Thirteen Months in the Rebel Army Part 1

Thirteen Months in the Rebel Army.

by William G. Stevenson.

PREFACE.

A WORD TO THE READER.

I give to you, in the following pages, a simple narrative of facts.

I have no motive to misrepresent or conceal. I have an honest desire to describe faithfully and truly what I saw and heard during thirteen months of enforced service in the Rebel army.

If I should seem to you to speak too favorably of individuals or occurrences in the South, I beg you to consider that I give impressions obtained when in the South. If my book has any value it lies in this very fact, that it gives you an interior view of this stupendous rebellion, which can not be obtained by one standing in the North and looking at it only with Northern eyes.

I have confidence in truth; and unwelcome truth, is none the less truth, and none the less valuable. Sure am I, that if the North had known the whole truth as to the _power, the unanimity, and the deadly purpose_ of the leaders in the rebellion, the government would have been far better prepared for promptly meeting the crisis.

Look then candidly at facts, and give them their true weight.

As I am under no obligation, from duty or honor, to conceal what I was compelled to see and hear in the South, I tell it frankly; hoping it may be of value to my bleeding country, I tell it plainly.

I have no cause to love the Confederate usurpation, as will fully appear, yet I refrain from abusive and denunciatory epithets, because both my taste and judgment enjoin it.

For the accuracy of names, dates, and places, I rely wholly upon memory. I kept memoranda during my whole service, but was compelled to leave every thing when I attempted escape, as such papers then found in my possession would have secured my certain death; but in all material things I can promise the accuracy which a retentive memory secures.

If an apology is needed for the constant recurrence of the personal p.r.o.noun in these pages, let it be said that the recital of personal incidents, without circ.u.mlocution, necessarily compels it.

With this brief word, I invite you to enter with me upon the Southern service; you can stop when you please, or go with me to the end, and give a huzza as you see me escape and reach the loyal lines.

WILLIAM G. STEVENSON.

NEW YORK CITY, Sept. 15th, 1862.

THIRTEEN MONTHS IN THE REBEL ARMY.

CHAPTER I.

HOW I VOLUNTEERED.

Object in going to Arkansas. -- Change of Purpose. -- Young Acquaintances. -- Questioned on Slavery. -- Letter to my Parents. -- Unfortunate Clause. -- A Midnight Call. -- Warlike Preparations. -- Good Advice. -- Honor among Lynchers. -- Arrival at Court of Judge Lynch. -- Character of Jury. -- Trial commenced. -- Indictment and Argument. -- Excitement increases. -- Butler Cavins and his Lariat. -- The Crisis. -- The Acquittal. -- No Safety from it. -- First Impulse and subsequent Reflection. -- Attempted Escape. -- Night Ride. -- Helena. -- An Uneasy Boat Bide. -- Memphis.

-- "A Blue Jacket." -- Committee of Public Safety. -- A Surprise. -- Dismissal followed by Unwelcome Letter and Policeman. -- Recruiting Station. -- Volunteering.

Having spent my boyhood near Louisville, Kentucky, and falling in love with the character of the young men of that chivalric State, I found my way back to that region in the beginning of the year 1861, from my home in the city of New York. In March, I went down the Mississippi river to seek a school, and stopped in Arkansas, where I hoped to find a relative who was engaged in teaching. Failing to find either my kinsman or a remunerative school, I entered into partners.h.i.+p with a young man from Memphis named George Davis, for the purpose of getting out wine-cask staves, to be s.h.i.+pped to New Orleans and from thence to France. We located in Phillips county, Arkansas, bordering on the St. Francis river, more than 100 miles from Memphis. The venture proved profitable, and with five hired hands--Frenchmen--we were making money fast enough to satisfy a moderate ambition, and I had time to look about me and study the various phases of Arkansas society.

Frequent log-rollings--meetings of the neighbors to clear away the dead timber which falls during the winter--brought me into contact with the citizens for miles around. All sought acquaintance with the stranger youth, and were generally courteous and friendly. In trials of strength and skill, I occasionally gained an advantage which made me friends among the older, but evidently waked up envy in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of some of the rougher young men. My refusal to drink with the crowd, also widened the breach which I noticed was forming without any cause on my part.

I was often sounded on the subject of slavery, which is the touchstone always used in the South to test the character of a new-comer. As a young man, I had no very fixed views upon the subject. I had the impression that where it existed it should be left to the control of those who were connected with it; and an outsider, as I was, had better keep hands off, so far at least as any direct efforts were concerned. Nor had I any disposition to promulgate the anti-slavery convictions of my boyhood, since I well knew they could have no good effect there; and as I had met a few radical and half-crazy men in the North, whom I could not avoid opposing, I was able to say some truthful things respecting them, which conciliated my questioners. Yet I would not include the great body of Northerners, whom I admitted I had met in my Kentucky residence (I hailed from Kentucky), as of that hated cla.s.s called by them "abolitionist;" hence they still looked upon me with a shade of suspicion.

Freedom of opinion in the South upon this subject is not tolerated for a moment, and no honest anti-slavery man was safe for an hour in that section. But as I was only a youth, they were willing to suppose I knew but little of the subject, and I thought that they were satisfied I was not a dangerous resident of their State. While things were in this condition I concluded to write to my parents, who I knew were anxious to hear from me; but I dared not direct a letter to New York, and hence inclosed it in an envelope to a friend near Louisville, Kentucky, with the request that he would "hand it to my father as soon as convenient," not doubting that he would direct and mail it to New York. In this letter, cautiously written, I remarked, "This is a hard place to live in, as I had to ride ten miles to get paper and ink to write this letter;" an unfortunate statement, as will soon appear. The letter was deposited in the post-office on April 16th. I went home, and, as if urged by a guardian, though warlike, spirit, cleaned up my two six-shooters, and, after examining my ammunition, laid them away unloaded. On the night of April 17th, 1861, I was awakened out of a sound sleep about 11 o'clock by three men, who requested me to accompany them to Jeffersonville, a small town on the St. Francis river, eight miles distant. These men I had often met. One of them I regarded as a good friend, and had some confidence in the other two. I asked for time to dress and get ready, which they cheerfully granted. I carefully loaded and capped my "Navies," and saddling my horse started with them, like Paul, "not knowing what was to befall me there," but I fear without much of the spirit of the good apostle, of whom I had learned in the pious home of my childhood. I soon found these "carnal weapons" essential safeguards in that place, though if I had been an apostle I might not have needed them.

On the way to town my friend Buck Scruggs--he deserved a better name--asked me to ride forward with him, and gave me this information and advice. "You are now going to be tried by the Phillips County Vigilance Committee on suspicion of being a Northern man and an abolitionist. When you reach the grocery where they are a.s.sembled, seat yourself on the counter in the back part of the room, where if you have to defend yourself they cannot get behind you. Make no studied defence, but calmly meet the charges at the fitting time and in brief words. Keep cool, and use no language which can be tortured into an offensive sense, and if possible I will save you. If the worst comes, draw your pistols and be ready, but don't shoot while ever there is hope, for you will of course be killed the instant you kill any one else."

I listened very intently to this advice, given as coolly as if he had been chatting about an every-day concern, and concluded that all depended upon my coolness and steadiness of nerve when the final struggle came, and resolved to sell my life dearly if it must be sacrificed to the fury of a causeless persecution. To my proposition to escape then, having a fleet horse, he would not a.s.sent, as he had pledged his honor to take me to the Vigilance Committee. Honor is as essential among lynchers as among thieves, and all I could do was to brace myself for the encounter, of the nature of which I had but an imperfect conception. About 12 o'clock we reached the place, and I was ushered into the presence of fifty or sixty as graceless scoundrels as even Arkansas can present, who greeted me with hisses, groans, and cries of, "Hang him!" "Burn him!" &c. Two-thirds of the mob were maddened by the vile liquor which abounds in such localities, and few, if any, were entirely sober. The hope that my innocence would protect me, which I had cherished until now, vanished, for I well knew that drunken cut-throats were blind to reason, and rather offended than attracted by innocence.

Order was soon restored, and my friend Mr. Scruggs was called to the chair. In this I saw a ray of hope. The const.i.tution and by-laws of the Vigilance Committee were read; the substance of which was, that in the present troubled state of the country the citizens resolve themselves into a court of justice to examine all Northern men, and that any man of abolition principles shall be hung. The roll was called, and I noticed that a large proportion of the men present were members of the Committee; the others were boatmen and loafers collected about the town. The court of Judge Lynch opened, and I was put upon trial as an "Abolitionist whose business there was to incite an insurrection among the slaves."

The first efforts of the chairman to get the witnesses to the point, were unsuccessful. A mob is not an orderly body, and a drunken mob is hard to manage. General charges were freely made without much point. One cried out, because I refused to drink with them: "This should hang him; he is too white-livered to take a dram with gentlemen, let him swing." "Yes," shouted another; "he is a cursed Yankee teetotaler, hang him." In a quiet way I showed them that this was not the indictment, and that hanging would be a severe punishment for such a sin of omission. To this rejoinder some a.s.sented, and the tide seemed for a moment to be setting in my favor, when another urged, "He is too 'tarnal smart for this country. He talks like a Philadelphia lawyer."--Arkansas would be a poor place for the members of the legal profession from the city of brotherly love.--"He comes here to teach us ignorant backwoodsmen.

We'll show him a new trick, how to stretch hemp, the cursed Yankee."

At length the chairman got them to the specified crime. "An abolitionist! An abolitionist!" they cried with intense rage,--some of them were too drunk to p.r.o.nounce the word,--but the more sober ones prevailed, and they examined the evidence. The hearsay amounted to nothing, and they plied me with questions as to my views on slavery. I answered promptly, but briefly and honestly, that I held no views on that subject to which they _should_ object, and that I had never interfered with the inst.i.tution since I came among them, nor did I intend to do so. My calmness seemed to baffle them for a moment, but the bottle was pa.s.sed, and I noticed that all reason fled from the great majority. Words grew hot and fierce, and eyes flashed fire, while some actually gnashed their teeth in rage. I saw that the mob would soon be uncontrollable unless the chairman brought matters to an end, and suggested, that as there was no evidence against me, they should bring the trial to a close, when to my surprise they produced the letter written to my father but thirty-six hours before, as proof conclusive that I was a Northern abolitionist. I then saw, what I have had abundant evidence of since, that the United States mail was subject to the inspection of Vigilance Committees in the South at their pleasure. The ruffianism of these scoundrels did not allow them even to apologize for their crime. The only phrase in the letter objected to was the unfortunate but truthful one, "This is a hard place." I never felt its force as at that instant. It served as a catch-word for more abuse. "Yes, we'll make it a hard place for you before you get out of it, you infernal spy," &c. The chairman argued rather feebly as I thought--but he understood his audience better than I did--that the letter was free from any proof against me, that I was an innocent-looking youth and had behaved myself correctly, that I evidently did not know much about their peculiar inst.i.tution, and he thought I had no designs against it. They then went into a private consultation, while I kept my place upon the counter, though gradually moving back to the further edge of it. I saw the crisis was at hand, for smothered but angry argument was going on in knots of men all over the room; my life was suspended upon a breath, and I was utterly powerless to change the decision, whatever it might be; but I must say that my nerves were steady and my hand untrembling,--the unwonted calmness of one who knew that death was inevitable if they should decide in the affirmative on the charge, and who was determined to defend himself to the last, as I well knew any death, they could _there_ inflict, was better than to fall into their hands to be tormented by their h.e.l.lish hate.

During the consultation, one Butler Cavins, who had a good deal of influence (he owned about twenty slaves), left the grocery with five or six others and was absent about ten minutes. He returned with a coil of rope upon his arm, elbowing his way through the crowd, and exclaimed, "Gentlemen, I am in favor of hanging him. He is a nice, innocent young man. He is far safer for heaven now than when he learns to drink, swear, and be as hardened an old sinner as I am." I could not, even at the peril of life, refrain from retorting: "That, sir, is the only truth I have heard from you to-night." My friends, yet few, and feeble in the advocacy of my cause, seemed slightly encouraged by this rebuff, and gained the ear of the rabble for a little. Cavins could not be silenced. "This is a fine lariat, boys; it has swung two abolitionists. I guess it will hold another. Come on, boys," and a general gathering up in the form of a semicircle, crowding nearer the counter, occurred. At the same moment jumping back off the counter and displaying two six-shooters, I said, "If that's your game, come on; some of you shall go with me to the other world! The first man that makes another step toward me is a dead man." There was one moment of dread suspense and breathless stillness; hands were tightened on daggers and pistols, but no hand was raised. The whole pack stood at bay, convinced that any attempt to take me would send several of them to certain death. My friends, who had kept somewhat together, now ranged themselves against the counter before me, facing the crowd, and Buck Scruggs said, "He has not been convicted, and he shall not be touched." James Niel and Dempsey Jones, the other two who had aided in my arrest, joined Scruggs; and their influence, added to the persuasive eloquence of my pistols, decided the wavering. In twenty seconds, more than twenty votes were given for my acquittal, and the chairman declared in a triumphant voice, "He is unanimously acquitted." The unanimity, I confess, was not such as I would have desired; but all agreed the youngster had pluck, and would soon make as good a fighter as any of them. With a forced laugh, which on some faces ill concealed their hatred, while others made an unseemly attempt at coa.r.s.e wit, they adjourned, voting themselves a drink at my expense, which I must perforce pay, as they had generously acquitted me! I confess to an amiable wish that the dollar I laid on the counter of Cavins for a gallon of whiskey might some day buy the rope to tighten on his craven throat, though I did not deem it wise to give expression to my sentiments just then.

As the bottle pa.s.sed for the last time, the change of feeling was most rapid, and I was greeted quite patronizingly by some who had been fierce for hanging me. The more malignant shrunk away by twos and threes, and soon the grocery was empty. My special friends, who were now more than ever friends, having risked their own lives to save me (I even then thought of One who had given up His life to save me), advised, in earnest words--"Now, S., put thirty miles between you and these fellows before to-morrow; for some of them are enraged at their defeat, and if you stay here you are a doomed man."

My first impulse was to return home, attend to my regular business, defy them, and, if necessary, sell my life as dearly as possible.

But what could one man, and he a youth and a stranger, do against a corrupt and reckless populace? When suspicion was once aroused, I knew that the least spark would kindle it into a flame. Society there was completely barbarous in its character, so far as law was concerned. The mob has ruled for years, and the spirit of rebellion, now rampant all over the South, had taken form and expressed itself in these vigilance committees, const.i.tuting as cruel courts of inquiry as was ever the Inquisition.

Instances of recent occurrence of most atrocious character were in my mind, showing that these men would persecute me to death, sooner or later, if I remained. Only two nights before, a part of this same gang had murdered a Mr. Crawford, who was a native of Sullivan county, New York, but had lived in Arkansas sixteen years--a man against whom no charge could justly be brought. A few days previous to this murder a man named Washburne was whipped to death by four ruffians, of whom Cavins was one. His only crime was that he was a Northern man. His body was thrown into the St. Francis river, after the diabolical deed was consummated. I had heard these horrible recitals until my blood curdled, and I saw there was no hope but in leaving this h.e.l.l upon earth.

The simple knowledge that I had ever lived in New York would, I think, have hung me without fail that night.

The causes of this mad lawlessness I may not fully understand. Some of them lie upon the surface. Reckless men settled there originally, and, living beyond the control of calmly and justly administered law, they gradually resolved themselves into a court, the most daring and active-minded becoming the self-elected leaders.

Then the system of slavery gives them almost unlimited power over the persons and lives of large numbers of human beings, and this fosters a spirit of despotism so natural to all men, even the most civilized, when invested with supreme power.

And, still further, some fanatical men from the North, determined violently to break the bonds of the poor slave, had been found in recent years spreading incendiary works among the poor white population and the negroes who could read, thus endangering the lives of the masters and their families. As a matter of self-defence, Northern men were watched with unremitting and eagle-eyed vigilance.

But whether all this explains the fact or not, no Northern man's life was safe for an hour in that section of Arkansas at the time of which I speak. Hence I concluded that their advice was good, though I must lose what interest I had in my business partners.h.i.+p. Then, how was I to travel thirty miles before daybreak, as it was now two o'clock? I immediately took the road to Helena, on the Mississippi river. I will not record all my thoughts during that ride--homeless, friendless, and, though innocent of crime, hunted like a very murderer, in free and enlightened America!

How long is this system of terrorism to continue? This utter disregard of law and the sanct.i.ty of human life? Among the questions to be settled by this war, are not these important? Shall an American citizen be allowed in safety to travel or reside anywhere in his own land? Shall there be any freedom of opinion and speech upon the question of slavery?

If it be said that the inst.i.tution of slavery can not tolerate freedom of thought and speech with safety to the master, then the system is barbarous, and can not exist in a free land. Let it be admitted that there are difficulties connected with the inst.i.tution; that John Brown raids, and incendiary emissaries, are wicked; that unlicensed denunciations of all implicated in the system, are grossly wrong. Still, can there be no calm and considerate discussion of the rightfulness or sinfulness of the laws which define and regulate slavery? Must all the cruelties and iniquities which accompany its existence be left unchallenged, and their authors uncondemned? Then is the whole system to be swept away as a curse and enormity, which neither the civilization of the nineteenth century nor a just G.o.d will longer tolerate?

The blood of hundreds of American citizens, shed on Southern plains with dreadful tortures, cries from the ground, "How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?" Has not the day of avenging already commenced?

The intensity of my emotions for three hours had exhausted me, and now the temporary escape from imminent peril allowed me to sink down almost to fainting, scarcely able for a time to keep my seat in the saddle. A feeling of loneliness and utter desertion, such as I have never else experienced, came over me, and I longed once more to be in the free North, and at the home of my affectionate parents.

But as the day broke, I aroused myself to the realities before me, and after procuring breakfast at a private house, rode into Helena, in time to take the Memphis boat, which left at ten o'clock, A.M.

This boat, the St. Francis, No. 3, left Jeffersonville (where I was tried and released) at seven o'clock in the morning, on its way down the St. Francis river, thence to Helena, and thence up to Memphis.

As it left Jeffersonville four hours after my escape from that place, the report that "an abolitionist had been tried that night and ran off," had reached the boat at the wharf. When I took the same boat at Helena at ten o'clock, I heard the excited crowds detailing the incidents in which I had been so deeply interested a few hours before.

It required all the skill in controlling the muscles of my face which I could possibly command, to appear neither too much nor too little interested in what was the theme of every tongue. I was pleased to see that no one thought of the probability of the escaped "abolitionist" having reached that boat, and hence I was not suspected: at least, I thought so. Yet there was nothing in my surroundings that gave me much encouragement, as the pa.s.sengers, who were numerous, were chiefly violent men and full of denunciation of the North. I was already exhausted by the scenes through which I had pa.s.sed, and poorly prepared for another and more trying one, which soon met me, and of course was not able to get much rest during the day and night pa.s.sed on the way to Memphis.

As the St. Francis touched the wharf on the morning of the 19th of April, the very day that the blood of the Ma.s.sachusetts sixth regiment dyed the streets of Baltimore, shed by her murderous rebels, I stepped upon the landing; meaning to look over the state of things in the city, and see if I could get out of it in the direction of Nashville, where I had friends who, I thought, would aid me homeward.

But I had not left the wharf, when a "blue jacket," the sobriquet of the military policemen that then guarded the city, stepped up and said, "I see you are a stranger." "Yes, sir." "I have some business with you. You will please walk with me, sir." To my expression of astonishment, which was real, he replied, "You answer the description very well, sir. The Committee of Public Safety wish to see you, come along." As it was useless to parley, I walked with him, and was soon ushered into the presence of that body, a much more intelligent and no less intensely Southern organization, than I had found in the grocery of Jeffersonville.

They questioned me as to my home, political opinions, and destination, and received such answers as I thought it wise to give.

Whereupon they confronted me, to my amazement, with a member of the Vigilance Committee which had tried me at Jeffersonville, one hundred and twenty miles distant, thirty hours before. I was amazed, because I did not imagine that any one of their number could have reached Memphis before me. He had ridden after me the night of my escape, and when I stopped for breakfast, he had pa.s.sed on to Helena, and taking an earlier up-river boat, had reached Memphis some hours in advance of the St. Francis; long enough before me to post the Committee of Public Safety as to my person and story when before his committee. Even with this swift witness against me, they were unable to establish any crime, and after consultation, they told me I could retire. I was immediately followed by the policeman, who handed me a letter written by the chairman, suggesting that I would do well to go directly to a certain recruiting office, where young men were enlisting under the Provisional Government of Tennessee, and where I would find it to my interest to _volunteer_, adding, substantially, as follows: "Several members of the committee think if you do not see fit to follow this advice, you will probably stretch hemp instead of leaving Memphis; as they can not be responsible for the acts of an infuriate mob, who _may_ hear that you came from the North." I was allowed no time for reflection, as the policeman stood waiting, he said, "to show me the way." I now saw at a glance, that the military power of the city had resolved to _compel_ me to _volunteer_, and in my friendlessness I could think of no way to escape the cruel and dread necessity.