Chapter XLVIII
——Fortune is merry,
And in this mood will give us any thing.
Julius Cæsar.
The night is long that never finds the day.
Macbeth.
Among the Delectable Mountains.
Relieved again from immediate danger, every thing seemed like a blessed dream. I was haunted by the fear of waking to find myself in the old bunk at Salisbury, with its bare and squalid surroundings.
We were often compelled to walk and lead our weary animals. The rushing creeks were perilous to cross by night. The rugged mountains were appalling to our aching limbs and frost-bitten feet. The Union houses, where we obtained food and counsel, were often humble and rude. But we had vanquished the Giant Despair, and come up from the Valley of the Shadow of Death. To our eyes, each icy stream was the River of Life. The frowning cliffs, with their cruel rocks, were the very Delectable Mountains; and every friendly log cabin was the Palace called Beautiful.
After our fair guide left us, Dan's foot was on his native heath. Familiar with the road, he pressed on like a Fate, without mercy to man or beast. After the late heavy rains it was now growing intensely cold. A crust, not yet hard enough to bear, was forming upon the mud, and at every step our poor horses sunk to the fetlocks.
Even with frequent walking I found it difficult to keep up the circulation in my own sensitive feet; but the severe admonition of one frost-bite had taught me to be very cautious. A young North Carolinian, riding a mule, wore nothing upon his feet except a pair of cotton stockings; that he kept from freezing is one of the unsolved mysteries of human endurance.
Passing a few miles north of Greenville, at four o'clock in the morning, we had accomplished twenty-five miles, despite all our weakness and weariness.
This brought us to Lick Creek, which proved too much swollen for fording. An old Loyalist, living on the bank, assured us that guerrillas were numerous and vigilant. Should we never leave them behind?
Ascending the stream for three miles, we crossed upon the only bridge in that whole region. Here, at least, our rear was protected; because, if pursued, we could tear up the planks. Soon after dawn, upon a hill-side in the pine woods, we dismounted, and huddled around our fires, a weary, hungry, morose, and melancholy company.
Separation from "Junius."
XXV. Wednesday, January 11.
As we drowsed upon the pine leaves, I asked:
"When shall we join the footmen?"
"After we reach Knoxville," was Dan Ellis's reply.
This was a source of uneasiness to Davis and myself, because we had left "Junius" behind. He was offered a horse when we started, at midnight. Supposing, like ourselves, that the parties would re-unite in a few hours, and tired of riding without a saddle, he declined, and cast his lot among the footmen. It was the first separation since our capture. Our fates had been so long cast together, that we meant to keep them united until deliverance should come for one or both, either through life or death. But Treadaway was an excellent pilot, and the footmen, able to take paths through the mountains where no cavalry could follow them, would probably have less difficulty than we.
Union Women Scrutinizing the Yankee.
I found an old man splitting rails, down in a wooded ravine two or three hundred yards from our camp. While he went to his house, a mile distant, to bring me food, I threw myself on the ground beside his fire and slept like a baby. In an hour, he returned with a basket containing a great plate of the inevitable bread and pork. He was accompanied by his wife and daughter, who wanted to look at the Yankee. Coarse-featured and hard-handed, they were smoking long pipes; but they were not devoid of womanly tenderness, and earnestly asked if they could do any thing to help us.
About noon we broke camp, and compelled our half-dead horses to move on. The road was clearer and safer than we anticipated. At the first farm which afforded corn, we stopped two or three hours to feed and rest the poor brutes.
Three of us rode forward to a Union house, and asked for dinner. The woman, whose husband belonged to the Sixteenth (loyal) Tennessee Infantry, prepared it at once; but it was an hour before we fully convinced her that we were not Rebels in disguise.
We passed through Russelville soon after dark, and, two miles beyond, made a camp in the deep woods. The night was very cold, and despite the expostulations of Dan Ellis, who feared they belonged to a Union man, we gathered and fired huge piles of rails, one on either side of us. Making a bed between them of the soft, fragrant twigs of the pine, we supped upon burnt corn in the ear. By replenishing our great fires once an hour we spent the night comfortably.
XXVI. Thursday, January 12.
At our farm-house breakfast this morning, a sister of Lieutenant Treadaway was our hostess. She gave us an inviting meal, in which coffee, sugar, and butter, which had long been only reminiscences to us, were the leading constituents.
By ten we were again upon the road. Two or three of our armed men kept the advance as scouts, but we now journeyed with comparative impunity.
"Slide Down Off that Horse."
Some of our young men, who had long been hunted by the Rebels, embraced every possible opportunity of turning the tables. No haste, weariness, or danger could induce them to omit following the track of guerrillas, wherever there was reasonable hope of finding the game. On the road to-day, one of these footmen met a citizen riding a fine horse.
"What are you, Southerner or Union?" asked the boy, playing with the hammer of his rifle.
"Well," replied the old Tennesseean, a good deal alarmed, "I have kept out of the war from the beginning; I have not helped either side."
"Come! come! That will never do. You don't take me for a fool, do you? You never could have lived in this country without being either one thing or the other. Are you Union or Secession?"
"I voted for Secession."
"Tell the entire truth."
"Well, sir, I do; I have two sons in Johnson's army. I was an original Secessionist, and I am as good a Southern man as you can find in the State of Tennessee."
"All right, my old friend; just slide down off that horse."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that you are just the man I have been looking for, in walking about a hundred miles—a good Southerner with a good horse! I am a Yankee; we are all Yankees; so slide down, and be quick about it."
Accompanied by the clicking of the rifle, the injunction was not to be despised. The rider came down, the boy mounted and galloped up the road, while the old citizen walked slowly homeward, with many a longing, lingering look behind.
We traveled twenty-five miles to-day, and at night made our camp in the pine woods near Friend's Station.
Friendly Words but Hostile Eyes.
As the country was now comparatively safe, Davis and myself went in pursuit of beds. At the first house, two women assured us that they were good Union people, and very sorry they had not a single vacant couch. Their words were unexceptionable, but I could not see the welcome in their eyes. We afterward inquired, and found that they were violent Rebels.
The next dwelling was a roomy old farm-house, with pleasant and generous surroundings. In answer to our rap, a white-haired patriarch of seventy came to the door.
"Can you give us supper and lodging to-night, and breakfast in the morning? We will pay you liberally, and be greatly obliged beside."
"I should be glad to entertain you," he replied, in tremulous, childish treble, "but to-night my daughters are all gone to a frolic. I have no one in the house except my wife, who, like myself, is old and feeble."
Hospitalities of a Loyal Patriarch.
The lady, impelled by curiosity, now appearing, we repeated the request to her, with all the suavity and persuasiveness at our command, for we were hungry and tired, and the place looked inviting. She dryly gave us the same answer, but began to talk a little. Presently we again inquired:
"Will you be good enough to accommodate us, or must we look farther?"
"What are you, anyhow?"
"Union men—Yankees, escaped from the Salisbury prison."
"Why didn't you say so before? Of course I can give you supper! Come in, all of you!" The old lady prepared us the most palatable meal we had yet found, and told us the usual stories of the war. For hours, by the log fire, we talked with the aged couple, who had three sons carrying muskets in the Union army, and who loved the Cause with earnest, enthusiastic devotion. We were no longer apprehensive; for they assured us that the Rebels had never yet searched their premises.
In this respect they had been singularly fortunate. Theirs was the only one among the hundreds of Union houses we entered, which had not been despoiled by Rebel marauders. More than once the Confederates had taken from them grain and hay to the value of hundreds of dollars; but their dwelling had always been respected.
XXVII. Friday, January 13.
My poor steed gave signs of approaching dissolution; and I asked the first man I saw by the roadside:
"Would you like a horse?"
"Certainly, stranger."
"Very well, take this one."
I handed him the bridle, and he led the animal away with a look of wonder; but it could not have taken him long to comprehend the nature of my generosity. Several other horses in the party had died or were left behind as worthless.
Our journey—originally estimated at two hundred miles—had now grown into two hundred and ninety-five by the roads. In view of our devious windings, we deemed three hundred and forty miles a very moderate estimate of the distance we had traveled.
"Out of the Mouth of Hell."
At ten o'clock on the morning of this twenty-seventh day, came our great deliverance. It was at Strawberry Plains, fifteen miles east of Knoxville. Here—after a final march of seven miles, in which our heavy feet and aching limbs grew wonderfully light and agile—in silence, with bowed heads, with full hearts and with wet eyes, we saluted the Old Flag.20
Listen: [[mp3]] [[ogg vorbis]] [midi]
Sheet Music: [pdf]
Music xml: [xml]
The transcriptions of these files from public domain sources are dedicated to the public domain by the transcriber.
A SONG FOR THE "NAMELESS HEROINE" WHO AIDED THE ESCAPING PRISONERS.
"Benisons on her dear head forever."
Words and Music composed by B. R. HANBY.
(Published by John Church, Jr., 66 West Fourth Street, Cincinnati, Ohio.)
1.
Out of the jaws of death,
Out of the mouth of hell,
Weary and hungry, and fainting and sore,
Fiends on the track of them,
Fiends at the back of them,
Fiends all around but an an-gel be-fore.
CHORUS.
Fiends all a-round but an an-gel be-fore!
Blessings be thine, loyal maid, ev-er-more!
Fiends all around, but an an-gel be-fore,
Blessings be thine, lo-yal maid, ev-er-more.
2.
Out by the mountain path,
Down thro' the darksome glen,
Heedless of foes, nor at dan-ger dismayed,
Sharing their doubtful fate,
Daring the tyrant's hate,
Heart of a lion, though form of a maid;
CHORUS.
Hail to the an-gel who goes on be-fore,
Blessings be thine, loyal maid, ev-er-more!
Hail to the an-gel who goes on be-fore,
Blessings be thine, lo-yal maid, ev-er-more.
3.
"Nameless," for foes may hear,
But by our love for thee,
Soon our bright sabers shall blush with their gore.
Then shall our banner free,
Wave, maiden, over thee:
Then, noble girl, thou'lt be nameless no more.
CHORUS.
Then we shall hail thee from moun-tain to shore,
Bless thy brave heart, loyal maid, ev-er-more!
Then we shall hail thee from moun-tain to shore,
Bless thy brave heart, lo-yal maid, ev-er-more.
Notes:
1 Vernacular for carrying a load upon the back of a man or animal.
2 In Mexico, General Twiggs, while applying some preparation to a wound in his head, found it restoring his hair to its natural color. An enterprising nostrum-vender at once placed in market and advertised largely something which he styled the "Twiggs Hair Dye." Dr. Holmes makes the incident a target for one of his Parthian arrows:—
"How many a youthful head we've seen put on its silver crown!
What sudden changes back again, to youth's empurpled brown!
But how to tell what's old or young—the tap-root from the sprigs,
Since Florida revealed her fount to Ponce de Leon Twiggs?"
3 Creole means "native;" but its New Orleans application is only to persons of French or Spanish descent.
4 He never weighed over ninety-six pounds, and, to see his attenuated figure bent over his desk, the shoulders contracted, and the shape of his slender limbs visible through his garments, a stranger would select him as the John Randolph of our time. He has the appearance of having undergone great bodily anguish.—Newspaper Biography of Alexander H. Stephens.
5 By the last census report, the whole number of escaping fugitives in the United States, in the year 1860, was eight hundred and three, being a trifle over one-fiftieth of one per cent. upon the whole number of slaves. Of these, it is probable that the greater part fled to places of refuge in the South, the Dismal Swamp, everglades of Florida, southern mountain regions, and the northern States of Mexico.—Everett's New York Oration, July 4, 1861.
6 Dixie's Land is a synonym for heaven. It appears that there was once a good planter named Dixie, who died at some period unknown, to the intense grief of his animated property. They found expression for their sorrow in song, and consoled themselves by clamoring in verse for their removal to the land to which Dixie had departed, and where probably the renewed spirit would be greatly surprised to find himself in their company. Whether they were ill treated after he died, and thus had reason to deplore his removal, or merely desired heaven in the abstract, nothing known enables me to assert. But Dixie's Land is now generally taken to be the Seceded States, where Mr. Dixie certainly is not at the present writing.—Russell's Diary in America.
7 This gentleman went to Charleston openly for The Times, and constantly insisted that a candid and truthful correspondent of any northern paper could travel through the South without serious difficulty. He was daily declaring that the devil was not so black as he is painted, denying charges brought against Charlestonians by the northern press, and sometimes evidently straining a point in his own convictions to say a kind word for them. But, during the storming of Sumter, he was suddenly arrested, robbed, and imprisoned in a filthy cell for several days. He was at last permitted to go; but the mob had become excited against him, and with difficulty he escaped with his life. No other correspondent was subjected to such gross indignities. "Jasper" reached Washington, having obtained a good deal of new and valuable information about South Carolina character.
8 Of course the folly was not all on one side. Few northerners, up to the attack on Sumter, thought the Rebels would do any thing but threaten. And long after this error was exploded, our ablest journals were fond of contrasting the resources of the two sections, and demonstrating therefrom, with mathematical precision, that the war could not last long; that the superiority of the North in men and money would make the subjugation of the South a short and easy task. But they did not commit the egregious blunder of imputing cowardice to any class of native-born Americans.
9 Now (April, 1865), while we are witnessing some of the closing scenes of the war, subscriptions to the popular loan of the Government come pouring in from the West more largely, according to wealth and population, than from any other section.
10 From the Spanish corral, a yard. Upon our frontier it is used, colloquially, as a verb, to signify surrounded, captured, completely in the power, or at the mercy, of another.
11 Through severest trials, and cruel neglect from our Government, they never swerved a hair's-breadth. Before our troops opened East Tennessee, enough left their homes, coming stealthily through the mountains and enlisting in the Union army, to make sixteen regiments.
12 The leniency of the Government toward these men was remarkable. For many months after the war began, Breckinridge, in the United States Senate, and Burnett, in the House of Representatives, uttered defiant treason, for which they were not only pardoned, but paid by the Government they were attempting to overthrow. As late as August, 1861, after Bull Run, after Wilson Creek, Buckner visited Washington, was allowed to inspect the fortifications, and went almost directly thence to Richmond. When he next returned to Kentucky, it was at the head of an invading Rebel army.
13 So called, though nearly all its members came from Cincinnati.
14 This officer was a native Missourian, deemed trustworthy, and thoroughly familiar with the country. He reported officially to Fremont that the whole Rebel army was within eleven miles of us, when it was really fifty miles away. Then, indeed, much later in the war, accurate information about the enemy seemed absolutely unattainable. Scott, McClellan, Halleck, Grant, all failed to procure it. Rosecrans was the first general who kept himself thoroughly advised of the whereabouts, strength, and designs of the Rebels.
15 Commander, not of the tug, whose captain was killed, but of the soldiers guarding it and the barges.
16 A species of Southern oak.
17 Our Government, upon learning of this, ordered the commandant at Fortress Monroe, the moment he should learn, officially or otherwise, that Sawyer and Flynn had been executed, to shoot in retaliation two Rebel officers—sons of Generals Lee and Winder. On the reception of this news in the Richmond papers at daylight one morning, the prisoners cheered and shouted with delight. As they supposed, that settled the question. Nothing more was heard about executing our officers; and soon after, Sawyer and Flynn were exchanged, months before their less fortunate comrades.
18 Captain Thomas, in the character of a French lady, took passage on the steamer at Baltimore, with several followers disguised as mechanics. Near Point Lookout they overpowered the crew and captured the vessel, converting her into a privateer. Afterward, while attempting to repeat the enterprise, they were made prisoners.
19 Nameless no more. The substantial closing of the war, while these pages are in press, renders it safe to give her name—Miss Melvina Stevens.
20 Knoxville, Tennessee, January 13, 1865.
"Out of the jaws of Death; out of the mouth of Hell."
Albert D. Richardson.
Tribune, January 14, 1865.