Russell H. Conwell, Founder of the Institutional Church in America Part 4

Before leaving camp for the seat of war, Captain Conwell was presented with a sword by his Company, bearing this inscription:--

"Presented to Captain Russell H. Conwell by the soldiers of Company F, 46th Ma.s.s. Vol. Militia, known as 'The Mountain Boys.' Vera Amicitia est sempiterna. (True friendship is eternal.)" Colonel Shurtleff made the speech of presentation. The pa.s.sionately eloquent reply of the boy captain is yet remembered by those who heard it. He received the beautiful, glittering weapon in silence. Slowly he drew the gleaming steel from its golden sheath and solemnly held it upward as if dedicating it to heaven, the sunlight bathing the blade with blinding flashes of light. His eyes were fixed upon the steel, as if in a rapt vision, he swept the centuries past, the centuries to come, and saw what it stood for in the destinies of men. Breathless silence fell upon his waiting comrades. Thus for a few moments he stood and then he spoke to the sword.

"He called up the shade of the sword of that mighty warrior Joshua, which purified a polluted land with libations of blood, and made it fit for the heritage of G.o.d's people; the sword of David, that established the kingdom of Israel; the sword of that resistless conqueror, Alexander, that pierced the heart of the Orient; the Roman short sword, the terrible gladius, that carved out for the Caesars the sovereignty of the world; the sword of Charlemagne, writing its master's glorious deeds in mingling chapters of fable and history; the sword of Gustavus Adolphus, smiting the battalions of the puissant Wallenstein with defeat and overthrow even when its master lay dead on the field of Lutzen; the sword of Washington, drawn for human freedom and sheathed in peace, honor, and victory; then he bade the sword remember all it had done in shaping the destinies of men and nations; how it had written on the tablets of history in letters red and lurid, the drama of the ages; closing, he called upon it now, in the battle for the Union, to strike hard and strike home for freedom, for justice, in the name of G.o.d and the Right; to fail not in the work to which it was called until every shackle in the land was broken, every bondman free, and every foul stain of dishonor cleaned from the flag."

CHAPTER IX

IN THE THICK OF THE FIGHT

Company F at Newberne, N.C. The Fight at Batchelor's Creek. The Goldsboro Expedition. The Battle of Kingston. The Gum Swamp Expedition.

Breaking camp, the 46th left the beautiful, placid scenery about Springfield, its silver river, its silent mountains, for Boston, where they embarked for North Carolina, November 5th, 1862. They sailed out of Boston Harbor in the teeth of a winter gale which increased so in fury that the boat was compelled to put back. When they finally did leave, the sea was still very rough and they had a slow, stormy pa.s.sage.

It goes without saying that many of the men were ill. The boat was crowded, the accommodations insufficient, and numbers of the Mountain Boys had never been on the water before. To the confusion of handling such a body of men was added inexperience in such work. The members of Company F would have fared badly had it not been for the forethought of their boy captain. It seemed as if he had pa.s.sed beforehand in mental review, the experiences of these weeks and antic.i.p.ated their needs. Out of his own funds, he laid in a stock of medicines and delicacies for the sick. Indeed, those who know, say that he expended all of his pay in sutler's stores and various things to make his men more comfortable. Night and day, he was with those who suffered, cheering, sympathizing, nursing. He was the life of the ship. His men saw that his kindness and comradeship were not of the superficial order, but genuine, sincere, a part of his very self and they became, if possible, more pa.s.sionately attached to him than ever.

The placid Neuse river was a glad sight when at last they reached its mouth and steamed up to Newberne, North Carolina. General Burnside had already captured the town and Company F began army duties in earnest with garrison work in the little Southern city, with its long dull lines of earthworks, its white tents, its fleet of gunboats floating lazily on the river. The constant tramp of soldiers' feet echoed along the side-walks of this erstwhile quiet, Southern town. Sentries stood on the corners challenging pa.s.sers-by, wharves creaked under the loads of ordnance and quartermasters' stores. Army wagons and ambulances were constantly pa.s.sing in the street, all strange and novel at first to the Mountain Boys but soon familiar. Drilling and guard duty filled their days. Morning and afternoon they drilled, and the actual possession of the enemies' country, the warlike aspect of everything about them, made drilling a far more real and important matter than it had seemed at home. Captain Conwell felt his responsibility and threw himself into the work with an earnestness that infected his men. They would rather drill with him two hours than with any other officer a half hour. They not only caught the contagion of his enthusiasm, but he changed the dull, monotonous drudgery of it, into real, fascinating work by marching them into seemingly hopeless situations and then in some unexpected and surprising way, extricating them. Nor did he spare himself any of the unpleasant phases of the work. One day, the Colonel, while drilling the regiment, noticed that many of the men of Company F marched far out of their places to avoid a mudhole in the road. He marched and countermarched them over the same ground to compel the men to keep their rank and file regardless of the mud.

Captain Conwell saw his object, and himself plunged into the mire, his men followed, and were thus saved the reprimand which threatened.

During these days, Captain Conwell kept up with the law studies abandoned at Yale. Every spare minute, he devoted to his books and committed to memory, one whole volume of Blackstone during the term of his first enlistment Not many of the soldiers so used their hours off duty. But it is this turning of every minute to account that has enabled Dr. Conwell to accomplish so much. He has made his life count for a half dozen of most person's by never wasting a moment.

The monotony of garrison duty was broken first by a small fight at Batchelor's Creek, seven miles above Newbern, but only four companies were engaged. The Mountain Boys saw the first blood spilled at Kingston and gained there the first glimpse of the horrors of war.

Nearly the entire marching force was sent into the interior on this expedition, known as the Goldsboro expedition, the object being to cut the Weldon railroad at Goldsboro, North Carolina. It was a hard march with short and uncertain halts and occasional cavalry skirmishes. At Kingston, they met the enemy in force. The Confederates were ma.s.sed about the bridge over the Neuse river and held it bravely till the charge of the 9th New Jersey and 10th Connecticut drove them from their position and left the woods and a little open field covered with the dead and dying. The 46th Ma.s.sachusetts followed the retreating army and had that first experience with the grim, b.l.o.o.d.y side of war that always makes such a strong impression on the green soldier.

They bivouacked at Kingston and next day marched to the Weldon railroad, reaching it at the bridge below Goldsboro, where the Confederates had ma.s.sed a large body of troops to protect their lines of communication and supplies. This was a battle in earnest, the artillery was deafening, and the enemy repeatedly charged the Union lines. The Northern batteries were on a knoll in front, and at the very moment that a long line of gray was seen approaching through this field and the Ma.s.sachusetts men were ordered to lie down, so that the shot and sh.e.l.l could pa.s.s over them, their boy captain walked openly forward to the batteries and stood there in the smoke. Careless of himself, he yet realized to the full the meaning of this grim duel, for when the fight was over and the Northern men cheering, he was silent Captain Walkley asked why he did not cheer with the others.

"Too many hearts made sad to-day," was the significant reply that showed he counted the cost to its bitter end, though he went forward none the less bravely.

Long, monotonous days of garrison duty followed for the men, days of drilling, of idling up and down the streets of the dull Southern town.

But Captain Conwell used his spare minutes to advantage, and when no work connected with his company or the personal welfare of his comrades occupied him, he was studying. Then came the order to drive the Confederates from a fort they were erecting on the Newbern Railroad about thirty miles inland. This expedition, known as the Gum Swamp Expedition, was an experience that tested the mettle of the men and the resources of the young captain, and an experience none of the survivors ever forgot. It was a forced march, a quick charge. The Confederates fled leaving their fort unfinished. The Union men having successfully completed their work, began the return to Newberne, and here disaster overtook them. The Confederates hung on their rear, riddling their ranks with shot and sh.e.l.l. Suffering, maddened, with no way to turn and fight, for the enemy kept themselves well hidden, with no way of escape ahead if they remained on the road, they plunged into the swamp, that swept up black and dismal to the very edge of the highway. The Confederate prisoners with them, warned them of their danger, but the men were not to be stayed when a deadly rain of the enemy's b.a.l.l.s was thinning their ranks every minute. The swamp was one black ooze with water up to their waists, a tangle of gra.s.s, reeds, cypress trees, bushes. Loaded down with their heavy clothing, and their army accoutrements, one after another the men sank from sheer exhaustion. No man could succor his brother. It was all he could do to drag himself through the mire that sucked him down like some terrible, silent monster of the black, slimy depths. But Captain Conwell would not desert a man. He could not see his comrades left to die before his very eyes, those men who came right from his own mountain town, his own boy friends, the ones who had enlisted under him, marched and drilled with him. Rather would he perish in the swamp with them. He worked like a Hercules, encouraging, helping, carrying some of the more exhausted. A wet, straggling remnant reached Newberne. Even then, when Captain Conwell found that two of his own company were missing, he plunged back into the swamp to rescue them. Hours pa.s.sed, and just as a relief expedition was starting to search for him, he came back, his hat gone, his uniform torn into rags, but with one of the men with him and the other left on a fallen tree with a path blazed to lead the rescuers to him. No heart could withstand such devotion as that. Young and old, it touched his men so deeply, they could not speak of it unmoved. They would gladly have died for him if need be, as one did later, changing by his heroic act the whole current of Russell Conwell's life.

This same earnest desire to save that made him plunge back into that swamp, regardless of self, is with him still to-day, now that his whole soul is consumed with a longing to save men from moral death. He lets nothing stand in his way of reaching out a succoring hand. Then it was his comrades that he loved with such unselfish devotion. Now, every man is his brother and his heart goes out with the same earnest desire to help those who need help. The genuineness, the unselfishness of it goes straight to every man's heart. It binds men to him as in the old days, and it gives them new faith in themselves. The love of humanity in his heart is, and always has been, a clear spring, unpolluted by love of self, by ambition, by any worldly thing.

CHAPTER X

THE SWORD AND THE SCHOOL BOOK

Scouting at Bogue Sound. Capt. Conwell Wounded. The Second Enlistment.

Jealousy and Misunderstanding. Building of the First Free School for Colored Children. Attack on Newport Barracks. Heroic Death of John Ring.

Once more, garrison duty laid its dull hand on the troops, varied by little encounters that broke the monotony and furnished the material for many campfire stories, but otherwise did little damage. The men eagerly welcomed these scouting expeditions, and when an especially dangerous one to Bogue Sound was planned, and Company F, eager to be selected, Captain Conwell personally interceded with the Colonel that his men might be given the task. The region into which they were sent was known to be full of rebels, and as they approached the danger zone, Captain Conwell ordered his men to lie down, while he went forward to reconnoitre. Noticing a Confederate officer behind a tree, he stole to the tree, and reaching as far around as he could, began firing with his revolver. Not being experienced in the shooting of men and believing since it must be done, "'twere well it were done quickly," he shot all his loads in quick succession. His enemy, more wily, waited till the Captain's ammunition was gone and then slowly and with steady aim began returning the fire. But Captain Conwell's comrades watching from a distance saw big peril, and disobeying orders, rose as one man and came to his rescue. The Confederate fled but not before he had left a ball in Captain Conwell's shoulder which, of little consequence at the time, later came near causing his death.

Thus the days pa.s.sed away, and as the term of enlistment drew to a close, General Foster sent for Captain Conwell and promised to recommend him for a colonelcy if he would enter at once upon recruiting service among his men. This he willingly consented to do, and as may be imagined his men nearly all wanted to re-enlist under him. Such a commission, however, for one so young aroused bitter jealousy among officers of other companies, and Captain Conwell hearing of it, decided not to accept the appointment. He wrote the Governor that he would be content with the captain's commission again and that he preferred not to raise contention by receiving anything higher. The company returned home, but before the new re-organization was effected, Captain Conwell was attacked with a serious fever. By the time he recovered, the new regiment had been organized and new officers put over it. Of course, his men were dissatisfied. With the understanding that such of his old comrades as wished could join it, he went to work immediately recruiting another company. But nearly all his old men wanted to come into it, the new men recruited would not give him up, and the anomalous position arose of two companies clamoring for one captain. While it created much comment, it did not lessen the jealousy which his popularity had aroused, among men and officers not intimately a.s.sociated with him, so that his second enlistment began under a cloud of disappointment for his men, and jealousy among outsiders, that seemed to bring misfortune in its train.

His new men, however, never failed him. His thoughtful care for them, his kindness, his unselfishness won their loyalty and love as it had done in Company F, and Company D, 2nd Ma.s.sachusetts Volunteers were to a man as devoted and as attached to him as ever were his old comrades of the first days of the war.

In this company went as Captain Conwell's personal orderly, a young boy, John Ring, of Westfield, Ma.s.sachusetts, a lad of sixteen or seventeen. Entirely too young and too small to join the ranks of soldiers, he had pleaded with his father so earnestly to be permitted to go to the war that Mr. Ring had finally consented to put him in Captain Conwell's charge. The boy was a worshipper at the shrine of the young Captain. He had sat thrilled and fascinated under the magic of the burning words which had swept men by the hundreds to enlist. It was Captain Conwell's speeches that had stirred the boy and moved him with such fiery ardor to go to war. No greater joy could be given him, since he could not fight, than to be in his Captain's very tent to look after his belongings, to minister in small ways to his comfort. A hero worshipper the lad was, and at an age when ideals take hold of a pure, high-minded boy with a force that will carry him to any height of self-sacrifice, to any depth of suffering. He had been carefully reared in a Christian home and read the Bible every morning and every evening in their tent, a sight that so p.r.i.c.ked the conscience of Captain Conwell, as he remembered his mother and her loving instructions, that he forbade it. But though John Ring loved Captain Conwell with a love which the former did not then understand, the boy loved duty and right better, and bravely disobeying these orders, he read on.

The company was stationed at Fort Macon, North Carolina, for awhile, and then sent to Newport Barracks. Here it was that Captain Conwell and his soldiers cut the logs and built the first free schoolhouse erected for colored children. Colonel Conwell himself taught it at first and then he engaged a woman to teach. It is still standing.

Months pa.s.sed away and the men received no pay. Request after request Captain Conwell sent to headquarters at Newberne, but received no reply. The men became discontented and unruly. Some had families at home in need. All of these tales were poured into the young Captain's ears. Ready ever to relieve trouble, impatient always to get to work and remedy a wrong, instead of talking about it, Captain Conwell decided to ride to Newberne, find out what was the matter and have the men's money forwarded at once. Leaving an efficient officer in command and securing a pa.s.s, which he never stopped to consider was not a properly made-out permit for a leave of absence for a commanding officer, he took an orderly and started. It was a twenty-mile ride to Newberne and meant an absence of some time. But he antic.i.p.ated no trouble, for the rebels had been letting the Northern troops severely alone for nearly a year.

He had covered barely two-thirds of the distance, when a Union man pa.s.sed, who shouted as he hurried on, "Your men are in a fight."

Conwell and his orderly turned, put their horses to the gallop and rode back furiously. It was too late. The country between was swarming with Confederates. He ran into the enemies' pickets and barely escaped capture by swimming a deep creek, shot spattering all around them. He made desperate efforts to ride around the lines but failed. Then he tried descending the river by boat, but the enemy had captured the entire line of posts. Frustrated at all points, nothing was to be done but retrace his steps to Newberne, where the worst of news awaited him. The a.s.sault upon his fort had been sudden and in overwhelming force. His men had been shot down or bayonetted, the remnant driven to the woods. The whole ground was in the hands of the enemy.

Nor was this all. Back at that little fort had been enacted one of the saddest tragedies of the war. When the Union soldiers fled, they had retreated across the long railroad bridge that spanned the Newport river, and to prevent the enemy following, had set it on fire. Just as the flames began to eat into the timbers, John Ring, the boy orderly, thought of his Captain's sword, that wonderful gold-sheathed sword which had been presented to Captain Conwell on the memorable day in Springfield when he had so eloquently called upon it to fight in the cause of Justice. It had been left behind in the Captain's tent, the Army Regulations requiring that he wear one less conspicuous. Even now it might be in the hands of some slave-owning Confederate. Maddened at the thought, John King leaped on to the burning bridge, plunged back through the fire, through the ranks of the yelling, excited Confederates, reached the tent un.o.bserved and grasped the sword of his idolized Captain. Again he made a rush for the flame-wrapped bridge.

But this time the keen eyes of the enemy discerned him.

"Look at the Yank with the sword. Wing him! Bring him down." And bullets sped after the fearless boy. But he fled on undeterred, and plunged into the ma.s.s of flame and smoke. The fire had gained too great headway by this time for any living thing to pa.s.s through it unhurt. He saw it was useless to attempt to cross as before, and belting the sword about him, he dropped beneath the stringers and tried to make his way hand over hand. All about him fell the blazing brands. The biting smoke blinded him. The very flesh was burning from his arms. The enemies' bullets sung about him. But still he struggled on. In sheer admiration of his courage, the Confederate general gave the order to cease firing, and the two armies stood silent and watched the plucky fight of this brave boy. Inch by inch, he gained on his path of fire. But he could see no longer. In torturing blackness he groped on, fearful only that he might not succeed in saving the precious sword, that in his blindness he might grasp a blazing timber and his hand be burnt from him, that death in a tongue of flame be swept down into his face, that the bridge might fall and the sword be lost. At last he heard his comrades shouting. They guided him with their cheers, "A little farther," "Keep straight on," "You're all right now." And then he dropped blazing into the outstretched arms of his comrades, while a mighty shout went up from both sides of the river, as enemy and friend paid the tribute of brave men to a brave deed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LIEUTENANT-COLONEL CONWELL]

With swelling hearts and tear-blinded eyes, they tenderly laid the insensible hero on a gun carriage and took him to the hospital. Two days of quivering agony followed and then he met and bravely faced his last enemy. Opening his eyes, he said clearly and distinctly, "Give the Captain his sword." Then his breath fluttered and the little armor-bearer slept the sleep of peace.

CHAPTER XI.

A SOLDIER OF THE CROSS

Under Arrest for Absence Without Leave. Order of Court Reversed by President. Certificate from State Legislature of Ma.s.sachusetts for Patriotic Services. Appointed by President Lincoln Lieutenant-Colonel on General McPherson's Staff. Wounded at Kenesaw Mountain. Conversion.

Public Profession of Faith.

The tragic death of John Ring was the final crushing news that came to Captain Conwell at Newberne. Combined with the nervous strain he had been under in trying to get back to his men, the condemnation from his superior officers for his absence, it threw him into a brain fever.

Long days and nights he rolled and tossed, fighting over again the attack on the fort, making heroic efforts to rescue John Ring from his fiery death, urging his horse through tangled forests and dark rivers that seemed never to have another sh.o.r.e. For weeks the fever racked and wasted him, and finally when feeble and weak, he was once more able to walk, he found himself under arrest for absence without leave during a time of danger.

It had been reported to General Palmer that the defeat of the Federal troops might have been avoided had the officers been on duty. An investigation was ordered and Captain Conwell was asked for his permit to be absent. He had simply his pa.s.s through the lines, a vastly different thing he found from an authorized permit of absence. The investigation dragged its slow course along, as all such things, enc.u.mbered by red tape, do. Disgusted and humiliated by being kept a prisoner for months when the country needed every arm in its defense, by having such a mountain made of the veriest molehill built of a kind act and boyish inexperience, he refused to put in a defense at the investigation and let it go as it would. Setting the Court of Inquiry more against him, a former Commander, General Foster, espoused his cause too hotly and wrote to General McPherson for an appointment for a "boy who is as brave as an old man." The Court of Inquiry, made up of local officers, most of them jealous of his popularity, resented this outside interference and the verdict was against him. But others higher in authority took up the matter and Captain Conwell was ordered to Washington. The President reversed the order of the Court. He was appointed Lieutenant-Colonel, detailed for service on General McPherson's staff and ordered West. General Butler, under whose command Captain Conwell served, afterward made a generous acknowledgment of the injustice of the findings and expressed in warm words his admiration of Captain Conwell, and the State Legislature of Ma.s.sachusetts gave him a certificate for faithful and patriotic services in that campaign.

Nevertheless, it was an experience that sorely embittered his soul.

Intentionally he had done nothing wrong, yet he had been humiliated and made to eat the bitter fruits of the envy and jealousy of others.

It saddened but did not defeat him. His heart was too big, his nature too generous. He could forgive them freely, could do them a kindness the very first opportunity, but that did not take away the pain at his heart. One may forgive a person who burns him, even if intentionally, but that does not stop the burn from smarting.

Saddened, and with the futility of ambition keenly brought home to him, he joined General McPherson, and in the battle of Kenesaw Mountain he received a serious wound. He had stationed a lookout to watch the Confederate fire while he directed the work of two batteries. It was the duty of the lookout to keep Colonel Conwell and his gunners posted as to whether the enemy fired shot or sh.e.l.l, easily to be told by watching the little trail of smoke that followed the discharge. If a shot were sent, they paid no attention to it for it did little damage, but if it were a sh.e.l.l it was deemed necessary to seek protection.

Colonel Conwell was leaning on the wheel of one of the cannon when there was a discharge from the guns of the enemy. The lookout yelled, "Shot." But it was a fatal sh.e.l.l that came careening and screaming toward them, and before Conwell or his men could leap into the bomb-proof embankment, it struck the hub of the very wheel against which he leaned, and burst.

When he came to himself, the stars were shining, the field was silent save for the feeble moans of the wounded, the voices and footsteps of parties searching for the injured. He was in a quivering agony of sharp, burning pain, but he could neither move nor speak. At last, he heard the searchers coming. Nearer, nearer drew the voices, then for a moment they paused at his side. He heard a man with a lantern say, "Poor fellow! We can do nothing for him." Then they pa.s.sed on, leaving him for dead, among the dead.

All that June night he lay there, looking up at the stars that studded the infinity of s.p.a.ce. About him were dark, silent forms, rigid in the sleep of death. Those were solemn hours, hours when he looked death in the face, and then backward over the years he had lived. Useless years they seemed to him now, years filled with petty ambitions that had to do solely with self. All the spiritual ideals of life, the things that give lasting joy and happiness because they are of the spirit and not of the flesh, he had scoffingly cast aside and rejected. He had narrowed life down to self and the things of the world. He had no such faith as made his mother's hard-working life happy and serene because it transformed its sordid care into glorious service of her Heavenly King. He had no such faith as carried John Ring triumphant and undismayed through the gates of fiery death in performance of a loving service. Suddenly a longing swept over him for this priceless faith, for a personal, sure belief in the love of a Savior. One by one the teachings of his mother came back to him, those beautiful immortal truths she had read him from that Book which is never too old to touch the hearts of men with healing. Looking up at the worlds swinging through s.p.a.ce to unknown laws, with the immensities of life, death and infinity all about him, his disbelief, his atheism dropped away. Into his heart came the premonitions of the peace of G.o.d, which pa.s.seth understanding. Life broadened, it took on new meaning and duty, for a life into which the spirit of G.o.d has come can never again narrow down to the boundaries of self. He determined henceforth to live more for others, less for himself; to make the world better, somebody happier whenever he could; to make his life, each day of it, worthy of that great sacrifice of John Ring.