"As the day drew near I felt like a real murderer, and had the prisoner all the time before my eyes, hanging on a gallows. I drank harder than ever, but I could not get that picture out of my mind. I saw worse pictures than before. So I determined what to do. I sat down, wrote a full confession of the murder, which I signed; and a friend of mine carried this to the prisoner's wife. I had put on it 'In haste, this will save Mr. Davenant's life'—and his wife carried it, at full speed, with her own hands to the court-house, where she arrived just as the jury had retired.

"The prisoner opened and read it. When he had finished it, he folded it up and put it in his pocket. As he did so, the jury came in with a verdict of 'Not guilty'—and he went out of the court-room accompanied by a crowd of friends.

"So he was cleared, you see—without using the document which I had written. That was in his pocket; was of no further use; and as it might become dangerous I entered his house that night, broke open the desk in which he kept his private papers, and took this one out, reading and making sure that it was the genuine document, by the light of the moon which streamed in at the window.

"I was still looking at the paper, when a noise behind me attracted my attention, and turning round I saw—Mr. Davenant. He had heard the noise I made in breaking open the secretary; put on his dressing-gown; and coming down, pistol in hand, was on me before I knew it. The few minutes that followed were rather angry, and noisy. Unexpectedly, Mr. Davenant did not fire on me. After an interchange of compliments, I put the paper in my pocket, passed out through the window, and mounting my horse, rode away.

"After that I went far, and saw many persons. Among the rest you, madam; and our matrimonial life has been chequered!

"A word to you, now," he added, turning toward Swartz. "I shut you up here to starve you to death because you were trusted and have betrayed me. Listen, and I will tell you how. You are greedy for gold, and this greed has tempted you to an act which will be your destruction. In Pennsylvania, one night, just before the battle of Gettysburg, you were at my house, and stole a paper from madam, who was collecting every thing to hide it from the enemy. No matter how I know that; I have made the discovery, and you deny it—refusing to deliver up that paper, which you state you never had, and consequently have not in your possession. In saying that, you lied! You stole that paper, and promise yourself that you will sell it for a large sum of money—you have already been bargaining, and have tried to finish the business.

"Well, that paper is interesting—to madam at least; and she has kept it with care from the eyes of the very person you would sell it to! Folded with it was another paper which is no less valuable to me. Thus, you see, that we are interested; and we will probably be informed in a day from this time where to find both the documents—as you will then be starving, and will reveal every thing!

"You think me jesting, perhaps—you imagine I will spare you. Undeceive yourself—your life is a small matter compared with these two papers.

"One is the certificate of madam's marriage with your very humble servant; the other the letter which I took from Mr. Davenant's desk that night, in which I confess myself the—well! the murderer—of George Conway!"



XXXII.

A PISTOL-SHOT.

Darke's deep and gloomy voice ceased to resound, and for a moment the silence of the apartment was only disturbed by the slight creaking made by the chair of the woman, as she quietly rocked backward and forward.

Swartz had risen to his feet while Darke was uttering his final words. With clasped hands, and trembling lips, he was about to throw himself upon his knees;—when suddenly a shot resounded without, a cry was heard, and then this was succeeded by rapid firing, mingled with hoof-strokes, in the immediate vicinity of the house.

Darke rose to his feet, and in two strides was at the window.

"An attack!" he exclaimed. "Can the friends of this carrion be trying to catch me!"

And springing toward the door, he tore it open.

Suddenly, another thought seemed to come to him. Returning at a bound to the side of Swartz, he seized him by the throat, dragged him through the door, and rushed down the steps, still dragging the unfortunate man.

As he passed me, I drew my revolver and fired on him, but the ball did not strike him. Then I saw the woman dart past like a shadow. When Nighthawk and myself reached the foot of the stairs, she and Darke were already in the saddle.

The collar of Swartz was still in his clutch. He seemed determined to bear him off at the risk of being himself captured; for a second glance showed me that a party of Confederate cavalry was rushing headlong toward the house, led by an officer whom I made out to be Mohun.

Darke saw that the small force on picket could not contend with the attacking party.

By the starlight, I could see his face, as he glared over his shoulder at Mohun, whom he had evidently recognized. An expression of profound hate was in that glance; a hoarse growl issued from his lips; and I distinguished the low words addressed to Swartz, whom he was dragging on beside his horse.

"So, you are rescued, you think! You have laid this trap for me, jailbird!"

He drew his pistol as he spoke, and placed it close to the unhappy man's temple. I had mine in my hand, and, aiming at Darke, fired.

It was too late. The bullet did not strike him; and the report of his own weapon followed that of mine like an echo.

Swartz staggered back, threw up his hands, and uttering a wild cry, fell at full length upon the ground.

The scene which followed was as brief as this tragedy. Mohun charged, at the head of his men, and drove the picket force before him. In five minutes the whole party were dispersed, or captured.

Darke had escaped with the gray woman, in the darkness.

The pursuit did not continue far. The Federal lines were near; and Mohun soon recalled his men.

Grasping me cordially by the hand, he exclaimed:—

"Well, Surry! the prisoner! Where is Swartz?"

I pointed to the spot where his body lay, and went thither with Mohun.

Swartz lay perfectly dead, in a pool of blood. Darke had blown out his brains.



XXXIII.

PRESTON HAMPTON.

An hour afterward the body of the unfortunate man had been buried, and I had returned with Mohun and Nighthawk to the opposite bank of the Rowanty.

I had never seen Mohun so gloomy. He scarcely uttered a word during the whole march back; and when I announced my intention to spend the night at the house of Mr. Alibi, as the long tramp had wearied me out, he scarcely invited me to his head-quarters, and when I declined, did not urge me. Something evidently weighed heavily on the mind of Mohun, and a few moment's reflection explained the whole to me.

He had conversed rapidly and apart with Nighthawk near the lonely house; and his gloom had dated from that conversation. Nighthawk had evidently explained every thing: the cause of Swartz's imprisonment; his statement in reference to the paper—and now that Swartz was dead, the hiding-place of the document seemed forever undiscoverable.

If the reader does not understand the terrible significance of this fact, and Mohun's consequent gloom, I promise that he shall comprehend all before very long.

Mohun returned to his camp, and I remained at the house of Mr. Alibi until morning, stretched on a lounge, and wrapped in my cape.

I awoke about sunrise. As I opened my eyes, quick firing came from the direction of Burgess's Mill. The fire speedily became more rapid and continuous; I hastened to mount my horse; and as I did so, a courier passed at full gallop.

"What news?" I asked.

"The enemy are advancing in force! They have crossed!"

"Where?"

"Near Armstrong's!"

And the courier disappeared, at full speed, in the woods. In a moment I had abandoned my design of inspecting, and was riding back.

"Armstrong's" was a mill on the Rowanty, near the Boydton road. If the enemy had crossed there, in force, it was to make a heavy advance toward the Southside road.

I was not mistaken. Reaching the debouchment of the "Quaker road," I found the cavalry drawn up in order of battle—a dispatch had been sent to hurry up the rest—on the lower waters of the Rowanty, and General Hampton informed me of the situation of affairs.

The enemy had advanced in heavy force at sunrise, driven in the pickets, and, crossing the Rowanty, seized on the Boydton road and the bridge at Burgess's Mill. From prisoners taken, it was ascertained that the force consisted of the Second, Fifth, and part of the Ninth Corps; Grant, Meade, and Hancock, accompanying the troops in person.

That left nothing in doubt. If any remained, it was dispelled by the fact, stated to me by General Hampton, that the Federal troops "had eight days' rations, and were certainly bound for the Southside road."[1]

[Footnote 1: His words.]

I had scarcely received this intelligence from General Hampton, when a heavy attack was made upon General William H.F. Lee, holding the Quaker road.

From that moment the battle began to rage with determined fury, and the entire force of cavalry was engaged in an obstinate fight with the advancing enemy. It was a bitter and savage affair. The men charged; dismounted and fought behind impromptu breastworks of rails; fell back only when they were pushed by the weight of the great column rolling forward; and for hours the whole field was a hurly-burly of dust, smoke, blood, uproar, carbine shots, musket shots, and the long threatening roar of cannon.

The Stuart horse artillery fought like tigers. The men stuck to their guns amid a storm of bullets, and vindicated, as they had done before on many fields, the name of "my pets," given them by Stuart! Among the officers, Will Davenant was seen, sitting his horse amid the smoke, as calm as a May morning; and I shall never forget the smile on the face of this young bull-dog, when he said:—

"I think we can hold our ground, colonel."

And looking over his shoulder, in the direction of Five Forks, he murmured:—

"This is a good place to die, too."

A thundering cheer rose suddenly above the roar of the guns, and the line of dismounted sharp-shooters behind their rail breastworks opened a more steady and resolute fire as the enemy appeared to pause.

At the same moment young Preston Hampton, a son of the general, and one of my favorites, from his courage and courtesy, passed by at a gallop, cheering and encouraging the skirmishers.

I spurred after him. Just as I reached him, I saw the arm waving above his head suddenly drop; his sword escaped from his grasp, and he fell from the saddle to the ground.

In an instant I had dismounted, and with other officers who hastened up, had raised him from the earth.

As we did so, the group, consisting now of no less than seven, attracted the enemy's attention; a hot fire was opened on us, and before we could bear the dying youth in our arms beyond the reach of the fire, four out of the seven officers were shot.[1]

[Footnote 1: Fact]

The boy was placed in an ambulance, and borne to the rear; but the wound was fatal, and he soon afterward expired. A staff officer afterward informed me that General Hampton did not leave his tent for a fortnight—scarcely replying when he was spoken to, and prostrated by grief.

I could understand that. The death of the brave youth sent a pang to my own heart—and he was only my friend. The great heart of the father must have been nearly broken.

So fell Preston Hampton. Peace to his ashes! No kinder or braver spirit ever died for his country!



XXXIV.

I AM CAPTURED.

Hour after hour the battle continued to rage; the enemy making resolute attempts to brush off the cavalry.

It was now discovered that Hancock's corps had crossed the Rowanty, supported by Crawford's division, with two corps behind; and as General Hancock held the bridge at Burgess's, there seemed little probability that Lee could cross a force to attack him.

But this was done. While the cavalry fought the blue masses with obstinate courage on the Boydton road, Mahone, that daring soldier, crossed a column of three brigades over the Rowanty, below Burgess's; and suddenly the enemy found themselves attacked in flank and rear. Mahone did not pause. He advanced straight to the assault; swept every thing before him, and thrusting his small force in between Hancock and Crawford, tore from the former four hundred prisoners, three battle- flags, and six pieces of artillery.

The assault had been sudden and almost overwhelming. While hotly engaged with Hampton in front, the enemy had all at once staggered beneath the heavy blow dealt on their flank and rear. They turned to strike at this new foe; and the shock which followed was rude, the onset bloody.

Mahone met it with that dash and stubbornness now proverbial in the army; and, hurling his three brigades against the advancing column, broke through three lines of battle, and drove them back.[1]

[Footnote 1: "In the attack subsequently made by the enemy, General Mahone broke three lines of battle."—General Lee's Dispatch of October 28, 1864.]

Night was near, and the fighting still continued. The enemy seemed both to give up the ground; and were holding their position obstinately, when a determined charge from a brigade of Mahone's drove every thing in its front.

I had been to carry a message for General Hampton, upon whose staff I served during the battle, and now found myself swept forward by the brigade charging.

In front of them, I recognized General Davenant, on horseback, and sword in hand, leading the charge. His son Charley was beside him.

"We are driving them, colonel!" exclaimed the general, with a proud smile "and look! yonder are some of their general officers flying from that house!"

As he spoke, he pointed to three horsemen, riding at full speed from a house known as Burgess's; their splendid suit of staff officers indicated that they were of high rank.

In fact, the three horsemen who retired thus hastily, would have proved a rich prize to us. They were Generals Grant, Meade and Hancock.[1]

[Footnote 1: Fact.]

They made a narrow escape, and the question suggests itself, "What would have been the result of their capture?" I know not; I only know that Grant, Meade and Hancock, came near having an interview with General Lee that night—a peaceful and friendly talk at his head-quarters.

I did not think of all this then. The hot charge dragged me. I had come to participate in it by the mere chance of battle—but this apparent accident was destined to have very singular results.

I had ridden with General Davenant, as his brigade swept forward, and we were breasting a heavy fire on his front, when a sudden cry of "Cavalry! look out!" came from our left.

General Davenant wheeled his horse; went at full speed, accompanied by his son and myself, through the bullets, in the direction indicated; and carried onward by his animal, as I was by my own, rode right into a column of blue cavalry, advancing to attack our flank.

Such was the "chance of battle!" At one moment General Davenant was in command of a brigade which was driving the enemy, and sweeping every thing before it. At the next moment he had been carried by the powerful animal which he bestrode straight into the ranks of the Federal cavalry, hidden by the woods and approaching darkness—had been surrounded in an instant, fired upon, and half dragged from his saddle, and captured, together with his son Charley.

What was still more unfortunate to me, personally, was the fact that having followed the old soldier, I was surrounded, and made a prisoner in the same manner.



XXXV.

FACE TO FACE.

We had scarcely time to realize the truly disgusting fact, that we were captured at the very instant that the enemy were being driven, when the charge of the Federal cavalry was met by a hail-storm of bullets which drove them back in disorder.

For some moments the woods presented a singular spectacle. Horsemen flying in wild confusion; riderless animals darting madly toward the rear; the groans of wounded men tottering in the saddle as they rushed by—all this made up a wild scene of excitement, and confusion worse confounded.

General Davenant, his son, and myself had been ordered to the rear, under escort; and the old cavalier had turned his horse's head in that direction, boiling with rage at his capture, when the repulse ensued, and the Federal cavalry streamed by us toward the rear.

All at once a loud voice was heard shouting in the half darkness:—

"Halt! halt! you cursed cowards! Halt! and form column!"

The speaker rushed toward us as he spoke, mounted upon a huge black horse, and I heard the noise made by his sabre, as with the flat of it, he struck blows upon the brawny shoulders of the fugitives.

At his summons, and the blows of his sabre, the men halted, and again fell into column. Under the shadowy boughs of the woods, and in the gathering darkness, the long line of horsemen resembled phantoms rather than men. Near them glimmered some bivouac fires; and the flickering light illumined their persons, gleamed on their scabbards, and lit up the rough bearded faces.

"Cowardly scoundrels!" exclaimed their leader, in fierce accents, "where are the prisoners that ran into us?"

"Here, colonel. One is a general!" said a man.

"Let me see them!"

General Davenant struck the spur violently into his horse, and rode close to the Federal officer, in whom I had recognized Colonel Darke.

"Here I am, wretch!—look at me!" exclaimed General Davenant, foaming with rage. "Accursed be the day when I begat a murderer and a renegade!"



XXXVI.

THE CURSE.

Darke's hand unconsciously drew the rein, and man and horse both seemed to stagger back before the furious old soldier.

"General—Davenant!" muttered Darke, turning pale.

"Yes, General Davenant!—a gentleman, an honest man; not a traitor and a murderer!"

"Good God!" muttered Darke, "it is my father, truly—and my little brother! The proud face, the eyes, the mouth—and yet they told me you were killed."

"Ah! 'Killed!' Killing is a favorite topic with you!" exclaimed General Davenant, furiously; "well, kill me, now!—Strike your dastardly sword, or your knife if you have one, straight into my breast! Murder me, I say, as you murdered George Conway!—I have a purse in my pocket, and you can rob me when I am dead. Strike! strike!—but not with the sword! That is the weapon of a gentleman. Draw your knife, and stab me in the back—the knife is the weapon of the assassin!"

And crossing his arms upon his breast, the fiery old cavalier confronted his son, with eyes full of bitter wrath and disdain—eyes which I shall never forget; for their fire burnt them into my memory.

Darke did not dare to meet them. I had listened with amazement to those words, which indicated that the Federal officer was General Davenant's son; then this sentiment of astonishment, profound as it was, had yielded to one of expectation, if I may so express myself. What I expected was a furious outbreak from the man of fierce and violent passions, thus taunted and driven to bay by the repeated insults of the general. No outburst came, however. On the contrary, the Federal officer bowed his head, and listened in silence, while a mortal pallor diffused itself over his swarthy face. His gaze was bent upon the ground, and his brows so closely knit that they extended in an unbroken ridge of black and shaggy hair above his bloodshot eyes. He sat his horse, in the light of the camp-fire,—a huge cavalier upon an animal as powerful and forbidding in appearance as himself,—and for more than a minute after the scornful outburst from General Davenant, Darke remained silent and motionless, with his eyes still fixed upon the ground:

Then he raised his head, made a sign with his hand to an officer, and said, briefly:—

"Move back with the column—leave these prisoners here."

At the word, the column moved back slowly; the shadowy figures were lost sight of in the darkness; General Davenant, his son Charles, Darke, and myself, were left alone beside the camp-fire.

Then the Federal officer, with a face over which seemed to pass "the shadow of unutterable things," looked first with a long, wistful, absorbed glance toward the boy Charles, his brother—lastly, toward his father.

"Why do you taunt me?" he said, in a low tone. "Will that result in any good now? Yes, I committed murder. I intended, if I did not commit, robbery. I killed—yes, I killed!—with a knife—as a murderer kills. But I do not wish to kill you—or Charley—or this officer—or rob you. Keep your life and your money. There is the road before you, open. Go; you are free!"

General Davenant had sat his horse—the boy Charley beside him—listening in sullen wrath. As Darke ended, the general's hand went to the hilt of his sword, and he half drew it, by an instinctive movement, from the scabbard. "Well!" added the Federal officer, in the same low tone, with a deeper flush in his cheeks, "draw your sword, sir—strike me if you think proper. For myself, I am done with murder, and shrink from it, so that, if my father wishes to kill me, I will open my breast, to give him a fair opportunity. You see I am not altogether the murderous wretch you take me for. I am a murderer, it is true, and soiled with every vice—you see I am frank—but I will not resist, if you plunge your sword into my heart. Strike! strike! While I am dying I will have time to say the few words I have to say to you!"

General Davenant shuddered with wrath still, but a strange emotion was mingled with the sentiment now—an emotion which I could not fathom. Before he could open his lips, however, Darke resumed, in the same tone:—

"You hesitate—you are not ready to become my executioner. Well, listen, and I will utter that which may deprive you of all self-control. Yes, once more, I killed a man, and killed him for money; but you made me what I was! You petted, and spoiled, and made me selfish. In addition, you hated—that man. You had hated him for twenty years. When I grew up, I found out that. If you did not strike him, you had the desire to do so—and, like a good son, I shared my 'father's loves and hatreds.' I heard you speak of—him—harshly; I knew that an old grudge was between you; what matter if I met this enemy of the family on the high-road, and, with the dagger at his throat, said: 'Yield me a portion of your ill-gotten gains!' for that money was the proceeds of a forced sale for cash, by which the father of a family was turned out of house and home! Well, I did that—and did it under the effect of drink. I learned the habit at your table; wine was placed in my hands, in my very childhood, by you; you indulged all my vile selfishness; made me a miserable, arrogant wretch; I came to hang about the village tavern, and gamble, and fuddle myself, until I was made worthless! Then, when one day the devil tempted me, I committed a crime—and that crime was committed by you! for you cultivated in me the vile habits which led me on to murder!"

Darke's eyes were gloomy, and full of a strange fire. As he uttered the last words, he spurred close to his father, tore open his uniform until his bare breast was visible, and added in accents full of vehement and sullen passion:—

"Strike me! Bury your sword's point in my heart! I am your son. You are as noble a gentleman as Brutus was! Kill me, then! I am a murderer: but I am a Davenant, and no coward!"

From the fierce and swollen face, in which the dark eyes burned like firebrands, my glance passed to the countenance of General Davenant. A startling change had taken place in the expression of the old cavalier. He was no longer erect, fiery, defiant. His glance no longer darted scorn and anger. His chin had fallen upon his breast; his frame drooped; his cheeks, but now so flushed, were covered with a deep pallor.

For a moment he remained silent. The hand which had clutched at the sword hilt hung listless at his side. All at once his breast heaved, and with a sound which resembled a groan, he said, in low tones:—

"I am punished! Yes, my hatred has brought forth fruit, and the fruit is bitter! It was I who warped this life, and the tree has grown as I inclined it."

"Yes," said Darke, in his deep voice, "first warped—then, when cut down, cast off and forgotten!"

General Davenant looked at the speaker with bitter melancholy.

"Ah! you charge me with that, do you, sir?" he said, "You do not remember, then, that I have suffered for you—you do not know, perhaps, that for ten years I have labored under the imputation of that crime, and have preserved silence that I might shield your memory—for I thought you dead! You do not know that I never breathed a syllable of that letter which you sent to me on the day of my trial—that I have allowed the world to believe I was saved by a legal technicality! You have not heard, perhaps, that a daughter of Judge Conway is beloved by your brother, and that her father rejects with scorn the very idea of forming an alliance with my son—the son of one whom he regards as the murderer of his brother! Oh! yes, sir! truly I have cast off and forgotten you and your memory! I have not wept tears of blood over the crime you committed—over the dishonor that rested on the name of Davenant! I have not writhed beneath the cold and scornful eye of Judge Conway and his friends! I have not seen your brother's heart breaking for love of that girl; and suppressed all, concealed every thing, borne the brand on my proud forehead, and his young life, that your tombstone might at least not have 'murderer' cut on it! And now you taunt me with my faults!—with my injudicious course toward you when your character was forming. You sneer and say that I first hated George Conway, and that the son only inherited the family feud, and struck the enemy of the family! Yes, I acknowledge those sins; I pray daily to be forgiven for them. I have borne for ten years this bitter load of dishonor. But there is something more maddening even than my faults, and the stain on my name—it is to be taunted to my face, here, with the charge that I struck that blow! that I made you the criminal, and then threw you off, and drove you to become a renegade in the ranks of our enemies!"

The last words of the speaker were nearly drowned in a heavy fusillade which issued from the woods close by.

"Listen!" exclaimed General Davenant, "that is the fire of your hirelings, sir, directed at the hearts of your brethren! You are leading that scum against the gentlemen of Virginia! Well join them! Point me, and my son, and companion out to them! Tear us to pieces with your bullets! Trample us beneath your hireling heels! That will not prevent me from branding you again in your dishonored forehead!—from cursing you as renegade, debauchee, and murderer!"

The whistle of bullets mingled with these furious and resounding words; and then the crackle of footsteps was heard, the undergrowth suddenly swarmed with figures—a party of Confederates rushed shouting into the little glade.

Darke wheeled not from, but toward them, as though to charge them. The stern courage of the Davenant blood burned in his cheeks and eyes. Then, with a harsh and bitter laugh, he turned and pushed his horse close up beside that of his father.

"I would call this meeting and parting strange, if any thing were strange in this world!" he said, "but nothing astonishes me, or moves me, as of old! The devil has brought it about! he put a knife in my hands once! to-night he brings me face to face with you and my boy-brother—and makes you curse and renounce me! Well, so be it! have your will! Henceforth I am really lost—my father!"

And drawing his pistol, he coolly discharged barrel after barrel in the faces of the men rushing upon him; wheeled his horse, and dug the spurs into him; an instant afterward, with his sneering face turned over his shoulder, he had disappeared in the woods.

Two hours afterward I was on my way to Petersburg.

The enemy were already falling back from their adventurous attempt to seize the Southside road.

In the morning they had retired across the Rowanty, and disappeared.

So ended that heavy blow at Lee's great war-artery.





BOOK IV.



THE PHANTOMS.



I.

RICHMOND BY THE THROAT.

I was again back at the "Cedars," after the rapid and shifting scenes which I have endeavored to place before the reader.

The tragic incidents befalling the actors in this drama, had most absorbed my attention; but sitting now in my tent, with the newspapers before me, I looked at the fight in which I had participated, from the general and historic point of view.

That heavy advance on the Boydton road, beyond Lee's right, had been simultaneous with a determined assault on the Confederate left, north of James River, and on Lee's centre opposite Petersburg; and now the extracts from Northern journals clearly indicated that the movement was meant to be decisive.

"I have Richmond by the throat!" General Grant had telegraphed; but there was good ground to believe that the heavy attack, and the eloquent dispatch, were both meant to "make capital" for the approaching Presidential election.

These memoirs, my dear reader, are written chiefly to record some incidents which I witnessed during the war. I have neither time nor space for political comments. But I laid my hand yesterday, by accident, on an old number of the Examiner newspaper; and it chanced to contain an editorial on the fight just described, with some penetrating views on the "situation" at that time.

Shall I quote a paragraph from the yellow old paper? It will be bitter—we were all bitter in those days! though to-day we are so fraternal and harmonious. With his trenchant pen, Daniel pierced to the core of the matter; and the paper may give some idea of the spirit of the times.

I could fancy the great satirist sitting in his lonely study, and penning the lines I shall quote, not without grim smiles at his own mordant humor.

Here is the slip I cut out. The old familiar heading may recall those times to some readers, as clearly as the biting sentences, once read, perhaps, by the camp-fire.



* * * * * DAILY EXAMINER. * * * * * MONDAY MORNING OCT. 31, 1864. * * * * *

"Every day must now bring its brilliant bulletin to the Yankee nation. That nation does not regard the punctual rising of the sun as more lawfully due to it than a victory every morning. And those glorious achievements of SHERIDAN in the Valley were grown cold and stale, and even plainly hollow and rotten—insomuch that, after totally annihilating the army of EARLY at least three times, and so clearing the way to Lynchburg, instead of marching up to Lynchburg the heroick victor goes whirling down to Winchester. Then the superb victory obtained on Sunday of last week over PRICE in Missouri, has taken a certain bogus tint, which causes many to believe that there was, in fact, no victory and no battle. This would not do. Something fresh must be had; something electrifying; above all, something that would set the people to cheering and firing off salutes about the very day of the election;—something, too, that could not be plainly contradicted by the events till after that critical day—then let the contradiction come and welcome: your true Yankee will only laugh.

"From this necessity came the great 'reconnoissance in force' of last Thursday on our lines before Richmond and Petersburg; a 'reconnoissance' in very heavy force indeed upon three points of our front at once both north and south of the James river; so that it may be very properly considered as three reconnoissances in force; made with a view of feeling, as it were, LEE'S position; and the object of the three reconnoissances having been fully attained—that is, LEE having been felt—they retired. That is the way in which the transactions of Thursday last are to appear in STANTON'S bulletin, we may be all quite sure; and this representation, together with the occupation of a part of the Boydton plank-road (which road the newspapers can call for a few days the Southside Road) will cause every city from Boston to Milwaukee to fire off its inevitable hundred guns. Thus, the Presidential election will be served, just in the nick of time; for that emergency it is not the real victory which is wanted, so much as the jubilation, glorification and cannon salutes.

"Even when the truth comes to be fully known that this was the grand pre-election assault itself: the resistless advance on Richmond which was to lift the Abolitionists into power again upon a swelling high-tide of glory unutterable—easily repulsed and sent rolling back with a loss of about six or seven thousand men in killed, wounded and prisoners; even when this is known, does the reader imagine that the Yankee nation will be discouraged? Very far from it. On the contrary it will be easily made to appear that from these 'reconnoissances in force,' an advantage has been gained, which is to make the next advance a sure and overwhelming success. For the fact is, that a day was chosen for this mighty movement, when the wind was southerly, a soft and gentle breeze, which wafted the odour of the Yankee whiskey-rations to the nostrils of Confederate soldiers. The Confederates ought to have been taken by surprise that morning; but the moment they snuffed the tainted gale, they knew what was to be the morning's work. Not more unerring is the instinct which calls the vulture to the battle-field before a drop of blood is shed; or that which makes the kites 'know well the long stern swell, that bids the Romans close;' than the sure induction of our army that the Yankees are coming on, when morn or noon or dewy eve breathes along the whole line a perfumed savour of the ancient rye. The way in which this discovery may be improved is plain. It will be felt and understood throughout the intelligent North, that it gives them at last the key to Richmond. They will say—Those rebels, to leeward of us, smell the rising valour of our loyal soldiers: the filling and emptying of a hundred thousand canteens perfumes the sweet South as if it had passed over a bed of violets, stealing and giving odours:—when the wind is southerly it will be said, rebels know a hawk from a handsaw. Therefore it is but making our next grand assault on some morning when they are to windward of us—creeping up, in the lee of LEE, as if he were a stag—and Richmond is ours."

That is savage, and sounds unfraternal to-day, when peace and good feeling reign—when the walls of the Virginia capitol re-echo the stately voices of the conscript fathers of the great commonwealth and mother of States: conscript fathers bringing their wisdom, mature study, and experience to the work of still further improving the work of Jefferson, Mason, and Washington.

"I have Richmond by the throat!" General Grant wrote in October, 1864. In February, 1868, when these lines are written, black hands have got Virginia by the throat, and she is suffocating; Cuffee grins, Cuffee gabbles—the groans of the "Old Mother" make him laugh.

Messieurs of the great Northwest, she gave you being, and suckled you! Are you going to see her strangled before your very eyes?



II.

NIGHTMARE.

In truth, if not held by the throat, as General Grant announced, Richmond and all the South in that autumn of 1864, was staggering, suffocating, reeling to and fro under the immense incubus of all-destroying war.

At that time black was the "only wear," and widows and orphans were crying in every house throughout the land. Bread and meat had become no longer necessaries, but luxuries. Whole families of the old aristocracy lived on crusts, and even by charity. Respectable people in Richmond went to the "soup-houses." Men once rich, were penniless, and borrowed to live. Provisions were incredibly dear. Flour was hundreds of dollars a barrel; bacon ten dollars a pound; coffee and tea had become unknown almost. Boots were seven hundred dollars a pair. The poor skinned the dead horses on battle-fields to make shoes. Horses cost five thousand dollars. Cloth was two hundred dollars a yard. Sorghum had taken the place of sugar. Salt was sold by the ounce. Quinine was one dollar a grain. Paper to write upon was torn from old blank books. The ten or twenty dollars which the soldiers received for their monthly pay, was about sufficient to buy a sheet, a pen, and a little ink to write home to their starving families that they too were starving.

In town and country the atmosphere seemed charged with coming ruin. All things were in confusion. Everywhere something jarred. The executive was unpopular. The heads of departments were inefficient. The army was unfed. The finances were mismanaged. In Congress the opposition bitterly criticised President Davis. The press resounded with fierce diatribes, pro and con, on all subjects. The Examiner attacked the government, and denounced the whole administration of affairs. The Sentinel replied to the attacks, and defended the assailed officials. One could see nothing that was good. The other could see nothing that was bad. Their readers adopted their opinions; looking through glasses that were deep green, or else couleur de rose. But the green glasses outnumbered the rose-colored more and more every day.

Thus, in the streets of the city, and in the shades of the country, all was turmoil, confusion—a hopeless brooding on the hours that were coming. War was no longer an affair of the border and outpost. Federal cavalry scoured the woods, tearing the last mouthful from the poor people. Federal cannon were thundering in front of the ramparts of the cities. In the country, the faint-hearted gathered at the court-houses and cross-roads to comment on the times, and groan. In the cities, cowards croaked in the market-places. In the country, men were hiding their meat in garrets and cellars—concealing their corn in pens, lost in the depths of the woods. In the towns, the forestallers hoarded flour, and sugar, and salt in their warehouses, to await famine prices. The vultures of troubled times flapped their wings and croaked joyfully. Extortioners rolled in their chariots. Hucksters laughed as they counted their gains. Blockade-runners drank their champagne, jingled their coin, and dodged the conscript officers.

The rich were very rich and insolent. The poor were want-stricken and despairing. Fathers gazed at their children's pale faces, and knew not where to find food for them. Mothers hugged their frail infants to bosoms drained by famine. Want gnawed at the vitals. Despair had come, like a black and poisonous mist, to strangle the heart.

The soldiers were agonized by maddening letters from their families. Their fainting loved ones called for help. "Father! come home!" moaned the children, with gaunt faces, crying for bread. "Husband, come home!" murmured the pale wife, with her half-dead infant in her arms. And the mothers—the mothers—ah! the mothers! They did not say, "Come home!" to their brave boys in the army; they were too proud for that—too faithful to the end. They did not summon them to come home; they only knelt down and prayed: "God, end this cruel war! Only give me back my boy! Do not bereave me of my child! The cause is lost—his blood not needed! God, pity me and give me back my boy!"

So that strange autumn of that strange year, 1864, wore on. The country was oppressed as by some hideous nightmare; and Government was silent.

The army alone, kept heart of hope—Lee's old soldiers defied the enemy to the last.



III.

LEE'S MISERABLES.

They called themselves "Lee's Miserables."

That was a grim piece of humor, was it not, reader? And the name had had a somewhat curious origin. Victor Hugo's work, Les Miserables, had been translated and published by a house in Richmond; the soldiers, in the great dearth of reading matter, had seized upon it; and thus, by a strange chance the tragic story of the great French writer, had become known to the soldiers in the trenches. Everywhere, you might see the gaunt figures in their tattered jackets bending over the dingy pamphlets—"Fantine," "Cosette," or "Marius," or "St. Denis,"—and the woes of "Jean Valjean," the old galley-slave, found an echo in the hearts of these brave soldiers, immured in the trenches and fettered by duty to their muskets or their cannon.

Singular fortune of a writer! Happy M. Hugo! Your fancies crossed the ocean, and, transmitted into a new tongue, whiled away the dreary hours of the old soldiers of Lee, at Petersburg! Thus, that history of "The Wretched," was the pabulum of the South in 1864; and as the French title had been retained on the backs of the pamphlets, the soldiers, little familiar with the Gallic pronunciation, called the book "Lees Miserables!" Then another step was taken. It was no longer the book, but themselves whom they referred to by that name. The old veterans of the army thenceforth laughed at their miseries, and dubbed themselves grimly "Lee's Miserables!"[1]

[Footnote 1: It is unnecessary to say that this is not a jest or fancy on the part of Colonel Surrey. It is a statement of fact.—ED.]



The sobriquet was gloomy, and there was something tragic in the employment of it; but it was applicable. Like most popular terms, it expressed the exact thought in the mind of every one—coined the situation into a phrase. Truly, they were "The Wretched,"—the soldiers of the army of Northern Virginia, in the fall and winter of 1864. They had a quarter of a pound of rancid "Nassau bacon"—from New England—for daily rations of meat. The handful of flour, or corn-meal, which they received, was musty. Coffee and sugar were doled out as a luxury, now and then only; and the microscopic ration became a jest to those who looked at it. A little "grease" and cornbread—the grease rancid, and the bread musty—these were the food of the army.

Their clothes, blankets, and shoes were no better—even worse. Only at long intervals could the Government issue new ones to them. Thus the army was in tatters. The old clothes hung on the men like scarecrows. Their gray jackets were in rags, and did not keep out the chilly wind sweeping over the frozen fields. Their old blankets were in shreds, and gave them little warmth when they wrapped themselves up in them, shivering in the long cold nights. The old shoes, patched and yawning, had served in many a march and battle—and now allowed the naked sole to touch the hard and frosty ground.

Happy the man with a new blanket! Proud the possessor of a whole roundabout! What millionaire or favorite child of fortune passes yonder—the owner of an unpatched pair of shoes?

Such were the rations and clothing of the army at that epoch;—rancid grease, musty meal, tattered jackets, and worn-out shoes. And these were the fortunate ones! Whole divisions often went without bread even, for two whole days. Thousands had no jackets, no blankets, and no shoes. Gaunt forms, in ragged old shirts and torn pantaloons only, clutched the musket. At night they huddled together for warmth by the fire in the trenches. When they charged, their naked feet left blood-marks on the abatis through which they went at the enemy.

That is not an exaggeration, reader. These facts are of record.

And that was a part only. It was not only famine and hardship which they underwent, but the incessant combats—and mortal tedium—of the trenches. Ah! the trenches! Those words summed up a whole volume of suffering. No longer fighting in open field; no longer winter-quarters, with power to range; no longer freedom, fresh air, healthful movement—the trenches!

Here, cooped up and hampered at every turn, they fought through all those long months of the dark autumn and winter of 1864. They were no longer men, but machines loading and firing the musket and the cannon. Burrowing in their holes, and subterranean covered-ways, they crouched in the darkness, rose at the sound of coming battle, manned the breastworks, or trained the cannon—day after day, week after week, month after month, they were there in the trenches at their grim work; and some fiat of Destiny seemed to have chained them there to battle forever! At midnight, as at noon, they were at their posts. In the darkness, dusky figures could be seen swinging the sponge-staff, swabbing the cannon, driving home the charge. In the starlight, the moonlight, or the gloom lit by the red glare, those figures, resembling phantoms, were seen marshalled behind the breastworks to repel the coming assault. Silence had fled from the trenches—the crash of musketry and the bellow of artillery had replaced it. That seemed never to cease. The men were rocked to sleep by it. They slept on in the dark trenches, though the mortar-shells rose, described their flaming curves, and, bursting, rained jagged fragments of iron upon them. And to many that was their last sleep. The iron tore them in their tattered blankets. They rose gasping, and streaming with blood. Then they staggered and fell; when you passed by, you saw a something lying on the ground, covered with the old blanket. It was one of "Lee's Miserables," killed last night by the mortars—and gone to answer, "Here!" before the Master.

The trenches!—ah! the trenches! Were you in them, reader? Thousands will tell you more of them than I can. There, an historic army was guarding the capital of an historic nation—the great nation of Virginia—and how they guarded it! In hunger, and cold, and nakedness, they guarded it still. In the bright days and the dark, they stood at their posts unmoved. In the black night-watches as by day—toward morning, as at evening—they stood, clutching the musket, peering out into the pitchy darkness; or lay, dozing around the grim cannon, in the embrasures. Hunger, and cold, and wounds, and the whispering voice of Despair, had no effect on them. The mortal tedium left them patient. When you saw the gaunt faces contract, and tears flow, it was because they had received some letter, saying that their wives and children were starving. Many could not endure that. It made them forget all. Torn with anguish, and unable to obtain furloughs for a day even, they went home without leave—and civilians called them deserters. Could such men be shot—men who had fought like heroes, and only committed this breach of discipline that they might feed their starving children? And, after all, it was not desertion that chiefly reduced Lee's strength. It was battle which cut down the army—wounds and exposure which thinned its ranks. But thin as they were, and ever growing thinner, the old veterans who remained by the flag of such glorious memories, were as defiant in this dark winter of 1864, as they had been in the summer days of 1862 and 1863.

Army of Northern Virginia!—old soldiers of Lee, who fought beside your captain until your frames were wasted, and you were truly his "wretched" ones—you are greater to me in your wretchedness, more splendid in your rags, than the Old Guard of Napoleon, or the three hundred of Thermopylae! Neither famine, nor nakedness, nor suffering, could break your spirit. You were tattered and half-starved; your forms, were warworn; but you still had faith in Lee, and the great cause which you bore aloft on the points of your bayonets. You did not shrink in the last hour the hour of supreme trial. You meant to follow Lee to the last. If you ever doubted the result, you had resolved, at least, on one thing—to clutch the musket, to the end, and die in harness!

Is that extravagance—and is this picture of the great army of Northern Virginia overdrawn? Did they or did they not fight to the end? Answer! Wilderness, Spottsylvania, Cold Harbor, Charles City, every spot around Petersburg where they closed in death-grapple with the swarming enemy! Answer! winter of '64,—bleak spring of '65,—terrible days of the great retreat when hunted down and driven to bay like wild animals, they fought from Five Forks to Appomattox Court-House—fought staggering, and starving, and falling—but defiant to the last!

Bearded men were seen crying on the ninth of April, 1865. But it was surrender which wrung their hearts, and brought tears to the grim faces.

Grant's cannon had only made "Lee's Miserables" cheer and laugh.



IV.

THE BLANDFORD RUINS.

These memories are not cheerful. Let us pass to scenes more sunny—and there were many in that depressing epoch. The cloud was dark—but in spite of General Grant, the sun would shine sometimes!

After reading the Examiner's comments, I mounted my horse and rode into Petersburg, where I spent a pleasant hour in conversation with a friend, Captain Max. Do you laugh still, my dear Max? Health and happiness attend you and yours, my hearty!

As I got into the saddle again, the enemy began a brisk shelling. The shell skimmed the roofs of the houses, with an unearthly scream; and one struck a chimney which it hurled down with a tremendous crash. In spite of all, however, the streets were filled with young women, who continued to walk quietly, or to trip along laughing and careless, to buy a riband or some trifle at the stores.[1] That seemed singular then, and seems more singular to-day. But there is nothing like being accustomed to any thing—and the shelling had now "lost its interest," and troubled nobody.

[Footnote 1: Real.]

"Good!" I said, laughing, "our friends yonder are paying us their respects to-day. They have dined probably on the tons of turkey sent from New England, and are amusing themselves shelling us by way of dessert."

And wishing to have a better view of the lines, I rode toward Blandford.

Do you remember the ivy-draped ruins of the old "Blandford church," my dear reader? This is one of our Virginia antiquities, and is worth seeing. Around the ruins the large graveyard is full of elegant tombstones. Many are shattered to-day, however, by the Federal shell, as the spot was near the breastworks, and in full range of their artillery. In fact it was not a place to visit in the fall of 1864, unless you were fond of shell and a stray bullet. I was somewhat surprised, therefore, as I rode into the enclosure—with a hot skirmish going on a few hundred yards off—to see a young officer and a maiden sitting on a grass bank, beneath a larch tree, and conversing in the most careless manner imaginable.[1]

[Footnote 1: Real.]

Who were these calmly indifferent personages? Their backs were turned, and I could only see that the young lady had a profusion of auburn hair. Having dismounted, and approached, I made another discovery. The youth was holding the maiden's hand, and looking with flushed cheeks into her eyes—while she hung her head, the ringlets rippling over her cheeks, and played absently with some wild flowers, which she held between her fingers.

The "situation" was plain. "Lovers," I said to myself; "let me not disturb the young ones!"

And I turned to walk away without attracting their attention.

Unfortunately, however, a shell at that instant screamed over the ruin; the young girl raised her head with simple curiosity—not a particle of fear evidently—to watch the course of the missile; and, as the youth executed the like manoeuvre, they both became aware of my presence at the same moment.

The result was, that a hearty laugh echoed among the tombstones; and that the youth and maiden rose, hastening rapidly toward me.

An instant afterward I was pressing the hand of Katy Dare, whom I had left near Buckland, and that of Tom Herbert, whom I had not seen since the fatal day of Yellow Tavern.



V.

LES FORTUNES.

The auburn ringlets of Katy Dare were as glossy as ever; her blue eyes had still the charming archness which had made me love her from the first. Indeed her demeanor toward me had been full of such winning sweetness that it made me her captive; and I now pressed the little hand, and looked into the pretty blushing face with the sentiment which I should have experienced toward some favorite niece.

Katy made you feel thus by her artless and warm-hearted smile. How refrain from loving one whose blue eyes laughed like her lips, and whose glances said, "I am happier since you came!"

And Tom was equally friendly; his face radiant, his appearance distinguished. He was clad in a new uniform, half covered with gold braid. His hat was decorated with a magnificent black plume. His cavalry boots, reaching to the knee, were small, delicate, and of the finest leather. At a moderate estimation, Tom's costume must have cost him three thousand dollars!—Happy Tom!

He grasped my hand with a warmth which evidently came straight from the heart; for he had a heart—that dandy!

"Hurrah! old fellow; here you are!" Tom cried, laughing. "You came upon us as suddenly as if you had descended from heaven!"

"Whither you would like to send me back! Am I wrong, Tom?"

And I shot a glance of ancient and paternal affection at these two young things, whose tete-a-tete I had interrupted.

Katy blushed beautifully, and then ended by laughing. Tom caressed his slender mustache, and said:—-

"My dear fellow, I certainly should like to go to heaven—consequently to send my friends there—but if it is all the same to everybody, I think I would prefer—hem!—deferring the journey for a brief period, my boy."

"Until an angel is ready to go with you!"

And I glanced at the angel with the ringlets.

"Ah, my dear Surry!" said Tom, smoothing his chin with his hand, "you really have a genius for repartee which is intolerable, and not to be endured!"

"Let the angel sit in judgment!"

"Oh, you have most 'damnable iteration!'"

"I learned it all from you."

"From me, my boy?"

"Certainly—see the beauty of repetition in poetry."

And looking at the damsel, I began to repeat—

"Katy! Katy! Don't marry any other! You'll break my heart, and kill me dead, And then be hanged for murder!"

The amount of blushing, laughter, pouting, good humor, and hilarity generally, which this poem occasioned, was charming. In a few minutes we were all seated again on the grassy bank, and Tom had given me a history of his adventures, which had not been either numerous or remarkable. He had been assigned to duty on the staff of General Fitzhugh Lee, and it was delightful to hear his enthusiasm on the subject of that gay and gallant officer.

"I tell you he's a trump, old fellow," quoth Tom, with ardor. "He's as brave as steel, a first-rate officer, a thorough gentleman, generous, kind, and as jolly as a lark! Give me Fitz Lee to fight with, or march with, or hear laugh! He was shot in the Valley, and I have been with him in Richmond. In spite of his wound, which is a severe one, he is as gay as the sunshine, and it would put you in good spirits only to go into his chamber!"

"I know General Fitz well, Tom," I replied, "and you are right about him; every word you say is true, and more to boot, old fellow. So you are cruising around now, waiting for your chief to recover?"

"Exactly, my dear Surry."

"And have captured the barque Katy!"

"Humph!" quoth Miss Katy, tossing her head, with a blush and a laugh.

"Beware of pirates," I said, "who make threats even in their verses,—and now tell me, Miss Katy, if you are on a visit to Petersburg? It will give me true pleasure to come and see you."

"Indeed you must!" she said, looking at me with the most fascinating smile, "for you know you are one of my old friends now, and must not neglect me. I am at my aunt's, Mrs. Hall,—uncle brought me a month ago from Buckland; but in the morning I shall go down to a cousin's in Dinwiddie."

"In Dinwiddie, Miss Katy?"

"Yes, near the Rowanty. My cousin, Mr. Dare, has come for me."

"Well, I will visit you there."

"Please do. The house is called 'Disaway's.'"

I bowed, smiling, and turned to Tom Herbert.

"When shall I see you again, Tom, and where? Next week—at Disaway's?"

Tom colored and then laughed. This dandy, you see, was a good boy still.

"Well, old fellow," he replied, "I think it possible I may visit Dinwiddie. My respected chieftain, General Fitz, is at present reposing on his couch in Richmond, and I am bearer of bouquets as well as of dispatches between him and his surgeon. But I am told he is ordered to Dinwiddie as soon as he is up. The country is a new one; the thought has occurred to me that any information I can acquire by—hem!—a topographical survey, would be valuable. You perceive, do you not, my dear friend? You appreciate my motive?"

"Perfectly, Tom. There will probably be a battle near 'Disaway's.'"

"And I'd better ride over the ground, eh?"

"Yes."

"Well, I'll do it!"

"Only beware of one thing!"

"What, my dear Surry?" asked Tom, anxiously.

"There is probably a conservatory at Disaway's."

"A conservatory?"

"Like that near Buckland, and the battle might take place there. If it does—two to one you are routed!"

Katy blushed exquisitely, smiled demurely, and burst into laughter. Then catching my eye she raised her finger, and shook her head with sedate reproach, looking at Tom. He was laughing.

"All right, I'll look out, Surry!"

"Resolve on one thing, Tom."

"What is that?"

"That you will never surrender, but be taken in arms!"

With which mild and inoffensive joke I shook hands with Tom, informing him where to find me; made Miss Katy a bow, which she returned with a charming smile and a little inclination which shook together her ringlets; and then leaving the young people to themselves, I mounted my horse, and returned to the Cedars.

All the way I was smiling. A charming influence had descended upon me. The day was brighter, the sunshine gayer, for the sight of the young fellow, and the pretty little maiden, with her blue eyes, like the skies, and her ringlets of silken gold!



VI.

ON THE BANKS OF THE ROWANTY.

When I again set out for the cavalry, a few days after the scene at Blandford church, the youth and sunshine of those two faces still dwelt in my memory, and I went along smiling and happy.

Not even the scenes on the late battle-field beyond the Rowanty, made my mood gloomy; and yet these were not gay. Graves were seen everywhere; the fences were broken down; the houses riddled by balls; and in the trampled roads and fields negroes were skinning the dead horses, to make shoes of their hides. On the animals already stripped sat huge turkey-buzzards feeding. My horse shied as the black vultures rose suddenly on flapping wings. They only circled around, however, sailing back as I disappeared.

Such is war, reader,—a charming panorama of dead bodies and vultures!

Turning into the Quaker road, I went on until I reached the head-quarters of General William H.F. Lee, opposite Monk's Neck. Here, under the crest of a protecting hill, where the pine thickets afforded him shelter from the wind, that gallant soldier had "set up his rest"—that is to say a canvass fly, one end of which was closed with a thick-woven screen of evergreens. My visit was delightful, and I shall always remember it with pleasure. Where are you to-day, general, and good comrades of the old staff? You used to laugh as hard as you fought—so your merriment was immense! Heaven grant that to-day, when the bugles are silent, the sabres rusting, you are laughing as in the days I remember!

Declining the friendly invitation to spend the night, I went on in the afternoon; and on my way was further enlivened by a gay scene which makes me smile even to-day. It was in passing General Butler's headquarters near the Rowanty. In the woods gleamed his white tents; before them stretched the level sandy road; a crowd of staff officers and others, with the general in their midst, were admiring two glossy ponies, led up by two small urchins, evidently about to run a race on them.

Butler—that brave soldier, whom all admired as much as I did—was limping about, in consequence of a wound received at Fleetwood. In the excitement of the approaching race he had forgotten his hurt. And soon the urchins were tossed up on the backs of their little glossy steeds—minus all but bridle. Then they took their positions about three hundred yards off; remained an instant abreast and motionless; then a clapping of hands was heard—it was the signal to start—and the ponies came on like lightning.

The sight was comic beyond expression. The boys clung with their knees, bending over the floating manes; the little animals darted by; they disappeared in the woods "amid thunders of applause;" and it was announced that the roan pony had won.

"Trifles," you say, perhaps, reader; "why don't our friend, the colonel, go on with his narrative?"

True,—the reproach is just. But these trifles cling so to the memory! I like to recall them—to review the old scenes—to paint the "trifles" even, which caught my attention during the great civil war. This is not a history, friend—only a poor little memoir. I show you our daily lives, more than the "great events" of history. That is the way the brave Butler and his South Carolinians amused themselves—and the figure of this soldier is worth placing amid my group of "paladins." He was brave—none was braver; thoroughbred—I never saw a man more so. His sword had flashed at Fleetwood, and in a hundred other fights; and it was going to flash to the end.

I pushed on after the pony race, and very soon had penetrated the belt of shadowy pines which clothe the banks of the Rowanty, making of this country a wilderness as singular almost as that of Spottsylvania. Only here and there appeared a small house, similar to that of Mr. Alibi's—all else was woods, woods, woods! Through the thicket wound the "military road" of General Hampton; and I soon found that his head-quarters were at a spot which I had promised myself to visit—"Disaway's."

Two hours' ride brought me to the place. Disaway's was an old mansion, standing on a hill above the Rowanty, near the "Halifax bridge," by which the great road from Petersburg to North Carolina crosses the stream. It was a building of considerable size, with wings, numerous gables, and a portico; and was overshadowed by great oaks, beneath which gleamed the tents of Hampton and his staff.

As I rode up the hill, the staff came out to welcome me. I had known these brave gentlemen well, when with Stuart, and they were good enough, now, to give me the right hand of fellowship,—to receive me for old times' sake, with "distinguished consideration." The general was as cordial as his military family—and in ten minutes I was seated and conversing with him, beneath the great oak.

A charming cordiality inspired the words and countenance of the great soldier. Nearly four years have passed, but I remember still his courteous smile and friendly accents.

All at once, the figure of a young woman appeared in the doorway. At a glance I recognized the golden ringlets of Katy Dare. She beckoned to me, smiling; I rose and hastened to greet her; in a moment we were seated upon the portico, conversing like old friends.

There was something fascinating in this child. The little maiden of eighteen resembled a blossom of the spring. Were I a poet, I should declare that her azure eyes shone out from her auburn hair like glimpses of blue sky behind sun-tinted clouds!

I do not know how it came about, or how I found myself there, but in a few moments I was walking with her in the autumn woods, and smiling as I gazed into the deep blue of her eyes. The pines were sighing above us; beneath our feet a thick carpet of brown tassels lay; and on the summit of the evergreens the golden crown of sunset slowly rose, as though the fingers of some unseen spirit were bearing it away into the night.

Katy tripped on, rather than walked—laughing and singing gayly. The mild air just lifted the golden ringlets of her hair, as she threw back her beautiful face; her cheeks were rosy with the joy of youth; and from her smiling lips, as fresh and red as carnations, escaped in sweet and tender notes, like the carol of an oriole, that gay and warbling song, the "Bird of "Beauty."

Do you remember it, my dear reader? It is old—but so many good things are old!

"Bird of beauty, whose bright plumage Sparkles with a thousand dyes: Bright thine eyes, and gay thy carol, Though stern winter rules the skies!"

Do you say that is not very grand poetry? I protest! friend, I think it superior to the chef d'oeuvres of the masters? You do not think so? Ah! that is because you did not hear it sung in the autumn forest that evening—see the ringlets of Katy Dare floating back from the rosy cheeks, as the notes escaped from her smiling lips, and rang clearly in the golden sunset. Do you laugh at my enthusiasm? Well, I am going to increase your mirth. To the "Bird of Beauty" succeeded a song which I never heard before, and have never heard since. Thus it is a lost pearl I rescue, in repeating some lines. What Katy sang was this:—

"Come under, some one, and give her a kiss! My honey, my love, my handsome dove! My heart's been a-weeping, This long time for you!

"I'll hang you, I'll drown you, My honey, my love, my handsome dove! My heart's been a-weeping, This long time for you!"

That was the odd, original, mysterious, incomprehensible poem, which Katy Dare carolled in the sunset that evening. It may seem stupid to some—to me the words and the air are charming, for I heard them from the sweetest lips in the world. Indeed there was something so pure and childlike about the young girl, that I bowed before her. Her presence made me better—banished all discordant emotions. All about her was delicate and tender, and pure. Like her "bird of bright plumage" she seemed to have flitted here to utter her carol, after which she would open her wings and disappear!

Katy ran on, in the pauses of her singing, with a hundred little jests, interspersed with her sweet childlike laughter, and I was more and more enchanted—when all at once I saw her turn her head over her shoulder. A bright flush came to her cheeks as she did so; her songs and laughter ceased; then—a step behind us!

I looked back, and found the cause of her sudden "dignity," her demure silence. The unfortunate Colonel Surry had quite disappeared from the maiden's mind.

Coming on rapidly, with springy tread, I saw—Tom Herbert! Tom Herbert, radiant; Tom Herbert, the picture of happiness; Tom Herbert, singing in his gay and ringing voice:—

"Katy! Katy! Don't marry any other! You'll break my heart and kill me dead, And you'll be hung for murder!"

Wretch!—I could cheerfully have strangled him!



VII.

THE STUART HORSE ARTILLERY.

An hour afterward I was at the camp of the Stuart horse artillery.

Five minutes after greeting Tom, who had sought Katy, at "Disaway's"—been directed to the woods—and there speedily joined us—I left the young ones together, and made my way back to the mansion. There are few things, my dear reader, more disagreeable than—just when you are growing poetical—when blue eyes have excited your romantic feelings—when your heart has begun to glow—when you think "I am the cause of all this happiness, and gayety!"—there are few things I say—but why say it? In thirty seconds the rosy-faced youngster Tom, had driven the antique and battered Surry quite from the mind of the Bird of Beauty. That discomfited individual, therefore, took his way back sadly to Disaway's, leaving the children his blessing; declined the cordial invitations to spend the night, mounted his horse, and rode to find Will Davenant, at the horse artillery.

Their camp was in the edge of a wood, near the banks of the Rowanty; and having exchanged greetings with my old comrades of the various batteries, and the gallant Colonel Chew, their chieftain, I repaired to Will Davenant's head-quarters.

These consisted of a breadth of canvass, stretched beneath a tree in the field—in front of which burned a fire.

I had come to talk with Will, but our conversation was obliged to be deferred. The brave boys of the horse artillery, officers and men, gathered round to hear the news from Petersburg; and it was a rare pleasure to me to see again the old familiar faces. Around me, in light of the camp-fire, were grouped the tigers who had fought with Pelham, in the old battles of Stuart. Here were the heroes of a hundred combats; the men who had held their ground desperately in the most desperate encounters—the bulldogs who had showed their teeth and sprung to the death-grapple at Cold Harbor, Manassas, Sharpsburg, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Fleetwood, Gettysburg, in the Wilderness, at Trevillian's, at Sappony, in a thousand bitter conflicts with the cavalry. Scarred faces, limping bodies, the one-armed, the one-legged,—these I saw around me; the frames slashed and mutilated, but the eyes flashing and full of fight, as in the days when Pelham thundered, loosing his war-hounds on the enemy. I had seen brave commands, in these long years of combat—had touched the hands of heroic men, whose souls fear never entered—but I never saw braver fighters than the horse artillery—soldiers more reckless than Pelham's bloodhounds. They went to battle laughing. There was something of the tiger in them. They were of every nation nearly—Frenchmen, Irishmen, Italians,—but one sentiment seemed to inspire them—hatred of our friends over the way. From the moment in 1862, when at Barbee's they raised the loud resounding Marseillaise, while fighting the enemy in front and rear, to this fall of 1864, when they had strewed a hundred battle-fields with dead men and horses, these "swarthy old hounds" of the horse artillery had vindicated their claims to the admiration of Stuart;—in the thunder of their guns, the dead chieftain had seemed still to hurl his defiance at the invaders of Virginia.

Looking around me, I missed many of the old faces, sleeping now beneath the sod. But Dominic, Antonio, and Rossini were still there—those members of the old "Napoleon Detachment" of Pelham's old battery; there still was Guillemot, the erect, military-looking Frenchman,—Guillemot, with his hand raised to his cap, saluting me with the profoundest respect; these were the faces I had seen a hundred times, and never any thing but gay and full of fight.

Doubtless they remembered me, and thought of Stuart, as others had done, at seeing me. They gave me a soldier's welcome; soon, from the group around the camp-fire rose a song. Another followed, then another, in the richest tenor; and the forests of Dinwiddie rang with the deep voices, rising clear and sonorous in the moonlight night.

They were old songs of Ashby and Stuart; unpublished ditties of the struggle, which the winds have borne away into the night of the past, and which now live only in memory. There was one of Ashby, commencing,—

"See him enter on the valley,"

which wound up with the words,—

"And they cried, 'O God they've shot him! Ashby is no more!' Strike, freemen, for your country, Sheathe your swords no more! While remains in arms a Yankee On Virginia's shore!"

The air was sad and plaintive. The song rose, and wailed, and died away like the sigh of the wind in the trees, the murmuring airs of evening in the brambles and thickets of the Rowanty. The singers had fought under Ashby, and in their rude and plaintive song they uttered their regrets.

Then the music changed its character, and the stirring replaced the sad.

"If you want to have a good time, J'ine the cavalry!"

came in grand, uproarious strains; and this was succeeded by the jubilant—

"Farewell, forever to the star-spangled banner, No longer shall she wave o'er the land of the free; But we'll unfurl to the broad breeze of heaven, The thirteen bright stars round the Palmetto tree!"

At that song—and those words, "the thirteen bright stars round the Palmetto tree!"—you might have seen the eyes of the South Carolinians flash. Many other ditties followed, filling the moonlight night with song—"The Bonnie Blue Flag," "Katy Wells," and "The Louisiana Colors." This last was never printed. Here are a few of the gay verses of the "Irish Lad from Dixie:"—

"My sweetheart's name is Kathleen, For her I'll do or die; She has a striped straw mattress, A shanty, pig, and sty. Her cheeks are bright and beautiful, Her hair is dark and curly, She sent me with the secesh boys To fight with General Early.

"She made our flag with her own hands, My Kathleen fair and clever, And twined its staff with shamrock green, Old Ireland's pride forever! She gave it into our trust, Among our weeping mothers;— 'Remember, Irish men!' she said, 'You bear the Red Cross colors!'

"She told me I must never run; The Rebel boys were brothers;— To stand forever by our flag, The Louisiana colors! And then she said, 'If you desert, You'll go to the Old Baily!' Says I, 'My love, when I can't shoot, I'll use my old shillalah!'

"And many a bloody charge we made, Nor mind the battle's blaze; God gave to us a hero bold, Our bonny Harry Hays! And on the heights of Gettysburg, At twilight first was seen, The stars of Louisiana bright, And Katy's shamrock green.

"And oh! if I get home again, I swear I'll never leave her; I hope the straw mattress will keep, The pig won't have the fever! For then, you know, I'll marry Kate, And never think of others. Hurrah, then, for the shamrock green, And the Louisiana colors!"

It was nearly midnight before the men separated, repairing to their tents. Their songs had charmed me, and made the long hours flit by like birds. Where are you, brave singers, in this year '68? I know not—you are all scattered. Your guns have ceased their thunder, your voices sound no more. But I think you sometimes remember, as you muse, in these dull years, those gay moonlight nights on the banks of the Rowanty.



VIII.

"CHARGE! STUART! PAY OFF ASHBY'S SCORE!"

These memories are beguiling, and while they possess me, my drama does not march.

But you have not been wearied, I hope, my dear reader, by this little pencil sketch of the brave horse artillerymen. I found myself among them; the moonlight shone; the voices sang; and I have paused to look and listen again in memory.

These scenes, however, can not possess for you, the attraction they do for me. To proceed with my narrative. I shall pass over my long conversation with Will Davenant, whose bed I shared. I had promised his father to reveal nothing of the events which I had so strangely discovered—and was then only able to give the young man vague assurances of a coming change for the better in his affair with Miss Conway. He thanked me, blushing, and trying to smile—and then we fell asleep beside each other.

Just at daylight I was suddenly aroused. The jarring notes of a bugle were ringing through the woods. I extended my arm in the darkness, and found that Will Davenant was not beside me.

What had happened? I rose quickly, and throwing my cape over my shoulders, went out of the tent.

The horse artillery was already hitched up, and in motion. The setting moon illumined the grim gun-barrels, caissons, and heavy horses, moving with rattling chains. Behind came the men on horseback, laughing and ready for combat.

As I was gazing at this warlike scene so suddenly evoked, Will Davenant rode up and pointed to my horse, which was ready saddled, and attached to a bough of the great tree.

"I thought I wouldn't wake you, colonel," he said, with a smile, "but let you sleep to the last moment. The enemy are advancing, and we are going to meet them."

He had scarcely spoken, when a rapid firing was heard two or three miles in front, and a loud cheer rose from the artillerymen. In a moment the guns were rushing on at a gallop, and, as I rode beside them, I saw a crimson glare shoot up above the woods, in the direction of the Weldon railroad. The firing had meanwhile grown heavier, and the guns were rushed onward. Will Davenant's whole appearance had completely changed. The youth, so retiring in camp, so cool in a hot fight, seemed burnt up with impatience, at the delay caused by the terrible roads. His voice had become hoarse and imperious; he was everywhere urging on the drivers; when the horses stalled in the fathomless mudholes, he would strike the animals, in a sort of rage, with the flat of his sabre, forcing them with a leap which made the traces crack, to drag the piece out of the hole, and onward. A glance told me, then, what was the secret of this mere boy's splendid efficiency. Under the shy, blushing face, was the passion and will of the born soldier—the beardless boy had become the master mind, and drove on every thing by his stern will.

In spite of every exertion to overcome the obstacles in the roads, it was nearly sunrise before we reached open ground. Then we emerged upon the upland, near "Disaway's," and saw a picturesque spectacle. From the hill, we could make out every thing. A hot cavalry fight was going on beneath us. The enemy had evidently crossed the Rowanty lower down; and driving in the pickets, had passed forward to the railroad.

The guns were rushed toward the spot, unlimbered on a rising ground, and their thunder rose suddenly above the forests. Shell after shell burst amid the enemy, breaking their ranks, and driving them back—and by the time I had galloped through a belt of woods to the scene of the fight, they lost heart, retreated rapidly, and disappeared, driven across the Rowanty again, with the Confederates pursuing them so hotly, that many of the gray cavalry punched them in the back with their empty carbines.[1]

[Footnote 1: Fact.]

Their object in crossing had been to burn a small mill; and in this they had succeeded, after which they retired as soon as possible to their "own side." Some queer scenes had accompanied this "tremendous military movement." In a house near the mill, resided some ladies; and we found them justly indignant at the course of the enemy. The Federal officers—general officers—had ordered the house-furniture to be piled up, the carriage to be drawn into the pile, and then shavings were heaped around, and the whole set on fire, amid shouts, cheers, and firing. The lady of the mansion remonstrated bitterly, but received little satisfaction.

"I have no time to listen to women!"[1] said the Federal general, rudely.

[Footnote 1: His words.]

"It is not time that you want, sir!" returned the lady, with great hauteur, "it is politeness!"[1]

[Footnote 1: Her words.]

This greatly enraged the person whom she addressed, and he became furious, when the lady added that all the horses had been sent away. At that moment an officer near him said:—

"General if you are going to burn the premises, you had better commence, as the rebs are pursuing us."

"Order it to be done at once!" was the gruff reply.

And the mill was fired, in the midst of a great uproar, with which mingled shouts of, "The Rebels are coming! The Rebels are coming!"

Soon they came, a hot fight followed, and during this fight a young woman watched it, holding her little brother by the hand near the burning mill. I had afterward the honor of making her acquaintance, and she told me that throughout the firing she found herself repeating over and over, unconsciously, the lines of the song,—

"Charge! Stuart! pay off Ashby's score, In Stonewall Jackson's way."[1]

[Footnote 1: Fact.]

The enemy had thus effected their object, and retreated hotly pursued. I followed toward the lower Rowanty, and had the pleasure of seeing them hurried over. So ended this immense military movement.



IX.

MOHUN,—HIS THIRD PHASE.

I was about to turn my horse and ride back from the stream, across which the enemy had disappeared, when all at once Mohun, who had led the pursuit, rode up to me, and we exchanged a cordial greeting.

"Well, this little affair is over, my dear Surry," he said; "have you any thing to occupy you for two or three hours?"

"Nothing; entirely at your service, Mohun."

"Well, I wish you to accompany me on a private expedition. Will you follow me blindfold?"

"Confidingly."

And I rode on beside Mohun, who had struck into a path along the banks of the Rowanty, leading back in the direction of Halifax bridge.

As we rode on, I looked attentively at him. I scarcely recognized, in the personage beside me, the Mohun of the past. His gloom so profound on that night when I parted with him, after the expedition to the lonely house beyond Monk's Neck, had entirely disappeared; and I saw in him as few traces of the days on the Rappahannock, in Pennsylvania, and the Wilderness. These progressive steps in the development of Mohun's character may be indicated by styling them the first, second, and third phases of the individual. He had entered now upon the third phase, and I compared him, curiously with his former self.

On the Rappahannock, when I saw him first, Mohun had been cynical, bitter, full of gloomy misanthropy. Something seemed to have hardened him, and made him hate his species. In the bloom of early manhood, when his life was yet in the flower, and should have prompted him to all kind and sweet emotions, he was a stranger to all—to charity, good-will, friendship, all that makes life endurable. The tree was young and lusty; the spring was not over; freshness and verdure should have clothed it; and yet it appeared to have been blasted. What had dried up its sap, I asked myself—withering and destroying it? What thunder-bolt had struck this sturdy young oak? I could not answer—but from the first moment of our acquaintance, Mohun became for me a problem.

Then the second phase presented itself. When I met him in the Wilderness, in May, 1864, a great change had come over him. He was no longer bitter and cynical. The cloud had plainly swept away, leaving the skies of his life brighter. Gayety had succeeded gloom. The rollicking enjoyment of the true cavalryman had replaced the recklessness of the man-hater. Again I looked at him with attention—for his courage had made me admire him, and his hidden grief had aroused my sympathy. A great weight had plainly been lifted from his shoulders; he breathed freer; the sap long dried up had begun to flow again; and the buds told that the leaves of youth and hope were about to reappear. What was the meaning of that?

Now the third phase of the man had come to excite in me more surprise and interest than the former ones. This time the change was complete. Mohun seemed no longer himself. Was the man riding beside me the old Mohun of 1863? Where was the gloomy misanthropy—where the rollicking humor? They had quite disappeared. Mohun's glance was gentle and his countenance filled with a charming modesty and sweetness. His voice, once so cold, and then so hilarious, had grown calm, low, measured, almost soft. His smile was exquisitely cordial; his glance full of earnestness and sweetness. The heaven-born spirit of kindness—that balm for all the wounds of human existence—shone in his eyes, on his lips, in every accent of his voice.