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"At 4 PM the bugle sounded 'forward', and with clanking of sabers, rattling of hoofs and wagons, we marched outside the picket line, past the cemetery where my deceased friends were buried, and were going towards the enemy. The chaplain and myself were riding behind the colonel, when the colonel asked the good man to ride up to a log that was beside the road, and make his horse put his fore feet upon it, as he did on the bar in the saloon. I felt sorry for the chaplain, and I rode up to the log, and had Jeff put his feet upon it. Then I rode back and saluted the colonel and told him it was I who had done the wicked things the chaplain was accused of, and I told how the chaplain was using my coat, so I pit on his, with the shoulder straps on, and all about it. He laughed at first and then said, ' Then YOU are under arrest. You may dismount and walk and lead your horse until further orders.' I dismounted, like a man,and five miles I walked, keeping up with the regiment. Finally the colonel sung out, 'gallop, march,' and I got on my horse. I reasoned that the order to gallop was 'further orders,' and that as he knew I couldn't very well gallop on foot he must have meant for me to get on. We galloped for about ten miles, and were ordered to halt, when I dismounted and led my horse up the colonel, and saluted him. 'Well, you must have had a hard time keeping up with us on foot,' said he. I told him it rested me to go on foot. We were just going into camp for the night, and the colonel said,' Well, as you are rested so much from your walk, you may go out with the foraging party and get some feed for your horse and the chaplain's.' I was willing to do anything for a quiet life, so I fell in with a party of about forty, under a lieutenant, and we rode off into the country to steal forage from a plantation, keeping a sharp lookout for Confederates who might object.
"I guess we rode away from camp two or three miles, when we came to
a magnificent plantation house, and outhouses, negro quarters, etc. The house
was on a hill, in a grove of live oaks, and had immense white pillars, or
columns in front. As we rode up to the plantation the boys scattered all
over the premises. This was the first foraging expedition I had ever been
with, and I thought all we went for was to get forage for our horses, so
I went to a shock of corn fodder and took all that I could strap on my saddle,
and was ready to go, when I passed a smoke house and found some of the boys
taking smoked hams and sides of bacon. I asked one of the boys if they had
permission to take hams and things, and he laughed and said, 'everything
goes,' and he handed me a ham which I hung on to my saddle. Then the lieutenant
told me to go up in front of the house and stand guard, and prevent any soldier
from entering the house. I rode up to the house, where there was an old
lady and a young married woman with a little girl by her side. They were
evidently much annoyed and frightened, though too proud to show it, and I
told them they need have no fear, as the men were only after a little forage
for their horse. The old lady looked at the ham on my saddle and asked me
if the horses eat meat, and I said, 'No, but sometimes the men eat horses.'
I thought that was funny. The young woman was beautiful, and the child
was perfectly enchanting. They were on the opposite side of the railing
from me, and my horse kept working up towards them, rubbing his nose on the
pickets, and finally his nose touched the clasped hands of the mother and
child. The little girl laughed and patted the horse on the nose, while the
mother drew back. It was almost dark and the horse was almost covered with
corn fodder, but the little girl screamed and said:
" 'Mamma, that is Jeff, papa's horse!"
"The mamma looked at me with a wild, hunted look, then at the horse, rushed
down the steps and threw her arms around the neck of the horse and sobbed
in a despairing manner:
" 'O, where is my husband? Where is he? Is he dead?'
" 'My son, my son!' cried the old lady.
" 'Bring me my papa you bad man!' said the little child, and I was
surrounded by the three.
"Gentle reader, I have been through many scenes in my life, and have
been many times where it was not the toss of a copper whether death or life
was my portion, and I had some nerve to help me through, but I never was in
a place that tried me like that one. I had been captured by the father of
this little child, the husband of this beautiful, proud woman, the son of
this charming old lady. I had seen him brought in, dead, had seen him buried,
and had thrown a bunch of roses in his grave. Now I was surrounded by these
mourners when they should know the worst. Cold chills ran all over me, and
cold perspiration was on my brow.
" 'Is he dead?' they all shouted together.
"I hate a liar, on general principles, and yet there are times when a lie is so much easier to tell than truth. I did not want to be a murderer, and by the dreadful light in the eyes of that lovely wife, as she looked up at me from the neck of the horse, her face as white as snow, that if I told the truth she would fall dead right where she was. If I told the truth that blessed old lady's heart would be broken, and that little child's face would not have any more smiles, during the war, for mamma and grandma, and, with a hoarse voice, and choking, and trying to swallow something that seemed as big as a baseball in my throat, I deliberately lied to them. I told them the young man who rode this horse had been captured, after a gallant fight, unharmed, and sent north. That he was so brave that our boys fell in love with him,and there was nothing too good for him in our army, and that he would be well taken care of, and exchanged soon, I had no doubt, and bade them not to worry, but to look at the discomforts and annoyances of war as leniently as possible, and all would be well soon.
" 'Thank heaven! Take all we have got in welcome,' said the old
lady, as a heavenly smile came over her face."The lieutenant rode up to me and asked, as he noticed the glad smiles on the faces of the ladies, if this was a family reunion, and apologizing for being compelled to raid the plantation, we rode away. I was afraid they would mention the news I had brought them, and the lieutenant would tell the truth, so I was glad to move. I was glad to go, for if I had remained longer I would have cried like a baby, and given them back the horse, and walked to camp. As we moved away, I took out my knife and cut the string that held the smoked ham on my saddle, and had the satisfaction of hearing it drop on the path before the house. I could not give back the husband of the blue-eyed woman, the son of the saintly Southern mother, the father of the sweet child, but I could leave that ham.
"As we rode back to camp that beautiful moonlight night, I did not join in the singing of the boys, or the jokes. I just thought of that happy home I had left, and how it would be stricken, later, when the news was brought them, and wondered if that fearful lie I had been telling was justifiable, under the circumstances, and it would be laid up against me, charged up in the book above. That night I slept on the ground on some corn fodder and dreamed of nothing but blue-eyed mamma's and golden haired Maudie's and white-haired angel grandmothers."
END PART NINE
PART TEN:Boots and Saddles-I Am the Colonel's Orderly-Riding Fifty Miles on an Empty Stomach