The Young Sharpshooter at Antietam Part 31

"That's correct," said the officer. "All these things tally. I have a statement here that you and--your name is Noel Curtis, is it not?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, I have a statement here that Noel Curtis and Dennis O'Hara, both belonging to Company ---- of the --th regiment deserted just before the attack on Harper's Ferry."

"Colonel, may I ask you who made that statement?"

"The sutler is the one who informed us."

"Did any one else tell you?"

"I think so. I haven't all the papers here and I have no time to go into details about this. Have you served long?"

"We enlisted last spring, my brother and I. We were both in the Peninsula campaign. My brother was sick and went home on a furlough."

"Where is your home?"

"In New York State, on the border of the St. Lawrence River. My brother and I were both sharpshooters."

The colonel smiled incredulously as he looked at the young soldier, but all he said in reply was, "I have nothing but your unsupported word for this, while I have the testimony of others against you. The fact that you were outside the lines at Harper's Ferry is against you, and it's just about as black when Captain Blowers reports that he was informed by reliable witnesses that you are a deserter and were seen several times skulking about the region. We are compelled to make examples of these men right now, or we shan't have anybody left to stand against Lee.

You'll have to find better reasons for convincing me than you have given this afternoon."

"Will you make some investigations, Colonel?"

"No, not now. There is no time. Do you hear those guns?" he demanded as the roar of distant cannon was heard. "We may be ordered to advance at any time. Meanwhile I must give my men a good lesson, and I cannot do it in a better way than by making an example of such men as you."

"Don't you believe what I have told you?"

"I don't," said the colonel tartly. "Your story is just about as plausible as the one young Naylor told me before I had him hanged."

Noel's face became pale as he heard the statement lightly repeated by the colonel that some one had been hanged that very day for desertion.

He was aware, however, from the att.i.tude of the officer and the abrupt manner in which he turned again to his writing that there was little use in trying further to plead his cause. Turning about, Noel, still under the guard of the orderly, left the tent and was conducted back to the place where he had been confined with his companions.

CHAPTER XXV

THE EXECUTION

Depressed as Noel was by his recent interview with the colonel, he nevertheless was surprised when he approached the tent to find that the guards had been changed. The young soldier was not yet aware that when deserters were put under guard certain selected men were stationed with loaded muskets about the tent of those who had been condemned. Every two hours the guard was relieved.

Nor was any soldier ever compelled to stand guard over a deserter from his own company or regiment. Naturally it was very difficult for one comrade to be compelled to enforce so severe a rule as that which was applied to men who deserted, when the guilty comrade, perhaps, was a schoolmate, a relative, or even a brother. Besides, there was the continual fear of the officers that if such men were placed in charge there would naturally be the danger of a plot or a plan for the escape of those who were condemned. It was for this reason that Noel and Dennis, in any event, would have been a.s.signed to a guard-tent in some company in which they were not likely to have any acquaintances, or even any friends among its members.

As soon as Noel entered the tent, Dennis was aware from the expression of his face that his mission had not been successful.

"What is it, lad?" he whispered as he drew the young soldier to one side.

Noel shook his head as he replied, "The colonel wouldn't believe a word."

"The colonel is as bad as that little spalpeen, the sutler!"

"I wouldn't mind it so much," said Noel, "if they would first really find out what the truth of the charge is, but it seems that they have taken the word of Levi, and now anything we can say doesn't seem to count for much against it."

"But they'll give us a trial. They'll hold a court-martial before anything is done," protested Dennis.

"I hope so," said Noel. "I don't know how it will be held, or how fair a show we'll have. It's the only square way, though, and if it's possible I am going to try to make an appeal. I have thought of sending for the chaplain. I think he might be able to do something for us if any man in the regiment can."

"Who is the chaplain?"

"I don't know who he is, but we'll be able to find that out later."

A low conversation which followed between the inmates of the tent revealed the fact that several of the men already had been tried and condemned by court-martial for desertion. Every one was bitter against those who had pa.s.sed sentence upon him. Noel was surprised to find that the men were all claiming, what he himself had a.s.serted as the cause for the mistake in his arrest, that some one had brought a false charge against them.

Not unnaturally both the young soldiers were depressed when darkness came on, and Noel was unable to sleep. Mortified by the charge as well as anxious, he lay with wide-open eyes staring in the dim light at the top of his tent and wondering what the following day would bring forth.

The sound of guns in the distance, the restlessness that was manifested among the soldiers, the evident interest with which the colonel was reading some dispatches that he had received, as well as the severity with which the so-called deserters were being treated, all combined to make the young soldier confident that stirring action was speedily expected.

The following morning dawned wonderfully clear. When Dennis awoke the sun was shining brightly and the morning air was soft and still.

When the boys first arose they were startled at the presence of two ambulances in front of their tent. In each of these ambulances there was a rough coffin of wood. That these gruesome objects should have been brought to the place where the prisoners under the charge of desertion were confined at first had not been suggestive to Noel. He was soon aware, however, what the explanation was, and his face became pallid when he heard two of his companions ordered to advance and each man to take his seat on a coffin. A detail of soldiers had been a.s.signed to draw these two ambulances and in solemn silence were awaiting the coming of the condemned men.

Noel Curtis shuddered when one of the prisoners, stepping lightly into the ambulance, seated himself upon the long box, and, rapping upon the wood, turned to some of the watching soldiers and flippantly said, "Boys, can't you put some shavings or something a little softer in my box? It looks as if it might be a pretty hard nest to rest in."

Instead of laughter or applause greeting his coa.r.s.e remarks, the silence and disgust of the a.s.sembled soldiers seemed to react with solemn force upon the condemned man. At last the word was given and the cavalcade departed, leaving the remaining prisoners in the guard-tent dumb with the horror of the event.

Difficult as Noel Curtis had found it, in his previous experiences in the campaign on the Peninsula, to control his feelings when he found that he was actually shooting at a human being, that experience was by no means equal to the suffering which he now was undergoing.

There might be some justification for men making targets of one another when some great issue had been raised, but the young sharpshooter was now fully aware that war was no holiday game. His heart rebelled against many of the things which he saw, and yet the supreme issue of it all and the fact that war had been declared and accepted, and that there was no relief or release until one side or the other in the great conflict had won its victory, could not be ignored.

His thoughts now were centered upon the men who had been taken away from the tent for their execution. The presence of the detail implied that both men were to be shot, a method of execution not quite so revolting as that by hanging.

Some of the men under sentence in the guard-tent seemed to be dumb with fear, while others more stolidly expressed their complaints over the outcome of the court-martial which had been held for the two condemned men the preceding day.

Several times when shots were heard near the place where the division was in camp, Noel fancied that the report was that of the guns of the men who had been detailed to shoot the two deserters.

In his interview with the colonel the young soldier had been informed that desertion was becoming so frequent in the army at this time that orders for the sternest measures to break it up had been issued. No man now might expect any mercy who should flee from his post of duty.

Sometimes homesickness had been the cause of the men leaving their comrades. The thoughts or recollections of family and friends in the far-away North had produced a longing in the midst of the monotony of the camp work and of the army life that had been too strong for some to resist. Others, however, had become tired of the service when the novelty of the first days was gone and had fled simply to evade the difficulties and drudgery which are a part of the campaign of any army.

Whatever the cause may have been, the fact could not be denied, and Noel Curtis understood fully the reasons for the sterner measures which now were being used. Perhaps they might be justified, he thought, although the unspeakable horror which had appeared in the expression on the faces of the two condemned men, when at last they were taken from the tent, was something which he was positive he never would be able to forget.

Somehow the morning pa.s.sed. The guards were changed more frequently, and it was evident to the waiting men that they had not been forgotten in the midst of the excitement of the army in the knowledge that the enemy was not far distant.

"I thought you were going to send for the chaplain?" suggested Dennis to Noel when an hour or more had elapsed.

"So I am," said Noel promptly. "I had not forgotten it. It doesn't seem to me, though, that any man will be able to help us much, when the colonel is not willing even to hear what we have to say for ourselves.

It seems to me that they ought to give us credit first of all for being honest. But his plan apparently is to believe a man guilty and then let him prove his innocence, if he is able."