Marse Henry Part 5

III

The change of parties wrought by the presidential election of 1860 and completed by the coming in of the Republicans in 1861 was indeed revolutionary. When Mr. Lincoln had finished his inaugural address and the crowd on the east portico began to disperse, I reentered the rotunda between Mr. Reverdy Johnson, of Maryland, and Mr. John Bell, of Tennessee, two old friends of my family, and for a little we sat upon a bench, they discussing the speech we had just heard.

Both were sure there would be no war. All would be well, they thought, each speaking kindly of Mr. Lincoln. They were among the most eminent men of the time, I a boy of twenty-one; but to me war seemed a certainty. Recalling the episode, I have often realized how the intuitions of youth outwit the wisdom and baffle the experience of age.

I at once resigned my snug sinecure in the Interior Department and, closing my accounts of every sort, was presently ready to turn my back upon Washington and seek adventures elsewhere.

They met me halfway and came in plenty. I tried staff duty with General Polk, who was making an expedition into Western Kentucky. In a few weeks illness drove me into Nashville, where I pa.s.sed the next winter in desultory newspaper work. Then Nashville fell, and, as I was making my way out of town afoot and trudging the Murfreesboro pike, Forrest, with his squadron just escaped from Fort Donelson, came thundering by, and I leaped into an empty saddle. A few days later Forrest, promoted to brigadier general, attached me to his staff, and the next six months it was mainly guerilla service, very much to my liking. But Fate, if not Nature, had decided that I was a better writer than fighter, and the Bank of Tennessee having bought a newspaper outfit at Chattanooga, I was sent there to edit The Rebel--my own naming--established as the organ of the Tennessee state government. I made it the organ of the army.

It is not the purpose of these pages to retell the well-known story of the war. My life became a series of ups and downs--mainly downs--the word being from day to day to fire and fall back; in the Johnston-Sherman campaign, I served as chief of scouts; then as an aid to General Hood through the siege of Atlanta, sharing the beginning of the chapter of disasters that befell that gallant soldier and his army.

I was spared the last and worst of these by a curious piece of special duty, taking me elsewhere, to which I was a.s.signed in the autumn of 1864 by the Confederate government.

This involved a foreign journey. It was no less than to go to England to sell to English buyers some hundred thousand bales of designated cotton to be thus rescued from spoliation, acting under the supervision and indeed the orders of the Confederate fiscal agency at Liverpool.

Of course I was ripe for this; but it proved a bigger job than I had conceived or dreamed. The initial step was to get out of the country.

But how? That was the question. To run the blockade had been easy enough a few months earlier. All our ports were now sealed by Federal cruisers and gunboats. There was nothing for it but to slip through the North and to get either a New York or a Canadian boat. This involved chances and disguises.

IV

In West Tennessee, not far from Memphis, lived an aunt of mine. Thither I repaired. My plan was to get on a Mississippi steamer calling at one of the landings for wood. This proved impracticable. I wandered many days and nights, rather ill mounted, in search of some kind--any kind--of exit, when one afternoon, quite worn out, I sat by a log heap in a comfortable farmhouse. It seemed that I was at the end of my tether; I did not know what to do.

Presently there was an arrival--a brisk gentleman right out of Memphis, which I then learned was only ten miles distant--bringing with him a morning paper. In this I saw appended to various army orders the name of "N.B. Dana, General Commanding."

That set me to thinking. Was not Dana the name of a certain captain, a stepson of Congressman Peaslee, of New Hampshire, who had lived with us at Willard's Hotel--and were there not two children, Charley and Mamie, and a dear little mother, and--I had been listening to the talk of the newcomer. He was a licensed cotton buyer with a pa.s.s to come and go at will through the lines, and was returning next day.

"I want to get into Memphis--I am a nephew of Mrs. General Dana. Can you take me in?" I said to this person.

After some hesitation he consented to try, it being agreed that my mount and outfit should be his if he got me through; no trade if he failed.

Clearly the way ahead was brightening. I soon ascertained that I was with friends, loyal Confederates. Then I told them who I was, and all became excitement for the next day's adventure.

We drove down to the Federal outpost. Crenshaw--that was the name of the cotton buyer--showed his pa.s.s to the officer in command, who then turned to me. "Captain," I said, "I have no pa.s.s, but I am a nephew of Mrs.

General Dana. Can you not pa.s.s me in without a pa.s.s?" He was very polite. It was a chain picket, he said; his orders were very strict, and so on.

"Well," I said, "suppose I were a member of your own command and were run in here by guerillas. What do you think would it be your duty to do?"

"In that case," he answered, "I should send you to headquarters with a guard."

"Good!" said I. "Can't you send me to headquarters with a guard?"

He thought a moment. Then he called a cavalryman from the outpost.

"Britton," he said, "show this gentleman in to General Dana's headquarters."

Crenshaw lashed his horse and away we went. "That boy thinks he is a guide, not a guard," said he. "You are all right. We can easily get rid of him."

This proved true. We stopped by a saloon and bought a bottle of whisky.

When we reached headquarters the lad said, "Do you gentlemen want me any more?" We did not. Then we gave him the bottle of whisky and he disappeared round the corner. "Now you are safe," said Crenshaw. "Make tracks."

But as I turned away and out of sight I began to consider the situation.

Suppose that picket on the outpost reported to the provost marshal general that he had pa.s.sed a relative of Mrs. Dana? What then? Provost guard. Drumhead court-martial. Shot at daylight. It seemed best to play out the hand as I had dealt it. After all, I could make a case if I faced it out.

The guard at the door refused me access to General Dana. Driven by a nearby hackman to the General's residence, and, boldly asking for Mrs.

Dana, I was more successful. I introduced myself as a teacher of music seeking to return to my friends in the North, working in a word about the old Washington days, not forgetting "Charley" and "Mamie." The dear little woman was heartily responsive. Both were there, including a pretty girl from Philadelphia, and she called them down. "Here is your old friend, Henry Waterman," she joyfully exclaimed. Then guests began to arrive. It was a reception evening. My hope fell. Some one would surely recognize me. Presently a gentleman entered, and Mrs. Dana said: "Colonel Meehan, this is my particular friend, Henry Waterman, who has been teaching music out in the country, and wants to go up the river.

You will give him a pa.s.s, I am sure." It was the provost marshal, who answered, "certainly." Now was my time for disappearing. But Mrs. Dana would not listen to this. General Dana would never forgive her if she let me go. Besides, there was to be a supper and a dance. I sat down again very much disconcerted. The situation was becoming awkward. Then Mrs. Dana spoke. "You say you have been teaching music. What is your instrument?" Saved! "The piano," I answered. The girls escorted me to the rear drawing-room. It was a new Steinway Grand, just set up, and I played for my life. If the black bombazine covering my gray uniform did not break, all would be well. I was having a delightfully good time, the girls on either hand, when Mrs. Dana, still enthusiastic, ran in and said, "General Dana is here. Remembers you perfectly. Come and see him."

He stood by a table, tall, sardonic, and as I approached he put out his hand and said: "You have grown a bit, Henry, my boy, since I saw you last. How did you leave my friend Forrest?"

I was about making some awkward reply, when, the room already filling up, he said:

"We have some friends for supper. I am glad you are here. Mamie, my daughter, take Mr. Watterson to the table!"

Lord! That supper! Canvasback! Terrapin! Champagne! The general had seated me at his right. Somewhere toward the close those expressive gray eyes looked at me keenly, and across his wine gla.s.s he said:

"I think I understand this. You want to get up the river. You want to see your mother. Have you money enough to carry you through? If you have not don't hesitate, for whatever you need I will gladly let you have."

I thanked him. I had quite enough. All was well. We had more music and some dancing. At a late hour he called the provost marshal.

"Meehan," said he, "take this dangerous young rebel round to the hotel, register him as Smith, Brown, or something, and send him with a pa.s.s up the river by the first steamer." I was in luck, was I not?

But I made no impression on those girls. Many years after, meeting Mamie Dana, as the wife of an army officer at Fortress Monroe, I related the Memphis incident. She did not in the least recall it.

V

I had one other adventure during the war that may be worth telling. It was in 1862. Forrest took it into his inexperienced fighting head to make a cavalry attack upon a Federal stockade, and, repulsed with considerable loss, the command had to disperse--there were not more than two hundred of us--in order to escape capture by the newly-arrived reinforcements that swarmed about. We were to rendezvous later at a certain point. Having some time to spare, and being near the family homestead at Beech Grove, I put in there.

It was midnight when I reached my destination. I had been erroneously informed that the Union Army was on the retreat--quite gone from the neighborhood; and next day, believing the coast was clear, I donned a summer suit and with a neighbor boy who had been wounded at Shiloh and invalided home, rode over to visit some young ladies. We had scarcely been welcomed and were taking a gla.s.s of wine when, looking across the lawn, we saw that the place was being surrounded by a body of blue-coats. The story of their departure had been a mistake. They were not all gone.

There was no chance of escape. We were placed in a hollow square and marched across country into camp. Before we got there I had ascertained that they were Indianians, and I was further led rightly to surmise what we called in 1860 Douglas Democrats.

My companion, a husky fellow, who looked and was every inch a soldier, was first questioned by the colonel in command. His examination was brief. He said he was as good a rebel as lived, that he was only waiting for his wound to heal to get back into the Confederate Army, and that if they wanted to hang him for a spy to go ahead.

I was aghast. It was not he that was in danger of hanging, but myself, a soldier in citizen's apparel within the enemy's lines. The colonel turned to me. With what I took for a sneer he said:

"I suppose you are a good Union man?" This offered me a chance.

"That depends upon what you call a good Union man," I answered. "I used to be a very good Union man--a Douglas Democrat--and I am not conscious of having changed my political opinions."

That softened him and we had an old-fashioned, friendly talk about the situation, in which I kept the Douglas Democratic end of it well to the fore. He, too, had been a Douglas Democrat. I soon saw that it was my companion and not myself whom they were after. Presently Colonel Shook, that being the commandant's name, went into the adjacent stockade and the boys about began to be hearty and sympathetic. I made them a regular Douglas Democratic speech. They brought some "red licker" and I asked for some sugar for a toddy, not failing to cite the familiar Sut Lovingood saying that "there were about seventeen round the door who said they'd take sugar in their'n." The drink warmed me to my work, making me quicker, if not bolder, in invention. Then the colonel not reappearing as soon as I hoped he would, for all along my fear was the wires, I went to him.