A Rebellion in Dixie

“Captain! Captain Dan Newman!” said he, with a violent attempt to refrain from giving a wild hurrah. “And I never was in the army in my life! And you are a lieutenant, Cale. But you don’t seem to think much of it.”

“The fact is, I don’t know whether I am an officer or not,” replied Cale, looking down at the ground. “I don’t believe that officer had any right to promote us.”

“Well, I declare, you are a dunce,” said his brother, more than half inclined to get angry with him. “Didn’t you hear what the officer said to his men – ‘I want you all to address him as captain and his brother as lieutenant’ – I tell you that’s enough for me.”

“But this officer was a captain.”

“No matter for that.”

“And I don’t believe that he had a right to promote you to the same rank as himself. They don’t do business like that in Jones county.”

“What way?”

“Why, the President has something to do with it.”

“Somebody has been stuffing you. Of course they don’t do business that way in Jones county; but these men are in the service, and of course they know what’s right.”

“Well, I am going to wait until I see father, and if he tells me that I am an officer, why I’ll have to believe it.”

This was a new thing to Dan, and he did not say any more. He supposed that the next thing was to be ordered to Mobile, where his uniform, a horse and weapons would be given him, and after that he would be at liberty to take command of a body of scouts the same as this captain had done; but now he began to look at it in a different light.

“I’ll tell you what is the matter with you,” said Cale, after thinking the matter over. “It all comes of your wanting father to get that commission as colonel.”

“Hasn’t he got a right to it, I’d like to know?” retorted Dan. “He said he wouldn’t work for any less.”

“I know, but they didn’t tell him that they would give him that commission. He told us that he was working for it; and here the rebs have gone and got on your blind side – ”

“Whoop!” yelled Dan, his anger getting the start of him; and with the word he kicked out savagely at his brother, who was just a little bit too quick for him. He slipped out of the way, and Dan’s momentum took him around on one foot and finally seated him rather roughly on the ground.

“That shows that you don’t believe it more than I do,” said Cale. “Heavens and earth! What’s that?”

It was fortunate that something happened to turn Dan’s mind from all thoughts of revenge, for just then there was a rapid fusillade of carbines heard up the road. Dan picked himself up, and before he could answer there came another report of rifles in reply to the first, and they were so accurately aimed that some of the bullets passed through the branches above their heads. The first alarm was given by the rebels, who wanted to see how many men there were at the bridge. They had halted a little ways from the creek, leaving two men to hold their horses, and crept up on the unconscious sentinel and brought him bleeding to the ground. A moment later they became aware that the pickets at the bridge were too strong to be carried by the small force they had at their command, for the answering volleys that came across the creek – they came thick and fast, too – showed them that the insurgents of Jones county had taken ample precautions. It demonstrated another point to their satisfaction: it showed them that they knew how to fight.

“They are shooting at us!” cried Cale, who straightway dove into the bushes.

Dan stood there in the road and didn’t know what to do. While he was considering the matter the firing ceased, and then all was still. He stood there for a long time, half an hour, it seemed to him, and then he heard the sound of horses’ hoofs coming from the direction of the bridge, and in a few minutes the Confederates rode up.

“Did you hit any of them?” inquired Dan.

“We hit one that we know of, and that was the sentry,” said the captain. “We filled him so full of holes that he never will hold that position again. Now we will go on and report that they have got sentries at the bridge. I’ll look into all the houses as I go by, and if that rebel fellow is about I’ll have him, sure.”

“Well, now, look here,” said Dan, who began to think now that there was some truth in what his brother told him. “What be I going to do?”

“You? Oh, yes. We shall want you to stay here, so as to be on hand, you know, the next time we come out after the Yanks. You will be right here when we want you?”

“No. I live all of twelve miles from here, and how will I know when you are coming? Couldn’t you take me on to Mobile with you?”

“Why, of what use would you be there?” answered the captain, speaking before he thought. “Why – you see,” he added, on receiving a nudge from his lieutenant, “your company isn’t ready for you to command it.”

“Couldn’t you take me on your staff?”

“Well, you see, I don’t have a staff,” said the leader, struggling hard to keep from laughing outright. “I’ll speak to the colonel about you as soon as I get back. Good-bye. Forward!”

“Of all things I ever heard of this is the beat,” thought Dan, as he stood there and watched the men out of sight. “If I am a captain, I do not see what’s the reason my company isn’t ready for me to command it. I guess I have made a botch of this business. Well, Cale,” he added, aloud, “let’s catch up and go home. And Cale, I won’t say anything to the old man about this.”

“I reckon I wouldn’t if I was in your place,” said Cale.

“No; but I will depend upon you to do it for me,” continued Dan, coaxingly. “You can repeat what the captain said to us without mentioning any names, can’t you?”

“I suppose so.”

“And all the while I will listen and be as earnest as you for disbelieving it,” said Dan. “In that way we will get at the truth of the matter. But I do say that I think that that captain was up to mighty mean business. I reckon he’ll find somebody else that he wants to promote in the same way, and I wish I could be there to whisper a word or two in his ear.”

Cale followed along behind his brother as he bent his steps toward home, swam the creek, and just at daylight arrived within sight of his dilapidated shelter. His father was up, and a smoke lazily ascended from the chimney.

“Well, boys, what luck?” he exclaimed, when his eyes fell upon the two weary tramps coming toward him. “Did you see any rebels?”

Dan borrowed his father’s plug of nigger-twist, and Cale hunted up his pipe before either of them replied. Dan cut off a generous chew, and then seated himself on the doorstep.

“You have been gone a long time,” continued Mr. Newman, “and I think you must have seen something. Did you capture any of the head men of the county?”

“No,” replied Dan. “We saw some Confederates, but they wouldn’t go after them.”

“Why, how was that?”

Dan began and told his story just as it happened, and the old man became so interested that he allowed his pipe to go out. He told about his meeting with the Confederates, described the conversation they had with them, all except the promotion, told about the firing on the pickets, and that they went back to report that they had found sentries at the bridge.

“And didn’t they charge across the bridge and capture those pickets?” exclaimed Mr. Newman, in disgust.

“They didn’t make nary charge that we heard of,” replied Dan. “They said they would go back and report it.”

“Well, if that ain’t a pretty way to do business I don’t want a cent. They ought to have a couple of thousand men behind them; then they could have captured the sentries, and come on up here and gobbled these men.”

It was now Cale’s turn to try his hand.

“Father,” said he, “has a captain any right to promote a man to the same rank as himself?”

“No,” said his father. “What made you ask that question?”

“Oh, I was just thinking about it.”

“The captain has a right to watch his men in action, and if he sees them doing any brave act he reports it to the colonel,” said Mr. Newman. “But he has no authority to promote them himself.”

The boys were satisfied. Cale stretched himself out upon his shake-down and dropped off into a dreamless slumber, while Dan threw out his tobacco, filled a pipe with nigger-twist, and sat down and thought about it. There was one thing he did not neglect to do. While he was lost in dreaming of the glory that might have been his if his promotion had been according to law, he did not forget to vow vengeance upon the captain who had presumed to play upon his credulity in that outrageous way.

“I know just how he looks,” soliloquized Dan, “and if it ever comes in my way to do him a mean act he’ll see how quick I’ll take him up. But that promotion is what gets me. How fine that old fellow looked in his high-topped boots, slouch hat, and gloves that came up to his elbows! Never mind. I’ll see the day when I will be better off than any of them.”

Meanwhile there was one soldier in the captain’s ranks who would have given everything he possessed to have been able to have pulled out his revolver and shot Dan down when he talked about “that rebel fellow” who had gone off with a couple of Yanks. He well knew what had brought him out there. He was Mr. Dawson, and the boy who had escaped at the time the wagon-train was captured was his son. The boy had lived up to his agreement, and was now paving the way to take his mother and younger brothers inside the Federal lines in Jones county.

We have said that Mr. Dawson came out and spoke to the two men who had come into the yard with him, and they went on, while Mr. Dawson himself came toward the corn-crib, behind which he knew his boy was concealed. He was after a saddle, for his own, together with his horse and weapons, had been taken by the Jones county men when they captured the train. He had seen his boy go off into the bushes and drew a long breath of relief, for he knew that his troubles were ended. He obtained the saddle, placed it on the old clay-bank which had been given to him to replace the horse he had lost, and rode on and overtook the line just after they had made a capture of Cale and Dan Newman. He was in something of a scrape, because if either of the boys saw or recognized him they might have mistrusted something. So he sat there on his mule, and heard what Dan had to say about that “rebel fellow,” but no one thought of connecting him with it. They supposed that young Dawson was somewhere in Mobile, and that they would find him there when they got back.

The captain went into all the houses as he went along, but without finding any preparations for hurried departure. The women came to the doors as fast as they could find some clothing to put on, obediently struck a light in response to the captain’s request, and then he departed with a slight apology for his intrusion. One garrulous old woman followed him to the door and inquired:

“What did you-uns think you wanted to find, anyway?”

“I just wanted to see if any of your men folks had been at home packing up goods to take them into the Yankee lines,” said the captain.

“Sho! My men folks been in the Conf’drit army before you was born. They ain’t seed nuthing to make ’em desert yit.”

Finally they reached the house where Mr. Dawson lived, and he noticed one thing that attracted his attention at once. There was but a single dog to welcome him, and he was tied up back of the house. All the others had gone off somewhere. As the lieutenant reined his horse up close to the pin the captain turned about and said:

“Why, this is the place where one of you men live, isn’t it? You came in here after a saddle, didn’t you?”

“Yes, sir,” replied a voice from somewhere in the line.

“Your boy is in the service, too. You don’t suppose that he has deserted, do you?”

“Well, he went off into the woods, and I haven’t seen him since. You can go in and see for yourself, sir.”

“Seeing is believing. It will not take but a minute.”

The captain dismounted from his horse and pounded loudly upon the closed door, but met with no response. Then he pushed open the door and entered the house. By the flickering light that was thrown out by the fire that was blazing on the hearth the lieutenant found a candle, and when he had struck a light a scene of the greatest confusion was presented. The bureau drawers were all thrown every which way, and when they made their way to the sleeping-room, not a vestige of clothing was there on the bed.

“Gee-whizz!” shouted the captain. “Here’s where one of those fellows has been. Arrest that man out there – the one riding the clay-bank mule.”

The men outside began riding about the house, but no such man could be found. They saw the place where the solitary hound had been confined, but he was gone, and the man on the clay-bank mule had disappeared.

“Don’t you find him anywhere?” shouted the captain, coming out of the door in great excitement.

“No, sir. He has skipped,” exclaimed one of the men.

“He’s gone off this way,” shouted another. “I hear somebody going through the field.”

“Take after him, the last mother’s son of you!” commanded the captain. “And remember and don’t come back without him. I tell you I’ll get fits for this, going out on a scout and letting one of my men desert under my very eyes!”

In an instant the captain and all his men were in hot pursuit of the horseman whose hoof-beats could just be heard. The chase led through a wide cotton-field, with a high fence at the other end, but the horseman, whoever he was, had a long start and seemed determined to make the most of it. Toward the fence he held, the men scattering out so as to head him off when he got there, and finally the captain, who rode a splendid horse, got near enough to the object he was pursuing to see that it was a clay-bank mule.

“Halt!” he shouted. “We’ve got you, and you might as well give up. If you don’t we’ll leave you right here for the buzzards to eat. Halt, I say.”

Still there was no response, and the mule kept on as fast as ever. The captain began to get angry, and he drew his sabre, intending to cut the man down when he got within reach of him; but just then they came within reach of the fence, and the mule turned and ran alongside of it. That brought him within reach of the captain’s vision (it was so dark that they couldn’t see the man on the mule’s back), and the officer, after taking a look or two at the mule, drew up his horse.

“Gee-whiz!” he shouted, making use of his favorite expression; “we have been chasing that clay-bank mule, but where’s the man on her? The mule was going home but the man’s got off. Catch him, men, and then we’ll go back and hunt for somebody else who is hidden somewhere in the bushes.”

The captain was mortified in the extreme, and no doubt he was a little suspicious. At any rate, he was certain that he heard one or two of his men giggling softly to themselves. The idea of halting a clay-bank mule and telling him that if he didn’t give some heed to it he would leave him there for the buzzards to eat was almost too much for them.

CHAPTER XII

THE REBELS TAKE REVENGE

“Robert,” whispered a voice close to the crack where the chinking had fallen out, “is that you?”

“For goodness’ sake turn that revolver the other way, Leon!” exclaimed Dawson, so full of excitement that he could scarcely speak plainly. “It is my father, and if you kill him I am gone up. What is it, pap?”

“You got away, didn’t you?” continued the voice, and one would have thought there was a slight chuckle mingled with it, “and you have come here to take your mother over into Jones county.”

“You’re right, I have,” returned Dawson, gleefully, “and you are here to help us. I’ve got two Yanks here with me, and they are just as good as they make them.”

“I thought I heard you mention Leon’s name. Is it Leon Sprague?”

“Yes, sir,” returned the owner of that name. “I am here and ready to assist him in any way I can.”

“I am glad to see you here,” continued Mr. Dawson, “for I shall know that we are going to stand some show.”

“Now, father, what shall I do first?” asked Dawson, who was impatient to get to work.

“Hitch the first two mules you can get to that wagon, and by the time you have done that your mother will be ready for you. Leave one dog behind you, so that I can readily follow your trail.”

“Why, are you not going to stay, too?”

“No; I must go on with the squad, and run my risk of getting away afterward,” replied Mr. Dawson. “I will be missed if I don’t go with them, and I want you and your mother to get a good start. Be lively, and work as hard as you can, for I don’t know when we shall be back.”

“What shall I do after I get the mules hitched up?” asked Dawson. “Will it be safe for me to drive around in front of the house?”

“You can go where you please. There will be nobody to bother you. Keep up a good heart till I come.”

The man went off to get his saddle, which hung in a remote corner, and Dawson kept a close watch on him as long as he remained in the crib. Leon couldn’t help thinking how coolly father and son went about escaping from serving under the flag they didn’t like. If they made a success of it, well and good; if they failed, it was certain death to the one of them that happened to be caught. What would Leon’s own mother have said if she could have seen him at that moment? When Mr. Dawson got his saddle and turned to go out he waved his hand toward the crack as a farewell signal, and that brought the first long breath from the young fellow at Leon’s side. It was plain now that all the nonsense was gone out of him.

“There goes the best father that any fellow ever had,” said Dawson. “He is plucky, too, and when he next joins us he won’t come so still. He’ll have all that crowd after him. But now I must get to work,” he added, brightening up. “You fellows can help me by staying right here and watching these animals, so that they won’t arouse the whole neighborhood, while I get the team ready.”

“Why don’t you let one or the other of us go with you?” asked Leon.

“You’ll only be in the way; and, besides, I have got plenty of negroes out there to help.”

Dawson went away, and although the boys who were watching the animals caught sight of him once in a while through the cracks, it was fully half an hour before he came back. Then he had the team, which an old negro was driving, and the wagon was loaded so full that there did not seem to be room for so much as a skillet anywhere about it. Safely perched among the feather-beds was his mother, and she was having as much as she could do to keep the children quiet. On the end-board in front was Cuff, who was talking to his mules in a quiet sort of way, and it was astonishing how much speed he got out of them. Following along behind the wagon were ten or fifteen negroes, who wished her every success in her journey and promised to come to her on the following day. The dogs were there, too, all except the one that had been tied behind the house, and they seemed to think they were going off on a pleasure trip.

“Now, then,” said Dawson, taking his bridle from Leon’s hand and mounting his horse, “you darkies have followed us far enough. Go back now and go to bed, and remember and don’t come out of your house again to-night, no matter how much noise is made here. Leave that dog tied up. Father wants him to follow our trail by. Good-bye. Now, Cuff, whip up. We don’t want to stay around here any longer. Mother, take a good look at your home, for it is your last chance to see it.”

“No, Robert, I will see it in my dreams, anyway,” replied his mother, who was almost heart-broken at the idea of separating herself for so long a time from all her associations. “If your father only comes up with me I shall be satisfied.”

“What do you think of that, Leon?” asked Dawson, as the wagon passed on out of hearing. “These rebels want killing. Father brought my mother to that house when he first married her, and we have lived there ever since. I am going to shoot every rebel that comes in my way.”

Leon did not know what reply to make to this. It was probable that his own mother might be obliged to leave her home in the same way, and he didn’t know how he would feel if she were turned loose in the world. It was no wonder, he thought, that Union men should talk of killing every rebel that came within reach. He knew he would feel so, too.

“There is one thing about it,” said Dawson, with something that sounded like a sigh. “A woman has more pluck than a man to stand under such things. I never believed so until to-night.”

The road they intended to take had evidently been explained to Cuff before they started, for he took to the lane that led through the cotton-fields, and he kept his mules on a keen trot all the way. Dawson didn’t go so fast. He allowed the wagon to gradually get ahead of him, in order to cover their retreat, and of course the boys stayed behind with him. When they arrived at the cover of the woods Cuff turned into it, and in a few moments more was out of sight, while Dawson turned his horse into a fence-corner and dismounted.

“Now, we will wait here for father,” said he.

“Where’s your wagon?” asked Leon.

“They are going on ahead toward the bridge. Taken in connection with those pickets I saw there they will get across, too, because I believe they would turn out to help us. Now, if you see that squad coming back along the road, just hold your breath. Father is with that crowd.”

Leon had never known what excitement was before. He tried to take it coolly, as Dawson did, but did not succeed very well. He threw the bridle off his horse’s neck and placed it around his arm, leaned on the top rail of the fence and kept watch of the road, and all the while he kept thinking how he would have felt if his father had been with that squad of Confederates and watching for a chance to escape. Tom Howe took it philosophically, as Dawson did. He had a mother to worry over him, but all he cared for was the successful outcome of Dawson’s scheme. The baying of the lonely hound came faintly to their ears, but with the exception of that, silence reigned unbroken. They stood leaning on the fence, watching first the house and then allowing their eyes to roam as far down the road as they could reach, and finally Tom broke the stillness.

“I see some fellows away off in that direction,” said he, pointing with his finger to direct the attention of his comrades, “who are coming along this way. There’s a whole body of them, too.”

“The time is coming,” said Dawson, after he had taken a look at the advancing horsemen. “We’ll know in a minute what’s going to happen.”

After that all was still again. The three boys stood there in the fence-corner and watched the men when they rode into the yard, and in a few minutes the baying of the hound ceased. Judging from the distance they were from the scene, there was a fearful commotion in the house. Men were seen riding rapidly about, a faint voice like a command came to their ears, and the squad suddenly vanished from view.

“Father has the start of them at last,” exclaimed Dawson, so excited and nervous that he could not stand still.

“Why, how do you make that out?” asked Leon. “You must have an owl’s eyes, for I can’t see anything from here.”

“Neither can I; but he is doing just what I would have done if I had been in his place. You don’t hear the hound any longer, do you? Well, you just wait until father comes up and he will tell you that the men are chasing a riderless mule.”

Leon began to understand the matter now, and he was utterly amazed at the strategy the man had used. He had dismounted from his clay-bank, given him a tremendous dig from some weapon or other he had in his hand, knowing that the mule would go home before he would go anywhere else, unloosed the dog, which showed him the way down the lane, and he was now coming that way with the speed of the wind. His pursuers had gone on after the mule, and were leaving him behind every moment. All this Leon went over for the benefit of Tom Howe, and Dawson simply nodded his head and then walked out in the lane to find his father. Presently he saw the hound, which sprang upon him, delighted to see him, and a long way down the lane behind him came his father.

“That’s father’s lope and I know it,” said Dawson, addressing himself to his companions. “He’ll hold that for two hours in order to beat a deer on his runway. But I am going to show him that I am a good soldier. Who comes there?” he added, in a voice pitched just loud enough to reach the fugitive’s ears.