The Boys of '61 Part 16

This was too much for the Colonel. He could no longer restrain his indignation. Looking the Judge squarely in the face, he vented his anger in scathing words.

The Judge departed, and at the next session of the Court Colonel Utley was indicted for man-stealing; but he has not yet been brought to trial. The case is postponed till the day of Judgment, when a righteous verdict will be rendered.

The Judge returned to Lexington, called a public meeting, at which he made a speech, denouncing the Twenty-Second Wisconsin as an abolition regiment, and introducing resolutions declaring that the Union never could be restored if the laws of the State of Kentucky were thus set at defiance. This from the Judge, while his son was in the Rebel service, fighting against the Union.

But the matter was not yet over. A few days later, the division containing the Twenty-Second Wisconsin, commanded by General Baird, vice Gillmore, was ordered down the river. It went to Louisville, followed by the slave-hunters, who were determined to have their negroes.

Orders were issued to the colonels not to take any contrabands on board the boats, and most of them obeyed. Colonel Utley issued no orders.

A citizen called upon him and said,-

"Colonel, you will have trouble in going through the city unless you give up the negroes in your lines."

The regiment was then on its march to the wharf.

"They have taken all the negroes from the ranks of the other regiments, and they intend to take yours."

The Colonel turned to his men and said, quietly, "Fix bayonets."

The regiment moved on through the streets, and reached the Gault House, where the slaveholders had congregated. A half-dozen approached the regiment rather cautiously, but one bolder than the rest sprang into the ranks and seized a negro by the collar.

A dozen bayonets came down around him, some not very gently. He let go his hold and sprang back again quite as quickly as he entered the lines.

There was a shaking of fists and muttered curses, but the regiment pa.s.sed on to the landing, just as if nothing had happened.

General Granger, who had charge of the transportation, had issued orders that no negro should be allowed on the boats without free papers.

General Baird saw the negroes on the steamer, and approaching Colonel Utley, said,-

"Why, Colonel, how is this? Have all of these negroes free papers?"

"Perhaps not all, but those who haven't, have declared their intentions!" said the Colonel.

The Twenty-Second took transportation on the steamer Commercial. The captain of the boat was a Kentuckian, who came to Colonel Utley in great trepidation, saying: "Colonel, I can't start till those negroes are put on sh.o.r.e. I shall be held responsible. My boat will be seized and libelled under the laws of the State."

"I can't help that, sir; the boat is under the control and in the employ of the government. I am commander on board, and you have nothing to do but to steam up and go where you are directed. Otherwise I shall be under the necessity of arresting you."

The captain departed and began his preparations. But now came the sheriff of Jefferson County with a writ. He wanted the bodies of George, Abraham, John, and d.i.c.k, who were still with the Twenty-Second. They were the runaway property of a fellow named Hogan, who a few days before had figured in a convention held at Frankfort, in which he introduced a series of Secession resolutions.

"I have a writ for your arrest, but I am willing to waive all action on condition of your giving up the fugitives which you are harboring contrary to the peace and dignity of the State," said the sheriff.

"I have other business to attend to just now. I am under orders from my superiors in command to proceed down the river without any delay, and must get the boat under way," said the Colonel, bowing, politely.

"But, Colonel, you are aware of the consequences of deliberately setting at defiance the laws of a sovereign State," said the sheriff.

"Are you all ready there?" said the Colonel, not to the sheriff, but to the officer of the day who had charge of affairs.

"Yes, sir."

"Then cast off."

The game of bluff had been played between the Twenty-Second Wisconsin and the State of Kentucky, and Wisconsin had won.

The sheriff jumped ash.o.r.e. There were hoa.r.s.e puffs from the steam-pipes, the great wheels turned in the stream, the Commercial swung from her moorings, and the soldiers of Wisconsin floated down the broad Ohio with the stars and stripes waving above them.

By their devotion to principle, by the firmness of their commander, they had given the cause of Freedom a mighty uplift in the old State of Kentucky.

I recall an evening in the Louisville Hotel. Officers of the army,-majors, captains, lieutenants,-were there from camp, chatting with the ladies. It was a pleasant company,-an hour of comfort and pleasure. The evening was chilly, and a coal-fire in the grate sent out its genial warmth. The cut gla.s.s of the chandeliers sparkled with ruby, purple, and amethyst in the changing light. In the anterooms there were chess-players absorbed in the intellectual game, with a knot of silent spectators.

At the dinner-table Mr. Brown was my servant. His complexion was a shade darker than mine. He served me faithfully, wearing a white cotton jacket and ap.r.o.n. He entered the parlor in the evening, not wearing his hotel uniform, but faultlessly dressed as a gentleman. He brought not a lady, but a double-ba.s.s viol. He was followed by two fellow-servants, one with a violin, the other with a banjo. The one with the violin was a short, thick-set, curly-headed African,-black as the King of Dahomey. The other was whiter than most of the officers in the room.

They were the hotel table-waiters and also a quadrille band. The violinist did not know B flat from F sharp. Musical notation was Greek to him; but he had rhythm, a quick, tuneful ear, and an appreciation of the beautiful in music rarely found among the many thousands who take lessons by the quarter. He did not give us Old Tar River, Uncle Ned, and O Susannah, but themes from Labitsky and Donizetti,-melodies which once heard are long remembered. His two comrades accompanied him in time and tune. For the young ladies and officers it was a delightful hour. Mr. Brown was the factotum, calling the changes with as much steadiness and precision, while handling the double-ba.s.s, as Hall or Dodworth at the grand ball to the Prince of Wales. So we were served by four thousand dollars' worth of body and soul!

The doorway leading into the hall was a portrait-gallery of dusky faces,-Dinah, Julia, Sam, and James; old aunt Rebecca, with a yellow turban on her head; young Sarah, three feet high, bare-legged, bare-armed, in a torn, greasy calico dress,-her only garment; young Toney, who had so much India-rubber in his heels that he capered irrepressibly through the hall and executed a double-shuffle. While the grand stairway, leading to the halls above was piled with dark, eager faces, reminding one of the crowded auditory looking upon Belshazzar's feast in the great picture of Allston,-fifteen, twenty, thirty thousand dollars' worth of bones, blood, and brains!

The violinist was in trouble. The screws would not stick, and in spite of his spitting in the holes, his twisting and turning, he was obliged to stop in the middle of the dance. He made strenuous efforts to keep his instrument in tune. A man in shoulder-straps, leading a fair-haired, graceful maiden, his partner in the dance, with a clenched fist and an oath informed the musician that if he didn't fix that quick he would knock his head off! It was a little glimpse of the divine, beneficent missionary inst.i.tution ordained of G.o.d for the elevation of the sons of Ham!

It was not difficult to make a transition in thought to a South Carolina rice-swamp or Louisiana sugar-plantation or Arkansas cotton-field, where a master's pa.s.sion was law, and where knocking off men's heads was not so rare a performance.

Among the dusky crowd gazing in upon the waltzers was a girl, sixteen or seventeen years old,-a brunette, with cherry lips, sparkling black eyes, and cheeks as fresh and fair as apricots. She was a picture of health. She gazed with evident delight, and yet there was always upon her countenance a shade of sadness. In form and feature she was almost wholly Anglo-Saxon, and more than Anglo-Saxon in beauty.

I met her in the hall during the day having charge of a young child, and had marked her beauty, ease, grace, and intelligence, and supposed that she was a boarder at the hotel,-the daughter or young wife of some officer, till seeing her the central figure of the dusky group. Then the thought came flashing, "She is a slave!"

She could have joined in the cotillon with as much grace as any of the fair dancers.

Her father, I learned, was a high-born Kentuckian, and her grandfather was from one of the first families of Virginia; but her great-great-great-grandmother was born in Africa, and that was the reason why she stood a silent spectator in the hall, instead of whirling with the gay colonel in the dance.

CHAPTER X.

FROM HARPER'S FERRY TO FREDERICKSBURG.

Nov., 1862.

Returning to Virginia I accompanied the army of the Potomac in the march from Berlin and Harper's Ferry to the Rappahannock. The roads were excellent, the days mild, the air clear. Beautiful beyond description the landscape, viewed from the pa.s.ses of the Blue Ridge. Westward in the valley of the Shenandoah was Longstreet's corps, traced by rising clouds of dust and the smoke of innumerable camp-fires. Eastward was the great army of the Union, winding along the numerous roads, towards the south. Many of the soldiers had their pets,-one had two yellow dogs in leading-strings. A gray-bearded old soldier carried a young puppy with its eyes not yet open, in his arms as tenderly as if it were a child. A Connecticut boy had a little kitten on his shoulders, which kept its place contentedly. Occasionally the lad caressed it, while kitty laid its face against that of the beardless boy and purred with pleasure.

The march was tediously slow. General McClellan was averse to making it at all. He had delayed from day to day, and from week to week, till ordered by the President to advance. He had no well-considered plan of operations.

The President's patience was exhausted, and at Warrenton he was deprived of the command of the army.

General Burnside, his successor, took the command reluctantly; but he was quick in deciding upon a plan. General McClellan's line of march was towards Gordonsville. Burnside decided to move upon Fredericksburg. The movement was made with great rapidity, and Burnside only failed of seizing the place because the pontoons were not there at the time appointed. Lee came and occupied the town, threw up his earthworks, and planted his batteries. Burnside planned to have Franklin cross the Rappahannock below Port Royal, Hooker above it, while Sumner was to cross opposite the town; but a heavy storm frustrated the movement.

It was generally supposed that the army would go into winter quarters, and many of the correspondents accordingly returned to their homes. My friend and companion in the West, Mr. Richardson, left the army of the Potomac in disgust, and proceeded West again in search of adventure. His wishes were more than gratified soon after at Vicksburg, where he fell into the hands of the Rebels, who boarded him awhile at the Libby in Richmond, and afterward at the Salisbury prison in North Carolina. He ungraciously turned his back upon his Rebel friends one night, took all his baggage, and left without paying his bills.

He gained the Union lines in Tennessee after months of imprisonment, with his desires for adventure in that direction fully satisfied.

Nearly one half of the correspondents with the various armies either fell into the hands of the Rebels or were wounded. Several died of diseases contracted in the malarious swamps. As a cla.s.s they were daring, courageous, venturesome, always on the alert, making hard rides, day and night, on the battle-field often where the fire was hottest,-writing their accounts seated on a stump, spreading their blankets where night overtook them, or frequently making all-night rides after a day of excitement, hardship, and exposure, that the public might have early information of what had transpired. Their statements were often contradictory. Those first received by the public were not unfrequently full of errors, and sometimes were wholly false, for the reason that many papers had a correspondent a few miles in rear of the army, at the base of supplies, who caught up every wild rumor and sent it flying over the land.

Gold speculators improved every occasion to gull the public by false news. There is reason to believe that men in high official positions were in collusion with operators in bullion, to the mutual advantage of all concerned.

The press of the country, reflecting the feelings of the people, p.r.o.nounced the campaign at an end. The friends of General McClellan were clamorous for his return. Congress and political advisers in Washington demanded that Burnside should move somewhere. They knew nothing of the obstacles in his path.