an ideal place to be held by a small army of brave men. A Council of all the states of Greece was held at the Isthmus of Corinth. There all the states except one resolved to fight to the death for their freedom. Thessaly alone, which lay first in the path of the Great King, sent earth and water to his envoys who had come to all the states in Greece to demand submission. The Council sent to guard this pa.s.s, which was named Thermopylae, a little army of four thousand men. It was commanded by Leonidas, one of the two kings of Sparta, who led a little band of three hundred Spartans who had sworn never to retreat. Before they left Sparta, each man celebrated his own funeral rites. This little army built a wall across the pa.s.s and camped there waiting for the enemy.

Before long they were seen coming, covering the whole country with army after army until the plain below the pa.s.s was filled as far as the eye could see with hordes of marching, shouting warriors. High on the mountainside a throne had been built for Xerxes where he could see and watch his armies sweep through the little force which stood in their way. His great n.o.bles waited for the chance to display before him their leadership and the splendid equipment and discipline of the armies which they led. The first attack was made by an army of the Persians and Medes themselves, supported by archers and slingers and flanked with cohorts of magnificently appareled hors.e.m.e.n mounted on Arab steeds. With a wild crash of barbaric music they rushed to the charge expecting by mere weight of numbers to break through the thin line of men who manned the little wall across the path, but the slave regiments of the Persians were made up of men who were trained under the lash.

They were officered by great n.o.bles who had led self-indulgent lives of luxury and pleasure. Against them was a band of free men, every one an athlete and able to use weapons which the lighter and weaker Persians could not withstand. The onslaught broke on the spears and long swords of the Spartan warriors and in a minute there was a huddle of beaten, screaming men and plunging horses and demoralized officers. Into the broken and defeated ranks plunged the Greeks and drove them far down the plain, returning in safety to their ramparts with the loss of hardly a man. Again and again this happened and regiment after regiment from the inexhaustible forces of the Persians were hurled against the wall only to be dashed backward and driven defeated down the plain by the impenetrable line of heavy-armed Greeks. Three times did Xerxes the Great King leap from his throne in rage and despair as he saw his best troops slaughtered and defeated by this tiny band of fighters. For two days this went on until the plain in front of the wall was covered with dead and dying Persians and mercenaries while the Greeks had hardly any losses.

Baffled and dispirited Xerxes was actually on the point of leading back his great army when a traitor, for a great sum of gold, betrayed a secret path up the mountainside. It was none other than the bottom of a mountain torrent through the shallow water of which men could wade and find a way which would lead them safely around to the rear of the Grecian army. On the early morning of the third day word was brought to Leonidas that the enemy had gained the heights above and that by noon they would leave the plain and entirely encircle the little Grecian army. A hasty council of war was called. All of the allied forces except the Spartans agreed that the position could not be held further and advised an honorable retreat. The Spartan band alone refused to go, although Leonidas tried to save two of his kinsmen by giving them letters and messages to Sparta. One of them answered that he had come to fight and not to carry letters and the other that his deeds would tell all that Sparta needed to know. Another one named Dienices, when told that the enemy's archers were so numerous that their arrows darkened the sun, replied, "So much the better, for we shall fight in the shade."

The little band took a farewell of their comrades and watched them march away and then without waiting to be attacked, this tiny body of three hundred men marched out from behind their ramparts and attacked a force nearly ten thousand times their own number. Right through the slave-ranks they broke and fought their way to a little hillock where back to back they defended themselves against the whole vast army of the Persians. Again and again waves of men dashed up from all sides against this little hill, but only to fall back leaving their dead behind. At last the spears of the Spartans broke and they fought until their swords were dulled and dashed out of their hands. Then they fought on with their daggers, with their hands and their teeth until not one living man was left, but only a mound of slain, bristled over with arrows and surrounded by ring after ring of dead Persians, Medes, Arabs, Ethiopians and the other mercenaries which had been dashed against them. So died Leonidas and his band of heroes. Nearly ten thousand of the Persian army lay dead around them during the three days of hand-to-hand fighting. By their death they had gained time for the armies of the Grecian states to organize and, best of all, they had taught Persian and Greek alike that brave men cannot be beaten down by mere numbers.

Leonidas and his band are drifting dust. The stone lion and the pillar with the names of those that died that marked the battle-mound have crumbled and pa.s.sed away long centuries ago. Even the blood-stained Pa.s.s itself has gone and the sea has drawn back many miles and there is no longer the mora.s.s, the path or the precipice.

After the pa.s.sage of more than twoscore centuries in a new world of which Leonidas never dreamed, in another great war between freedom and slavery, this same great deed was wrought again by another three hundred men who laid down their lives to hold back an enemy and dying saved an army and perhaps a nation. Their story might almost be the old, old hero story of the lost Spartan band.

The great Civil War was in its third year. Disaster after disaster had overtaken the Union armies. English writers were already chronicling The Decline and Fall of the American Republic. It was a time of darkness and peril. The great leaders who were afterward to win great victories had not yet arrived. Under McClellan nothing had been accomplished. At the first trial Burnside failed at the terrible battle of Fredericksburg where nearly thirteen thousand Union soldiers--the flower of the army--died for naught. There was another shift and "Fighting Joe Hooker" took command of the Army of the Potomac. Through continuous defeats, the great army had become disheartened and the men were sullen and discouraged. It was a time of shameful desertions. The express trains to the army were filled with packages of citizens'

clothes which parents and wives and brothers and sisters were sending to their kindred to help them desert from the army. Hooker changed all this. He was brave, energetic and full of life and before long the soldiers were again ready and anxious to fight. Unfortunately, their general, in spite of his many good qualities, did not have those which would make him the leader of a successful army. He was vain, boastful and easily overcome and confused by any unexpected check or defeat.

Encamped on the Rappahannock River he had one hundred and thirty thousand men against the sixty thousand of the Confederate forces on the other side. These sixty thousand, however, included Robert E. Lee, the great son of a great father, as their general. "Light-Horse Harry Lee," his father, had been one of the great cavalry commanders of the Revolution and one of Washington's most trusted generals. With Robert E. Lee was Stonewall Jackson, the great flanker who has never been equaled in daring, rapid, decisive, brilliant flanking, turning movements which so often are what decide great battles. Hooker decided to fight. By the night of April 30, 1863, no less than four army corps crossed the river in safety and were a.s.sembled at the little village of Chancellorsville under his command. His confidence was shown in the boastful order which he issued just before the battle.

"The operations of the last three days," he declared, "have determined that our enemy must either ingloriously fly or come out from behind his defenses and give us battle on our own ground where certain destruction awaits him."

Well might it have been said to him as to another boaster in the days of old, "Let not him that girdeth on his armor boast as him that taketh it off."

The morning of the battle came and Hooker said to his generals that he had the Confederates where G.o.d Almighty Himself could not save them. At first Lee retreated before his advance, but when he had reached a favorable position, suddenly turned and drove back the Union forces with such energy that Hooker lost heart and ordered his men to fall back to a better position. This was done against the protests of all of his division commanders who felt as did Meade, afterward the hero of Gettysburg, who exclaimed to General Hooker, "If we can't hold the top of a hill, we certainly can't hold the bottom of it."

[Ill.u.s.tration: In the Woods Near Chancellorsville]

Hooker took a position in the Wilderness, a tangled forest mixed with impenetrable thickets of dwarf oak and underbrush. Here he hoped that Lee would make a direct attack, but this pause gave the great Confederate general the one chance which he wanted. All that night Jackson with thirty thousand men marched half-way round the Union Army.

Again and again word was sent to Hooker that the Confederate forces were marching toward his flank, but he could see in the movement nothing but a retreat and sent word that they were withdrawing so as to save their baggage trains. At three o'clock the next afternoon Jackson was at last in position. In front of Hooker's army lay the main forces of Lee. Half-way to the rear of his forces were Jackson's magnificent veterans. The first warning of the fatal attack which nearly caused the loss of the great Union Army of the Potomac came from the wild rush of deer and rabbits which had been driven from their lairs by the quick march of the Confederate soldiers through the forest. Following the charge of the frightened animals came the tremendous attack of Jackson's infantry, the toughest, hardiest, bravest, best-trained troops in the Confederate Army. The Union soldiers fought well, but they were new troops taken by surprise and as soon as the roar of the volleys of the attacking Confederates sounded from the rear, Lee advanced, with every man in his army and smashed into Hooker's front.

The surprise and the shock of possible defeat instead of expected victory was too much for a man of Hooker's temperament. At the time when he most needed a clear mind and unflinching nerve, he fell into a state of almost complete nervous collapse. The battle was practically fought without a leader, every corps commander did the best he could, but in a short time the converging attacks of the two great Confederate leaders cut the army in two and defeat was certain. At this time came the greatest loss which the Confederate Army had received up to that day. Stonewall Jackson's men had charged through the forest and cut deeply into the flank of the Union Army. After their charge the Confederate front was in confusion owing to the thick and tangled woods in which they fought. Jackson had ridden forward beyond his troops in order to reform them. The fleeing Union soldiers rallied for a minute and fired a volley at the little party which Jackson was leading. He turned back to rejoin his own troops and in the darkness and confusion he and his men were mistaken for Union cavalry and received a volley from their own forces which dashed Jackson out of his saddle with a wound in his left arm which afterward turned out to be mortal. At that time General Lee sent his celebrated message to Jackson, "You are luckier than I for your left arm only is wounded, but when you were disabled, I lost my right arm."

In a short time the whole Union Army was nothing but a disorganized ma.s.s of men, horses, ambulance-wagons, artillery and commissary trains, all striving desperately to cross the Rappahannock before the pursuing Confederates could turn the retreat into a ma.s.sacre. Unless the Confederate pursuit could be held back long enough to let the men cross the river and reform on the opposite bank, the whole army was lost.

History is full of the terrible disasters which overtake an army which is caught by the enemy while in the confusion of crossing a river.

General Pleasonton of Pennsylvania was in command of the rear of the Federal retreat. He was striving desperately to mount his guns so as to sweep the only road which led to the river and hold back the Confederate forces long enough to let his men cross. Already the van of the Union Army had reached the ford when far down the road appeared the whole corps of Stonewall Jackson, maddened by the loss of their great leader. Every man that Pleasonton had was working desperately to get the guns into position, but it was evident that they would be captured and their pursuers would sweep into the huddle which was crossing the river unless something could be done to hold them back. As the general looked silently down the road, he saw near to him Major Keenan of the Pennsylvania cavalry. Keenan had been a porter in a Philadelphia store, but his rare faculty for handling men and horses had made him one of the most efficient cavalry officers of any Pennsylvania regiment. The three companies which were with him were all the cavalry that Pleasonton had. They were bringing up the rear of the retreat like a pack of wolves who, though driven back from their prey, move off sullenly only waiting for the signal from their leader to turn again and fight. General Pleasonton had rallied his gunners and they would stand if only they had a chance. There was no hope of bringing any order into the ma.s.s of broken, terrified infantry rushing on toward the river.

"Major Keenan," shouted General Pleasonton, "how many men have you got?"

"Three hundred, General," replied Keenan, quietly.

"Major," said the general, low and earnestly, riding up to him, "we must have ten minutes to save the Army of the Potomac. Charge the Confederate advance and hold them!"

Keenan never hesitated. When the Six Hundred charged at Balaclava, some of them came back from the bite of the Russian sabres and the roar of the Muscovite guns. When Pickett made that desperate, fatal charge at Gettysburg, there was still a chance to retreat, but Major Keenan knew that when three hundred cavalry met the fixed bayonets of thirty thousand infantry on a narrow road, not one would ever return. It was not a splendid charge which might mean laurels of victory, but a hopeless going to death, the buying of ten minutes of time with the lives of three hundred men, yet neither Keenan nor his men questioned the price nor flinched at the order.

The sunlight of the last day he was to see on earth caught the gleam of his uplifted sabre as he gave the quick, sharp command to charge. He flung his cap into the bushes, bent his head and rode bareheaded in front of his flying column and then like an avalanche, like a hurricane of horse, he and his three hundred men thundered down the narrow road.

Just around the curve, with a crash that broke the necks of a score of the leading horses, this charging column hurled themselves against the astonished, packed ranks of infantry rushing on with fixed bayonets.

For five, for ten, for fifteen minutes horses rose and fell to the clashing of dripping sabres and the bark of revolvers thrust into the faces of the oncoming foemen. For fifteen long minutes there was a swirl and a flurry which held back the head of the charging forces and then shattered by volley after volley of musketry and pierced by thousands of charging bayonets, horse and men alike went down. Not one ever came back. Keenan and his Three Hundred had bought the ten minutes and had thrown in five more for good measure and the price was paid.

The head of the Confederate column reformed, pa.s.sed over and by the struggling horses and the silent, mangled men and then again swept on around the bend and down the road toward the fords crowded with a hundred thousand helpless, escaping soldiers. General Pleasonton, however, had made good use of those precious moments. As the Confederate column came around the curve, they were met by a h.e.l.l of grape and canister from the batteries which at last had been mounted in position. Right into their front roared the guns and the road was a shamble of writhing, struggling, dying men. No army ever marched that could stand up against the grim storm of death that swept down that road and in a moment the Confederate forces broke and rushed back for shelter. The Army of the Potomac was saved. Bought at a great price, it was yet to be hammered and forged and welded under a great leader into the sword which was to save the Union.

"Year after year, the pine cones fall, And the whippoorwill lisps her spectral call.

They have ceased, but their glory will never cease, Nor their light be quenched in the light of peace.

The rush of the charge is sounding still, That saved the Army at Chancellorsville."

CHAPTER XIV

THE RESCUE OF THE SCOUTS

The man who will risk his life for his friends, the leader who never deserts his band, the soldier who will not escape alone, these are the men whom history has always hailed as heroes. Some of the greatest stories of devotion and courage have been those which chronicle the rescue of men from almost certain death. Courage and devotion have often opened the dark doors of dungeons, stricken the fetters from despairing prisoners and saved men doomed to death from the stake, the block and the gallows.

When the Civil War broke out, the lot of the few Union men left in the South was a hard one. The fierce pa.s.sions of those days ran so high that not only was a Unionist himself liable to death and the confiscation of his property, but even his family were not safe. In 1863 there was a Georgian who a.s.sumed the name of William Morford in order to protect those of his family who lived in Georgia from the bitter hatred which his services for the Union had aroused. He was one of many devoted scouts who worked secretly and single-handed for their country, claiming no reward if they won and losing their lives on the gallows if they lost. Morford throughout 1863 was attached to the command of General Rosecrans and performed many a feat during that stormy year. It was Morford who burned an important bridge under the very eyes of a Confederate regiment sent to guard it and who, when the light from the flames made escape impossible, coolly mingled with the guards and actually received their congratulations for his bravery in attempting to put out the fire which he himself had lighted. It was Morford who single-handed captured a Confederate colonel while he was sleeping in a house surrounded by his regiment and with his staff in the next room. Morford obtained access to him under pretense of bearing an important oral dispatch from General Beauregard himself. They were left alone with an armed sentry just outside the half-opened door.

Stepping to one side so that he could not be seen by the guard, Morford suddenly placed a c.o.c.ked revolver close against the substantial stomach of the colonel.

"I have been sent, Colonel," he muttered sternly, "to either capture or kill you. I would rather capture you, for if I kill you I shall have to fight my way out, but it is for you to say which it shall be."

The colonel was a brave officer, but a c.o.c.ked revolver against one's stomach is discouraging even for a hero. He decided instantly that he much preferred being a prisoner to being a corpse and said as much to Morford.

"Well," said the latter, still in a tone so low that the sentry could not make out the words, "I'm glad you feel that way. Get your hat and tell the guard that you're going to take me out for a talk with some of the other officers. I'll be right behind you with this revolver in my sleeve and if anything goes wrong, two bullets will go through the small of your back."