Harry Castlemon

“ There was no shelter from sun or rain except such as the prisoners had been able to provide for themselves. There were multitudes of little tents made of blankets, which were hardly high enough for a man to crawl into, and scattered among them were mounds of earth that looked so much like graves that Marcy was startled when he saw a ragged, emaciated apparition, which had once been an able-bodied Union soldier, slowly emerge from one of them and throw himself down upon the ground as if he didn’t care whether he ever got up again or not. ”

“ The glare on the sky told him there was a fire raging somewhere in the depths of the forest, and that it must be a big one, for the whole heavens in that direction were illuminated by it.
“He’s done it; as sure as the world he’s done it,” said Tom, who was highly excited. “It’s all the proof I want that I am not so much of a nobody as some people make me out to be. But I had no idea that baled cotton would give out such a blaze as that. However, four hundred bales, if they were all in one place, would make a pretty good-sized pile.” ”

“ In just thirteen minutes from the time it began the Hatteras hoisted a white light at her masthead and fired an off-gun to show that she had been beaten.
“Fortune of war,” sighed the officer who was sitting in the cutter’s stern-sheets beside the coxswain. “But I tell you, men, I hate to see our old ship surrendered to that pirate. Back, port; give way, starboard! We haven’t surrendered, and we want to get away from here before they catch sight of us.”
No cutter’s crew ever pulled harder than Jack Gray and his shipmates pulled in obedience to this order. ”

“ Walker knew, of course, that there were four escaped prisoners somewhere in the woods, who ran when they could, and killed their pursuers as often as a fight was forced upon them, but he did not believe that Tom Randolph had been a captive in their hands as he pretended, or that he had escaped by knocking his guard on the head with the butt of a musket. He knew Tom too well to put faith in any such story. He did not believe, either, that Rodney Gray would go back on his record as a loyal Confederate by helping runaway Yankees inside the lines at Baton Rouge. ”

“ Nothing could have suited Marcy Gray better. The fact that Bowen had travelled hundreds of miles through a country that was in full possession of the enemy, and had even come within sight of the Union lines before he was captured, proved that he was not only a brave and persevering man, but that he was skilled in woodcraft as well; and such a man would be an invaluable companion if they could only manage to escape at the same time. ”

“ Marcy’s hands still showed the effect of his unmerited punishment, and when his big brother looked at them, an expression came upon his face that might have made Captain Denning a trifle uneasy if he had been there to see it.
“My orders are to bring you home with me, young man,” said he. “And, Bowen, you must go, too.”
“Don’t you think it would be dangerous?” inquired Rodney, who had somehow got it into his head that Marcy would have to live with him as long as the war continued.
“Union people are safer in our country now than they ever were before,” answered Jack. ”

“ There are men and boys in the Confederate army who are as strong for the Union as Abe Lincoln is; but if they said so, or if they shirked their duty, they would be shot before they saw another sun rise. Now, if they put you and me on guard duty at one of their prison pens we’ll not stay there any longer than we feel like it.”
Bowen continued to whisper in this encouraging strain until long after the rest of the prisoners were wrapped in slumber; and finally Marcy’s eyes grew heavy and he fell asleep himself. ”

“ Biglin and his party find it, for the very thing happened that Rodney was afraid of. He and Ned sat on the porch for an hour or more, conversing in low tones and waiting for and dreading something, they could scarcely have told what, when the clatter of hoofs up the road set the hounds’ tongues in motion and took them out to the bars in a body. It took Rodney and Ned out there too, and when they gained the middle of the road they saw three horses bearing down upon them with their bridles and stirrups flying loose in the wind and their saddles empty. ”

“ When she left the room the captain slipped his revolver into its holster, took possession of an easy-chair, and leaned back in it with a long-drawn sigh.
“I’d rather face a dozen Yanks than one woman,” said he. “I hope she’ll not break down when she bids you good-by.”
“You need have no fears on that score,” answered Marcy. “I judge you don’t like the unpleasant work you are engaged in any too well, and my mother will do nothing to make it harder for you.”
“You’re mighty right, I don’t like it,” said the captain emphatically. “Any place in the world but an invalid corps. ”

“ It was the dead-line.
“But it will never be the death of anybody while I am on post,” thought Marcy, wondering 371how any man could want a furlough bad enough to shoot a fellow being down in cold blood. “I never could look my mother or Jack in the face if I should do a deed like that, and I’d never have a good night’s rest. Heaven will never smile upon a cause upheld by men who are as cruel as these rebels are. They ought to be whipped.” ”

“ Or are you an officer?”
“One at a time,” replied Jack. “One at a time, and your questions will last a heap longer. I am a trader.”
“O Jack,” exclaimed Rodney, who was all excitement in a moment. “Then you are just the man we are looking for. Have you a permit?” ”

“ Dick Graham had never seen him before, but when he got through shaking hands he was willing to believe that the sailor was glad to make his acquaintance.
“If I do say it myself I think I am well equipped for the business,” said Jack in response to Rodney’s inquiries. “My boat is the Venango, which is guaranteed to carry a full deck-load on a heavy dew, my officers are all river men and my deck-hands whites; for I wasn’t going to take darkies among the rebels to be captured and sent back into slavery.”
“Why, Jack,” said Mrs. Gray, “you talk as if you were going into danger.” ”

“ You are bound to have your freedom some day, and you might as well take it now. Don’t go off like thieves in the night, but come up here boldly and shake hands with me as you would if you were going back to the home plantation. And when you get sick of the Yankees and their ways, come back, and I will treat you as well as I ever did. Bob, you had better go for one. You don’t earn your salt here.”
This was all Rodney had to say regarding the Emancipation Proclamation, but it was more than his darkies bargained for. ”

“ I suppose that darky out there at the bars can show me where the cotton is concealed?”
“He knows where every bale of it is,” answered Rodney. “He helped hide it.”
“He declares he don’t want to go to Baton Rouge with us, but if he acts as my guide I shall have to take him along, or you fellows who lose cotton will kill him.”
“And no doubt you will kill him if he refuses to act as your guide, so he is bound to be killed any way you fix it,” said Rodney in disgust. “He’ll not be harmed if he stays at home after you leave, and nobody knows it better than he does. Ask him and see.” ”

“ Captain Frazier stopped and looked hard at Jack, who gazed fixedly at him in return. Each knew what the other was thinking of.
“I don’t know that my uncle Rodney has any cotton,” continued Jack. “But if he has, you can afford to give him at least twenty-five cents a pound, greenback money, for it. He is bound to lose his niggers, and, if he is robbed of his cotton, what will he have to start on when the war is over?” ”

“ While Tom and Mark were spending their time in this congenial way, Marcy Gray and his fellow-refugees were finding what little enjoyment they could in acting as camp-keepers, or visiting their friends and relatives in the settlement. Just now there was little scouting done by either side. The Confederates at Williamston had lost about as many men as they could afford to lose in skirmishes with the Federals, who were always strong enough to drive them and to take a few prisoners besides, and had grown weary of searching for a camp of refugees which they began to believe was a myth. ”

“ Randolph will work against everyone in the settlement now.”
“Very likely. Misery loves company, you know; and perhaps there are more men working against you than you think for. Do you know this Lambert, and has he any cause to be down on you?”
“I do know him, but he hasn’t the shadow of an excuse to be at enmity with me or any of my family,” said Rodney in surprise. And then it was on the end of his tongue to add that Lambert was working for him—standing guard over his cotton to see that no one troubled it, but he afterward had reason to be glad that he did not say it. ”

“ After thinking the matter over, Jack wrote a letter to Commodore Bell, telling him how the matter stood and asking for his discharge, and gave it into the hands of the captain of the Hatteras to be forwarded. The first result was about what he thought it would be. He had to pull off his petty officer’s badge and go before the mast. He was also assigned to an oar in the first cutter, and that was one of the best things that ever happened to Jack Gray.
Nowhere else in the world is life such a burden as aboard a vessel lying on a station with nothing but routine work to do. ”

“ There isn’t a nigger in the settlement that isn’t better clad and better mounted than I am.”
“Well, I have seen you when you looked a trifle pearter, that’s a fact.”
“And what brought me to this? The Yankees and their cowardly sympathizers. I don’t blame the boys in blue so much, for brave soldiers always respect one another, even though their sense of duty compels them to fight under different flags; but the traitors we have 2right here among us are too mean to be of any use. And the meanest one among them is Rodney Gray.” ”

“ We have said that Tom Allison and his friend and crony Mark Goodwin were angry when they saw Marcy Gray and his body-guard riding about the country, holding their heads high as though they had never done anything to be ashamed of. Tom and Mark were together all the time, and their principal business in life was to bring trouble to some good Union family as often as they saw opportunity to do so without danger to themselves. ”

“ But I would have stayed in the army till I died if I had dreamed that I would be sent to help guard a slaughterhouse; for that is just what this stockade is. The commander is nothing but a Home Guard, but he hates conscripts as bad as he does Yankees, and you want to watch out and do nothing to incur his displeasure. ”

“ I haven’t a dollar of good money, or a thing that can be turned into money; and even if I had, you and your Home Guards have made yourselves so obnoxious to the Baton Rouge people that I wouldn’t dare go there to trade. Oh, yes; we’re fit candidates for the poorhouse if there was one in the county.”
Tom Randolph covered his face with his hands and trembled violently. He could not speak, but told himself that the world would not have held half so much trouble for him if that man Lambert had never been born into it. ”

“ If he is a Union man I give him from seven to ten cents in greenbacks, which will buy eighty per cent. more stuff than Confederate scrip. If he is a good rebel, or if he is surrounded by rebel neighbors who are keeping an eye on his movements, I give him ten cents in rebel money.”
“Where do you get rebel money?” asked Jack.
“Anywhere—everywhere. I can get all I want for thirty cents on a dollar, and have bought some as low as twenty. It will be lower than that in less than a month. But, mind you, no one around here knows that I have been a blockade runner. ”

“ Randolph and Tom had done little but talk down secession and stand up for the Union ever since Fort Sumter was fired upon, and Mr. Biglin, the red-hot rebel who put the bloodhounds on the trail of the escaped prisoners Rodney was guiding to the river, declared that his well-known love for the old flag had nearly cost him his life. He was glad to see Banks’ army in Baton Rouge, he said, for now he could speak his honest sentiments without having his sleep disturbed by the fear that his rebel neighbors would break into his house before morning and hang him to the plates of his own gallery. ”

“ The Confederacy is like an empty egg-shell. There’s nothing on the inside—no soldiers to be afraid of—nothing but niggers, who are only too glad to feed and shelter a Union man. You’re safe while you stay on the inside, but the minute you try to get out is when the danger begins, for there’s the shell in the shape of the armies by which the Confederacy is surrounded. ”

“ If you have read “Marcy, the Blockade-Runner,” you will remember that the Sabine was under the command of men who did not intend to remain prisoners a minute longer than they were obliged to; that the rebel banner had no sooner been hoisted at the peak in the place of their own flag, than they began laying plans to haul it down again, and that the captured brig was in the hands of the prize crew not more than twelve hours. Captain Semmes could not burn her as he would have been glad to do, for it so happened that she had a neutral cargo on board. ”