Brave Deeds of Union Soldiers Part 12

Buccleuch has turn'd to Eden Water, Even where it flow'd frae bank to brim, And he has plunged in wi' a' his band, And safely swam them through the strem.

He turn'd him on the other side, And at Lord Scroope his glove flung he-- "If ye like na my visit in merry England, In fair Scotland come visit me!"

"All sore astonish'd stood Lord Scroope, He stood as still as rock of stane; He scarcely dared to trew his eyes, When through the water they had gone.

"He is either himsell a devil fra h.e.l.l, Or else his mother a witch maun be; I wadna have ridden that wan water, For a' the gowd in Christentie."

The memory of that brave rescue nearly three hundred years before, as the scout afterward told his friends, was what inspired him to save his fellow-scouts as Buccleuch had saved the first William Kinmont. By saving the lives of these three men he would pay with interest for the life of his ancestor. Shakespeare writes somewhere that the good which men do is oft buried with their bones, but that their evil deeds live on forever. No more mistaken lines have ever been written. Evil brings about its own death. No good deed is ever forgotten or ever buried.

Hundreds of years later it may flash out through the dust of centuries and light the path of high endeavor.

Morford scoured Chattanooga and finally found nine men who were ready to go with him and try to rescue the condemned scouts. Leaving Chattanooga they traveled by night and hid by day in caves and thickets among the mountains. Occasionally they would meet or get word from men whom they knew to be Union sympathizers. Finally they hid on the top of Bear Mountain which towered above the river and which separated them from Harrison where was located the jail. Although they had traveled fast and far they were only just in time. The second noon after the night when they reached the mountain had been fixed for the execution.

On Bear Mountain they hid in a cave which Morford himself had discovered when hunting there many years before. It could only be reached by a narrow path which ran along a shelf of rock which jutted out over a precipice three hundred feet deep. The path turned sharply and led under an enormous overhanging ledge and ended in a deep cave with a little mountain spring bubbling up on a mossy slope only ten feet wide which led up to the cave's entrance. Inside was a dry, high cavern large enough to hold fifty men. It could not be reached from above by reason of the over-hanging ledge. At that point the path stopped and where the slope ended was a sheer drop to the rocks below which extended around the farther side of the slope so that the only entrance was around the path's bend along which only one man could pa.s.s at a time. Morford reached the foot of Bear Mountain just at sunset and led his little band up the steep side by a winding deer-path, the entrance to which was concealed in a tangled thicket of green briar and could only be reached by crawling underneath the sharp thorns like snakes. The path to the cave was no place for a man with weak nerves.

It was bad enough as it skirted the precipice, but where it took a sharp bend around the jutting point of rock, it narrowed to nothing more than a foothold not three inches wide. He who would pa.s.s into the cave must turn with his back to the precipice and edge his way with arms outstretched along the smooth face of the rock for nearly ten feet. The point at the turn was the worst. There it was necessary to take one foot off the ledge and grope for a tiny foothold below the path while one shuffled around the curve. It was not absolutely necessary for Morford and his men to spend the night in this cave.

There were other places where they could have stayed in safety, as no one suspected their presence. Morford, however, had made up his mind to choose his men with the utmost care. It was necessary in order to save the lives of the three condemned scouts to pa.s.s through the camp of the soldiers and the ring of guards encircling the jail, break open the jail, rescue the prisoners and break out again. It was a desperate chance and Morford's only hope of success was to have men who would show absolute coolness and daring throughout the whole adventure. The nine men whom he had selected all bore a high reputation for courage, but Morford decided like Gideon of old to cut out every factor of weakness and leave only the picked men. When Gideon was chosen of G.o.d to rescue the children of Israel from the unnumbered host of Midianites and Amalekites and the other Bedouin hordes of the desert which were encamped in the great valley that lay at the hill of Moreh, he started with a force of thirty-two thousand. When this army looked down upon the innumerable hosts of the fierce desert warriors, it began to weaken and Gideon sent back twenty-two thousand soldiers who had showed signs of fear. The night before the day fixed for battle, Gideon decided to select from this ten thousand a picked band of men who would be not only brave, but watchful and ready for any emergency. As his army swarmed down to the water-hole Gideon watched the men as they drank.

They had kept watch and ward on that bare sun-smitten mountain top all through the long, hot day. As they came to the water some of the thirsty men dashed forward out of the ranks and fell on their faces and lapped the water like dogs without a thought that there might be an ambush at the ford and without a care that they were lying absolutely defenseless before any enemy who might attack them. Others kneeled on their hands and knees and drank. Of the ten thousand only three hundred had bravery and self-control enough to maintain the discipline of a vigilant army. Without laying down their weapons they drank as a deer drinks, watching on every side for fear of a surprise. With one hand they scooped up the water, in the other they held fast their weapon. It was slower, but it was safer. These three hundred men Gideon chose for that band which for three thousand years has been the symbol of bravery and watchfulness. With this little force just before dawn he burst down upon the sleeping Midianites which were as the sand by the sea for mult.i.tude. The three hundred were divided into three companies. Each man carried a sword, a trumpet, and an earthenware pitcher with a lighted lamp inside. From three separate directions they rushed down upon the sleeping foe and sounded the trumpets and brake the pitchers and held the flashing lamps on high and then shouting as their watchword, "The Sword of the Lord and of Gideon," they burst into the great camp of the invaders. Roused from sleep, hearing the trumpet notes and the crash of the breaking pitchers and seeing the flash of lights from all sides and mighty voices shouting the fierce slogan, the Midianites scattered like sheep and all that great host ran and cried and fled and every man's sword was against his fellow in the darkness, and when day dawned the ground was covered with dead men, the camp was abandoned and nothing was left of that mighty army but a fringe of fugitives scattered in every direction.

It may be that some such test was in Morford's mind as the little band of nine scaled the heights of Bear Mountain. At any rate as they approached the precipice-path he halted them.

"Boys," he said, "I got word this afternoon that these scouts have only thirty-six hours to live unless we save them. The guards have been doubled. It's going to be a desperate chance to get to them and none of us may ever come back. Now if any of you fellows want to quit, the time to do it is now rather than later. I'm going to lead the way along the path which we used to say was the best nerve-tonic in this county. If any of you fellows get discouraged and don't want to make the last turn past old Double-Trouble, why back out, go over the top of the mountain and down the other side. You know your way home and you've got provisions enough to last for the trip. Only travel fast, for those of us who are left are going to come right over the top of this mountain on the run with those scouts--if we save 'em."

With this characteristic oration, Morford started along the path, first tightening his heavy revolver belt so that it might not swing out and over-balance him at the critical moment. He was instantly followed by six others, quiet, self-contained men who like him had taken up scouting as the best way of showing their devotion to the Union. The other three hesitated a moment, looked at each other shamefacedly and then slowly followed along the dangerous route. As Morford reached Double-Trouble, he stopped and in a low voice told the next man how to put one foot out into s.p.a.ce and search for the little foothold which jutted out below the main path and then how to swing around that desperate curve. Slowly and with infinite caution each one of the six followed their leader and found himself safe on the slope of the cave.

The seventh man listened carefully to the instructions of the man before him as to how he should round the curve and gave a gasp of horror when he found that he must balance himself on one foot on a three-inch ledge while the other was in mid-air.

"Tell General Morford," he finally said, "that I ain't no tight-rope walker. I draw the line at holdin' on like a fly, head downward over this old precipice. Anyway I don't think there's any chance to do anything and I'm goin' home."

He seemed to have voiced the exact sentiments of the other two who had sidled up and with out-stretched necks were examining in the faint light the curve around Double-Trouble. The last man spent no time in any argument.

"Good-bye, General," he called in a low voice. "Go as far as you like--but go without me."

That was the last Morford and the other six ever saw of those men. They reached home in safety after some days of wandering, but decided to choose another territory where the scouting would not be quite so strenuous. Morford and his men made themselves comfortable that night.

They drank deep from the spring and then had a much-needed scrub. After a hearty meal they turned in and slept like dead men through the next day on the crisp springy moss, first rolling a big boulder against the side of Double-Trouble so that no one could pa.s.s.

Late the next afternoon they awoke and found that the path was not so bad the second time as it had been the first. Down the mountainside by the same concealed route they marched in single file and just at dark crossed the river and entered the little village of Harrison. There they were met by an old man with whom Morford had previously communicated. He had obtained by strategy the countersign which would take them through the soldiers, the guards and to the very entrance of the jail itself. Curiously enough, some Confederate officer had fixed as the countersign that very one with which Gideon had conquered so many years ago. "The Sword of Gideon" was the open sesame which would take them past the guards and unlock the gates which ringed about the doomed men. Morford accepted it as a good omen. The night before he had told his companions the old story of Gideon's test and it came to them all as a direct message that G.o.d was fighting on their side as he had fought of old against even greater odds. Morford planned to use Gideon's tactics. He decided to surprise and confuse his enemy and escape in the confusion. He tied the hands of two of his band behind their backs and with the other four marched directly to the Confederate camp, gave the countersign, and stated that he had prisoners to deliver to the jail. The sleepy sentry pa.s.sed him through without any comment and they marched until they came to the high board fence with a double row of spikes on top which surrounded the prison-yard. This fence at one point touched the edge of a marsh filled with rank gra.s.s, briars and tussocks. To this point Morford had gone earlier in the evening and had bored two auger-holes in one of the boards and then with a small saw dipped in oil had carefully sawed out one of the old timbers, leaving a s.p.a.ce just large enough to admit of a man pa.s.sing through.

There was only one entrance to the prison grounds which was through the main gate besides which night and day sat two guards. Morford rang at this gate and when it was opened, presented himself with his pretended prisoners. One of the guards accompanied them to the main jail toward which Morford marched with his prisoners and two men, leaving the other two behind with the remaining guard. Morford had no more than pa.s.sed around the corner when these two suddenly seized the unsuspecting guard at the gate, pressed a revolver against his temple and in an instant gagged him, tied him up hand and foot with rope which they had brought and started to the jail to a.s.sist the others. Usually the jail was only guarded by the jailer and one deputy or a.s.sistant who lived there with him. To-night, however, there was a death-watch of three extra men heavily armed stationed around in the corridor in front of the cells of the condemned men. The jailer opened the door and the sentry who had accompanied Morford from the gate explained that these were two prisoners coming under guard from Chattanooga, and Morford and his men were admitted. Every detail had been planned out ahead and the prisoners tottered into the corridor in an apparently exhausted condition and approached the guards who were waiting in front of the cells, or rather cages, in which were the condemned men. Suddenly just as the supposed prisoners came close, the ropes dropped off their hands and each of said hands grasped a particularly dangerous looking revolver which was aimed directly at the heads of the astonished guards.

"Sit still," said one of the prisoners, "and keep on sitting still because I have very nervous fingers and if they twitch, these revolvers are likely to go off."

The guards followed this advice and in an instant were disarmed and roped up like the guard at the gate. So far everything had gone like clockwork according to program. The jailer, however, had yet to be reckoned with. As he did not seem to be armed, Morford had stepped forward to a.s.sist in disarming the guards when with a tremendous spring the jailer reached the door, pulled it open and with the same motion kicked a chair at Morford who had sprung after him. Morford tripped over the chair and before he could get the door open, the jailer had cleared the staircase with one jump and was out of the jail, running toward the entrance. Morford and two others ran after him, but he had too much of a start and reached the gate fifty yards ahead. This jailer was cool enough to stop at the gate long enough to pull a knife from his belt. With this he slashed the ropes of the bound guard, pulled him to his feet and they both disappeared together through the open gate in spite of a couple of revolver shots which Morford sent after them. The latter, however, was prepared for any emergencies. He told off two of his men to shut and bar the gates and to guard against any attack. Two others were to run around and around the fence on the inside shouting and firing as rapidly and as often as their breath and ammunition would allow. With one companion he returned to the jail and demanded the keys from the tethered guard.

"The jailer's got them, Captain," said one of the guards; "he always carries them with him and there isn't a duplicate key in the place."

There was no time to be lost. Already could be heard outside the Confederate camp the shouts of the officers to the men to fall in. Only the tremendous turmoil which apparently was going on inside saved the day for Morford. It would have been an easy thing to force the rickety old fence at any point or to dash in at the gate if the Confederates had known how small a force of rescuers there were. They, however, believed that the jail must have been surprised by some large Union force and they spent precious time in throwing out skirmishers, mustering the men and preparing to defend against a flank attack. In the meantime Morford had rushed into the jailer's room and found lying there a heavy axe. With this he tried to break into the cells of the condemned men who were shaking the bars and cheering on their plucky rescuers. The door of the cell was locked and also barred with heavy chains. Morford was a man of tremendous strength and swinging the axe, in a short time he managed to snap the chains apart and smash in the outer lock and with the aid of an iron bar pried open the door only to find that there was an inside door with a tremendous lock of wrought steel against which his axe had absolutely no effect. Time was going.

Already they could hear the shouted commands of the Confederate officers just outside the fence and Morford expected any moment to see the door fly in and receive a charge from a couple of hundred armed men. As he wiped the sweat off his forehead, out of the corner of his eye he saw one of the guards grinning derisively at him. This was enough for Morford. Dropping the axe, he c.o.c.ked his revolver and with one jump was beside the guard. Placing the cold muzzle of his weapon against the guard's temple, he ordered him to tell him instantly where the keys were. There's no case on record where any man stopped laughing quicker than did that guard.

"I ain't got 'em, Captain," he gasped, "really I ain't."

"I'm going to count ten," said Morford, inflexibly, "and if I don't hear where those keys are by the time I say ten, I'm going to pull the trigger of this forty-four. Then I'm going to count ten more and do the same with the next man and the next. If I can't save these prisoners, I'm going to leave three guards to go along with them."

Morford got as far as three when the guard, whose voice trembled so that he could scarcely make himself heard, shouted at the top of his voice:

"There's a key in the pants-pocket of each one of us."

In spite of the emergency they were facing Morford's men could not help laughing at the expression on their leader's face as he stood and stared at the speaker.

"I have a great mind," he said at last, "to shoot you fellows anyway as a punishment for being such liars and for making me chop up about two cords of iron bars."

"You wouldn't shoot down prisoners, General," faltered one of the Confederates.

"No, I wouldn't," said Morford, commencing to grin himself, "but I ought to."

As he talked he had been fitting the key into the locks and with the last words the door opened and the condemned scouts were once more free men. There was not an instant to lose. Already the Confederates were battering away at the front gate with a great log and a fusillade of revolver-shots showed that the outer guards were doing all they could to stand off the attack. It took only a moment to arm the scouts with the weapons taken from the guards and in a minute the seven men were out in the prison-yard. Morford himself ran to the gate, stooping in the darkness to avoid any chance shots that might fly through and ordered the two guards, who were lying flat on either side of the gate shooting through the bars at the soldiers outside, to join the others at the place where the plank had been removed. It took only a minute for the men to rush across the dark yard and reach the farther corner of the fence. Morford sent them through the opening one by one. Like snakes they crept into the tall gra.s.s, wormed their way through the tussocks into the thick marsh beyond and disappeared in the darkness.

They were only just in time. As Morford himself crept through the opening last the gate crashed in and with a whoop and a yell a file of infantry poured into the yard. At the same moment another detachment dashed around on the outside in order to make an entrance at the rear of the supposed Union forces. Morford had hardly time to dive under the briars like a rabbit when a company of soldiers reached the opening through which he had just pa.s.sed.

"Here's the place, Captain," he heard one of them say in a whisper.

"Here's the place where they broke in."

The Confederate officer hurried his men through the gap, not realizing that it was really the place where the rescuers had broken out. As the last man disappeared through the fence, Morford crept on into the marsh, took the lead of his men and following a little fox-path soon had them safe on the other side and once again they started for Bear Mountain. They reached the boat in safety and in a few minutes they were on the other side of the river. Instead of getting out at the landing, however, Morford rowed down and made the men get out and make a distinct trail for a hundred yards or so to a highway which led off in an opposite direction from the mountain. Then they came back and got into the boat again while Morford rowed to where an old tree hung clear out over the water. A few feet from this tree was a stone wall. Morford instructed his men to swing themselves up through the tree and jump as far out as possible on the wall and to follow that for a hundred yards and then spring out from the wall some ten or fifteen feet before starting for the mountain. When they had all safely reached the wall, Morford himself climbed into the tree and set the boat adrift and again took charge of his party. Some of the younger scouts, who had never been hunted by dogs, were inclined to think that their leader was unnecessarily cautious. The next morning, however, as they lay safe and sound on the slope of the cave at the top of Bear Mountain and saw party after party of soldiers and civilians leading leashed bloodhounds back and forth along the river-bank, they decided that their captain knew his business. Their pursuers picked up the trail which was lost again in the highway and finally decided that the men must have escaped along the road, although the dogs were, of course, unable to follow it more than a hundred yards. For three days the scouts lay safe on the mountainside and rested up for their long trip north. Several times parties went up and down Bear Mountain, but fortunately did not find the hidden deer-path nor was Morford called upon to stand siege behind old Double-Trouble. When the pursuit was finally given up and the soldiers all seemed to be safe back in camp, Morford led his little troop out and following the same secret paths by which they had come, landed them all with the Union forces at Murfreesboro.

So ended one of the many brave deeds of a forgotten hero.

CHAPTER XV

THE BOY-GENERAL

Boys are apt to think that they must wait until they are men before they can claim the great rewards which life holds in store for all of us. History shows that courage, high endeavor, concentration and the sacrifice of self will give the prizes of a high calling to boys as well as to men. One is never too young or too old to seek and find and seize opportunity. Alexander Hamilton was only a boy when in New York at the outbreak of the Revolution, white-hot with indignation and patriotic zeal, he climbed up on a railing and in an impa.s.sioned speech to a great crowd which had collected, put himself at once in the forefront along with Patrick Henry, Samuel Adams, John Otis and other patriots who were to be the leaders of a new nation. David was only a boy of seventeen when he was sent to take provisions to his brethren in the army of the Israelites then encamped on the heights around the great battle-valley of Elah. There he heard the fierce giant-warrior of a lost race challenge the discouraged army. By being brave and ready enough to seize the opportunity which thousands of other men had pa.s.sed by, he that day began the career which won for him a kingdom.

George Washington was only a boy when he saved what was left of Braddock's ill-fated army in that dark and fatal ma.s.sacre and was hardly of age when the governor of Virginia sent him on that dangerous mission to the Indian chiefs and the French commander at Venango. On that mission he showed courage that no threats could weaken and an intelligence that no treachery could deceive and he came back a man marked for great deeds. As a boy he showed the same forgetfulness of self which he afterward showed as a man when he refused to take any pay for his long services as general of the Continental Army and even advanced heavy disburs.e.m.e.nts from his own enc.u.mbered estate.

Napoleon was only a boy when, as a young lieutenant, he first showed that military genius, that power of grasping opportunities, of breaking away from outworn rules which made him one of the greatest generals of all time and which laid Europe at his feet. If only to his bravery and genius had been added the high principle and the unselfishness of Washington, of Hamilton, of David, he would not have died in exile hated and feared by millions of men and women and children whose countries he had harried and whose lives he had burdened.

In the Civil War the youngest general in both the Union and the Confederate forces was Major-General Galusha Pennypacker, who still lives in Philadelphia. He became a captain and major at seventeen, a colonel at twenty and a full brigadier-general a few months before he became twenty-one. His last and greatest fight was at Fort Fisher and the story of that day, of which he was the hero, is typical of the bravery and readiness which made him the only boy-general in the world.

By the end of 1864 the Union forces had captured one by one the great naval ports of the Confederacy, the gates through which their armies were fed by the blockade-runners of Europe. New Orleans, Mobile and Savannah had at last fallen. By December, 1864, Wilmington, South Carolina, was the only port left through which the Confederacy could receive provisions from outside. In that month an expedition was sent against the city by sea and land. The river-forces were commanded by Admiral Porter while Generals Ben Butler and Witzel had charge of the land-forces. General Butler conceived the fantastic idea of exploding an old vessel filled with powder close to the ramparts. In the confusion which he thought would result, he hoped to carry the place by a.s.sault. Fort Fisher was the strongest fortress of the Confederacy.

Admiral Porter afterward said that it was stronger than the famous Russian fortress Malakoff, which next to Gibraltar was supposed to be the most impregnable fortification in the world. Fort Fisher consisted of a system of bomb-proof traverses surrounded by great ramparts of heavy timbers covered with sand and banked with turf, the largest earthworks in the whole South and which were proof against the heaviest artillery of that day. The powder-boat was an abandoned vessel which was loaded to the gunnels with kegs of powder and floated up to within four hundred yards of the fort. When it was finally exploded, its effect upon the fortress was so slight that the Confederate soldiers inside thought it was merely a boiler explosion from one of the besieging vessels. General Butler and his a.s.sistant, General Witzel, however, landed their forces, hoping to find the garrison in a state of confusion and discouragement. General Butler found that the explosion had simply aroused rather than dismayed the besieged. From all along the ramparts as well as from the tops of the inner bastions a tremendous converging fire was poured upon the attacking force. Back of these fortifications were grouped some of the best sharp-shooters of the whole Confederate Army and after a few minutes of disastrous fighting, General Butler was glad enough to withdraw his forces back to the safety of the ships. He refused to renew the battle and reported to General Grant that Fort Fisher could not be taken by a.s.sault. General Grant was so disgusted by this report that he at once relieved General Butler of the command and this battle was the end of the latter's military career and he went back to civil life in Ma.s.sachusetts.

President Lincoln too was deeply disappointed at the unfortunate ending of this first a.s.sault on the last stronghold of the Confederacy.

General Grant sent word to Admiral Porter to hold his position and sent General Alfred H. Terry to attack the fort again by land with an increased force. General Robert E. Lee learned of the proposed attack and sent word to Colonel Lamont, who commanded the fort, that it must be held, otherwise his army would be starved into surrender.

On January 13, 1865, Admiral Porter ran his ironclad within close range of the fort and concentrating a fire of four hundred heavy guns rained great sh.e.l.ls on every spot on the parapets and on the interior fortifications from which came any gun-fire. The sh.e.l.ls burst as regularly as the ticking of a watch. The Confederates tried in vain to stand to their guns. One by one they were broken and dismounted and the garrison driven to take refuge in the interior bomb-proof traverses.

The attacking forces were divided into three brigades. The attack was commenced by one hundred picked sharp-shooters all armed with repeating rifles and shovels. They charged to within one hundred and seventy-five yards of the fort, quickly dug themselves out of sight in a shallow trench in the sand and tried to pick off each man who appeared in the ramparts. Next came General Curtis' brigade to within four hundred yards of the fort and laid down and with their tin-cups and plates and knives and sword-blades and bayonets, dug out of sight like moles.

Close behind them was Pennypacker's second brigade and after him Bell's third brigade. In a few moments, Curtis and his brigade advanced at a run to a line close behind the sharp-shooters while Pennypacker's brigade moved into the trench just vacated and Bell and his men came within two hundred yards of Pennypacker. All this time men were dropping everywhere under the deadly fire from the traverses. It was not the blind fire with the bullets whistling and humming overhead which the men had learned to disregard, but it was a scattering irregular series of well-aimed shots of which far too many took effect.

The loss in officers especially was tremendous and equal to that of any battle in the war. More than half of the officers engaged were shot that day while one man in every four of the privates went down.

When the men had at last taken their final positions, the fire of the vessels was directed to the sea-face of the fort and a strong naval detachment charged, with some of Ames' infantry of the land-forces, at the sea angle of the fort. The besieged ran forward a couple of light guns loaded with double charges of canister and grape and rushed to the angle all of their available forces. The canister and the heavy musketry fire were too much for the bluejackets and they were compelled to slowly draw back out of range while the Confederates shouted taunts after them.

"Come aboard, you sailors," they yelled; "the captain's ladder is right this way. What you hangin' back for?"