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Secret Service

<h3 id="CHAPTER_XXIV">CHAPTER XXIV.</h3> <div class="chapquot"> <div> ——Our doubts are traitors. And make us lose the good we oft might win, By fearing to attempt. Measure for Measure. </div> </div> In a lull of the musketry, during the battle of Antietam, McClellan rode forward toward the front. On the way, he met a Massachusetts general, who was his old friend and class-mate. "Gordon," he asked, "how are your men?" "They have behaved admirably," replied Gordon; "but they are now somewhat scattered." "Collect them at once. We must fight to-night and fight to-morrow. This is our golden opportunity. If we cannot whip the Rebels here, we may just as well all die on the field." <div class="sidenote">The Day After the Battle.</div> That was the spirit of the whole army. It was universally expected that McClellan would renew the attack at daylight the next morning; but, though he had many thousand fresh men, and defeat could only be repulse to him, while to the enemy, with the river in his rear, it would be ruin, his constitutional timidity prevented. It was the costliest of mistakes. Thursday proved a day of rest—such rest as can be found with three miles of dead men to bury, and thousands of wounded to bring from the field. It was a day of standing on the line where the battle closed—of intermittent sharp-shooting and discharges of artillery, [Pg 288] but no general skirmishing, or attempt to advance on either side. Riding out to the front of General Couch's line, I found the Rebels and our own soldiers mingling freely on the disputed ground, bearing away the wounded. I was scanning a Rebel battery with my field-glass, at the distance of a quarter of a mile, when one of our pickets exclaimed: "Put up your glass, sir! The Johnnies will shoot in a minute, if they see you using it." In front of Hancock's lines, a flag of truce was raised. Hancock—erect and soldierly, with smooth face, light eyes, and brown hair, the finest-looking general in our service—accompanied by Meagher, rode forward into a corn-field, and met the young fire-eating brigadier of the Rebels, Roger A. Pryor. Pryor insisted that he had seen a white flag on our front, and asked if we desired permission to remove our dead and wounded. Hancock indignantly denied that we had asked for a truce, as we claimed the ground, stating that, through the whole day, we had been removing and ministering to both Union and Rebel wounded. He suggested a cessation of sharp-shooting until this work could be completed. Pryor declined this, and in ten minutes the firing reopened. "A great victory," said Wellington, "is the most awful thing in the world, except a great defeat." Antietam, though not an entire victory, had all its terrific features. Our casualties footed up to twelve thousand three hundred and fifty-two, of whom about two thousand were killed on the field. <div class="sidenote">Down Among the Dead Men.</div> Between the fences of a road immediately beyond the corn-field, in a space one hundred yards long, I counted more than two hundred Rebel dead, lying where they fell. Elsewhere, over many acres, they [Pg 289] were strewn singly, in groups, and occasionally in masses, piled up almost like cord-wood. They were lying—some with the human form undistinguishable, others with no outward indication of wounds—in all the strange positions of violent death. All had blackened faces. There were forms with every rigid muscle strained in fierce agony, and those with hands folded peacefully upon the bosom; some still clutching their guns, others with arm upraised, and one with a single open finger pointing to heaven. Several remained hanging over a fence which they were climbing when the fatal shot struck them. It was several days before all the wounded were removed from the field. Many were shockingly mutilated; but the most revolting spectacle I saw was that of a soldier, with three fingers cut off by a bullet, leaving ragged, bloody shreds of flesh. <div class="sidenote">Lee Permitted to Escape.</div> On Thursday night the sun went down with the opposing forces face to face, and their pickets within stone's throw of each other. On Friday morning the Rebel army was in Virginia, the National army in Maryland. Between dark and daylight, Lee evacuated the position, and carried his whole army across the river. He had no empty breastworks with which to endow us; but he left a field plowed with shot, watered with blood, and sown thick with dead. We found the débris of his late camps, two disabled pieces of artillery, a few hundred of his stragglers, two thousand of his wounded, and as many more of his unburied dead; but not a single field-piece or caisson, ambulance or wagon, not a tent, a box of stores, or a pound of ammunition. He carried with him the supplies gathered in Maryland and the rich spoils of Harper's Ferry. [Pg 290] It was a very bitter disappointment to the army and the country. <div class="sidenote">The John Brown Engine-House.</div> Bolivar Hights, Md., September 25, 1862. Adieu to western Maryland, with the stanch loyalty of its suffering people! Adieu to Sharpsburg, which, cut to pieces by our own shot and shell as no other village in America ever was, gave us the warm welcome that comes from the heart! Adieu to the drenched field of Antietam, with its glorious Wednesday, writing for our army a record than which nothing brighter shines through history; with its fatal Thursday, permitting the clean, leisurely escape of the foe down into the valley, across the difficult ford, and up the Virginia Hights! Our army might have been driven back; it could never have been captured or cut to pieces. Failure was only repulse; success was crowning, decisive, final victory. The enemy saw this, and walked undisturbed out of the snare. Three days ago, our army moved down the left bank of the Potomac, climbing the narrow, tortuous road that winds around the foot of the mountains; under Maryland Hights; across the long, crooked ford above the blackened timbers of the railroad bridge; then up among the long, bare, deserted walls of the ruined Government Armory, past the engine-house which Old John Brown made historic; up through the dingy, antique, oriental looking town of Harper's Ferry, sadly worn, almost washed away by the ebb and flow of war; up through the village of Bolivar to these Hights, where we pitched our tents. Behind and below us rushed the gleaming river, till its dark, shining surface was broken by rocks. Across it came a line of our stragglers, wading to the knees with staggering steps. Beyond it, the broad forest-clad Maryland Hights rose gloomy and somber. Down behind me, to the river, winding across it like a slender S, then [Pg 291] extending for half a mile on the other side, far up along the Maryland hill, stretched a division-train of snowy wagons, standing out in strong relief from the dark background of water and mountain. Two weeks ago shots exchanged between the army of Slavery and the army of Freedom shrieked and screamed over the engine-house, where, for two days, Old John Brown held the State of Virginia at bay. A week ago its walls were again shaken by the thunders of cannonade, when the armies met in fruitless battle. Last night, within rifle-shot of it, the President's Proclamation of Emancipation was heard gladly among thirty thousand soldiers. <div class="sidenote">President Lincoln Reviews the Army.</div> October 2. President Lincoln arrived here yesterday, and reviewed the troops, accompanied by McClellan, Sumner, Hancock, Meagher, and other generals. He appeared in black, wearing a silk hat; and his tall, slender form, and plain clothing, contrasted strangely with the broad shoulders and the blue and gold of the major-general commanding. He is unusually thin and silent, and looks weary and careworn. He regarded the old engine-house with great interest. It reminded him, he said, of the Illinois custom of naming locomotives after fleet animals, such as the "Reindeer," the "Antelope," the "Flying Dutchman," etc. At the time of the John Brown raid, a new locomotive was named the "Scared Virginians." The troops everywhere cheered him with warm enthusiasm. October 13. The cavalry raid of the Rebel General Stuart, around our entire army, into Maryland and Pennsylvania, and back again, crossing the Potomac without serious loss, is [Pg 292] the one theme of conversation. It was audacious and brilliant. On his return, Stuart passed within five miles of McClellan's head-quarters, which were separated from the rest of the troops by half a mile, and guarded only by a New York regiment. Some of the staff officers are very indignant when they are told that Stuart knew the interest of the Rebels too well to capture our commander. Charlestown, Virginia, October 16. A reconnoissance to the front, commanded by General Hancock. The column moved briskly over the broad turnpike, through ample fields rich with shocks of corn, past stately farm-houses, with deep shade-trees and orchards, by gray barns, surrounded by hay and grain stacks—beyond our lines, over the debatable ground, past the Rebel picket-stations, in sight of Charlestown, and yet no enemy appeared. <div class="sidenote">Dodging Rebel Cannon-Balls.</div> We began to think Confederates a myth. But suddenly a gun belched forth in front of us; another, and yet another, and rifled shot came singing by, cutting through the tree-branches with sharp, incisive music. Two of our batteries instantly unlimbered, and replied. Our column filled the road. Nearly all the Rebel missiles struck in an apple-orchard within twenty yards of the turnpike; but our men would persist in climbing the trees and gathering the fruit, in spite of the shrieking shells. I have not yet learned to avoid bowing my head instinctively as a shot screams by; but some old stagers sit perfectly erect, and laughingly remind me of Napoleon's remark to a young officer: "My friend, if that shell were really your fate, it would hit you and kill you if you were a hundred feet underground." We could plainly see the Rebel cavalry. Far in advance [Pg 293] of all others, was a rider on a milk-white horse, which made him a conspicuous mark. The sharpshooters tried in vain to pick him off, while he sat viewing the artillery drill as complacently as if enjoying a pantomime. Some of our officers declare that they have seen that identical steed and rider on the Rebel front in every fight from Yorktown to Antietam. After an artillery fire of an hour, in which we lost eight or ten men, the Rebels evacuated Charlestown, and we entered. <div class="sidenote">"His Soul is Marching On."</div> The troops take a very keen interest in every thing connected with the historic old man, who, two years ago, yielded up his life in a field which is near our camp. They visit it by hundreds, and pour into the court-house, now open and deserted, where he was tried, and made that wonderful speech which will never die. They scan closely the jail, where he wrote and spoke so many electric words. As our column passed it, one countenance only was visible within—that of a negro, looking through a grated window. How his dusky face lit up behind its prison-bars at the sight of our column, and the words— <div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> "His soul is marching on!"</div> </div> sung by a Pennsylvania regiment! <div class="sidenote">An Eminently "Intelligent Contraband."</div> Our pickets descried a solitary horseman, with a basket on his arm, jogging soberly toward them. He proved a dark mulatto of about thirty-five, and halted at their order. "Where are you from?" "Southern army, Cap'n." "Where are you going?" "Goin' to you'se all." "What do you want?" [Pg 294] "Protection, boss. You won't send me back, will you?" "No, come in. Whose servant are you?" "Cap'n Rhett's, of South Caroliny. You'se heard of Mr. Barnwell Rhett, Editor of <cite>The Charleston Mercury</cite>; Cap'n is his brother, and commands a battery." "How did you get away?" "Cap'n gave me fifteen dollars this morning. He said: 'John, go out and forage for butter and eggs.' So you see, boss" (with a broad grin), "I'se out foraging. I pulled my hat over my eyes, and jogged along on the cap'n's horse, with this basket on my arm, right by our pickets. They never challenged me once. If they had I should have shown them this." And he produced from his pocket an order in pencil from Captain Rhett to pass his servant John, on horseback, in search of butter and eggs. "Why did you expect protection?" "Heard so in Maryland, before the Proclamation." "What do you know about the Proclamation?" "Read it, sir, in a Richmond paper." "What is it?" "That every slave is to be emancipated after the first day of next January. Isn't that it, boss?" "Something like it. How did you learn to read?" "A New York lady stopping at the hotel taught me." "Did you ever hear of Old John Brown?" "Hear of him! Lord bless you, yes; I've his life now in my trunk in Charleston. I've read it to heaps of colored folks. They think John Brown was almost a god. Just say you are a friend of his, and any slave will kiss your feet, if you will let him. They think, if he was only alive now, he would be king. How he did frighten the white folks! It was Sunday morning. I was waiter [Pg 295] at the Mills House, in Charleston. A lady from Massachusetts breakfasted at my table. 'John,' she says, 'I want to see a negro church. Where is the best one?' 'Not any open to-day, Missus,' I told her. 'Why not?' 'Because a Mr. John Brown has raised an insurrection in Virginny, and they don't let the negroes go into the street to-day.' 'Well,' she says, 'they had better look out, or they will get their white churches shut up, too, one of these days.'" <div class="sidenote">"The Lord Bless You, General!"</div> This truly intelligent contraband, being taken to McClellan, replied very modestly and intelligently to questions about the numbers and organization of the Rebel army. At the close of the interview, he asked anxiously: "General, you won't send me back, will you?" "Yes," replied McClellan, with a smile, "I believe I will." "I hope you won't, General" (with great earnestness). "I come to you'se all for protection, and I hope you won't." "Well, then, John, you are at liberty to stay with the army, if you like, or to go where you please. No one can ever make you a slave again." "May the Lord bless you, General! I thought you wouldn't drive me out. You'se the best friend I ever had. I shall never forget you till I die." Bolivar Hights, October 25. "The view from the mountains at Harper's Ferry," said Thomas Jefferson, "is worth a journey across the Atlantic." <div class="sidenote">Curiosities of the Signal-Corps.</div> Let us approach it at the lower price of climbing Maryland Hights. The air is soft and wooing to-day. It is the time— [Pg 296] <div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> ——"just ere the frost Prepares to pave old Winter's way, When Autumn, in a reverie lost, The mellow daylight dreams away; When Summer comes in musing mind To gaze once more on hill and dell, To mark how many sheaves they bind, And see if all are ripened well."</div> </div> Half way up the mountain, you rest your panting horse at a battery, among bottle-shaped Dahlgrens, sure at thirty-five hundred yards, and capable at their utmost elevation of a range of three miles and a half; black, solemn Parrotts, with iron-banded breech, and shining howitzers of brass. Far up, accessible only to footmen, is a long breast-work, where two of our companies repulsed a Rebel regiment. How high the tide of war must run, when its waves wash this mountain-top! Here, on the extreme summit, is an open tent of the Signal-Corps. It is labeled: "Don't touch the instruments. Ask no questions." Inside, two operators are gazing at the distant hights, through fixed telescopes, calling out, "45," "169," "81," etc., which the clerk records. Each number represents a letter, syllable, or abbreviated word. Looking through the long glass toward one of the seven signal-stations, from four to twenty miles away, communicating with this, you see a flag, with some large black figure upon a white foreground. It rises; so many waves to the right; so many to the left. Then a different flag takes its place, and rises and falls in turn. By these combinations, from one to three words per minute are telegraphed. The operator slowly reads the distant signal to you: "Two— hundred— Rebel— [Pg 297] cavalry— riding— out— of— Charlestown— this— way— field-piece— on—road," and it occupies five minutes. Five miles is an easy distance to communicate, but messages can be sent twenty miles. The Signal-Corps keep on the front; their services are of great value. Several of the members have been wounded and some killed. <div class="sidenote">Beautiful View from Maryland Hights.</div> You are on the highest point of the Blue Ridge, four thousand feet above the sea, one thousand above the Potomac. Along the path by which you came, climbs a pony; on the pony's back a negro; on the negro's head a bucket of water; then a mule, bearing a coffee-sack, containing at each end a keg of water. Thus all provisions are brought up. Here, in the early morning, you could only look out upon a cold, shoreless sea of white fog. Now, you look down upon all the country within a radius of twenty miles, as you would gaze into your garden from your own house-top. You see the Potomac winding far away in a thread of silver, broken by shrubs, rocks, and islands. At your feet lies Pleasant Valley, a great furrow—two miles across, from edge to edge—plowed through the mountains. It is full of camps, white villages of tents, and black groups of guns. You see cozy dwellings, with great, well-filled barns, red brick mills, straw-colored fields dotted with shocks of corn and reaching far up into the dark, hill-side woods, green sward-fields, mottled with orchards, and a little shining stream. A dim haze rests upon the mountain-guarded picture, and the soft wind seems to sing with Whittier: <div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> "Yet calm and patient Nature keeps Her ancient promise well, Though o'er her bloom and greenness sweeps The battle's breath of hell.</div> [Pg 298] <div class="stanza"> "And still she walks in golden hours Through harvest-happy farms, And still she wears her fruits and flowers, Like jewels on her arms.</div> <div class="stanza"> "Still in the cannon's pause we hear Her sweet thanksgiving psalm; Too near to God for doubt or fear, She shares the eternal calm.</div> <div class="stanza"> "She sees with clearer eye than ours The good of suffering born,— The hearts that blossom like her flowers, And ripen like her corn."</div> </div> See the regiments on dress parade; long lines of dark blue, with bayonets that flash brightly in the waning sunlight. When dismissed, each breaks into companies, which move toward their quarters like monster antediluvian reptiles, with myriads of blue legs. <div class="sidenote">Burnside at his Tent.</div> On that distant hill-side, just at the forest's edge, in the midst of a group of tents, are Burnside's head-quarters. Through your field-glass, you see standing in front of them the military man whose ambition has a limit. He has twice refused to accept the chief command of the army. There stands Burnside, the favorite of the troops, in blue shirt, knit jacket, and riding-boots, with frank, manly face, and full, laughing eyes. Under your feet are Bolivar Hights, crowned with the tents of Couch's Corps—dingy by reason of long service, like a Spring snow-drift through which the dirt begins to sift. You see the quaint old village of Harper's Ferry, and glimpses of the Potomac—gold in the sunset—with trees and rocks mirrored in its mellow face. The sun goes down, and the glory of the western hills fades as you slowly descend; but the picture you have seen is one which memory paints in fast colors. <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 299] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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