Brave Deeds of Union Soldiers

It was three o'clock in the morning when Rose gathered together his little band and told them that at last Libby Prison was open. Rose and Hamilton, the leaders, were anxious to start at once. They had seen so many accidents and so many strokes of misfortune that they urged an instant escape. The others, however, begged them to wait and to leave early the next evening so that they could gain a whole night's start before their absence was found at the morning roll-call. With many misgivings, Rose at last consented to do this. The next day was the most nerve-racking day of his life. Every noise or whisper of the guard seemed to him to be a sign that the tunnel had been discovered. The time finally dragged along and nothing happened and once again the party met in Rat Hell at seven o'clock in the evening of February 9th and Rose and the faithful Hamilton led the way through the tunnel to freedom. Every move was carefully planned. The plank was raised noiselessly and Rose had taken the precaution to leave the gate half-open so that the sentry on duty that night would see nothing unusual. He found it just as he had left it. All that was necessary now to do was for each man to wait until the sentry had passed a few yards beyond the gate and then to start noiselessly through and out to freedom. All thirteen escaped easily. The last man left a message that the prison was open to any one who dared try the tunnel. By nine o'clock that night the message flashed through each ward that the colonel and a party had escaped. There was a rush for the hole at the fireplace and one hundred and nine other prisoners slipped through and got safely past the guard. After days and weeks of hiding, starving and freezing, the original party and many of the others got safely through to the Union lines.

Castle Despair had again been broken by Mr. Great Heart.

CHAPTER III

TWO AGAINST A CITY

It takes brave men to fight battles. It takes braver men to face death without fighting.

In the spring of 1862 New Orleans, the Queen City of the South, was blockaded by the Union fleet. No one could come in or go out. The grass grew in her empty streets. The wharves were deserted and cobwebs lay on the shut and barred warehouses. The river itself, which had been thronged with the masts and funnels of a thousand crowded craft, flowed yellow and empty as the Amazon.

As business stopped and wages grew scarce and scarcer, the fierce, dangerous part of the population which comes to the surface in times of siege began to gain more and more control of the city. For years there had been a secret society of criminals in New Orleans which had often controlled her city government. It was known as the "Thugs." Heretofore they had always worked in secret and underground. Now criminals who formerly would only come out at night and secretly, were seen on the streets in open day. As the Union lines closed around the city by sea and land, the crowds of men and women without money and without work became as fierce and bitter and dangerous as rats in a trap. For a while they told each other that the city could never be taken. Nothing afloat, they said again and again, can pass by the great chain and the sunken ships that block the river. If they could they would sink under the withering fire of Fort Jackson, a great star-shaped fort of stone and mortar, or Fort St. Phillip with its fifty-two guns which could be brought to bear on any vessel going up or down the river. Beyond the forts was a fleet of rams and gunboats and in a shipyard over at Jefferson, one of the suburbs of New Orleans, was building the great iron-clad Mississippi, which alone they felt would be equal to the whole blockading fleet. So thought and said the swarming unemployed thousands of New Orleans. Finally came a dreadful day when the tops of the naked masts of the hated Yankee fleet showed against the evening sky across one of the bends of the river. Then came the roar of distant guns for a day and a night as the Union vessels attacked the forts and concealed batteries. Still the people believed in their defenses although the firing came nearer and nearer. Not until they saw the city troops carry the cotton out of the cotton-presses down to the wharves to be burned in miles of twisting flame to save it from the Union Army did they realize how close was the day of the surrender of the city. Then all the empty ships which had been moored out in the river were fired and the warehouses of provisions still left were broken open. Mobs of desperate men and women surged back and forth fighting for the sugar and rice and molasses with which the wharves were covered. Suddenly around Slaughter House Point, silent, grim and terrible, came the black fleet which had safely run the gauntlet of forts, gunboats, batteries and torpedoes. For the first time since the war had begun, the Stars and Stripes floated again in sight of New Orleans. As the fleet came nearer and nearer, the crowds which blackened the wharves and levees of New Orleans shouted for the Mississippi.

"Where is the Mississippi? Ram the Yanks! Mississippi! Mississippi! Mississippi!" thousands of voices roared across the water and through the forsaken streets of the doomed city. And then, as if called by the shout of her city, around a bend suddenly floated the great iron-clad Mississippi which was to save New Orleans, – a helpless, drifting mass of flames. There was a moment of utter silence and then a scream of rage and despair went up that drowned the crackling of the flames.

"Betrayed! Betrayed! We have been betrayed!" was the cry which went up everywhere. No stranger's life was worth a moment's purchase. One man whose only crime was that he was unknown to the mob was seized at one of the wharves and in an instant was swinging, twisting and choking, from the end of a rope at a lamp-post. Through the crowds flitted the Thugs and began a reign of terror against all whom they hated or feared. Men were hung and shot and stabbed to death that day at a word. The mob was as dangerous, desperate and as unreasoning as a mad dog. Through this roaring, frothing, cursing crowd it was necessary for Admiral Farragut to send messengers to the mayor at the City Hall to demand the surrender of the city. It seemed to the men in the ships like going into a den of trapped wild beasts, yet instantly Captain Theodorus Bailey, the second in command, demanded from the admiral the right to undertake this dangerous mission. With a little guard of twenty men he was landed on the levee in front of a howling mob which crowded the river-front as far as the eye could reach. They offered an impenetrable line through which no man could pass. Captain Bailey drew his marines up in line and tried to reason with the mob, but could not even be heard. He then ordered his men to level their muskets and take aim. In an instant the mob had pushed forward to the front crowds of women and children and dared the Yanks to shoot. Captain Bailey realized that nothing could be done by force without a useless slaughter of men and women and children. In order to save this he decided to try what could be done by two unarmed men. If this plan failed, it would be time enough to try what could be done by grape and canister. Taking a flag of truce and choosing as his companion a young midshipman named Read, whom he knew to be a man of singular coolness, Captain Bailey started up the street to the City Hall. It was a desperate chance. The mob had already tasted blood and it was almost certain that some one would shoot or stab these two representatives of the hated Yanks as soon as they were out of sight of the ships. The slightest sign of fear or hesitation would mean the death of both of them. Captain Bailey and Midshipman Read, however, were men who would take just such a chance. Slowly, unconcernedly, they walked along the streets through a roar of shouts, and curses, and cheers for Jeff Davis. As they reached the middle of the city, the crowd became more and more threatening. They were pushed and jostled while men, many of them members of the dreaded Thugs, thrust cocked revolvers into their faces and waved bowie-knives close to their throats. Others rushed up with coils of rope which had already done dreadful service. Captain Bailey never even glanced at the men around him, but looking straight ahead walked on as unconcernedly as if he were treading his own quarter-deck. Young Read acted as if he were bored with the whole proceeding. He examined carefully the brandished revolvers and knives and smiled pleasantly into the distorted, scowling, gnashing faces which were thrust up against his. Occasionally he would half pause to examine some building which seemed to impress him as particularly interesting and would then saunter unconcernedly along after his captain.

Right on through the gauntlet of death passed the two men with never a quiver of the eye or a motion of the face to show that they even knew the mob was there. Little by little, men who had retained something of their self-control began to persuade the more lawless part of the rabble to fall back. It was whispered around that Farragut, that old man of iron and fire, had said that he would level the city as flat as the river if a hand were even laid on his envoys. Finally through the surging streets appeared the City Hall and the end of that desperate march was in sight. At the very steps of the City Hall the mob took a last stand. Half-a-dozen howling young ruffians, with cocked revolvers in either hand, stood on the lower step and dared the Union messengers to go an inch farther. Midshipman Read stepped smilingly ahead of his captain and gently pushed with either hand two of the cursing young desperadoes far enough to one side to allow for a passageway between them. Both of them actually placed the muzzles of their cocked revolvers against his neck as a last threat, but even the touch of cold steel did not drive away Read's amused smile. The mob gave up. Evidently these men had resources about which they knew nothing.

"They were so sure that we wouldn't kill them that we couldn't," said one of the Thugs afterward in explaining why the hated messengers had been allowed to march up the steps.

They sauntered into the mayor's room where they met a group of white-faced, trembling men who were the mayor and his council. Captain Bailey delivered the admiral's summons for the surrender of the city to the mayor. The mob, which at first had stayed back, at this point surged up to the windows and shouted curses and threats into the very mayor's room, threatening him and the council if they dared to surrender the city. Captain Bailey and his companion gave the trembling city officials a few minutes in which to make up their minds. Suddenly there was heard a roar outside louder than any which had come before. The mob had torn down the Union flag which had been hoisted over the custom house and rushing to the mayor's office, tore it to pieces outside the open windows and threw the fragments in at the seated envoys. This insult to their flag aroused Captain Bailey and young Read as no threats against them personally had been able to do. Turning to the mayor and the shrinking council, Bailey said, "As there is a God in heaven, the man who tore down that Union flag shall hang for it." Later on this promise was carried out by the inflexible General Butler when he took over the city from Admiral Farragut and hanged Mumford, the man who tore down the flag in the city square, before the very mob which had so violently applauded his action. This incident was the last straw for the mayor and his associates. They neither dared to refuse to surrender the city lest it should be bombarded by Farragut nor did they dare to surrender it for fear of the mob which had gathered around them with significant coils of rope over their arms. In a half-whisper they hurriedly notified Captain Bailey that they could not surrender the city, but that they would make no resistance if the Union forces occupied it. Looking at them contemptuously, Captain Bailey turned away, picked up the fragments of the torn flag and faced the mob outside threateningly. The man who had torn the flag slunk back and his example was contagious. One by one men commenced to sneak away and in a minute the City Hall was deserted and Captain Bailey and Midshipman Read were able to leave the building and drive back to the vessels in a carriage obtained for them by the mayor's secretary.

So ended what one of the mob, who afterward became a valued citizen of his state, described as the bravest deed he had ever seen – two unarmed men facing and defeating a mob of murderers and madmen.

CHAPTER IV

BOY HEROES

One doesn't have to be big, or old, or strong to be brave. But one does have to believe in something so much and so hard that nothing else counts, even death. An idea that is so big that everything else seems small is called an ideal. It is easy for a boy with an ideal to be brave. Cassabianca, the boy who stayed on the burning ship because he had been ordered to wait there by his dead father, had made obedience his ideal. The boy of Holland who found a leak in the dyke which could only be stopped by his hand, and who stayed through the long night and saved his village but lost his right hand had learned this great ideal of self-sacrifice. The shepherd boy who saved his sheep from a lion and a bear and who afterward was the only one who dared enter the fatal valley and meet the fierce giant-warrior had as his ideal faith. He believed so strongly that he was doing God's will that he shared God's strength.

In the great war between slavery and freedom which swept like fire over the country, boys learned the ideals for which their fathers fought. They learned to believe so entirely in freedom that there was no room left for fear. Many of them went to the war as drummer boys, the only way in which boys could enlist. One of these was Johnny McLaughlin of the Tenth Indiana. Johnny lived at a place called Lafayette and was not quite eleven years old. From the minute that the war broke out he thought of nothing but what he could do for his country and for freedom. Other boys played at drilling and marching, but this was not enough for him. He made inquiries and found that if he could learn to drum, there was a chance that he might be allowed to enlist. He said nothing at first to his father and mother about his plans, but saved all his spending-money and worked every holiday in order to get enough to buy a drum. Times were hard, however. There was little money for men, much less for boys, and after Johnny had worked for over two months, he had saved exactly two dollars. In the village was a drummer who had been sent home to recover from his wounds and to him Johnny went one day to ask how much more he would have to save before he could buy a drum. The man told him that a good drum would cost him at least ten dollars. Johnny sighed and turned away very much discouraged.

"Why don't you play something else?" said the man. "You can get more fun out of ten dollars than buying a drum with it."

"I don't want it to play with," said Johnny. "I want to learn to drum so that I can enlist."

At first the man laughed at the boy – he seemed so little, but when he found that Johnny had made up his mind to do his share for his country in the great fight, Donaldson, as he was named, became serious.

"I tell you what I'll do," he said at last. "If you are really in earnest about learning to drum, I'll give you lessons myself, for," said he modestly, "I was the best drummer in my regiment. If you can learn and they will take you, I'll give you the old drum. I'll send it to the front even if I can't go myself."

This was enough for Johnny. Morning, noon and night he was with his friend Donaldson and it was a wonder that the drum-head was not worn out long before he learned. Learn he did, however, and in a few months there was not a roll or a call which he could not play. One morning as the school-bell was ringing, Johnny presented himself to his parents with the big drum around his neck looking nearly as large as he was.

"I'm going to enlist," he said simply.

At first his father and mother, like Donaldson, were inclined to laugh at him, he was such a little boy, but Johnny was in earnest and a boy who is in earnest always gets what he wants. A few days later found him a drummer for the Tenth Indiana and as he led the regiment, beating the long roll, Johnny was the proudest boy that had ever come out of Indiana. He had his first taste of fire at Fort Donelson and afterward at the bloody battle of Shiloh. Johnny drummed until the terrible drumming of the muskets drowned out even his loud notes. Then he laid down his sticks, carefully hid his drum, took a musket and cartridge box from off one of the dead soldiers and ran on with his regiment and fought in the front with the bravest of them all. He had a quick eye and it was not long before he could shoot as accurately as any man there.

It was just after Shiloh that Johnny had a narrow escape from being captured. Wanting to try everything, he obtained permission to do picket duty at night although this work was not required of drummer boys. As he had shown himself such a cool and ready fighter, his colonel felt that he was entirely able to do this duty and one dark night put him on picket. His post was some distance away from the camp. Just at dawn he was suddenly rushed by a party of rebel cavalry. As they burst out of the bushes Johnny fired his carbine at the first one, dropping him, and ran across an open field about fifty yards wide. At the other side was an old, rotten, log fence and beyond that a mass of briers and underbrush where he was sure the horses could not follow. Fortunately for him the rains had made the field a mass of mud. There his lightness gave him the advantage, for the horses slumped through at every step. The rebels fired constantly at him as they rode with their pistols. One ball went through his hat, another clear through his cartridge box and lodged in his coat, fortunately without exploding any of the cartridges. Beyond the middle of the field the ground was drier and the horsemen commenced to gain on him, but he reached the fence well ahead and with one jump landed on the top. The rotten rails gave way underneath him and he plunged headlong over into the brush, right on the back of a big sleeping wild pig who had rooted out a lair at this place. The pig jumped up grunting and crashed through the underbrush and Johnny heard his pursuers smashing through the broken fence not a rod away. He curled up into the round hole which the pig had left, drew down the bushes over his head and lay perfectly quiet. The horsemen, hearing the rustling of leaves and the smashing of branches as the pig dashed off down a pathway, followed after at full gallop and were out of sight in a minute. As soon as the sound of their galloping had died away, Johnny crawled cautiously out of his hole and made the best of his way back to camp. The next day some of the rebel cavalry were taken prisoners and Johnny recognized one of them as the leader of the squad which had so nearly caught him. The prisoner recognized the boy at the same time and they both grinned cheerfully at each other.

"Did you catch that pig yesterday?" finally said Johnny.

"We did that," retorted the prisoner, "but it wasn't the one we were after."

Johnny had always been able to ride the most spirited horses on the farm and after Shiloh he asked to be transferred from the infantry to Colonel Jacob's Kentucky Cavalry. There he attracted the attention of the colonel so that the latter gave him one of the best horses in the regiment and a place in the Fighting First, as the best-mounted company was called, which the colonel always led personally in every charge. In this company Johnny was taught how to handle a sabre. The regular sabre was too heavy for him, but Colonel Jacob had one light, short one specially made which Johnny learned to handle like a flash. A German sergeant, who had been a great fencer on the Continent, taught him all that he knew and before long Johnny was an expert in tricks of fence which stood him in good stead later on. One in special he so perfected that it was never parried. Instead of striking down with the sabre as is generally done, Johnny learned a whirling, flashing upper-cut which came so rapidly that generally an opponent could not even see much less parry it. He was also armed with the regulation revolver and a light carbine instead of the heavy revolving rifle used by the rest of the troop. At Perryville he fought his first battle with his new regiment. In the charge he stuck close to Colonel Jacob and received a ball through his left leg above the knee. Fortunately it did not break any bone and Johnny tore a strip off his shirt, bandaged the hole and went on with the fight. While he was doing this, the greater part of the regiment passed on and when Johnny started to join his colonel, he could not find him. He rode like the wind over the field and soon behind a little patch of woods saw Colonel Jacobs with only six or seven men, the rest having been scattered in the fight. Johnny spurred his horse over to him and the colonel was delighted to be joined by his little body-guard. As they were riding along to rejoin the rest of the regiment, from out a clump of bushes a squad of fifty men led by a Confederate major dashed out calling on them to surrender. Colonel Jacob hesitated, for some of his men were wounded and the odds seemed too great for a fight. Before he had time to answer, Johnny slipped in front of him, drew out his revolver and fired directly into the Confederate officer's face, killing him instantly and then drawing his sabre dashed into the ranks of the enemy. The first man he met was a big fellow whose bare, brawny arm and blood-stained sabre proved him a master with his weapon. Johnny never gave him a chance to strike. At the whirl of his light sabre his opponent instinctively raised his weapon in the ordinary parry of a down-blow and the point of Johnny's sabre caught him under the chin and toppled him off his horse. The Union men gave a cheer, followed their little leader, breaking clear through the demoralized Confederates and joined their command at the other side of the field.

A few weeks later they had a skirmish with the troop of John Morgan, the most dreaded cavalry leader and fighter in all the South. Johnny, as usual, was in the front of the charge and had just cut at one man when another aimed a tremendous blow at his head in passing. There was just time for Johnny to raise the pommel of his sabre to save his head, but the deflected blow caught him on the leg and he fell from the horse with blood spurting out of his other leg this time. He lay perfectly quiet, but another rebel had seen him fall and spurring forward, caught him by the collar, saying:

"We'll keep this little Yankee in a cage to show the children."

Johnny did not approve of this cage-idea and although there was no room to use the sabre, managed to work his left hand back into his belt, draw his revolver and shoot his captor dead. In another minute his company came riding back and he was whirled up behind his colonel and rode back of him to safety. This last wound proved to be a serious one and he was sent back to Indiana on a furlough to give it time to heal. On the way back he was stopped by a provost guard and asked for his pass.

"My colonel forgot to give me any passes," said Johnny, "but here are two that the rebels gave me," showing his bandaged legs, and the guard agreed with him that this was pass enough for any one. As his wound refused to heal, against his wishes he was discharged and once more returned home. He then tried to enlist again, but each time he was turned down because of the unhealed wound. Finally, Johnny traveled clear to Washington and had a personal talk with President Lincoln and explained to him that his wound would never heal except in active service. His arguments had such force with the President that a special order was made for his enlistment and he fought through the whole war and afterward joined the regular army.

The littlest hero of the war was Eddie Lee. Shortly before the battle of Wilson's Creek, one of the Iowa regiments was ordered to join General Lyon in his march to the creek. The drummer of one of the companies was taken sick and had to go to the hospital. The day before the regiment was to march a negro came to the camp and told the captain that he knew of a drummer who would like to enlist. The captain told him to bring the boy in the next morning and if he could drum well he would give him a chance. The next day during the beating of the reveille, a woman in deep mourning came in leading by the hand a little chap about as big as a penny and apparently not more than five or six years old. She inquired for the captain and when the latter came out, told him that she had brought him a drummer boy.